Stephen Farrow <stephen.farrow@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:ftqou5$sga$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> MaryLyon wrote:
>> Greetings:
>>
>> My mother has been chanting the following little ditty to her new
>> granddaughter, and it has stuck in my head as well. She claims she
>> has known it since childhood, but has no idea where it came from. She
>> asked a friend of hers who is about the same age (65), and her friend
>> knew it, too (though not the last line), and was equally mystified as
>> to its origins. Here it is:
>>
>> Rooty toot toot
>> We are the girls from the institute
>> We don't smoke and we don't chew
>> And we don't go with the boys who do
>> Our class won a Bible!
>>
>> OK, it's not Sondheim (and it's not even a show tune!), but I figured
>> if anyone could identify it, it would be someone on RATM!
>>
>> Cheers!
>> Amy :)
>
> I don't have a definitive answer, but I've heard it before myself as
> well, and I got curious.
>
> There's more here:
>
> http://www.poetrylibrary.org.uk/queries/lostquotes/?id=191
>
> Buried in the following article is an excerpt with a citation that
> suggests it's from, or at least in, a book called "On My Own Two Feet"
> by Beverly Cleary:
>
> http://www.users.muohio.edu/shermalw/honors_2001_fall/honors_papers_200
> 0/cohen_bcleary.html
>
> That's not a book I ever recall reading myself, and I certainly don't
> own a copy of it, so I can't confirm that that's where it's from, but
> that's where the trail leads.
In, but not from Beverly Cleary. The citation from the Poetry Library
site puts it back to the 1940's at least. Beverly Cleary's only use of it
is in her memoir "On My Own Two Feet", and is in the section about
preparing to go to college, which places it sometime around 1934.
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