Soap-Bubbles

A soap-bubble race is easy to arrange and very good fun. An old shawl or blanket is laid on a table or the floor, goals are made at each end of it with piles of books, leaving an opening between, and each person is provided with a pipe for blowing bubbles. One bowl of soap-bubbles is enough for the company (see page 279 on the best way to make lasting soap-bubbles). The game is to see who can most quickly blow a bubble, deposit it on the woolen cloth at one end and blow it through the goal at the other. Of course you try to direct your puffs so that you will not only blow your own bubble along but will force your opponent's back.

Another way is to stretch a cord across the room and divide into two sides, standing three feet from the cord. At a given signal dip your pipes in the bowl of soap-suds, blow a bubble, and try to blow it over the cord. The side which succeeds in landing most bubbles in the enemy's territory wins.

Jack-Stones

A game which is good, quiet fun for a rainy day is Jack-stones.

Although not played much nowadays it is very interesting and is to indoors what "mumble-the-peg" is to outdoors. It is played usually with small pieces of iron with six little feet: but it can also be played with small pebbles all of a size. All kinds of exercises can be used, many of which you can invent yourself but a few of the commonest are given below. 1. The five stones are thrown up and caught on the back of the hand. 2. Four of the stones are held in the hand while one is thrown up. They must then be laid on the table, or floor, in time to catch the stone before it comes down. It is then thrown up again, and the four stones are picked up either one at a time or all together, and the stone caught again.

Nearly all the exercises are variations of this. One stone is thrown up and different things must be done quickly with the others before it falls again.

Tying Knots

Another occupation for rainy days that will interest several children (as well as one) is puzzling out the construction of some of the simplest sailor's knots. This is a useful and a very desirable accomplishment. Often several together can solve a difficult knot better than one, and after some proficiency is acquired it is interesting to have a compet.i.tion to see who can tie them most quickly and perfectly. Every one is supplied with a piece of clothes-line (the best rope for this purpose) and some one calls out "Running Noose," or "Figure of Eight." Every one must then make this as quickly as possible.

It is impossible to give directions in words about tying knots. The best way is to get clear ill.u.s.trations and then work over them until you have mastered the intricacies. A few simple knots are shown here, but there are many books which give an almost endless variety.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1. OVERHAND KNOT]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2. HALF-HITCH]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 3. FIGURE OF EIGHT]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4. COMMON BEND]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5. SAILOR'S KNOT]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6. RUNNING NOOSE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 7. CROSSED RUNNING NOOSE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8. BOWLINE KNOT]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 9. DOGSHANK]

Ill.u.s.trating

A compet.i.tive game which is easy to manage is. .h.i.t-or-miss ill.u.s.trating. Any old magazine (the more the better) will furnish the material. Figures, furniture, landscape, machines--anything and everything--is cut out from the advertis.e.m.e.nt or ill.u.s.trations, and put in a box or basket in the middle of the table. Every one is given a piece of paper and a proverb is selected for ill.u.s.trating. Twenty minutes is allowed to choose suitable pictures, to paste them on to sheets of paper and to add, with pencil, accessories that are necessary: and then results are compared. The variety and excellence of these patchwork pictures are surprising. This can be played during convalescence. It is not necessary to select a proverb for ill.u.s.trating. Any suggestive t.i.tle will do. A few that have been found fruitful of varied and spirited pictures are given here.

A trying moment.

Companions in misery.

This is my busy day.

"I didn't know it was loaded."

His proudest moment.

The unhappy experimenter.

The best of friends.

A great scare.

Fine weather for ducks.

"Won't you have some?"

"Don't we make a pretty picture?"

Too busy to stop.

No harm done.

"I didn't mean to do it."

Stage-struck.

A great success.

"See you later."

A temporary quarrel.

A narrow escape.

A happy family.

The peace-maker.

A happy mother.

Shuffle-Board

A game which is often played on shipboard can be modified for an indoor, rainy day game very easily. This is shuffle-board, all the outfit for which you can easily make yourself. If you can have a long table that scratching will not injure your board is all ready, but you can easily procure a common, smooth-finished piece of plank, two feet wide, if possible, and four feet long. On one end mark a diagram like the preceding, about ten inches by eight inches. Mark a line at the other end of the board about four inches from the edge, put your counters on the line and you are ready to play. The counters may be checkers (or any round pieces of wood) or twenty-five cent pieces, or large flat b.u.t.tons, although discs of lead are the best because the heaviest. Your pusher should be a little tool made especially, like the ill.u.s.tration, about a foot long, and anybody with a jack-knife can whittle a satisfactory "shovel" as it is called.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

But if an impromptu game is desired, your counters may be pushed off with a common ruler, with a long lead-pencil, or even snapped with the finger nail, though this is apt to hurt. Each player has six counters which he plays by three's, thus one person begins by shoving off three of his counters toward the board on the end, trying to make them fall on the places that count the highest. The next player then shoots three of his counters, trying not only to place his own men well but to dislodge his adversary's men if they are in good places. After all have played in turn, the first player shoots his other three counters and so on till all have played again. At the close of each round the board is inspected and each person is credited with the sum of the numbers on which his men rest. The game is continued thus, until some one has reached the limit set, which may be a hundred, or fifty, or any other number according to the skill of the players.

The counters of each player may be distinguished from the others by any distinctive sign marked on them. They must not be pushed along but struck a sharp blow with your shovel. The head of your shovel must not pa.s.s the line marked for the counters. Counters which rest on, or touch a line do not count. A very considerable degree of skill can be attained in this game and it is a never failing resource on dull days.

A rainy day is a good time to practice various tricks and puzzles so as to perfect yourself in performing them.

Balancing Tricks

There are a number of balancing tricks which are easy and ingenious.

The secret of most such tricks is in keeping the centre of gravity low, and when this idea is once mastered you can invent tricks to suit yourself. For instance a tea-cup can be balanced on the point of a pencil thus: put a cork through the handle of the cup (it should be just large enough to be pushed in firmly) and stick a fork into it, with two p.r.o.ngs on each side of the handle, and with the handle under the bottom of the cup. (Fig. 1.) The centre of gravity is thus made low, and if you experiment a little and have a little skill, and a steady hand you can balance the whole on a pencil's point.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 3]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4]

Or you can balance a coin edgeway on a needle's point. The needle is stuck firmly into the cork of a bottle, and the coin is fixed in a slit cut in a cork, in which two forks are stuck. (Fig. 2.)

The simplest of these tricks is to balance a pencil on the tip of your finger by sticking two pen-knives in it, one on each side. (Fig. 3.)

A cork with two forks stuck in it can be made to balance almost anywhere--on the neck of a bottle from which the contents are being poured for instance. (See fig. 4.)