Freddie

Gundel and I started a new book last week, a children's book whose film adaptation had been mentioned in another book I had just finished (the titles are not important in this context).

Maybe you remember my post about the rose in a book I read on The Internet Archive.
I still enjoy looking at library stamps or notes in books I read there, but this time I found something that's a puzzle to me.

Well, Freddie, congratulations from me as well!
Once again, I have questions, though.
I guess this note has been glued into the book because otherwise it might have fallen out during the scan unless someone positioned it like that on purpose. So my second guess is that the book was a gift on occasion of Freddie's successful year.

This is a printed note in which you can fill in the name. Is this something children - as it's a children's or middle grade book - are regularly congratulated on and if so, for how long has this been going on? That particular edition of the book is from 2010. Had I not known that, however, the font with the swirls would have reminded me of the 1970s, but of course you can find all kinds of retro fonts today and I doubt someone had a stacks of 70s notes around 🙃

Now to the really important point, and by important I mean for my weird brain at about 10 p.m. on an ordinary day.
What was Freddie successful at? What exactly are "the Threes" and how can you spend a year in them?
A quick online search might be doing the trick. The first page I came across was a cricket blog called "In the Threes". Huh.
"Why "in the threes"? Well, it's where I've spent most of my amateur cricket career."
That was about all I understood on that blog. The words looked English, but actually it was "Cricketish". But hey, so it probably had to do with cricket, that was a start. The book was British, I assumed Freddie is as well (I hope his ears are not ringing too much), so it made sense.
Freddie had a successful cricket year ... although this might have not been more than one of those participation prizes. Hey Freddie, you made it through the whole year, well done you, old chap. Good man.

I still didn't know what exactly "the Threes" are, though. Probably the third team in some way. Maybe a youth team?
As I have no life but can get obsessed about totally random stuff like that - you may have noticed before - I started going through cricket pages and understood less and less.
Then, however, I noticed the term "the 1st XI" (a cricket team has eleven players and I have no idea why the number is Roman) and so on ... could the 3rd XI be "the Threes"? It sure sounded plausible, especially after reading about "first XI players who say 'they won't play for the twos'".

What I still don't get is if a club only has the first to the fourth XI, if it depends merely on skill, and if there are separate "threes" etc. for grown-ups and children.
Maybe a British reader or someone from another Cricket playing nation wants to chime in on that and enlighten me?

Until then my weird brain will just imagine Freddie to look like this 😉

Francis Cotes: The Young
Cricketer (1768),
public domain via Wikimedia
Commons

Random Saturday - A rose between the pages

This post is for Ida.

As a librarian, I have found a lot of things in books, some were from the library itself, old process slips, old bookmarks with ads on them, old receipts, and some of them were quite interesting because they were from even before my time. Hard to believe, I know 😉
Others were left behind - rarely on purpose, I would think - by our patrons.
Bank statements, photos, library cards, prescriptions, letters, really anything that can be used for a bookmark.
Some of those tell a very clear story that helps us to identify the rightful owner who might still need this, other stories stay in the dark, in case of photos for example ... or a flower.

Thanks to this week's silent movie and my usual snooping around for interesting details (I love my rabbit holes), I had found out about other books Jean Webster, the author of "Daddy-Long-Legs", had written, and I put her first one, "When Patty Went to College", and its later published prequel "Just Patty" on my reading list (both books are in the public domain and can be found at The Internet Archive).

I struggle with reading books on my laptop, but I told myself that it was part of my attention span training and have been getting a bit better at it since although I really prefer printed books.
One problem is getting tired more easily, but when I was just about to nod off in the middle of the story about Patty inventing a lore around a non-existent college student and turned the page, I came upon this.

There are several editions of the book available at The Internet Archive. There was no special reason to choose this one from 1903/04 (the title page says 1904, the back says published March 1903), but maybe the universe sent me a little greeting with this rose.

Mrs. Ida La Rua ... I couldn't find the name quickly, only an Ida La Rua Conrad.
Why did Ida own the book (only?) 20 years after it was published? Had it been passed on by someone else? Was it a gift or inherited? Did it come from a second-hand bookshop or a charity sale?
Why did Ida put down a street name, but no city (so I could find out something more easily)?
Was October 8, 1924 a special date or simply the day Ida got the book?
What about the rose? Had it already been in the book when Ida got it if it was a used book? Did Ida get the rose from someone special? What's the story of the rose?
Is the rose even that old or did someone put it in the book long after Ida owned it? And why wasn't it taken out when the book got scanned? Where is that book now? Is the rose still in there?

My mind went wandering and stories began bouncing around inside my head. It's just the way my mind works, I couldn't stop it if I wanted to.
Does the same happen to you if you find an inscription or something else in an old book?