Queer Little Stitches.
Oh! queer little stitches,
You surely are witches,
To bother me so!
I’m trying to plant you:
Do stay where I want you,
All straight in a row.
Now keep close together!
I never know whether
You’ll do as I say.
Why can’t you be smaller?
You really grow taller,
Try hard as I may!
There! now my thread’s knotted,
My finger is dotted
With sharp needle-pricks!
I mean to stop trying;
I cannot help crying;
Oh! dear, what a fix!
Yes, yes, little stitches,
I know you are witches—
I’m sure of it now—
Because you don’t bother
Grown people like mother
When they try to sew.
You love to bewilder
Us poor little “childer”
(As Bridget would say),
By jumping and dancing,
And leaping and prancing,
And losing your way.
Hear the bees in the clover!
Sewing “over and over”
They don’t understand.
I wish I was out there
And playing about there
In that great heap of sand!
The afternoon’s going;
I must do my sewing
Before I can play.
Now behave, little stitches,
Like good-natured witches,
The rest of the day.
I’d almost forgotten
About waxing my cotton,
As good sewers do;
And—oh! what a memory!—
Here is my emery
To help coax it through.
I’m so nicely provided
I’ve really decided
To finish the things.
There’s nothing like trying;
My needle is flying
As if it had wings.
There, good-bye, little stitches!
You obstinate witches,
You’re punished, you know.
You’ve been very ugly,
And now you sit snugly
Along in a row.