Defense and Attack Games Stool Ball
( Defense and Attack, Handball, Physical Contest )A stool box or inverted pail is set in an open place and from ten to twenty feet away from this a throwing line is drawn. One player is appointed stool defender and stands beside the stool. It is well also to appoint a scorer and linesman to disqualify any players who cross the throwing line and one player to stand behind the stool defender and return the balls that may go afield. The players in turn throw the ball from the throwing line in an effort to hit the stool. The stool defender tries to prevent this by batting the ball away with his hand. If the ball hits the stool the one who threw it changes places with the stool defender if the ball be batted by the defender and caught by another of the players the one catching it changes places with the stool defender. The object of the stool defender should therefore be not only to hold his place by preventing the ball from hitting the stool but to bat it in such a way that the other players may not catch it.
This game has been very successfully adapted by adding scoring as a feature of it in which case any player hitting the stool with the ball or catching it when it is returned by the stool defender scores one point while the stool defender scores one for each time he successfully prevents the balls hitting the stool. The player wins who has the highest score at the end of the playing time.
This is one of the old games that has come down through centuries. Chronicles of Queen Elizabeths reign tell of the Earl of Leicester and his train setting forth to play the game though it is supposed to have originated with the milkmaids and their milking stools. In Sussex the game is played with upright boards instead of a stool forming a wicket as in Cricket.