MARK TWAIN
A Record of the Small Foolishnesses of Susie and “Bay” Clemens (Infants)
“And Mary treasured these sayings in her heart.”
[Begun in August at “Quarry Farm” on the Elmira hills—country residence of Mr. Crane.]
Hartford
1876
Olivia Susan Clemens
was born at the Langdon homestead in Elmira, N.Y., 19th March, 1872 and was named for her grandmother and her aunt Susan Crane.
From early babyhood until she was 3½ years old, she was addicted to sudden and raging tempests of passion. Coaxing was tried; reasoning was tried; diversion was tried; even bribery; also, deprivations of various kinds; also captivity in a corner; in fact, everything was tried that ever had been tried with any child—but all to no purpose. Indeed the storms grew more frequent. At last we dropped every feature of the system utterly and resorted to flogging. Since that day there has never been a better child. We had to whip her once a day, at first; then three times a week; then twice, then once a week; then twice a month. She is nearly 4½ years old, now, and I have only touched her once in the last 3 months. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” was well said—and not by an amateur, I judge.
Susie never had but one nick-name, (a mistake—see below) and only kept that one a year. That was “Modoc,” (from the cut of her hair.) This was at the time of the Modoc war in the lava beds of northern California.
Susie began to talk a little when she was a year old. If an article pleased her, she said “Like it—awnt (want) it—hab (have) it—take it”—and took it, unless somebody got in ahead and prevented.
In the train, on the way from London to Edinburgh (16 months old) she developed a rather lame talent for crowing like a rooster. In Edinburgh her great friend and daily visitor for the 5 weeks we were there was the dearest man in all the land of Scotland—Dr. John Brown, author of “Rab and his Friends.” He had two names for her—“Little wifie” and “Megalopis,” for her large eyes seemed to him to warrant that sounding Greek epithet. When Susie is an old friendless woman and reads this page, let her remember that she has one thing to be proud of and grateful for—Dr. John Brown loved her and petted her.
Clara Clemens,
(commonly called “the Bay” at this date,) was born at Quarry Farm in the Elmira hills, 8th June 1874, and is 2 years and 2 months old at this writing. She was named for Miss Clara Spaulding, of Elmira, a very especial friend of her parents.
When she was an hour and 4 minutes old, she was shown to Susie. She looked like a velvet-headed grub worm squirming in a blanket—but no matter, Susie admired. She said, in her imperfect way, “Lat bay (baby) got boofu’ hair”—so Clara has been commonly called “Bay” to this day, but will take up her right name in time.
When the Bay was a week old, her adventures began. She was asleep on a pillow in a rocking chair in the parlor at Quarry Farm. I had forgotten her presence—if I knew it. I wound up a mechanical toy wagon and set it loose on the floor; I saw it was going to collide with the rocking chair, so I kicked the rocking chair across the house. The Bay lit on the floor with a thump, her head within two inches of the iron fender of the grate, but with the pillow undermost. So she came within 3 inches of an obituary.
From the Bay’s first birth-day till some weeks had passed, her chances were uncertain. She could live on nothing but breast milk, and her mother could not furnish it. We got Mary Lewis, the colored wife of the colored lessee of Quarry Farm to supply it a couple of weeks; but the moment we tried to put her on prepared food she turned blue around her mouth and began to gasp. We thought she would not live 15 minutes. Then we got Maggie O’Day from Elmira, who brought her blind child with her and divided up her rations—not enough for the two; so we tried to eke out the Bay’s supply with prepared food, and failed. She turned blue again and came near perishing.
We never tried prepared food any more. Next we got Lizzie Botheker, and had to pay her worthless husband $60 to let her come, beside her wages of $5 per week.
Next we got Patrick’s wife (our coachman) Mary McAleer to furnish milk for the Bay.
Lastly we got Maria McLaughlin, wife of a worthless Irishman, and she staid a year till the Bay was weaned. Maria chewed, smoked, (swore, used obscene language in the kitchen) stole the beer from the cellar and got drunk every now and then, and was a hard lot in every possible way—but the Bay throve on her vices, right along. So the Bay’s name in full is Clara Langdon Lewis O’Day Botheker McAleer McLaughlin Clemens.
Maria McLaughlin was proprietor of a baby which was boarded at a house on the Gillette place, and by and by it died. Mrs. Clemens gave her $20 out of sympathy and to enable Maria to make a worthy and satisfactory funeral. It had that effect. Maria arrived home about 11 o’clock that night, as full as an egg and as unsteady on end. But the Bay was as empty as she was full; so after a steady pull of 20 minutes the Bay’s person was level full of milk punch constructed of lager beer, cheap whisky, rum and wretched brandy, flavored with chewing tobacco, cigar smoke and profanity, and the pair were regally “sprung” and serenely happy. The Bay never throve so robustly on any nurse’s milk as she did on Maria’s, for no other milk had so much substance to it.
We spent the summer of ’75 at the seaside at Newport, and the children used to sleep a couple of hours every day under umbrellas on the rocks within six feet of the wash of the waves, and that made them strong and hearty.
Susie began to talk at 1 year, and began to walk in London and perfected herself at 18 months in Edinburgh.
The Bay learned to walk early enough, but now at 2 years and 2 months she cannot say ten words, but understands the entire language.
*
When Susie was nearly 3 years old, I took a spring walk with her. She was drawing a baby carriage with 2 dolls in it, one with a straw hat on. The hat kept falling off and delaying the procession while Susie picked it up. Finally I dropped behind the carriage and said, “Now go on—if it falls off again, I’ll pick it up.” Nearly 2 days afterward, she said to her English nurse, Lizzy Wills:
“Lizzie, can you talk like papa? When my dolly’s hat fell, papa said, ‘I-f i-t f-a-l-l-s o-f-f a-g-a-i-n, I---l-l p-i-c-k i-t u-p.’”
Considering that she had probably never heard my drawling manner of speech imitated, this was not bad—nor reverent, either.
*
When Susie Clemens was something over 3 years old, her religious activities began to develop rapidly. Many of her remarks took cast from this interest.
She was found in the act of getting out her water colors one Sunday to make vari-colored splotches and splashes on paper—which she considered “pictures.” Her mother said:
“Susie, you forget it is Sunday.”
“But mamma, I was only going to paint a few pictures for Jesus, to take up with me when I go.”
Susy in 1873, aged seventeen months.
*
Her aunt Sue used to sing a hymn for her which ended—
“I love Jesus because he first loved me.”
Susie’s mother sang it for her some months afterward, ending it as above, of course. But Susie corrected her and said:
“No, that is not right, mamma—it is because he first loved Aunt Sue.” [The word “me” rather confused her.]
*
One day on the ombra Susie burst into song, as follows:
“O Jesus are you dead, so you cannot dance and sing!”
The air was exceedingly gay—rather pretty, too—and was accompanied by a manner and gestures that were equally gay and chipper. Her mother was astonished and distressed. She said:
“Why Susie! Did Maria teach you that dreadful song?”
“No, mamma; I made it myself all out of my own head. No-body helped me.”
She was plainly proud of it, and went on repeating it with great content.
