 | CHAPTER XX.
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IN PURSUIT, AND MY GRANDMOTHER
GIVES HER VIEWS ON EDUCATION. Oldtown folks |  |
20. CHAPTER XX.
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IN PURSUIT, AND MY GRANDMOTHER
GIVES HER VIEWS ON EDUCATION.
WHEN Miss Asphyxia Smith found that both children
really had disappeared from Needmore so completely that
no trace of them remained, to do her justice, she felt some solicitude
to know what had become of them. There had not been
wanting instances in those early days, when so large a part of
Massachusetts was unbroken forest, of children who had wandered
away into the woods and starved to death; and Miss Asphyxia
was by no means an ill-wisher to any child, nor so utterly without
bowels as to contemplate such a possibility without some
anxiety.
Not that she in the least doubted the wisdom and perfect propriety
of her own mode of administration, which she had full
faith would in the end have made a “smart girl” of her little
charge. “That 'ere little limb did n't know what was good for
herself,” she said to Sol, over their evening meal of cold potatoes
and boiled beef.
Sol looked round-eyed and stupid, and squared his shoulders,
as he always did when this topic was introduced. He suggested,
“You don't s'pose they could 'a' wandered off to the maountains
where Bijah Peters' boy got lost?”
There was a sly satisfaction in observing the anxious, brooding
expression which settled down over Miss Asphyxia's dusky features
at the suggestion.
“When they found that 'ere boy,” continued Sol, “he was all
worn to skin and bone; he 'd kep' himself a week on berries
and ches'nuts and sich, but a boy can't be kep' on what a squirrel
can.”
“Well,” said Miss Asphyxia, “I know one thing; it ain't my
fault if they do starve to death. Silly critters, they was; well
I 'm sure you can bear witness ef I ever stinted that 'ere child in
her victuals.”
“I 'll bear you out on that 'ere,” said Sol.
“And well you may; I 'd scorn not to give any one in my
house a good bellyful,” quoth Miss Asphyxia.
“That 's true enough,” said Sol; “everybody 'll know that.”
“Well, it 's jest total depravity,” said Miss Asphyxia. “How
can any one help bein' convinced o' that, that has anything to
do with young uns?”
But the subject preyed upon the severe virgin's mind; and she
so often mentioned it, with that roughening of her scrubby eyebrows
which betokened care, that Sol's unctuous good-nature was
somewhat moved, and he dropped at last a hint of having fallen
on a trace of the children. He might as well have put the tips
of his fingers into a rolling-mill. Miss Asphyxia was so wide-awake
and resolute about anything that she wanted to know,
that Sol at last was obliged to finish with informing her that he
had heard of the children as having been taken in at Deacon
Badger's, over in Oldtown. Sol internally chuckled, as he gave
the information, when he saw how immediately Miss Asphyxia
bristled with wrath. Even the best of human beings have felt
that transient flash when anxiety for the fate of a child supposed
to be in fatal danger gives place to unrestrained vexation at the
little culprit who has given such a fright.
“Well, I shall jest tackle up and go over and bring them
children home agin, at least the girl. Brother, he says he don't
want the boy; he wa'n't nothin' but a plague; but I 'm one o'
them persons that when I undertake a thing I mean to go through
with it. Now I undertook to raise that 'ere girl, and I mean to.
She need n't think she 's goin' to come round me with any o' her
shines, going over to Deacon Badger's with lying stories about
me. Mis' Deacon Badger need n't think she 's goin' to hold up
her head over me, if she is a deacon's wife and I ain't a perfessor
of religion. I guess I could be a perfessor if I chose to do as
some folks do. That 's what I told Mis' Deacon Badger once
when she asked me why I did n't jine the church. `Mis'
outside the church than go on as some people do inside on 't.'”
Therefore it was that a day or two after, when Miss Mehitable
was making a quiet call at my grandmother's, and the party, consisting
of my grandmother, Aunt Lois, and Aunt Keziah, were
peacefully rattling their knitting-needles, while Tina was playing
by the river-side, the child's senses were suddenly paralyzed
by the sight of Miss Asphyxia driving with a strong arm over
the bridge near my grandmother's.
In a moment the little one's heart was in her throat. She had
such an awful faith in Miss Asphyxia's power to carry through
anything she undertook, that all her courage withered at once at
sight of her. She ran in at the back door, perfectly pale with
fright, and seized hold imploringly of Miss Mehitable's gown.
“O, she 's coming! she 's coming after me. Don't let her get
me!” she exclaimed.
