The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan [25]
When the days get colder and softball season is long gone, it’s time to rub the smallest amount of conditioner into your glove. You can use official glove conditioning oil, or home remedies like Vaseline or foam shaving cream. Just a little bit, really—less is more when it comes to glove oil. Start at the bottom of the pocket and massage the oil toward the top. Find a cozy spot on the top shelf of your closet to store your glove until next softball season. Enjoy the winter.
Playing Cards: Hearts and Gin
A Short History
EARLY PLAYING CARDS are believed to have originated in China, where paper was first invented, as a form of paper dominoes. The earliest references to playing cards in Europe featuring decks with four suits date from 1377. Cards back then were very expensive, as they were hand-painted, and they looked quite different from the design of cards today.
The earliest cards from China had designs recognizable to players of Mah Jong: coins, or circles; and bamboo, or sticks. On their way from China to Europe, cards passed through the Islamic empire, where they gained cups, swords, and court cards. Once in Europe, the generic court cards evolved into depictions of actual kings, knights, and other royalty—hence the name “face cards.” The Italian, Spanish, German, and Swiss cards did not include a queen—and in fact, even today, they still do not.
The basic familiar design of the cards—with hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs, and court cards of Jacks, Queens, and Kings—came from France, and with the invention of woodcuts in the 14th century, mass-production became possible, making the French cards popular all across Europe. Cards became popular in America as well, and Americans began refining card design around 1800.
It was an American invention to create double-headed court cards, so that the kings, queens, and jacks never needed to be turned upright; to index the cards by placing the number and suit in the corner for easy reference; to varnish the surface of the cards for easier shuffling and durability; and to round the corners, which always seemed to get bent over anyway. It was in America, too, that the Joker was born, as a part of a card game called “Eucher,” or sometimes “Juker.” The Joker became an opportunity for satire—depicting popular political figures as jesters or clowns—and for advertising, which savvy marketers had already plastered on the back of the cards.
There are hundreds of games that can be played with cards. Here are two popular and fun games for four or two people: Hearts and Gin.
HEARTS
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Hearts is a trick-taking game for four players in which the object of the game is to avoid winning tricks (a set of cards) containing Hearts or the Queen of Spades. Hearts began its life in Spain around 1750 in a game called Reverse, the point of which was to lose tricks, not gain them. Eventually, about 100 years later, Reverse fully morphed into the game we know today as Hearts.
“Tricks” are rounds of play in which each player puts a card face up on the table, and the player with the highest card wins all the cards—also called “trick-taking.” But the real trick in this trick-taking game is that in Hearts, players want to avoid winning tricks, because the lowest score wins.
Hearts uses a standard 52-card deck. Aces are high, and there is no trump suit. To start, the dealer deals the cards clockwise so that all players have 13 cards each. Each player then chooses three cards to pass: on the first hand, the cards are passed to the left; on the next