MOTHER GOOSE FOR GROWN-UPS

"'WILL YOU TELL ME IF IT'S STRAIGHT?'"

MOTHER GOOSE FOR GROWN-UPS By GUY WETMORE CARRYL With Illustrations by Peter Newell and Gustave Verbeek

NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS 1900

Copyright, 1900, by Harper & Brothers.

All rights reserved

TO CONSTANCE

In memory of other days,

Dear critic, when your whispered praise

Cheered on the limping pen.

How short, how sweet those younger hours,

How bright our suns, how few our showers,

Alas, we knew not then!

If but, long leagues across the seas,

The trivial charm of rhymes like these

Shall serve to link us twain

An instant in the olden spell

That once we knew and loved so well,

I have not worked in vain!

NOTE

I have pleasure in acknowledging the courteous permission of the editors to reprint in this form such of the following verses as were originally published in Harper's Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, and the London Sketch.

G. W. C.

ILLUSTRATIONS

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THE ADMIRABLE ASSERTIVENESS OF JILTED JACK

A noble and a generous mind

Was Jack's;

Folks knew he would not talk behind

Their backs:

But when some maiden fresh and young,

At Jack a bit of banter flung,

She soon discovered that his tongue

Was sharp as any ax.

A flirt of most engaging wiles

Was Jill;

On Jack she lavished all her smiles,

Until

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Her slave (and he was not the first)

Of lovesick swains became the worst,

His glance a strong box might have burst,

His sighs were fit to kill.

One April morning, clear and fair,

When both

Of staying home and idling there

In sloth

Were weary, Jack remarked to Jill:

"Oh, what's the sense in sitting still?

Let's mount the slope of yonder hill."

And she was nothing loth.

But as she answered: "What's the use?"

The gruff

Young swain replied: "Oh, there's excuse

Enough.

Your doting parents water lack;

We'll fill a pail and bring it back."

(The reader will perceive that Jack

Was putting up a bluff.)

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Thus hand in hand the tempting hill

They scaled,

And Jack proposed a kiss to Jill,

And failed!

One backward start, one step too bold,

And down the hill the couple rolled,

Resembling, if the truth were told,

A luggage train derailed.

With eyes ablaze with anger, she

Exclaimed:

"Well, who'd have thought! You'd ought to be

Ashamed!

You quite forget yourself, it's plain,

So I'll forget you, too. Insane

Young man, I'll say oafweederzane."

(Her German might be blamed.)

But Jack, whose linguist's pride was pricked,

To shine,

Asked: "Meine Königin will nicht

Be mine?"

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And when she answered: "Nein" in spleen,

He cried: "Then in the soup tureen

You'll stay. You're not the only queen

Discarded for a nein!"

The moral's made for maidens young

And small:

If you would in a foreign tongue

Enthrall,

Lead off undaunted in a Swede

Or Spanish speech, and you'll succeed,

But they who in a German lead

No favor win at all.

9

THE BLATANT BRUTALITY OF LITTLE BOW PEEP

Though she was only a shepherdess,

Tending the meekest of sheep,

Never was African leopardess

Crosser than Little Bow Peep:

Quite apathetic, impassible

People described her as: "That

Wayward, contentious, irascible,

Testy, cantankerous brat!"

Yet, as she dozed in a grotto-like

Sort of a kind of a nook,

She was so charmingly Watteau-like,

What with her sheep and her crook;

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"She is a dryad or nymph," any

Casual passer would think.

Poets pronounced her a symphony,

All in the palest of pink.

Thus it was not enigmatical,

That the young shepherd who first

Found her asleep, in ecstatical

Sighs of felicity burst:

Such was his sudden beatitude

That, as he gazed at her so,

Daphnis gave vent to this platitude:

"My! Ain't she elegant though!"

Roused from some dream of Arcadia,

Little Bow Peep with a start

Answered him: "I ain't afraid o' yer!

P'raps you imagine you're smart!"

Daphnis protested impulsively,

Blushing as red as a rose;

All was in vain. She convulsively

Punched the young man in the nose!

