Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/187

 *in-the-corner, for years and years, the idee on't! Why, what heart will that child bring to her lessons, her Elementary Arithmetic all mixed up with problems about flirtin' and social supremacy, her Gography full of countries that can't be bounded, realms of jealousy, hatred and strife, her plain readin' and spellin' full of readin' and spellin' that grown folks can't read or spell straight to save their lives. What will remain to that child when she gits to be a young woman? All the emotions of youth outgrown and wasted, she will be old at fourteen, a worn-out old young flirt when she enters her teens. The pleasant care-free land of childhood trompled down and destroyed, the lovely playgrounds of youth and happiness turned into campin' ground for worldly discord and strife, it makes me feel bad to think on't."

But Miss Greene Smythe went on, "Jimmy De Graffe seemed to think so much of Angenora, she thought it wuz real mean for him to pay all his devoirs to another girl."

"Devoirs!" sez I, "the idee of them children payin' devoirs, but it is well named, for these carry-ins on, fashionable midnight parties, child flirtations, etc., do jest devour all that is sweet and lovely in children, all their unconscious grace and artless innocence, and dear little ignorant wise ways, why," sez I, "Angenora ort to look on boys only as comrades and playfellows for years and years to come, not lookin' on 'em different from girls only that they are stronger and can run faster and climb trees better."

Well, I went away pretty soon, for my pardner come from the post office and thought we had better be goin', but I kep thinkin' all the way home on that triumphant child flirt, and Angenora sad and melancholy, and the idee of bo's and flirtin' that wuz planted in the minds