Girls are incomparably wilder and more effervescent than boys, more
untamable, and regardless of rule and limit, with an ever-shifting
variety, breaking continually into new modes of fun, yet with a
harmonious propriety through all. Their steps, their voices, appear free
as the wind, but keep consonance with a strain of music inaudible to us.
Young men and boys, on the other hand, play according to recognized law,
old, traditionary games, permitting no caprioles of fancy, but with
scope enough for the outbreak of savage instincts....
Especially it is delightful to see a vigorous young girl run a race,
with her head thrown back, her limbs moving more friskily than
they need, and an air between that of a bird and a young colt. But
Priscilla's peculiar, charm, in a foot-race, was the weakness and
irregularity with which she ran....
When she had come to be quite at home among us, I used to fancy that
Priscilla played more pranks, and perpetrated more mischief, than any
other girl in the community. For example, I once heard Silas Foster,
in a very gruff voice, threatening to rivet three horse-shoes round
Priscilla's neck, and chain her to a post, because she, with some other
young people, had clambered upon a load of hay, and caused it to slide
off the cart.
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