MEDDLESOME MATTY.
One ugly trick has often spoiled
The sweetest and the best;
Matilda, though a pleasant child,
One ugly trick possessed,
Which, like a cloud before the skies
Hid all her better qualities.
Sometimes she’d lift the tea-pot 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 snuff-box 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 snuff-box, 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.
“Hey-day! 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 any more.
And ’tis a fact, as I have heard,
She ever since has kept her word.
—Ann Taylor.
