Growing Old

 Growing Old

I'm six years old this morning, mother,
I must get up right away;
I never was near so old before,
As I'm going to be today!
I can cook your breakfast now, I think,
And, if papa'd let me try,
I know I could say the blessing,
To our Father up in the sky!

This dress has got to be fixed; some way
It chokes me round my waist;
My shoes pinch more than they used to-
I guess i won't have them laced;
You needn't bring warm water, now-
I can wash just as well in cold-
I had to have it when I was five,
But not when I'm six years old.

Where do all my birthdays come from?
And where do they go to? - say!
Where is the five that I used to be,
And the six that I am today?
Does God keep them all for the children,
And send them down from the sky?
And when the birthdays are all used up,
Is that what makes us die?

Ho, hum! I'm most a big lady!
When some more of my birthdays come,
I s'pose I'll marry - the girls all do -
And live in some other home.
What'll you and papa think of that?
Don't you guess you'll sometimes say,
"How I wish the child was back again,
Just six years old today!"