THE FIRST LIE
I'm sure I did not break this cup;
It just fell down,—I know it did—
For I was only climbing up,
Why do they keep the cake-box hid?—
I wanted such a little bit!
And then I heard that creaking door,
I can't tell what it was I hit,
Nor how that cup got on the floor.
The shelf it stood on was too high,
That cup my mother loved the most!
Oh dear! I never told a lie,
And mother whispered, "Do not boast,"
The day I said I never could.
(But there's that broken cup!)—and then
I promised that I never would—
So—I'll not tell a lie—again.
THE PARASOL
You are the loveliest parasol
I ever saw,—and all my own,—
What frilly frills! I feel as tall
As mother now. Here! take my doll.
Dolls are for children—ladies grown
Have parasols, and fans, and rings,
And all those pretty, shiny things.
Nurse calls you "sunshade," but I think
That is too plain a word, for see!
You are so satiny and pink
And there is such a curly kink
Here in your handle, there could be
No name too fine, I love you so,
I'll take you everywhere I go.
Next Sunday when to church I walk,
Above my head I'll hold you high.
Oh! how the other girls will talk,
And maybe some of them will mock,
"How proud she feels," as I pass by—
I'd hold you up, straight down the aisle,
If only people wouldn't smile.
A MODERN GRANDMOTHER
I want to see a grandmother like those there used to be,
In a cosy little farm-house, where I could go to tea;
A grandmother with spectacles and a funny, frilly cap,
Who would make me sugar cookies, and take me on her lap,
And tell me lots of stories of the days when she was small,
When everything was perfect—not like today at all.
My grandmother is "grandma," and she lives in a hotel,
And when they ask "What is his age?" she smiles and will not tell.
Says she doesn't care to realize that she is growing old;
Then whispers—"But you're far too big a boy for me to hold."
Her dresses shine and rustle, and her hair is wavy brown,
And she has an automobile, that she steers, herself, down town.
My grandmother is pretty. "Do I love her?" Rather—yes;
Our Norah calls her stylish, and on the whole I guess
She's better than the other kind, for once, when I was ill,
She helped my mother nurse me, and read to me until
I fell asleep; and stayed with me, and wasn't tired, and then
She played nine holes of golf with me when I got out again.
Yet, because I've never seen one, just once I want to see
A real old-fashioned grandmother, like those there used to be.