THE PETER PATTER BOOK
OF NURSERY RHYMES
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THE PETER PATTER BOOK
of
NURSERY RHYMES
by Pictures by
LEROY F. BLANCHE
JACKSON FISHER WRIGHT
To
ANDREW, PUDGE, AND BOBBY
My first appreciative audience
Copyright © 1918 by Rand McNally & Company.
Renewal copyright 1946
by Rand McNally & Co.
All rights reserved.
PETER PATTER told them to me,
All the little rimes,
Whispered them among the bushes
Half a hundred times.
Peter lives upon a mountain
Pretty near the sun,
Knows the bears and birds and rabbits
Nearly every one;
Has a home among the alders,
Bed of cedar bark,
Walks alone beneath the pine trees
Even when it’s dark.
Squirrels tell him everything
That happens in the trees,
Cricket in the gander-grass
Sings of all he sees;
Rimes from bats and butterflies,
Crabs and waterfowl;
But the best of all he gets
From his Uncle Owl.
Sometimes when its day-time,
But mostly in the night,
They sit beneath an oak tree
And hug each other tight,
And tell their rimes and riddles
Where the catty creatures prowl—
Funny little Peter Patter
And his Uncle Owl.
LIST OF THE RHYMES
- Page
- A Copper Down a Crack 9
- I'm Much Too Big for a Fairy 9
- Did You Ever Play Tag with a Tiger? 9
- The Blue Song 10
- Hippity Hop to Bed 10
- Away to the River 11
- Our Little Pat 12
- The Animal Show 12
- Tommy Trimble12
- Dickie, Dickie Dexter14
- On the Road to Tattletown14
- Polly and Peter14
- I Went to Town on Monday15
- Where Are You Going?16
- Christopher Crump17
- Pinky, Pinky, Pang18
- Tick, Tock18
- Under the Willow20
- High on the Mantel20
- Boots, Boots, Boots21
- Butterfly22
- Beela By the Sea22
- A Matter of Taste
JINGLE, JINGLE, JACK, A COPPER DOWN A CRACK
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A COPPER DOWN A CRACK
Jingle, jingle, Jack,
A copper down a crack.
Twenty men and all their wives,
With sticks and picks and pocket knives,
Digging for their very lives
To get the copper back.
I’M MUCH TOO BIG FOR A FAIRY
I’m much too big for a fairy,
And much too small for a man,
But this is true:
Whatever I do,
I do it the best I can.
DID YOU EVER PLAY TAG WITH A TIGER?
Did you ever play tag with a tiger,
Or ever play boo with a bear;
Did you ever put rats in the rain-barrel
To give poor old Granny a scare?
It’s fun to play tag with a tiger,
It’s fun for the bear to say “boo,”
But if rats are found in the rain-barrel
Old Granny will put you in too.
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THE BLUE SONG
Hot mush and molasses all in a blue bowl—
Eat it, it’s good for you, sonny.
’T will make you grow tall as a telephone pole—
Eat it, it’s good for you, sonny.
Fresh fish and potatoes all on a blue plate—
Eat it up smart now, my sonny.
’T will make you as jolly and fat as Aunt Kate—
Eat it up quick now, my sonny.
Sweet milk from a nanny-goat in a blue cup—
Drink it, it’s good for you, sonny,
’T will fill you, expand you, and help you grow up,
And make a real man of you, sonny.
HIPPITY HOP TO BED
O it’s hippity hop to bed!
I’d rather sit up instead.
But when father says “must,”
There’s nothing but just
Go hippity hop to bed.
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AWAY TO THE RIVER
Away to the river, away to the wood,
While the grasses are green and the berries are good!
Where the locusts are scraping their fiddles and bows,
And the bees keep a-coming wherever one goes.
Oh, it’s off to the river and off to the hills,
To the land of the bloodroot and wild daffodils,
With a buttercup blossom to color my chin,
And a basket of burs to put sandberries in.
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OUR LITTLE PAT
Our little Pat
Was chasing the cat
And kicking the kittens about.
When mother said “Quit!”
He ran off to sit
On the top of the woodpile and pout;
But a sly little grin
Soon slid down his chin
And let all the sulkiness out.
THE ANIMAL SHOW
Father and mother and Bobbie will go
To see all the sights at the animal show.
Where lions and bears
Sit on dining room chairs,
Where a camel is able
To stand on a table,
Where monkeys and seals
All travel on wheels,
And a Zulu baboon
Rides a baby balloon.
The sooner you’re ready, the sooner we’ll go.
Aboard, all aboard, for the Animal Show!
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TOMMY TRIMBLE
Billy be nimble,
Hurry and see
Old Tommy Trimble
Climbing a tree.
He claws with his fingers
And digs with his toes.
The longer he lingers
The slower he goes.
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DICKIE, DICKIE DEXTER
Dickie, Dickie Dexter
Had a wife and vexed her.
She put him in a rabbit cage
And fed him peppermint and sage—
Dickie, Dickie Dexter.
ON THE ROAD TO TATTLETOWN
On the road to Tattletown
What is this I see?
A pig upon a pedestal,
A cabbage up a tree,
A rabbit cutting capers
With a twenty dollar bill—
Now if I don’t get to Tattletown
Then no one ever will.
POLLY AND PETER
Polly had some china cows
And Peter had a gun.
She turned the bossies out to browse,
And Peterkin, for fun,
Just peppered them with butter beans
And blew them all to smithereens.
Now what will pretty Polly do
For milk and cream and butter too?
I WENT TO TOWN ON MONDAY
I went to town on Monday
To buy myself a coat,
But on the way I met a man
Who traveled with a caravan,
And bought a billy-goat.
I went to town on Tuesday
And bought a fancy vest.
I kept the pretty bucklestraps,
Buttonholes and pocketflaps,
And threw away the rest.
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I went to town on Thursday
To buy a loaf of bread,
But when I got there, goodness sakes!
The town was full of rattlesnakes—
The bakers all were dead.
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I went to town on Saturday
To get myself a wife,
But when I saw the lady fair
I gnashed my teeth and pulled my hair
And scampered for my life.
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WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
Where are you going, sister Kate?
I’m going to swing on the garden gate,
And watch the fairy gypsies dance
Their tim-tam-tum on the cabbage-plants—
The great big one with the purple nose,
And the tiny tad with the pinky toes.
Where are you going, brother Ben?
I’m going to build a tiger-pen.
I’ll get iron and steel and ’lectric wire
And build it a hundred feet, or higher,
And put ten tigers in it too,
And a big wildcat, and—mebbe—you.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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