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Title: The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes
Author: Leroy F. Jackson
Illustrator: Blanche Fisher Wright
Release date: July 7, 2007 [eBook #22014]
Most recently updated: January 2, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Produced by K Nordquist, Close@Hand re-scanned some
illustrations, Jacqueline Jeremy and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
THE PETER PATTER BOOK
by
Pictures by
To
My first appreciative audience
Copyright © 1918 by Rand McNally & Company.
Renewal copyright 1946
by Rand McNally & Co.
All rights reserved.
PETER PATTER told them to me,
All the little rimes,
Whispered them among the bushes
Half a hundred times.
Peter lives upon a mountain
Pretty near the sun,
Knows the bears and birds and rabbits
Nearly every one;
Has a home among the alders,
Bed of cedar bark,
Walks alone beneath the pine trees
Even when it’s dark.
Squirrels tell him everything
That happens in the trees,
Cricket in the gander-grass
Sings of all he sees;
Rimes from bats and butterflies,
Crabs and waterfowl;
But the best of all he gets
From his Uncle Owl.
Sometimes when its day-time,
But mostly in the night,
They sit beneath an oak tree
And hug each other tight,
And tell their rimes and riddles
Where the catty creatures prowl—
Funny little Peter Patter
And his Uncle Owl.
Jingle, jingle, Jack,
A copper down a crack.
Twenty men and all their wives,
With sticks and picks and pocket knives,
Digging for their very lives
To get the copper back.
I’m much too big for a fairy,
And much too small for a man,
But this is true:
Whatever I do,
I do it the best I can.
Did you ever play tag with a tiger,
Or ever play boo with a bear;
Did you ever put rats in the rain-barrel
To give poor old Granny a scare?
It’s fun to play tag with a tiger,
It’s fun for the bear to say “boo,”
But if rats are found in the rain-barrel
Old Granny will put you in too.
Hot mush and molasses all in a blue bowl—
Eat it, it’s good for you, sonny.
’T will make you grow tall as a telephone pole—
Eat it, it’s good for you, sonny.
Fresh fish and potatoes all on a blue plate—
Eat it up smart now, my sonny.
’T will make you as jolly and fat as Aunt Kate—
Eat it up quick now, my sonny.
Sweet milk from a nanny-goat in a blue cup—
Drink it, it’s good for you, sonny,
’T will fill you, expand you, and help you grow up,
And make a real man of you, sonny.
O it’s hippity hop to bed!
I’d rather sit up instead.
But when father says “must,”
There’s nothing but just
Go hippity hop to bed.
Away to the river, away to the wood,
While the grasses are green and the berries are good!
Where the locusts are scraping their fiddles and bows,
And the bees keep a-coming wherever one goes.
Oh, it’s off to the river and off to the hills,
To the land of the bloodroot and wild daffodils,
With a buttercup blossom to color my chin,
And a basket of burs to put sandberries in.
Our little Pat
Was chasing the cat
And kicking the kittens about.
When mother said “Quit!”
He ran off to sit
On the top of the woodpile and pout;
But a sly little grin
Soon slid down his chin
And let all the sulkiness out.
Father and mother and Bobbie will go
To see all the sights at the animal show.
Where lions and bears
Sit on dining room chairs,
Where a camel is able
To stand on a table,
Where monkeys and seals
All travel on wheels,
And a Zulu baboon
Rides a baby balloon.
The sooner you’re ready, the sooner we’ll go.
Aboard, all aboard, for the Animal Show!
Billy be nimble,
Hurry and see
Old Tommy Trimble
Climbing a tree.
He claws with his fingers
And digs with his toes.
The longer he lingers
The slower he goes.
Dickie, Dickie Dexter
Had a wife and vexed her.
She put him in a rabbit cage
And fed him peppermint and sage—
Dickie, Dickie Dexter.
On the road to Tattletown
What is this I see?
A pig upon a pedestal,
A cabbage up a tree,
A rabbit cutting capers
With a twenty dollar bill—
Now if I don’t get to Tattletown
Then no one ever will.
Polly had some china cows
And Peter had a gun.
She turned the bossies out to browse,
And Peterkin, for fun,
Just peppered them with butter beans
And blew them all to smithereens.
* * *
Now what will pretty Polly do
For milk and cream and butter too?
I went to town on Monday
To buy myself a coat,
But on the way I met a man
Who traveled with a caravan,
And bought a billy-goat.
I went to town on Tuesday
And bought a fancy vest.
I kept the pretty bucklestraps,
Buttonholes and pocketflaps,
And threw away the rest.
I went to town on Thursday
To buy a loaf of bread,
But when I got there, goodness sakes!
The town was full of rattlesnakes—
The bakers all were dead.
I went to town on Saturday
To get myself a wife,
But when I saw the lady fair
I gnashed my teeth and pulled my hair
And scampered for my life.
Where are you going, sister Kate?
I’m going to swing on the garden gate,
And watch the fairy gypsies dance
Their tim-tam-tum on the cabbage-plants—
The great big one with the purple nose,
And the tiny tad with the pinky toes.
Where are you going, brother Ben?
I’m going to build a tiger-pen.
I’ll get iron and steel and ’lectric wire
And build it a hundred feet, or higher,
And put ten tigers in it too,
And a big wildcat, and—mebbe—you.
