Just Like Me.
“Now Annie, be quiet,” I sharply say,
“I have had enough of your noise to-day,
And I think it is time you tried to be good,
And behave yourself as a little girl should.
Why do you persist in acting so?
You’re the naughtiest little girl I know.”
I pause, and Nan looks demurely down
To hide the gleam in her eyes so brown,
Then says: “Dear Auntie, I s’pose it’s so,
I am very naughty, but then you know
Grandma says that you used to be,
When you were a little girl, just like me.
“She says you played ‘hookey’ ’most every day
With Uncle Eddie down to the Bay,
And you two used to fight like cats and dogs,
And push one another off the logs
In the shallow water, just for fun,
Then sit on the logs and dry in the sun.
And you used to run the big boom ’round,
And once you fell in and were nearly drowned.
But some men heard Uncle Eddie shout
And came just in time to pull you out.
“And you used to dress and nurse the cat,
And play in the sun without any hat,
’Till she’d think your very brains would bake,
And you ‘hooked’ her pies and ‘fobbled’ her cake.
And often you and my Uncle Ed
For being naughty were sent to bed,
Without any supper, and you used to cry
When you had to wash dishes, same as I.
“And you used to run off to the fields for flowers,
And stay away for hours and hours,
Then slip in the back way upstairs to bed,
You and Aunt Emmie and Uncle Ed.
And she says you could climb a fence or tree,
And tear your clothes just the same as me.
“So, Auntie, I think it is hardly fair,”
The dear little maid goes on to declare,
“That you should be always scolding so
Because I am naughty, when you know
You did the very same things I do.
So Grandma says, and it must be true.”
Like a culprit I sit and listen, dismayed,
To the charges read by this little maid,
I am vanquished, ay! But I bear no grudge
As I plead my guilt to the youthful judge,
For memory wakes with a rush and whirl,
Aroused by the words of the little girl,
And, looking down in the bright, young face
The well-known features and smile I trace
Of another wee lassie I used to know
Somewhere about twenty years ego.
And I close my eyes while memory strays
Back to my wild, sweet childhood’s days,
And my heart beats fast and my pulses stir
As I think of when I was “just like her.”
Then two dimpled arms around me twine
As the honest brown eyes glance into mine,
Meeting my gaze so fearlessly
As this strange question she puts to me,
A question that thrills me through and through,
“When I grow up will I be like you?
“For I think” she goes on in a musing tone,
“It is awfully jolly to live alone,
Without any husband to grumble and growl,
Or bothersome babies to fret and howl,
But just a dear, little niece like me,”
How the brown eyes sparkle with mischievous glee!
“To come now and then to visit you
And make things lively, same as I do.
And when called ‘old maid’ by people unkind,
To smile so serene, as if you don’t mind.
O, I think it’s so nice to be big and wise
And have dear, little wrinkles around your eyes,
And write nice verses and stories too.
Oh! I’d love to grow up and be just like you.”
“Just like me.” Ah! She does not think
How her prattle causes my heart to sink,
As memory kneels o’er the grave of the Past,
While the blinding tears fall thick and fast,
Weaving a shadowy veil between
My longing eyes and what might have been.
“Just like me.” Forbid, God!
She should ever look back over pathways trod,
As I have done, and see through tears,
The shattered hopes and dreams of years.
Grant that her lips may never quaff,
As mine have done, Pain’s bitter draught.
Father! I pray, may it so Thee please
That all resemblance between us cease,
And her life no more be likened to mine
When once she has crossed the boundary line
That divides the battle-field of Life
From the gardens with childish pleasures rife.
“Just like me.” Forbid, God
That her feet should tread where mine have trod.
Then smiling down in the clear, brown eyes
That have watched my emotion with grave surprise,
I clasp her close as I pray that she
May never grow up to be “just like me.”