[Maria McLaughlin was one of Clara Clemens’s innumerable wet nurses—a profane devil, and given to whiskey, tobacco, and some of the vices.]
*
1877. Jan. 29
About a fortnight ago Bay got what may be called about her first thrashing. Her mother took both children gravely to the bedchamber to punish them. It was all new to Bay and the novelty of it charmed her. Madam turned Susie across her lap and began to spat her (very lightly.) Bay was delighted with the episode. Then she was called for, and came skipping forward with jovial alacrity and threw herself across her mother’s lap as who should say, “My, but ain’t these good times!” The spat descended sharply, and by the war-whoop that followed, one perceived that the Bay’s ideas about these festivities had changed. The madam could not whip for laughing and had to leave the punishment but half performed.
*
1877 January
Mr. Frank D. Millet, the artist, was here to paint my portrait. One day Susie asked her mamma to read to her. Millet said—
“I’ll read to you, Susie.”
Susie said with a grave sweet grace and great dignity—
“I thank you, Mr. Millet, but I am a little more acquainted with mamma, and so I would rather she would do it.”
*
Feb. 15
The other evening, after the children’s prayers, Mrs. Clemens told Susie she must often think of Jesus and ask him to help her to overcome bad impulses. She said—
“I do think of him, mamma. Every day I see his cross on my Bible, and I think of him then—the cross they crucified him on—it was too bad—I was quite sorry.”
*
Feb. 1877.
The other evening while we were at dinner, the children came down from the nursery as usual to spend the hour between six and seven. They were in the library and the folding doors were open. Presently I heard Susie tell the Bay to lie down on the rug before the fire—which Bay did. Then Susie came into the dining room, turned, ran back, hovered over Bay and said—
“Now, Bay, you are a little dead baby, you know, and I am an angel come down to take you up to heaven. Come, now, get up—give me your hand—now we’ll run—that’s to pretend to be flying, you know. Ready, now—now we’re flying.”
When they came flying by the dinner table, something there attracted the Bay’s attention and she suddenly stopped, but Susie ran on, full of enthusiasm. She brought up behind a chair by a door and cried out—
“Come on, Bay—here’s heaven!”—then put her hand on the door knob and said,—“See! here’s Jesus!”
*
Mch 15. 1877.
The German letter inserted herea is from Rosa (Rosina Hay,) who has been with us since just before Susie’s second birth-day—a little over 3 years. Rosa is away on a day or two’s visit to New York. She wrote the letter here in Hartford in the nursery and so dated it; but she mailed it today in New York and Susie is very proud of it. Rosa has a very pretty gift at letter-writing.
Library of the Hartford house. Illustration from Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, October 1885.
*
May 4
When Miss Hesse ceased from her office of Private Secretary and took final leave of us today, Susie said gravely, “I am losing all my friends.” This is rather precocious flattery.
*
May 4
Yesterday Susie had a present of a new parasol, and hit Bay a whack with it—to see if it was substantial, perhaps. Rosa the nurse took it away from her and put it in the blue room. Susie was vastly frightened and begged Rosa not to tell on her, but her pleadings failed. In the evening Susie said, with earnestness, “Mamma, I begged and begged, and begged Rosa not to tell you—but all in vain.”
*
May. 77
A month or more ago the Bay was naughty in the nursery and did not finish her dinner. In the evening she was hungry and her mamma gave her a cracker. I quote now from a letter written to me by mamma when I was in Baltimore 2 or 3 days ago:
“Last night, after George had wiped off her sticky fingers in the China Closet, Bay came out with her little sad, downcast look, and said, ‘I been litte naughty up ’tairs, can I have a cacker?’ [I found that the naughtiness had been invented for the occasion.]”
*
July 4 1877 At the farm.
Susie (being ordered to bed)—said, thoughtfully—“I wish I could sit up all night, as God does.”
*
May 1877b
Susie had been a little unreliable in stating facts, I had reproved her quite sharply for it, she went and sat down by herself for sometime and then said “Well mamma I don’t know what to do about it,—except that I am sorry and wont do so again”—
*
March 1877—Letter to Mr F. D. Millett from Susie—
Dear Mr Millett
Bay and I has both got valentines, I have a new fan and a German book and bay’s got a new carrage—Papa teached me that tick, tick—my Grandfathers clock was too large for the shelf so it stood 90 years on the floor. Mr Millett is that the same clock what is in your picture—Dear Mr Millett I give you my love, I put it on my heart to get the love out. The little Kittye is in Bays carrage my love and Susie Clemens
Write me a little note—
*
Susie trying to work on bristol board failed some what and said “Well Mamma you know the world was not made in a day”—
*
Susie—4½. Perceiving that her shoes were damaging her feet, from being too small, I got her a very ample pair, of a most villainous shape and style. She made no complaint when they were put on her, but looked injured and degraded. At night when she knelt at her mother’s knee to say her prayers, the former gave her the usual admonition:
“Now, Susie—think about God.”
“Mamma, I can’t, with these shoes.”
*
Bay—2 yrs and 2 mos. She can say only a few words; is very fond of rocking and singing—to no tune.
She sings, “Dee papa, dee mamma, dee Do-ah, (Theodore Crane), dee Tah-tay (tante, German for aunt Sue) dee Yo-wah (Rosa, German nurse,) dee Shish-shee (sister), dee me-e.”
It is customary to say “Now, Bay, sing the holy family”—whereupon she performs as above.
Then we say, “Now, Bay, let us have the catechism. Who is a hard lot?”
“Papa.”
“Who is a particularly hard lot?”
“Do-ah.”
“Who is the hardest lot in Chemung county?”
“Tah-te.”
“Who is the hardest lot in the State of New York?”
“Shish-shee.”
“Who is the hardest lot in America?”
“Yo-wah.”
“Who is the hardest lot in the civilized world?”
“Mamma.”
“Who is the confoundedest hardest lot in the entire Universe?”
“Me.”
*
Several times Livy said to Susie, “There, there, child, you must not cry for little things.” One day (when there was nothing under discussion,) Susie came up out of a brown study with the formidable question, “Mamma, what is LITTLE things?” No man can answer that question—nor no woman; for nothing that grieves us can be called little: a child’s loss of a doll, and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size. Livy could not furnish a sufficient answer. But Susie did not give the matter up. She worked at the problem several days. One day, when Livy was about to drive down town—one of her errands being the purchase of a long-promised toy watch for Susie,—the child said, “If you forgot the watch, mamma, would that be a little thing?”
Yet she was not concerned about the watch; for she knew perfectly well it would not be forgotten; what the struggling mind was after, was the getting a satisfying grip upon that puzzling question.
*
October 1876 (aged 4 and upwards.)—Susie’s mother read to her the story of Joseph. The killing of the kid to stain the garment with blood was arrived at, in due course and made deep impression. Susie’s comment, full of sympathy and compassion, was: “Poor little kid!” This is probably the only time, in 4000 years, that any human being has pitied that kid—everybody has been too much taken up with pitying Joseph, to remember that that innocent little animal suffered even more violently than he, and is fairly entitled to a word of compassion. I did not suppose that an unhackneyed (let alone an original) thought could be started on an Old Bible subject, but plainly this is one.
