“Eetle, ottle, blue bottle,
Eetle, ottle, out!”
Still another is:
“Onery, ury, ickery, Ann,
Fillissy, follissy, Nicholas John,
Kubee, Kowbee, Irish Mary
They throw marbles against a wall for a sort of carom-shot, and call it “bazzin’ marbles.” “The real precursor of the spring, like the sure mating of the birds,” said an old man of the game.
In some places there is a local celebrity with a real talent for the composition of what are known as “come-all-ye’s,” from the fact that the minstrel is supposed to invite all who will to come and hear him chant his lay. Every big storm or shipwreck is supposed to be commemorated in appropriate verse by the laureate. For instance, one of these ballads begins:
“The Lily Joyce stuck in the ice,
So did the Husky too;