Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume I. Of Home: of Friendship. 1904. | | | | Poems of Home: II. For Children | | A Mortifying Mistake | | Anna Maria Pratt |
| | | I STUDIED my tables over and over, and backward and forward, too; | |
| But I couldn’t remember six times nine, and I didn’t know what to do, | |
| Till sister told me to play with my doll, and not to bother my head. | |
| “If you call her ‘Fifty-four’ for a while, you ’ll learn it by heart,” she said. | |
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| So I took my favorite, Mary Ann (though I thought ’t was a dreadful shame | 5 |
| To give such a perfectly lovely child such a perfectly horrid name), | |
| And I called her my dear little “Fifty-four” a hundred times, till I knew | |
| The answer of six times nine as well as the answer of two times two. | |
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| Next day Elizabeth Wigglesworth, who always acts so proud, | |
| Said, “Six times nine is fifty-two,” and I nearly laughed aloud! | 10 |
| But I wished I hadn’t when teacher said, “Now, Dorothy, tell if you can.” | |
| For I thought of my doll and—sakes alive!—I answered, “Mary Ann!” | | | | |
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