I always did kinder like to have onexpected company, it seems as though I always have a better visit with ’em, and I felt as pleasant as the day, which wuz a beautiful one, when two loads of company driv up entirely onexpected about an hour before noon, Tamer Ann Allen and Jack and Tirzah Ann and little Delight, all happenin’ to come at almost the same time, and we had a real good visit. Tamer had concluded to stop a day longer so’s to visit me. I had got my work all done and a good dinner started, and wuz standin’ on the porch lookin’ onto the environin’ seen when they all driv up most together, though comin’ from two different ways.
I wuz jest noticin’ how sweet the posies wuz that grew by the back porch, and how full the hearts of the roses wuz with perfume, and how the pink and pale-blue bells of the mornin’ glories seemed fairly swingin’ to onseen music, to show their delight at openin’ their eyes onto such a fair world. The far-off hills towered up clad in deathless green and leaned aginst the sky as if real contented and glad to be there. The blue sky, flecked with little snowy clouds, looked down sweet and smilin’ on Jonesville and the world. The meadows and pastures smiled up at the bendin’ sky, the trees, all washed off by the shower of the night before, glistened and shook out their velvet and shinin’ foliage, and the grass wuz flecked with sunshine embroidered with daisies.
And, best view of all to my fond heart, my companion stood in the open barn door in his shirt sleeves feedin’ the hens, and his face looked calm and reposeful as the seen. Tirzah and Delight got there a little the first, and as I lifted the sweet little creeter out it did seem, though I knew it couldn’t be, that she wuz prettier than she wuz the last time I had seen her. But my cool reason told me how could that be, when she wuz jest as pretty as she could be on that occasion. She’s got big, kinder talkin’ eyes, a warm soft hazel, I guess they be, but they are so full of light and soul and expression that you don’t care so much what the color really is, a fair, white complexion, wavy, flaxen hair, good features, and the sweetest mouth you ever see with most always a smile curvin’ the rosy lips, and a pretty plump little figger most always dressed in white.
When she see me she held out her little soft white hands and arms, and I lifted her out, kissin’ her warmly as I did so; I then greeted Tirzah Ann warmly, a good deal more warm than Ma-in-laws usually greet their stepchildren, but, good land! I have always considered her my own, jest as much as she wuz Josiah’s, though not so soul congenial to me as Thomas J., she has her properties.
Well, they hadn’t much more than alighted when Tamer Ann and Jack come. I wuz real glad to see ’em all, and, after they had took off their things, I got ’em into the settin’ room, and went out and made a few more preparations for dinner, though I had a good dinner started. I had a stuffed fowl and some green peas on, and wuz intendin’ to have some tomatoes cooked, and some fresh, crisp rolls and a good lemon puddin’, besides coffee and cream and jell and things, but I put on a different tablecloth and got out my pink banded china.
I could hear Tamer and Tirzah talkin’ real agreeable together while I wuz gittin’ my dinner. They wuz comparin’ notes about their sicknesses, Tirzah Ann enjoys real poor health, too, some of the time. And then they seemed to be comparin’ notes about their children, and the right way to bring ’em up, and I felt bad to see that Tamer Ann and Tirzah felt so much alike in a good many things about their children. But I wuz so busy I couldn’t interfere and take part in their talk until after dinner. Truly, when a man is splittin’ wood in the rear of the house, complainin’ of faintness at the stummick and anxiously watchin’ the clock and mistrustin’ it wuz slow, and wishin’ he had sot it with the gong, etc., etc., it behooves a woman to have dinner on time, if she loves tranquillity and domestic peace.
And after dinner wuz over and my dishes washed, I washin’ and Tirzah Ann wipin’, and we three wimmen wuz settin’ with our sewin’ and knittin’, the children bein’ out in the yard to play, then when the conversation gradually turned round onto bringin’ up children and its perils and perplexities, I put in my oar, too, and took a part in the meetin’ as you may say. Tirzah had had a hard time the Sunday before, she had taken little Delight to church and had a trial with her that made her feel dretfully, and she wuz jest beginnin’ to tell about it when she wuz interrupted by the children talkin’ right under the winder; they wuz talkin’ so earnest about sunthin’ we all stopped to listen.
