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The Tall Book of Mother Goose
When I woke up this morning I found a portion of a rhyme rolling around in my head. I could hear the cadence – or at least I imagined it — perfectly well, but the only words I could summon were tattered and torn.
“I think my brain was weeding out old information last night,” I told my husband. I beat the cadence for him and inserted “tattered and torn” at the right spot. It wasn’t enough information for either of us. “I guess that memory is gone forever,” I said, shaking my head. At my age, I don’t like losing old memories – or any memories for that matter. If they are going to go, they should go completely and not tease me by leaving a stub.
I was still thinking about the rhyme as I got in the shower. I need a shower in the morning to loosen the synovial fluid in my joints and tame my unruly hair. Until I’ve had a shower I not only walk like Frankenstein’s monster my curls stand about like I was awakened by an electric shock. I believe I do my very best thinking in the shower too. If I’m going to get a big idea, it will be in the shower, so I wasn’t surprised when I suddenly remembered another piece of the rhyme. “All forlorn! Tattered and torn and all forlorn!” The cadence grew stronger.
Before my shower was finished, I’d remembered, “crumpled horn, tossed the dog and killed the rat.” What’s more, I knew I’d been thinking of a nursery rhyme from my childhood. I have no clue why my brain decided to review “The House That Jack Built” while I slept, but I knew I’d find it in my copy of The Tall Book of Mother Goose, published by Western Publishing in 1942.
Take that sixth decade!
Here’s the last verse:
This is the farmer sowing the corn,
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog
That worried the cat
That killed the rat
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
The House That Jack Built
Glimpses From the Curve 