[17]Where are you going, mother mine?
I’m going to sit by the old grapevine,
And watch the gliding swallow bring
Clay for her nest from the meadow spring—
Clay and straw and a bit of thread
To weave it into a baby’s bed.
Where are you going, grandma dear?
I’m going, love, where the skies are clear,
And the light winds lift the poppy flowers
And gather clouds for the summer showers,
Where the old folks and the children play
On the warm hillside through the livelong day.
Christopher Crump,
All in a lump,
Sits like a toad on the top of a stump.
He stretches and sighs,
And blinks with his eyes,
Bats at the beetles and fights off the flies.
A tortoise sat on a slippery limb
And played his pinky pang
For a dog-fish friend that called on him,
And this is what he sang:
“Oh, the skies are blue,
And I wait for you
To come where the willows hang,
And dance all night
By the white moonlight
To my pinky, pinky, pang!”
Tick, tock! Tick, tock!
Forty ’leven by the clock.
Tick, tock! Tick, tock!
Put your ear to Grandpa’s ticker,
Like a pancake, only thicker.
Tick, tock! Tick, tock!
Catch a squirrel in half a minute,
Grab a sack and stick him in it.
Tick, tock! Tick, tock!
Mister Bunny feeds on honey,
Tea, and taters—ain’t it funny?
Tick, tock! Tick, tock!
When he goes to bed at night,
Shoves his slippers out of sight;
That is why Old Fox, the sinner,
Had to go without his dinner.
Tick, tock! Tick, tock!
So says Grandpa’s clock.
Put down your pillow under the willow,
Hang up your hat in the sun,
And lie down to snooze as long as you choose,
For the plowing and sowing are done.
Pick up your pillow from under the willow,
And clamber out into the sun.
Get a fork and a rake for goodness’ sake,
For the harvest time has begun.
High on the mantel rose a moan—
It came from an idol carved in bone—
“Oh, it’s so lonesome here alone,
With no one near to love me!”
A cautious smile came over the face
Of a pensive maid on a Grecian vase
“Are you sure,” she said, with charming grace,
“There’s no one near to love you?”
Buster’s got a popper gun,
A reg’lar one that shoots,
And Teddy’s got an engine
With a whistler that toots.
But I’ve got something finer yet—
A pair of rubber boots.
Oh, it’s boots, boots, boots,
A pair of rubber boots!
I could walk from here to China
In a pair of rubber boots.
Butterfly, butterfly,
Sit on my chin,
Your wings are like tinsel,
So yellow and thin.
Butterfly, butterfly,
Give me a kiss;
If you give me a dozen
There’s nothing amiss.
Butterfly, butterfly,
Off to the flowers,—
Wee, soulless sprite
Of the long summer hours.
Catch a floater, catch an eel,
Catch a lazy whale,
Catch an oyster by the heel
And put him in a pail.
There’s lots of work for Uncle Ike,
Fatty Ford and me
All day long and half the night
At Beela by the sea.
“Thank you, dear,” said the big black ant,
“I’d like to go home with you now, but I can’t.
I have to hurry and milk my cows—
The aphid herds on the aster boughs.”
And the ladybug said: “No doubt it’s fine,
This milk you get from your curious kine,
But you know quite well it’s my belief
Your cows are best when turned to beef.”
“Tommy, my son,” said the old tabby cat,
“Go catch us some mice, and be sure that they’re fat.
There’s one family lives in the carpenter’s barn;
They’ve made them a nest of the old lady’s yarn.
But the carpenter has a young cat of his own
That is healthy and proud and almost full grown,
And consider it, son, an eternal disgrace
To come home at night with a scratch on your face.”
“Oh,” said the worm,
“I’m awfully tired of sitting in the trees;
I want to be a butterfly
And chase the bumblebees.”
Buzzy Brown came home from town
As crazy as a loon,
He wore a purple overcoat
And sang a Sunday tune.
Buzzy Brown came home from town
As proud as he could be,
He found three doughnuts and a bun
A-growing on a tree.
The wind came a-whooping, down Cranberry Hill
And stole an umbrella from, Mother Medill.
It picked up a paper on Patterson’s place
And carried it clean to the Rockaby Race.
And what was more shocking and awful than that,
It blew the new feather off grandmother’s hat.
The roads are good and the weather’s grand,
So I’m off to play in the Hobo Band;
With a gaspipe flute and a cowhide drum
I’m going to make the music come.
With a toot, toot, toot, and a dum, dum, dum,
Just hear me make the music come!
A robin and a wren, as they walked along one night,
Saw a big brown beetle on a broomstraw.
Said the robin to the wren: “What a pretty, pretty sight—
That big brown beetle on a broomstraw!”
So they got their plates and knives,
Their children and their wives,
And gobbled up the beetle on the broomstraw.
A silly little mule
Sat on a milking stool
And tried to write a letter to his father.
But he couldn’t find the ink,
So he said: “I rather think
This writing letters home is too much bother.”
A candle, a candle
To light me to bed;
A pillow, a pillow
To tuck up my head.
The moon is as sleepy as sleepy can be,
The stars are all pointing their fingers at me,
And Missus Hop-Robin, way up in her nest,
Is rocking her tired little babies to rest.
