You remember old Peggy that used have the cart
With the sweets and the jib and the wee apple tarts
Bananas and oranges and pears in a keg
The grapes and the buns and the brown ‘Peggy’s Leg’
On a Monday you’d see her the first at the Square
With her boxes and barrels, arranging them there
To supply all the customers that came into town
Poor Peggy worked hard, with never a frown
At races and football she’d always be seen
Talking nice to the boys and the girls on the green
And she’d coax them and tell them how healthy they’d be
If they’d just eat more fruit and less of the tea
She’d humour us all with her banter and talk
Though she sometimes could use an odd phrase that ‘ud shock
The toughest old sinner among us all there
If any should try to make fun of her ware.
In rain or in sunshine you’d see her all smiles
With the childer around her that came there from miles
Over bogland and meadow to see all the fun
And to buy lemonade, or an orange or a bun.
But a day I remember, it’s long years ago
In the field at the meadow, near the river, you know
The day of the Feis in the month of July
When the birds sand their songs from the branches on high
Shure, Peggy was there with her pony and cart –
That day of the Feis she near missed from the start! –
With an apron so blue and her shawl tied so neat
Her annual visit was always a treat
For her smile and her chat and her laugh did you good
And the echoed good humour rang all through the wood
As she told the wee boys how Methusaleh did live
To the age of seven hundred with the sweets that she’d give
To themselves, for a ha’penny a handful, and more
For she’d like the wee childer to live to four score
And be licking their lips with the taste of her jib
‘The sweetest a chile ever put in he’s gob!’
More……