In "Eveline," what did the children worry about most while playing in the field?

In "Eveline," the title character, her brothers, and the neighborhood children used to worry about her father and how he'd "hunt them...with his blackthorn stick" while playing in the field. This fear foreshadows the fear Eveline would have for her father her entire life.

In the beginning of the story, while Eveline sits at her front window and thinks about her past and imagining how things have changed, including the death of her mother, she fondly remembers her playtime in the field even discounting the threat of violence from her father ("Her father was not so bad then..."). These conflicting emotions are indicative of the conflicting emotions Eveline feels throughout the story. Although Eveline wants to flee Dublin with Frank, particularly due to her feeling that she was "in danger of her father's violence," she also does not "find it a wholly undesirable life."

Overall, the story explores a young woman's struggle to escape the grip of both her adolescence and of the fear of her father. Her fear of her father in her youth is an example of this.