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12

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All of it's true, every word of it!

I was not present to peep,

But if you ask how I heard of it,

Please to remember the sheep.

There is no need of excuse. You will

See how such scandals occur:

If you recall Mother Goose, you will

Know what tail-bearers they were!

Moral: This pair irreclaimable

Might have made Seraphim weep,

But who can pick the most blamable?

Both saw a little beau peep!

"SHE WAS SO CHARMINGLY WATTEAU-LIKE"

15

THE COMMENDABLE CASTIGATION OF OLD MOTHER HUBBARD

She was one of those creatures

Whose features

Are hard beyond any reclaim;

And she loved in a hovel

To grovel,

And she hadn't a cent to her name.

She owned neither gallants

Nor talents;

She borrowed extensively, too,

From all of her dozens

Of cousins,

And never refunded a sou:

Yet all they said in abuse of her

Was: "She is prouder than Lucifer!"

(That, I must say, without meaning to blame,

Is always the way with that kind of a dame!)

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There never was jolli-

Er colley

Than Old Mother Hubbard had found,

Though cheaply she bought him,

She'd taught him

To follow her meekly around:

But though she would lick him

And kick him,

It never had any effect;

He always was howling

And growling,

But goodness! What could you expect?

Colleys were never to flourish meant

'Less they had plenty of nourishment,

All that he had were the feathers she'd pluck

Off an occasional chicken or duck.

The colley was barred in

The garden,

He howled and he wailed and he whined.

The neighbors indignant,

Malignant

Petitions unanimous signed.

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"The nuisance grows nightly,"

Politely

They wrote. "It's an odious hound,

And either you'll fill him,

Or kill him,

Or else he must go to the pound.

For if this howling infernally

Is to continue nocturnally—

Pardon us, ma'am, if we seem to be curt—

Somebody's apt to get horribly hurt!"

Mother Hubbard cried loudly

And proudly:

"Lands sakes! but you give yourselves airs!

I'll take the law to you

And sue you."

The neighbors responded: "Who cares?

We none of us care if

The sheriff

Lock every man jack of us up;

We won't be repining

At fining

So long as we're rid of the pup!"

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They then proceeded to mount a sign,

Bearing this ominous countersign:

"Freemen! The moment has come to protest

And Old Mother Hubbard delendum est!"

They marched to her gateway,

And straightway

They trampled all over her lawn;

Most rudely they harried

And carried

Her round on a rail until dawn.

They marred her, and jarred her,

And tarred her

And feathered her, just as they should,

Of speech they bereft her,

And left her

With: "Now do you think you'll be good!"

The moral's a charmingly pleasing one.

While we would deprecate teasing one,

Still, when a dame has politeness rebuffed,

She certainly ought to be collared and cuffed.

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THE DISCOURAGING DISCOVERY OF LITTLE JACK HORNER

A knack almost incredible for dealing with an edible

Jack Horner's elder sister was acknowledged to display;

She labored hard and zealously, but always guarded jealously

The secrets of the dishes she invented every day.

She'd take some indigestible, unpopular comestible,

And to its better nature would so tenderly appeal

That Jack invoked a benison upon a haunch of venison,

When really she was serving him a little leg of veal!

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Jack said she was a miracle. The word was not satirical,

For daily climbing upward, she excelled herself at last:

The acme of facility, the zenith of ability

Was what she gave her brother for his Christmas Day repast.

He dined that evening eagerly and anything but meagerly,

And when he'd had his salad and his quart of Extra Dry,

With sisterly benignity, and just a touch of dignity,

She placed upon the table an unutterable pie!

Unflagging pertinacity, and technical sagacity,

Long nights of sleepless vigil, and long days of constant care

Had been involved in making it, improving it, and baking it,

Until of other pies it was the wonder and despair:

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So princely and so prominent, so solemn, so predominant

It looked upon the table, that, with fascinated eye,

The youth, with sudden wonder struck, electrified, and thunder struck,

Could only stammer stupidly: "Oh Golly! What a pie!"

