Margo:

I regret to inform you that the song you inquired about was called "The Darky Sunday School" and that the chorus originally went:

Young folks, old folks, everybody come.
Join the darky Sunday School and make yourself at home.
Please to check your chewing gum and razors at the door.
We'll tell you bible stories that you never heard before.

My mother did not sing that one to me. I learned it in high school about 1952, from a teacher who was black and a former minister. It is in _The New Song Fest_. Some stanzas I remember are:

Jonah was an immigrant, so runs the bible tale.
He booked a steerage passage in a transAtlantic whale.
Now Jonah in the belly of the whale was quite compressed,
So Jonah pushed the button, and the whale he did the rest.

Salome was a dancer, she danced before the king.
She wriggled and she waggled and she shook most everything.
"How now!" said the king, "We'll have no scandal here."
"The hell we won't!" Salome said, and kicked the chandelier.

As to what my mother sang me, there was "Rozhenkes mit Mandeln", which has a thread of its own. There were two songs, "There's a Ship Sails Away" & "Sail, Baby, Sail", that compared sleeping to going to sea. And there were --well, here is the list from my baby book of the songs I had learned when I was 2 1/2: Lead Kindly Light, Jesus Bids Us Shine, Blessed Jesus, Silent Night, Frere Jacques, Au Clair de la Lune, Aupres de ma Blonde, Kommt a Vogel, Muss i Denn, Ah wie ist's moeglich, Von Meinem Bergli, Guten Abend Gute Nacht, Oyfn Pripichuk, Rozhinkes mit Mandeln, Come Let's Play We're Indians, Here Comes the Sandman, Lovely May, and "about 25 nursery rhymes".

jcf@world.std.com