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 highness brought.
“Dear princess, pray take these;
Although our path with danger’s fraught,
We’ll reach the polar seas.”

Two furry rugs his lordship bore,
Two pairs of mittens white;
He threw them on the nursery floor
And shouted with delight.

He spread those sheets—the funny boy—
O’er table, floor, and chair.
“Princess,” said he, “don’t you enjoy
This frosty, bracing air?

“These snowy sheets are fields of ice,
This is an iceberg grim.”
“Yes, dear, I think it’s very nice,”
She said, and smiled at him.

And then they donned the rugs of fur,
The mittens, too, they wore;
And Curlilocks remarked to her,
“Now you must roar and roar.”

Dimplecheek looked out from the cowl
Formed by her furry rug.
“I’m ’fraid of bears that only growl—
I like the kind that hug.”

The Very Merry Voyage of the Macaroni Man

This figure here before you is a Macaroni Man,
Who is built, as you may notice, on a most ingenious plan.
His skeleton, I beg to state, is made of hairpins three,
Which are bent and curved and twisted to a marvellous degree.
His coat-sleeves and his trouser-legs, his head and eke his waist
Are made of superfine imported macaroni paste.
And if you care to listen, you may hear the thrilling tale
Of the merry Macaroni Man’s extraordinary sail.
One sunny day he started for a voyage in his yacht,
His anxious mother called to him, and said, “You’d better not!
Although the sun is shining bright, I fear that it may rain;
And don’t you think, my darling boy, you’d better take the train?”
“Oh, no,” said he, “no clouds I see,—the sky is blue and clear,
I will return in time for tea—good-by, my mother dear.”

Full merrily he started off, the day was fine and fair,
And to his great delight he found no dampness in the air.
You know if he gets wet, a Macaroni Man is spoiled,
And if he stands too near the steam, of course he may get boiled.
But our hero used precautions,—carefully he shunned the spray,—
And when the steam blew toward him, he just steered the other way.
Now, as the breeze was from the land, his course lay out to sea;
He sailed so far that he felt sure he would be late for tea.
He sailed, and sailed, and sailed, and sailed,—he feared the dew would fall—
He tried to turn,—but oh, that steam! it would not do at all!

A single puff blew toward him, and it nearly cooked his face!
The mournful Macaroni Man felt sadly out of place.
But a happy thought occurred to him, “Ha, ha,—ho, ho!” said he,—
“I’ll just sail on around the world,—and then, it seems to me,
I’ll reach my home (according to a careful estimate)
In time for tea, although I’ll be perhaps a trifle late.”
Then merrily his gallant ship sped o’er the bounding main,
Quickly he crossed the ocean wide, he flew by France and Spain;
Covered the Mediterranean, spanned the Suez Canal,—
“I’ll reach my home to-night,” he thought, “oh, yes, I’m sure I shall.”
He skimmed the Red Sea like a bird,—the Indian Ocean crossed
(But once, in Oceanica, he feared that he was lost).

He passed Australia on the fly,—cut over Capricorn,
And as the sunset gun he heard, he swung around Cape Horn.
Still at full speed, he sailed due north, he rounded Cape St. Roque,
Crossed the equator, and found out the Gulf Stream was no joke.
He coasted by the seaboard States. Hurrah! all danger past,
Quickly he sailed the last few miles and reached his home at last;
His mother welcomed him, and said, “I’m glad there was no shower;
But hurry in, my bonny boy, I’ve waited tea an hour.”

The 4.04 Train

“There’s a train at 4.04,” said Miss Jenny;
“Four tickets I’ll take. Have you any?”
Said the man at the door:
“Not four for 4.04,
For four for 4.04 is too many.”

A Valuable Gift

Old Father Time, one day
In his study, so they say,
Was indulging in a surreptitious nap,
When from his drowsy dreams
He was wakened, as it seems,
By a timid but persistent little rap.

He yawned and rubbed his eyes
In indolent surprise,
Then slowly he arose from where he sat;
He opened wide his door,
And nearly tumbled o’er
The figure that stood waiting on the mat.

