I have brought Thomas Jefferson up to think that it was jest as bad for him to listen to a bad story or song, as for a girl, or worse, for he had more strength to run away, and that it was a disgrace for him to talk or listen to any stuff that he would be ashamed to have Tirzah Ann or me hear. I have brought him up to think that manliness didn’t consist in havin’ a cigar in his mouth, and his hat on one side, and swearin’ and slang phrases, and a knowledge of questionable amusements, but in layin’ holt of every duty that come to him, with a brave heart and a cheerful face; in helpin’ to right the wrong, and protect the weak, and makin’ the most and the best of the mind and the soul God had given him. In short, I have brought him up to think that purity and virtue are both masculine and femanine gender, and that God’s angels are not necessarily all she ones.
Tirzah Ann too has come up well, though I say it, that shouldn’t, her head haint all full, runnin’ over, and frizzlin’ out on top of it, with thoughts of beaux and flirtin’. I have brought her up to think that marriage wasn’t the chief end of life, but savin’ her soul. Tirzah Ann’s own grandmother on her mother’s side, used to come visatin’ us and stay weeks at a time, kinder spyin’ out I spose how I done by the children,--thank fortune, I wasn’t afraid to have her spy, all she was a mind too, I wouldn’t have been afraid to had Benedict Arnold, and Major Andre come as spys. I did well by ’em, and she owned it, though she did think I made Tirzah Ann’s night gowns a little too full round the neck, and Thomas Jefferson’s roundabouts a little too long behind. But as I was a sayin’, the old lady begun to kinder train Tirzah Ann up to the prevailin’ idee of its bein’ her only aim in life to catch a husband, and if she would only grow up and be a real good girl she should marry.
I didn’t say nothin’ to the old lady, for I respect old age, but I took Josiah out one side, and says I,
“Josiah Allen, if Tirzah Ann is to be brought up to think that marriage is the chief aim of her life, Thomas J. shall be brought up to think that marriage is his chief aim.” Says I, “it looks just as flat in a woman, as it does in a man.”
Josiah didn’t make much of any answer to me, he is an easy man. But as that was the old lady’s last visit (she was took bed rid the next week, and haint walked a step sense), I haint had no more trouble on them grounds.