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The first stanza of this jingle was long attributed to Longfellow as an impromptu made on one of his children. He took occasion to deny this, as well as the authorship of the almost equally famous "Mr. Finney had a turnip." The last two stanzas bear evidence of a more sophisticated origin than that of real nursery rhymes. Mr. Lucas, in his Book of Verses for Children, gives two different versions of these stanzas.

Jemima

There was a little girl, and she had a little curl,
Right down the middle of her forehead,
When she was good, she was very, very good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid.

One day she went upstairs, while her parents, unawares,
In the kitchen down below were occupied with meals,
And she stood upon her head, on her little truckle-bed,
And she then began hurraying with her heels.

Her mother heard the noise, and thought it was the boys,
A playing at a combat in the attic,
But when she climbed the stair and saw Jemima there,
She took and she did whip her most emphatic!