Many of the games played by young children were meant to teach and inspire; just as their many legends did.
But let the little colt go bare.
Oh, the brave old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
Also know as 'Egg Knocking', was a favourite amoungst the French-Canadians and Acadians. Children would decorate a boiled egg and then challenge others to a game of 'Knock', where they would gently tap the end of their egg against the egg of their opponent until one of them breaks. The skill was in hitting the egg hard enough to do damage, but not so hard as to break your own. The person whose egg was still intact, won the game and the egg of the defeated 'knocker'.
This game later became part of the Cajun culture, brought to the region by the exiled Acadians.
"If health is the object, we know of no means of attaining it other than by obedience to its laws. If our sons and daughters are to be as the polished corner-stones of the temple, they must first aquire the hardness of physical vigor before they can be capable of the desired polish. Parents make a distinction between the sex of their children, as regards their physical education, at too early a period. Air and exercise are essential to both, and the physical habits of the girl should be as robust, until twelve years of age at least, as those of the boy.
"So let miss halloo, run, and tumble with Tom, her brother, to her young heart's content. This will secure strength of body, which is certainly more favorable to moral health and, necessarily, to delicacy of sentiment than physical weakness".
"It is not surprising to learn that, with such vigorous habits, "dyspepsia is almost unknown, bilious attacks are not common, and consumption scarcly heard of; and that, with such health, the Cambridge man can read his nine hours a day, find and even accomplish with impunity the less scholastic feats of heavy suppers and strong punch."
So if you wanted your children to get into a school like Cambridge, let them frolick about when young.
Another chore for small boys, was to help cool freshly dipped candles. They would stand in the yard or a cold room with a rod of fresh "dips", and when they were cooled brought them to their mothers for another layer, and took another set outside to start the process again. Since many layers were required, this could be a long and tedious process.
Geese were raised primarily for their feathers and since they were removed from live geese, it could be a difficult and dangerous procedure, not to mention the suffering of the poor bird.
The task of the girls was to first catch the goose, and hold onto it while their mother pulled an old stocking over its head so that it would'nt bite. The feathers were used for bedding and the quills to make homemade pens.
Young girls also had to cut the hard sugar cones with special nippers to make "company" lump sugar; grated the salt and helped clean the candlesticks and snuffers.
"Provided brothers and sisters go together, and are not allowed to go with bad children, it is a great deal better for the boys and girls on a farm to be picking blackberries at six cents a quart, then to be wearing out their clothes in useless play. They enjoy themselves just as well and they are are earning something to buy clothes, at the same time they are tearing them.
"In the country, where grain is raised it is a good plan to teach children to prepare the braid straw for their own bonnets, and their brothers' hats. Where turkeys and geese are kept, handsome feather fans may as well be made by the younger members of the family, as to be bought.
"The sooner children are taught to turn their faculties to some account, the better for them and their parents. In this country, we are apt to let children romp away their existence, till they get to be thirteen or fourteen. This is not well. It is not well for the purses and patience of parents; and it has a still worse effect on the morals and habits of the children.
