Jerry's Reward

Excerpt

THE INTERRUPTED GAME

Jefferson Square was a short street in Gaminsville, occupying just one block. It took only two things on one side of it to fill up the space from corner to corner. One was the Convent of the Good Shepherd, built on a large lot surrounded by a high brick wall; the other, a common where all the people around dumped cinders, rags, tin cans—in fact, anything on earth they wished to throw away. On the other side were dwelling-houses, and these were filled with children—lots of them. There surely were never so many children on one square before!

There were the Earlys, the Rickersons, the Bakers, the Adamses, the Mortons, and the Longs—twenty-one in all.

There were really twenty-eight; but the parents of seven children, though they were not what you might call poor, were not well-born like the others, so nobody counted them any more than they included them in the games that the twenty-one played. This was sad for the seven little outcasts, but the others never thought about that.

The twenty-one had splendid times together. It was play, play, play for ever—dolls, pin fairs, circuses, and games. Every afternoon they gathered in the Mortons' front gate, because it was wider and had three stone steps leading down from it, where all the children could sit.

One evening, the latter part of August, the sun had dipped down behind the world, leaving red splashes over a green sky. On seeing it the children played fast and furiously, for they knew only too well that when the sky looked like that they might at any moment be called indoors, made to eat their suppers and go to bed.

The oldest child of the lot was Henry Clay Morton. He was one of those boys who try to have their way in everything, and generally succeed; so, on this particular evening when he got tired playing "Grammammy Gray" and proposed "Lost My Handkerchief," the others consented without any fuss. The next thing to decide was who should be "ole man." They stood in a long row, and Henry Clay, pointing, began at the top and gave each child a word like this:

"Eeny, meany, miny, mo;
Cracky, feeny, finy fo;
Ommer neutcha, popper teucha;
Rick, bick, ban, do.

"Oner-ry, oer-ry, ickery Ann;
Phyllis and Phollis and Nicholas John;
Queevy quavy, English Navy,
Stinklum, stanklum, BUCK."

"Buck" was "ole man," and on this occasion happened to be Addison Gravison Rickerson, a little pudgy boy who was called "Addy Gravvy" for short. He took a handkerchief, and the children, joining hands, formed a big circle. Then skipping behind them he sang:

"Lost my hankshuff yesterday,
Found it to-day,
Filled it full 'er water,
En dashed it away."

He sang the words twice, and then he let the handkerchief fall behind little Nell Morton, but she was watching, so she grabbed it and chased Addy Gravvy, trying to catch him before he could get round the circle into her place. He ran so fast he would have beaten her had not Willie Baker stuck out his foot, tripping him up so that little Nell easily caught him.

Addy Gravvy protested: "That's no fair, I won't go in the middle." For whoever got caught had to go in the middle until the close of the game....