e.,_ Sunday clothes) the very next morning
after he was married; (2) how she dragged him up the chimney in a
basket, a-smoke-drying, wherein they used to dry bacon, which made him
look like a red herring; (3) how Simon lost a sack of corn as he was
going to the mill to have it ground; (4) how Simon went to market with a
basket of eggs, but broke them by the way: also how he was put into the
stocks; (5) how Simon's wife cudgelled him for not bringing her money
for the eggs; (6) how Simon lost his wife's pail and burnt the bottom of
her kettle; (7) how Simon's wife sent him to buy two pounds of soap, but
going over the bridge, he let his money fall in the river: also how a
ragman ran away with his clothes. No wonder if, after this crowning
misfortune, poor Simon "drank a bottle of sack, to poison himself, as
being weary of his life"!
Again, we have _The Unfortunate Son; or, a Kind Wife is worth Gold,
being full of Mirth and Pastime_, which commences thus:
There was a man but one son had,
And he was all his joy;
But still his fortune was but bad,
Though he was a pretty boy.
His father sent him forth one day
To feed a flock of sheep,
And half of them were stole away
While he lay down asleep!
Next day he went with one Tom Goff
To reap as he was seen,
When he did cut his fingers off,
The sickle was so keen!
Another of the chap-book histories of noodles is that of _Simple John
and his Twelve Misfortunes_, an imitation of _Simple Simon_; it
was still popular amongst the rustics of Scotland fifty years ago.
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