CHAPTER ONE: OMAS, ALICE, AND LINNAI don't suppose there is any use in trying to find out when the game of"Jack Stones" was first played. No one can tell. It certainly is a goodmany hundred years old.All boys and girls know how to play it. There is the little rubber ball,which you toss in the air, catch up one of the odd iron prongs, withouttouching another, and while the ball is aloft; then you do the samewith another, and again with another, until none is left. After thatyou seize a couple at a time, until all have been used; then three, andfour, and so on, with other variations, to the end of the game.Doubtless your fathers and mothers, if they watch you during theprogress of the play, will think it easy and simple. If they do,persuade them to try it. You will soon laugh at their failure.Now, when we older folks were young like you, we did not have theregular, scraggly bits of iron and dainty rubber ball. We played withpieces of stones. I suspect more deftness was needed in handling themthan in using the new fashioned pieces. Certainly, in trials than I canremember, I never played the game through without a break; but thenI was never half so handy as you are at such things: that, no doubt,accounts for it.