Floor Games

FLOOR GAMES

by (H)erbert (G)eorge Wells




Contents
I.    The Toys To Have
II.   The Game Of The Wonderful Islands
III.  Of The Building Of Cities
IV.   Funiculars, Marble Towers, Castles And War Games,
      But Very LIttle Of War Games




Section I
THE TOYS TO HAVE

The jolliest indoor games for boys and girls demand a floor, and the
home that has no floor upon which games may be played falls so far short
of happiness. It must be a floor covered with linoleum or cork carpet,
so that toy soldiers and such-like will stand up upon it, and of a color
and surface that will take and show chalk marks; the common green-
colored cork carpet without a pattern is the best of all. It must be no
highway to other rooms, and well lit and airy. Occasionally, alas! it
must be scrubbed--and then a truce to Floor Games. Upon such a floor may
be made an infinitude of imaginative games, not only keeping boys and
girls happy for days together, but building up a framework of spacious
and inspiring ideas in them for after life. The men of tomorrow will
gain new strength from nursery floors. I am going to tell of some of
these games and what is most needed to play them; I have tried them all
and a score of others like them with my sons, and all of the games here
illustrated have been set out by us. I am going to tell of them here
because I think what we have done will interest other fathers and
mothers, and perhaps be of use to them (and to uncles and such-like
tributary sub-species of humanity) in buying presents for their own and
other people's children.

Now, the toys we play with time after time, and in a thousand
permutations and combinations, belong to four main groups. We have (1)
SOLDIERS, and with these I class sailors, railway porters, civilians,
and the lower animals generally, such as I will presently describe in
greater detail; (2) BRICKS; (3) BOARDS and PLANKS; and (4) a lot of
CLOCKWORK RAILWAY ROLLING-STOCK AND RAILS. Also there are certain minor
objects--tin ships, Easter eggs, and the like--of which I shall make
incidental mention, that like the kiwi and the duck-billed platypus
refuse to be classified.

These we arrange and rearrange in various ways upon our floor, making a
world of them. In doing so we have found out all sorts of pleasant
facts, and also many undesirable possibilities; and very probably our
experience will help a reader here and there to the former and save him
from the latter. For instance, our planks and boards, and what one can
do with them, have been a great discovery. Lots of boys and girls seem
to be quite without planks and boards at all, and there is no regular
trade in them. The toyshops, we found, did not keep anything of the kind
we wanted, and our boards, which we had to get made by a carpenter, are
the basis of half the games we play. The planks and boards we have are
of various sizes. We began with three of two yards by one; they were
made with cross pieces like small doors; but these we found
unnecessarily large, and we would not get them now after our present
experience. The best thickness, we think, is an inch for the larger
sizes and three-quarters and a half inch for the smaller; and the best
sizes are a yard square, thirty inches square, two feet, and eighteen
inches square--one or two of each, and a greater number of smaller ones,
18 x 9, 9 x 9, and 9 x 4-1/2. With the larger ones we make islands and
archipelagos on our floor while the floor is a sea, or we make a large
island or a couple on the Venice pattern, or we pile the smaller on the
larger to make hills when the floor is a level plain, or they roof in
railway stations or serve as bridges, in such manner as I will presently
illustrate. And these boards of ours pass into our next most important
possession, which is our box of bricks.

(But I was nearly forgetting to tell this, that all the thicker and
larger of these boards have holes bored through them. At about every
four inches is a hole, a little larger than an ordinary gimlet hole.
These holes have their uses, as I will tell later, but now let me get on
to the box of bricks.)

This, again, wasn't a toy-shop acquisition. It came to us by gift from
two generous friends, unhappily growing up and very tall at that; and
they had it from parents who were one of several families who shared in
the benefit of a Good Uncle. I know nothing certainly of this man except
that he was a Radford of Plymouth. I have never learned nor cared to
learn of his commoner occupations, but certainly he was one of those
shining and distinguished uncles that tower up at times above the common
levels of humanity. At times, when we consider our derived and
undeserved share of his inheritance and count the joys it gives us, we
have projected half in jest and half in earnest the putting together of
a little exemplary book upon the subject of such exceptional men:
Celebrated Uncles, it should be called; and it should stir up all who
read it to some striving at least towards the glories of the avuncular
crown. What this great benefactor did was to engage a deserving
unemployed carpenter through an entire winter making big boxes of wooden
bricks for the almost innumerable nephews and nieces with which an
appreciative circle of brothers and sisters had blessed him. There are
whole bricks 4-1/2 inches x 2-1/4 x 1-1/8; and there are quarters--
called by those previous owners (who have now ascended to, we hope but