childhood rhymes

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:32 AM -0400 7/31/04, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>I only know the 4-and-20 rhyme as the ending of "One, two, buckle my shoe,"
>which we chanted while trying to bounce a ball non-stop without grasping it
>or losing it (I can still do it!).  Let's see if I can remember it:
>
>One, two, buckle my shoe
>Three, four, shut the door
>Five, six, pick up sticks
>Seven, eight, lay them straight
>Nine, ten, a big fat hen
>Eleven, twelve, dig and delve [incomprehensible to us kids, of course]

This was as far as we (at least the boys in my NYC neighborhood) ever
got into this rhyme, and the last line was often added as a somewhat
pedantic coda to the more standardly recited five lines above.  (Oh,
I also recall "one, two, three O'Leary" but not what came next.)

Larry

>Thirteen, fourteen, maids a-courting
>Fifteen, sixteen, maids a-kissing
>Seventeen, eighteen, maids a-waiting
>Nineteen, twenty, the larder is empty
>Twenty-one, twenty-two, my old shoe,
>dressed in blue, died last night at half-past two
>Twenty-three, twenty-four, last night at half-past four
>twenty-four burglars came up to my door;
>I opened the door and let them in;
>I knocked them down with a rolling pin!
>