I was saying the beans are boiling nice
And it's just about time to add the rice.
These are rather an indication of good cheer on the part of the children than lack of filial affection. A parent must be cruel indeed to make a girl willing to give up her mother for a mother-in-law.
Another style of verses comes under the head of pure nonsense rhymes. They are wholly without sense and I am not sure they are good nonsense. They are popular, however, with the children, and critics may say what they will, but the children are the last court of appeal in case of nursery rhymes. Let me give one:
There's a cow on the mountain, the old saying goes,
On her legs are four feet, on her feet are eight toes.
Her tail is behind on the end of her back,
And her head is in front on the end of her neck.
The Chinese nursery is well provided with rhymes pertaining to certain portions of the body. They have rhymes to repeat when they play with the five fingers, and others when they pull the toes; rhymes when they take hold of the knee and expect the child to refrain from laughing, no matter how much its knee is tickled; rhymes which correspond to all our face and sense; rhymes where the forehead represents the door and the five senses various other things, ending, of course, by tickling the child's neck.
All of these have called forth rhymes among Chinese children similar to "little pig went to market," "forehead bender, eye winker," etc. The parent, or the nurse, taking hold of the toes of the child, repeats the following rhyme, as much to the amusement of the little Oriental as the "little pig" has always been to our own children:
This little cow eats grass,
This little cow eats hay,
This little cow drinks water,
This little cow runs away,
This little cow does nothing,
Except lie down all day.
We'll whip her.
And, with that, she playfully pats the little bare foot. If it is the hand that is played with the fingers are taken hold of one after another, as the parent, or nurse, repeats the following rhyme:
This one's old,
This one's young
This one has
no meat;
This one's gone
To buy some hay,
And this one's on
the street.
There are various forms of this rhyme, depending upon the place where it is found. The above is the Shantung version. In Peking it is as follows: