There is a note in the front of the volume saying that no public reading
of "Rip Van Winkle" may be given without first getting the author's
permission. It ought to be made much more difficult to do than that.
XXXIX
LITERARY LOST AND FOUND DEPARTMENT
With Scant Apology to the Book Section of the _New York Times_.
"OLD BLACK TILLIE"
H.G.L.--When I was a little girl, my nurse, used to recite a poem
something like the following (as near as I can remember). I wonder if
anyone can give me the missing lines?
"_Old Black Tillie lived in the dell,
Heigh-ho with a rum-tum-tum!
Something, something, something like a lot of hell,
Heigh-ho with a rum-tum-tum!
She wasn't very something and she wasn't very fat
But_--"
"VICTOR HUGO'S DEATH"
M.K.C.--Is it true that Victor Hugo did not die but is still living in a
little shack in Colorado?
"I'M SORRY THAT I SPELT THE WORD"
J.R.A.--Can anyone help me out by furnishing the last three words to the
following stanza which I learned in school and of which I have forgotten
the last three words, thereby driving myself crazy?
"'_I'm sorry that I spelt the word,
I hate to go above you,
Because--' the brown eyes lower fell,
'Because, you see, ---- ---- ----.'_"
"GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN"
J.A.E.--Where did Mark Twain write the following?
"_God's in his heaven:
All's right with the world._"
"SHE DWELT BESIDE"
N.K.Y.--Can someone locate this for me and tell the author?
"_She dwelt among untrodden ways,
Beside the springs of Dove,
To me she gave sweet Charity,
But greater far is Love._"
"THE GOLDEN WEDDING"
K.L.F.--Who wrote the following and what does it mean?
"_Oh, de golden wedding,
Oh, de golden wedding,
Oh, de golden wedding,
De golden, golden wedding_!"
ANSWERS
"WHEN GRANDMA WAS A GIRL"
LUTHER F. NEAM, Flushing, L.I.--The poem asked for by "E.J.K." was
recited at a Free Soil riot in Ashburg, Kansas, in July, 1850. It was
entitled, "And That's the Way They Did It When Grandma Was a Girl," and
was written by Bishop Leander B. Rizzard. The last line runs:
"_And that's they way they did it, when Grandma was a girl_."
Others who answered this query were: Lillian W. East, of Albany; Martin
B. Forsch, New York City, and Henry Cabot Lodge, Nahant.
"LET US THEN BE UP AND DOING"
Roger F. Nilkette, Presto, N.J.--Replying to the query in your last
issue concerning the origin of the lines:
"_Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate.
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait_."
I remember hearing these lines read at a gathering in the Second Baptist
Church of Presto, N.J., when I was a young man, by the Reverend Harley
N. Ankle. It was said at the time among his parishioners that he himself
wrote them and on being questioned on the matter he did not deny it,
simply smiling and saying, "I'm glad if you liked them." They were
henceforth known in Presto as "Dr. Ankle's verse" and were set to music
and sung at his funeral.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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