The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes | Page 3

in it too,
And a big wildcat,
and--mebbe--you.
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
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
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.

[Illustration]
PINKY, PINKY, PANG
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! 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.
[Illustration: TICK, TOCK! TICK, TOCK! FORTY 'LEVEN BY THE
CLOCK]
[Illustration]
UNDER THE WILLOW
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
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?"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BOOTS, BOOTS, BOOTS
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.
[Illustration]
BUTTERFLY
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.
BEELA BY THE SEA

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.
[Illustration]
A MATTER OF TASTE
"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
"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."
[Illustration]
OH, SAID THE WORM
"Oh," said the worm,
"I'm awfully tired of sitting in the trees;
I
want to be a butterfly
And chase the bumblebees."
[Illustration]
BUZZY BROWN

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
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.
[Illustration: THE WIND CAME A-WHOOPING DOWN
CRANBERRY HILL]
THE HOBO BAND
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!
[Illustration]
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