The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1921-08-15
REVIVAL OF CROQUET.
Quiet Pastime is Coming Back to Pop
ular Favor.

dNOF.
The news that the game of croquet is
undergoing revival leads one to wonder
if the hoop skirt and the hustle will re-
turn with it. So many of those lovely
ladies, swinging their gentle mallets In
the pictures of the carefully edited pages
of Harper's Monthly Magazine, and
Harper's Bazaar, were thus arrayed for
the sport that it is difficult for the sur
vivors of a generation no longer young
to imagine the pastime without these
picturesque habiliments.
The SCARED hero of the polo field or
the football game may scott at this more
quiet pastime. Yet it too has It's
wounded veterans. Well do we recall
friend still with the quick, who lost
three teeth and carries bad scar on his
lip to this day, because of a spirited
match in which he played, a young wom-
an being his opponent. Perhaps the hot
sun had melted the glue. AT all events,
in an effort to drive her ball from one
end of the lawn to the other, off flew the
head of her croquet mallet and hit him
full in the mouth. No game with such
possibilities should be laughed out OF
court.
1t also has the advantage of being
easily taken up after a long lapse from
training Few tennis players care to
play before a gallery, when they have
not touched a racquet for years. Tney
know that remarks will be made that
would in no way add to their pleasure
in the game or at all increase their gen
eral vanity should they hear them. Look
ing accusingly at the racquet as if it
were entirely to blame is only good TOR
about the first game and a half in set.
Pretending that ones new tennis shoes
are also responsible Is likewise VAIN
maneuver. Shouts of I'm off my game
horribly today" fool no one. What
should be pure pleasure becomes an en-
I hv,.,, iati
Even at golf it is seldom that the links
are so deserted that there will not be
someone around to observe the turf dy-
ing through the air in place OF the bali,
or many of the other little idiosyncraeles
that are SO apt to develop II one does
not every day join the innumerable cara
van that moves to the Links. 1t Is dlth-
cult to play in secret.
But with croquet the novice is by no
means so inclined to feel that all eyes
are upon him in amusement and dIsap-
prevail no matter which one of the many
possible shots he may attempt. Even
if he only manages TO go through the
first of the two wicketS which should
have been made with the opening drive
he is not apt to be greatly derided. Miss
ing the stake is not considered a crime
1t has always seemed to us a game where
pleasure is the main object.
OF course we are here speaking OF the
common lawn variety and not of that
highly scientific game played upon a
court rolled to the smoothness of bill
lard table with the wickets-or so it
has always appeared to us-just about
a half-inch narrower than the balls that
are supposed to pass through them. That
is for those who take life and sport Sc
riously and proficiency must be their re-
ward.
But of the old fashioned game we have
many pleasant memories. Played in the
l.. r. IL
freshing breezes, the ending of the game
left one with exactly the correct thip,t
for the delightful drinks that were so
apt TO be served at its conclusion. Alas,
the game may indeed be coming back to
popular favor TO end. as do so many
things these days, in lemonade and grape
| Juice 1t will not seem the same.-Hart-
| ford COurauI.