“I don’t do it,” sez he.
Sez I, “She is only three years old, she has got everything to learn, she can’t endure pain as she can when she is older. She didn’t know she had done wrong, and you, instead of reasonin’ with her, and settin’ her right, skairt her, and hurt her hands, and she wuz actually glad I’ve no doubt to think that you broke the stove. She thought you wuz unjust, and wuz indignant at that, and surprised and frightened to think you wanted to hurt her, you who had always been so good to her, and loved her so well, and she spoke out quick and impatient, jest as you and I do sometimes, Josiah Allen, and we have had a lifetime to learn patience and endurance.”
I see he wuz some convinced, but wouldn’t own it, and he sez agin, in a cross tone (about as cross as a cross gut saw, his tone had been like a bayinet or spear), sez he, “She no need to burnt up the world.”
Sez I over agin, “She hadn’t no idee what she wuz doing, she thought she wuz follerin’ her Grandma’s doin’s and doin’ right. But because it hurt your own comfort a little mite——”
“A little mite!” sez he, groanin’, “and there it wuz full of tragedies, I dare presume to say, and salts and butteries, and burglaries.”
“Because she did sunthin’ that interfered with your comfort when she hadn’t the least idee of its bein’ wrong you pounced at her and hurt her, and want her whipped. And the other day, Josiah Allen, when she did do a little sunthin’ we had told her not to, because she did it in such a cunnin’ way, you laughed, and wuz mad because I spoke of punishin’ her for it.”
“Well, I spoze you want me to say that I think it is right for her to burn up the world, but you won’t git me to.” But his axent wuz gittin’ smoother, it wuz about as smooth as a gimlet hole now.
Sez I, “I believe in punishin’ children when they persist in wrongdoin’. But I always believe in findin’ out whether they have done wrong or not, and then in the next place try to punish ’em, not for revenge and to satisfy our own feelin’s, but to do them good, break ’em of wrongdoin’. And if you can talk them out of it it seems so much more noble and dignified than it duz to pound ’em. It duz somehow look so disagreeable to see a great strong man or woman weighin’ two hundred or so standin’ over a little mite of a thing that can’t help itself anyway, whippin’ it.”
“Solomon sez,” sez Josiah, “spare the rod and spile the child.”