HALLOWEENA HECATEE

Tell me true,/Do one and two/ And three and four/ And nothing more/ Make half a score?"" Tell me too, how many rope-skippers on your block even know that a score is a unit in counting? Or tend to jump to mushy rhymes about sending love to the rainbow's end? Or work themselves up to pepper with shouts of dales and byways, lads and lasses, besoms, mums, chateaux and plateaux? It's no surprise that these wan contrivances are ""original"" jump-rope rhymes, for no live kid would dream of passing them on to another. Better leave them to Browne's little elves and bluebells and the mindless lads and lasses who bob obediently through the pages.