1806.2

Children's Poem Traces Bouncing Ball

Salience	Noteworthy
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Game
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Age of Players	JuvenileJuvenile
Holiday
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Text	THE VILLAGE GREEN. "On the cheerful village green,/ Skirted round with houses small,/ All the boys and girls are seen,/Playing there with hoop and ball/ . . . ./Then ascends the worsted ball;/ High it rises in the air;/Or against the cottage wall,/Up and down it bounces there." BALL. "My good little fellow, don't throw your ball there/you'll break the neighbors's window I know/ . . . As the ball had popp'd in, so the neighbor popp'd out/ And with a good horsewhip he beat him about . . ."
Sources	Gilbert, Ann, Original Poems, for Infant Minds, 2 volumes (Kimber, Conrad, Philadelphia, 1806), vol. 2, page 120; Citation from Thomas L. Altherr, "A Place Leavel Enough to Play Ball," reprinted in David Block, Baseball before We Knew It, see page 242.
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Query	Altherr reports that "Gilbert described some sort of ball play as common on the village commons." (See Block, Ibid., page 241). Can we determine Gilbert's usage in calling such play common? Does the clue that the ball was "worsted" (woolen, or made of wool cloth?) add a helpful clue as to the nature of the game played? Edit with form to add a query
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