The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-02-19
OLD-FASHIONED GAMES.
How the Boys of Ante-Bellum
Times Enjoyed Themselves.

Boys used to be boys in practice as well
as in theory some centuries ago. when
the writer hereof used to cherish illu-
sions as to what he would be when he
grew up. 1t was an ignorant and un-
feeling lot of little savages that gathered
in our barn i'm those times and arranged
programmes for the long summer days
which used to be full of sunshine, and
blue skies, and brcczes. and leafy
coverts waiting to be explored. and clear
pools adapted by nature for being swum
in. and long reaches of yellow harvest
field made vocal by the music-compel-
ling mowers. 1t is fact which has es-
capped the attention of the meteOrOlOgist
that since the war Missouri weather has
not been so sunshiny, but it is true.
nevertheless. Life was a joyous thing.
There was zest. keenness. an in
tensity which has departed since Mason
and DiNon's line became vanishing
cicatrix on the body polite. There were
about dozen of us-enOugh for a game
of town-ball. the remote ancestor of
baseball. There was more fun in town.
ball than in baseball, and less science
We used to make our own bats out
of pieces of fence board, and buy hard
rubber ball. There was none of the
foppishness or polished hats and comic
opera costumes in those DAYS. Town
ball required uniform, but the uni
form was generally bare feet. The rest
of the costumes were various. You
could not sit in a grand stand and enjoy
town-ball as the present generation
does baseball. OF course it is easier to
sit around and watch other people TAX
ing exercise, but it requires education
to enjoy it. In Turkey people never
dance themselves-they hire others to
do it for them. In 1886 we hire others
to play ball for us. We had not devcl-
Oped up to the vicariOns idea when An
drew jackson was President of these
United States. Young America will
please to understand. then. that there
was pastime. PLAYED with bat like a
paddle. in which the striker ran around
four bases while the outside tried to fire
the ball between him and the base he
was running toward: thus one could be
.'crossed out" or what was better. he
might be struck with the ball while rum
ming if the thrower was 4 good marks
man, and the harder he was hit the
more fun. First bounce was out, and
so was over the fence. The umpire was
a thing unknown in town-ball. and
hence instead of appealing to
legally constituted tribunal. as
now. for Judgment, mootcd points
We're settled by thrashing the
other side. A decision thus arrived at
was always satisfactory. and there new
er was any appeal. There used to be
an almost supcrstitious reverence for
the result of the ordeal combat, which
always proved that "chcatin' never
thriveS.'
If the beaten ones were too sulky to
resume the game, volunteers would
generally be called for to 90 swimming
in the old quarry hole, a proposition
that generally went through like well
oiled water-gas bill in house of dele
gates. Swimming is much the same
now as then. only there never was such
a shrine for all the delicious coolnesses
that fingered in the forest as that old
quarry. 1t was deep and shady pool
connected by shallow outlet with the
creek. and one of its walls rose sheer
above the water. On the brink tree
grew that leaned slanting over the crys-
tai mirror below. and out of this tree
would drop one by one the whole of our
company like SO many frogs. and the
sunlight that came strained through n
thousand leafy branches would dance
and play upon the water in sympathy
with boyhood.
Our grandchildren now 60 to the
swimming-schools-t might as well
90 swimming in a bath-tub. How can
one root ont a muskrat in a swimming
school and hunt it for miles and miles
along the creek, wading now in the
water neck high. and then racing along
the bank naked and not ashamed, for
that was the forest primeval. whose syl-
van Businesses was never penetrated ex-
cept by boys and squirrels and now and
then q soft-eyed deer that would f1irt
her snowy tail and gallop down the
wind. And how can one pity Christie
pher Columbus in swimming-school?
That good old game implies raft made
up of logs and crew of bold Spaniards
intent upon discovering new world.
The crew would always mutiny and
knock history into a cooked hat BY
pitching the aforesaid Christopher over
board and making the discovery with
out him. 1t is to be presumed that the
ewimming-school authorities do not
even permit hard knots to be tied in
ones mcistened shirt-sleeves while one
is in swimming, and that the spectacle
of one boy trying to unite the knot with
his hands and teeth while the others en-
courage him with cries of .'chaw beef"
is unfamiliar in these institutions.
After sufficient bathing. some Of rs
would cut across the farm and ride on
the haycocks or lie around the spring
until dinner time. so that we could go
home with the men. and claim extra
cuts of pie on the ground that we had
been working in the harvest field until
we were about tuckered out. In the hot
afternoons of course there was no sense
in anything but swimming again. And
so the happy harvest DAYS would pass,
and will wager that not one of that
crowd of boys-one of whom is
learned Judge. another Congressman.
one a preacher and several very staid
and respectable merchants-not one, l
say, could hear the bell-like tinkling of
the milestone on the scythe without see
ing at the same time woodland vista
with sheet of clear cold water lying
in the shadows. shrined in bosky love-
illness.
In winter time we used to skate with
real skates on real ice throughout the
same FARMLAND The roller-skate and
the be-preach-at rink were improve
ments to come. There never lived