Two Dead Boys Got Up To Fight

Aries. Afton

My Father told me and my siblings this story as kids: “One bright day in the middle of the night two dead boys got up to fight, back to back they faced each other drew their swords and shot each other, a deaf policeman heard the noise, ran up to save the two dead boys, you don’t believe me this stories true? Ask the blind man he saw it to.”

Kamalah Fletcher

My dad is from Jamaica and learned a version as a child. He told it to us whenever we asked him to read us a bed time story. We would give home a book to read, which he would open and recite this poem anyway.

Here is the version he taught us:
One fine day in the middle of the night, 2 dead men got up to fight, 10 blind men to see fair play, 40 mutes to shout hooray, back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot each other

Larry DePuy

I googled to see if I remembered it correctly. I remember it as “T’was the middle of they..” and “came and killed those two dead boys.” but the rest was the same. I remember from the 1950s.
Also: Little Willie in the best of sashes, fell in the fire and was burned to ashes. Later on the room grew chilly, but no one cared to stir up Willie.

And the riddle: Marble walls as white as milk, with a lining as soft as silk, within a fountain crystal clear a golden apple doth appear. There are no doors to this stronghold, but thieves break in to steal the gold. What is it. (answer: an egg)

Robert Prince

Learned a variant of this – something my father repeated – growing up in Sioux CIty IA. We trace most of our history to English and Irish imagrants from the late 1890’s.

natalie k

I learned this in the 1950’s .. grew up in Flushing NY. ..

Justin Stein

That’s funny, I’m from New York and my mother (also from NY) taught this to my sister and I in the following way:

Late one night, when the sun was shining bright
Two barefoot boys with shoes on went out in the street to fight.
Back to back, they faced each other,
Drew out their swords, and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise, and beat the heck out of two dead boys.

Hazy Hartman

The Barefoot Boy With Shoes On [b.Asa Martin]

It was midnight on the ocean
Not a streetcar was in sight
The sun was shining brightly
And it rained all day that night
It was a summer’s day in winter
And the rain was snowing fast
And a barefoot boy with shoes on
Stood sitting in the grass

And the cows were making cowslips (A yellow flower)
And the bells were ringing wet
The bumble bees were making bums
And smoking cigarettes
A man went in a stable
And came out a little hoarse
He jumped upon his golfstick
And rode all around the course

While the organ peeled potatoes
Lard was rendered by the choir
The sexton rang a dish-rag (official who maintains a church)
Someone set the church on fire
Holy smokes the preacher shouted
In the rain he lost his hair
Now his head resembles heaven
Cause there sin’t no partin’ there.

it was midnight on the ocean
Not a horsecart was in sight
I went into a drugstore
To get myself a light
The man behind the counter
Was a lady old and gray
Who used to peddle shoestrings
On the road to Mandalay

My husband’s dead the lady said
Her eyes were dry with tears
She put her head between her feet
And stood that way for years
Her children six were orphans
Except one tiny tot
Who lived in a house across the street
Above a vacant lot

It was evening and the sunrise
was just setting in the west;
And the fishes in the treetops
were all cuddled in their nests.
As the wind was blowing bubbles,
lightning shot from left to right;
Everything that you could see
had been hidden out of sight

As I gazed through the oaken door
A whale went drifting by
It’s six legs hanging in the air
So I kissed her goodbye.
This story has a moral
As you can plainly see
Don’t mix your gin with whiskey
On the deep and dark blue sea.

denneal ross

I remember my dad telling us this poem when I was real little. That was in the 60’s. He told us he learned it as a kid. Every great once in a while I think of it but didn’t know how it went. Now I can tell it to my grandchildren and later hopefully they will tell their grandchildren too. Wonderful childhood memory.

Lola Howard

I’ve heard this for so many years .

Jane Bolden

Amazing how things are passed down through the generations. It has always intrigued me.

Miss Cindy

I remember that little poem from childhood. The one I remembered started “One fine day”. I have no recollection where I heard it not even what state we lived in when I heard it but since most of my childhood was not in North Carolina I am assuming it must have been in Texas, Georgia, or Tennessee.
It’s funny that I recognized it right away and I haven’t thought of it in more years that I care to count.
I recall that it was the absurdity of it that appealed to me!

Bob Dalsemer

My Dad used to recite that to my sister and I with a few changes. His first line was “Twas on a dark and stormy night.” And he didn’t include the last two lines.

TimMc

Nope, never heard it,, but know some folks that would try to make you believe it… Ever heard the phrase “If you don’t believe the truth there’s only one thing left to believe”?

Sheryl Paul

Oh gosh that brings back memories, my mother used to recite it to us when we were little. Are there more verses than those you wrote down?