Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/209

 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