"IsaacTaylorHeadland-TheChineseBoyAndGirl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Headland Isaac Taylor)

"Have you noticed those rhymes, Mr. Headland?"

"What rhymes?" I inquired.

"The rhymes Mrs. Yin is repeating to Henry."

"No, I have not noticed them. Ask her to repeat that one again."

Mrs. Fenn did so, and the old nurse repeated the following rhyme,
very much in the tone of, "The goblins 'll git you if you don't
look out."

He climbed up the candlestick,
The little mousey brown,
To steal and eat tallow,
And he couldn't get down.
He called for his grandma,
But his grandma was in town,
So he doubled up into a wheel,
And rolled himself down.

I asked the nurse to repeat it again, more slowly, and I
wrote it down together with the translation.

Now, I think it must be admitted that there is more in
this rhyme to commend it to the public than there is in
"Jack and Jill." If when that remarkable young couple
went for the pail of water, Master Jack had carried it
himself, he would have been entitled to some credit for
gallantry, or if in cracking his crown he had fallen so as to
prevent Miss Jill from "tumbling," or even in such a way
as to break her fall and make it easier for her, there would
have been some reason for the popularity of such a record.
As it is, there is no way to account for it except the fact
that it is simple and rhythmic and children like it. This
rhyme, however, in the original, is equal to "Jack and Jill" in
rhythm and rhyme, has as good a story, exhibits a more scientific
tumble, with a less tragic result, and contains as good a moral
as that found in "Jack Sprat."

It is as popular all over North China as "Jack and Jill" is
throughout Great Britain and America. Ask any Chinese child if he
knows the "Little Mouse," and he reels it off to you as readily
as an English-speaking child does "Jack and Jill." Does he like
it? It is a part of his life. Repeat it to him, giving one word
incorrectly, and he will resent it as strenuously as your little
boy or girl would if you said,

Jack and Jill