They then dance round, repeating the first stanza, after which the operation of drying the clothes is commenced with a similar verse, "This is the way we dry our clothes," &c. The game may be continued almost ad infinitum by increasing the number of duties to be performed. They are, however, generally satisfied with mangling, smoothing or ironing, the clothes, and then putting them away. Sometimes they conclude with a general cleaning, which may well be necessary after the large quantity of work that has been done:
This is the way we clean our rooms,
—Clean our rooms, clean our rooms:
This is the way we clean our rooms
On a cold frosty morning!
And like good merry washing-women, they are not exhausted with their labours, but conclude with the song, "Here we go round the bramble-bush," having had sufficient exercise to warm themselves on any "cold frosty morning," which was doubtlessly the result, we may observe en passant, as a matter of domestic economy, aimed at by the author. It is not so easy to give a similar explanation to the game of the mulberry-bush, conducted in the same manner:
Here we go round the mulberry-bush,
—The mulberry-bush, the mulberry-bush:
Here we go round the mulberry-bush
On a sunshiny morning.
In this game, the motion-cries are usually "This is the way we wash our clothes," "This is the way we dry our clothes," "This is the way we make our shoes," "This is the way we mend our shoes," "This is the way the gentlemen walk," "This is the way the ladies walk," &c. As in other cases, the dance may be continued by the addition of cries and motions, which may be rendered pretty and characteristic in the hands of judicious actors. This game, however, requires too much exercise to render it so appropriate to the season as the other.
[THE GAME OF DUMP.]
A boy's amusement in Yorkshire, in vogue about half a century ago, but now, I believe, nearly obsolete. It is played in this manner. The lads crowd round, and place their fists endways the one on the other, till they form a high pile of hands. Then a boy who has one hand free, knocks the piled fists off one by one, saying to every boy, as he strikes his fist away, "What's there, Dump?" He continues this process till he comes to the last fist, when he exclaims:
What's there?
Cheese and bread, and a mouldy halfpenny!
Where's my share?
I put it on the shelf, and the cat got it.
Where's the cat?
She's run nine miles through the wood.
Where's the wood?
T' fire burnt it.
Where's the fire?
T' water sleckt (extinguished) it.
Where's the water?
T' oxen drunk it.
Where's the oxen?
T' butcher kill'd 'em.
Where's t' butcher?
Upon the church-top cracking nuts, and you may go and eat the shells; and them as speak first shall have nine nips, nine scratches, and nine boxes over the lug!
Every one then endeavours to refrain from speaking, in spite of mutual nudges and grimaces, and he who first allows a word to escape is punished by the others in the various methods adopted by schoolboys. In some places the game is played differently. The children pile their fists in the manner described above; then one, or sometimes all of them sing,—
I've built my house, I've built my wall;
I don't care where my chimneys fall!