My! it was awful sad that day! And Tommy said he thought We wouldn’t play that afternoon, because he’d rather not. And Mamma made some nice ice-cream, which cheered us up, but when We wanted her to eat she said she couldn’t eat just then. And Amy Robbins heard of it, and brought some leaves and flowers To scatter over him, because he was a friend of ours; And I told her I patted him, and when he heard me call He looked at me and wagged his tail, which died the last of all.
Little Miss Nothing-to-do Is fretful and cross and so blue, And the light in her eyes Is all dim when she cries And her friends, they are few, Oh, so few! Her dolls, they are nothing but sawdust and clothes, Whenever she wants to go skating it snows, And everything’s criss-cross, the world is askew! I wouldn’t be Little Miss Nothing-to-do Now, true, I wouldn’t be Little Miss Nothing-to-do Would you?
Little Miss Busy-all-day Is cheerful and happy and gay And she isn’t a shirk For she smiles at her work And she romps when it comes time for play. Her dolls, they are princesses, blue-eyed and fair, She makes them a throne from a rickety chair, And everything happens the jolliest way, I’d rather be Little Miss Busy-all-day, Hurray, I’d rather be Little Miss Busy-all-day, I say.
Come, children, I’ll tell you a wonderful tale, I learned it one night in a dream; The snow lay all white and the full moon shone pale, The housetops about were agleam; I’d fallen asleep in my big easy chair, I heard a gruff voice in my ear, I knew that Saint Nicholas surely was there And listened to see what I’d hear.
“Come, follow with me,” were the first words he said, “I’m off for my Palace of Snow; I’ve emptied my pack of each doll, toy and sled, It’s time for old Santa to go. But, Oh, I’ve a treat waiting for me tonight, I’ve planned it for years in my mind; Come, follow with me, while the moon is still bright”-- I rose and we sped like the wind.
We flew like a flash to the Palace of Snow, By hilltop and valley and plain, Nor ever I will be permitted, I know, To make such a journey again; And there in the warmest and cosiest nook He bade me sit down while he dressed In robes of rich scarlet and said to me: “Look! Here come the Child Hosts of the Blest.”