All you need, my dear:
He's here and there,
He is everywhere,
And to you He's ever near.

People say that every baby that is born into the world is thought by its
mother to be better than any other ever born. The Arab women think so
too, and this is the way they sing it:

One like you was never born,
One like you was never brought;
All the Arabs might grow old,
Fighting ne'er so brave and bold,
Yet with all their battles fought
One like you they never caught.

Im Faris asks if we would not like to hear some of the rhymes the Arab
women sing when playing with their children. Here are some of them. The
first one you will think is like what you have already seen in "Mother
Goose."

Blacksmith, blacksmith, shoe the mare,
Shoe the colt with greatest care;
Hold the shoe and drive the nail,
Else your labor all will fail;
Shoe a donkey for Seleem,
And a colt for Ibraheem.

Sugar cane grows luxuriantly in Syria, and it was first taken from
Tripoli, Syria, to Spain, and thence to the West Indies and America. But
all they do with it now in Syria, is to suck it. It is cut up in pieces
and sold to the people, old and young, who peel it and suck it. So the
Arab women sing to their children:

Pluck it and suck it, the green sugar cane,
Whatever is sweet is costly and vain;
He'll cut you a joint as long as a span,
And charge two piastres. Now buy if you can!

Wered says she will sing us two or three which they use in teaching the
little Arab babies to "pat" their hands:

Patty cake, baby! Make him dance!
May his age increase and his years advance!
May his life like the rock, long years endure,
Overgrown with lilies, so sweet and pure!

And now the Sit Leila is singing again one of the Druze lullabys:

Tish for two, Tish for two!
A linen shirt with a border blue!
With cloth that the little pedler sells,
For the father of eyes like the little gazelles!
Your mother will weave and spin and twine,
To clothe you so nicely O little Hassein!

Do you hear the jackals crying as they come up out of the valley? Their
cry is like the voice of the cat and dog mingled together, and Im Faris
knows some of the ditties which they sing to their children about the
jackals and their fondness for chickens:

You cunning rogues beware!
You jackals with the long hair!
You ate up the chickens of old Katri