Jack wuz speakin’ excited and interested, sez he, “Don’t you see, Delight, that long, low cloud that is layin’ right aginst that tree top? I believe if we should climb up that tree we could step right off into Heaven, and I wonder if the Lord would be glad to see us if we should walk in.”
“Of course He would,” sez Delight. “He would come to the door and take us right up in His arms and say, ‘I am glad to see you. Suffer little children to come unto me,’ that is what Mama told me He said about children, and I learnt it.”
But at this juncter Tirzah Ann rushed to the winder and hollered to Delight and told her to stop instantly, and Tamer Ann follered right on and told Jack to not let her hear any more such talk. And the children crep off into another part of the dooryard, lookin’ crestfallen and wonderin’ what they had said now that wuz wrong. And, after they wuz out of hearin’, I sez, “Why did you tell your children you would punish ’em for sayin’ what they did?”
Sez Tamer, “I won’t have Jack show irreverence, and I’ll whip him if he duz.” And Tirzah Ann sez, “I will not allow Delight to talk in that way.”
Sez I, “Tirzah Ann, ever sence she wuz a baby you have made little Delight pray to God, you have learnt her He wuz her best friend, you made her learn that beautiful verse she repeated, and now what irreverence wuz there in thinking that God would be glad to see ’em if they went to Heaven, when you have learned her to love God and go to Him with all her little troubles and temptations?”
“What is proper to say at prayer time hain’t proper to say at other times,” sez Tirzah, and sez Tamer, “Yes, that is so.”
But I sez solemnly, “Tirzah Ann and Tamer, that is a great mistake; you try for half an hour each day to make your children the inmates of another world, surrounded by different beings and circumstances. Now, that hain’t so, God is with Jack and Delight at this minute out there in the playground, jest as nigh as He is when they are kneelin’ at your four feet, and in my opinion they ought to be learnt that is the case, and what is proper for them to think of God at one time is proper at another.
“Now, in my opinion, God would be glad to see them innocent little children step into Heaven off from that cloud, if they could, and my way would have been to told them that God would be glad to see ’em at any time, and that He did see ’em, that He wuz with ’em at prayer time and play time, in storm and shine, and wanted ’em to be good little children, and wuz grieved when they wuz naughty, and then I should have tried to explain to ’em why they couldn’t step off from that cloud into Heaven. That would be my way,” sez I, holdin’ up Josiah’s sock and tacklin’ it in a new place, “howsumever,” sez I mildly, seein’ Tirzah Ann and Tamer looked wrathy, “howsumever, I will say agin it is easier to tell folks how to bring up children than do the bringin’ up, or be satisfied after they’re brung.”
“This irreverence in talkin’ about divine things is what I can’t and won’t stand.”
“Then, Tirzah Ann,” sez I, “you should bring Delight up in a different way. How is she to know the Being you encourage her in talkin’ to one minute is not to be mentioned at another? Everything in the world is as new to her as it would be to us if we wuz sot down on the planet Jupiter to-day. How do you know we should have first class Jupiter ways? I don’t spoze we should, I spoze we should act like fools and lunaticks more’n half the time judged by Jupiter standards. Delight has everything to learn, you teach her that God is her best friend, more than father and mother, is with her all the time, and yet she musn’t speak of Him only for a few minutes night and morning. Delight can’t understand that, Tirzah Ann. And I can’t, nuther,” sez I, in a milder voice, for I see she looked mad. “Why,” sez I, “when Thomas J. wuz little he used to talk to the Lord by the hour, tell Him all his little troubles and sorrows. I would hear him, but never interfered, thinkin’ He wuz a better, safer friend than any other could be.”
Sez Tamer, “It is a bad habit for a child to git into, talkin’ so familiar with the Deity, and it should be stopped, in my opinion.”
Sez I, “You let Cicero fill his mind with burglars and pirates all day long. Isn’t the Divine One a better inmate for the soul than them pirates and enchanted elephants, Tamer Ann?”
She quailed quite a good deal, and I sez, “Jack is inclined to be devout, Tamer, if it isn’t whipped out of him, he has got a religious mind.”
“Religious mind!” sez she, laughin’ in a onbelievin’ way. “Hear that! that sounds religious, don’t it?” Jack wuz yellin’ pretty middlin’ loud, I’ll confess, out under the maples. But I sez, “I don’t see anything aginst it in that, Tamer. I presume David yelled full as loud, or louder, when he wuz a child, and Job, too. I dare presume to say old Miss Job had her hands full with him, and let him go out and yell, and encouraged him in it to git him out of the tent, so she could rest her head and ears. Yellin’ hain’t nothin’ criminal, Tamer, and hain’t been considered so from Jerusalem to Jonesville.”
“Well,” sez Tirzah, “you ought to been to church last Sunday, mother, and see then whether you would think Delight did right; I declare I wuz so mortified I wanted to sink right down through the floor.” And Tirzah Ann assayed agin to tell the tale.
But as before we hearn the voices of the children almost under the winder, and what of all the world do you think they wuz talkin’ about? Why, about marryin’, them two little tots lookin’ like two clothes-pins, talkin’ of matrimony.
Now, marryin’ is sunthin’ I hate dretfully to hear children talkin’ about. But then, come to reason on it, Jack had heard it talked from one week’s end to another at home, though I don’t spoze he knew what it meant no more than a Hottentot understands snow-shoes. But he heard Tamer argue for hours and hours that Anna should not marry Tom Willis and should marry Von Crank, rehearsin’ the reasons why she should marry one and not marry the other. How wuz Jack to know that marriage wuz not a congenial or suitable subject for old or young? Why, she talked that very day more than an hour about it right before the children. It wuz no wonder they had ketched the talk, some like measles when they’re round, and I hearn Jack ask Delight who she thought she would marry.
But when she heard the word “marry” Tamer craned her neck out of the winder and told Jack to “Stop instantly!” And he looked up, his blue eyes half shot up, and sez, “Stop what?”
And she sez, “Stop that talk about marryin’!”
“Why, mother, you have been talkin’ about it all the mornin’.”
But Tamer sez, “One more word out of your head, young man, like that, and I will shet you up in a dark room.”
They wuz kinder still for a minute, and I knew that the mornin’ glory eyes wuz shot up under the burnin’ scorn of his Ma’s axent, and then, for I wuz nighest the winder, I hearn Jack say, in a low voice, “I think I shall marry your grandmother, Delight.”
I felt the compliment deeply, to think I wuz the first choice of that innocent heart. But it seemed even at that age the feminine mind wuz more educated in the suitability of marriage than the more opposite sex. Delight sez, “Oh, you tan’t.”
“Why not?” sez Jack, impatient.
“Betause she is too old.”
“Well, then I shall marry father.”
“Oh, you tan’t,” sez Delight.
“Why?”
“Betause he is a man.”
“Well, then I will marry you.”
“Oh, you tan’t!”
“Why not?”
“Betause I am too young to marry.”
And then Jack sez, impatient and loud, “Well, if some are too young and some too old, who can I marry?”
And Tamer heard that last word, and she sprung to the winder and leaned half out of it, and sez, “If you don’t stop such talk instantly, Jack, I will call that bad man round the corner to come and take your head right off!” And then she sez, sinkin’ back in her chair, “Oh, dear me! what a job it is to bring up children right.”
And Tirzah sez, “Yes, indeed, it is, now last Sunday in church——”
But Tamer, bein’ so full and runnin’ over with complaints about Jack, she went right on and told over a dozen of his little tricks and ways, kinder cunnin’ I thought some on ’em, but she and Tirzah thinkin’ ’em dretful, and at last, though I am very close mouthed and seldom speak, I did say, “It seems to me you ort to be more patient with your little children, for they are learnt by us bigger ones to do most everything they do, and then the poor little creeters get whipped for it.”