*
Aged 4½.—Susie.
Susie repeated a little German stanza about the “Vöglein”; I read it from the book, and with deliberation and emphasis, to correct her pronunciation—whereupon, the Bay, in shattered English, corrected me. I said I had read it right, and asked Susie if I hadn’t. She said:
“Yes, papa, you did—but you read it so ’stinctly that it ’fused Bay.”
*
Apl. 1877.
Susie said to Miss Alice Spaulding: “I never was at church but once, and that was the day that Bay was crucified.” (Christened.)
*
Susie has always had a good deal of womanly dignity. One day Livy and Mrs. Lilly Warner were talking earnestly in the library; Susie interrupted them several times; finally Livy said, very sharply,—“Susie, if you interrupt again, I will send you instantly to the nursery!” Five minutes later, Livy saw Mrs. W. to the front door; on her way back she saw Susie on the stairs, and said, “Where are you going, Susie?” “To the nursery, Mamma.” “What are you going up there, for, dear?—don’t you want to stay with me in the library?” “You didn’t speak to me right, mamma.” Livy was surprised; she had forgotten that rebuke; she pushed her inquiries further; Susie said, with a gentle dignity that carried its own reproach, “You didn’t speak to me right, mamma.” She had been humiliated in the presence of an outsider. Livy felt condemned. She carried Susie to the library, and argued the case with her. Susie hadn’t a fault to find with the justice of the rebuke, but she held out steadily against the manner of it, saying gently, once or twice, “But you didn’t speak to me right, mamma.” She won her cause; and her mother had to confess that she hadn’t spoken to her “right.”
We require courteous speech from the children at all times and in all circumstances; we owe them the same courtesy in return; and when we fail of it we deserve correction.
*
Munich, (Bavaria,) Nov. 1878.
As we have been traveling for 8 months, this record has been neglected—the book was generally in some trunk that had been sent on ahead. So we will drop dates for the present.
*
In Geneva, in September, one morning, I lay abed late, and as Bay was passing through the room I took her on my bed a moment. Then she went to Clara Spaulding and said, “Aunt Clara, papa is a good deal of trouble to me, lately.”
“Is he?—Why?”
“Well, he wants me to get in bed with him, and I can’t do that with jelmuls (gentlemen)—I don’t like jelmuls, anyway.”
“What! you don’t like gentlemen? Don’t you like uncle Theodore?” (Crane)
“O yes—but he ain’t a jelmul—he’s a friend.”
*
To-night she was trying to remind her mother of something, and said—
“It was in Rome—no, Florence,—no, I think it was Venice—or Baden-Baden.” Then, after a pause—“Now I know!—it was where we saw that kitty.”
The moral lies in the fact that she has noticed nothing but kitties in all her European travels.
*
Nov. 17 1878.
Susie is sorely badgered with dreams; and her stock dream is that she is being eaten up by bears. Last night she had the usual dream. This morning she stood apart (after telling it) for some time, looking vacantly at the floor and absorbed in meditation. At last she looked up, and with the pathos of one who feels he has not been dealt by with even-handed fairness, said, “But mamma, the trouble is, that I am never the bear, but always the PERSON.” (I always give the exact language, in these records.) It would not have occurred to me that there might be an advantage, even in a dream, in occasionally being the eater, instead of always the party eaten, but I easily perceived that her point was well taken.
*
Nov. 30 1878.
This morning, when Bay discovered that this is my birth-day, she was greatly troubled because she had provided no gift for me—repeated her sorrow several times. Finally she went off musing to the nursery and presently returned with her newest and chiefest treasure, a large toy-horse and said, “You shall have this horse for your birth-day, papa.” I accepted it with many thanks. After an hour she was racing up and down the room with the horse when Susie said,—
“Why Clara! You gave that horse to papa, and now you’ve tooken it back again.”
Bay.—“I never give it to him for always; I give it to him for his birthday.”
*
Munich, Bavaria, Feb. 25, 1879.
Bay finished her little First German Reader, yesterday, and came in with the triumphant announcement: “I’m through, papa! I can read any German book that ever was, now!”
Susie announced, to-day, that she was also through, now, and could read any German book. “And if I can read German books, I can read German papers, too, can’t I?” She had the “Allgemeine Zeitung” in her hand, ready to begin. I was obliged to dash her spirits by saying I didn’t believe anybody could read a German newspaper.
However, if the children are a trifle mistaken as to their ability to read German, they certainly speak it as well as they do English, and as glibly and prettily.
We leave for Paris day after tomorrow, to remain several months.
*
May 1879.
Hanover—(stopped there overnight, en route to Heidelberg.) The children had been required, for the past week, to converse with Rosa (the nurse,) in German only. They soon achieved such a hatred for the language that they began to openly rebel and speak to her in English; but she stuck to German in all her replies. This deeply aggravated Bay—and finally she said, “Aunt Clara, I wish God had made Rosa in English.”
*
March 1879 to Sept 1879
We staid in Paris four months and a half—from the end of February to the middle of July—at the Hotel de Normandie, 7 rue de l’Echelle, corner of the rue St Honoré; then traveled through Holland and Belgium; then spent a few weeks in London and finally reached home the 2d of September, after an absence of nearly a year and a half.
*
Susie made a philosophical remark one day in Paris—in one of her reflective moods—the wording of which I cannot recal; but the exact sense of it was that of the proverb, “It is the unexpected which happens.”
*
One day Livy and Clara Spaulding were exclaiming over the odd, queer ways of the French. Susie looked up from her work of doll-dressing and said, “Well, mamma, don’t you reckon we seem queer to them?”
*
One day in Paris Susie watched her mamma make her toilet for a swell affair at the Embassy, and it was plain that her soul was full of applause, though none of it escaped in words till the last touch was put on and the marvel completed; then she said, with a burst of envying admiration, “I wish I could have crooked teeth and spectacles, like mamma!”
*
One day on shipboard a group of ladies and gentlemen began to question Susie as to her relationships; and one lady who felt herself on the track of a kinship with Livy’s mother, asked Susie what her grandmamma’s name was, before she was married?—which brought out this grave slander, uttered with tranquil simplicity: “My grandmamma has never been married.”
*
Remark of Susie’s upon having her attention called to some folly or silliness of hers which must have had a bad appearance to the strangers who had been present at the time: “Well, mamma, you know I didn’t see myself; so I couldn’t know how it looked.”—
[The trouble with most of us is that we don’t “see ourselves” as others see us, else we would be saved frequent follies.]
*
One evening Susie had prayed; Bay was curled up for sleep; she was reminded that it was her turn to pray, now; she said, “O, one’s enough!” and dropped off to slumber.
*
Once in Paris we found that Susie had about ceased from praying. The matter was inquired into. She answered, with simplicity: “I hardly ever pray now; when I want anything, I just leave it to Him—He understands.”
[The words, without her voice and manner, do not convey her meaning. What she meant, was, that she had thought the thing all out, and arrived at the conclusion that there was no obstructing vagueness or confusion between herself and God requiring her to explain herself in set words;—when she felt a want, He knew it without its being formulated, and could be trusted to grant or wisely withhold as should be best for both parties; and she was conscious of the impropriety and the needlessness of bothering Him with every little craving that came into her head.]
