Carolyn Wells - The Jingle Book

“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.

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.

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!

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.

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.”

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.”