A Lament

This is a lament.

The house was lovely,

The tree was nice,

There were no crumbs left

For the wand'ring mice,

The lights were strung

And the fat punch-bowl

was borrowed,

We stuffed the freezer full

Of things to eat

For Saturday

The family was vexed

When they heard Rachel say,

"I haven't a blasted thing to wear"

She scrabbled through a pile

Of clothes and tore her brownish hair.

Moaning all the while.

And Mama raised her eyes to the roof

And Sarah sat and sighed,

For she hadn't anything either then,

And together they both cried:

"We'll have to wear a gown of rags

We'll have to wear green shoes!

We'll have to wear a baseball cap!

For we haven't a choice to choose!"

This is my lament, for after searching through my clothes I have found that I have a skirt, but no top, (unless I want to wear purple which is very unfestive) and shoes, but no stockings that haven't a rip in them. Sarah has neither shoes nor an outfit, (though she has just been bequeathed a really pretty shirt of mine) and is in even a worse pickle than I am. You large-family people know how it is. We never can see a week before that we need clothes. No. We wait till two days before a huge party with nearly 200 people before we tell Mama that we don't have anything to wear. It also doesn't help that we never go anywhere fancy, so I only had one good outfit. We don't have time to go to a thriftstore between now and then, and so I believe it shall be the good old purple sweater for me... goodness! I made that sound ugly! I guess I should be grateful for having a pretty sweater made of such soft stuff with pretty beading, but I'm not even sure if that fits me since I bought it several years ago! Oh well! We have these little clothing crises all the time and I always manage to come out on the top of them without anything worse than a purple sweater! I'd say that I'm blessed.