Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
As thick as hasty-pudding.
Yankee doodle do, etc.
And there we saw a swamping gun,
Big as log of maple,
On a little deuced cars,
A load for father’s cattle.
Yankee doodle do, etc.
And every time they red it o
It took a horn of powder,
It made a noise—like father’s gun,
Only a nation louder.
Yankee doodle do, etc.
There was a man in our town,
His name was—
No, no, that won’t do. Now, if I was with Tabitha Wymen and Jemima Cawley
down at father Chase’s, I shouldn’t mind singing this all out before them—you
would be aronted if I was to sing that, though that’s a lucky thought; if you should
be aronted, I have something dang’d cute, which Jessamy told me to say to you.
JENNY
Is that all! I assure you I like it of all things.
JONATHAN
No, no; I can sing more; some other time, when you and I are better acquainted,
I’ll sing the whole of it—no, no—that’s a b—I can’t sing but a hundred and ninety
verses; our Tabitha at home can sing it all.—[Sings.]
Marblehead’s a rocky place,
And Cape-Cod is sandy;
Charlestown is burnt down,
Boston is the dandy.
Yankee doodle, doodle do, etc.
I vow, my own town song has put me into such topping spirits that I believe I’ll
begin to do a little, as Jessamy says we must when we go a-courting.—[Runs and
kisses her.] Burning rivers! cooling ames! red-hot roses! pig-nuts! hasty-pudding
and ambrosia!
JENNY
What means this freedom? you insulting wretch. [Strikes him.]
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