Miss Jane Had a Bag
Miss Jane had a bag and a mouse was in it;
She opened the bag, he was out in a minute.
The cat saw him jump and run under the table,
And the dog said: “Catch him, Puss, soon as you're able.”
Miss Jane Had a Bag is one of those tiny, everyday rhymes that turns a scrap of domestic life into a comic scene. A mouse escapes, the cat leaps, and even the dog joins in with encouragement. It’s over in a few lines, but it paints a whole household moment in miniature.
Origins
This rhyme doesn’t feel like something carefully written down by a poet — it feels like it popped out of everyday life. Picture a busy home two hundred years ago: a mouse slips out of a bag of grain, the cat instantly dives under the table, and the family dog can’t resist barking orders as if he’s the master of the house. Someone turns the moment into a singsong line, and before long, it’s being passed around in nurseries as a little joke. By the 1800s, it was already in print, tucked among other household rhymes.
Meaning
There’s no allegory here — it’s exactly what it says. A mouse is freed, and chaos follows. Children laughed at the chase, and adults enjoyed the familiarity. The rhyme doesn’t offer a moral lesson, but it does reflect the kind of household comedy everyone recognized.
