Wyandot County Republican

Mother Goose in Pigeon-English.

Will you please give me a corner, says a San Francisco correspondent of Hearth and Home, to tell the boys and girls the funny way my little brother's Chinese nurse sings Mother Goose's melodies to him? I know they'd laugh if they heard him, but my little brother thinks it's splendid, and he understands it perfectly. I guess the children can make out this song, because they all know it in good English. I'll tell them a few words: Galo in Pigeon-English means girl; bobbery means fuss, commotion, or trouble, and chop-chop means very quick. The r's are pronounced like l. Pigeon-English is the language that English and American merchants have to speak in dealing with Chinamen. When the Chinese try to say "business" it sounds more like pigeon than anything else, and that's what the name Pigeon-English comes from. It's just like a separate language, and some people here speak it first-rate. I'm not sure that I've got the blackbird song just right, but anyway, that's the way it sounds when Sin Wing sings it. You ought to see him bobbing his head and shaking his pigtail at baby. He wears a sort of brown shirt, hanging loose outside his big trousers, and his reddish-yellow hands coming out of great big brown sleeves. Mamma said yesterday that baby's bright little face looking up from Sin Wing's lap seems just like a ripe peach among a lot of autumn leaves. Now I'll write down the song:

SIN WING'S SONG.

Singee songee sick a pence
Pockee muchee rye:
Dozen two time blackee bird
Cookee in e pie.

When him cut-ee topside
Birdee bobbery sing:
Himee tinkee nicey dish
Setee foree king!

Kingee in e talkee-room
Countee muchee money:
Queenv in e kitchee
Chew-chew breadee honey.

Servant galo shakee.
Hangee washee clothes;
Chop-chop comee blackee bird,
Nipee off her nose!