Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/216

 "It wuz the winter we lived in Jonesville: Jack wuz about three."

"Well," sez I, "you ort to make Jack stop such works. I am fur from wantin' folks throwed out or poured down on. But I don't spoze Jack knew the mischief he wuz doin'. How did he know the effect of water on artifical flowers? Or the trouble it would be to go out and pick up your clothes? I remember jest before that, when I wuz visitin' you, Hamen would throw things down on the floor and out of the winder a purpose for Jack to go out and pick up, and he kep' it up more than I should in his place. It tickled Jack, and Jack would throw things down on the floor, and Hamen would pick 'em up, and Jack would giggle. And many is the time I've seen Hamen sprinkle water down onto Jack's curly head to see him duck and wink to git away from it. Jack wuz only follerin' his father's example, Tamer Ann, though, as I said before, I don't approve on't in Jack, and want no man or woman throwed out or poured down on."

"Oh, you will always stand up for Jack."

"I stand for reason," sez I solemnly, "and justice and common sense. In ninety cases out of a hundred folks whip their children for what they or somebody else has learnt 'em to do."

And then Tirzah Ann spoke up again, kinder firm and decided as if she wuz determined now to finish her tale. "Last Sunday in church I wuz so mortified with Delight's doin's I thought I should sink. We took her to meetin' and there wuz a boy there a few years older than she, and he kep' tormentin' her, pullin' her hair in a sly way, and pinchin' her, and at last he stuck a pin into her, and then what should Delight do all of a sudden