Читать книгу Types of Children's Literature - Various - Страница 37

Table of Contents

One ugly trick has often spoiled

The sweetest and the best:

Matilda, though a pleasant child,

One grievous fault possessed,

Which, like a cloud before the skies,

Hid all her better qualities.

Sometimes she'd lift the teapot lid

To peep at what was in it;

Or tilt the kettle, if you did

But turn your back a minute.

In vain you told her not to touch,

Her trick of meddling grew so much.

Her grandmamma went out one day

And by mistake she laid

Her spectacles and snuffbox gay

Too near the little maid.

"Ah! well," thought she, "I'll try them on

As soon as grandmamma is gone."

Forthwith she placed upon her nose

The glasses large and wide;

And looking round, as I suppose,

The snuffbox too she spied:

"Oh! what a pretty box is that;

I'll open it," said little Matt.

"I know that grandmamma would say,

'Don't meddle with it, dear';

But then, she's far enough away,

And no one else is near.

Besides, what can there be amiss

In opening such a box as this?"

So thumb and finger went to work

To move the stubborn lid,

And presently a mighty jerk

The mighty mischief did;

For all at once, ah! woeful case.

The snuff came puffing in her face.

Poor eyes and nose and mouth, beside,

A dismal sight presented;

In vain, as bitterly she cried,

Her folly she repented;

In vain she ran about for ease,

She could do nothing now but sneeze.

She dashed the spectacles away

To wipe her tingling eyes,

And as in twenty bits they lay,

Her grandmamma she spies.

"Heyday! and what's the matter now?"

Says grandmamma with lifted brow.

Matilda, smarting with the pain,

And tingling still, and sore,

Made many a promise to refrain

From meddling evermore.

And 'tis a fact, as I have heard,

She ever since has kept her word.