V. Please may I go out to play? How long will you stay? Three hours in a day. Will you come when I call you? No. Will you come when I fetch you? Yes. Make then your curtseys and be off. The girls then scamper off as before, and as they run about the field keep calling out, “I won’t go home till seven o’clock, I won’t go home till seven o’clock.” After they have been running about for some five or ten minutes the Mother calls Alice (or whatever the name may be) to come home, when the one addressed will run all the faster, crying louder than before, “I won’t go home till seven o’clock.” Then the Mother commences to chase them until she catches them, and when she gets them to any particular place in the field where the others are playing, she says— Where have you been? Up to grandmother’s. What have you done that you have been away so long? I have cleaned the grate and dusted the room. What did she give you? A piece of bread and cheese so big as a house, and a piece of plum cake so big as a mouse. Where’s my share? Up in higher cupboard. It’s not there. Up in lower cupboard. It’s not there. Then the cat have eat it. Where’s the cat? Up in heath. Where’s the heath? The fire burnt it. [The rest is the same as in the last version, p. 393.] —Dorsetshire (_Folk-lore Journal_, vii. 221-222). VI. Mother, mother, may I (or we) go out to play? No, child! no, child! not for the day. Why, mother? why, mother? I won’t stay long. Make three pretty courtesies, and away begone. One for mammy, one for daddy, one for Uncle John. Where, child! where, child! have you been all the day? Up to granny’s. What have you been doing there? [The answer to this is often, “Washing doll’s clothes,” but anything may be mentioned.] What did she give you? [The reply is again left to the child’s fancy.] Where’s my share? The cat ate it [or, In the cat’s belly]. What’s in that box, mother? Twopence, my child. What for, mother? To buy a stick to beat you, and a rope to hang you, my child. —Cornwall (_Folk-lore Journal_, v. 55, 56). VII. Grandmother, grandmother grey, May I go out to play? No, no, no, it is a very wet day. Grandmother, grandmother grey, May I go out to play? Yes, yes, yes, if you don’t frighten the geese away. Children, I call you. I can’t hear you. Where are your manners? In my shoe. Who do you care for? Not for you. —Earls Heaton, Yorks. (H. Hardy).