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C J Dennis - Old Town Types No. 23 - Little Miss Mix
Work rating: Low

In a rather tiny building at the bottom of the street,
With a green door and a window small and very neat,
With its shock of beads and button-cards, cottons, bones and braid,
Miss Mix, the village dressmaker, plied a modest trade.
The front shop, with its counter, was a miniature affair,
And trivial the business that was conducted there.
But the back room -- the workroom -- "Hours from Nine to Six" --
Was a vestal shrine whose priestess was little Miss Mix.

Tho` man had never gazed within, the sanctum held, `twas known,
A wealth of female mysteries, for female eyes alone:
Dress-dummies, skirt-stands, a host of fashion fads,
Hip improvers, buckram shapes, curious bustle-pads.
But Mr Mole, who owned a store, and sold things ready-made,
Was oft-times strangely bitter over Miss Mix and her trade.
"A tittle-tattle factory!" said he.  "A gossip-shop!
With its babbling cotton-biters.  Why, the thing had ought to stop." 

And many another male declared that Mr Mole was right -=
Chiefly husbands - for the charges of Miss Mix were never light.
And, tho` they talked in that back room of fashion, style and cost,
Many characters were shattered, many reputations lost
As scraps of spiteful sibilants came drifting thro` that door:
"A hussy dear!" ... "Such goings on!" ... "And I heard something more." ...
And many an unsuspecting wench was hounded to her doom
In mousey little Miss Mix`s little back room. 

When last I saw the old town, nigh twenty years ago,
Its street was little altered, its tempo still was slow;
But where the wee dressmaker`s shop in old days used to stand
A "modern" shop-front glittered, very "arty," very grand.
Now Miss Mix was known as Sarah in the days when I was young,
And her trade was "Plain Dressmaking"; but now a shingle swung
All done in fancy wrought-iron, with twirls and scrolls and tricks:
"Costumiere.  Parisian Modes.  Direction: Sara Miques."
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