So give me a blanket
To tuck up my toes,
And a little soft pillow
To snuggle my nose.
Baxter had a billy-goat
Wall-eyed and double jointed.
He took him to the barber shop
And had his head anointed.
Loddy, Gin, and Ella Zander
Rode to market on a gander;
Bought a crane for half a dollar;
Loddy led him by the collar.
Mister Crane said: “Hi there, master,
Can’t you make your legs work faster?
We can’t poke along this way.”
Then he slowly flew away.
Loddy held him fast, you bet,
And he hasn’t come home yet.
As I was going down the hill
In front of Missus Knapp’s
I saw the little Knapperines
All in their winter wraps—
Purple mitts and mufflers
And knitted jersey caps.
As I was coming back again
In front of Missus Knapp’s
I saw that awful lady
Give about a dozen slaps
To every little Knapperine—
I thought it was, perhaps,
Because they gathered stickers
In their knitted jersey caps.
A little boy ran to the end of the sky
With a rag and a pole and a gooseberry pie.
He cried: “Three cheers for the Fourth of July!”
With a rag and a pole and a gooseberry pie.
He saw three little donkeys at play,
He tickled their noses to make them bray,
And he didn’t come back until Christmas Day—
With a rag and a pole and a gooseberry pie.
A man with a nickel,
A sword, and a sickle,
A pipe, and a paper of pins
Set out for the Niger
To capture a tiger—
And that’s how my story begins.
When he saw the wide ocean,
He soon took a notion
’T would be nicer to stay with his friends.
So he traded his hat
For a tortoise-shell cat—
And that’s how the chronicle ends.
A beetle once sat on a barberry twig,
And turned at the crank of a thingum-a-jig.
Needles for hornets, nippers for ants,
For the bumblebee baby a new pair of pants,
For the grizzled old gopher a hat and a wig,
The beetle ground out of his thingum-a-jig.
Tibbitts and Bibbitts and Solomon Sly
Ran off one day with a cucumber pie.
Tibbitts was tossed by a Kensington cow,
Bibbitts was hanged on a brambleweed bough,
And poor little Solomon—what do you think?
Was drowned one dark night in a bottle of ink.
Some one told Maria Ann,
Maria Ann told me,
That kittens ride in coffee cans
Upon the Irish Sea.
From quiet caves to rolling waves,
How jolly it must be
To travel in a coffee can
Upon the Irish Sea!
But when it snows and when it blows,
How would you like to be
A kitten in a coffee can
Upon the Irish Sea?
Duckle, duckle, daisy,
Martha must be crazy,
She went and made a Christmas cake
Of olive oil and gluten-flake,
And set it in the sink to bake,
Duckle, duckle, daisy.
I’ve got a new book from my Grandfather Hyde.
It’s skin on the cover and paper inside,
And reads about Arabs and horses and slaves,
And tells how the Caliph of Bagdad behaves.
I’d not take a goat and a dollar beside
For the book that I got from my Grandfather Hyde.
A carrot in a garden
And a rabbit in the wood.
Said the rabbit, “Beg your pardon,
But you’re surely meant for food;
Though you’ve started in to harden,
You may still be very good.”
Hippy-Hi-Hoppy, the big fat toad,
Greeted his friends at a turn of the road.
Said he to the snail:
“Here’s a ring for your tail
If you’ll go into town for my afternoon mail.”
Said he to the rat:
“I have talked with the cat;
And she’ll nab you so quick you won’t know where you’re at.”
Said he to the lizard:
“I’m really no wizard,
But I’ll show you a trick that will tickle your gizzard.”
Said he to the lark:
“When it gets fairly dark
We’ll chase the mosquitoes in Peek-a-Boo Park.”
Said he to the owl:
“If it were not for your scowl
I’d like you as well as most any wild fowl.”
Said he to the wren:
“You’re tiny, but then
I’ll marry you quick, if you’ll only say when.”
Set me up on the garden gate
And put on my Sunday tie;
I want to be there
With a round-eyed stare
When the circus band goes by.
Give me a bag of suckerettes
And give me a piece of gum,
Then I’ll get down
And treat the clown,
And give the monkey some.
’Most any chip
Will do for a ship,
If only the cargo be
Golden sand
From the beautiful land
Of far-off Arcady.
For faith will waft
The tiny craft
O’er Fancy’s shining sea.
Who hung his hat on the moon?
The owl in his bubble balloon.
One bright summer night
He sailed out of sight,
And, hooting like Lucifer, hung in delight
His three-cornered hat on the moon.
“What makes you laugh, my little lass,
From morning until noon?”
“I saw a dappled donkey
Throwing kisses at the moon.”
“What makes you cry, my little lass,
And get your eyes so red?”
“I saw a cruel gardener cut
A poor old cabbage head.”
“What makes you run, my little lass?
You’re almost out of breath.”
“A pumpkin made a face at me,
And scared me half to death.”
When Timmy O’Toole
Was going to school
He picked up a package of gum.
He treated the preacher
And Sunday-school teacher,
And gave a policeman some.
A man came from Malden to buy a blue goose.
And what became of the gander?
He went and got tipsy on blackberry juice,
And that was the end of the gander.
The mighty baron, Batteroff,
Raised a whale in a watering trough.
When the whale grew large and fat
He ate the baron’s brindle cat.
