This is the way we scrub our floor, All of a Wednesday morning. This is the way we mend our clothes, All of a Thursday morning. This is the way we sweep the house, All of a Friday morning. This is the way we bake our bread, All of a Saturday morning. This is the way we go to church, All of a Sunday morning. In Massachusetts the song goes-- Here we go round the _barberry bush_, So early in the morning. A variation makes the last line-- All on a frosty morning. No. 24. _Do, Do, Pity my Case._ Do, do, pity my case, In some lady's garden; My clothes to wash when I get home, In some lady's garden. Do, do, pity my case, In some lady's garden; My clothes to iron when I get home, In some lady's garden. And so on, the performers lamenting the duty which lies upon them of scrubbing their floors, baking their bread, etc. _Louisiana._ This pretty dance, with its idiomatic English, which comes to us from the extreme South, is obviously not modern. The chorus refers, not to the place of the labor, but to the locality of the dance: it may have been originally _in my lady's garden_. Our informant remembers the game as danced by negro children, their scanty garments flying as the ring spun about the trunk of some large tree; but (though the naive appeal to pity may seem characteristic of Southern indolence) this is evidently no negro song. No. 25. _When I Was a Shoemaker._ [Illustration] A ROUND. When I was a shoemaker, And a shoemaker was I, This way,[76] and this way, And this way went I. When I was a gentleman, And a gentleman was I, This way, and this way, And this way went I. When I was a lady, And a lady was I, This way, and this way, And this way went I. So on, indefinitely. The gentleman places his hands in his waistcoat pockets, and promenades up and down; the lady gathers her skirts haughtily together; the fireman makes a sound in imitation of the horns which firemen formerly blew; the shoemaker and hair-dresser are represented by appropriate motions, etc. _New York streets._ As with most street-games, further inquiry has shown us that the song is old in America. Not merely the substance (which is identical with our last two numbers), but also the expression, is paralleled in France and Italy, and even on the extreme limits of European Russia. The well-known French name of this game "The Bridge of Avignon,"[77] indicates a high antiquity. This bridge, which figures in French nursery-lore as London Bridge does in our own, was built in 1177. Bridges, in the Middle Age, were the most important structures in the land, places of festivity and solemnity, dances, trials, and executions. No. 26. _Here We Come Gathering Nuts of May._