Meddlesome Matty

Oh, how one ugly trick has spoiled

The sweetest and the best!

Matilda, though a pleasant child,

One ugly trick possest,

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 this!

I'll open it, said little miss.

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, and chin,

A dismal sight presented;

And, as the snuff got farther in,

Sincerely she repented.

In vain she ran about for ease,

She could do nothing else 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?

Cried grandmamma, with lifted brow.

Matilda, smarting with the pain,

And tingling still, and sore,

Made many a promise to refrain

From meddling evermore;

And 't is a fact, as I have heard,

She ever since has kept her word.

Jane Taylor