But pussy, once inside the whale,
Began to tickle with her tail.
This the monster could not stand,
And spewed her out upon dry land.
That night, when all was fine as silk
And she had supped her bread and milk,
She grinned and told old Batteroff
How she got the whale to cough.
I sing a funny song from away out west,
Of six little salmon with their hats on;
How they all left home—but I forget the rest—
The six little salmon with their hats on.
Oh, I want to go to Garry
On the toot-toot, toot-toot,
You and I together
On the toot-toot, toot-toot.
Go run and ask your mother
For some kind of cake or other,
And a bit of cotton wadding
For your ball-suit.
Get your bobber and a bat,
And be back as quick as scat,
For we’ve got to go to Garry
On the toot-toot.
Bobbin rode a rocking-horse
’Way down to Doubbledoon,
He told his little sister
He’d be back that afternoon.
But maybe after all she didn’t
Understand him right,
For he wasn’t back again
Till the middle of the night.
And what did little Bobbin see
’Way down at Doubbledoon?
He saw a crazy Arab
Throwing bubbles at the moon,
A monkey making faces
And a rabbit in a rage,
A parrot shouting “Murder!”
From the ceiling of his cage.
At last a yellow jumping-jack,
A camel, and a coon,
Chased poor little Bobbin
All the way from Doubbledoon.
Billy Bluebird had a party
In an elder tree,
But the little black-eyed smarty
Didn’t ask us to his party
Neither you nor me.
This is what they had for dinner,
For I peeked to see:
Apple seeds and beetle finner,
And for drink the little sinner
Gave them tansy tea.
But there came an awful clatter
From that elder tree,
When he served them on a platter
Hopper-hash and brick-dust batter
Trimmed with celery!
All the folks were hale and hearty,
Happy as could be;
And that little black-eyed smarty
Left out of his funny party
Only you and me.
I’ve got a yellow puppy,
And I’ve got a speckled hen,
I’ve got a lot of little
Spotted piggies in a pen.
I’ve got a gun that used to shoot,
Another one that squirts,
I’ve got some horehound candy
And a pair of woolen shirts.
I’ve got a little rubber ball
They use for playing golf,
And mamma thinks that’s maybe why
I’ve got the whooping-cough.
Doctor McSwattle
Filled up a bottle
With vinegar, varnish, and rum.
And offered a swallow
To all who would follow
The call of his trumpet and drum.
It’s good, I am told,
For a cough or a cold;
It’s good for a pain in your thumb.
Columbus sailed over the ocean blue
To find the United States.
In three small ships he carried his crew,
And none of the three were mates.
He found a land in the western seas,
And Indians galore,
With jabbering parrots in the trees,
And sharks along the shore.
He filled his pockets with sparkling stones
And took to the mighty main,
With a couple of slaves, some nuts and cones
For the glorious king of Spain.
Now this is the tale Columbus told,
And most of the tale is true,
How he crossed the seas, a sailor bold,
In fourteen-ninety-two.
Haven’t you heard of Terrible Tim!
Well, don’t you get in the way of him.
He eats lions for breakfast
And leopards for lunch,
And gobbles them down
With one terrible crunch.
He could mix a whole city
All up in a mess,
He could drink up a sea
Or an ocean, I guess.
You’d better be watching for Terrible Tim,
And run when you first get your peepers on him.
“What’s the use,”
Said the goose,
“To swim like a frog,
When you go just as far
If you float on a log?”
“Why should I,”
Said the fly,
“Suck an old apple-core,
When there’s sugar and fruit
In the grocery store?”
“It’s but right,”
Said the kite,
“That I follow the wind.
What’s a fellow to do
If he hasn’t a mind?”
“You’ll allow,”
Said the cow,
“That I’m really no thief,
When I turn all the clover
I steal, into beef.”
“Come again,”
Said the hen,
“On some other fine day.
Don’t think ’cause I cackle
I always must lay.”
All aboard for Bombay,
All aboard for Rome!
Leave your little sisters
And your loving aunts at home.
Bring a bit of bailing wire,
A pocketful of nails,
And half a dozen wiener-wursts
For every man that sails.
Tell Terry Tagg, when you go by,
Be sure to bring his dog.
All aboard for Bombay
On a floating cedar log!
There’s water in the rain barrel,
And water in the well,
There’s lots of water in the pond
Where Hannah Hawkins fell.
There’s water in the ocean,
And water in the skies,
And when a fellow blubbers
He gets water in his eyes.
But in the Barca desert
Where the hippodoodles play,
The water in the rivers
Just dries up and blows away.
Old Molly is lowing and lowing
’Way down in the old meadow lot.
I’ve given her water and clover,
And all of the apples I’ve got;
But she won’t eat a thing that I give her,
And never drinks even a sup,
For they’ve taken her baby to market
And some one has eaten it up.
I’d just like to go to the city
And cut them all up into halves
And feed them to sharks and to lions—
Those people that eat little calves.
The snowflakes are falling by ones and by twos;
There’s snow on my jacket, and snow on my shoes;
There’s snow on the bushes, and snow on the trees—
It’s snowing on everything now, if you please.
Dippy-Dippy-Davy,
Half the Royal Navy
In the dampness and the dark
Was driving off a savage shark
To Dippy-Dippy-Davy.
