An acorn? he thought. No. It's too slick for that. He opened one eye slowly. The object glistened in the sun. He slid on his belly and took a better look. He picked it up and rubbed it quickly with his red-checked bandanna that had once belonged to his grandfather.
"Grandmother! Come! I've found a silver ball. I bet it's worth millions," Joni proclaimed, rushing up the steps.
Grandmother Anna adjusted her glasses and peered at the shiny ball. She explained, "It's a steely. Your daddy used it to shoot marbles."
Joni's brown eyes opened wider, and a slight frown appeared. "My daddy shot marbles with that! What kind of gun did he use?"
She laughed and said, "When your daddy, James, was a little boy like you, he played marbles almost every day. He used the steely to play in the game. Your grandfather brought the steel nugget home from work. It's a ball bearing. They use them in machinery to keep the moving parts rolling freely."
"Daddy must have lost it."
"No. His marbles were in the attic. I took some clothes down to GoodWill a few weeks ago. It must have dropped into one of the boxes and fallen out. If it had been under the dirt very long, it would be corroded."
Joni twirled the steely in his hand, glancing expectantly at his grandmother, and stated, "Let's play marbles, Grandmother. Can I shoot the steely? Show me how."
"Come along with me. We'll go to the attic and get the marbles," she replied.
Grandmother and Joni entered the cool, air-conditioned house, and Grandmother pulled a small, twisted rope. The attic trap-door expanded, making a stairway entrance to the attic as the rails touched the floor.
"Gee, it's dark and hot up here, Grandmother." Joni hesitated, and placing hand over hand on the upper rail and his unsteady feet on the bottom wooden steps, he cautiously began his climb to the attic.
Grandmother followed slowly. Reaching the top, she exclaimed, "See. Just push the little button, and we have plenty of light."
Joni sneaked a quick look to see what might lurk behind the huge boxes stacked high in the corner. A large grayish-green trunk was opened by his grandmother, and all sorts of fascinating treasures appeared.
Joni's chubby, freckled face lit up with rapture when he beheld the large shoebox filled with green, blue, yellow, purple, and all the other multi-colored shiny marbles.
"Yippee!" yelled Joni.
"I'll show you how to play, and then you can practice."
Hurrying down and out into the backyard, Joni waited for Grandmother.
"First you draw a circle, and then you put your other marbles in the center. Place your steely on the line of the circle and shoot, knocking out an many marbles as you can."
Joni thoughtfully said, "But maybe the marbles won't go out of the circle."
"Wherever the steely stops, you must try again from that spot. If someone else is playing, he gets to shoot if no marbles are knocked out on your first try, If the steely goes across the line of the circle, after knocking marbles out, you keep the marbles, but the other person gets to shoot."
"How many can play? Can all my friends?" Joni asked.
Laughing, Grandmother replied, "I suppose."
Joni could hardly wait to show his friends this new old game called called Marbles.
See a diagram showing the typical layout of a game of marbles.
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