“I don't want you to go in the water and get drowned. You know you can't swim.”
This is too much. Oh, this is rank injustice! Worse yet, it is bad logic.
“How 'm I ever goin' to learn if you don't let me go to learn?”
“Well, you can't go, and that's the end of it.”
Isn't that just like a woman? Perfectly unreasonable! Dear! dear!
“Now, Ma, listen here. S'posin' we was all goin' some place on a steamboat, me and you and Pa and the baby and all of us, and—”
“That won't ever happen, I guess.”
“CAN'T YOU LET ME TELL YOU? And s'posin' the boat was to sink, and I could swim and save you from drown—”
“You're not going swimming, and that's all there is about it.”
“Other boys' mas lets them go. I don't see why I can't go.”