Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/153

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our streets. Oh, no," sez I, lookin' pensively at Tamer Ann, who had begun to embroider agin fiercely, "I should hate to tell folks what I thought of 'em for even half an hour. And there is no need of it, everybody can mind their own bizness a good deal of the time, it don't require much of any nack to keep your tongue between your teeth, and not tell what you think, to keep back things when it hain't necessary to tell 'em." Sez I reasonable, "It is hard to do oft times, but it is much better than to say a lot of things you don't mean."

Sez Tamer Ann, "Folks will git into places in this world where it is impossible to git out peaceable without wigglin' round and deceivin' a little."

"There is always a open place above 'em," sez I, "let 'em look for help there and they will git it, and," sez I firmly, "I have always found that truth wuz the best to depend on in the long run even from a worldly point of view, to say nothin' of right and wrong. It hain't half so hard to keep kinder still and not talk a lot of trash you don't mean, and at the same time it saves your breath to talk considerable about what you do like. And that I wuz always quite a case to do. I always seem to have to talk about folks and things that I like. The world is so full of beauty and goodness and glory, and power and grandeur and loveliness, you meet all the time folks so full of good qualities, things to admire and like, that it uses up my breath. I never seem to have any left to praise up things and folks I don't like and look admirin' at 'em, I don't seem to have the time and breath even if I wanted to, which I don't, Heaven knows."

"Oh, well," sez Tamer Ann, sithin' deep, "it is so hard to know what to do, sometimes I think it is better