When I’m as rich as Uncle Claus,
With whiskers on my chin,
I’m going to have a great big house
To put my people in.
I’ll never let them wander out
Or ride with me to town;
They’ll come a-running when I shout
And tremble when I frown.
I’ll have some men in soldier tents,
A pirate and his mate,
And wildcats all around the fence,
And mad dogs on the gate.
Rinky-tattle, rinky-tattle,
Rinky-tattle—who?
Little Tommy Taylor
Is a rinky-tattle too.
Twenty little snowflakes climbing up a wire.
“Now, listen,” said their mother, “don’t you climb up any higher.
The sun will surely catch you, and scorch you with his fire.”
But the naughty little snowflakes didn’t mind a word she said,
Each tried to clamber faster than his fellow just ahead;
They thought that they’d be back in time enough to go to bed.
But they found out that their mother wasn’t quite the dunce they thought her,
The sun bobbed up—remember this, my little son and daughter—
And turned those twenty snowflakes into twenty drops of water.
Slippery Slim, a garter snake,
Leaned against a garden rake
And smiled a sentimental smile
At Tilly Toad, on the gravel pile,
Till that bashful miss was forced to hop
And hide her face in a carrot-top.
Through fog and rain
I run my train
Wherever the track is laid,
And over the road
I carry a load
Whenever the freight is paid.
A kaddy of tea
For Genessee,
For Troy an empty crate,
A man in brown
For Uniontown
To help them celebrate.
No one at home in the hen-house,
And no one at home in the barn,
Old Brindle has gone to the neighbor’s
To borrow a skein of brown yarn,
To borrow yarn for the darning
Of socks for her wee spotted calf—
The little rollicking rascal
Has never enough by half.
And Speckle is down by the willow
Washing her chicks in the lake,
While old Daddy Cockle is lying
Abed with a bad toothache.
Patters had a gallant band,
An army made of clay.
But Tatters took the garden hose
And washed them all away.
Crown the king with carrot tops,
Dress him in sateen,
Give him lots of licorice drops,
With suckers in between.
For he’s a king with lots of power
And awful, awful fierce,
He kills a pirate every hour
And washes in his tears.
He rides a charger ten feet high,
A dashing, dappled gray;
Has ginger pop and lemon pie
For breakfast every day.
So get a royal canopy,
The finest ever seen,
And whiskers for his majesty,
And tresses for the queen.
A Canada goose
On the South Palouse
Is singing her summer song.
Her words are wise,
And she greets the skies
With a voice like a steamer gong:
“If you harbor your wealth
And keep your health,
You’ll always be rich and strong.”
Hipperty, clickerty, clackerty, bang,
Get in a corner as fast as you can!
The sideboard is tipsy, the table is mad,
The chairs have lost all the sense that they had.
So hipperty, clickerty, clackerty, bang,
Get in a corner as fast as you can!
A sailor gave his sonny
Nearly half a pint of money
And sent him out to buy a ton of coal;
But he met a poor old miser
Who told him it were wiser
To bury all his money in a hole.
A sailor gave his sonny
Nearly half a pint of money
And told him he should buy a suit of clothes;
But he saw a pretty maiden
With all kinds of posies laden,
And he gave her all his money for a rose.
Then the sailor gave his sonny
Nearly half a pint of money
To buy a little garden and a house;
But he found him the next day,
In a shop on Yesler Way,
A-buying cheese and crackers for a mouse.
A stove is a thing that gets awfully hot,
And fries up your meat, or whatever you’ve got.
It’s made out of iron and hinges and screws,
And filled up with shakers, and dampers, and flues.
It’s not very long and it’s not very wide;
It’s got black’ning on top and ashes inside.
Have you heard of the Thunder Baby
Way up in the big blue sky?
You’ve seen his cradle, maybe,
And maybe you’ve heard him cry.
Most of the time he’s sleeping,
Rolled up in a big white cloud,
But when he’s awake and hungry
He bellows awfully loud.
And when he’s crying, sometimes
You can hear his teardrops fall
With a patter, patter, patter,
Against the garden wall.
But when he’s madder’n mischief,
He rolls, and growls, and spits,
And kicks the clouds all forty ways,
And gives the weather fits.
Then tears come down in bucketfuls,
And children dance for joy,
Till the sun comes out and soundly spanks
Her Thunder Baby Boy.
Hinky, pinky, pearly earl,
Twenty nobles and a churl;
Some are fat and some are lean,
One in red and one in green—
Prior, priest, and pearly earl,
Twenty nobles and a churl.
Tipsy Tom, the naughty fellow,
Dressed his wife in pink and yellow,
Set her in an apple tree,
And said: “Now catch a bumblebee.”
Jolly Jinks, the sailor man,
Went to sea in an oyster can.
But he found the water wet,
Fishes got into his net,
So he pulled his boat to shore
And vowed he’d sail the seas no more.
Auntie Ellen found her poodle—
Mercy! Goodness sake!—
Playing with the mully-wumps
Down along the lake.
And when she called him tenderly
He didn’t want to come;
It took her over half an hour
To get the rascal home.
She washed him well with shaving-soap,
Pumice stone and lye,
She showered him and she scoured him
And she hung him up to dry.
And now he sits there quite serene,
The sweetest poodle ever seen.
Bricks and bones!
Sticks and stones!
I chased a thief through twenty zones.
I found his hat
On Ararat,
And hurried on as quick as scat.
In a day or two
I found his shoe
Where he had sailed for Timbuktu.
I met the goat
That ate his coat
Upon the road to Terre Haute.
At last all worn
And quite forlorn
I chased him up the Matterhorn.
Somebody give me a peanut,
Somebody give me a pear;
I want to go down to the circus
And feed all the animals there.
A dime and a dollar
Took me by the collar
And whispered this word in my ear:
“We must leave you to-morrow,
But prithee don’t sorrow,
We’ll come back to see you next year.”
Said the Robin to the Squirrel,
“How d’ you do?”
Said the Squirrel to the Robin,
“How are you?”
“Oh, I’ve got some cherry pies,
And a half a dozen flies,
And a kettle full of beetles on to stew.”
Said the Squirrel to the Robin,
“How d’ you do?”
Said the Robin to the Squirrel,
“How are you?”
“I’ve a nest that’s nice and neat,
And a wife that can’t be beat,
And I’m every bit as happy now as you.”
The King had a platter
Of brisket and batter,
The Prince had a Bellington bun,
The Queen had a rose
To put to her nose
As soon as the dinner was done.
The lightning split the sky in two
And set the clouds to leaking
Just as dear old Pastor Brown
Began his Sunday speaking.
He told about the awful rain
That fell in Noah’s day,
And one by one the happy smiles
Began to fade away.
In half an hour the people all
Put on their rubber coats,
And when he finished everyone
Was out and building boats.
Old Father McNether
He sorts out the weather
And takes what he pleases, I’m told,
With a big turkey-feather
He mixes the weather,
And makes it blow hot and blow cold.
Jerry was a joker.
He carried off the poker
And dressed it up from head to heel
In clover-tops and orange-peel
And fed it bones and barley meal.
Poor old Rusty Poker!
King Kokem lay snoozing upon his brass bed—
Oh, play an old tune on your fiddle!
With shoes on his feet, and a crown on his head—
Oh, tune up your rusty old fiddle!
He dreamed of a land where the lions were tame,
Where they fried their lamb-chops on a griddle,
Where they called all the parrots and monkeys by name—
Oh, play us a tune on your fiddle!
[67]He dreamed of a sea filled with raspberry pop,
With a cocoanut isle in the middle,
Where the stones and the boulders had icing on top—
Go strike up a tune on your fiddle!
He dreamed of a sky where the moonbeams all danced
While a comet was telling a riddle,
Where the stars and the planets and sun-dogs all pranced
While the moon played his fiddle de diddle.
Old Missus Skinner
Had dumplings for dinner
And sat on a very high stool;
When she cut thru the hide
There was nothing inside,
Which I’m sure was not often the rule.
Oh, Mother, Oh, Mother,
Come quickly and see,
The house and the farmyard
Have gone on a spree.
The pig’s in the pantry,
The chickens are out,
The parrot is perched
On the tea kettle spout.
And mercy, Oh, mercy,
Oh, what shall I do?
A rat has run off
With my very best shoe.
Two funny friends that you all know
Are Cella Ree and Tommy To.
About as queer as friends can be,
Are Tommy To and Cella Ree.
For hours they sit there grim and stable
Side by side upon the table.
Tom is red and Cella pale,
His blushes are of no avail;
She sits, in spite of his endeavor,
As firm and undisturbed as ever,
A funny pair, you must agree,
This Tommy To and Cella Ree.
If I were richer
I’d buy a pitcher
With scenery on it.
’Jolica ware—
Storks here and there,
And a funny affair
With ladies on it.
In half a minute
I’d mix up in it
A wonderful drink—
Peppermint, ice,
Lemons and spice—
Taste pretty nice,
What do you think?
O the Army of the Queen,
The Army of the Queen,
Some are dressed in turkey-red
And some are dressed in green;
A colonel and a captain,
A corporal in between,
Their guns are filled with powder
And their swords are bright and keen;
So toot your little trumpet
For the Army of the Queen.
Romulus, Romulus,
Father of Rome,
Ran off with a wolf
And he wouldn’t come home.
When he grew up
He founded a city
With an eagle, a bear,
And a tortoise-shell kitty.
My dad was a soldier and fought in the wars,
My grandfather fought on the sea,
And the tales of their daring and valor of course
Put the sand and the ginger in me.
I’m not scared of tigers or any wild beast,
I could fight with a lion all right,
I wouldn’t be ’fraid of a bear in the least—
Excepting, perhaps, in the night.
But sister, she’s skeery as skeery can be,
She’s even afraid of the bark of a tree.
Percy when a little boy
Was quiet as a mouse,
He never set the barn afire
Nor battered down the house.
He used to sit for hours and hours
Just gazing at the moon,
And feeding little fishes
Sarsaparilla from a spoon.
Moon, O Moon in the empty sky,
Why do you swing so low?
Pretty moon with the silver ring
And the long bright beams where the fairies cling,
Where do you always go?
I go to the land of the Siamese,
Ceylon and the Great Plateau,
Over the seas where Sinbad sailed,
Where Moses crossed and Pharaoh failed,—
There’s where I always go.
