Two short rhymes in one: Polly Flinders is scolded and whipped for spoiling her clothes by the fire, then a much lighter ride to grandmother's follows, with the cat and dog in tow. The first half is a genuine piece of old nursery-rhyme harshness, so read it through first.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
Little Polly Flinders
Sat among the cinders
Warming her pretty little toes;
Her mother came and caught her,
Whipped her little daughter
For spoiling her nice new clothes.
RIDE AWAY, RIDE AWAY
Ride away, ride away,
Johnny shall ride,
And he shall have pussy-cat
Tied to one side;
And he shall have little dog
Tied to the other,
And Johnny shall ride
To see his grandmother.
About this rhyme
Traditional · First printed in the early 1800s
A traditional English rhyme, first printed in the early 1800s and passed around by mouth before that. The story is small and slightly unfair: Polly sits in the warm ashes by the hearth to heat her toes, her mother finds her, and she gets a smacking for spoiling her nice new clothes. 'Flinders' was a real surname, and also an old word for fragments or splinters, which suits a girl sitting among the cinders.
Warm hands work well here. Rub your child's toes at 'warming her pretty little toes', then act out the moment mother appears. Most children take Polly's side, so it is worth saying afterwards that new clothes were dear back then, which is why her mother minded. It fits a cold morning by the radiator as neatly as it once fitted a hearth.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition