"The Midnight Ride"--Quiet Games

Two teams of equal numbers are chosen and arranged in two lines facing each other. If the game is played in-doors place the teams on opposite sides of the room. A pad of paper and a pencil is given to the two players at the head of each line. The leader then reads a number of lines from Longfellow's poem "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere", requesting that all of the players endeavor to remember as much of the poem as possible. When a sufficient number of lines have been read the player at the head of each team, at a signal to start, writes the first word of the poem on the sheet and passes it along to the next player in line who writes the second word. And so it is passed until it reaches the end of the line. If a player does not remember the right word he writes his surname in place of the word and passes it on to the next
player who either fills in the proper word or writes in the surname.

The team which passes the pad to the other end of the line first wins, provided that every one has either written a word from the poem or a name thereupon, and scores 5 points. The team having the fewest names written into the poem also scores 5 points (an error counts the same as a name). In case of a tie, the score race is repeated.

GAME MODIFICATION.--Read several verses and require the paper to be passed up the lines and back as many times as are necessary to write down all of the verses read, using the same method used in the other race. The team first getting all of the verses written, wins. Those who cannot add the right word to the verse must write their surname in every time the paper passes them. Forfeits can be required from them whose names appear above a certain number of times on a sheet. If the group is very large increase the number of teams.

The above games are supposed to be played after the reading of Longfellow's poem--"The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere". :)