you "to pass it on," and you'd pass it on, and the next thing was
you'd think the house was coming down. Such a chasing around and
over benches, and upsetting the water-bucket, and tearing up Jack
generally that teacher would say, "Boys! boys! If you can't play
quietly, you'll have to go out of doors!" Play quietly! Why, the
idea! What kind of play is it when you are right still?

Outdoors in the country, you can whoop and holler, and carry on,
and nobody complains to the board of health. And there are so many
things you can do. If there is just the least little fall of snow
you can make a big wheel, with spokes in it, by your tracking. I
remember that it was called "fox and geese," but that's all I can
remember about it. If there was a little more snow you tried to
wash the girls' faces in it, and sometimes got yours washed. If
there was a good deal of wet snow you had a snowball fight, which
is great fun, unless you get one right smack dab in your ear - oh,
but I can't begin to tell you all the fun there is at the noon hour
in the country school, that the town children don't know anything
about. And when it was time for school to "take up," there wasn't
any forming in line, with a monitor to run tell teacher who
snatched off Joseph Humphreys' cap and flung it far away, so he had
to get out of the line, and who did this, and who did that - no
penitentiary business at all. Teacher tapped on the window with a
ruler, and the boys and girls came in, red-faced and puffing,
careering through the aisles, knocking things off the desks with
many a burlesque, "oh, exCUSE me!" and falling into their seats,
bursting into sniggers, they didn't know what at. They had an hour
and a half nooning. Counting that it took five minutes to shovel
down even grandma's beautiful "piece," that left an hour and
twenty-five minutes for roaring, romping play. If you want to know,