Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/46

 “knucks.” Mumble-the-peg, jackstones, shindy, and once a year when, in the spring, the Sunday-school had a picnic in the woods, “Copenhagen” and “drop the handkerchief.” The counting out rhymes I learned were:

And another:

Marbles, which came along regularly with the relenting of the frost, had a vocabulary all its own. “Fen dubs,” “Fen puds” and “Hist man lay you and the nigger” were among the phrases. Often it happens that the most important of possessions are found among the refuse as the dust man of Dickens illustrated. The manure pile is the most valuable asset of the farmer. From the Kjokken Möddings of Denmark and the shell-heaps of Florida the cast-off rubbish of former people we gather what we know of those ages. There was an obscene word in common use among the boys which I am satisfied had a long and interesting history. It must have been in use ages ago and been preserved for thousands of years by the utterance of boys. The word carries us back to the goddess of love among our Norse ancestors when they worshiped Thor and Woden in the woods along the Baltic Sea. When things were presented to us we said “Saddy,” a word whose origin I have never been able to discover. One of the oaths of the urchins was “by Jingo,” who appears to 38