He beat his mother.

This was the original rhyme. Two verses have been added without
rhyme, reason, rhythm, sense or good taste. They are as follows:

His mother jumped up on the window-sill,
But the window had no crack,
She then looked into the looking-glass,
But the mirror had no back.

Then all at once she began to sing,
But the song it had no end
And then she played the monkey trick
And to heaven she did ascend.

The moral teachings of nursery rhymes are as varied as
the morals of the people to whom the rhymes belong. The
"Little Mouse" already given contains both a warning and
a penalty. The mouse which had climbed up the candle-
stick to steal tallow was unable to get down. This was
the penalty for stealing, and indicates to children that if
they visit the cupboard in their mother's absence and take
her sweetmeats without her permission, they may suffer as
the mouse did. To leave the mouse there after he had
repeatedly called for that halo-crowned grandmother, who
refused to come, would have been too much for the child's
sympathies, and so the mouse doubles himself up into a
wheel, and rolls to the floor.

In other rhymes, children are warned against stealing, but