Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/77

 them up, ready to send away, and put them in draws; and when you shet up them draws, shet up all anxieties for them. Then," sez I, "all this off your mind, bathe your wore-out eyes and pale face in some good pure water, go to bed at nine, and get up in the early mornin' fresh and vigorous, and go out into the sunlight and drink down the sweet air like a healin' cordial."

The weather wuz wonderful for October; Injun summer had made the country beautiful; the roads wuz hard and smooth as summer roads. Sez I, "Forgit all your cares, put on the pretty short dress you used to wear, and go out for a long ride."

"Oh," sez she, "I don't ride the wheel any more."

"Why?" sez I wonderin'ly.

"Oh, Louis don't like to have me. He thinks it is old-fashioned and unladylike and unwomanly."

"Don't he ride?" sez I.

"Oh, yes—he has to for his nerves. He has an auto, but he thinks that ridin' a wheel almost cured him. He used to be dretful nervous and weak. He can't bear bein' shut up in the house all the time."

"Well," sez I, "didn't you think that it helped you to ride? Your Ma told me that you felt like a new creature after you had had your wheel for a month."

"Oh, yes, Aunt Samantha," sez she, "it did help me more than I can tell, and you don't know how I have missed it; I have felt that it would have been such a help to me while I was makin' these Christmas gifts."

"Well, why under the sun and moon, to say nothin' of the stars and meteors, haven't you kept on with what you knew helped you so?"

"Oh, Louis doesn't approve of my ridin', and he wuz bitterly opposed to my wearin' short skirts; he