In Lent it is always nice, My brother's birth-day is in May, He says his feet need warming, So that Lent we must be praising, And then we're going to celebrate, Easter brings eggs and a holiday.
"It's too bad that he's so careless with his rhymes. His imagination is extraordinary. Very original."
Keesje, the Butcher's Boy: "In Praise of the Teacher."
My father has slaughtered many a steer, But Master Pennewip is still living, I hear; Some are lean, and some are well-fed, He has slipped his wig to the side of his head.
The wig actually went to the side of his head.
"Well, this is curious. I hardly know what to say about it."
"What's the connection between me and steers?"
The wig protested vigorously against any implication of relationship with steers.
"H--mm! Can it be that this is what our new-fangled writers call humour?"
The wig sank down to his eyebrows, which signified doubt.
The wig passed again to the zenith, to express its satisfaction with the teacher's determination to interview the butcher's boy.
Religion very nice must be, Much it pleases the people we see.
"The fundamental idea is very beautiful," said the teacher, "but it ought to have been developed better."
The path of virtue she shows us each day, And we are glad to go that way; And as there's nothing to do more fitting, She teaches us sewing, darning and knitting.
The wig fairly leaped with pleasure, and the curls embraced one another. This out-pouring of Trudie's heart was borne at once to Juffrouw Pennewip, and was later hung by the fireplace in honor of the poetess and the subject of the poem.
Then followed a sublime poem on God by Klaasje van der Gracht, the son of the Catechist. He was thirteen years old, and had not been vaccinated--out of regard for predestination.
Friendship very nice must be, Much it pleases the people we see.
The wig seemed dissatisfied. The "Religion" of Lucas de Wilde was pulled out and compared with Louwtje's "Friendship."
"H--emm. It is possible. Another example of how one thought can originate in two heads at the same time."
Fishing very nice must be, Much it pleases the people we see.
The wig was moving continually. It looked as if it were fishing too.
The teacher looked hurriedly through the remaining poems and picked out the offspring of the entire Wilde connection. His worst suspicions were realized. Mietje de Wilde, Kees de Wilde, Piet and Jan de Wilde--all uniformly declared that religion, friendship, fishing, dreaming, cauliflower and deception "very nice must be," and that they were also very pleasing "to the people we see." A regular flood of the nice and pleasing.