Samantha on Children's Rights

by Marietta Holley

I despise now, and always have despised, the idee of grandparents bein’ so took up with their grandchildren that they can’t see their faults, it is dretful to witness such folly. But, as I have said to Josiah and to others, “What are you goin’ to do when there hain’t any faults to see? How be you a-goin’ to see ’em?” Why, there hain’t any reason in tryin’ to see things that hain’t there. If Delight and Snow and my other grandchildren ever have any faults I shall be the first one to see ’em, the very first one, and so I have told Josiah and the neighbors.

This little Snow is very white complected, and her eyes are jest the softened shade of the deep velvet blue of the pansy, and her hair is kinder yellowish, and curls in loose rings and waves all over her head, all round her white forward and satin smooth neck. She has got the same sweet smile on her lips that her Ma has, and little angel Snow had, but the look in her eyes, though they hain’t the same color, is like my boy, Thomas Jefferson’s, they look kinder cunning and cute some of the time jest like his, and then deep and tender jest like hisen. Thomas Jefferson is deep, it has been gin up that he is, it is known now all over Jonesville and out as fur as Loontown and all the other adjacent villages, that Thomas J. is deep.

I knew it when he wuz a child, I found it out first, but now everybody knows it, why the bizness that boy gits is perfectly oncommon, folks bring their lawsuits to him from as fur as way beyend Toad Holler and the old State Road, and all round Zoar, and Loontown, and Jonesville, why milds and milds they’ll fetch ’em ruther than have anybody else, and the land is perfectly full of lawyers, too, painfully full. He and Tom Willis, his confidential clerk, have more than they can do all the time, they have to employ one or two boys, they are makin’ money fast.

Well, I spozed that seein’ Thomas J. wuz doin’ so well, and Maggie’s father havin’ left her a handsome property of her own (the Judge died of quinsy, lamented some years ago), I spozed, seein’ she wuz abundantly able and its bein’ so fashionable, that Maggie would have a nurse for her little girl. But the day the child wuz a month old I spent the day with ’em, and Maggie told me she wuzn’t goin’ to. She looked kinder delicate as she sot there holdin’ little Snow, her cheeks wuz about as white as the dress she had on, and I sez, “It is goin’ to be quite a care for you, daughter.”

“Care!” And as she looked up in my face I wuz most struck with the look in her big eyes, it wuz a look of such tenderness, such rapture, such anxiety, such wonder, and most everything else; I declare for it I never see such a look in my life unless it wuz in the face of the Madonna hangin’ right up over her head. Thomas J. bought it and gin it to her a few months before, and it hung right at the foot of her bed. The Virgin mother and her child.

It wuz a beautiful face, Thomas J. thought it favored Maggie, and I don’t know but it did, it did jest that minute, anyway, she had the same look in her eyes that Mary had. Well, if you’ll believe it right while we wuz talkin’ about that baby, Miss Green Smythe come in to see Thomas Jefferson, she is tryin’ to git some divorces, and she wants Thomas J. to undertake the job, she is dretful good to Maggie and flatters Thomas Jefferson up, but Thomas J. won’t take the case, unless he sees he is on the right side.

Thomas Jefferson Allen has took his Ma’s advice; he has never, never took holt of a case that he didn’t think honestly and firmly he wuz on the right side on’t. He has got the name of bein’ a honest lawyer, and they say folks come milds and milds jest to look on him, they consider him such a curosity. That’s jest why he gits so much custom, folks would ruther see him than a circus, he bein’ such a rariety, and then when they see him they like him, they can’t help it, and so he gits their custom.

I told Thomas J. when he wuz young to do right for the right’s sake, sez I, “Thomas J., I despise that old proverb, ‘Honesty is the best policy.’ I don’t want you to do anything out of policy,” sez I, “do right for the right’s sake, for the sake of God’s truth and your own soul. You can’t like yourself, nor God can’t like you if you do a mean, shabby, contemptible act. Do jest as near right as you can, Thomas Jefferson Allen, and leave success or failure with Him who sees into your soul and your future clear to the end, if there is a end, which I don’t spoze there is. You had better be a failure outside than inside.” Sez I, “Let the one who can see inside of you look down into a clean soul, and even if you are covered with rags outside your Ma will be satisfied.”

So I would say to Thomas J. from day to day and from year to year in his school days. And when he went into the law, sez I, “Thomas Jefferson, it may be my lot to see you torn by wild horses and layin’ on a guillontine, but,” sez I, “though that would kill your Ma, it would kill her quicker to see and hear that you had got up in cold blood and wuz tryin’ to prove that a lie wuz the truth, and that the truth wuz a lie, usin’ all the intellect and power the God of truth give to prove a untruth, to go against Him, against your conscience, against your soul.”

Sez I, “Cases can be plastered over with all the thick plaster you can lay on ’em about duty to clients, expediency, etc., etc. But if a man is guilty he ort to be punished, and if he is innocent he hadn’t ort to be punished, and if you ever take the part of the guilty against the innocent, if you git up under God’s pure daylight and try to prove that the innocent is guilty, try and prove a lie, your Ma will not live long to see it go on,” sez I, “for mortification would set in powerful and so deep that it will soon end her days.”