“What 's the matter now?” said my grandmother. “What
ails the child?”
Miss Mehitable lifted her in her lap, and began a soothing
course of inquiry; but the child clung to her, only reiterating,
“Don't let her have me! she is dreadful! don't!”
“As true as you live, mother,” said Aunt Lois, who had tripped
to the window, “there 's Miss Asphyxia Smith hitching her horse
at our picket fence.”
“She is?” said my grandmother, squaring her shoulders, and
setting herself in fine martial order. “Well, let her come in;
she 's welcome, I 'm sure. I 'd like to talk to that woman! It 's a
free country, and everybody 's got to speak their minds,” — and
my grandmother rattled her needles with great energy.
In a moment more Miss Asphyxia entered. She was arrayed
in her best Sunday clothes, and made the neighborly salutations
with an air of grim composure. There was silence, and a sense
of something brooding in the air, as there often is before the outburst
of a storm.
Finally, Miss Asphyxia opened the trenches. “I come over,
Mis' Badger, to see about a gal o' mine that has run away.”
Here her eye rested severely on Tina.
“Run away!” quoth my grandmother, briskly; “and good
reason she should run away; all I wonder at is that you have
the face to come to a Christian family after her, — that 's all.
Well, she is provided for, and you 've no call to be inquiring anything
about her. So I advise you to go home, and attend to
your own affairs, and leave children to folks that know how to
manage them better than you do.”
“I expected this, Mis' Badger,” said Miss Asphyxia, in a
towering wrath, “but I 'd have you to know that I ain't a person
that 's going to take sa'ace from no one. No deacon nor deacon's
wife, nor perfesser of religion, 's a goin' to turn up their noses at
me! I can hold up my head with any on 'em, and I think your
religion might teach you better than takin' up stories agin your
neighbors, as a little lyin', artful hussy 'll tell.” Here there
was a severe glance at Miss Tina, who quailed before it, and
clung to Miss Mehitable's gown. “Yes, indeed, you may hide
your head,” she continued, “but you can't git away from the
truth; not when I 'm round to bring you out. Yes, Mis'
Badger, I defy her to say I hain't done well by her, if she
says the truth; for I say it now, this blessed minute, and
would say it on my dyin' bed, and you can ask Sol ef that 'ere
child hain't had everything pervided for her that a child could
want, — a good clean bed and plenty o' bedclothes, and good
whole clothes to wear, and her belly full o' good victuals every
day; an' me a teachin' and a trainin' on her, enough to wear
the very life out o' me, — for I always hated young uns, and
this ere 's a perfect little limb as I ever did see. Why, what
did she think I was a goin' to do for her? I did n't make a lady
on her; to be sure I did n't: I was a fetchin' on her up to work
for her livin' as I was fetched up. I had n't nothin' more 'n she;
an' just look at me now; there ain't many folks that can turn off
as much work in a day as I can, though I say it that should n't.
And I 've got as pretty a piece of property, and as well seen to,
as most any round; and all I 've got — house and lands — is
my own arnin's, honest, so there! There 's folks, I s'pose, that
thinks they can afford to keep tavern for all sorts of stragglers
and runaways, Injun and white. I never was one o' them sort of
all. I guess if 'counts was added up, my 'counts would square up
better 'n theirn.”
Here Miss Asphyxia elevated her nose and sniffed over my
grandmother's cap-border in a very contemptuous manner, and
the cap-border bristled defiantly, but undismayed, back again.
“Come now, Mis' Badger, have it out; I ain't afraid of you!
I 'd just like to have you tell me what I could ha' done more
nor better for this child.”
“Done!” quoth my grandmother, with a pop like a roasted
chestnut bursting out of the fire. “Why, you 've done what
you 'd no business to. You 'd no business to take a child at
all; you have n't got a grain of motherliness in you. Why,
look at natur', that might teach you that more than meat and
drink and clothes is wanted for a child. Hens brood their
chickens, and keep 'em warm under their wings; and cows lick
their calves and cosset 'em, and it 's a mean shame that folks will
take 'em away from them. There 's our old cat will lie an hour
on the kitchen floor and let her kittens lug and pull at her,
atween sleeping and waking, just to keep 'em warm and comfortable,
you know. 'T ain't just feedin' and clothin' back and
belly that 's all; it 's broodin' that young creeturs wants; and you
hain't got a bit of broodin' in you; your heart 's as hard as the
nether mill-stone. Sovereign grace may soften it some day, but
nothin' else can; you 're a poor, old, hard, worldly woman, Miss
Asphyxia Smith: that 's what you are! If Divine grace could
have broken in upon you, and given you a heart to love the child,
you might have brought her up, 'cause you are a smart woman,
and an honest one; that nobody denies.”