*
One day, at home, Livy borrowed a little Japanese fan, of Susie, on the ombra—(a trifle that cost 5 cents;) but kept returning it after every two-minutes use of it, saying “That will do for the present, thank you, Susie.” But Susie is deep. She knew mamma would use the fan all the time except that she would not allow herself to deprive her of her plaything; so she went for her money-box and persuaded Patrick, (the coachman,) to leave his work and go down town—a mile and a half—and buy a similar fan for mamma to have all to herself. It was a thoughtful attention, and delicately done. She kept her secret till the thing was accomplished; for she knew that otherwise mamma would insist upon paying for the fan herself. [And it was characteristic of Patrick, too, to tramp three miles to humor the child’s kindly whim.]
*
Susie is singularly thoughtful. She often makes me blush for my distinguished lack of that quality. Many a time I have proposed to her some dazzling enterprise which I expected her to jump at with delight, and have been shot down with the remark: “But papa, you know mamma does not allow us to do that.” Perfectly true, but I had forgotten it—for the moment. She and Bay will have every right to remember their mother with pride, and speak of her with affection and reverence, as long as they live; for their rearing, under her hands, has been a master-work of good sense, sound judgment, loving consideration, and steady, even-handed justice. They never have known what it was to owe allegiance to, and be the shuttle-cock of, a capricious fool in petticoats, who is all sugar one moment and all aqua-fortis the next; who thrashes for a misdemeanor to-day which she will allow to pass tomorrow; who requires obedience by fits and starts, and puts up with the opposite between-times. No—this description, which fits more or less closely the vast majority of mothers, does not fit theirs in any part. Their mother has always kept faith with them; they could always depend upon her; they never could doubt her. When she promised them a punishment or a present, they knew it was just as sure to come as if the Angel of Fate had spoken it; they knew that all her promises were as good as gold, for she never told them a lie, nor ever beguiled them with a subterfuge. They also knew that she never punished in revenge, but in love; and that the infliction wrung her mother-heart, and was a sore task to her. Let them bless her more for those punishments, whilst they live, than for her gifts; for she was born to give, and it cost her no pang; but to deal out penalties was against her nature; but she did deal them out, firmly and unflinchingly, for the great love she bore her children. Mothers have all sorts of formulas: “Do that, or I will punish you;” “If you do that again, I will punish you;” “If you will do so-and-so, I will give you something nice, by and by”—and so on; and still the child disobeys, persistently, and nothing comes of it; for the child has learned that the promise of punishment will not be kept, and that the promised “nice thing” will be given anyhow, for the sake of peace. Livy’s formula was simply “Do this”—and it had to be done. It was kindly and gently spoken, but it admitted of no deflection from the exact performance. She is a perfect mother, if ever there was one.
One day a neighbor of ours whose children never obey her except when it suits them, begged Susie and Bay to come in and see her (they were in her grounds.) They declined, and said mamma had told them (at some time or other) not to go into a house without her permission—thus intimating their knowledge that although the command had not lately been repeated, it was still in force and must be respected until it was distinctly abrogated. This ought to have compelled this lady’s admiration; on the contrary she heedlessly set herself to work to persuade the children to come in, against their consciences—saying she would take all the responsibility, etc., and at last won their reluctant acquiescence; she took all this trouble to undermine a foundation of obedience which had been laid at such protracted and pains-taking cost. I never can think of this outrage and keep my temper. However, at the end of two minutes she found that the children were so full of doubts and misgivings, and so ill at ease that they were far from enjoying themselves—so she let them go. This lady is one of the noblest and loveliest spirits in the land, but she is no more fitted to govern children than she is to govern the Indians.
*
Quarry Farm, July 1880.
The children have been taught to conceal nothing from their mother. They have been taught to come to her and confess their misdeeds, explain how the whole thing was, and trust the matter of the punishment to her, knowing that her perfect fairness can always be relied on. Well, hay-cutting time was approaching, and for days the children were in a state of vast excitement; because, for the first time in their lives they were going to be allowed to embark in the prodigious adventure of a ride to the barn on the summit of a load of hay. It was all the talk. The hay was cut at last—next day it would be hauled! And now came Susie with a confession; she had been doing something of superlative naughtiness—she had struck Bay, I think. But no matter what it was. Her mother followed her invariable custom—took the child to a private room to talk the matter over—for she never inflicts punishment until she has made the culprit understand its fault and why it is punished. At the end of the talk, this time, Susie comprehended her crime, and acknowledged that it was of very serious magnitude. A punishment of corresponding size had to be devised; so upon this work mamma began, and took Susie into the matter, also, as a kind of consulting counsel. Various penalties were canvassed and discussed—among them, deprivation of the hay-wagon ride—and this one manifestly hit Susie the hardest of all. By and by there was a summing up, and mamma said, “Well, Susie, which one do you think it ought to be?” Susie studied a while, and said, “Which do you think, mamma?” “Well, Susie, I would rather leave it to you—you make the choice yourself.” After a deal of deep thought, Susie got the thing all weighed out satisfactorily in her mind, and said, “Well, mamma, I will make it the hay-wagon; because you know, mamma, the other things might not make me remember not to do it again; but if I don’t get to ride on the hay wagon, I can remember easily.” [They perfectly understand that the main purpose of punishment is to make them remember to not commit the fault again.] Poor child! anybody’s natural impulse would be to jump up in a gushy way and say “Go free! your Spartan fidelity to the bitter task laid upon you has won your pardon.” I do not know what Livy did, but I judge she did not do that. Firstly, she would not be likely to establish the precedent of allowing a just and honorable compact to be departed from; and secondly, since she was distinctly trying to contrive a punishment which would make Susie remember, she would not be likely to throw it aside from a mistaken generous impulse and leave her in a position to go and commit the fault again.
*
In Paris, when my day’s writing, on the 6th floor, was done, I used to slip quietly into our parlor on the 2d floor, hoping to have a rest and a smoke on the sofa before dinner was brought up; but I seldom succeeded, because the nursery opened into the parlor, and the children were pretty sure to come in for something and discover me—then I would have to take a big chair, place a child on each arm of it, and spin them a story. Whenever Bay discovered me she always called out (without any preliminary by-your-leave) “Susie, come!—going to have a story!” Without any remark to me she would go and get a magazine, perch herself on the chair-arm, seek out a suggestive picture, (Susie taking perch on the other arm, meantime), then say, “We’re ready, papa.”
