A LITTLE BOYS' GAME WITH A BALL. 653 



" draw-base/' the game kept on until one team swallowed up the 

 other. I always heard this game called "ante-over." It was 

 usually played by the small boys and the girls, the latter catching 

 the ball in their aprons. The point was to get around the house 

 and hit some of the other side before they knew the ball had 

 been caught. The bulls and bears of Wall Street make a similar 

 use of monopolized information. 



Retaining the bases, and the division into teams or sides, the 

 game of " bull-pen " went away beyond the last two in complexity 

 and interest. It was one of our great games, and the largest boys 

 delighted in it. It furnishes us a step in evolution which we can 

 partly illustrate by a diagram. In the games of draw-base and 

 ante-over there are two parallel bases, thus : 



The players all stand on bases, 

 and they all stand on an equality. 

 There is no specialization of duties 

 or privileges. In bull-pen the two 

 bases are subdivided into half as 

 many as there are players, and they 

 are arranged into the circumference 

 of a ring, as shown below. 



One player stands on each base. 

 These are the winners of the last preceding game — the " ins." The 

 bases are positions of honor. The outs are a disorganized rabble, 

 roaming about inside the ring. Here is differentiation as Well as 

 division. Here is a plain case of evolution. 



As in ante-over, the ball must be caught by some player before 



he can hit anybody with it — 

 *——— unless he has just been hit 



himself. In fact, it is not 

 "hot" at the beginning of 

 the game until it has passed 

 three times around the bases 

 and been caught each time at 

 every base. After that, any 

 baseman who catches it may 

 throw at anybody inside the 



/ \ 



ring, who, if hit, must get the 

 ball, and, without going out- 



\ " side the ring, must try to hit 



some baseman. The basemen 

 have the privilege of running as far away as they please in order 

 to avoid being hit. 



In one respect the two sides stand on an equality. The player 

 who misses, or whose ball is caught by the enemy, is out, and ex- 

 cluded from the rest of the inning. If the basemen are all out 



