Lois left the following comment:
“Tipper or any other readers out there, does anyone remember a children’s number-guessing game played with two players and each player with a hand-made grid, called “Going to the Mill”? I grew up in East Tennessee and have been teaching it to my granddaughter who loves it, but I can’t remember now where I learned it, from my two-room school back in the early 1950s or from a relative (deceased now). If anyone has information, please pass along to Tipper, and I would love to hear from you, Tipper, if you come up with anything.”
I reached out to Lois to let her know I had never heard of the game, but would certainly bring her inquiry to the attention of other blog readers.
Lois kindly took the time to send me the gist of how the game is played.
I decided to try to simplify the directions for the game by omitting some of the details such as “who goes first” (that is, who is in control of the game and who has the opportunity to score first) by simply saying that there IS a procedure for determining who goes first. Whoever goes first writes a number down between 1 and 10 and in doing so keeps the number hidden under his or her forearm (of the arm not doing the writing, of course).
The opposing player has to try to guess by the hand movements of the player writing down the number what the secret number is. “Feinting” is allowed of course–that is, the player writing the number down can pretend to be making a nine with an extra loop when actually he or she is making a 7–same goes for a 3 as opposed to an 8.
The opposing player has to guess the number, and as soon as the opposing player guesses, the player writing the number has to remove his or her forearm and show the number.
If the guessing opponent guessed correctly, that number goes on the guessing opponent’s grid and counts toward an overall point scored, and the opponent then becomes the one in charge of writing down the secret number, with the previous player in charge now having to guess what the number is. Also, as soon as a number is guessed, it must be marked through with a pen or pencil so it can’t be used to cheat by the person writing the secret numbers on a future guess.
On the other hand, if the first opponent doesn’t guess the number correctly, the person who was initially in charge of the game and writing the secret numbers gets to continue writing those numbers and adding the secret unguessed number to his or her grid until the opponent finally guesses.
The ultimate winner is determined by who fills the grid completely, all the way through all the tens. As I said, there are other rules and you would really have to see the hand-drawn grid to fully understand. Someone has suggested to me that this is a variation on the math concept of Fibonacci sequencing, but that is not true, as each player selects his or her secret numbers randomly and sequencing is not even a factor here.
This sounds very complicated, but I remember learning this as a second grader, and my granddaughter who is also a second grader loves playing the game as well–it is not that hard, and I learned to make my own grids even at the age of seven or eight!
Thanks for sharing and helping in any way you can.
Sincerely,
Lois Lanier
Please leave a comment and let Lois and me know if you are familiar with the game. As I said it’s not one I’ve ever played, but I can see it would be very entertaining and fun.
Last night’s video: Celebrating Appalachia Plans for 2024 & Putting 2023 to Bed.
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Yes we use to play this game but we didn’t call it that. o we played and played yhis game for hours. so fun.
I have never heard of that game-sounds fun though. I’m 72 & when I was a child we played Pick up Sticks. I remember the long slender plastic sticks & they were all different colors. Had to throw them down & then try to pick up a stick without moving the rest of them. I loved Jack Rocks or some called Bump Jacks where you throw the small rubber ball up & try to scoop up as many Jack Rocks as you could before the ball bounced on the floor. Does anyone remember these 2 games? Also, my grandmother would give us her old timey clothes pins & we had to hold a clothes pin waist high & try to drop it into a Mason Jar. I sure wish we could go back to those simple times.
Randy, I pray for you to be able to get through this difficult day. My heart ached as I read your post about your precious deceased daughter’s birthday today and the struggles you were having. I do understand completely since my son got killed in a car accident 12 years ago & would be 53 now. It changes you forever and life is never the same. It is so hard to lose anyone you love, but losing a child at any age is the ultimate loss & leaves a hole in your heart. I often say it feels like someone shot a cannon ball through my heart & abdomen & I live each day with that gaping hole. Praying for you & may God give you strength today & every day. A friend from Mississippi
I have never heard of this game, but it reminds me of a game we play where someone writes down a number maybe from 1-20 and then we give harder clues to start with and the kids try to guess it and if they haven’t guessed it, we start going with easier clues. They love playing it. Everyone takes a turn. We also do the same thing with small objects. We have always called them “The Guessing Games.” The kids also love the hot, cold game when we hide an object and if they are close to it, they are sizzling, if farther away from it, they are cold. Fun games to play when the weather won’t permit them to go outside.
I just did some looking and found a lot of information here https://gambiter.com/tabletop/Nine_mens_morris.html but I think the children’s version is a greatly simplified one. Intriguing that it seems to be so ancient.
