ease-porridge.

[Illustration: Decoration]

MY dear, do you know,
How a long time ago,
Two poor little children,
Whose names I don't know,
Were stolen away on a fine summer's day,
And left in a wood, as I've heard people say.

And when it was night,
So sad was their plight,
The sun it went down,
And the moon gave no light.
They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried,
And the poor little things, they lay down and died.

And when they were dead,
The Robins so red
Brought strawberry-leaves
And over them spread;
And all the day long
They sung them this song:
"Poor babes in the wood! Poor babes in the wood!
And don't you remember the babes in the wood?"

[Illustration: There was a crooked man]

THERE was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

[Illustration: Decoration]

SIMPLE SIMON met a pieman,
Going to the fair;
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
"Let me taste your ware."

Says the pieman to Simple Simon,
"Show me first your penny."
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
"Indeed I have not any."

Simple Simon went a-fishing
For to catch a whale:
All the water he had got
Was in his mother's pail!

[Illustration: Decoration]

I'LL tell you a story
About Jack a Nory,--
And now my story's begun:
I'll tell you another
About Jack his brother,--
And now my story's done.

[Illustration: SIMPLE SIMON]

THERE was a man, and he had nought,
And robbers came to rob him;
He crept up to the chimney-pot,
And then they thought they had him.

[Illustration: There was a man, and he had nought]

But he got down on t' other side,
And then they could not find him.
He ran fourteen miles in fifteen days,
And never looked behind him.

[Illust