Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/226

 that wuz bound to burst into bloom when the sun shone on it. It wuz in your power mebby early in the mornin' to have picked out the light for her, selected the sun, but after it is once riz and set the world to bloomin' you can't do it, you can't stop the divine freshness, the bird's song, the sadness, the glory, the pathos, and the power, the light that never wuz on sea or shore, you can't put up any umbrell to shet off that light, and so I give you warnin'."

Sez she, "I will do it. Anna shall never marry Tom Willis."

"You've started late in the day to hender it."

"I will hender it," sez she.

"Well," sez I calmly, "time will tell." And to turn the subject round and please her at the same time, I sez, "How duz your basler mangetus seem to be to-day, and your sinevetus?"

But she wuzn't to be turned round even by her favorite subject. Sez she, "You like Tom Willis, and you know it."

Sez I, "I hain't disputed it."

"I believe you encourage Anna in thinkin' of him."

"Not a word has Anna heard me speak either for or aginst. There wuzn't any need on't," sez I; "it would be too late for me to begin if I wanted to. No, I am simply settin' still and seein' things and circumstances pass before me, some as if I wuz settin' on a bench at a circus."

"If you wuz Anna's true friend and mine, if you acted as a blood cousin ort to, you would talk to Anna and try to make her listen to reason."

"No, I thank you, Tamer Ann; there is sunthin' now