A tiny little dog,
With excitement all agog,
And angry eyes that seemed to flash and glower.
His manner was polite,
But he said, “I claim my right!
And I’ve called, sir, to demand of you my hour.”

“Your what?” the old man said,
As he shook his puzzled head;
And the pertinacious puppy spoke with force:
“Well, sir, they often say,
‘Every dog must have his day,’
So a puppy ought to have an hour, of course!”

The old man shook with glee,
But he said obligingly,
“The dog days are all gone, I grieve to say;
But since you’ve come so far,
And so mannerly you are,
I’ll give you just an hour—to get away.”

The Grandiloquent Goat

A very grandiloquent Goat
Sat down to a gay table d’hôte;
He ate all the corks,
The knives and the forks,
Remarking: “On these things I dote.”

Then, before his repast he began,
While pausing the menu to scan,
He said: “Corn, if you please,
And tomatoes and pease,
I’d like to have served in the can.”

How the Cat was Belled

A fable told by La Fontaine,
Two centuries or more ago,
Describes some rats who would arraign
A cat, their direst foe,
Who killed so many rats
And caused the deepest woe,
This Catiline of cats.

The poor rats were at their wits’ end
Their homes and families to defend;
And as a last resort
They took the case to court.

It seems they called a caucus wise
Of rats of every age and size,
And then their dean,
With sapient mien,
A very Solon of a rat,
Said it was best to bell the cat.

The quaint old tale goes on to tell
How this plan would have worked quite well,
But, somehow, flaws
Appeared, because
No one would hang the bell.

Though there the ancient fable ends,
Later report the tale extends,
No longer is the truth withheld;
Developments appear,
And so you have it here.
For the first time
Set down in rhyme
Just how that cat was belled.

The council, as ’twas getting late,
Was just about to separate,
When suddenly a rat arose
Who said he could a plan propose
Which would, he thought, succeed
And meet their urgent need.

Now as this rat was very small,
And had no dignity at all,
Although his plan was well advised,
We really need not be surprised
That all the rats of riper years
Expressed the gravest doubts and fears;
Till suddenly
He said, said he,
“If you will leave it all to me,
I will avow
Three days from now
That you shall all be free.”
The solemn council then adjourned.
Each rat to home and fireside turned;
But each shook his wise head
And to his neighbor said:
“It is a dangerous job, in truth,
Though it seems naught to headstrong youth.”

Now young Sir Rat we next behold,
With manner brave and visage bold,
Go marching down
To London town,
Where wondrous things are sold.
We see him stop
At a large shop,
And with the bland clerk’s courteous aid
This was the purchase that he made:
A bicycle of finest make,
With modern gear and patent brake,
Pedometer, pneumatic tire,
And spokes that looked like silver wire,
A lantern bright
To shine at night,
Enamel finish, nickel plate,
And all improvements up to date.
Said sly Sir Rat: “It suits me well,
Especially that sweet-toned bell.”

The shades of night were falling fast
When Sir Rat turned toward home at last.
The neighbors watched him as he passed
And said: “What is that queer-shaped thing?
Surely that can’t be made to ring.”
Sir Rat went on, nor stayed
To hear the jests they made;
And just outside the old cat’s gate
He stopped and boldly braved his fate,
For if that cat
Should smell a rat
How quickly he’d come out and catch him,
And with what gusto he’d despatch him!
Sir Rat, against the picket-fence
Leaned the machine, then hurried hence,
And hid himself with glee,
And waited breathlessly
To see what that
Cantankerous cat
Would say, when in the twilight dim
He saw that brightly shining rim.

Sir Rat, though hidden quite,
And safely out of sight,
Had scarcely time to wink his eye,
When Mr. Cat came sauntering by.

“Ha! Ha!” said he,
“What’s this I see,
A bicycle! and just my size!
Well, this, indeed, is a surprise!
I’ll confiscate
This treasure great;
How quickly I’ll fly o’er the ground
When I pursue my hunting round!”

He mounted it with eager haste,
It suited well his sporting taste;
He guided it at will,
And used the brake with skill,
He grasped the handle-bars, and then—

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