The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes | Page 9

TO WALK
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
A FREE SHOW
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.
BILLY BUMPKINS
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."
[Illustration]
BLUE FLAMES AND RED FLAMES
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.
TIMOTHY GRADY
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 AND HIS NICKEL
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
GRANDMOTHER GRUNDY
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
Needles and pins, hooks and eyes!
I saw a doughnut in the skies.

Flipperjinks the circus clown
Climbed a tree and got it down.
[Illustration: NEEDLES AND PINS, HOOKS AND EYES!]
A TOE RIME
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
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.
[Illustration]
JELLY JAKE AND BUTTER BILL
[Illustration]
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,
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.
[Illustration]
CUT UP A CAPER
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A TREAT]
EAT, EAT, EAT
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.
[Illustration]
HETTY HUTTON
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.
[Illustration]
A BIG, FAT POTATO
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