Here Miss Mehitable took up the conversation, surveying
Miss Asphyxia with that air of curious attention with which one
studies a human being entirely out of the line of one's personal
experience. Miss Mehitable was, as we have shown, in every
thread of her being and education an aristocrat, and had for Miss
Asphyxia that polite, easy tolerance which a sense of undoubted
superiority gives, united with a shrewd pleasure in the study of
a new and peculiar variety of the human species.
“My good Miss Smith,” she observed, in conciliatory tones,
“by your own account you must have had a great deal of trouble
with this child. Now I propose for the future to relieve you of it
altogether. I do not think you would ever succeed in making as
efficient a person as yourself of her. It strikes me,” she added,
with a humorous twinkle of her eye, “that there are radical
differences of nature, which would prevent her growing up like
yourself. I don't doubt you conscientiously intended to do your
duty by her, and I beg you to believe that you need have no further
trouble with her.”
“Goodness gracious knows,” said Miss Asphyxia, “the child
ain't much to fight over, — she was nothin' but a plague; and I 'd
rather have done all she did any day, than to 'a' had her round
under my feet. I hate young uns, anyway.”
“Then why, my good woman, do you object to parting with
her?”
“Who said I did object? I don't care nothin' about parting
with her; all is, when I begin a thing I like to go through with it.”
“But if it is n't worth going through with,” said Miss Mehitable,
“it 's as well to leave it, is it not?”
“And I 'd got her clothes made, — not that they 're worth
so very much, but then they 're worth just what they are worth,
anyway,” said Miss Asphyxia.
Here Tina made a sudden impulsive dart from Miss Mehitable's
lap, and ran out of the back door, and over to her new home, and
up into the closet of the chamber where was hanging the new
suit of homespun in which Miss Asphyxia had arrayed her. She
took it down and rolled the articles all together in a tight bundle,
which she secured with a string, and, before the party in the
kitchen had ceased wondering at her flight, suddenly reappeared,
with flushed cheeks and dilated eyes, and tossed the bundle into
Miss Asphyxia's lap. “There 's every bit you ever gave me,”
she said; “I don't want to keep a single thing.”
“My dear, is that a proper way to speak?” said Miss Mehitable,
reprovingly; but Tina saw my grandmother's broad shoulders
joggling with a secret laugh, and discerned twinkling lines
in the reproving gravity which Miss Mehitable tried to assume.
She felt pretty sure of her ground by this time.
“Well, it 's no use talkin',” said Miss Asphyxia, rising. “If
folks think they 're able to bring up a beggar child like a lady,
it 's their lookout and not mine. I was n't aware,” she added,
with severe irony, “that Parson Rossiter left so much of an estate
that you could afford to bring up other folks' children in
silks and satins.”
“Our estate is n't much,” said Miss Mehitable, good-naturedly,
“but we shall make the best of it.”
“Well, now, you just mark my words, Miss Rossiter,” said
Miss Asphyxia, “that 'ere child will never grow up a smart woman
with your bringin' up; she 'll jest run right over you, and
you 'll let her have her head in everything. I see jest how 't 'll
be; I don't want nobody to tell me.”
“I dare say you are quite right, Miss Smith,” said Miss Mehitable;
“I have n't the slightest opinion of my own powers in
that line; but she may be happy with me, for all that.”
“Happy?” repeated Miss Asphyxia, with an odd intonation, as
if she were repeating a sound of something imperfectly comprehended,
and altogether out of her line. “O, well, if folks is
goin' to begin to talk about that, I hain't got time; it don't seem
to me that that 's what this 'ere world 's for.”
“What is it for, then?” said Miss Mehitable, who felt an odd
sort of interest in the human specimen before her.
