“Yes, the sea and all that in the Miz. I didn’t want to pray about that, for I thought it wuz sunthin’ big and kinder fuzzy. What is it, anyway?”
And then I told him about the same great Ruler, who ruled over the land and sea, and all that in them is. And he went to bed quite happy and promised to say his prayers good, and I believe he did. Poor little creeter!
Well, he stayed two days and had an awful good time, and Josiah and I enjoyed it jest as much as he did, and the next day, accordin’ to promise, I took Jack over to Tirzah Ann’s and Tamer wuz goin’ to stop and visit her and Thomas J. on her way back from Aunt Nancy John’s. I made a good call at Tirzah’s and see a new sass dish she had got and admired it, and a shirt waist, and then I left Jack happy enough to play with Delight, and called at Maggie’s, and Miss Greene Smythe wuz there, she had come to the office to see Thomas Jefferson and wuz waitin’ for him to come home, he wuz expected every minute from Loontown. I inquired in a polite way after her children, and she said that Angenora wuz feelin’ rather nervous to-day, she wuz out to a child’s party the night before and didn’t git home till two o’clock.
“That child,” sez I, “out till two o’clock!”
“Yes,” she said, “Jimmy De Graffe, a boy from the city, gave the party, he lives near us at home and wuz devoted to Angenora; he sent her a valentine last year which wuz a perfect love letter, and one thing that makes Angenora feel so bad to-day, there wuz a little girl there from the city who had on a much prettier dress that hers—Angenora’s wuz white silk with only five ruffles on it, and the little girl’s wuz pink silk with seven ruffles, and Jimmy paid her much more attention than he did Angenora. It almost broke her heart, she is just about sick to-day.”
Sez I to myself, fashion, love-disappointments, jealousies, heartburnings, despair, emotions that child hadn’t ort to know the names on for years and years. Emotions big enough and sad enough to swamp lives well seasoned by years and experience, all being suffered by that baby, who ortn’t to have an anxiety above peanuts and the multiplication table, blind man’s buff and puss-in-the-corner, for years and years, the idee on’t! Why, what heart will that child bring to her lessons, her Elementary Arithmetic all mixed up with problems about flirtin’ and social supremacy, her Gography full of countries that can’t be bounded, realms of jealousy, hatred and strife, her plain readin’ and spellin’ full of readin’ and spellin’ that grown folks can’t read or spell straight to save their lives. What will remain to that child when she gits to be a young woman? All the emotions of youth outgrown and wasted, she will be old at fourteen, a worn-out old young flirt when she enters her teens. The pleasant care-free land of childhood trompled down and destroyed, the lovely playgrounds of youth and happiness turned into campin’ ground for worldly discord and strife, it makes me feel bad to think on’t.
But Miss Greene Smythe went on, “Jimmy De Graffe seemed to think so much of Angenora, she thought it wuz real mean for him to pay all his devoirs to another girl.”
“Devoirs!” sez I, “the idee of them children payin’ devoirs, but it is well named, for these carry-ins on, fashionable midnight parties, child flirtations, etc., do jest devour all that is sweet and lovely in children, all their unconscious grace and artless innocence, and dear little ignorant wise ways, why,” sez I, “Angenora ort to look on boys only as comrades and playfellows for years and years to come, not lookin’ on ’em different from girls only that they are stronger and can run faster and climb trees better.”
Well, I went away pretty soon, for my pardner come from the post office and thought we had better be goin’, but I kep thinkin’ all the way home on that triumphant child flirt, and Angenora sad and melancholy, and the idee of bo’s and flirtin’ that wuz planted in the minds and hearts of babies, destroyin’ the childish mirth and good comradeship that should exist in happy freedom between children of both sects. Pictures of pretty playful hours between Jack and Delight come to my mind some as you see pictures in a magic lantern, and one of the very prettiest ones come to me as I washed and wiped my dishes that night, Josiah doin’ his barn chores at the same time.
It took place the February before, February the fourteenth, the day when Angenora wuz writin’ and receivin’ lover-like epistles from young old men of nine or ten years of age, I thought with satisfaction and happiness of this pretty seen that had took place in our own home. Jack and Delight had been stayin’ a week with me, and I had noticed for a day or two before that the children had had a good deal of mysterious talkin’ between ’em, and there seemed to be a secret they wuz tryin’ to keep from me; I see ’em countin’ their pennies, and once I hearn Jack say, “All together we’ve got leven cents.”