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374 The Book of Indoor and Outdoor Games |
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India with Turkey, in their ignorance, and called the new bird after that country.
After luncheon, while sipping the coffee in another room, or after dinner, when the gentlemen rejoin the ladies, a game is often productive of fun, even to those for whom the heyday of youth is past. The human heart at forty or fifty is not so very different from the same organ at twenty. If it be desired to give a national character to the game on Washington's Birthday, we may easily prepare a game of questions that will reveal how much that is interesting and little known there is in our national history. It is played like the game of "Definitions," previously described.
For example:
What was the first American fag? — An English Union Jack was hastily prepared for its new character by sewing strips of white cotton cloth across the red surface, thus forming the stripes. The stars afterward supplanted the cross in the corner of the English flag.
What is the origin of the word "Yankee"?—It is said to have been originally an imitation of the manner in which the Indians pronounced the word "English ' (Yengese).
What was the origin of the term "Brother Jonathan" ?—The earliest mention of it has been traced to a pamphlet published in 1643. When speaking of the monument to Queen Elizabeth, it reads, "Our Brother Jonathan wrote her epitaph in a loyal poem, before he had a thought of New England."
What were the original thirteen States?—(It is astonishing how few can name them without a mistake.) |
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