Chapter FIVE: Limericks

Four little maids were walking home from school. At least, three were walking sedately, while Elizabeth chased after first one thing and then another, skipping back to her companions every few minutes to join in the conversation.

“Oh, it’s perfectly dreadful,” cried Alice, her face all puckered up in a snarl, and her usually sunny blue eyes stormy, “to make every single child in school from third grade up, write a verse; we’re too little; I simply _can’t_.”

“Why, Alice, it’s lots of fun,” said Wiggles earnestly. “I often do it just to ’muse myself. Just rhyme it up in your head, and then write it down. We have two weeks to write it in, and Miss Mason said it only had to be four lines, although it could be as much longer as we wished.”

“Two _years_ would be too short for me, and four lines just four lines too long,” laughed Marion. “How you can say it’s easy, I don’t see. My goodness, girls, it’s dreadfully hot. Let’s sit down here on the grass and cool off, before we go any farther. I’m sizzling.”

Down dropped all four girls, under the shade of a big maple-tree.

“Let’s hear one of your poems, Wiggles,” asked Alice. “Maybe it will help us along. I don’t even know how to start one.”

“Well, wait a minute till I think,” said Polly Wiggles. Thinking with Elizabeth never meant sitting still, so, to “clear her brain,” as she explained it, she spun round and round on one toe.

“Do please stop,” implored Jet. “You make me dizzy to watch you. How can you be so lively on this hot day? Seems as if I’d melt.”

“I’ve remembered it now, anyway,” cried the budding authoress. “It’s called ‘At the Zoo,’ and of course it isn’t a really truly poem like grown-ups make; it’s just a verse!” With a loud “Ahem,” to clear her throat, she began:

“One day I went a-walking,
A-walking in the zoo,
And closely by my side I took
My little children two.

The day was bright and sunny,
And everything was fair;
We saw the bears, the snakes, and birds.
Also the lion’s lair.

We heard a dreadful roaring,
And o’er the ground there came
A great big yellow lion,
Shaking his yellow mane.

My heart did _not_ stop beating,
As the lion onward flew,
For it was our circus lion,
And I was _their_ kangaroo.”

All this was spoken without pause or punctuation, and so rapidly that the authoress was decidedly out of breath when she finished.

“There,” she exclaimed with an air of relief, “I didn’t forget any of it, and I was so afraid I would.”

“Wiggles, how do you do it?” inquired practical Marion in despair. “That was perfectly beautiful. When you grow up are you going to be an authoress?”

“Either that, or an editor. I haven’t decided which,” was the modest reply. “I never have had all the books I wanted to read, and just think what fun an editor must have, with nothing to do all day long but sit with his feet on top of a mahogany desk and read, and read, and smoke big black cigars.”

“Will you smoke cigars?” asked Jeannette, much shocked. “I don’t think you can be an editor, anyway, Wogs, for I’m ’most sure it’s something only men can be, like ministers and,--and garbage-men,” she finished wildly, groping about in her mind for a suitable comparison.

“Well,” retorted her sister undaunted, “then I’m going to ’stablish a ‘presidents.’”

“A what?”

“A ‘presidents.’ That’s what daddy said the other night, and when I asked him what it meant, he said ‘to start a new custom.’”

“I remember, but it didn’t sound just like that to me,” returned Jeannette, wrinkling her brow in thought.

“For pity’s sake,” interrupted Marion, who had mentally been going over the remarkable “poem” again, “how could you tell what a kangaroo felt like? I couldn’t.”

“Pooh, just as easy,” answered Wiggles much surprised. “Just imagine! Like we pretend, when we dress up in Mother’s clothes, that we’re grown-up young ladies. The teacher always says, ‘Put yourself in the place of the one you’re writing about,’ so I did, and felt just as ‘kangarooey’ as could be. I made that up in bed last night. I often do.”

It was not to be wondered at that Wiggles had a fondness for rhyme, without, as Mother laughingly remarked, “rhyme or reason.” Aunt Elsie was always writing limericks about incidents or places, and Mother was almost as bad; while even Daddy had been known to chant extemporaneously, after a particularly good dinner:

“I am replete,
Filled to my feet,
With things I like the best to eat.”

So when the news of the poems was broken to the family a short time later, it did not horrify them as it might have done. Instead, Grandma said comfortably: “Why not have a limerick contest now? It will be lots of fun, and practice for you children, too. Here come Dick and Billy. I suppose they’re in it, too, so somebody get paper and pencils.”

Dick was in the last half of the fifth year, and Billy in the sixth. Billy had been out of school the year before with a severe attack of diphtheria. They both shared the family weakness for rhyme, and there is still told a story of Dick’s baby days. When he was about four years old, his mother took him marketing one morning, and the clerk who waited upon them was named Dean. That night at dinner, Dick piped up, “Mother, I made a piece of ‘poultry’ to-day ’bout that man.” Upon much urging, he recited his ‘poultry,’ which was:

“Mr. Dean,
Ate a bean.”

Elizabeth and Jeannette rushed indoors for writing materials, and were back by the time all were seated on the comfortable porch.