“Rag-man, rag-man,
Taggy, taggy, rag-man,
Tell us what you’ve got there in your sack.”
“Oh—it’s full of rimes and riddles,
Jingles, jokes, and hi-de-diddles—
This bundle that I carry on my back.”
“O tell us, funny rag-man,
Grinny, skinny rag-man,
Where did you pick up your funny rimes?”
“Some were dancing with corn-flowers,
Some were hiding in church-towers,
And sprinkled helter-skelter by the chimes.”
“Rag-man, rag-man,
Nice old taggy rag-man,
Sing us just one jingle, tingle song.”
“Why, my dears, I’ve got a plenty,
Sing you one? I’ll sing you twenty—
I’ve been hoping you would ask me all along.”
Whenever I go out to walk,
All the geese begin to gawk;
And when I start to wander back,
All the ducks begin to quack.
Mister McCune
Can whistle a tune,
Old Uncle Strong
Can sing us a song,
Benjamin Biddle
Can play on the fiddle,
Captain O’Trigg
Can dance us a jig,
And I, if I’m able,
Will tell you a fable.
Heigho, Billy Bumpkins,
How d’ you grow your pumpkins?
“At six o’clock I sows ’em,
At ten o’clock I hoes ’em,
An’ jes before I goes to bed
I puts ’em in the pumpkin shed.”
Tell us, Billy Bumpkins,
How d’ you sell your pumpkins?
“I lends ’em to the ladies,
I gives ’em to the babies,
An’ trades a hundred for a kiss
To any pretty little miss.”
Blue flames and red flames
In a world all dark;
Blue flames and red flames,
And a tiny spark
Hurrying to heaven, lest it should be late;
Lest the cautious seraphim close the shining gate,
And leave the little wanderer forevermore to fly
Like an orphan angel through the endless sky.
Poor little Timothy Grady
Screwed up his face at a lady,
And, jiminy jack!
It wouldn’t come back.
The louder he hollered
The tighter it grew,
His eyes are all red
And his lips are all blue.
Oh, mercy me, what in the world will he do?
Poor little Timothy Grady!
Captain Tickle had a nickel
In a paper sack,
He threw it in the river
And he couldn’t get it back.
Captain Tickle spent his nickel
For a rubber ball,
And when he cut it open
There was nothing there at all.
O Grandmother Grundy,
Now what would you say
If the katydids carried
Your glasses away—
Carried them off
To the top of the sky
And used them to watch
The eclipses go by?
Needles and pins, hooks and eyes!
I saw a doughnut in the skies.
Flipperjinks the circus clown
Climbed a tree and got it down.
Tassle is a captain,
Tinsel is a mayor,
Tony is a baker-boy
With ’lasses in his hair,
Tipsy is a sailor,
With anchors on his chest,
And Tiny is the baby boy
Who bosses all the rest.
Harry Hooker had a book
And couldn’t find a teacher.
But still he managed very well,
He climbed a box and rang a bell
And turned into a preacher.
Jelly Jake and Butter Bill
One dark night when all was still
Pattered down the long, dark stair,
And no one saw the guilty pair;
Pushed aside the pantry-door
And there found everything galore,—
Honey, raisins, orange-peel,
Cold chicken aplenty for a meal,
Gingerbread enough to fill
Two such boys as Jake and Bill.
Well, they ate and ate and ate,
Gobbled at an awful rate
Till I’m sure they soon weighed more
Than double what they did before.
And then, it’s awful, still it’s true,
[81]
The floor gave way and they went thru.
Filled so full they couldn’t fight.
Slowly they sank out of sight.
Father, Mother, Cousin Ann,
Cook and nurse and furnace man
Fished in forty-dozen ways
After them, for twenty days;
But not a soul has chanced to get
A glimpse or glimmer of them yet.
And I’m afraid we never will—
Poor Jelly Jake and Butter Bill.
Cut up a caper,
You’ve got a paper
And I’ve got a widget of string.
You be the army
And let nothing harm me
For I am the captain and king.
Here come the sweet potatoes
And here’s the Sunday meat,
I guess we must be ready now
To eat, eat, eat.
I’m going to have the nicey plate
And Daddy’s leather seat,
And wear my patent-leather shoes
To eat, eat, eat.
My Daddy’s talking all about
The war, and some old fleet,
I wonder if he never, never,
Never wants to eat.
We’re going to have some apple-cake,
We’re going to have a treat.
O hurry, hurry, Daddy,
Let us eat, eat, eat.
Hetty Hutton,
Here’s a button,
Sew it on your dress.
Willie Waller,
Here’s a dollar,
Maybe more or less.
Mister Shuster,
Here’s a rooster,
Put him in a pen.
Mister Saxon,
Get an ax an’
Let him out again.
A big, fat potato lay down on a clod
In the shade of some burdock and tall goldenrod,
And he dreamed he were king of the whole garden plot,
With a palace and throne, and a crown with a lot
Of jewels and diamonds and gold till it shone
Like the front of a show when the lights are turned on.
He had to be minded by all of the plants;
When he whistled the radishes knew they must dance;
When he tooted his horn the cucumbers must sing
To a vegetable crowd gathered round in a ring.
He made all the cabbages stand in a row
While a sunflower instructed them just how to grow;
The bright yellow pumpkins he painted light blue;
Took the clothes off the scare-crow and made him buy new.
