“I will now proceed to read to you one of the longest, most noble and eloquent editorials that has eveh come out in the pages of the Augah, written by its noble and eloquent Editah. It is six columns in length, and is concerning our relations with Spain.”
This was too much--too much--and I sprung up on my couch, and cried wildly,
“Let the Editor of the Augur and his relations go to Spain! And do you go to Spain with your relations!” says I, “and do you start this minute!”
Betsey was appalled, and turned to flee, and I cried out agin,
She gathered up her calicoes, and fled. And I sunk back, shed one or two briny tears of relief, and then sunk into a sweet and refreshin’ sleep. And from that hour I gained on it. But in the next week’s Augur, these and 10 more verses like ’em come out.
I do not mind my cold rebuffs To be turned out with bedquilt stuffs; Philosophy would ease my smart, Would say, “Oh peace, sad female heart.” But Oh, this is the woe to me, She would not listen unto he.
If it had been _my_ soaring muse, That she in wild scorn did refuse, I could like marble statute rise, And face her wrath with tearless eyes; ’Twould not have been such a blow to me, But, she would not listen unto _he_.
Thomas Jefferson is a good boy. His teacher to the Jonesville Academy told me the other day, says he,
“Thomas J. is full of fun, but I don’t believe he has a single bad habit; and I don’t believe he knows any more about bad things, than Tirzah Ann, and she is a girl of a thousand.”
This made my heart beat with pure and fervent emotions of joy, for I knew it was true, but I tell you I have had to work for it. I was determined from the first, that Thomas Jefferson needn’t think because he was a boy he could do anything that would be considered disgraceful if he was a girl. Now some mothers will worry themselves to death about thier girls, so afraid they will get into bad company and bring disgrace onto ’em. I have said to ’em sometimes,
“Oh things are winked at in a man that haint in a woman.”
Says I, “There is one woman that no man can get to wink at ’em, and that is Samantha Allen, whose maiden name was Smith.” Says I, “It is enough to make anybody’s blood bile in thier vains to think how different sin is looked upon in a man and woman. I say sin is sin, and you can’t make goodness out of it by parsin’ it in the masculine gender, no more’n you can by parsin’ it in the feminine or neutral.