Recreation Volume 14 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ...they remembered it, because of their appearance when they came back to camp next year, and from the letters they wrote us during the winter. But one of the greatest advantages of a camp is the fact that the girls get to know one another there. It is impossible to realize what those two weeks, spent in the companionship of other girls, mean to some of the children, to whom a railway train, or even a passing Ford is a novelty. Last summer one of the children said to me, "I guess you passed my cousin's house when you came to fetch me, 'cause I had a letter from her, an' she said her little sister saw a girl passin' in an automobile last week, an' the girl waved to her, an' she's been talkin' about it ever since." To such '-hildren, camp is, without exaggeration, the door to a new life. When they go home, they think of their new friends night and day, and all through the winter write us, "I wish I was at camp--I can't wait to go back to camp," and they carry on a very lively correspondence with the counsellors, and with one another, which helps to make the snow-bound winters less lonely. The idea of cooperative teams, even of playing A Little Leaven games, was something entirely new to many of the children also. At first, at camp, the recreation hours were the most difficult of the day, for it seemed as if the children did not know what play was. But little by little they became interested, then enthusiastic, and began to organize games, and even charades and camp-fire "stunts" themselves. When they went home they often taught their brothers and sisters, or the children at school, to play with them, so that a little leaven in the line of recreation went a long way. The "singing games" were especially...