Evening star., 1902-03-22
IT rs A LOST ART

"I don't see the boys doing stunts with
their tops like we used to do in the days
when boys mothers cut their hair said
the man with the chopped-on gray mus
tache on the cars rear platform. II notice
that lot of them throw their tops out
with that lazy, ineffective underhand
stroke such as the girls of my boyhood day
used to employ in spinning their tops. A
top thrown in that way hasn't got much
action to it. 1t only has little life In 1t.
and begins to wabble drearily and to die
down very soon after it is cast We used
to throw the top with the hardest kind Of
an over-the-shoulder movement, just as If
we were endeavoring to slam the spinner
right through the earth to China, but 1t al
ways landed square on the spike and sat
a-humming the spike as steady as q
clock; and, If we'd let it alone, it I'D spin
away for several minutes at a stretch
such was the momentum impaired to it by
the hard throw. That way of throwing
'em was pretty hard on the spikes. espe-
clally If the spike of the top lit on piece
OF rock by accident, but We never bothered
about that. Fact is. We rather preferred
to have the spike of a new top drop out I'M
mediately after We acquired 1t, for we had
a scheme then of fixing the spike into the
top so that it stood little chance of ever
dropping out again. We'd fix the spike
into the top with cement, and when the
cement hardened it would just about have
taken a ten-horse-power windlass to drag
the spike out Of the top.
Il don't see the boys playing split-top
nowadays. We never used to be haPpy
during the top season unless we were split,
ting the tops of nice, good. lace -coliaretted
little boys. Boys like this generally had
big soft-wood tops, with blunt spikes, the
kind easy to spin, but us tough youngsters
always had a top in our assortment mace
of lgnum vitae or some other extremely
I, Il 4 CH 10
about an inch long. We provided ourselves
with these tops solely for the purpose OF
rendering the nicely painted tops or the
nice little boys useless. We'd come up pc
hind one of the nice little Lord Fauntleroys
as he was spinning his top on the pavement
in front of his own house. We'd have the
long spiked top all ready for action ana
then we'd take careful aim for the spinning
top of the good little boy with our destroy
er. We had 1t down fine that We could
split the nice little boys top right down
the middle, cutting it in twain, four times
out of five. The fun of this consisted in
listening to the blubbering and bellering of
the nice little boy. One season l hashed
up four tops belonging to one good little
boy in this manner. Afterward he came
along here to Congress. and, would you
believe it, he threw that top business up to
me when l asked him to indorse some pa
pers of mine in connection with little
matter that | had on hand.
i've seen very few boys picking up their
hands since the beginning of the present
top season. We had that game down pretty
pat. Some of us We're so adept at 1t that
could hold the spinning top on the END
of horizontally thumb, or any other
digit. for that matter, and one of our
favorite stunts was to place the spinning
top the rim of our soft hat and then,
by a gently undulating, rotary movement.
let it slide around the circle on the rim
until the life went out of it. 1t used to
amuse greatly to get one of the sharp,
long-spiked tops a-gOing, and then, lifting
it up on our hardened hands, ask some lit
tie girl of our acquaintance, with soft,
pink, dainty hands. if she didn't want to
hold the spinning top on the palm of her
hand. The sharp spike I'D come so blamed
near boring a hole right square through
the hand of our little girl friend that there
wouldn't be any fun in it. and this used to
cause us to go into spasms of delight. 1t
wasn't considered much of a trick for
boy In my day to hold a spinning top on
the point of his chin, but l haven't seen
that thing done in a quarter of a century,
and l guess it belongs to the list of forgot
ten bOyiSh schemes.
Another top game that 1 don't see the
kids playing nowadays is the one involving
marbles. We used to stick marbles in the
middle OF a big ring about three or four
inches apart. and then fire away at 'em
with our tops, the idea being to knock 'em
out of the ring that way and thus win them
That was a bully game. the only trouble
about it being that sometimes we'd knock
the marbles so far down the street or
across the vacant lot that we weren't able
to find them 1t was a game requiring
whole lot of craftsmanship, and it trained
the boys eye.
Member those Indian tops-or did they
ever get this far east? They were the real
thing in the west when l a boy. They
were fiat-toDped. and you spun them by
whipping under the spike with three or
four buckskn thongs attached to a stick
You could keep 'em going that way until
your arms tired. They'd be great things
for the smooth pavements of Washington