Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) Fun and Thought for Little Folk

I

Humpty lay on hard ground, onlookers tearful.

II

Wiping streaming eyes, he said: “This fall was awful; a low seat is safest.”

III

Not everyone suits a high wall: lacking balance, too small, falling messily.

IV

He told king’s horses and men: low-seat souls rise and crow.

V

The crowd carried him off, forgetting the lesson. Queen baked tarts; Knave stole them; King beat him; he returned them. She baked cake; he stole it; King made him eat it, sickening him; royals ate pastries. Next day pies; King mocked; he groaned, “Not I.” An old man in leather complimented the narrator till he grinned; a goggled man tooted a horn, knocked him flat, sped off. Cole called for pipe, bowl, three fiddlers—“none so rare.”

I

Queen Kate called carousing bad; fiddlers had fine fiddles, Cole restless once she slept.

II

She disapproved; Cole planted his crown: “We’ll wait till she retires.” Fiddlers tuned; he fetched pipe, bowl.

III

The chapter opens mid-jingle, with a fiddler so carried away by his music that he loses track of time until the Queen’s step overhead sends him scrambling. Every fiddler has a fine fiddle, the verse insists, and his is no exception—so it seems a shame that such a rare concert must be cut short.

From there the collection tumbles into the warm, familiar territory of nursery debate. A tabby cat dozes beside the fire while a small dog arrives to scold her for laziness. Pussy answers back with dignity: she is not idle, she explains—her closed eyes conceal a great deal of thinking, and her purring is the sound of songs she will sing when she prowls at night. Only little dogs, she adds primly, judge a body idle unless it is chasing its tail or barking up a tree. Winter, too, gets its turn: a robin, asked how he shall fare when the north wind blows and the snow flies, answers that he will simply sit in the barn, hide his head under his wing, and trust the spring. When warmth returns, he will sing for everyone and never complain of the wet.

Humor runs through the next verses in quick jabs. A woman complains that her husband, no bigger than her thumb, is an awful care despite the pint pot she has drummed him in, the tiny handkerchief for his nose, and the garters for his hose. A wise man of the town jumps into a bramble bush and scratches out both his eyes, then into another to scratch them in again; later he snips off his ears with shears and snips them back, all in the name of using his senses to see and hear what is going on. A Boston-bound traveler is told to go up with one foot and down with the other—steady and slow—because, as the Bostonians themselves report, no other place is worth the trouble.

“Sing a Song o’ Sixpence” arrives in two versions: the original, with the King counting money, the Queen eating honey, the maid hanging clothes, and the blackbird nipping off her nose; and a sequel, in which the same maid, having baked a pie of her own, resolves that at least one blackbird shall never nip again. “I Love Little Pussy” offers a tender couplet about warming a kitten by the fire, followed by a rueful verse from someone whose dolly has paid for her curiosity with scratched hands and torn frock.

Elizabeth Raymond Woodward contributes a sly parody, “The Horner Brothers.” Jack Horner had three brothers—James, George, and little Hugh—and whatever Jackie did, they did too. When Jack’s Christmas pie was made, three more pies were baked. When Jack sat in his corner to find his plum, four corners were needed, one for each boy. The repetition builds to the obvious punchline, then insists upon it four times, like a tongue-tied tongue twister.

A handful of shorter jingles follows: an old man with a shiny bald head who, told there is no bread, demands toast that is “crusty and brown”; a man in town who skips and hops and plays a trumpet all day; an enormous owl perched on an oak who seems to be all eyes and no head; a golden boat sailing toward southern seas; a thoroughly modern pussy-cat who has driven her new machine to London and broken down there; and the cheerful misery of Jane with a toothache and John with the gout, while the rain falls and the fire goes out. Lucy Fitch Perkins sketches the King and Queen riding on a load of hay, the King losing his crown, the Queen tearing her gown.

Then comes a long, wandering tale in rhyme, Ellen Manly’s “A Message to Mother Goose.” It begins with a child who has never heard of Mother Goose—an alarming fact—and traces a great chain of messengers. The Man in the Moon sees her and tells the Man so Wondrous Wise, who tells Old King Cole and his Fiddlers Three. A fiddler is sent running to Jack Horner, who is too busy with his plums to help. The King of France is pressed into service and rounds up Jack and Jill, who fetch Bo-Peep, who wakes Boy Blue asleep by the hay, who sends the Knave of Hearts to the Maiden all Forlorn, who tells John Barleycorn and Tom the Piper’s Son. Tom runs for John Stout; Miss Muffet drops her curds and flies to Mother Hubbard’s; Jack Sprat is lecturing Tommy Green about drowning pussy-cat when she arrives; Tommy Tucker abandons his supper; Mary Quite Contrary leaves her silver bells and shells; the Man in Leather lends his coat against the rain; and Little Polly Flinders cheers the rescuers on. They find Mother Goose just as she is about to brew tea, and she immediately calls for her steeple hat, her high-heeled shoes, and her gander, who carries her through the sky to Santa Claus himself. What the two old friends say is not heard, but the result is plain: that very Christmas the benighted child receives a most enchanting book and learns to love them all.