The tough part of it was, that every detail of the story had to be brand-new—invented on the spot—and it must fit the picture. They wouldn’t have the story that already belonged to the picture, nor any part of it, nor even any idea that was in it; they were quick to discover when I was borrowing a suggestion from the book, and then they would immediately shut down on that irregularity. Sometimes they would take such a strong fancy to one particular picture that I would have to build an entirely new story upon that picture several evenings in succession. Their selections were pretty odd, too, sometimes. For instance, in the back part of a “Scribner’s Monthly” they once found an outline figure which Page the artist had drawn to show the just proportions of the human frame. (See preceding page.) The chances of getting anything romantic, adventurous and heroic out of so sterile a text as that, seemed so remote, that I tried to divert them to a more promising picture; but no, none but this one would answer. So I bent myself to my task; and made such a thrilling and rattling success of it that I was rewarded with the privilege of digging a brand-new story out of that barren text during the five ensuing evenings. I wore that poor outline devil’s romantic-possibilities entirely out before I got done with him. I drowned him, I hanged him, I pitted him against giants and genii, I adventured him all through fairy-land, I made him the sport of fiery dragons of the air and the pitiless monsters of field and flood, I fed him to the cannibals. The cross-bars which intersected him were the iron gratings of a dungeon in one story, the web of a gigantic spider in another, the parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude webbing a vast and helpless denizen of the wandering comets—and so on; for it was rigidly required of me that those cross-bars be made to play a big and essential role in every yarn.
In all my inventions for the children, from that day to this, I have always had one formidable difficulty to contend with—my villains must not lie. This hampered me a good deal. The blacker and bloodier and viler I painted the villain of my tale, the more the children delighted in him, until he made the mistake of telling a lie—then down he went, in their estimation. Nothing could resurrect him again; he simply had to pack up and go; his character was damaged beyond help, the children wouldn’t have him around, any longer.
Sometimes I tried to cover up, or slide over, or explain away, one of these lies which I had blundered into, but this was lost time, for Susie is an alert critic. I was calmly proceeding, one evening: “But the moment the giant invited him, the grasshopper whispered in Johnny’s ear that the food was poisoned; so Johnny said, very politely, ‘I am very much obliged to you indeed, sir, but I am not hungry,—’” “Why papa! he told a lie!” [Consound that blunder! I said to myself—I must try to get Johnny out of this scrape.] “Well, you see, Susie, I reckon he didn’t think what he was saying, and—” “But papa, it couldn’t be—because he had just said, that very minute, that he was so hungry!” “Yes, that is true—yes, that is so—well, I think perhaps he was heedless, and just came out with the first thing that happened in his mind, and—” “O, no, papa, he wasn’t ever a heedless boy; it wasn’t like him to be heedless; you know how wise he always was—why night before last, you remember”—(this was a continued story, which lasted over a week)—“when all those fairies and enchanted creatures tried their very best, a whole day, to catch him in some little carelessness so they could get power over him, they never could—no, as long as this story has gone on, papa, there never was such a wise boy before—he couldn’t be heedless, papa.” “Well, Susie, I reckon he was so weary, so kind of tired out—” “Why papa, he rode all the way, on the eagle, and he had been sound asleep all the whole day in the gold and ivory bed, with his two lions watching him and taking care of him—why how could he be tired, papa, and he so strong?—you know the other night when his whale took him to Africa he went ashore and walked all day and all night, and wasn’t a bit tired—and you know that other time when—” “Yes, yes, you are right, Susie, and I was wrong; he couldn’t have been tired—but he never intended any wrong; I’m sure he didn’t mean what he said; for—” “Then it was a lie, papa! if he didn’t mean what he said.”
Johnny’s days of usefulness were over; he was up a stump, and I had to leave him there. The children are good listeners, generally; they do not interrupt—to criticise—until somebody lies. Then the interruptions come thick and fast. They will put up with all inconsistencies in my people cheerfully but that solitary one;—that even the blackest scoundrel should lie, is out of character, inconsistent, inexcusable; and the children are bound to call him to the strictest account every time.
They did not get this prejudice from me.
Bay is a sturdy little character; very practical, precious little sentiment, no nonsense. She is sensitive, and can be deeply hurt; I think she must have been 5 years old (she is 6, now), before we discovered this fact—at least before we realized it. This, I think, was because she has the power of concealing all but the big hurts: a power born of her high pluck and fortitude. Pluck and fortitude have been marked features of her character from the beginning; they were born in her—they had to be educated into Susie, who has them, now, (8⅓ years old) in a pretty considerable degree but was born destitute of them. When Bay used to toddle out to feed the fowls, they would swarm around her, and all over her, a greedy, struggling horde, and trip her up or buffet her down, occasionally—all of which she enjoyed—but Susie used to fly. Bay did not mind the electric shocks from the bell-buttons, on cold mornings, but they frightened Susie. Bay (at 3) would hold Japanese fireworks in her fingers till they flashed and spit and sputtered all away—but when the angry volume of sparks began to storm around Susie’s hand, she would presently back down and let go. The children’s hands were always full of slivers—it was distressing and exasperating to observe Susie’s poltroonery under the operation of removing them; it was mere entertainment to Bay to have her slivers dug out. When Bay was 3, she had the end of her forefinger crushed nearly off—she was full of interest and comment while the doctor took his stitches, and hardly winced. In Europe, Susie was shy of crowds of strangers, and hung back in the shelter of the party whenever we arrived at a new town and its big inn; but Bay always marched far in the lead and alone, and tramped up the steps and invaded those hotels with the air of a proprietor taking possession. Bay is not without a certain degree of pride in her fortitude. Last spring she had an angry and painful boil on her hand, and mamma made preparation to cut into it. Bay was serene, Susie was full of tremors and anxieties. As the cruel work progressed, Bay was good grit, and only winced, from time to time. Susie kept saying, “Isn’t she brave!”—and at last a compliment was even wrung from mamma, who said, “Well you are a brave little thing!” Bay placidly responded, “There ain’t anybody braver but GOD!”
Under mamma’s teachings and Bay’s example, Susie is making most gratifying progress. Last week she allowed a tooth to be pulled, and was as steady and tranquil about it as any grown person could have been; yet the forceps slipped off it three or four times before the doctor achieved success.
Both of the children are sweet, gentle, humane, tractable, and lovable creatures, with sharply marked and differing characters, with thunder and lightning between—in the spaces. Susie is intellectual, a deep thinker, is analytical, and a reasoner—is a philosopher, too. We had always looked upon Bay as a mere and dear little animal; but lately we are beginning to suspect that she has a mind, and that she is deep, and thinks out problems in privacy and keeps the results to herself. We shall see, by and by. These children are selfish and high-tempered, naturally—but they have been so long and so diligently taught to keep these two gifts under the governance of a taut rein, that they do not show out very frequently.
Susie is an admirable character. There is not a coarse fibre in her; she is as fine as gossamer. She was born free of selfishness—a thing I was not glad of, for a little of it is not only valuable, but a necessary quality in every rightly-constructed human creature—but Bay had a noble share, and has divided up with her in the most generous way—so both are just about rightly equipped, now. Susie has an unusually penetrating mind, a charitable spirit, and a great heart. It is curious (and there’s a pang in it, too,) to see so little a creature struggling to sound the great deeps of thought with her brief plummet, and groping among the mighty mysteries of life with her poor little farthing candle. Some sayings of hers, jotted down here and there in this book are the outcome of what were reveries and thinkings at times when long stillnesses on her part led us to suppose she was absorbed with her dolls:
“Mamma, what is LITTLE things?”
“Papa, how will brother Langdon know us, in heaven?—it is so long that he has been there; and he was such a little fellow.”
