SOLILOQUY OF OVERGROWN FIFTEEN.
I sprang up, like Jonah’s gourd, in a night; I am as tall as a bean-stalk and as green; I am thick where I ought to be thin, and thin where I should be thick; I am too big to drive hoop, and not old enough to wear one; too tall to let my hair loose on my shoulders, and not old enough to fix it up with a comb; I am too large to wear an apron, and I can’t keep my dress clean without one; I have out-grown tucks, and am not allowed to wear flounces; I have to pay full price in the omnibuses, and yet gentlemen, because of my baby-face never pull the strap for me; I have lost my relish for “Mother Goose,” and am not allowed to read love-stories; old men have done giving me sugarplums, and young men have not begun to give me “kisses;” I have done with gingerbread hearts and nobody offers me the other sort; I have given up playing with “doll-babies,” and am forbidden to think of a husband; if I ask my mother for a “dress-hat,” she says “Pshaw! you are nothing but a child;” if I run or jump in the street, she says, “My dear, you should remember that you are a young lady now.” I say it’s real mean; so there, now, and I don’t care.