“Meant for? Why, for hard work, I s'pose; that 's all I ever
found it for. Talk about coddling! it 's little we get o' that, the
way the Lord fixes things in this world, dear knows. He 's pretty
up and down with us, by all they tell us. You must take things
right off, when they 're goin'. Ef you don't, so much the worse for
you; they won't wait for you. Lose an hour in the morning, and
you may chase it till ye drop down, you never 'll catch it! That 's
the way things goes, and I should like to know who 's a going to
stop to quiddle with young uns? 'T ain't me, that 's certain; so,
as there 's no more to be made by this 'ere talk, I may 's well be
goin'. You 're welcome to the young un, ef you say so; I jest
wanted you to know that what I begun I 'd 'a' gone through with,
ef you had n't stepped in; and I did n't want no reflections on my
good name, neither, for I had my ideas of what 's right, and can
heart of stone. I should like to know how I 'm to have any
other when I ain't elected, and I don't see as I am, or likely to be,
and I don't see neither why I ain't full as good as a good many
that be.”
“Well, well, Miss Smith,” said Miss Mehitable, “we can't
any of us enter into those mysteries, but I respect your motives,
and would be happy to see you any time you will call, and I 'm
in hopes to teach this little girl to treat you properly,” she said,
taking the child's hand.
“Likely story,” said Miss Asphyxia, with a short, hard laugh.
“She 'll get ahead o' you, you 'll see that: but I don't hold malice,
so good morning,” — and Miss Asphyxia suddenly and promptly
departed, and was soon seen driving away at a violent pace.
“Upon my word, that woman is n't so bad, now,” said Miss
Mehitable, looking after her, while she leisurely inhaled a pinch
of snuff.
“O, I 'm so glad you did n't let her have me!” said Tina.
“To think of a creature so dry and dreary, so devoid even
of the conception of enjoyment in life,” said Miss Mehitable,
“hurrying through life without a moment's rest, — without even
the capacity of resting if she could, — and all for what?”
“For my part, mother, I think you were down too hard on
her,” said Aunt Lois.
“Not a bit,” said my grandmother, cheerily. “Such folks ought
to be talked to; it may set her to thinking, and do her good.
I 've had it on my heart to give that woman a piece of my mind
ever since the children came here. Come here, my poor little
dear,” said she to Tina, with one of her impulsive outgushes of
motherliness. “I know you must be hungry by this time; come
into the buttery, and see what I 've got for you.”
Now there was an indiscreet championship of Miss Tina, a
backing of her in her treatment of Miss Asphyxia, in this overflow,
which Aunt Lois severely disapproved, and which struck
Miss Mehitable as not being the very best thing to enforce her
own teachings of decorum and propriety.
The small young lady tilted into the buttery after my grandmother,
and they heard her little tongue running with the full assurance
of having a sympathetic listener.
“Now mother will spoil that child, if you let her,” said Aunt
Lois. “She 's the greatest hand to spoil children; she always
lets 'em have what they ask for. I expect Susy's boys 'll be
raising Cain round the house; they would if it was n't for me.
They have only to follow mother into that buttery, and out they
come with great slices of bread and butter, any time of day, —
yes, and even sugar on it, if you 'll believe me.”
“And does 'em good, too,” said my grandmother, who reappeared
from the buttery, with Miss Tina tilting and dancing
before her, with a confirmatory slice of bread and butter and
sugar in her hand. “Tastes good, don't it, dear?” said she,
giving the child a jovial chuck under her little chin.
“Yes, indeed,” said Miss Tina; “I 'd like to have old nasty
Sphyxy see me now.”
“Tut, tut! my dear,” said grandmother; “good little girls
don't call names”; — but at the same time the venerable gentlewoman
nodded and winked in the most open manner across the
curly head at Miss Mehitable, and her portly shoulders shook
with laughter, so that the young culprit was not in the least
abashed at the reproof.
“Mother, I do wonder at you!” said Aunt Lois, indignantly.
“Never you mind, Lois; I guess I 've brought up more children
than ever you did,” said my grandmother, cheerily. “There,
my little dear,” she added, “you may run down to your play
now, and never fear that anybody 's going to get you.”
Miss Tina, upon this hint, gladly ran off to finish an architectural
structure of pebbles by the river, which she was busy in
building at the time when the awful vision of Miss Asphyxia
appeared; and my grandmother returned to her buttery to attend
to a few matters which had been left unfinished in the
morning's work.
“It is a very serious responsibility,” said Miss Mehitable,
when she had knit awhile in silence, “at my time of life, to charge
one's self with the education of a child. One treats one's self to
remain a picture or a flower, and then comes the awful question,
what it may grow to be, and what share you may have in
determining its future.”
“Well, old Parson Moore used to preach the best sermons on
family government that ever I heard,” said Aunt Lois. “He said
you must begin in the very beginning and break a child's will, —
short off, — nothing to be done without that. I remember he
whipped little Titus, his first son, off and on, nearly a whole day,
to make him pick up a pocket-handkerchief.”
