Page:A Selection of Original Songs, Scraps, Etc., by Ned Farmer (1st ed.).djvu/34



IT WERE NO BOOK OF MINE, DID IT NOT CONTAIN SOME ALLUSION TO THE NOBLE ART OF "RAT CATCHING." THE SUBJOINED EFFUSION BEING IN AS MILD A FORM AS ANYTHING I HAVE EVER PENNED ON THAT SUBJECT, I AM INDUCED TO INSERT IT.

had written Ned Perkins to say, That he purposed on Friday to thrash out a bay; That he'd sent to George Haynes, about ferrets, and so They expected on Friday to have a grand go. The morning is come, the machine got in motion, Which rather beats thrashing by hand, I've a notion; The chaff in a of dust floats along, And the team do their work to the waggoner's song. George's outposts well guarded, the begins, At the expense of rat's lives and the countrymen's shins; "Don't trample the wheat out," says Benton, "I pray, There's no sort of hurry—they can't get away."