Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/154

 to use a little deceit, if by doin' so you can make folks feel agreeable, and make yourself and others happier."

Sez I dryly, very dry, dry as chips, "I spoze that is how Jack felt, I spoze he felt that it would make you happier if he told you he had done what you sot him to do, and Jack had partly done it, as you know very well. I spoze he felt that it would make you and himself happier and the friction lighter on the wheels of society, and his poor little back, if he told you it wuz all done. But you didn't seem to like it, and the friction wuz severe judgin' from the groanin's and screamin's I heard from upstairs. But as long as you do the same thing yourself, Tamer Ann Allen, and teach Jack to do it, in the most powerful way, the way of example, you hadn't ort to whip him. For that is one theme for which I have labored long and feel deeply, to not blame children for what we do ourselves and teach them to do."

"Well," sez Tamer, foldin' up her embroidery, "it is time to put the teakettle on." And she went out and shot the door middlin' hard, but I didn't care if she did, I had leaned against Duty and felt considerable calm in my frame.

She got a real good supper, and I a-settin' out on the porch could hear her walk to and fro settin' the table in the dining room, Arabeller bein' out in the kitchen cookin' sunthin'. And then it wuz I see that my talk to Tamer hadn't struck in as I wanted it to, but I pacified myself by turnin' my thoughts onto the needecessity of watchin' after the seed is sown, and not be discouraged because it won't spring up the same hour you put it into the soil. No, I felt (some of the time) that Tamer's nater wuz kinder sandy soil, bein' drained by