Part 21 (1/2)

No DCXV

MAY 17, 1907

CHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY--XVIII

BY MARK TWAIN

[_Dictated Decees of Susy's Biography ofto her custole subject until she has fought it to a finish:

_Feb 27, '86_--Last summer while ere in Elmira an article caht he to have done” treating of the govern an account of a fathers battle with his little baby boy, by the mother of the child and put in the form of a question as to whether the father disciplined the child corectly or not, different people wrote their opinions of the fathers behavior, and told what they thought he should have done Ma kno to disciplin children, for in fact the bringing up of children had been one of her specialties for reatenough to be nauty, it was big enough to be whipped and here we all agreed with her I re when Dr ---- ca discussion with ave _this_ as illustrative of one i a child

She said ill suppose the boy has thrown a handkerchief onto the floor, I tell hiain, he refuses Then I say youMy theory is never toand pick up the handkerchief too I say ”If you do not pick it up, I , but _I_ pick up the handkerchief, if he does he gets no punish if he disobeys , but not forced to obey me afterwards

When Clara and I had been very nauty or were being very nauty, the nurse would go and call Mamma and she would appear suddenly and look at us (she had a way of looking at us when she was displeased as if she could see right through us) till ere ready to sink through the floor fro what to say This look was usually folloith ”Clara” or ”Susy what do you mean by this? do you want to come to the bath-room with me?” Then followed the cli to the bath-room meant

But mamma's first and fore punished for _his_ sake, and because the ; also that it is as hard for her to punish him as for him to be punished and even harder Mary with us she never struck us because she was enoyed at us and felt like striking us if we had been nauty and had enoyed her, so that she thought she felt or would show the least bit of te us, she always postponed the punishment until _she_ was no more chafed by our behavior She never hu us because or while she was the least bit enoyed with us

Our very worst nautinesses were punished by being taken to the bath-roo whipped by the paper cutter But after the whipping was over, mamma did not allow us to leave her until ere perfectly happy, and perfectly understood e had been whipped I never re felt the least bit bitterly towardme I always felt I had deservedreceived it For after mamma had punished us and shown her displeasure, she showed no signs of further displeasure, but acted as if we had not displeased her in any way

Ordinary punishments answered very well for Susy She was a thinker, and would reason out the purpose of them, apply the lesson, and achieve the reform required But it was much less easy to devise punishments that would reform Clara This was because she was a philosopher as always turning her attention to finding so that ca to the troubled ht in inventing what shepunishh her native disposition to get interest and pleasure out of them as novelties The mother, in her anxiety to find a penalty that would take sharp hold and do its work effectively, at last resorted, with a sore heart, and with a reproachful conscience, to that punishible criminal in the penitentiary dreads above all the other punitive ood--solitary confinerieved and worried mother shut Clara up in a very small clothes-closet and went away and left her there--for fifteen minutes--it was all that the mother-heart could endure Then she came softly back and listened--listened for the sobs, but there weren't any; there were muffled and inarticulate sounds, but they could not be construed into sobs The er; by that ti so intensely with sorrow and compassion for the little prisoner that she was not able to wait any longer for the distressed sounds which she had counted upon to inforh and the reform accomplished She opened the closet to set the prisoner free and take her back into her loving favor and forgiveness, but the result was not the one expected The captive had manufactured a fairy cavern out of the closet, and friendly fairies out of the clothes hanging froood time, and requested permission to spend the rest of the day there!

_Froraphy of Me_

But Ma up children has always been more or less of a joke in our family, perticularly since Papa's article in the ”Christian Union,” and I am sure Clara and I have related the history of our old family paper-cutter, our punishments and privations with rather more pride and triumph than any other senti us

When the article ”What ought he to have done?” came out Mamma read it, and was very much interested in it And when papa heard that she had read it he went to work and secretly wrote his opinion of what the father ought to have done He told Aunt Susy, Clara and I, about it butabout it till it caave it to Aunt Susy to read, and after Clara and I had gone up to get ready for bed he brought it up for us to read He told what he thought the father ought to have done by telling what mamma would have done The article was a beautiful tribute toaboutto be published, I think, and expressed himself more fully than he would do the second tireat deal of good, and I think it would have been perfect for the family and friend's enjoyment, but a little bit too private to have been published as it was And Papa felt so too, because the very next day or a few days after, he went down to New York to see if he couldn't get it back before it was published but it was too late, and he had to return without it When the Christian Union reached the far to be read to e to show it to her (for he knew she wouldn't like it at all) at first, and he didn't but he o and never let her see it, but finally he gave his consent to her seeing it, and told Clara and I we could take it to her, which we did, with tardiness, and we all stood aroundwhat she would say and think about it

She was too much surprised, (and pleased privately, too) to say much at first, but as we all expected publicly, (or rather when she remembered that this article was to be read by every one that took the Christian Union) she was rather shocked and a little displeased

Clara and I had great fun the night papa gave it to us to read and then hide, so mamma couldn't see it, for just as ere in theanxiously and asked ere not in bed? then a scuffle ensued for we told her it was a secret and tried to hide it; but she chased us wherever ent, till she thought it was tio to bed, then she surendered and left us to tuck it under Clara's matress

A little while after the article was published letters began to co it, there were soreable One of these, the very worst, ret, it was full of theto papa that he for a tireat displeasure at being so insulted But he finally decided not to, because he felt theenoyed at, for papa had spoken of hily in his Christian Union Article

After all this, papa and ht never hear or be spoken to on the subject of the Christian Union article, and whenever any has spoken to me and told me ”How much they did enjoy hed in their faces when I rereat variety of oppinions had been expressed upon the subject of the Christian Union article of papa's

The article ritten in July or August and just the other day papa received quite a bright letter froave his opinion of it in these words