It was funny to see the different ways they went about it. Mother, Grandma, and Aunt Elsie comfortably sat in their wicker porch-chairs, waiting for an inspiration; but Wiggles curled up on the steps and chewed hard at her pencil until genius apparently burned, and she scribbled away industriously.

Dick and Billy withdrew with many snorts and giggles to a corner, where they mysteriously doubled up with laughter every few minutes, consuming Jeannette with curiosity.

Poor Alice and Marion wriggled uncomfortably, for though they knew what limericks were, “it was much easier,” as Marion expressed it, “to laugh at somebody else’s than write your own.”

“I just know those awful boys are up to some mischief,” cried Jeannette, glancing over at the corner where the lads were apparently diligent little scribes.

“Thank goodness, I am through,” sighed Alice, “but I am ashamed to read it.”

“Well, my dear,” said Grandmother Carr encouragingly, “we can’t all do the same things well, most fortunately, or this would be a queer old world. Elizabeth and Jeannette both have the rhyming habit, but neither is as clever with her fingers as you and Marion, and could not begin to make such a pretty scarf as Marion knitted for her doll, or the tiny sweater you finished.”

So the little girls quite cheered up, and drew their chairs up in a big circle with the others. Then, beginning with Grandma as oldest, each one read aloud the limerick she had made.

“There are four little girls living near,
Who’ve been playmates for many a year,
They’re always together,
No matter what weather,
And to us they are all very dear,”

read Grandma, smiling at the four little friends, who looked much pleased.

“Oh, Mrs. Carr, won’t you please write that out for us to put in our scrap-books?” asked Marion, while Wiggles rushed over to give her beloved grandmother a grizzly-bear hug. For all the girls kept big scrap-books, which they called “memory books,” and in which they pasted their valentines, and souvenirs from parties and places where they had been.

“Why not put all the limericks in?” suggested Mother. “I’m sure they’ll be fun to look at and read next winter when we’re back in the city.”

The girls all thought that would be a lovely plan, so, the question being settled satisfactorily, Mother read aloud from her slip of paper:

“A boy I know well who’s named Billy,
Ate ‘hot dogs’ one morning, until he
Felt dreadfully then,
And said, ‘Never again;
I think I was oh, very silly.’”

How the little girls laughed, and so did Bill, although he turned rather red at the recollection.

It seems that a much older boy dared Bill to eat a dozen and a half “hot dogs,” and volunteered to pay for them if all were consumed. Nothing loath, and not stopping to think of the after-consequences, Bill forced them down, every one. The first six were fine, the next six an effort, and to eat the remaining “dogs” proved to be hard work.

However, Bill was triumphant. “I won the dare,” said he. But the other boy “reneged,” as Bill put it, and refused to pay, so it was a sick and sorrowful William that told the tale to Dad.

And then, to make bad matters worse, Billy’s father said that he must earn the money himself to pay for them, and it would teach him to be more careful in the future. Poor Billy. Not only did the debt hang over his head, but his overworked stomach rebelled, and it was several days before he could get to work cutting grass, raking lawns, and running errands until the necessary amount had been made. But ever since he had been more careful about looking before he leaped.

A mischievous smile crinkled up Aunt Elsie’s blue eyes, as she began:

“If there’s water, she’ll surely fall in,
But she always comes up with a grin;
Then little Miss Wiggle,
Will say with a giggle,
‘Why can’t I be proper and prim?’”

Polly Wiggles laughed so much at this true description of her propensities for mishaps, that she doubled up on the railing where she had been perched, and fell head over heels, being rescued by Dick, who had enough presence of mind to grab fast to her slippers and hang on until she could be pulled up.

Of course she lost her hair ribbon and tore a big hole in her dotted swiss dress, but those were everyday mishaps.

As soon as the confusion had died down, Jeannette read aloud:

“Who always is playing a trick?
Who always says, ‘Gimme a lick?’
Who loves to pull curls,
When he sees little girls?
Of course it’s our cousin,--it’s Dick.”

How everybody laughed, Dick as much as any one, for the ‘Gimme a lick’ sounded so like his favorite expression when candy was anywhere around, or cake-making was going on.

“Mine’s awful,” said Marion hopelessly. “The lines seem to sound so snarly, but it just popped into my head.”

“A girl named Jeannette, from the city,
Brought a pussy cat, furry and pretty,
He wears boots on his paws,
To conceal his sharp claws;
Puss-in-Boots is the name of this kitty.”

“Boots wishes me to say,” cried Aunt Elsie, catching up the furry pet, “that he feels greatly honored by having a real poem written about him.”

“I think it extremely clever,” approved Mother, “and the lines don’t sound snarly at all. It’s hard to do, too, until you practise a few times.”

“Don’t lose that, Marion. I want it for my scrap-book,” put in Jeannette. “I’ll paste a big snapshot of Boots right above it.”

“Oh,” giggled Wiggles; “if that were lost, it would truly be a ‘cat-astrophe.’”

