From St. Nicholas, Volume 10 (New York: The Century Co., 1882), page 112:


AN ALPHABET OF CHILDREN
By Isabel Frances Bellows

A is for apt little Annie
Who lives down in Maine with her granny.
Such pies she can make!
And such doughnuts and cake!
Oh, we like to make visits to granny!

B is for bad little Bridget
Who is morn, noon, and night in a fidget.
Her dresses she tears,
And she tumbles downstairs,
And her mother's most worn to a midget.

C is for curious Charlie
Who lives on rice, oatmeal, and barley.
He once wrote a sonnet
On his mother's best bonnet
And he lets his hair grow long and snarly.

D is for dear little Dinah
Whose manners grow finer and finer.
She smiles and she bows
To the pigs and the cows
And she calls the old cat Angelina.

E is for erring young Edward
Who never can bear to go bedward.
Every evening at eight,
He bewails his hard fate
And they're all quite discouraged with Edward.

F is for foolish Miss Florence,
Who of spiders has such an abhorrence,
That she shivers with dread
When she looks overhead,
For she lives where they're plenty—at Lawrence.

G is for glad little Gustave,
Who says that a monkey he must have,
But his mother thinks not
And says that they've got
All the monkey they care for in Gustave

H is for horrid young Hannah
Who has the most shocking bad manner.
Once she went out to dine
With a party of nine
And she ate every single banana.

I is for ignorant Ida
Who doesn't know rhubarb from cider.
Once she drank up a quart,
Which was more than she ought,
And it gave her queer feelings inside her.

J is for jovial young Jack,
Who goes to the balls in a hack.
He thinks he can dance
And he'll caper and prance
Till his joints are half ready to crack.

K is for kind little Katy
Who weighs 'most a hundred and eighty,
But she eats every day
And the doctors all say
That's the reason she's growing so weighty.

L is for lazy young Leicester
Who works for a grocer in Chester,
But he says he needs rest
And he finds it is best
To take every day a siesta.

M is for mournful miss Molly
Who likes to be thought melancholy.
She's as limp as a rag
When her sisters play tag
For it's vulgar, she says, to be jolly.

N is for naughty young Nat
Who sat on his father's best hat.
When they asked if he thought
He had done as he ought,
He said he supposed 'twas the cat!

O's operatic Olivia
Who visits her aunt in Bolivia.
She can sing to high C,
But between you and me,
They don't care for that in Bolivia.

P is for poor little Paul
Who doesn't like study at all,
But he's learning to speak
In Hebrew and Greek
And is going to take Sanskrit next fall.

Q is for queer little Queen
Who's grown so excessively lean
That she fell in a crack
And hurt her poor back
And they say she can hardly be seen.

R is for rude master Ruby
Who once called his sister a booby,
But a boy who stood by
Heard her piteous cry
And came and chastised master Ruby.

S is for stylish young Sadie
Whose hat is so big and so shady
That she thought it was night
When the sun was out bright
And mistook an old cow for a lady.

T is for turbulent Teddy
Who never can learn to be steady.
He'll skip and he'll hop
And turn 'round like a top,
And he's broken his leg twice already.

U is unhappy Ulrika
Who takes her tea weaker and weaker.
She sits in the dust
And eats nothing but crust
And Moses, they say, wasn't meeker.

V is for valiant young Vivian
Who practiced awhile in oblivion,
Till he saw, without doubt,
He could turn inside out
And now they're all boasting of Vivian.

W is wise little Willie
Who lives where the weather is chilly,
But he skates and he slides
And takes lots of sleigh-rides
And he coasts on his sled where it's hilly.

X, Y, Z—each is a baby
Who is going to be wonderful, maybe,
For their mothers all say
To themselves every day
That there never was quite such a baby.