SWEET SIXTEEN.
Poetically, it is very well. Practically, I object to it. Has it ever “a decent dress,” although the family seamstress works from morning till night of every day in the year, taking in and letting out, lengthening and shortening, narrowing here and widening there? The very first day a new dress is worn, don’t “sweet sixteen” tear it, and that in a most conspicuous place, and in the most zig-zag manner?Couldshe “help it,” when there is always a protruding nail or splinter lying in wait purposely for her, which by no foresight of hers could be walked round, or avoided? Don’t the clouds always seem to know when she has on a new bonnet, and the mud when she wears new gaiters? And when she wants her umbrella at school, isn’t “the nasty thing” always at home, and when she needs it at home, is it not always perversely at school?Don’t “sweet sixteen,” when she takes a notion to sit down and sew, always locate herself by the side of the bed, which she sticks full of needles, and going her way straightway forgetteth, till roused by the shrieks of punctured sufferers? Don’t “sweet sixteen” always leave the street door open, and the gas in her room burning at high pressure all night? Does she ever own a boot-lacing, or a pin, or a collar, although purchases of these articles are made for her continually, if not oftener? Isn’t her elder sister always your “favorite,” and was she ever known to like her breakfast, dinner or supper, or prefer wholesome food to sweet and dyspeptic messes? Is she ever ready to go to bed of a night, or get up of a morning? Don’t she always insist on wearing high heels to her boots, which are constantly putting her feet where her head should be? Don’t she always, though consulted as to the hues and make of her garments, fret at the superior color and fit of those of Adelina Seraphina Elgitha Smith’s? And finally, although she has everything she wants, or thinks she wants, isn’t everything, and everybody, “real mean, and so there!”