"Hide the Moon, Sheep"

Cafe Society
1

Does anyone here know what this phrase may refer to? It comes from a 1940’s novel aimed at adolescent girls, and is apparently some sort of game. Here it is in context:
And she remembered that never-to-be forgotten outdoor party she and Charlie had given two summers ago, with lighted paper lanterns strung across the shadowy lawn and forty of them playing “Hide the Moon, Sheep” and that bottomless freezer of her mother’s peach ice cream for an inspired home base.

From Cherry Ames, Student Nurse by Helen Wells

My 84 year old mother has never heard of it; neither, evidently, has Yahoo or Google. The lead character is identified as being 18, so she’d be 16 at the time of the party. Whatever it is, it involves a lot of teenagers doing something outdoors at night with an ice cream home base. If this weren’t a kids’ novel from the 1940’s, I’d say something rather naughtly was going on.

Can anyone shed any light on this? The book has some other unknown words and references, but I’ve been able to track most of them down. This one, though, stymies me.

2

I’ll tell you what it sounds like to me. It sounds like a mondegreen for “Hide and go seek.” The fact that there’s a home base in the game supports this. Since this book was one of the early Cherry Ames novels, it might well be an inside joke, or a way that Wells was saying “hello” to personal friends. In any event, here’s a site that might be useful: http://www.netwrx1.com/CherryAmes/

3

Yes, that does sound likely. I’ve seen the Cherry Ames website, but not looked at it closely. I’ll check it out again. Thanks for the idea.