Carolyn Wells
The Jingle Book
The Tutor
A tutor who tooted the flute
Tried to teach two young tooters to toot.
Said the two to the tutor,
“Is it harder to toot, or
To tutor two tooters to toot?”
A Serious Question
A kitten went a-walking
One morning in July,
And idly fell a-talking
With a great big butterfly.
The kitten’s tone was airy,
The butterfly would scoff;
When there came along a fairy
Who whisked his wings right off.
And then—for it is written
Fairies can do such things—
Upon the startled kitten
She stuck the yellow wings.
The kitten felt a quiver,
She rose into the air,
Then flew down to the river
To view her image there.
With fear her heart was smitten,
And she began to cry,
“Am I a butter-kitten?
Or just a kitten-fly?”
Two Old Kings
Oh! the King of Kanoodledum
And the King of Kanoodledee,
They went to sea
In a jigamaree—
A full-rigged jigamaree.
And one king couldn’t steer,
And the other, no more could he;
So they both upset
And they both got wet,
As wet as wet could be.
And one king couldn’t swim
And the other, he couldn’t, too;
So they had to float,
While their empty boat
Danced away o’er the sea so blue.
Then the King of Kanoodledum
He turned a trifle pale,
And so did he
Of Kanoodledee,
But they saw a passing sail!
And one king screamed like fun
And the other king screeched like mad,
And a boat was lowered
And took them aboard;
And, my! but those kings were glad!
A Day Dream
Polly’s patchwork—oh, dear me!—
Truly is a sight to see.
Rumpled, crumpled, soiled, and frayed—
Will the quilt be ever made?
See the stitches yawning wide—
Can it be that Polly
tried
?
Some are right and some are wrong,
Some too short and some too long,
Some too loose and some too tight;
Grimy smudges on the white,
And a tiny spot of red,
Where poor Polly’s finger bled.
Strange such pretty, dainty blocks—
Bits of Polly’s summer frocks—
Should have proved so hard to sew,
And the cause of so much woe!
One day it was
very
hot,
And the thread got in a knot,
Drew the seam up in a heap—
Polly calmly fell asleep.
Then she had a lovely dream;
Straight and even was the seam,
Pure and spotless was the white;
All the blocks were finished quite—
Each joined to another one.
Lo, behold! the quilt was done,—
Lined and quilted,—and it seemed
To cover Polly as she dreamed!
Our Club
We’re going to have the mostest fun!
It’s going to be a club;
And no one can belong to it
But Dot and me and Bub.
We thought we’d have a Reading Club,
But couldn’t ’cause, you see,
Not one of us knows how to read—
Not Dot nor Bub nor me.
And then we said a Sewing Club,
But thought we’d better not;
’Cause none of us knows how to sew—
Not me nor Bub nor Dot.
And so it’s just a Playing Club,
We play till time for tea;
And, oh, we have the bestest times!
Just Dot and Bub and me.
Puzzled
There lived in ancient Scribbletown a wise old writer-man,
Whose name was Homer Cicero Demosthenes McCann.
He’d written treatises and themes till, “For a change,” he said,
“I think I’ll write a children’s book before I go to bed.”
He pulled down all his musty tomes in Latin and in Greek;
Consulted cyclopædias and manuscripts antique,
Essays in Anthropology, studies in counterpoise—
“For these,” he said, “are useful lore for little girls and boys.”
He scribbled hard, and scribbled fast, he burned the midnight oil,
And when he reached “The End” he felt rewarded for his toil;
He said, “This charming Children’s Book is greatly to my credit.”
And now he’s sorely puzzled that no child has ever read it.
An Intercepted Valentine
Little Bo-Peep, will you be mine?
I want you for my Valentine.
You are my choice of all the girls,
With your blushing cheeks and your fluttering curls,
With your ribbons gay and your kirtle neat,
None other is so fair and sweet.