In view of his satiety, it almost seemed impiety

To carve this crowning triumph of a culinary life,

But, braced by his avidity, with sudden intrepidity

He broke its dome imposing with a common kitchen knife.

Ah, hideous fatality! for when with eager palate he

Commenced to eat, he happened on an accident uncouth,

And cried with stifled moan: "Of it one plum I tried. The stone of it

Had never been extracted, and I've broke a wisdom tooth!"

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Jack's sister wept effusively, but loudly and abusively

His unreserved opinion of her talents he proclaimed;

He called her names like "driveller" and "simpleton" and "sniveller,"

And others, which to mention I am really too ashamed.

The moral: It is saddening, embarrassing, and maddening

A stone to strike in what you thought was paste. One thing alone

Than this mischance is crueller, and that is for a jeweller

To strike but paste in what he fondly thought to be a stone.

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THE EMBARRASSING EPISODE OF LITTLE MISS MUFFET

Little Miss Muffet discovered a tuffet,

(Which never occurred to the rest of us)

And, as 'twas a June day, and just about noonday,

She wanted to eat—like the best of us:

Her diet was whey, and I hasten to say

It is wholesome and people grow fat on it.

The spot being lonely, the lady not only

Discovered the tuffet, but sat on it.

A rivulet gabbled beside her and babbled,

As rivulets always are thought to do,

And dragon-flies sported around and cavorted,

As poets say dragon-flies ought to do;

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When, glancing aside for a moment, she spied

A horrible sight that brought fear to her,

A hideous spider was sitting beside her

And most unavoidably near to her!

Albeit unsightly, this creature politely

Said: "Madam, I earnestly vow to you,

I'm penitent that I did not bring my hat. I

Should otherwise certainly bow to you."

Though anxious to please, he was so ill at ease

That he lost all his sense of propriety,

And grew so inept that he clumsily stept

In her plate—which is barred in Society.

This curious error completed her terror;

She shuddered, and growing much paler, not

Only left tuffet, but dealt him a buffet

Which doubled him up in a sailor-knot.

It should be explained that at this he was pained:

He cried: "I have vexed you, no doubt of it!

Your fist's like a truncheon." "You're still in my luncheon,"

Was all that she answered. "Get out of it!"

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And The moral is this: Be it madam or miss

To whom you have something to say,

You are only absurd when you get in the curd

But you're rude when you get in the whey.

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THE FEARFUL FINALE OF THE IRASCIBLE MOUSE

Upon a stairway built of brick

A pleasant-featured clock

From time to time would murmur "Tick"

And vary it with "Tock":

Although no great intelligence

There lay in either word,

They were not meant to give offence

To anyone who heard.

Within the pantry of the house,

Among some piles of cheese,

There dwelt an irritable mouse,

Extremely hard to please:

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His appetite was most immense.

Each day he ate a wedge

Of Stilton cheese. In consequence

His nerves were all on edge.

With ill-concealed impatience he,

Upon his morning walk,

Had heard the clock unceasingly,

Monotonously talk,

Until his rage burst every bound.

He gave a fretful shout:

"Well, sakes alive! It's time I found

What all this talk's about."

With all the admirable skill

That marks the rodent race

The mouse ran up the clock, until

He'd crept behind the face,

And then, with words that no one ought

To use, and scornful squeals,

He cried aloud: "Just what I thought!

Great oaf, you're full of wheels!"

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The timepiece sternly said: "Have done!"

And through the silent house

It struck emphatically one.

(But that one was the mouse!)

To earth the prowling rodent fell,

In terror for his life,

And turned to flee, but, sad to tell,

There stood the farmer's wife.

She did not faint, she did not quail,

She did not cry out: "Scat!"

She simply took him by the tail

And gave him to the cat,

And, with a stern, triumphant look,

She watched him clawed and cleft,

And with some blotting paper took

Up all that there was left.

The moral: In a farmer's home

Run down his herds, his flocks,

Run down his crops, run down his loam,

But when it comes to clocks,

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Pray leave them ticking every one

In peace upon their shelves:

When running down is to be done

The clocks run down themselves.

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