A Careful Woman

A careful woman I ought to be:

A little girl follows me;

I do not dare to go a stray

For fear she’ll go the self-same way.

I cannot once escape her eyes;

What’re she sees me do,

she tries

Like me, she says,

she ’s going to be,

The little girl who follows me.

She thinks that I am good and fine,

Believes in every word of mine;

The bad in me she must not see,

The little girl who follows me.

I must remember as I go,

Through summer’s sun and winter’s snow,

I am building for the years to be,

For a little girl follows me.