very small children, is rather pretty. The
rhyme is:--

Here comes a [blue] bird through the window,
Here comes a [blue] bird through the door;
Here comes a [blue] bird through the window,
Hey, diddle, hi dum, day.
Take a little dance and a hop in the corner,
Take a little dance and a hop in the floor;
Take a little dance and a hop in the corner,
Hey, diddle, hi dum, day.

The players dance round in a ring. One previously, by the process of a
chapping-out rhyme, being made "it," goes first outside, then into the
centre. Her business now is to decide who shall succeed her; and
according as the colour-word in the rhyme--red, blue, green, or yellow,
etc.--corresponds with the dress of all the individual players in the
successive singing, the ones spotted successively take their place in
the centre, and the process goes on, of course, until all have shared
alike in the game.

* * * * *

"~When I was a Young Thing~," of simple though pretty action, has had a
wide vogue. Its rhyme goes:--

When I was a young thing,
A young thing, a young thing;
When I was a young thing,
How happy was I.
'Twas this way, and that way,
And this way, and that way;
When I was a young thing,
Oh, this way went I.

When I was a school-girl, etc.
When I was a teacher, etc.
When I had a sweetheart, etc.
When I had a husband, etc.
When I had a baby, etc.
When I had a donkey, etc.
When I took in washing, etc.
When my baby died, oh died, etc.
When my husband died, etc.

The players, joining hands, form a ring, and dance or walk round singing
the words, and keeping the ring form until the end of the fourth line in
each successive verse, when they unclasp, and stand still. Each child
then takes hold of her skirt and dances individually to the right and
left, making two or three steps. Then all walk round singly, singing the
second four lines, and making suitable action to the words as they sing
and go: the same form being continued throughout.

* * * * *

Still simpler is "~Carry my Lady to London~." In this game two children
cross hands grasping each other's wrists and their own as well--thus
forming a seat, on which a third child can be carried. When hoisted and
in order, the bearers step out singing:--

Gie me a needle to stick i' my thoom
To carry my lady to London;
London Bridge is bro