The Child at Play : Part 3

The American Child
by Elizabeth McCracken

(Page 5 of 13)

His mother had spoken truly when she said that her little boy had learned to play intelligently. He had learned, also, to include his elders in his games on equal terms. Small wonder that they took real pleasure in playing with him.

The children cordially welcome us to their games. They ask us to be children with them. As heartily, they would have us bespeak their company in our games; they are willing to try to be grown-up with us.

I was visiting a family recently, in which there is but one small child, a boy of eight. One evening we were acting charades. Divided into camps, we chose words in turn, and in turn were chosen to superintend the "acting-out" of the particular word. It happened that the word "Psychical-research," and the turn of the eight-year-old boy to be stage-manager coincided. Every one in his camp laughed, but no one so much as remotely suggested that the word or the stage-manager be changed.

"What does it mean, 'Psychical-research'?" the boy made question.

We laughed still more, but we genuinely tried to make the term comprehensible to the child's mind.

This led to such prolonged and lively argument that the little stage- manager finally observed: "I don't see how it can mean all that all of you say. Can't we let the whole-word act of it go, and act out the rest? We can, you know - 'Sigh,' 'kick,' 'all'; and 're' (like in music, you know), and 'search!'"

"Oh, no," we demurred; "we must do it properly, or not at all!"

"Well, then," said the boy, in a quaintly resigned tone of voice, "talk to me about it, until I know what it is!"

In spite of hints from the other camp not to overlap the time allotted us, in the face of messages from them to hurry, regardless of their protests against our dilatoriness, we did talk to that little eight- year-old boy about "Psychical-research" until he understood its meaning sufficiently to plan his final act. "If he is playing with us, then he is playing with us," his father somewhat cryptically remarked; "and he must know the details of the game."

This playing with grown-ups does not curtail the play in which children engage with their contemporaries. There are games that are distinctly "children's games." We all know of what stuff they are made, for most of us have played them in our time - running-games, jumping-games, shouting- games. By stepping to our windows nearly any afternoon, we may see some of them in process. But we shall not be invited to participate. At best, the children will pause for a moment to ask, "Did you play it this way?"

Very likely we did not. Each generation plays the old games; every generation plays them in a slightly new way. The present generation would seem to play them with a certain self-consciousness; without that abandon of an earlier time.

A short while ago I happened to call upon a friend of mine on an afternoon when, her nursemaid being "out," she was alone with her children - a boy of seven and a girl of five. I found them together in the nursery; my friend was sewing, and the children were playing checkers. Apparently, they were entirely engrossed in their game. Immediately after greeting me they returned to it, and continued it with seeming obliviousness of the presence of any one excepting themselves. But when their mother, in the course of a few moments, rose, and said to me: "Let's go down to the library and have tea," both the children instantly stopped playing - though one of them was in the very thick of "taking a king" - and cried, "Oh, don't go; stay with us!"

"My dears," my friend said, "you don't need us; you have your game. Aren't you happy with it?"

"Why, yes," the little girl admitted; "but we want you to see us being happy!"

Only to-day, as I came up my street, a crowd of small children burst upon me from behind a hedge; and, shouting and gesticulating, surrounded me. Their faces were streaked with red, and blue, and yellow lines, applied with crayons; feathers of various domestic kinds ornamented their hats and caps, and they waved in the air broken laths, presumably gifts from a builder at work in the vicinity.

"We are Indians!" they shrieked; "wild Indians! See our war-paint, and feathers, and tomahawks! We hunt the pale face!"

While I sought about for an appropriate answer to make, my little neighbors suddenly became calm.

"Don't we children have fun?" one of them questioned me. "You like to see us having fun, don't you?"

I agreed, and again their war-whoops began. They followed me to my door in a body. Inside I still heard them playing, but with lessened din. Several times during the afternoon, hearing their noise increase, I looked out; each time I saw that the arrival of another grown-up pale face was the occasion of the climactic moment in the game. In order to be wild Indians with perfect happiness the small players demanded an appreciative audience to see them being happy.