Page:The Chinese Boy and Girl.djvu/72

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the line swayed from side to side always in the opposite direction from that in which the hawk was going. Every chick caught by the hawk was taken out of the line until they were all gone.

One of the boys whispered something to Chi.

"Strike the poles," exclaimed the latter.

As soon as they began playing we recognized it as a game we had already seen.

The boys stood about four feet apart, each having a stick four or five feet long which he grasped near the middle. As they repeated the following rhyme in concert they struck alternately the upper and lower ends of the sticks together, occasionally half inverting them and thus striking the upper ends together in an underhand way. They struck once for