Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/189

 and wipe it up with admonition and reproof, or ruther make them that dropped it there clean it up with apology and atonement, which will take time and strength and nerves, but if you don't see it, why it will evaporate, and the dish will right itself up of itself, in eight cases out of ten it will.

And children, bless their dear souls! how many times it is a positive boon to not see their little acts or hear their little words. If you see the small feet wanderin' for a minute from the highway in search of some butterfly, or, ruther, why you've got to pull 'em back agin by main strengh. But if you don't see 'em why they will come back of their own little accords, most always, and save their temper and yours. And so with their outbursts of discontent and annoyance, if you hear it you have got to rebuke and chasten, but if you don't hear it, why, good land! it is all over in a minute.

And the best way to teach, anyway, is object teachin'. Make yourself the object, try to do right yourself with fear and tremblin', and make a sampler of yourself for the children to work their poor little pieces of life's canvas by. That is the best way of teachin' on earth and the surest (sometimes I do eppisode even in my reveries and have to resoom forwards agin).

Well, this wuz the day but one before Valentine's day, and the children beset Josiah to take 'em to Jonesville, and Josiah promised he would.

But it turned out to be a turrible stormy day, blowin', snowin' too bad for anybody to be out, and Josiah didn't go. The children wuz fearful disappinted, their little faces wuz sad and overcasted, and I got a extra good dinner, and when I fried cakes I fried every animal I ever hearn on, unless it wuz a Bengal tiger, for 'em, and