180 Rhymes and Jingles
He bent his bow,
To shoot a crow,
If a body meet a body in a bag of beans,
Can a body tell a body what a body means?
{{C|a modern mother goose Tue hero of this tale was probably very like many of the makers of the chance jingles that have caught the children’s ears, and become immortal by much repetition.
He is said to have lived in Enfield, Conn. One morning, in schooltime, he wrote something on a slip of paper and passed it round among his fellows. It made a good deal of ill-concealed merriment, and the teacher was fortunate enough to capture the offending bit of paper and to ferret out its author. The words on the paper were,—
Three little mice ran up the stairs
To hear Miss Blodgett say her prayers.
The teacher realized that she was being made fun of, but was so impressed by the clever expression of the lines that she said, “John, I give you five minutes
