Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/186

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and Josiah and I enjoyed it jest as much as he did, and the next day, accordin' to promise, I took Jack over to Tirzah Ann's and Tamer wuz goin' to stop and visit her and Thomas J. on her way back from Aunt Nancy John's. I made a good call at Tirzah's and see a new sass dish she had got and admired it, and a shirt waist, and then I left Jack happy enough to play with Delight, and called at Maggie's, and Miss Greene Smythe wuz there, she had come to the office to see Thomas Jefferson and wuz waitin' for him to come home, he wuz expected every minute from Loontown. I inquired in a polite way after her children, and she said that Angenora wuz feelin' rather nervous to-day, she wuz out to a child's party the night before and didn't git home till two o'clock.

"That child," sez I, "out till two o'clock!"

"Yes," she said, "Jimmy De Graffe, a boy from the city, gave the party, he lives near us at home and wuz devoted to Angenora; he sent her a valentine last year which wuz a perfect love letter, and one thing that makes Angenora feel so bad to-day, there wuz a little girl there from the city who had on a much prettier dress that hers—Angenora's wuz white silk with only five ruffles on it, and the little girl's wuz pink silk with seven ruffles, and Jimmy paid her much more attention than he did Angenora. It almost broke her heart, she is just about sick to-day."

Sez I to myself, fashion, love-disappointments, jealousies, heartburnings, despair, emotions that child hadn't ort to know the names on for years and years. Emotions big enough and sad enough to swamp lives well seasoned by years and experience, all being suffered by that baby, who ortn't to have an anxiety above peanuts and the multiplication table, blind-man's buff and puss-