“Well,” sez Tamer, “I would like to know who learnt Jack to do some of his tricks, what would you do,” sez she, “if a child throwed all your clothes out of the winder—dresses, petticoats, stockin’s, and everything when you wuz tryin’ to dress? And poured water down on folks who wuz passin’ below. Why,” sez she, “such strange things would be throwed out of our winders that folks would inquire what kind of folks lived there. And one woman that he spilte a bunnet for threatened to sue us; of course that wuz some time ago, when we lived in town, but I well remember it. She had stopped with another woman right under our winder for a few minutes’ quiet and peaceable talk, and Jack trickled a hull cup of water down onto ’em. Their bunnets wuz kinder soft and spongy, and took up the water for a spell, but when their heads begun to git wet they investigated, and there Jack wuz, happy as a king, callin’ for more water, his cup had gin out—how would you like that? And while you wuz tryin’ to dress have all your clothes throwed down into the street, and you can’t say that he had ever seen us do that.”
“I shouldn’t like it,” sez I mildly; “but how old wuz Jack when he did this?”
“It wuz the winter we lived in Jonesville: Jack wuz about three.”
“Well,” sez I, “you ort to make Jack stop such works. I am fur from wantin’ folks throwed out or poured down on. But I don’t spoze Jack knew the mischief he wuz doin’. How did he know the effect of water on artifical flowers? Or the trouble it would be to go out and pick up your clothes? I remember jest before that, when I wuz visitin’ you, Hamen would throw things down on the floor and out of the winder a purpose for Jack to go out and pick up, and he kep’ it up more than I should in his place. It tickled Jack, and Jack would throw things down on the floor, and Hamen would pick ’em up, and Jack would giggle. And many is the time I’ve seen Hamen sprinkle water down onto Jack’s curly head to see him duck and wink to git away from it. Jack wuz only follerin’ his father’s example, Tamer Ann, though, as I said before, I don’t approve on’t in Jack, and want no man or woman throwed out or poured down on.”
“Oh, you will always stand up for Jack.”
“I stand for reason,” sez I solemnly, “and justice and common sense. In ninety cases out of a hundred folks whip their children for what they or somebody else has learnt ’em to do.”
And then Tirzah Ann spoke up again, kinder firm and decided as if she wuz determined now to finish her tale. “Last Sunday in church I wuz so mortified with Delight’s doin’s I thought I should sink. We took her to meetin’ and there wuz a boy there a few years older than she, and he kep’ tormentin’ her, pullin’ her hair in a sly way, and pinchin’ her, and at last he stuck a pin into her, and then what should Delight do all of a sudden but kneel right down in the aisle—she wuz next to the pew door—and right while the minister wuz talkin’, prayed loud for the Lord to stop that boy that wuz plaguin’ her, and, sez she, ‘if he won’t stop, dear Lord, kill him.’ I thought I should die with shame, and you can’t say you ever heard Whitfield or me pray to have anybody killed.”
“No, Tirzah Ann, nobody ever heard that from you or Whitfield; but,” sez I, “do you remember what part of the Bible you are reading now at mornin’ prayers?”
“It is the Old Testament,” sez she.
“Well, them old prophets used to git awful mad at their enemies and pray for the Lord to smite ’em hip and thigh, and kill ’em, etc. Of course Delight heard you read, she always listens to everything she hears, and I spoze she thought if that wuz Bible talk it wuz good enough for her.”
“Well, what can we do, mother?” sez Tirzah. “You know we are reading it through by course, and we want to read every word of it or it won’t be by course.”
“Of course not,” sez I.
“But is there any decree or law of Providence compellin’ you to read the Bible by course at family prayers? The Bible is a precious mine of riches where each can get the wealth he or she needs and desires, but, as in the case of other mines where gold and jewels are found, there is some earth, some alloy with it. You wouldn’t mount a slate stun and wear it on your bosom because it wuz found side by side with a diamond. In my opinion lots of the talk in the Old Testament, the breathin’ of vengeance and slaughter and rapine, etc., is not exactly the food to bring up young children on.”
“But we wuz readin’ it by course, mother, we had to read the whole thing.”