“Mamma, what is it all for?” (life, labor, misery, death, etc.)
“Mamma, do we walk ourselves, or is it our bodies that are alive?” (Meaning, do our muscles act of their own volition, or is the impulse communicated to them by some higher authority in us?)
(After struggling with the fact that rain and sea are water, and yet not the same—a deep mystery)—“I find there are a great many things that I don’t understand, mamma.”
These remarks belong to the age of 2½ up to 5; there were plenty more, but they were not recorded, and have passed from memory.
A few days ago she asked a few questions which showed that she had discovered that life and death and suffering and toil and worry simply go on and on and on; forever repeating themselves; striking out nothing new or fresh; ending always in futile ashes and mystery—no perceptible result; at least no result worth all this trouble. Then she had a long reverie over the matter, and finally said—
“Mamma, what does the world go on, for?”
I wish I could recal some of Susie’s speeches which illustrate her discriminating exactness in the matter of expressing herself upon difficult and elusive points, for they have often been remarkable—some of them were as good, in the matter of discriminating between fine shades of meaning, as any grown person could turn out.
Even Bay is beginning to avoid looseness of statement, now, and to lean toward an almost hypercritical exactness. The other day she was about to start on an excursion among the calves and chickens in the back enclosure, when her Aunt Sue, feeling compassion for her loneliness, proposed to go with her. Bay showed a gratification of so composed a nature that it was hard to tell it from indifference, with the naked eye. So aunt Sue added—“That is, if you would be happier to have me go—would you be happier?” Bay turned the thing over in her mind a couple of times, to make sure, then said, “Well—I should be happy, but not HAPPIER.”
One couldn’t ask to have a thing trimmed any finer than that, I think.
*
Aug 1. 1880.
Susie was sick all day, up stairs, but was brought down to her mother’s bedside this evening for a few minutes. Mamma said, “I have missed you so—have you missed me, Susie?” Susie remained silent, and weighed the matter, with the conscientious desire to frame a reply which should convey the exact truth, no more, no less. When she had got it thought out and knew she knew how the matter stood in her mind and feelings, then this modern young George Washington who cannot lie, said: “Well—no—I had Aunt Sue and Rosa with me all the time; and they talked, and papa read to me a good deal—no, I did not miss you, mamma.” It was very sweetly and simply said: the manner of it could wound no one. Mamma said afterward that the fact broke her heart a little, at the moment, but that at the same time she respected and honored the child for her dauntless truthfulness. [Now mamma shouldn’t have had any pang at all; for she knew Susie loved her to desperation, and did not miss her for the mere reason that her mind had been kept occupied with other things all the time. She has taught Susie to speak the absolute truth, unembroidered and ungilded; and Susie doesn’t know how to tell any other kind of a truth.]
We often commend the children, of course, when they have been good, but never in such a way as to make them vain and boastful. We never tell to other people the fine things they have said or done when they are within hearing—as less wise and extraordinary parents are so given to doing; and although they are beautiful, we are particular not to mention that fact in their presence. But the other day, when Susie’s tooth was pulled, Bay overheard some of the praises of her fortitude; and consequently has been aching to have a tooth pulled herself, ever since. She has been trying daily (but without success) to convince us all that one of her teeth is loose. But yesterday when Susie developed two decidedly loose teeth, poor Bay gave it up in despondency and despair: it was no use to try to buck against such odds as that.
Which reminds me that when Bay was 3 years old, Susie was taken down to the town, one day, and was taken with a vomiting when she got back in the evening. Bay, off in the corner in her crib—totally neglected—observed the coddling and attention which Susie was receiving, as long as she could reasonably stand it; then sat up and said grandly and simply: “Well, some time I be dressed up and go down town and come back and throw up, too.”
*
Aug. 28, 1880—Poor little Jean frightens herself nearly out of her skin in most odd and rather unmentionable way (she 5 weeks old.)
*
About the 18th or 20th of Oct./80, Bay (who has never been allowed to meddle with English alphabets or books lest she would neglect her German), collared an English juvenile-poem book sent her from London by Joseph the courier—and now, 10 or 12 days later (Oct. 30) she reads abstruse English works with an astounding facility! Nobody has given her an instant’s assistance. Susie has learned to read English during these same 10 or 12 days, but she is 8 yrs old, and besides she can’t read it as glibly as Bay.
*
Random Notes.
Oct. 1880.
During ten days of this month, Bay and Susie taught themselves to read English, without help or instruction from anybody, and without knowing the alphabet, or making any attempt to spell the words or divide them into syllables.
*
Dec. 1880.
They both read fluently, now, but they make no attempts at spelling; neither of them knows more than half the letters of the alphabet. They read wholly by the look of the word. Bay picks up any book that comes handy—seems to have no preferences.—The reason they have learned to read English and are so fond of it, is, I think, because they were long ago forbidden to meddle with English books till they should be far advanced in German. Forbidden fruits are most coveted, since Eve’s time.
*
7th Dec. 1880.
Bay and Susie were given candy this morning for not having quarreled yesterday—a contract of long standing. Bay began to devour hers, but Susie hesitated a moment, then handed hers back, with a suggestion that she was not fairly entitled to it. Mamma said, “Then what about Bay?—she must have quarreled too, of course.” Susie said, “I don’t know whether Bay felt wrong in her heart, but I didn’t feel right in my heart.”
Susie made a pretty nice distinction here—she had kept the letter of the contract to not quarrel, but had violated the spirit of it; she had felt the angry words she had not spoken.
No, I got it wrong. Susie meant that Bay’s talk might have been only chaff and not ill-natured; she could not tell, as to that; but she knew her own talk came from an angry heart.
*
The last day of the year 1880.
For some months Bay has been bribed to not quarrel with Susie—at 3 cents a day. Conversation to-day:
Bay. “Mamma, you owe me for two days.”
Mamma. “Bay, you have not seen Susie for 2 days—she has been sick in bed.”
Bay. “Why Mamma, don’t you count that?”
*
1881
Susie (9 yrs old,) had been sounding the deeps of life, and pondering the result. Meantime the governess had been instructing her about the American Indians. One day Mamma, with a smitten conscience, said—
“Susie, I have been so busy that I haven’t been in at night lately to hear you say your prayers. Maybe I can come in tonight. Shall I?”
Susie hesitated, waited for her thought to formulate itself, then brought it out:
“Mamma, I don’t pray as much as I used to—and I don’t pray in the same way. Maybe you would not approve of the way I pray now.”
“Tell me about it, Susie.”
“Well, mamma, I don’t know that I can make you understand; but you know, the Indians thought they knew: and they had a great many gods. We know, now, that they were wrong. By and by, maybe it will be found out that we are wrong, too. So, now, I only pray that there may be a God—and a heaven—OR SOMETHING BETTER.”
It was a philosophy that a sexagenarian need not have been ashamed of having evolved.
*
April 1882
The children have been devoting themselves to charades, lately, with prodigious enthusiasm. The other day, Bay came to Miss Spaulding, in a state of excitement, and said she had thought out a good word for a charade—said the word was “register.”
“How are you going to act it, Bay?”
