Samantha on Children's Rights

by Marietta Holley

And then Delight sez, “We can get a splendid one for that.” But the minute they ketched sight of me they stopped talkin’ in a dretful elaborate way, put their fingers to their lips, and shook their heads, and nodded towards me and Josiah, and I see it wuz sunthin’ connected with us, and I made a point at once of not seein’ or hearin’ ’em at all. And that is one of the greatest secrets of life and success, the nack of not hearin’ things. It is almost as necessary in order to git along smooth and pleasant to not hear things as it is to hear ’em.

Lots of times if you hear and see things, sass, for instance, from help, I mean, little bits of sass that will spill out of the big dish of daily worry sometimes, why, if you see that sass you have got to pay attention to it, and wipe it up with admonition and reproof, or ruther make them that dropped it there clean it up with apology and atonement, which will take time and strength and nerves, but if you don’t see it, why it will evaporate, and the dish will right itself up of itself, in eight cases out of ten it will.

And children, bless their dear souls! how many times it is a positive boon to not see their little acts or hear their little words. If you see the small feet wanderin’ for a minute from the highway in search of some butterfly, or, ruther, why you’ve got to pull ’em back agin by main strengh. But if you don’t see ’em why they will come back of their own little accords, most always, and save their temper and yours. And so with their outbursts of discontent and annoyance, if you hear it you have got to rebuke and chasten, but if you don’t hear it, why, good land! it is all over in a minute.

And the best way to teach, anyway, is object teachin’. Make yourself the object, try to do right yourself with fear and tremblin’, and make a sampler of yourself for the children to work their poor little pieces of life’s canvas by. That is the best way of teachin’ on earth and the surest (sometimes I do eppisode even in my reveries and have to resoom forwards agin).

Well, this wuz the day but one before Valentine’s day, and the children beset Josiah to take ’em to Jonesville, and Josiah promised he would.

But it turned out to be a turrible stormy day, blowin’, snowin’ too bad for anybody to be out, and Josiah didn’t go. The children wuz fearful disappinted, their little faces wuz sad and overcasted, and I got a extra good dinner, and when I fried cakes I fried every animal I ever hearn on, unless it wuz a Bengal tiger, for ’em, and it seems some as if I fried him, but I won’t be certain. But even this immense menagerie didn’t seem to fill ’em with the joy it ort, but towards night they begun to brighten up some. I see their two curly heads clost together, the light and the dark, talkin’ over some project big to them, and then they’d look at Josiah and me dretful meanin’ and nod their heads to each other in a knowin’ way, their little faces all lighted up agin.

And they seemed to be in full and frequent communication with our hired man, and then the two little heads, the dark lustrous one with threads of gold runnin’ through the dark curls, and the light flaxen one with threads of mornin’ sunshine wove into the long flaxen waves, these heads would nestle clost together agin as if in deep thought and endeavor.

Well, the mornin’ of Saint Valentine’s day wuz bright and sunshiny, the long rays of gold light crept into our room through the white curtain edged with lace of my own knittin’, and through them same curtains I could see the great masses of warm light in the east like a pink and gold carpet spread out for the sun to walk up into the day on as he come up to light the world.

I wuz jest layin’ and thinkin’ how beautiful and glorious it all wuz, and also with one corner of my mind wonderin’ when Josiah laid out to git up, and whether he had got enough kindlin’ wood the night before, when I heard two little taps at the bedroom door and Josiah waked up. And before we could even ask who wuz there, in come Jack and little Delight in their long white nightdresses. Jack slept upstairs in the room with the hired man, and Delight slept in a little room offen ours. But there them two beautiful little creeters stood right in the rays of mornin’ light, hand in hand, with faces as grave and earnest as if the hull weight of the President’s cares lay on their curly heads. And as we looked up and see ’em, they advanced hand in hand and made two bows, the most stupendious and wonderful bows I ever see or hearn on, why their little noses most grazed the floor, they wuz that deep and impressive, and then they repeated both on ’em in their sweet, fresh little voices:

“The rose is red, the vilets blue,