Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/188

 and hearts of babies, destroyin' the childish mirth and good comradeship that should exist in happy freedom between children of both sects. Pictures of pretty playful hours between Jack and Delight come to my mind some as you see pictures in a magic lantern, and one of the very prettiest ones come to me as I washed and wiped my dishes that night, Josiah doin' his barn chores at the same time.

It took place the February before, February the fourteenth, the day when Angenora wuz writin' and receivin' lover-like epistles from young old men of nine or ten years of age, I thought with satisfaction and happiness of this pretty seen that had took place in our own home. Jack and Delight had been stayin' a week with me, and I had noticed for a day or two before that the children had had a good deal of mysterious talkin' between 'em, and there seemed to be a secret they wuz tryin' to keep from me; I see 'em countin' their pennies, and once I hearn Jack say, "All together we've got leven cents."

And then Delight sez, "We can get a splendid one for that." But the minute they ketched sight of me they stopped talkin' in a dretful elaborate way, put their fingers to their lips, and shook their heads, and nodded towards me and Josiah, and I see it wuz sunthin' connected with us, and I made a point at once of not seein' or hearin' 'em at all. And that is one of the greatest secrets of life and success, the nack of not hearin' things. It is almost as necessary in order to git along smooth and pleasant to not hear things as it is to hear 'em.

Lots of times if you hear and see things, sass, for instance, from help, I mean, little bits of sass that will spill out of the big dish of daily worry sometimes, why, if you see that sass you have got to pay attention to it,