Never heard of this game Lois, but I can see how much fun it could be. Tipper I hope you got some snow. We got a light covering. You can tell it was blowing when it was snowing cause it’s in my porch and the chairs. It’s still pretty though. Very cold for sure this morning here in Scaly Mountain, was 24. I think it’s about 28 now. Stay warm. Enjoy the snow.
Never heard of the mill game but sounds like it has a lot to recommend it to both adults and children.
Randy, I’m asking that you will receive whatever He knows is what you most need. I’m sure I don’t know what that is but certain He does. I have not had your experiences and cannot pretend to know them. But in this world we all share in never getting over missing the physical presence of those dear to us and in that common knowledge we sympathize with one another. I expect the apostles, as long as they were physical, never ‘got over’ missing Jesus’ physical presence either.
Ron, don’t you or anyone else waste your time worrying about me. I will be alright. The least little problem causes me to worry or have anxiety. I went to my daughter and my wife’s graves this morning, they are beside one another. Didn’t get to stay as long as I would have liked because of the cold temperature and strong wind. Now I feel a little better.
I saw this awhile back concerning worrying. It is said that worrying about things does not help, but I disagree, many of the things I worry about never happen, so I think it does help.
I never heard of this one nor Shirley’s. I’ll ask my sister who is 90, later today. In her career working with youth she realized they often didn’t know how to entertain themselves with the simple toys and games she grew up with. She has a collection of several hundred simple toys and books on them as well as simple games. One our dad taught us was called School. Pupils sat on a bottom step/stair. The “teacher” held a small rock or button, etc in their hand behind their back then presented their closed fists to each student who tried to guess which hand the rock was in so they could move up a grade (step) and be the first to the top one so they could be the next teacher. My grandsons loved that at an early age. Another game my sister taught our family is Hot Dice. People sit around a table where they can reach each other’s hand with one piece of paper each. In the center of the table is one pencil and a pair of dice. The person to start is the one who rolls the highest double on dice. The starter uses the one pencil to write numbers from one to one hundred. As soon as he starts writing the list of numbers each person in turn around the table (left to right) quickly rolls the dice one time until someone rolls doubles (any double number). That person immediately grabs the pencil from the first person and starts writing the list of numbers until someone else rolls doubles and grabs the pencil from them. The first person to reach 100 wins. To add to the game it can be done by listing numbers backwards from 100 or other variations. Beware! It can get wild. Good for adults and older kids together. Kids old enough to write numbers can play too. With the extreme cold forecast next week for much of the country these could be good things to do. Hope everybody can keep warm and safe.
Our grands like to play “ touch wood”, a game we found in a book about old games from the past. Similar to “ tag”. Players start by touching something in room made of wood , the “ it” who calls out touch wood try to tag player as they move to another source of wood safety. The person who gets tagged is it. Simple but they love it
I am totally confused by the instructions.
The numbers between 1 and 10 are 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 right? So 0, 1 and 10 precluded in the game, right?
The numerals 3 and 8 are written totally different by almost everyone I know. A few make a 0 over a 0 but not many. Are you restricted in how you are to form your numbers? Can you make your 7 with a dash through it like the British do, for instance?
Can you use numbers over or are they eliminated after they are used?
What is meant by “all the tens”?
Too many questions? I’m sorry, I’m not the brightest LED in the array!
This seems to be something similar in concept to a marbles game (Jack in the Bush) we used to play wherein you guessed how many marbles your opponent was shaking between his cupped hands. If you guess correctly you took all the marbles he was shaking but if you were wrong you had to give him the difference between your guess and the actual number. The game continues until one or the other had lost all his marbles, literally and figuratively!
Papaw, I wrote you a much longer email yesterday but somehow it didn’t post, so I’ll try a shorter version. The way the numbers look doesn’t matter (open four as opposed to a closed four, for example, or British 7 as opposed to an American 7), as long as each player can read the other player’s numbers and they agree that that is a 7 and not a 9, for example.
It is hard to explain the game without actually being with a person to show him or her (sort of like learning to knit or crochet, for some people). I cannot use the computer to show the unique grid, for example. Since there is a row of 10 tens, 9 nines, 8 eights, etc. on the more or less triangular grid (with the left side of the grid being the thinnest or smallest with only 1 one and the right side being the thickest or longest with 10 tens), the grid looks more or less like a lop-sided triangle.