He strutted and sputtered and thought it was grand
To be king and commander o’er all the wide land.
But at last he woke up with an awful surprise
And found a blind mole kicking sand in his eyes.
A bundle of hay
From Baffin’s Bay,
A johnny-cake from Rome,
A man and a mule
From Ultima Thule
To carry the cargo home.
Peter, popper, dopper, Dan,
Catch a moonbeam if you can;
Climb a cedar ten feet high
And pick the planets from the sky.
You’re a wonder, little man—
Peter, popper, dopper, Dan.
Old Father Annum on New Year’s Day
Picked up his bag of months and years,
Thrust in his hand in a careless way,
And pulled a wee fellow out by the ears.
“There you are,” said he to the waiting crowd,
“He’s as good as any I have in my pack.
I never can tell, but I hope to be proud
Of the little rascal when I come back.”
O what will you take for a tippany flower,
And what will you take for a pansy?
I’ll take a smile for the tippany flower,
And a kiss for the pretty pansy.
Here comes a cabbage with a bonnet on its head,
A pretty purple bonnet with a bow of blue and red;
And here comes a bottle with a collar ’round its neck,
A handsome linen collar, too, without a spot or speck;
Next comes a meat-saw, his job is biting beef,
And according to the cleaver he has gold in all his teeth;
And last of all there comes along, amid the ringing cheers,
A princely Indian corn-stalk with rings in both his ears.
There are plenty feathers on a hen
And prickers on a rose,
There is plenty roaring in a den
Of lions, goodness knows;
There are plenty fishes in the lake
And islands in the sea;
There are plenty raisins in this cake
For even you and me.
A pipe and a spoon and a tenpenny nail
Stole a tin dishpan and went for a sail.
But the cook he grew curious,
Fussy, and furious;
Gathered his trappings, and went on their trail.
He found them that night in a pitiful plight,
And sent them all home on the ten o’clock mail.
Hi! Hi! Who will buy
A wee little cloud for the pretty blue sky?
Some are purple, some are red,
And all are soft as a feather bed.
Hi! Little children, won’t any one buy
One little cloud for the pretty blue sky?
A race, a race to Moscow,
Before the close of day!
A race, a race to Moscow,
A long, long way!
First comes a butterfly a-riding on a frog,
Next comes a water rat a-floating on a log;
A caterpillar on the fence, a hopper in the hay—
Who’ll get to Moscow before the close of day?
A prince came down from Pepperville
In satin and in lace,
He wore a bonnet on his head
And whiskers on his face.
And when he came to Battleburg
This is what befell:
He gave the king and cabinet
A half a peanut shell.
Hitch up your cattle
And drive to Seattle
To see all the boats come in,—
From Kibi and Kobi
And Panama Dobi
And some from the Islands of Myn.
They’re bringing us rices
And cocoa and spices
And pineapples done up in tin,
And maybe Aunt Dinah
Will come back from China
If ever the boats get in.
Pretty poppies,
Pretty trees,
Pretty little lettuce-leaves,
Pretty pebbles,
Red and brown,
Pretty floating thistle-down.
Pretty baby,
Curly head,
Standing in a pansy-bed,
Pretty clouds
All white and curled—
O the great, big pretty world!
Did you ever go to the watering trough
And watch the sparrows drink?
Did you ever go to Potter’s pond
And see the divers sink?
Did you ever steal to the barn at night
And watch the hoot-owls think?
Hootem, tootem, clear the track!
I caught a coon on Kamiak!
Colonel Clapp and Uncle Rome
Have hired a hack to bring it home.
On a hummock by the lake
Stands the home of Doctor Drake,
Poor old doctor, how he works!
Week by week he never shirks—
Pulling teeth for guinea-fowl,
Soothing puppies when they howl,
Whittling out a hickory peg
For a gander’s broken leg,
Giving medicine away
About a hundred times a day,
Linseed oil and elder-bark
To a croaking meadowlark,
Nasty, bitter yarrow-tea
To a tipsy bumble-bee,
A poultice made of plantain leaves
To cure a rabbit with the heaves.
Fever, colic, cramp, or stitch,
Kitten-croup or beaver’s-itch,
Any kind of pain or ache
Is cured by dear, old Doctor Drake.
Come to the land where the babies grow,
Like flowers in the green, green grass.
Tiny babes that swing and crow
Whenever the warm winds pass,
And laugh at their own bright eyes aglow
In a fairy looking-glass.
Come to the sea where the babies sail
In ships of shining pearl,
Borne to the west by a golden gale
Of sun-beams all awhirl;
And perhaps a baby brother will sail
To you, my little girl.
Twenty thieves from Albion,
All with butcher knives,
Coming on the dead run,
Fighting for their lives.
See the man from our town.
In a fancy vest,
Knocking all the big ones down,
Chasing all the rest.
As I came out of Grundy Greet
Four cats were marching down the street
One was long and gray and thin
With lots of whiskers on his chin,
And one was round and sleek and fat
(He must have been a butcher’s cat).
One was dapper, slight, and frail,
With bells and tassels on his tail,
And one had starey yellow eyes
Almost as big as pumpkin pies.
These four came marching down the street
As I came out of Grundy Greet.
