Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Humorists, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Twain, Mark, 1835-1910
_From The Children's Record. Quarry Farm, July 7, 1884._--Yesterday
evening our cows (after being inspected and worshipped by Jean from
the shed for an hour,) wandered off down into the pasture, and left
her bereft. I thought I was going to get back home, now, but that
was an error. Jean knew of some more cows, in a field somewhere,
and took my hand and led me thitherward. When we turned the corner
and took the right-hand road, I saw that we should presently be out
of range of call and sight; so I began to argue against continuing
the expedition, and Jean began to argue in favor of it--she using
English for light skirmishing, and German for "business." I kept up
my end with vigor, and demolished her arguments in detail, one
after the other, till I judged I had her about cornered. She
hesitated a moment, then answered up sharply:
"_Wir werden nichts mehr darueber sprechen!_" (We won't talk any
more about it!)
It nearly took my breath away; though I thought I might possibly
have misunderstood. I said:
"Why, you little rascal! _Was hast du gesagt?_"
But she said the same words over again, and in the same decided
way. I suppose I ought to have been outraged; but I wasn't, I was
charmed. And I suppose I ought to have spanked her; but I didn't, I
fraternized with the enemy, and we went on and spent half an hour
with the cows.
That incident is followed in the "Record" by the following paragraph,
which is another instance of a juvenile characteristic maintaining
itself into mature age. Susy was persistently and conscientiously
truthful throughout her life with the exception of one interruption
covering several months, and perhaps a year. This was while she was
still a little child. Suddenly--not gradually--she began to lie; not
furtively, but frankly, openly, and on a scale quite disproportioned to
her size. Her mother was so stunned, so nearly paralyzed for a day or
two, that she did not know what to do with the emergency. Reasonings,
persuasions, beseechings, all went for nothing; they produced no effect;
the lying went tranquilly on. Other remedies were tried, but they
failed. There is a tradition that success was finally accomplished by
whipping. I think the Record says so, but if it does it is because the
Record is incomplete. Whipping was indeed tried, and was faithfully kept
up during two or three weeks, but the results were merely temporary; the
reforms achieved were discouragingly brief.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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