Page:The Chinese Boy and Girl.djvu/15

Rh I asked the nurse to repeat it again, more slowly, and I wrote it down together with the translation.

Now, I think it must be admitted that there is more in this rhyme to commend it to the public than there is in "Jack and Jill." If when that remarkable young couple went for the pail of water, Master Jack had carried it himself, he would have been entitled to some credit for gallantry, or if in cracking his crown he had fallen so as to prevent Miss Jill from "tumbling," or even in such a way as to break her fall and make it easier for her, there would have been some reason for the popularity of such a record. As it is, there is no way to account for it except the fact that it is simple and rhythmic and children like it. This rhyme, however, in the original, is equal to "Jack and Jill" in rhythm and rhyme, has as good a story, exhibits a more scientific tumble, with a less tragic result, and contains as good a moral as that found in "Jack Sprat."

It is as popular all over North China as "Jack and Jill" is throughout Great Britain and America. Ask any Chinese child if he knows the "Little Mouse," and he reels it off to you as