“Well,” sez I, “that hain’t the way Nater duz when she sets out to make a white lily: she takes from rich Mother Earth all the qualities necessary to make a lily, she selects what will make the dainty whiteness, the delicious fragrance of the flower; she don’t take the blackness of the soil, the dinginess and dirt. No, out of the rich storehouse she selects the best, what she needs. Now, the Bible is so full, Tirzah Ann, of all wisdom, divine knowledge, tenderest love, and divine pity, full of the glory of the Great Father of us all, why can’t you select out of it what you and your children need instead of settin’ up that puny reason of readin’ it by course, and gettin’ by that process all the earth of the human natures through which God’s inspiration is filtered down into our comprehension? You don’t need all that talk about slaughter and vengeance, nor genealogies, etc., though I have seen folks read ’em right through at family prayer, Johab begat Ehod, and Ehod begat Ichabod, and etc. They had to be begot, of course, ’twas necessary to be; but I could never git any good or inspiration out of readin’ ’em in the mornin’ as food for the spiritual needs of the day. Howsumever, I wuz never one to set up my way as the only way, but I will say that after Delight heard you read about it she might have thought she would foller the example of them old patriarchs with her enemies, for I do spoze the prickin’ and jerkin’ of the little torment made her feel that he wuz her enemy. And, anyway, if them old prophets are held innocent for talkin’ in this way, with the experience of a lifetime and the inspiration of the Lord to lead ’em, what do you think of a little child like Delight? Not that I approve on’t in her, nor in them either, and I don’t believe the Lord had much to do with such sanguinary desires, nor I don’t believe the Lord wants you to read about it to the children.”
“Well,” sez Tirzah Ann, “I wuz mortified most to death. And once in the parlor, full of company, a hard thunderstorm came up, and Delight wuz awfully frightened, and she knelt right down and prayed for the Lord to stop that thunder, and got up and stamped her little foot to think it didn’t stop to the very minute, and hollered out, ‘Stop it, dear Lord! Stop it this minute!’ What do you think of that?”
Sez I, “I think of that as I do of other human creeters who are scared and overthrown with the sorrow and pain of life. They pray to the Lord to stop their agony, and because He don’t stop it at once they grow impatient and onbelievin’, and mebby, as Miss Job did, feel to curse God and die. We can’t wait no more than Delight did for the storm to clear the sky; we don’t realize no more than she that mebby it wuz needed to cleanse the air from impurities and make us appreciate the sunshine and calm better. No, Delight and Jack and all the rest of us are blind creeters, and it don’t do for one of us to condemn the other too much.”
And then Tamer went on to tell how Jack had mortified her when she took him on a visit to some very stylish people.
That very forenoon, so Anna told me afterwards, Tamer had whipped Jack because she mistrusted he had not told her the exact truth—whipped him for not bein’ open and candid.
And Tamer had warned Jack to be very polite at the table, to eat whatever was put before him, and make no remarks about it.
So Jack, I suppose, felt he had done his full duty, and deserved and desired credit, when he leaned back in his chair and said he had finished his supper, and added:
“I have done just what you told me to do, mother. I have eat my rossberrys, worms and all, and said nothin’.”
“I thought,” said Tamer, “I should sink through the floor; and another time I thought I should expire with shame. Jack had been to Sunday-school and the teacher” (the Born Baptist) “made him sign the pledge. Jack loved sweet cider, and I wuz afraid he would break the pledge, he wuz so little, and I thought I would ruther have him wait till he got older and could feel the importance of it, and I told Jack I would have his teacher take his name off the pledge. And that very day she called, and I told her I thought Jack had better wait till he wuz older, and she turned her eyes in a solemn way to Jack and said, ‘Jack, do you want to take your name off the pledge?’
“‘Yes, I do,’ sez Jack, independent as anything.
“‘Do you want to drink cider?’
“‘Yes, I do, and beer and brandy and whisky and anything else I can git to drink.’”
Sez Tamer, “I could cried, I felt so, and that woman looked on us as if she thought we wuz heathens. Hamen whipped Jack hard for that.”
Sez I, “I wouldn’t be afraid to bet a cent Hamen and John had plagued Jack about signin’ the pledge and told him he couldn’t drink any more beer or whisky, thinkin’ it wuz smart and cunnin’—didn’t they, now?”
“Well, I don’t know,” sez Tamer. “I remember they laughed at him about it.”
“Yes, and mebby laughed away more than they bargained for, Tamer Ann Smith!” sez I. “It is a solemn thing to bring up a child, and a solemner one to whip him for what we learn him to do.”
