That stopped that. And then he was bewitched to get with other boys that smoked and chewed tobacco, and Josiah was jest that easy turn, that he would have let him go with ’em. But says I—
“Josiah Allen, if Thomas Jefferson goes with those boys, and gets to chewin’ and smokin’ tobacco, I shall buy Tirzah Ann a pipe.”
And that stopped that.
“And about drinkin’,” says I. “Thomas Jefferson, if it should ever be the will of Providence to change you into a wild bear, I will chain you up, and do the best I can by you. But if you ever do it yourself, turn yourself into a wild beast by drinkin’, I will run away, for I never could stand it, never. And,” I continued, “if I ever see you hangin’ round bar-rooms and tavern doors, Tirzah Ann shall hang too.”
Josiah argued with me, says he, “It don’t look so bad for a boy as it does for a girl.”
Says I, “Custom makes the difference; we are more used to seein’ men. But,” says I, “when liquor goes to work to make a fool and a brute of anybody it don’t stop to ask about sect, it makes a wild beast and a idiot of a man or a woman, and to look down from Heaven, I guess a man looks as bad layin’ dead drunk in a gutter as a woman does,” says I; “things look different from up there, than what they do to us—it is a more sightly place. And you talk about looks, Josiah Allen. I don’t go on clear looks, I go onto principle. Will the Lord say to me in the last day, ‘Josiah Allen’s wife, how is it with the sole of Tirzah Ann—as for Thomas Jefferson’s sole, he bein’ a boy it haint of no account?’ No! I shall have to give an account to Him for my dealin’s with both of these soles, male and female. And I should feel guilty if I brought him up to think that what was impure for a woman, was pure for a man. If man has a greater desire to do wrong—which I won’t dispute,” says I lookin’ keenly on to Josiah, “he has greater strength to resist temptation. And so,” says I in mild accents, but firm as old Plymouth Rock, “if Thomas Jefferson hangs, Tirzah Ann shall hang too.”
I have brought Thomas Jefferson up to think that it was jest as bad for him to listen to a bad story or song, as for a girl, or worse, for he had more strength to run away, and that it was a disgrace for him to talk or listen to any stuff that he would be ashamed to have Tirzah Ann or me hear. I have brought him up to think that manliness didn’t consist in havin’ a cigar in his mouth, and his hat on one side, and swearin’ and slang phrases, and a knowledge of questionable amusements, but in layin’ holt of every duty that come to him, with a brave heart and a cheerful face; in helpin’ to right the wrong, and protect the weak, and makin’ the most and the best of the mind and the soul God had given him. In short, I have brought him up to think that purity and virtue are both masculine and femanine gender, and that God’s angels are not necessarily all she ones.
Tirzah Ann too has come up well, though I say it, that shouldn’t, her head haint all full, runnin’ over, and frizzlin’ out on top of it, with thoughts of beaux and flirtin’. I have brought her up to think that marriage wasn’t the chief end of life, but savin’ her soul. Tirzah Ann’s own grandmother on her mother’s side, used to come visatin’ us and stay weeks at a time, kinder spyin’ out I spose how I done by the children,—thank fortune, I wasn’t afraid to have her spy, all she was a mind too, I wouldn’t have been afraid to had Benedict Arnold, and Major Andre come as spys. I did well by ’em, and she owned it, though she did think I made Tirzah Ann’s night gowns a little too full round the neck, and Thomas Jefferson’s roundabouts a little too long behind. But as I was a sayin’, the old lady begun to kinder train Tirzah Ann up to the prevailin’ idee of its bein’ her only aim in life to catch a husband, and if she would only grow up and be a real good girl she should marry.
I didn’t say nothin’ to the old lady, for I respect old age, but I took Josiah out one side, and says I,