It may work out that I can do a video of this game being played sometime (I’m very old-school and don’t use a smartphone, so I haven’t the means to do so now). Obviously the game appears much more complicated than it actually is, since if seven-year-old children can play it, it can’t be that hard. We’ll have to see about creating a video in the future. I do hope I answered a few of your questions, although as the saying goes, seeing is believing!
Thanks for your interest,
Lois
Mary Lois, I was actually trying to remember this game recently… I came across an old paper containing the grid and asked my sister, but she couldn’t remember either. My daughter actually was trying to help me figure it out and found this post! It’s starting to come back to me, unfortunately I am not able to add a photo to this site, but I do have a copy of the grid. 🙂
I’ve never heard of the game, but it is interesting. I’m sure it would be fun too.
Never heard of or played the mill game…but it reminded me of a game my dad played with me and some of his grandchildren. He would wet small bits of paper, usually newspaper corners, and stick them to the fingernails of his two index fingers. He displayed the fingers on the edge of a table with the rest of his hand dropped slightly below the edge of the table. He then recited, “two little birdies sitting in a tree, one named Jack and one named Jill” and lift each finger up slightly and wave it around as though the birds were lighting on a tree limb. He would then say “fly away Jack, fly away Jill” and wave the corresponding named finger and act as though they were flying somewhere–typically behind the child’s ear or on their head. When he brought his hands back to rest, he had switched fingers, usually the middle finger but it wasn’t obvious the way he dropped his hand below the edge of the table. Jack and Jill were gone! So the child was surprised and incredulous that Jack or Jill was in their ear! He would then reverse the action, saying “come back Jack, come back Jill” and miraculously they were back on the original fingers. Small children invariably are fooled (and some adults). I have never seen anyone else do this and I too have had great fun with children playing this little game. I have always wondered about the origin and if this is a complete version of whatever it originally was. Anyone else experience this game?
My father used to pull our noses off. “I’m gonna get your nose!” He would reach up to our nose with his index and middle finger bent at the knuckle and spread apart. Next he would squeeze and pull lightly on our nose. He would then let go, pull his hand back, slip his thumb in between and show us our nose. He repeated the process in reverse to put it back on. I played the same game with my kids.
Shirley
I am not familiar with this game, but sounds fun. Would like to hear of other games that are unique.
Yes! I have heard of this game and played it with my grandmother as a child. This post brought back those memories, thank you so much! I remember if I was the one to write the number in secret, I would try to add lots of curly q’s to the number, but not actually draw them, to fake my grandmother out. The grid we used was hand drawn and had one box for the number 1 and two boxes for the number 2 and so through to number 10 with 10 boxes to check off. Just a side note, I grew up in the Hudson Valley of NY and my grandparents had roots there as well. I often find that your posts celebrating the ways of Appalachia are similar to stories or ways of life in my own family. Thank you so much!
I don’t know about that game, but it surely sounds fun! Prayers to you, hubby, daughters in waiting, and of course the lovely matriarch granny for health, peace, joy, and all things good!!! I hope you’re delighting in the cold and hopefully snow for ya too, Tipper! You’re the woman of the day!!! You’re worth your weight in gold as my grandpa wudda said! I play a game every day and it’s called SURVIVAL of the fittest…will I make it to another day or not? Lol
nope never heard of it. sounds like fun though
I have never heard of this game, I never enjoyed playing games like this. Just read on a news station website of 6 and 8 year old brothers falling through ice on a pond in Wisconsin and dying because of it. Reminds me of the frozen water post a few days. Today would be my daughter’s 44 year old birthday. She died from an accident in Sept. 2012. I intend to visit her grave today. Like with many other people, some things going on that causes me to have stress and anxiety, starting out to be one of those days.
Wow, sounds like a great game. My family does card games and will certainly add this one to the bundle of what we do when getting together. Even working on a puzzle. I use one of those cork boards to load the puzzle on and when we are done or decide to stop working on it, I can slide it under the bed or place it atop something that won’t be in the way. Next get together, out comes the puzzle and if nothing else someone will add another piece and there it goes til the next time or weekend or whenever. Family gathering is always wonderful..two or more makes it super. So glad to hear about your plans for 2024 and reviewing 2023. Matt is gonna be a rotten Gramp…maybe not him, but those boys will be so loved, I can already hear it in your voices. Prayers for Granny’s good news to come. Stay warm and well and God Bless.
Well Lois, it sounds like a game that would be fun to play with my grandchildren—but I have never heard of it, or played it before. When I was young, it used to be fun to play tic tac toe—and I have played that with my grands before. Your game is much more interesting.
I have never heard of the game but it sounds like fun!