There are some little girls, and
not a few big ones, that seem to think the quickest way of straightening
a seam that is puckered is to pucker a face that is straight.
Sometimes her friends would ask what she would do if her face were to
freeze in frowns, but her Uncle John used to say that she was always too
hot to freeze. One evening she came to Uncle John with the usual frown,
showing him her new brocade doll dress. She had put it away carelessly,
and it was all in "beggars' presses."
"Just see, Uncle John," she whined; "dear me! I never get any thing nice
that it isn't spoiled somehow or other. Isn't that too bad? This dress
has been wrinkled for a week, and now it will never come smooth at all."
"That's bad, surely," said Uncle John, "but there is something more than
that. I know something of yours that is finer than that brocade silk,
that is all in 'beggars' presses.'"
"Why, no, Uncle John, I haven't any thing so fine as this, you know, and
now this is all puckered and wrinkled and krinkled, and what will I do?"
"Give me your hand," said Uncle John. "Do you see that skin? There is no
silk so fine as that. These chubby cheeks are covered with a skin that is
finer. But you have kept this skin puckered about your eyes and your
forehead and the corner of your mouth, you have kept it puckered and
wrinkled and krinkled as you say, till I am afraid it will never be
straight.
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