Читать книгу Reminiscences of a Raconteur, Between the '40s and the '20s - George H. Ham - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Whitby was first called Windsor, and I have a map drawn in 1841, on which that name appears. It was changed shortly after. School days at Whitby, at the primitive district Henry Street school, were just about the same as those of any other school boy; and the pleasurable monotony was only broken by such events as the school-house catching fire, or the teacher being ill, which granted us a few real honest-to-goodness holidays. Some of us deeply regretted that the darned old place hadn’t burned down altogether, as the holidays would then have been prolonged indefinitely. Snowballing matches between the Grammar and District schools kept the boys busy, during favorable winter weather, and it was only when the snow disappeared that one school did not invade the precincts of the other, sometimes with disastrous effects. These affairs were not Sunday school picnics, and no quarter was ever asked or given. One of the Grammar army got plugged in the ear in a severe combat by a snowball in which was enclosed a good-sized stone, and when he was keeled over, there was no first aid to the wounded, but a savage reprisal. Cricket was also a favorite game, but it was not aggressive enough. Football and shinny—especially on the ice, where the Town and the Bay met every Saturday for a whole day’s conflict—afforded more and better opportunities for personal encounters and were more popular games. The goals were a mile apart, and I never knew of a game being scored by either side. Golf, croquet and similar sports were unknown, but would have been scorned as too insipid. But we played One-old-cat and Two-old-cat—predecessors of baseball. Prisoner’s base gave fine opportunities for running and wrestling, and had many devotees. Don’t think that the boys were any rougher than the boys in any other school, but in the glorious old days rough and tumble was usually preferred to more sedate and lady-like games.