What Shall We Do Now? by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (unputdownable books .TXT) π
Stir the Mash
This is another variety of "Going to Jerusalem." The chairs are placed against the wall in a row, one fewer than the players. One of the players sits down in the middle of the room with a stick and pretends to be stirring a bowl of
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The usual thing to draw with shut eyes is a pig, but any animal will do as well (or almost as well, for perhaps the pig's curly tail just puts him in the first place). Why it should be so funny a game it is difficult quite to explain, but people laugh more loudly over it than over anything else. There is one lady at least who keeps a visitor's book in which every one that stays at her house has to draw an eyes-shut pig. The drawings are signed, and the date is added. Such a guest book is now manufactured, bound in pig skin, or in cloth.
"Ghosts of My Friends"While on the subject of novel albums the "Ghost of My Friends" might be mentioned. The "ghost" is the effect produced by writing one's signature with plenty of ink, and while the ink is still very wet, folding the paper down the middle of the name, lengthwise, and pressing the two sides firmly together. The result is a curious symmetrically-shaped figure. Some people prefer "ghosts" to ordinary signatures in a visitors' book.
The "Book of Butterflies" is on the same order. With the book come four tubes of paint. The paint is squeezed on the page, which is doubled and flattened. The effects are very beautiful, and surprisingly lifelike.
Another guest book is the "Hand-o-graph," in which the outline of the hand of each guest is kept. The "Thumb-o-graph" is on the same principle, except that in this case the imprint of the guest's thumb is preserved, made from an ink pad supplied with the book.
A remarkable collection can be made of ink-blot pictures. A drop of ink, either round as it naturally falls, or slightly lengthened with a pen, is dropped on paper which is then folded smartly together and rubbed flat. The most surprising designs are the result, some of which, aided a little by the pen, look like landscapes, figures and complicated geometric designs.
Drawing TricksSix drawing tricks are illustrated on this page. One (1) is the picture of a soldier and a dog leaving a room, drawn with three strokes of the pencil. Another (3) is a sailor, drawn with two squares, two circles, and two triangles. Another (5), Henry VIII, drawn with a square and nine straight lines. Another (6), invented for this book, an Esquimaux waiting to harpoon a seal, drawn with eleven circles and a straight line. The remaining figures are a cheerful pig and a despondent pig (4), and a cat (2), drawn with the utmost possible simplicity.
In this game the first player writes the name of an animal at the top of the paper and folds it over. The next writes another, and so on until you have four, or even five. You then unfold the papers and draw animals containing some feature of each of those named.
A variation of this game is for the players to draw and describe a new creature. On one occasion when this game was played every one went for names to the commoner advertisements. The best animal produced was the Hairy Coco, the description of which stated, among other things, that it was fourteen feet long and had fourteen long feet.
A good guessing contest is to supply every person with a slip of paper on which is written the name of an animal. He draws a picture of it and these pictures are all exhibited signed with the artist's name. The person who guesses correctly the subjects of the greatest number of them wins.
Heads, Bodies, and TailsFor this game sheets of paper are handed round and each player draws at the top of his sheet a head. It does not matter in the least whether it is a human being's or a fish's head, a quadruped's, a bird's, or an insect's. The paper is then turned down, two little marks are made to show where the neck and body should join, and the paper is passed on for the body to be supplied. Here again it does not matter what kind of body is chosen. The paper is then folded again, marks are made to show where the legs (or tail) ought to begin, and the paper is passed on again. After the legs are drawn the picture is finished.
Pictures to OrderEach player sits, pencil in hand, before a blank sheet of paper, his object being to make a picture containing things chosen by the company in turn. The first player then names the thing that he wants in the picture. Perhaps it is a tree. He therefore says, "Draw a tree," when all the players, himself included, draw a tree. Perhaps the next says, "Draw a boy climbing the tree"; the next, "Draw a balloon caught in the top branches"; the next, "Draw two little girls looking up at the balloon"; and so on, until the picture is full enough. The chief interest of this game resides in the difficulty of finding a place for everything that has to be put in the picture. A comparison of the drawings afterward is usually amusing.
Hieroglyphics, or Picture-WritingAs a change from ordinary letter-writing, "Hieroglyphics" are amusing and interesting to make. The best explanation is an example, such as is given on pages 52 and 53, the subject being two verses from a favorite nursery song.