Here the edifying conversation was interrupted by a loud
explosive expletive from the buttery, which showed that my grandmother
was listening with anything but approbation.
“Fiddlesticks!” quoth she.
“And did he succeed in entirely subduing the child's will in
that one effort?” said Miss Mehitable, musingly.
“Well, no. Mrs. Moore told me he had to have twenty or
thirty just such spells before he brought him under; but he persevered,
and he broke his will at last, — at least so far that he
always minded when his father was round.”
“Fiddlesticks!” quoth my grandmother, in a yet louder
and more explosive tone.
“Mrs. Badger does not appear to sympathize with your views,”
said Miss Mehitable.
“O, mother? Of course she don't; she has her own ways and
doings, and she won't hear to reason,” said Aunt Lois.
“Come, come, Lois; I never knew an old maid who did n't
think she knew just how to bring up children,” said my grandmother.
“Wish you could have tried yourself with that sort
of doxy when you was little. Guess if I 'd broke your will, I
should ha' had to break you for good an' all, for your will is
about all there is of you! But I tell you, I had too much to do
to spend a whole forenoon making you pick up a pocket-handkerchief.
When you did n't mind, I hit you a good clip, and picked
it up myself; and when you would n't go where I wanted you, I
picked you up, neck and crop, and put you there. That was my
government. I let your will take care of itself. I thought the
't was for, and could take care of it in his own time, which
hain't come yet, as I see.”
Now this last was one of those personal thrusts with which
dear family friends are apt to give arguments a practical application;
and Aunt Lois's spare, thin cheeks flushed up as she said,
in an aggrieved tone: “Well, I s'pose I 'm dreadful, of course.
Mother always contrives to turn round on me.”
“Well, Lois, I hate to hear folks talk nonsense,” said my
grandmother, who by this time had got a pot of cream under her
arm, which she was stirring with the pudding-stick; and this
afforded her an opportunity for emphasizing her sentences with
occasional dumps of the same.
“People don't need to talk to me,” she said, “about Parson
Moore's government. Tite Moore was n't any great shakes, after
all the row they made about him. He was well enough while
his father was round, but about the worst boy that ever I saw
when his eye was off from him. Good or bad, my children was
about the same behind my back that they were before my face,
anyway.”
“Well, now, there was Aunt Sally Morse,” said Aunt Lois,
steadily ignoring the point of my grandmother's discourse.
“There was a woman that brought up children exactly to suit
me. Everything went like clock-work with her babies; they
were nursed just so often, and no more; they were put down to
sleep at just such a time, and nobody was allowed to rock 'em, or
sing to 'em, or fuss with 'em. If they cried, she just whipped
them till they stopped; and when they began to toddle about, she
never put things out of their reach, but just slapped their hands
whenever they touched them, till they learnt to let things
alone.”
“Slapped their hands!” quoth my grandmother, “and learnt
them to let things alone! I 'd like to ha' seen that tried on my
children. Sally had a set of white, still children, that were all
just like dipped candles by natur', and she laid it all to her
management; and look at 'em now they 're grown up. They 're
decent, respectable folks, but noways better than other folks'
she was whipped and made to lie still when she was a baby, and
you were taken up and rocked when you cried. All is, they
had hard times when they were little, and cried themselves to
sleep nights, and were hectored and worried when they ought to
have been taking some comfort. Ain't the world hard enough,
without fighting babies, I want to know? I hate to see a woman
that don't want to rock her own baby, and is contriving ways all
the time to shirk the care of it. Why, if all the world was
that way, there would be no sense in Scriptur'. `As one whom
his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you,' the Bible says,
taking for granted that mothers were made to comfort children
and give them good times when they are little. Sally Morse
was always talking about her system. She thought she did
wonders, 'cause she got so much time to piece bedquilts, and
work counterpanes, and make pickles, by turning off her children;
but I took my comfort in mine, and let them have their
comfort as they went along. It 's about all the comfort there is
in this world, anyway, and they 're none the worse for it now, as
I see.”
“Well, in all these cases there is a medium, if we could hit it,”
said Miss Mehitable. “There must be authority over these
ignorant, helpless little folks in early years, to keep them from
ruining themselves.”
“O yes. Of course there must be government,” said my grandmother.
“I always made my children mind me; but I would n't
pick quarrels with 'em, nor keep up long fights to break their
will; if they did n't mind, I came down on 'em and had it over
with at once, and then was done with 'em. They turned out
pretty fair, too,” said my grandmother complacently, giving an
emphatic thump with her pudding-stick.
