Fox Collection: Games

Nice Little Games for Nice Little Boys (7.1.9) has a nasty game called Baste the Bear in which a boy is tied by a rope in a circle marked on the ground. The other boys hit him with knotted handkerchiefs. His master tries to touch one of the other boys without letting go of the rope or pulling the bear out of the ring. If he succeeds, that boy becomes the bear and selects his master. Alphabet of Sports (7.2.6) has Vulcan's Forge, a game for girls dressed to the nines. "All seated, the Leader says to one, 'Cyclop, can you forge?' 'As well as you.'" Mother-May-I appears as The Grand Mufti. Home for the Holidays (8.1.2) has a consistently underclass point of view throughout different odes to upper class pursuits: "Cricket: All boys should play cricket, a fine manly game; It braces the nerves and strengthens the frame." "Lawn Tennis: and even in these science days there's no one denies ball-playing is an innocent and healthy exercise. Every one can't get a lawn on which the game to play. Yet many can enjoyment find in busy, smoky towns."

Kate Greenaway's Book of Games (11.4.1) has as a party game The Stool of Repentance in which people write what they think of you on slips of paper while you leave the room. One of them reads these opinions out loud and when the person guesses correctly who wrote it, the author leaves the room and the fun begins again. British Sports and Games (15.3.5) has the wicket-keeper intently staring at the ass of a batsman in an Almodovar moment. Father's Gift (3.2.13) has a "number of rude boys collected together" who cut off kite strings with their thumbnails and then when the kite "being thus cut loose, falls at a distance... some of the ill-bred little villains who have cut her loose" steal it. Strictly speaking this last is probably not a game but a mischief.

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