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Beyond the orchard was a piece of split-rail fence, gray and old, with brambles growing at the intersections–one of the relics of an elder day in Westchester County. Old Hundred looked at it as he put on his coat.

“There ought to be a bumblebees’ nest in that fence,” he said. “If we should poke the bees out we’d find honey, nice gritty honey, all over rotted wood from our fingers.”

“Are you looking for trouble?” I asked. “However, if you hold your breath, a bee can’t sting you.”

“I recall that ancient superstition–with pain,” he smiled. “Why does a bee have such a fascination for a boy? Is it because he makes honey?”

“Not at all; that’s a secondary issue. It’s because he’s a bee,” I answered. “Don’t you remember the fun of stoning those gray hornets’ nests which used to be built under the school-house eaves in summer? We waited till the first recess to plug a stone through ’em, and nobody could get back in the door without being stung. It was against the unwritten law to stone the school-house nests in vacation time!”

“Recess!” mused Old Hundred. “Do you know, sometimes in court when the judge announces a recess (which he pronounces with the accent on the second syllable, a manifest error), those old school-days come back to me, and my case drops clean out of my head for the moment.”

“I should think that would be embarrassing,” said I.

“It isn’t,” he said, “it’s restful. Besides, it often restores my mislaid sense of humor. I picture the judge out in a school-yard playing leap-frog with the learned counsel for the prosecution and the foreman of the jury. It makes ’em more human to see ’em so.”

“A Gilbertian idea, to say the least,” I smiled. “Why not set the whole court to playing squat-tag?”

“There was step-tag, too,” said Old Hundred. “Remember that? The boy or girl who was It shut his eyes and counted ten. Then he opened his eyes suddenly, and if he saw any part of you moving you became It. On ‘ten’ you tried to freeze into stiffness. We must have struck some funny attitudes.”

“Attitudes,” said I, “that was another game. Somebody said ‘fear’ or ‘cat’ or ‘geography,’ and you had to assume an attitude expressive of the word. The girls liked that game.”

“Oh, the girls always liked games where they could show off or get personal attention,” replied Old Hundred. “They liked hide-and-seek because you came after them, or because you took one of ’em and went off with her alone to hide behind the wood-shed. They liked kissing games best, though–drop-the-handkerchief and post-office.”

“Those weren’t recess games,” I amended. “Those were party games. You played them when you had your best clothes on, which entirely changed your mental attitude, anyhow. When a girl dropped the handkerchief behind you, you had to chase her and kiss her if you could, and when you got a letter in post-office you had to go into the next room and be kissed. Everybody tittered at you when you came back.”

“Well, soak and scrub were recess games, anyhow. I can hear that glad yell, ‘Scrub one!’ rising from the first boy who burst out of the school-house door. Then there were dare-base, and foot-ball, which we used to play with an old bladder, or at best a round, black rubber ball, not one of these modern leather lemons. We used to kick it, too. I don’t remember tackling and rushing, till we got older and went to prep school–or you and I went to prep school.”

“I’d hate to have been tackled on the old school playground,” said I. “It was hard as rocks.”

“It was rocks,” said Old Hundred. “You could spin a top on it anywhere.”

“Could you spin a top now?” I asked.

“Sure!” said Old Hundred. “And pop at a snapper, too.”

“It’s wicked to play marbles for keeps,” said I impressively. “Only the bad boys do that.”