“I was reading Mr. John Locke's treatise on education yesterday,”
said Miss Mehitable. “It strikes me there are many
good ideas in it.”
“Well, one live child puts all your treatises to rout,” said my
grandmother. “There ain't any two children alike; and what
works with one won't with another. Folks have just got to open
the child together, if they can, and not stand in his way; and
after all we must wait for sovereign grace to finish the work: if
the Lord don't keep the house, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Children are the heritage of the Lord, — that 's all you can
make of it.”
My grandmother, like other warm-tempered, impulsive, dictatorial
people, had formed her theories of life to suit her own
style of practice. She was, to be sure, autocratic in her own
realm, and we youngsters knew that, at certain times when her
blood was up, it was but a word and a blow for us, and that the
blow was quite likely to come first and the word afterward; but
the temporary severities of kindly-natured, generous people never
lessen the affection of children or servants, any more than the too
hot rays of the benignant sun, or the too driving patter of the
needful rain. When my grandmother detected us in a childish
piece of mischief, and soundly cuffed our ears, or administered
summary justice with immediate polts of her rheumatic crutch, we
never felt the least rising of wrath or rebellion, but only made off
as fast as possible, generally convinced that the good woman was
in the right of it, and that we got no more than we deserved.
I remember one occasion when Bill had been engaged in
making some dressed chickens dance, which she had left trussed
up with the liver and lights duly washed and replaced within
them. Bill set them up on their pins, and put them through
active gymnastics, in course of which these interior treasures
were rapidly scattered out upon the table. A howl of indignation
from grandmother announced coming wrath, and Bill darted
out of the back door, while I was summarily seized and chastised.
“Grandmother, grandmother! I did n't do it, — it was Bill.”
“Well, but I can't catch Bill, you see,” said my venerable
monitor, continuing the infliction.
“But I did n't do it.”
“Well, let it stand for something you did do, then,” quoth my
grandmother, by this time quite pacified: “you do bad things
enough that you ain't whipped for, any day.”
The whole resulted in a large triangle of pumpkin pie,
and thus the matter was happily adjusted. Even the prodigal
son Bill, when, returning piteously, and standing penitent under
the milk-room window, he put in a submissive plea, “Please,
grandmother, I won't do so any more,” was allowed a peaceable
slice of the same comfortable portion, and bid to go in peace.
I remember another funny instance of my grandmother's discipline.
It was when I was a little fellow, seated in the chimney-corner
at my grandfather's side. I had discovered a rising at the
end of my shoe-sole, which showed that it was beginning to come
off. It struck me as a funny thing to do to tear up the whole
sole, which piece of mischief my grandfather perceiving, he
raised his hand to chastise.
“Come here, Horace, quick!” said my grandmother, imperatively,
that she might save me from the impending blow.
I lingered, whereat she made a dart at me, and seized me. Just
as my grandfather boxed my ear on one side, she hit me a
similar cuff on the other.
“Why did n't you come when I called you,” she said; “now
you 've got your ears boxed both sides.”
Somewhat bewildered, I retreated under her gown in disgrace,
but I was after a relenting moment lifted into her lap, and allowed
to go to sleep upon her ample bosom.
“Mother, why don't you send that boy to bed nights?” said
Aunt Lois. “You never have any regular rules about anything.”
“Law, he likes to sit up and see the fire as well as any of us,
Lois; and do let him have all the comfort he can as he goes
along, poor boy! there ain't any too much in this world, anyway.”
“Well, for my part, I think there ought to be system in bringing
up children,” said Aunt Lois.
“Wait till you get 'em of your own, and then try it, Lois,”
said my grandmother, laughing with a rich, comfortable laugh
which rocked my little sleepy head up and down, as I drowsily
opened my eyes with a delicious sense of warmth and security.
From all these specimens it is to be inferred that the theorists
on education will find no improvement in the contemplation of
passionate, impulsive, soft-hearted body, as entirely below the
notice of a rational, inquiring mind as an old brooding hen,
which model of maternity in many respects she resembled. It
may be so, but the longer I live, the more faith I have in grandmothers
and grandmotherly logic, of which, at some future time, I
shall give my views at large.
| CHAPTER XX.
MISS ASPHYXIA GOES IN PURSUIT, AND MY GRANDMOTHER
GIVES HER VIEWS ON EDUCATION. Oldtown folks | |