mech.rb

$:.unshift './lib'
require 'mechanize'
require 'logger'

page = Mechanize::Page.new(URI("localhost"), nil, DATA.read, nil, Mechanize.new)

p page.search("#foo/text()").text #=> "hello"

__END__
<div id="foo">
  hello
  <div class="child">
    world!
  </div>
</div>