Month: April 2020

I bought a copy of The American Girls Handy Book, by Lina Beard and Adelia Beard, copyright 1887.

The Victorian-era Beard sisters were born in the 1850’s in Kentucky. Their family moved to New York City in the 1860’s. The sisters wrote The American Girls Handy Book several years after their brother wrote a similar book for boys.

(FYI all of you English teachers and grammar snobs: I confirmed that this book possesses no possessive or plural apostrophe in the word Girls. So there.)

Chapter 1 is titled The First of April. The sisters began with these April Fools’ Day bits of lore:

1.) England: “Early Christians” referred to the day as “Festum Fatuorum” or “Fools’ Holiday.”

2.) France: The Beard sisters claimed that mackerel are easily caught on the French coast and that the fish have a reputation for low intelligence. Thus derives the term “Silly Mackerel” or “Poisson d’Avril” (French for “April Fish.”

3.) Scotland: The word “gowk” referred to a “cuckoo,” a bird that does not have the knowledge to build its own nest.

4.) India: The Huli Festival, held on the last day of March, encouraged celebrants to prank their friends.

One of the Beard sisters (the book doesn’t specify which one) then explained that one year she invited friends over to her parents’ house for a candy-pull to celebrate her April 1st birthday.

Then it hit her. What if everyone thought that this was a joke? What if nobody came? She worried. Then – all of her guests showed up at the same time. They arrived as a group so that nobody would look individually foolish if this were a prank.

5 Fun Pranks for Your April Fools’ Party

So, if you do hold your own “First of April” Party, the Beard sisters offer this advice: first assure invitees that your party is not a hoax. Then, they suggested these fun games:

1.) Who’s the Fool Now?

• Position a large mirror in front of a doorway or window.
• Write “We are April Fools” in soap on the top of the mirror.
• Drape curtains over the mirror so that you completely cover the mirror.
• Invite your guests to gather in front of the curtain-draped mirror to see a special show.
• Draw aside the curtains so that your guests can see their own faces reflected in the mirror, under the words “We are April Fools.”

2.) The Chair

• Write “APRIL FOOL” backwards in white chalk on a chair.

• Convince “some boy” who is wearing a “coat” with a “dark woolly surface” to sit on said chair.
• The boy will then walk around with “APRIL FOOL” written on his back.
• Ha, ha! Isn’t that funny? The Beard sisters convinced me that this boy will “join in the general laughter his appearance creates” without knowing that everybody else is laughing AT him, not WITH him!
• (Fun fact for you Stephen King fans: “APRIL FOOL” written backwards is “REDRUM.”)

3.) The Premises Liability Claim / Future Lawsuit

• Replace the top of a “packing-box” with wrapping paper.
• Throw a blanket or something over the thing.
• Pile pillows on top of the blanket.
• Make your creation look “exceedingly comfortable and inviting.”
• Wait for someone to sit on your fake seat.
• Watch said guest fall through the wrapping paper.
• The American Girls Handy Book said that you should make sure that this fake couch should be “not more than twelve inches high, so that the fall will be only funny, not dangerous.”

4.) Noah’s Ark Peep-show (That’s the actual name of this prank!)

• Procure a box shaped like a rectangle. Each end should be open but covered with a curtain.
• Put a sliding divider in the middle of the box.
• Announce that viewers to each side of the box will view a different animal from Noah’s ark.
• Call up a boy to view one side of the box and call up a girl to view the other side of the box.
• As soon as the boy and the girl peak through the curtains on their respective side of the box, slide open the middle divider.
• The girl will view the boy and the boy will view the girl.

5.) The Cookie Table

• Cover small blocks of wood with cake batter and bake them so that they look like cakes.
• Cover small radishes with icing.
• Coat button-moulds (what’s a button-mould?) with chocolate.
• Fill a pill-box with flour. Paste tissue-paper on top. Cover the thing with icing. Offer the thing to party-goers as cake. Watch the flour fly when someone bites into the thing.
• Mix the “trick” desserts with real desserts. What fun!

The Beard sisters ended the chapter by reminding us to “keep the jokes entirely harmless.”

“After all,” they concluded, “the spirit of mischief must be kept within bounds even on All-Fools-Day.”