Calhoun - Healthful Sports for Boys

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Healthful Sports for Boys, by Alfred Rochefort

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Title: Healthful Sports for Boys

Author: Alfred Rochefort

Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6129][Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule][This file was first posted on November 17, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEALTHFUL SPORTS FOR BOYS ***

Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franksand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Healthful Sports for Boys

by

Alfred Rochefort

Marbles: Where and how made; different games; terms of game; how togain skill.

Whip tops, peg tops, and some other tops; how they are played; topgames.

About kites; how made; their practical uses; flying contests.

Hoops, wheels and buzzers; stilts, different kinds; how used and howprocured.

"Let's go a-fishing"; bait of many kinds and how to get it. Fishingoutfit; its care.

Useful hints on boating and canoeing. "Don'ts" to be observed.
Definitions.

How to make and manage small sail boats.

Can you swim? How to learn. Confidence.

Styles of swimming; floating, diving; water games.

How sides are chosen in games of contest; some things all boys shouldknow.

Curious rhymes in counting out games.

All about the good old game of tag, and bull in the ring.

Do you know all about leap frog?

Dead Turtle; Duck on Rock; Brick Skittles; Tip Cat; Country Cat;
American Cat.

And now for ball! Some good games that can be played with ball, batand racket. Town ball; two old cats; hand ball.

The great American game of baseball. Some things every player shouldknow. Rules.

The strenuous game of football. How to lay out the ground. Pointersfor players.

Mumbly peg; jackstones; Hop Scotch.

How and where to prepare camp. A delightful way in which to spend avacation, if you know the way.

Can you ride a bike? Information on wheels. How to throw a lariat.

The old Scotch game of golf, hockey and shinny.

On the ice and snow. The royal sport of skating. Some hints on skiingand snow shoes.

Coasting. How to make sleds. The bob sled. The toboggan. Snow games.

Walking, Running, Jumping.

Battle cries, hailing shouts, and college yells.

Vanishing feats. Curious illusions. Various deceptive amusements.

Balancing. Juggling. Transformations.

Among the many good and wise things said by the great Lincoln wasthis: "Give me the boy with promise of the man in him, and give me theman with the memory of the boy in him, and both can sit at my table,and if they sit together, we'll have all the better time!"

This book of out-door games for boys will make better boys, andthey'll get a lot more joy out of life and be the better men in time,for having read it and carried out its rules as to wholesome, honestsport.

The boy who plays an honest game will do an honest business, and he'llwin over "the sneak."

If you are "a grown-up," read this book, and in doing so live overagain the joyous, gladsome days of your boyhood, and you will sigh, aswe do while writing this: "Would I were a boy again!"

We want the mother, as well as the father, to read this book, for itwill recall the brothers of far-off days, and bring her into closersympathywe must not say "love," for that is already strong enoughwith the exuberance of her boys.

And the girls? Why, bless you! They, too, should read every scrap ofthis book, for they will find in it many of their own games, and notone that they could not play and enjoy, if circumstances permitted.

And the grand-parents? God bless them! Why, they'll enjoy it quite asmuch as the young folks.

Each season has its own particular work for the farmer, and he doeshis work without direction from or consultation with his neighbors orany one else. Each season has its own particular games for the youngfolks, and they take to them without any suggestion from outsiders,just as young ducks take to water, without any instructions from themother bird. The seasons in the south temperate zone are just theopposite to those in the north. Some years ago I spent the months ofJuly and August in New Zealand, and great was my surprise to find theboys down at Dunedin snowballing on the Fourth of July, while thesleigh-bells made music through the streets. In the following October,which is the spring month in Victoria, Australia, I found theyoungsters of Melbourne playing marbles, just as the boys in New Yorkhad been doing when I left it the previous May.

We have reason to believe that the first marbles were fashioned frompebbles on the ocean's shore, or ground into roundness by the actionof river currents. We do not know when or where marbles originated,but of the antiquity of the game we are very sure. Egyptian boysplayed marbles before the days of Moses, and marbles are among thetreasures found buried in the ruins of Pompeii, which you willremember was destroyed by an eruption of lava from Vesuvius in thefirst century of the Christian era. To-day marbles are played in everycivilized land under the sun, and with slight differences, the methodof shooting and the games are practically the same.