But while, as I have said, she took good care of his body, oh! how she neglected and misused the mind, the heart, the imagination, the true life of little Jack, misused it like a dog. She would fly at him and whip him unmercifully for what he wuzn’t to blame for, and then set over one of her novels and let him go on with what he ort to have been stopped doin’. To use the words of another, she let him do the things he ortn’t to do and whipped him for what he ort. Her mind wuz such.
Now, to give a sample of her onjestice, the very next day after I wuz there Jack wuz sent to a neighbor’s on a errent. His mother told him to go cross lots, she wuz in such a hurry to have her errent done she didn’t give him enough particulars about the way, and when the poor little creeter wuz doin’ jest the best he could and hurryin’ on jest as near as he could where his Ma told him to go, he got into a swampy place and got his best clothes all dirty and wuz too late to do his errent.
Tamer Ann wanted to send by the neighbor to the city where he wuz goin’ for a certain new blood curdlin’ novel, jest issued, and, owin’ to Jack’s misfortune in losin’ his way when he got there, the man wuz gone. And when poor Jack come meachin’ home with his nice clothes all muddy and wet, as forlorn lookin’ a little creeter as I ever see, Tamer wuz voylently mad about his clothes, and when he said (for Jack is naturally truthful) that he got there too late to do the errent, Tamer’s face got red as blood with white patches shinin’ through the red, like a lurid sky with white thunder caps showin’ on it, and she took Jack by the hand and jerked him up the stairs into her own room.
She jest tore the clothes offen him, as I learn afterwards, and whipped him onmercifully, first with her hand, and then afterwards, as Jack wouldn’t own up that he had been wicked and wuz sorry for it, she grew madder and madder, and voyalenter and voyalenter, and ketched off her slipper, not a soft one (that might be applied with safety to the place best fitted for such blows), but one with a high French heel, and she struck Jack with that till great blue marks wuz left on his little quiverin’, shrinkin’ body.
She whipped him till the sharp pain made him yield, as greater heroes have before, and he owned up that he had been awful wicked and wuz sorry. And then Tamer wuz satisfied and dressed Jack in a handsome suit and give him half a pound of candy and a lot of indigestible fruit (which he threw up with great pain before midnight), and come down lookin’ perfectly satisfied and contented, and Jack went out to divide his spoils with Mary, jest as many a outwardly successful hero has brung home his spoils obtained by truckling to Evil to lavish on some beloved female. And that evenin’, jest before sundown, I give Tamer a-talkin’ to, sez I, “Jack thought he wuz doing right, he thought he wuz on the right road.”
“If he had looked and kep’ his mind on it all the time he would have come out right.”
Sez I, “Tamer Ann, mebby Jack didn’t think to look.”
“Well, I’ll let you know that Jack has got to think. I’ll whip him jest as hard for not thinkin’ as I will for anything else, what bizness has he not to think?”
Sez I, “Tamer Ann, do you and I always think before we do things?”