Stand up-right upon your heel—
and
Ching Chang Chinaman had a penny doll—
Washed it, scrubbed it, called it pretty poll.
If you really like these songs, I can tell you the names of one or two more, such as I CAN DO THE TANGO and I’LL TELL MOTHER, MARY ANNE, and MOTHER, MOTHER, FETCH ME HOME and FATHER GIVE (that means gave) ME A HA’PENNY and POLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON and JUMBO HAD A BABY and LEAVE THE ROPE and COME ON, AMY and SOME ONE’S UNDER THE BED and PLEASE WILL YOU LEND THE KEY and CINDARELLA-UMBERELLA and THE HOUSE IS EMPTY AND NOBODY IN and HABERDASHER ISHER ASHER OM POM TOSH and R. WHITE’S GINGER-BEER GOES OFF POP and MADEMOISELLE WENT TO THE WELL (which is interesting because they have forgotten what “mademoiselle” means and now call it ADAM AND ELL) and MY SON JOHN WENT TO BED WITH HIS STOCKINGS ON and MY MOTHER SAID THAT I WAS BORN and POOR JENNIE IS A-WEEPING and LONDON BRIDGE IS BROKEN DOWN (two well-known old ones) and WILLIE HAD A LETTER FOR TO GO ON BOARD A SHIP and OATS AND BEANS AND BARLEY GROW and NOW WE’RE ON THE BATTLEFIELD and MY FATHER HAD AN OLD SHOE and I WENT DOWN PICCADILLY.
You can get as many of these songs out of the girls as you like, if you care to come round and ask for them; you’ll find the girls far less shy about their games than the boys are. And you’ll also notice that they’re just as good at inventing sports—the boys show up best in the duty-games, and the girls in their songs. But there’s this difference. You’ll not find much talk in these songs about sunshine and flowers and things like that—except in the older ones which I think were used by girls and boys together, and perhaps even by grown-ups. The girls don’t discover poetic things like “Swimming in Blue Water” or “Dead Man’s Dark Scenery”; they’re matter-of-fact; they sing about clothes and food and money. That’s what makes Aunt Eliza say that women have more common sense than men....
FOOTNOTES:
[G] Not all of them are sung to games.
[H] There is an improper version of this, and of several others.
[I] “has I was goning to strrber far sing butter u cup and dassies I bet a mide take a there forder In the ises were belw but I gend a hir she gose on to strrber far rif rif tola len lile rif rif tale led lile.”