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Sneaking is allowed; that is, shooting the taw slowly, so that it will stop in or near the center. This counts as a turn, and the marble is allowed to rest there until the sneaker's turn comes round again, in which case, if he has not been killed by some other player, he shoots from the spot occupied by his taw.

If a dead man's turn comes around and there are enough ducks in the ring to warrant the risk, the dead man may re-enter by laying in the middle twice as many ducks as the game required at first and placing still another duck near the edge of the ring to carom on. He shoots at the carom duck with the hopes of knocking it out and flying in the center, where, if he is "any good" he will "skin the ring." Often the dead man is unsuccessful and the game goes on.

Ducks in a Hole

This game is played with three shallow holes in a line at right angles with a taw line which should be about ten feet distant from the first hole. The holes are three feet apart. The object of each player is to shoot his marble so that it will go in and remain in the first hole. If successful in this be is allowed to place his thumb on the edge of the first hole, and using his hand as a pair of dividers, by a twist of the wrist he describes, that is, traces with the ends of his fingers, a curved line on the ground.

This is called taking a span, and the player then knuckles down on the span line and shoots for the second hole. Taking another span he shoots for the third, and if successful he now takes a span back toward the middle hole and shoots for that. If he again succeeds be takes a span and shoots for the first bole, and if he fails not in this he is a "duck" and can take two spans from the spot where his marble lies every time he shoots. When he has gone forward and backward twice he is allowed three spans, and when he has gone backward and forward three times he is a "King Duck" and can take four spans.

If the first player misses the first hole, player number two shoots. If number two's marble rolls in the first hole and stays there he looks around for the first player's taw and when he discovers it, if he feels certain he can bit it: he takes a span, knuckles down and cracks away at number one's taw. If he hits it he places his own marble in the second hole and proceeds to try for the next until he misses. Then the next player tries his luck.

When number one's turn comes around again he shoots for the first hole, knuckling down on the spot to which number two knocked his (number one's) taw.

King Duck

Each player strives to be King Duck first. Each time one player hits another player's taw the lucky player counts one point, and the one hit loses a point.

When one player is King Duck it is hard on the others, because as soon as they miss a hole he is on them. For his four spans from the nearest hole will almost always bring him within short shooting distance of any marble that has missed a hole, and when he hits that marble he generally manages to hit it hard enough to send it flying.

By the time three boys have won the title of King Duck the game is over. At the advent of the second King Duck the first monarch divides with him and gives him one of the end holes to command, and he keeps the other two. When the third man is King the first King assigns him the remaining end hole and retains command of the middle hole, but by this time the boys are ready to stop for a rest. Each time a player hits a marble it counts one point, and the game may be for ten points or ten thousand points.

Meg in a Hole

Meg-in-a-Hole differs from the preceding game of Duck-in-Hole, first, in the fact that there is no taw line. The first player shoots from one end hole at the middle hole. After be succeeds in shooting into the middle hole be is entitled to a span, but he has no more than a span until be is King, having gone backward and forward three times.

The King can take one foot (his own foot for a measure) and a span from the first hole, two feet and a span from the second hole, and three feet and a span from the third hole before shooting at any other player's marble that has made a miss

This gives the King great power, and it is hard to escape him. It often happens that the King knocks the other marbles fifteen or more feet away from their holes, and it is no easy matter for the unfortunate player to approach the holes again.

If a second player wins the title of King, the first King assigns him the first hole to guard, because there is less shooting for it, for the players only go in it three times, while they go six times in the middle hole. The third hole is next best to the middle, or, as I heard one boy put it- "next worse to the first hole." If a player misses it and a King is loafing around, the player does not stand much chance of getting near it again. When all have become Kings the game is over.

Meg-on-a-String

This is a game of skill, and at this day finds little favor. The boys seem to prefer the less skilful and ruder games, such as Stand-up marbles, a game I notice the lads playing under the lamp-posts after dark ; and so primitive has the sport become in the great cities, that in place of the beautiful agate for a taw these boys use stones, which they hold up to one eye, then pitch at a group of shamefaced marbles huddled together in a hole in the ground.

But Meg-on-a-String requires a higher sort of skill to play, and the successful player must be a good shot at fair knuckling-down shooting.

In a crack in a friendly fence a small stick is so thrust that its free end is about three feet outside the fence line. From near the end of the stick threads are hung about three inches apart, and on the ends of the threads are small lumps of shoemaker's wax. By pressing the wax against a small alley, commie, crystal, china, plaster, or agate, the marbles will adhere and swing from the ends of the threads. The latter should be so adjusted that the marbles clear the ground by an inch or two.

There is no ring in this game, but a taw line is scratched about four feet from the Meg stick, and a marble for each player hangs from the stick. It is all knuckling down and lofting in this game, and the swinging marbles are kept in motion, it being against the rules for any boy to shoot at a stationary duck. He is only allowed to wait until the marbles cease to strike against each other, then he must shoot.

When the first player misses, the second player shoots. If the first player's taw is within reach he may shoot at that, and if he hits it then the owner of the unlucky taw is dead and out of the game, and the boy who killed him has another shot at the swinging marbles, or if there are only two players, he wins the game.

What Counts

To make a successful hit it is deemed necessary to knock the swinging duck off the string, otherwise, the shot does not count. When a player's taw is too near the fence he can cry "Sidings;' and move to one side far enough to enable him to shoot with comfort. But if the other boys cry "Fen Sidings" before he cries "Sidings;' then the player must make the best of his ill luck and shoot. It is allowable to sneak, that is, to shoot with so little force that your taw will only roll to the spot near the swinging marbles and rest there, but a sneaker always runs the risk of being killed and put out of the game by the next in turn.

"Dubs"and "Fen dubs;' " Sidings" and " Fen sidings " are all the cries in this game, because the rules of the game are" Fen histings," "Fen clearances;' "Fen, fen everything;" except sidings and dubs, and it is even fen to these if a player shouts the word in time.

The reader can readily see that no bad shot at marbles need try this game with any hope of success, but to the real sportsmen among the boys the game will be popular. Old players try to get a position flanking the swinging ducks, as this position has a double advantage. First, if the player misses the first marble, he is liable to hit one of the others, and second, as it is necessary to loft and shoot hard in order to knock a marble off the string, if he misses his taw he strikes against the fence and bounds back to practically the same position he shot from, in place of hurtling off ten or twelve feet, or away or back over the taw line.

For over two thousand years boys have been playing marbles, and have developed some really scientific games, which much older people might play without loss of dignity. But since the game is confined practically to the youngsters, it behooves them to see to it that the noble and ancient games of marbles are not degraded into shingle gambling boards and pitch rock.

Injun, Block, or Square Ring

After reading over the preceding descriptions of marble games to a young Brooklyn friend of mine, he exclaimed, "Well! You have left out Block. We play Block in Brooklyn."

Now it is not the intention of the author to slight Brooklyn in this book, and a game that they can play there must be adapted to any large city. Block is played with a square ring, if we may be allowed to call a square a ring, and the ring is quartered as it is in Fat, a game to which Block is akin. As in Fat, the marbles are laid in on the intersections of the cross lines, but the taw line is about thirty feet away.

This game is sometimes called Injun, a corruption of Indian, probably because the game is a game of extermination. For, in order to win, you must kill all the other players. Hence, you can see that "First" plays at a disadvantage, there being no one for him to kill. If he knocks out a duck he must replace it. If a taw stops inside the ring, that is a fatal shot, for lie has killed himself and is out of the game. So when the first player shoots he does not knuckle down, but toes the taw line and tosses his taw for a good position near the ring.

For good and sufficient Reasons the second player has no desire to get near the first, so he throws his marble with sufficient force to send it through the ring out of reach of First hoping that his taw may be fortunate enough to knock out a duck on its way. Because if number two knocks Out a duck, he can, before replacing the duck, go back to taw and holding the duck in his left hand shoot his taw with his right so that it will strike on the top or side of the duck and fly off rear First's taw, which he may then hit and kill.

If number two misses the duck, number three pitches his marble off to one side, and thus the game goes on, each boy doing his best to guard his own taw and to hit and kill his neighbor's taw, knocking out ducks when the opportunity comes for the sake of the privilege of going back to taw and making a flying shot from the duck to the neighborhood of his playmate's marble.

At the end of the game the same number of ducks of course remain in the ring that were placed there. If any player misses the duck that he is trying to make a fly shot on he loses his turn, and has the mortification of seeing his taw roll dangerously near an opponent, where he must allow it to remain and run the chance of being killed. When all but one are killed, the survivor is "Big Injun" and has won the game. A similar game is played in other places with the moon ring (Fig. 14).

There are numerous other games played in the cities which are the out-growth of the cramped spaces the boys have for playgrounds, but as they differ in different cities and also in different parts of the same city and are only modifications of the games given here, they will be omitted.

Beard, Daniel C. "Marbles." The Outdoor Handy Book, For Playground Field
and Forest. 1896. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1910.