“And about drinkin’,” says I. “Thomas Jefferson, if it should ever be the will of Providence to change you into a wild bear, I will chain you up, and do the best I can by you. But if you ever do it yourself, turn yourself into a wild beast by drinkin’, I will run away, for I never could stand it, never. And,” I continued, “if I ever see you hangin’ round bar-rooms and tavern doors, Tirzah Ann shall hang too.” Josiah argued with me, says he, “It don’t look so bad for a boy as it does for a girl.” Says I, “Custom makes the difference; we are more used to seein’ men. But,” says I, “when liquor goes to work to make a fool and a brute of anybody it don’t stop to ask about sect, it makes a wild beast and a idiot of a man or a woman, and to look down from Heaven, I guess a man looks as bad layin’ dead drunk in a gutter as a woman does,” says I; “things look different from up there, than what they do to us--it is a more sightly place. And you talk about _looks_, Josiah Allen. I don’t go on clear looks, I go onto principle. Will the Lord say to me in the last day, ‘Josiah Allen’s wife, how is it with the sole of Tirzah Ann--as for Thomas Jefferson’s sole, he bein’ a boy it haint of no account?’ No! I shall have to give an account to Him for my dealin’s with both of these soles, male and female. And I should feel guilty if I brought him up to think that what was impure for a woman, was pure for a man. If man has a greater desire to do wrong--which I won’t dispute,” says I lookin’ keenly on to Josiah, “he has greater strength to resist temptation. And so,” says I in mild accents, but firm as old Plymouth Rock, “if Thomas Jefferson hangs, Tirzah Ann shall hang too.” 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.