Sez I dryly, very dry, dry as chips, “I spoze that is how Jack felt, I spoze he felt that it would make you happier if he told you he had done what you sot him to do, and Jack had partly done it, as you know very well. I spoze he felt that it would make you and himself happier and the friction lighter on the wheels of society, and his poor little back, if he told you it wuz all done. But you didn’t seem to like it, and the friction wuz severe judgin’ from the groanin’s and screamin’s I heard from upstairs. But as long as you do the same thing yourself, Tamer Ann Allen, and teach Jack to do it, in the most powerful way, the way of example, you hadn’t ort to whip him. For that is one theme for which I have labored long and feel deeply, to not blame children for what we do ourselves and teach them to do.”
“Well,” sez Tamer, foldin’ up her embroidery, “it is time to put the teakettle on.” And she went out and shot the door middlin’ hard, but I didn’t care if she did, I had leaned against Duty and felt considerable calm in my frame.
She got a real good supper, and I a-settin’ out on the porch could hear her walk to and fro settin’ the table in the dining room, Arabeller bein’ out in the kitchen cookin’ sunthin’. And then it wuz I see that my talk to Tamer hadn’t struck in as I wanted it to, but I pacified myself by turnin’ my thoughts onto the needecessity of watchin’ after the seed is sown, and not be discouraged because it won’t spring up the same hour you put it into the soil. No, I felt (some of the time) that Tamer’s nater wuz kinder sandy soil, bein’ drained by her different diseases, and beat down on by the lurid glare of the climate she dwelt in most of the time, namely them foamin’, blood-curdlin’ novels of hern, and I ort to wait in patience, and as the Sam sez be willin’ to sow in season and out of season, hopin’ that some of it would spring up and bear good fruit.
Well, the reason of this simely wuz the eppisode I witnessed through the open winder between Tamer and poor little Jack. She wuz learnin’ him a lesson in Gography every day, and as he had run looser on account of company bein’ there, his lesson wuz belated and he wuz tired, but she had sent him after his little Gography and set him at it while she wuz settin’ the table. She told him to bound Bolivia. Jack wuz in one of his wild moods, he had ’em sometimes, restless, obstropulous moods, jest as we all have. Jack wuz standin’ up on two chairs in front of his Ma some like the Colossial Roads, I have heard Thomas J. read about.
In some things Hamen’s wife is real lax, laxer than I would be. I should have made Jack stand up in front of me, or set. But she didn’t mind, so he stood up with his feet on two chairs real defiant lookin’ and uppish. And he spoke out loud and firm, and sez he:
“I don’t like the word, Bolivia, Boliver is a good word, I will bound Boliver,” and he stood up firmer than ever and the chairs further apart, seemin’ly.
Sez Tamer, “Do you bound Bolivia.”
“Boliver,” sez Jack, “is bounded on the north by——”
“Bolivia!” sez Hamen’s wife.
“Boliver!” sez Jack firmly; “I like the word, and Boliver it shall be!” And Tamer of course couldn’t stand that, and so she had to whip him again, but I hearn him, as she dragged him upstairs, say kinder low, but jest so she could hear him, “Boliver.”