Mother keeps milk in the ice box.
She likes to keep it cool and sweet.
The iceman passes every day with a big ice wagon.
When Mother wants ice, Betty puts up a card.
When the iceman sees it, he cries, “Whoa! whoa!”
The big horses stop.
The iceman jumps down from his wagon.
He brings in a big block of ice.
He puts it in the ice box, and Mother gives him a ticket.
The iceman goes back to his wagon.
He jumps in and drives away.
Once Bobby and Betty ran after the ice wagon.
Mother saw them and called them back.
“Don’t run after the ice wagon,” said Mother. “Play you have an ice wagon, Bobby. Hitch Queen to your cart.”
For study and play:
I was some ice,
So white and so nice,
But which nobody tasted;
And so it was wasted,
All that good ice!
—Edward Lear
THE ICE MAN
Composed by Children
The ice wagon rattles down the street,
Thumpity, bumpity, bump!
It always comes in the summer’s heat,
Thumpity, bumpity, bump!
The ice picks clank and make such a noise,
Clinkity, clankity, clank!
Down the street run the girls and the boys,
Clinkity, clankity, clank!
Here is a card for seventy-five pounds,
Whoa there, Jerry and Joe!
Chippety chop, how the ice pick sounds,
Whoa there, Jerry and Joe!
Now he comes in at the kitchen door,
Trampity, trampity, tramp!
Dripping water all over the floor,
Trampity, trampity, tramp!
Then he goes in his wagon yellow,
Gee up, Jerry and Joe!
The iceman is a jolly fellow,
Gee up, Jerry and Joe!
—Grade III, North School,
Hinsdale, Illinois
Hinsdale, Illinois
Snow, snow faster,
Come again at Easter.