Sez I, “Tirzah Ann, ever sence she wuz a baby you have made little Delight pray to God, you have learnt her He wuz her best friend, you made her learn that beautiful verse she repeated, and now what irreverence wuz there in thinking that God would be glad to see ’em if they went to Heaven, when you have learned her to love God and go to Him with all her little troubles and temptations?”
“What is proper to say at prayer time hain’t proper to say at other times,” sez Tirzah, and sez Tamer, “Yes, that is so.”
But I sez solemnly, “Tirzah Ann and Tamer, that is a great mistake; you try for half an hour each day to make your children the inmates of another world, surrounded by different beings and circumstances. Now, that hain’t so, God is with Jack and Delight at this minute out there in the playground, jest as nigh as He is when they are kneelin’ at your four feet, and in my opinion they ought to be learnt that is the case, and what is proper for them to think of God at one time is proper at another.
“Now, in my opinion, God would be glad to see them innocent little children step into Heaven off from that cloud, if they could, and my way would have been to told them that God would be glad to see ’em at any time, and that He did see ’em, that He wuz with ’em at prayer time and play time, in storm and shine, and wanted ’em to be good little children, and wuz grieved when they wuz naughty, and then I should have tried to explain to ’em why they couldn’t step off from that cloud into Heaven. That would be my way,” sez I, holdin’ up Josiah’s sock and tacklin’ it in a new place, “howsumever,” sez I mildly, seein’ Tirzah Ann and Tamer looked wrathy, “howsumever, I will say agin it is easier to tell folks how to bring up children than do the bringin’ up, or be satisfied after they’re brung.”
“This irreverence in talkin’ about divine things is what I can’t and won’t stand.”
“Then, Tirzah Ann,” sez I, “you should bring Delight up in a different way. How is she to know the Being you encourage her in talkin’ to one minute is not to be mentioned at another? Everything in the world is as new to her as it would be to us if we wuz sot down on the planet Jupiter to-day. How do you know we should have first class Jupiter ways? I don’t spoze we should, I spoze we should act like fools and lunaticks more’n half the time judged by Jupiter standards. Delight has everything to learn, you teach her that God is her best friend, more than father and mother, is with her all the time, and yet she musn’t speak of Him only for a few minutes night and morning. Delight can’t understand that, Tirzah Ann. And I can’t, nuther,” sez I, in a milder voice, for I see she looked mad. “Why,” sez I, “when Thomas J. wuz little he used to talk to the Lord by the hour, tell Him all his little troubles and sorrows. I would hear him, but never interfered, thinkin’ He wuz a better, safer friend than any other could be.”
Sez Tamer, “It is a bad habit for a child to git into, talkin’ so familiar with the Deity, and it should be stopped, in my opinion.”
Sez I, “You let Cicero fill his mind with burglars and pirates all day long. Isn’t the Divine One a better inmate for the soul than them pirates and enchanted elephants, Tamer Ann?”
She quailed quite a good deal, and I sez, “Jack is inclined to be devout, Tamer, if it isn’t whipped out of him, he has got a religious mind.”
“Religious mind!” sez she, laughin’ in a onbelievin’ way. “Hear that! that sounds religious, don’t it?” Jack wuz yellin’ pretty middlin’ loud, I’ll confess, out under the maples. But I sez, “I don’t see anything aginst it in that, Tamer. I presume David yelled full as loud, or louder, when he wuz a child, and Job, too. I dare presume to say old Miss Job had her hands full with him, and let him go out and yell, and encouraged him in it to git him out of the tent, so she could rest her head and ears. Yellin’ hain’t nothin’ criminal, Tamer, and hain’t been considered so from Jerusalem to Jonesville.”