Kentucky Folktales: Revealing Stories, Truths, and Outright Lies

Jump Rope Kingdom

JuMp rope KingdoM First grade babies Second grade tots Third grade angels Fourth grade snots Fifth grade peaches Sixth grade plums And all the rest are dirty bums. I heard that rhyme on my first day of school, which at Flaherty Elementary in Meade County, Kentucky, was the first day of first grade. I’m not sure who started the rhyme. Could have been the snots. They were proud of themselves. Might have been the peaches. Might have been the plums. I don’t believe it was the dirty bums because, if memory serves me correctly, the dirty bums were much too old for recess. I heard that rhyme on the playground, day after day, recess after recess. Even when the bell rang, and our teachers left the school building to meet us and we left the playground to meet our teachers, I could still hear the rhyme, now a whispered taunt: First grade babies Second grade tots Third grade— I was in first grade, but I was not a baby. I was the oldest child in my family, and the only one old enough to walk all the way out our long, winding gravel driveway, stand by the highway, catch the big yellow school bus, and ride it to school. I wasn’t a baby. I was a big girl. But somehow I knew if I said, “Teacher, teacher, do you hear . . . ?” there would be laughter, and I wouldn’t think it was funny. The big kids were 174 FAMILY TALES AND PERSONAL NARRATIVES the ones who chanted the rhyme, and at my school the big kids were the rulers of the playground. The big boys ruled the kingdom of marbles. Marbles, a game played in rings drawn in the dust beneath the shade of trees. I can’t tell you what happened in the kingdom of marbles, because when I was a girl marbles was a boys-only world. The big girls ruled a kingdom too—the jump rope kingdom. They decided who was going to turn the rope, who was going to jump, what chants would be chanted—they ruled the jump rope kingdom. When I began first grade, I knew how to jump rope. I did! My mama would tie a rope to a porch post, and then she would string the rope across the porch. My mama would pick up the end of the rope. I’d stand beside the rope and watch her carefully. She would turn the rope, and I would jump. I knew how to jump rope when I began first grade. But in the jump rope kingdom ruled by the big girls, no one stood beside the rope and waited for the rope to turn. Oh no, the big girls ran in while the rope was turning! They ran in as they chanted the words of the jump rope rhymes: Not last night but the night before Twenty-four robbers came a-knocking at my door. As I ran out [the big girl would run out] They ran in [and she would jump back in, called “going in the back door”] And hit me on the head with a rolling pin And this is what they said for me to do: Fancy Dancer, do the twist [the big girl would twist and jump at the same time] Fancy Dancer, give a high kick [she’d kick and jump on one foot] Fancy Dancer, turn all around [she turned in a circle while she jumped] Fancy Dancer, get out of town [the big girl would run out; the next would run in, and the chant would begin all over again] The rope never stopped. If a rope-turner grew tired, a second big girl would walk over, stand beside her, take hold of the rope, and the two of them would turn the rope together. Then the one who was tired would step away—the rope never stopped. I was not prepared. So I sat on the sidewalk and I watched—recess after recess, day after day. I learned the rhymes, took them home, and Jump Rope Kingdom 175 taught them to my little sister. But I did not, because I believed I could not, jump rope with the big girls. One day, one of the big girls, Anna Jo Hinton, walked over, looked down at me, and said, “Don’t you want to jump rope?” “Oh, I do. I...