Little Bo-Peep, let’s run away,
And marry each other on Midsummer Day;
And ever to you I’ll be fond and true,
Your faithful Valentine,
Little Boy Blue.
A Long-Felt Want
One day wee Willie and his dog
Sprawled on the nursery floor.
He had a florist’s catalogue,
And turned the pages o’er,
Till all at once he gave a spring,
“Hurrah!” he cried with joy;
“Mamma, here’s just the very thing
To give your little boy!
“For when we fellows go to school,
We lose our things, you know;
And in that little vestibule
They do get mixed up so.
“And as you often say you can’t
Take care of ’em for me,
Why don’t you buy a
rubber plant
,
And an
umbrella tree
?”
The Musical Carp
There once was a corpulent carp
Who wanted to play on a harp,
But to his chagrin
So short was his fin
That he couldn’t reach up to C sharp.
The Intelligent Hen
’Twas long ago,—a year or so,—
In a barnyard by the sea,
That an old hen lived whom you may know
By the name of Fiddle-de-dee.
She scratched around in the sand all day,
For a lively old hen was she.
And then do you know, it happened this way
In that barnyard by the sea;
A great wise owl came down one day,
And hooted at Fiddle-de-dee,
Just hooted at Fiddle-de-dee.
And he cried, “Hi! Hi! old hen, I say!
You’re provincial, it seems to me!”
“Why, what do you mean?” cried the old red hen,
As mad as hops was she.
“Oh, I’ve been ’round among great men,
In the world where the great men be.
And none of them scratch with their claws like you,
They write with a quill like me.”
Now very few people could get ahead
Of that old hen, Fiddle-de-dee.
She went and hunted the posy-bed,
And returned in triumphant glee.
And ever since then, that little red hen,
She writes with a jonquil pen, quil pen,
She writes with a jonquil pen.
The Happy Hyena
There once was a happy Hyena
Who played on an old concertina.
He dressed very well,
And in his lapel
He carelessly stuck a verbena.
A Great Lady
This is the Queen of Nonsense Land,
She wears her bonnet on her hand;
She carpets her ceilings and frescos her floors,
She eats on her windows and sleeps on her doors.
Oh, ho! Oh, ho! to think there could be
A lady so silly-down-dilly as she!
She goes for a walk on an ocean wave,
She fishes for cats in a coral cave;
She drinks from an empty glass of milk,
And lines her potato trees with silk.
I’m sure that fornever and never was seen
So foolish a thing as the Nonsense Queen!
She ordered a wig for a blue bottle fly,
And she wrote a note to a pumpkin pie;
She makes all the oysters wear emerald rings,
And does dozens of other nonsensible things.
Oh! the scatterbrained, shatterbrained lady so grand,
Her Royal Skyhighness of Nonsense Land!
Opulent Ollie
One Saturday opulent Ollie
Thought he’d go for a ride on the trolley;
But his pennies were few,—
He only had two,—
So he went and made mud-pies with Polly.
The Two Bears
Prince Curlilocks remarked one day
To Princess Dimplecheek,
“I haven’t had a real good play
For more than ’most a week.”
Said Princess Dimplecheek, “My dear,
Your majesty forgets—
This morning we played grenadier
With grandpa’s epaulets.
“And yesterday we sailed to Spain—
We both were pirates bold,
And braved the wild and raging main
To seek for hidden gold.”
“True,” said the prince; “I mind me well—
Right hardily we fought,
And stormed a massive citadel
To gain the prize we sought.
“But if your ladyship agrees,
Methinks we’ll go upstairs
And build a waste of arctic seas,
And we’ll be polar bears.”
“Yes, if you’ll promise not to bite,”
Fair Dimplecheek replied,
Already half-way up the flight,
His highness by her side.
“Princess, on that far window-seat,
Go, sit thee down and wait,
While I ask nursie for a sheet,
Or maybe six or eight.”
A pile of sheets his hig