Sez Tamer, real dignified, “I’ll tell you one or two more scrapes Jack got into, and if you want to lay ’em to Hamen and me you can, but it will be very unjust, very. It wuz when Jack wuz three or four years old, he wuz out playin’ with another little boy of the same age, little Eddie Grey, and Eddie said, about four in the afternoon, that he had got to go home, for his mother wanted to give him a bath, and Jack wuz lonesome and wanted him to stay a spell longer, but Eddie thought he couldn’t, for his mother would be waitin’.
“And Jack said he could git all ready for the bath there, and then his mother wouldn’t have to take up her time ondressin’ him. So, if you’ll believe it, Jack took off all the clothes from that boy and sent him home bare naked through the streets with his clothes in a little bundle under his arm. It wuz the town’s talk.”
“I am fur from thinkin’,” sez I, “that it wuz a proper thing to do. But I must say if the town wuz as innocent as Jack, it would be a good thing for the town, and the town wouldn’t have talked as much about it.”
It wuz a real hot day, and as we sot there talkin’ time had slipped round and the sun with it, till it beat right into our settin’-room winder, and we all presperation and sweat, and Tamer got up and looked in the glass and sez, “Oh, my! how I do look!” And she took out a little pearl-mounted box from her pocket with some rice powder in it and a little mite of a puff brush and went to applyin’ it to her heated and red visage as she went on with her remarks.
“It wuz that very summer, they wuz paintin’ the roof of the Presbyterian Church a bright red, and Jack and Eddie went over there while the men had gone home to their dinner, and they painted each other a bright red all over, their hair and faces and hands and legs all a bright solid red, and on their clothes they put the paint in stripes. No human objects outside of a menagerie ever looked as they did as they marched home through the streets. I would love to hear you say, Samantha, that you ever see Hamen or me cuttin’ up such tricks.”
“Not exactly,” sez I, lookin’ pensively at her paint box, “but I don’t spoze the little creeters knew how dretfully they would look or how oncomfortable and sticky they would make themselves or their parents.”
“Well, I know Jack got a good whippin’ for that scrape after we had scoured him off with turpentine so we could whip him.”
“Well,” sez I, sithin’ deep, “there is lots of things that we have to learn by experience, Tamer Ann, lots of experiments we try with our hearts, our lives, our feller creeters’ happiness and our own. We dip the brush in carelessly that is to leave its mark on us for life, that no turpentine can wash out, recklessly, onheedingly, blindly, we make the fatal marks, blot out the hull of happiness mebby, with the wretched fatality of ignorance. And we git whipped for it,” sez I, “whipped by the achin’ pain in our hearts, by the more stingin’ pain of seein’ some one we love suffer, that we have laid the fatal brush on with our own hands. We are all blind creeters; we are all poor, ignorant children sot down in a new world and another mysterious one in front of us, and it duz become us, Tamer and Tirzah Ann, to try and be patient with these other poor little blunderers, whose mistakes are not so big as ourn, because the consequences are not so mighty. Poor little creeters! It would seem that in pity for our own mistakes we would deal charitable with ’em.”
Jest as I wuz sayin’ these words two children who wuz boardin’ to one of my neighbor’s and goin’ to school, come to git some dime novels that Tamer had promised to bring to ’em. They lived only a little ways from Tamer’s when they wuz to home, and she had supplied ’em with their mental nutriment for some years. They had an armful they had read and got another armful to carry back, for Tamer wuz one to keep her promise, and she had told ’em she would bring some every time she came here visitin’. And they took ’em with deep delight, and couldn’t hardly wait till they got out of the house before they commenced to devour ’em. They wuz as blood-curdlin’ and soul-harrowin’ as any I ever see, and I felt as if I should sink to see youthful mind hunger fed on such pizen stuff. They wuz about fourteen and fifteen years of age, and the girl wuz as pretty as a pink, but beginnin’ to put on airs and act like a heroine. The boy looked ruther rough, some like Cicero, and I knew he wuz tryin’ to give himself that hauty, overbearin’, reckless air that the heroes all had in these novels.
After they had gone with their books I argued with Tamer Ann about lendin’ such trash to children, but she said it would do ’em good—it would give ’em a taste for readin’.
But my last words to her before I left the room and went out to hang on the tea kettle wuz:
“Time will tell.”