“William Trembletoes, he’s a good fisherman. Catches hens, puts ’em in the pen…” If you recited this rhyme growing up, you’re probably tapping your foot along with its singsong cadences right now. The rhyme accompanied a children’s game, and is the source, by the way, of the title of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. A caller who played the game as a child wonders if its roots lie in her Cajun heritage. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “William Trembletoes”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Oh, super duper to take from Grant and Barney.
My name is Kristen.
What?
I’m from Dallas.
Kristen from Dallas?
And you call this Grant and Barney?
Super duper.
Isn’t that what he says all the time?
It is what Grant says all the time.
Yeah, I do say that all the time.
Oh no, I’ve become a parody of myself.
You’re busted, Barrett.
Well, Kristen, welcome to the show.
Hi.
I’m going to tease you in a minute.
That is a rhyme that we used to do as a kid all the time, and everybody looks at me like I’m a crazy person when I try to tell it to them.
Okay.
And I’ve been able to find the beginning of the rhyme off and on online, and I’ll tell you what it is.
It’s William Trimpletoes. He’s a good fisherman. Catches hens, puts them in the pens. Liar, briar, limber, lock. Three geese in a flock. One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest. O-U-T spells out, you old dirty dishrag. You.
And this sounds like a counting game.
This is for kids, right?
Yeah, this is for kids.
We would play it with my grandmother.
And so she would point.
And I’ve been able to find that part on the Internet off and on, though it’s a little different.
But we had a continuation where the person who was out would then go hide behind something, and we would all yell, when are you coming home?
And the person would respond, tomorrow afternoon, what are you going to bring?
A fish and a spoon and a fat raccoon.
Well, what you coming home on?
And that kid gets to choose an animal like a dog.
So somebody runs over there like a dog, yelping, and brings him back.
And then we all say, shake him until he spits.
And you shake until they fall off.
Well, first of all, I was wondering where this comes from.
My family’s Cajun.
And so I kind of assumed it was that.
But I had also thought, you know, in the epigraph of the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, he has the line, one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
Yeah, and if you look in the text, he does a version of that William Trimble Toes.
Oh, really? Because I haven’t read the book.
Yes, right. Yeah, it’s in the book.
I don’t think it goes as far as the additional part that you’re talking about.
That is just a family weird edition.
Well, you know, it’s interesting that you mentioned the family weird edition because there are other families who played similarly.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Are you aware of any regions that that’s specific to?
All over the South, Alabama, Mississippi.
Virginia even.
Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina for sure.
And do you remember this part?
Did the leader, did grandma say when the person came back what you got there and the person says a bag of knits and then they say shit?
You know what? That is totally ringing a bell, yes.
Is it?
I mean, this was so long ago.
I wasn’t even sure if I remembered the whole thing right.
Yeah.
Well, that’s interesting.
You know, I found one thing online, though, that kind of brought it back to Scotland.
And they had a different version that instead of saying hens, it was something about hands.
There are a bunch of different versions of this.
Most of them are much shorter than the version you gave us.
So if you were a little longer, I found it in a Virginia newspaper more than 100 years, from more than 100 years ago.
Really?
1990s Hampton, Virginia.
Now, did they do the second part or just the first part?
Both parts, actually.
Both parts.
Well, I’m glad because, you know, one of my sisters kept telling me, I think that second part, we used to do that to something else. I don’t think that’s related.
I’m like, I’m pretty sure it is.
Well, thank you so much.
That answers so much.
I’m so glad other people play it.
All right.
Okay.
Have a good one.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
We’d love to hear the rhymes you used as a kid when you played your games with grandmother or siblings or whoever.
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