“Well, Susie and I will come into the library, from the hall, and talk a good deal of talk about colors—but we won’t say anything about red—only colors, that’s all. Then we will go out and come in again, and be all the time talking about something that’s just, or ain’t just. Next we’ll come in talking about a girl, but we won’t ever say her, but always say she.” [Red—just—her—register!]
And they gravely played it that way, that night, and were vastly gratified to see how promptly we guessed it.
*
Mem.
July 1882. Susie 10 years old. Came to mamma’s room and asked if she should ring for the nurse: Jean, in the nursery, was crying. Mamma asked, “Is she crying hard?” (meaning, cross or ugly.) “Well, no—it’s a weary, lonesome cry.”
She is growing steadily into an admirably discriminating habit of language. Yes, and into the use of pretty large words, too, sometimes—as witness: The night before, I referred to some preference expressed by Jean. Susie wanted at once to know how she expressed it—inasmuch as Jean knows only about a dozen words. I said, “Why she spoke up, with marked asperity, and exclaimed, ‘Well, Mr. Clemens, you may support that fallacy, if native perversity and a fatuous imagination so move you; but the exact opposite is my distinct and decided preference.’”
Susie’s grave eyes stood wide open during this speech; she was silent a moment to let it soak home, then said in a tone of absolute conviction, “Well, papa, that is an exaggeration!”
*
Mem.
Once when Bay was 3 or 4 years old, she said, “Mamma, I brang you these flowers”—paused, then corrected herself—“No, I brung them.”
*
July 1882. Elsewhere I have spoken of Susie’s proclivity for large words. The other day Bay crept behind Clara Spaulding’s chair, and nearly succeeded in touching her cheek with a wet little wee turtle. Clara S. gave a slight scream, and Susie (who was watching,) was racked and torn with laughter—and said: “Aunt Clara, if it had actually touched your cheek, I should have been transformed!” [Meant transported—with glee.]
*
July, 1882. Jean is two years old, now, and brokenly says a few dozen disconnected words, half of them German and the other half English.
*
Dec. 1. ’82. Clara 8 years old last June.
AN ACTOR’S FATAL SHOT.
CINCINNATI, Nov. 30. 1882—This afternoon at the Coliseum theater, in the fourth act of the play “Si Slocum,” Frank Frayne, in shooting the apple off the head of Lucy Slocum, personated by Miss Annie Van Behren, missed the apple and shot Miss Van Behren in the head. She died in fifteen minutes. Frayne was immediately arrested. The curtain fell and the play was stopped. The audience supposed the victim was only slightly hurt. Frayne used a Stevens’ rifle, No. 22 calibre, and was executing his backward shot. The catch snap of the rifle was imperfect and slipped just as the hammer fell, blowing the cartridge shell out backwards.
When the curtain went down after the fatal shot, the excitement behind the scenes was so great as to create alarm lest a panic might ensue among the audience of 2,300. Frayne’s cries and lamentations were so violent that he was heard before the curtain. Manager Fennessey was too much excited to say anything, but he sent a friend to the front to say that the accident was slight and that the play would not proceed further. The audience then retired in order, although one lady fainted. Manager Fennessey took charge of Frayne, and though the latter demanded to be locked up, he got Mr. H. H. Erick to go before Judge Higley, of the police court, and give a bond for his release from arrest. The bond was fixed at $3,000. Frayne’s mental condition was such that one or two of his friends kept close watch over him at his hotel. The theater is closed for to-night and probably will not be opened this week. The coroner viewed the body of Miss Van Behren and it was then removed to Undertaker Habig’s where it will lie until word is received from her friends in Brooklyn. It is said that she was engaged to be married shortly to Frayne.
The above telegram was read at breakfast this morning and the fearful scene in the theatre discussed. Then there was a pause of horror. Clara, whose thoughts were with the poor actor, broke it with this remark, uttered with cast-iron gravity:
“I should think he would have been embarrassed.”
She was immortally embarrassed, herself, when she perceived by the resulting burst of laughter, that she had got the wrong word by the tail.
*
Dec. 1882.
Jean, 2½ years old, now, talks a lot of rot, in German and English, badly mixed. She says nothing original or reportable, however. Calls herself “Besshy Mish Chain” (Blessed Miss Jane), and “Deedo fen” (Theodore’s friend.) She also calls herself “Asshu cumbit” (Aunt Sue’s comfort.) There’s considerable music in it (to us,) when, as she starts down at 6 p.m., we call out to know who’s coming, she answers from the unseen remotenesses of the head of the stairs, “Besshy Mish Chain coming, Mamma.”
She calls Susie and Clara “Guck and Ben.” We have dropped “Bay” and adopted “Ben,” in consequence.
Jean is incomparably sweet, and good, and entertaining. Sits in my lap, at the fag-end of dinner, and eats “Jean quum” (crumbs,) and messes-up the table with “Jean shawt” (salt,) puts “Jean fum” (plums—i.e. grapes) in “Jean himble-bo” (finger-bowl) and says “Naughty George—ve’y naughty George,” when George brushes off her salt. Won’t consent that she is mamma’s blessed Miss Jane—no, is “Papa besshy Mish Chain.”
*
Ben had a birth-day party of 67 children, 8th of June, and at it Jean picked up scarlet fever and was a prisoner some weeks. It delayed our journey to Elmira by six weeks, and delayed “Life on the Mississippi” more than twice as long.
*
1882. Xmas. Eve.
Mamma brought home a variety of presents for distribution, and allowed Susie to see those that were to be sent to Patrick’s family. Among these was an unusually handsome and valuable sled for Jimmy, on which a stag was painted, and also, in gilt letters the word “DEER.” Susie was enthusiastic over everything until she came to this sled; then she became sober and silent. Yet this sled was the very thing she was expected to be most eloquent over, for it was the jewel of the lot. Mamma was surprised; also disappointed; and said, “Why Susie, doesn’t it please you?—isn’t it fine?”
Susie hesitated; plainly did not like to have to say the thing that was in her mind; but being pressed, she got it out—haltingly: “Well, mamma, it is fine, and of course it did cost a good deal—but—why should that be mentioned?” And seeing she was not understood, she pointed to that word “deer!” Poor thing, her heart was in the right place, but her orthography wasn’t. However, she knows the difference between dear and deer now—and permanently.
*
Susie said to aunt Clara the immaculate conception was not puzzling to her.
*
1883 March and April.
During these months and part or all of February, Patrick’s seven children had a rough time of it, with the dire scarlet fever. Two of them escaped very narrowly. Clara Spaulding arrived on a visit, and Susie gave her a full and animated account of these momentous and marvelous things. Aunt Clara said:
“Why, considering how very very low, those two were, it seems next to miraculous that they got well. But they did get well?”
“Yes—both of them.” Then, after a pause—pensively: “It was a great disappointment to us.”
Aunt Clara was astounded—in fact, pretty nearly paralyzed; but she didn’t “let on”—only said—
“Why?”
“Well, you know, aunt Clara”—another pause—grave deliberation, to get her thought into form—“Well, you see, aunt Clara, we’ve never had any experience of a funeral.”
