Duck-on-a-Rock

Source text

This is a good old grandfather game.

Each player has a large, smooth, roundish stone, about five or six inches through. This is his duck. He keeps it permanently.

Toe rock is any low bowlder, block, stump, bump, or hillock on level ground. A dead line is drawn through the rock, and another parallel, fifteen feet away, for a firing line.

The fellow who is “it,” or “keeper,” perches his duck on the rock. The others stand at the firing line and throw their ducks at his. They must not pick them up or touch them with their hands when they are beyond the dead line. If one does, then the keeper can tag him (unless he reaches the firing line), and send him to do duty as keeper at the rock.

But they can coax their ducks with their feet, up to the dead line, not beyond, then watch for a chance to dodge back to the firing line, where they are safe at all times.

If the duck is knocked off by anyone in fair firing, the keeper is powerless till he has replaced it. Meantime, most of the players have secured their ducks and got back safely to the firing line.

Metadata

• Type: game
• Traits: Not stated in the source
• Source: Ernest Thompson Seton, Boy Scouts Handbook: The Games (1911)
• Printed pages: 304
• Digital edition: Digital edition · Source record
• Open the edition at the relevant page: p. 304
• Read the automatic translation: bsh-022