Richmond Press, Inc.                          Richmond, VA                          1938

Flints

Pieces of flint always had for the Richmond boys a peculiar fascination. It may have been because there is no flint in the geological formations hereabout--but that is as it may be. In ancient times, when our grandsires were lads, there was (we have been told by our dear father) a gunsmith's shop on the north side of Franklin Street, just where it is now covered by the C. & O. viaduct; and behind that the kids would go, at times, and search for gun flints which perchance the smith had thrown out.

In our time, there still being some shipping in the river, and many relics and much litter from the shipping of the older time, we would go down to the ship locks and search along the shore to find flint that had been brought over, mayhap, from old England's white cliffs, as ballast; and thrown out from a vessel as it lay alongshore. These pieces of flint were nodules incased in thick layers of chalk, sometimes in the shape of dumb-bells. We would chip off the chalk and pound the flint with a hammer, until we had broken it into a number of small chips.

Then we would challenge other boys to play flints.

A small triangular "ring" would be drawn in the soft earth, each contestant would put in a piece of flint; and the one who won first go would shoot. His taw was a draughtsman, or checker, which he would hold as he would taw at marbles, place his knuckles down on the ground and try to knock out of the ring either or both of the flints. And so it would go, until one player was broke.

Every game that boys play has a penalty, or forfeit. This is instinctive and is the way in which they prepare themselves to meet and bear with fortitude the later and more serious mishaps of life. Their dear mammas never understand this and are therefore forever trying to break up their sons' manly games.

The games that girls play, on the contrary, are poetical, musical and suggestive of flirtation, or at least of courtship and marriage. The only penalty ever imposed is a kiss, whereby the one penalized gets as much fun out of it as the winner. I wonder if there was ever another city whose boys played flints?