“Oh, I see. But you—you didn’t want the children to die?”
“Well, no—not that, exactly. But—in case they did die—well,—they—we—well, you know, we’ve never had a funeral.”
“Still, it was scarlet fever, and you wouldn’t have been allowed to attend it.”
“No—I suppose Mamma wouldn’t have let us. But then, you know, we could have observed it.”
It was the eclat of the thing—the pomp, and solemnity and commotion. That is what Susie was after.
*
1883 May 1.
Good Memory. Two months ago I took Jean in the nursery bathroom, gave her a lecture about some bad behavior, and then spanked her. The result was disastrous. She went into a passion of furious and vindictive crying, mixed with yells for Rosa. I whipped her again, after vainly trying to get her to say “Please.” Her constant reply was “I won’t—Jean won’t.” I whipped her a third time—between spats reiterating gently and kindly, “Only say please—that is all—then Jean can go to Rosa.” She merely continued to howl, and call for Rosa, and say “I won’t!” Most fortunately mamma came in and proposed to continue the thing and give me a rest. I was mighty glad to get out of the dilemma—and was resolved to not get into another like it soon. Of course mamma, with her superior tact, soon got out of Jean all that was wanted.
I naturally supposed that my effort had gone for nothing. But not so. A full month later, Rosa heard a mouse gnawing, in the nursery one midnight, and said “Shoo!” Jean sat up in her crib and said—
“Better go way, mousie—papa come, take you in bath woom and spat you and make you say pease.”
And last night she suggested that Rosa had been naughty about something, and wanted me to take her in the bath-room and spank her and make her say “pease.”
*
1883 June 8 Clara’s birthday—aged 9.
Clara picked up a book—“Daniel Boone, by John S. C. Abbott” and found on the fly-leaf a comment of mine, in pencil; puzzled over it, couldn’t quite make it out; her mother took it and read it to her, as follows: “A poor slovenly book; a mess of sappy drivel and bad grammar.” Clara said, with entire seriousness (not comprehending the meaning but charmed with the sound of the words,) “O, that must be lovely!” and carried the book away and buried herself in it.
*
1883 Summer at the Farm.
Poor Jean, now three years old, has been neglected in this record. But it is largely her own fault, she having been chary of making reportable speeches.
The other day she asked if she might go and swing herself in “the big swing.” Mamma denied the petition, and suggested that Jean was too small. Jean responded, “I can if I could, mamma.” (Meaning, I can swing myself, if I could get permission.)
Jean in 1884, aged three.
*
Toward Xmas. Hartford.
OBITUARY.
Death of Hon. Jacob Burrough of Cape Girardeau.
Special to the Republican.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo., Dec. 3.—Hon. Jacob H. Burrough, an old and prominent citizen, died of paralysis last night in this city in the fifty-eighth year of his age. Judge Burrough had been in failing health for about a year and, while on a visit to Minneapolis last summer for his health, had a stroke of paralysis which hastened his return to his home. On last Friday night he experienced a second stroke which terminated fatally.
He had filled numerous offices of honor and trust. Prominent among them were those of probate judge, regent of the S.E. Normal school and city auditor. He leaves a wife and three grown children who have the sincere sympathy of the whole community. The funeral services will take place to-morrow and will be conducted by Rev. J. W. Rosenborough of the Presbyterian church. The remains will be interred in Larimer cemetery.
I stepped into the nursery on my way to the billiard room after breakfast. I had a newspaper-cutting in my hand, just received in the mail, and its spirit was upon me—the spirit of funerals and gloom. Jean sat playing on the floor, the incandescent core of a conflagration of flooding sunlight—and she and her sunny splendors were suggestive of just the opposite spirit. She said, with great interest,—
“What is it in the little piece of paper you got in yo’ hand, papa—what do it say?”
I said, impressively, and meaning to impress her,—
“It tells about an old, old friend of mine, Jean—friend away back yonder years and years and years ago, when I was young—very dear friend, and now he is dead, Jean.”
She uttered an ejaculation and I a response.
Then she looked earnestly up from down there, and said,—
“Is he gone up in heaven, papa?”
“Yes,” I said, “he is gone up in heaven.”
A reflective pause—then she said,—
“Was he down on the earth, papa—down here?”
“Yes, he was down here on the earth, where we are.”
She lowered her face, now grown very grave, and reflected again, two or three moments. Then she lifted it quickly to mine, and inquired with a burning interest,—
“And did along comed a blackbird and nipped off his nose?”
The solemnity of the occasion was gone to the devil in a moment—as far as I was concerned; though Jean was not aware that she had done anything toward that result. She was asking simply and solely for information, and was not intending to be lightsome or frivolous.
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May, ’84
A heavy wagon went by, outside—we all questioned what the noise might be. Jean said, “I hear it thunder, and that’s Elisa.” (German nurse.)
*
Mention was made of a certain young lady, at breakfast; and Susie remarked that she was very pretty. Her mother said no, she had a good face, a face which answered to her exceptionally fine character, but she would hardly call it a pretty face. Susie said—
“But mama, I think that when a person has a good figure and a pleasant face that one likes to look at, she is pretty.”
Rev. Thos. K. Beecher was present, and said it was a nice distinction, and that Susie’s position was sound.
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Following out a suggestion made by Mrs. Henry J. Brooks, we established the rule that each member of the household must come to table armed with a fact. Susie’s first fact was in substance as follows:
Two great exiles and former opponents in the field, met in Ephesus, Hannibal and Scipio. Scipio asked Hannibal whom he considered the greatest general the world had produced.
“Alexander”—and he explained why.
“And who was the next greatest?”
“Pyrrhus”—and he explained why.
“But where do you place yourself then?”
“If I had conquered you, I would place myself before the others.”
And Susie’s comment was:
“That attracted me, it was just like papa—he is so frank about his books.”
(So frank in praising them.)
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Apl. 4 1885.
[General Grant is still living, this morning.]
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Susie: “I think it is pitiful, mamma’s faith in Jean’s ability to keep a secret.” [At breakfast, this—the mamma thus discussed and brought under criticism, sick and upstairs abed. I carried it straight up. Great fun.]
[Jean keeps part of a secret, but always lets the other part—the important part—out.]
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Apl. 4 1885. Susie 13
Susie began writing a biography of me ten or fifteen days ago; the dearest compliment I could imagine, and the most gratifying.
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June 1885.
Susie thoughtfully: “How one happiness gets in the way of another, and one cannot have them both!” “What is it, now?” “Well, I am to go to Cousin Susie Warner’s in the morning, and now I have been to the kitchen and it turns out that we are going to have Miss Corey and fish balls for breakfast.” [The collocation is the point—if you don’t perceive it yourself.]
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June 7th.
Jean: “I wonder God lets us have so much ducks—Patrick kills them so.”
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Sept. ’84.
Old Clark, the low-down, the intemperate, used to go by the farm, last month, swearing. Susie’s excuse for him (to Miss Foote) was, “he can’t help it, he doesn’t know any nice intellectual naughty words.” [From which the necessary inference is that she moves in a circle which does.]
a[It is missing—BG.]
b[This entry and the two after it were written by Livy—BG.]