i. p. 397), of a dance by the Kutchin-Kutcha Indians, a parallel to the name as well as the dance which needs some research in America. See Curcuddie, Hop-frog. Cutters and Trucklers A remembrance of the old smuggling days. The boys divide into two parties; the Trucklers try to reach some given point before the Cutter catches them.--Cornwall (_Folk-lore Journal_, v. 60). Dab Dab a prin in my lottery book; Dab ane, dab twa, dab a your prins awa . A game in which a pin is put at random in a school-book, between the leaves of which little pictures are placed.
[Then verses follow, sung in the same way and with the same refrain, beginning with--] Mend it up with penny loaves. Penny loaves will wash away. Mend it up with pins and needles. Pins and needles they will break. Mend it up with bricks and mortar, Bricks and mortar, that will do. [After these verses have been sung--] What has this great prisoner done, Prisoner done, prisoner done, What has this great prisoner done? My fair lady. Stole a watch and lost the key, Lost the key, lost the key, Stole a watch and lost the key, My fair lady. Off to prison you must go, You must go, you must go, Off to prison you must go, My fair lady. --Hurstmonceux, Sussex (Miss Chase). V.
The board is sprinkled with very fine sand. Four weights are used by each side, marked A and B to distinguish them. These weights are of iron or brass, 2½ inches in diameter, and ½ inch thick. Five inches from each end of the board and parallel with it is the deuce line. The object of the game is to push the weights from one end of the board to the other, each side playing one weight alternately until all four weights on each side are played. All pieces over the deuce line count 2, but if a piece hangs over the end of the board it is a _=ship=_, and counts 3. If there are no ships or deuces, the weight lying nearest to the deuce line counts one point. Only one ship or deuce can be counted in each round, so that only one side can score. The ship that overhangs the most, or the deuce nearest the edge, counts. Twenty-one points is game.
If he has a pair of nines and a bragger, or a nine and two braggers, he may call them three nines, and bet on them as such. In this respect braggers resemble mistigris, already described in connection with Draw Poker; but in Brag a natural pair or triplet outranks one made with the aid of a bragger. Three eights will beat an eight and two braggers. The dealer must put up an ante before the cards are cut. This ante may be any amount he pleases within the betting limit. No player can straddle or raise this ante until the cards are dealt. Beginning on his left the dealer distributes the cards face down, and one at a time, until each player has received three. Beginning with the age, [eldest hand,] each player in turn must put up an amount equal to the dealer’s ante, or abandon his hand. He may, if he chooses, raise the ante any further amount within the betting limit. All those following him must meet the total sum put up by any individual player, increase it, or pass out.
But more guns proportionally lead to their being put out of action too early for want of men; a larger proportion of infantry makes the game sluggish, and more cavalry--because of the difficulty of keeping large bodies of this force under cover--leads simply to early heavy losses by gunfire and violent and disastrous charging. The composition of a force may, of course, be varied considerably. One good Fight to a Finish game we tried as follows: We made the Country, tossed for choice, and then drew curtains across the middle of the field. Each player then selected his force from the available soldiers in this way: he counted infantry as 1 each, cavalry as 1-1/2, and a gun as 10, and, taking whatever he liked in whatever position he liked, he made up a total of 150. He could, for instance, choose 100 infantry and 5 guns, or 100 cavalry and no guns, or 60 infantry, 40 cavalry, and 3 guns. In the result, a Boer-like cavalry force of 80 with 3 guns suffered defeat at the hands of 110 infantry with 4. SIZE OF THE SOLDIERS The soldiers used should be all of one size. The best British makers have standardised sizes, and sell infantry and cavalry in exactly proportioned dimensions; the infantry being nearly two inches tall. There is a lighter, cheaper make of perhaps an inch and a half high that is also available. Foreign-made soldiers are of variable sizes.
, to catch or capture; for when the game was played at by several, the ball was thrown into the air and kepped, or intercepted, in its descent by one or other of the girls, and it was then thrown up again to be caught by some other. But when the song was sung it was played out by one girl, who sent the ball against a tree and drove it back again as often as she could, saying the following rhymes, in order to divine her matrimonial future:-- Keppy ball, keppy ball, Coban tree, Come down the long loanin and tell to me, The form and the features, the speech and degree Of the man that is my true love to be. Keppy ball, keppy ball, Coban tree, Come down the long loanin and tell to me How many years old I am to be. One a maiden, two a wife, Three a maiden, four a wife, &c. The numbers being continued as long as the ball could be kept rebounding against the tree. The following from Halliwell s _Nursery Rhymes_, p. 298, is also used for ball divination. To cook is to toss or throw. Cook a ball, cherry tree; Good ball, tell me How many years I shall be Before my true love I do see? One and two, and that makes three; Thankee, good ball, for telling of me. See Ball, Cuckoo, Monday.