FOUR LITTLE HISTORIES
Reading edition
I
THERE was an old man, and he had an old gun, And he went to a cake shop, and aimed at a bun; The bullet it shot the old baker’s old cat, “Stop thief!” says the baker, “why, what are you at?”
II
Jack and Joe were tinmen, And oh, but they were thin men! Bags of bones, Or bags of stones,— I think they couldn’t have been men!
III
Sarah Page, In a rage, Drest in satin; Bertha Newry, Learning Latin, In a fury, Drest in silk, And lapping milk— Which is best? Oh, what a bother! Neither one nor yet the other.
IV
Says Aleck to Alice, “I live in a palace.” Says Alice to Tim, “I don’t believe him.” Says Tim to his cousin, “I love you three dozen;” The cousin, she wondered, And asked for a hundred, Instead of three dozen: Says Tim, “You are fussing; Three dozen I love you, If that will not move you, My love I will carry To Magsie or Mary.”