Pictures and TitlesEach player draws on the upper half of the paper an historical scene, whether from history proper or from family history, and appends the title, writing it along the bottom of the paper and folding it over. The drawings are then passed on and each player writes above the artist's fold (or on another sheet of paper) what he thinks they are meant to represent, and folds the paper over what he has written. In the accompanying example the title at the bottom of the paper is what the draughtsman himself wrote; the others are the other players' guesses.
The Abbot of Christchurch, near Bournemouth, surveys the scaffolding of the abbey.
The end of the Paris Exhibition.
An old man coming back to the home of his childhood, looks across the river, where a duck is swimming, to the dilapidated cathedral and town which represent the stately piles he remembered.
The building of the Ark.
The Artist's DescriptionThe Last Man surveying the ruins of the Crystal Palace.
WRITING GAMES WRITING GAMESMany of the games under this heading look harder than they really are. But the mere suggestion of a writing game is often enough to frighten away timid players who mistrust their powers of compositionβalthough the result can be as funny when these powers are small as when they are considerable. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
Simple AcrosticsThere are "Simple Acrostics" and "Double Acrostics." The simple ones are very simple. When the players are all ready a word is chosen by one of them, either from thought or by looking at a book and taking the first promising one that occurs. Perhaps it is "govern." Each player then puts the letters forming "govern" in a line down the paper, and the object of the game is to find, in a given time, words beginning with each of those letters. Thus, at the end of time, one player might haveβ
G ravy
O range
V iolet
E sther
R obin
N umbskull
The players then describe their words in turn, one letter going the round before the next is reached, and from these descriptions the words have to be guessed, either by any player who likes or by the players in turn. The player whose paper we have quoted might describe his words like this: Gββ "Something that makes hot beef nice"; Oββ "A fruit"; Vββ "A flower"; Eββ "A girl's name"; Rββ "A bird"; and Nββ "A name for a silly person." If any one else has the same word neither of you can score it, and it is therefore important to seek for the most unlikely words.
Another way of playing "Simple Acrostics" is to insist on each word being the same length. Thus "govern" might be filled in by one player thus:β
G rave
O ddly
V erse
E arth
R ebel
N inth
In "Double Acrostics" the game is played in precisely the same way, except that the letters of the word, after having been arranged in a line down the paper, are then arranged again in a line up the paper, so that the first letter is opposite the last, and the last opposite the first. Thus:β
G N
O R
V E
E V
R O
N G
The players have then to fill in words beginning and ending with the letters as thus arranged. One paper might come out thus:β
G rai N
O rde R
V ersatil E
E ... V
R apall O
N othin G
This word is rather a hard one on account of the E and V. As a rule, words of only three letters are not allowed in "Acrostics," nor are plurals. That is to say, if the word has to end in "S," one must not simply add "S" to an ordinary word, such as "grooms" for GββS, but find a word ending naturally in "S," such as "Genesis."
It is not necessary to invert the same word in order to get letters for the ends of the words. Two words of equal length can be chosen and arranged side by side. Thus (but this is almost too difficult an example):β
D K
I I
C P
K L
E I
N N
S G
"Acrostics" may be made more difficult and interesting by giving them a distinct character. Thus, it may be decided that all the words that are filled in must be geographical, or literary, or relating to flowers.
Fives"Fives" is a game which is a test also of one's store of information. A letter is chosen, say T, and for a given time, ten minutes perhaps, the players write down as many names of animals beginning with T as they can think of. The first player then reads his list, marking those words that no one else has and crossing off all that are also on other players' papers. Then the names of vegetables (including flowers, trees, and fruit) are taken; then minerals; then persons; and then places. The player who has most marks wins the game.
A variety of this game is to take a long word, say "extraordinary," and within a given time to see how many smaller words can be made from it, such as tax, tin, tea, tear, tare, tray, din, dray, dairy, road, rat, raid, and so on.
Lists"Lists" is a variety of "Fives." Paper is provided, and each player in turn calls out something which the whole company write down. Thus, suppose there are five players and you decide to go round three times: the first may say a river; the second, a doctor; the third, a complaint; the fourth, a play; the fifth, a State in the Union; the first again, a musical instrument; the second again, a poet; and so on, until the fifteen things are
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