DAN BEARD AND THE BOYS 



315 



tion enough for me. When we played our that would have made my fortune. A frog 



first game in the spring of 1876 I put on a is much more graceful than a toad and more 



mask, which I had made from thick wire. difficult to capture, and all this gives him ad- 



The edges were wound with leather, and I ditional value as a drawing for a show. A 



had a strap on the chin and another on the toad looks like a warty Tom troller with arms 



forehead. My chum, Fred Thayer, helped and legs. 



me to make it, and I confess it was a queer- 



looking thing. Speaking of marbles, even their names 



"I was ridiculed the first time I wore the have changed since Recreation's staff wire 



mask, partly because it was a new thing and boys, and that is not so very long ago, but 



partly because the people considered that a one really old man in Boston says : 



catcher did not need protection for his face. "My marble playing goes back to the early 



I threw the mask away. Thayer took it up 40's, and to Philadelphia. In those days — 



and had it patented, but received no royalty. 1846 to 1845 — our ammunition was rated and 



"Dealers in baseball goods knew a good 

 thing when they saw it, and they 

 commenced to manufacture the 

 masks and put them on the mar- 

 ket. Thayer promptly brought 

 suit against them and won every 

 case taken into court." 



"Were the games as close as 

 now?" was asked. 



"Oh, yes," was the answer. "I 

 remember one game we played at 

 Lowell where the score was 3 to 

 o in Harvard's favor. Only one 

 hit was made, and a Harvard man 

 got to first on it. From there he 

 was advanced around by wild 

 pitches, and two of the men who 

 had got their bases on balls were 

 pushed around the bases." 



"How about errors ; were there 

 many ?" 



"Well, no ; not very many. I 

 have played lots of games where 

 neither side made a misplay." 



"How far back did the pitcher 

 stand?" 



"About forty-five feet," replied 

 Mr. Thatcher. 



The appearance of this inter- 

 view brought on quite a news- 

 paper controversy, and many per- 

 sons claimed to be the inventors 

 of the wire mask, but as there was 

 no umpire to decide the question A five-legged frog 



we will leave it as it stands. 



The bull frog is a favorite of all country 

 boys. I once had a big one so tame that he 

 made no attempt to escape, but would 

 eagerly wait for me to let the mice out of 

 their trap that he might eat them alive. This 

 frog ate live mice, bats, crawfish, fiddler 

 crabs and all sorts of things, but he could 

 not be persuaded to eat snakes or English 

 sparrows. 



It often happens that frogs and snakes are 

 born "queer," that is, they are fit subjects for 

 museum freaks. I once owned a toad with 



five legs, and I charged a pin for each leg, 

 that is five pins, to see it, and did a big busi- 

 ness ; but here is a frog with three hind legs knocked it outside the big ring it was a 'hit/ 



termed as follows 



"First — 'Potashes,' the lightest 

 and cheapest of all. They were 

 made of potash, glazed and sold 

 ten or twelve for a penny. Next 

 came the 'commons,' or 'nickers,' 

 as we called them, made of clay. 

 Next higher in value was the 

 'white alley,' made of silica and 

 often beautifully streaked with red 

 and pink veins — two of these cost- 

 ing one cent. They were favor- 

 ites as 'men' or shooters,' the 

 'nickers' being only object mar- 

 bles to be shot at. Then came the 

 'chinee,' a larger marble, made of 

 china or porcelain, and crossed 

 by geometrical lines of varying 

 widths and colors and preferred 

 by boys as their 'shooters' above 

 the 'white alley.' After the 'chi- 

 nee' the 'agate' came and the 'cor- 

 nelian,' both beautiful stones and 

 highly prized. Next was the 

 'glass agate,' or elaborately col- 

 ored glass marbles, still, I believe, 

 in vogue. Last in order was the 

 'Tom troller,' or bamboozler, the 

 boss of the bag for size and made 

 of all the materials named. The 

 'Tom troller' was always the heavy 

 ordnance in the marble armory. 

 Its office was implied in its name 

 — it was used for rolling or troll- 

 ing rather than for shooting, as it 

 was too large to be projected from 

 the thumb and forefinger. 



"The 'bull ring' was the king game of 

 marbles. A chalk circle was drawn, or 

 more often scratched in the ground with a 

 sharp stick or the toe of a player's shoe. 

 The greater the skill of the player the bigger 

 the circle. I have often played in a ring 

 twelve or fifteen feet in diameter. In the 

 center of this circle was a smaller one in 

 which each player deposited his stake of one, 

 two or three 'nickers' or more valuable 

 marbles, as agreed upon. The outer circle 

 was the initial shooting line or taw of each 

 player. If his shot struck a 'nicker' and 



By D. C. Witter, 



