Adding text below the staff

[William Marchant]

The Documentation 2.1.5 shows an example of placing text below the note.

c2^"espr" a_"legato"

When I copy this verbatim into my script it works. espr goes above the c and 
legato goes below the a. But the following does not work.

r2 r4 a4^_"3. One"^_"2. Be -" \bar ":|"

cs2^_"eat" r2 \bar "|."

I get the unexpected string error.

If I remove the underlines, the text goes above the notes OK, but I want it below.
What am I doing wrong?

Bill