“Cool her fevered brow,” groaned Billy. “Too much knowledge has gone to her head.”

“Ssh,” said Wiggles; “it’s Alice’s turn.” The boys, for some mysterious reason, had insisted on reading their limericks last.

“Here comes Evelyn, just in time,” laughed Alice, as the wee bear appeared, fresh from Nurse Hannah’s hands, and ran with a crow of delight to sit on Grandma’s lap. “I wrote about Cubby,” went on Alice, picking up her much-crossed and re-crossed slip of paper.

So Cubby listened intently as Alice read:

“The wee bear, although very small,
Hopes soon to grow up big and tall,
But plump, round, and chubby,
We best like our Cubby,
Who’s petted by one and by all.”

“That’s true,” laughed Grandma, hugging the small piece of mischief. “It’s a wonder she isn’t entirely spoiled.”

“Now, Woggsie, it’s up to you,” called the boys. So with a grin that brought big dimples into her cheeks, Wiggles declaimed:

“Who said, ‘Picnics for girls are no fun?’
Saying, ‘Oh, no, indeed, we won’t come;’
Until hearing of ‘eats,’
Cake and candy and sweets,
You could not keep them off with a gun.”

“No fair! no fair! Who has been telling tales?” cried Dick, looking from one laughing face to another.

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Cubby, who hadn’t the slightest idea what the joke was about. The four girls shook at the expression on the boys’ faces, for they had all heard the joke about the picnic. The lads had scoffed at it as “girl stuff” until they heard of the sandwiches and cakes that Grandmother and Mother were preparing. Then they hastened to Aunt Elsie and suggested making the canoes, and hanging around to “help,” to which she gave her permission with a quiet smile, but with a roguish twinkle in her eye.

“Just you wait, Miss Polly-Wog-Wiggles,” promised Dick as he tweaked her curly mop. And with a grimace he commenced in a high falsetto voice:

“Who sticks her nose up with a stare,
And flounces by with such an air,
Because for boys she does not care?
WIGGLES.”

Here Billy joined in:

“Who says, ‘They make the loudest noise,
And muss up things and break our toys?
Oh, aren’t we glad that we’re not boys!’
JET.

“Who says, ‘We’ve nicer times, it’s true,
When there’s just girls. I think, don’t you,
That boys should live out in a zoo?’
ALICE.

“Who says, ‘Why will they call me “Red,”
Or “Carrots,” when the teacher said,
That I had “Tissue” hair, instead?’
MARION.”

Here Dick resumed the tale, while the appreciative audience wiped away tears of mirth.

“What girl was it who ran away,
With Auntie’s parasol so gay,
And tried to get a bull to play?
CUBBY.

“Who packed up sandwiches galore,
And through the woods the hamper bore?
Why, Grandma, Mother, and one more,
AUNT ELSIE.”

“Only,” as Dick explained in an aside, “it was really James who carried the hamper, but that was poetic license.”

Then together, in sepulchral tones, both boys burst out:

“Who nobly toiled and worked away,
Acquiring calloused hands that day,
That you have tents and boats for play?
THOSE DISGUSTABLE BOYS.”

“Oh, it was splendid,” cried the girls, clapping their hands, when the boys, with a deep bow, had taken their seats, and Grandma, Mother, and Aunt Elsie were wiping their flushed and laughing faces. “But how did you know we said those things?”

“Why, Dick was on the other side of the stream, behind the bushes, and you were so busy gabbling away, and talked so loudly, that he heard it all. He ran on ahead, and beat you to the Point by about five minutes.”

“Now will you be good?” demanded Billy with a ferocious frown at Jet, as he made a grab for her long curls, and nearly fell off the front steps as she danced tantalizingly out of his reach.

“‘Listeners never hear good of themselves,’” quoted Wiggles provokingly as she circled warily around Billy, seeking a chance to grab his fountain-pen and run.

“No, you don’t, young lady,” said Dick, creeping up from the back and pinioning her hands behind her back. “Little girls should never----”

“Never what?” asked Wiggles coolly, freeing herself like a particularly agile eel, and taking Dick’s necktie with her in the bargain.

“Truce, truce,” cried Marion, waving her handkerchief as a white flag. “It’s getting late and I have to go home, but it was lots of fun.”

“Let’s make up limericks some time again,” suggested Alice enthusiastically, and she and Marion said good-by until the next day. They ran down the lilac-bordered path, stopping at the gate to wave, while the boys followed after them, chanting at the top of their voices:

“Maidens dear, we hate to leave you,
Hate to say a fond farewell,
But we’re honest,--can’t deceive you,
We can hear our dinner-bell.

Hear it calling, ‘Dick, you sinner,
Billy, too, come home for tea.’
There’s a lemon pie for dinner,
And ‘I hear it calling me.’”

“Didn’t we have fun?” said Wiggles, settling comfortably in the porch-hammock, when Daddy’s voice called from the house, “Better scurry, kidlets, and wash your hands unless you want to be late; and, though no lemon pie is ‘calling us,’ there are fried chicken and hot waffles for dinner.”

So the little girls scurried.