"Splitting the wood" was a very troublesome part of the New England farmer's ménage.
More commonplace are the choruses:
You must be good, you must be true,
And do as you see others do.
Or—
And live together all your life,
And I pronounce you man and wife.
Or again—
And love each other like sister and brother,
And now kneel down and kiss each other.[72]
In place of "sister and brother," the malicious wit of little girls substituted "cats and dogs."[73]
In the early part of the century the essential stanza went thus in New Hampshire: