Folly as It Flies; Hit at by Fanny Fern. Fern Fanny

jealous care that nothing shall defraud her of one sunbeam of childhood. Childhood! She strains her gaze far beyond that, away into misty womanhood. She would fain live to stand between her and her first inevitable woman's heartache. From under her feet she would extract every thorn, remove every pebble. The winds that should blow upon her should be soft and perfumed. Every drop of blood in her body, every pulse of her heart, cries out, Oh! let her be happy. Alas! with all her knowledge, and notwithstanding all her chastening, she forgets, and ever will forget, when looking at that child, that the crown comes after the cross.

      Broken Toys! As I picked them up under my feet this morning, where they had been tossed by careless little fingers, I fell thinking – just what I have told you.

      I wish some philosopher would tell me at what age a child's naughtiness really begins. I am led to make this remark because I am subject to the unceasing ridicule of certain persons, who shall be nameless, who sarcastically advise me "to practice what I preach." As if, to begin with, anybody ever did that, from Adam's time down. You see before I punish, or cause to be punished, a little child, I want to be sure that it hasn't got the stomach-ache; or is not cutting some tooth; or has not, through the indiscretion, or carelessness or ignorance of those intrusted with it, partaken of some indigestible mess, to cause its "naughtiness," as it is called. Then – I want those people who counsel me to such strict justice with a mere baby, to reflect how many times a day, according to this rule, they themselves ought to be punished for impatient, cross words; proceeding, it may be, from teeth, or stomach, or head, or nerves; but just as detrimental as to the results as if they came from meditated, adult naughtiness.

      Scruples of conscience, you see – that's it. However, yesterday I said: Perhaps I am a little soft in this matter; perhaps it is time I began. So I stiffened up to it.

      "Tittikins," said I to the cherub in question, "don't throw your hat on the floor; bring it to me, dear."

      "I san't," replied Tittikins, who has not yet compassed the letter h. "I san't," – with the most trusting, bewitching little smile, as if I were only getting up a new play for her amusement, and immediately commenced singing to herself:

      "Baby bye,

      Here's a fly —

      Let us watch him,

      You and I;"

      adding, "Didn't I sing that pretty?"

      Now I ask you, was I to get up a fight with that dear little happy thing, just to carry my point? I tell you my "government" on that occasion was a miserable failure; I made up my mind, after deep reflection, that if it was not quite patent that a child was really malicious, it was best not to worry it with petty matters; I made up my mind that I would concentrate my strength on the first lie it told, and be conveniently blind to lesser peccadilloes. This course is just what I get abused for. But, I stood over a little coffin once, with part of my name on the silver plate; and somehow it always comes between me and this governing business. I think I know what you'll reply to this; and in order that you may have full justification for abusing me, I will own that the other day, when I said to Tittikins, "Now, dear, if you put your hands inside your cup of milk again, I must really punish you," that little three-year-older replied, in the chirp-est voice, "No, you won't! I know better." And one day, when I really shut my teeth together, and with a great throb of martyrdom, spanked the back of that dear little hand, she fixed her great, soft, brown, unwinking eyes on me, and said, "I'm brave – I don't mind it!" You can see for yourself that this practical application of the story of the Spartan boy and the fox, which I had told her the day before, was rather unexpected.

      Tittikins has no idea of "the rule that won't work both ways." Not long since, she wanted my pen and ink, which, for obvious reasons, I declined giving. She acquiesced, apparently, and went on with her play. Shortly after, I said, "Tittikins, bring me that newspaper, will you?" "No," she replied, with Lilliputian dignity. "If you can't please me, I can't please you." The other day she was making an ear-splitting racket with some brass buttons, in a tin box, when I said, "Can't you play with something else, dear, till I have done writing?" "But I like this best," she replied. "It makes my head ache, though," I said. "You poor dear, you," said Tittikins, patronizingly, as she threw the obnoxious plaything down, and rushed across the room to put her arms around my neck – "you poor dear, you, of tourse I won't do it, then."

      I have given it up; with shame and confusion of face, I own that child governs me. I know her heart is all right; I know there's not a grain of badness in her; I know she would die to-day, if she hadn't those few flaws to keep her alive. In short, she's my grandchild. Isn't that enough?

      But all this does not prevent my giving sensible advise to others. Now I am perfectly well aware, that there comes a time in the life of every little child, how beautiful, winning and pleasant soever it may be, when it hoists with its tiny hand the rebel flag of defiance to authority. You may walk round another way, and choose not to see it, and fancy you will have no farther trouble. You may hug to your heart all its sweet cunning ways, and say – after all, what does it matter? it is but a child; it knows no better; it will outgrow all that; it is best not to notice it; I can't bear to be harsh with it; it will be a great deal of trouble to fight it out, should the child happen to be persistent: it is a matter of no consequence; and such like sophistries. I say you may try in this way to dodge a question that has got some time or other to be met fair and square in the face; and you may persuade yourself, all the while, that you are thus loving your own ease, that you are loving your child; but both it and you, will at some future day see the terrible mistake.

      "Oh, why did my father, or my mother, let me do thus and so?" has been the anguished cry of many a shame-stricken man and woman whose parents reasoned after this manner.

      Now, the point at issue between the child and yourself may seem trifling. It may be very early in its life that it is made. Perhaps scarcely past the baby age, it may insist, when well and healthy, upon being sung or rocked in the arms to sleep, and that by some one particular person. Now, you are perfectly sure this is unnecessary, and that it would be much better for the child, apart from the inconvenience of the practice, to be laid quietly in its bed, with only some trustful person to watch it. But you reason, it has always been used to this, and I may have to hear it cry every night for a week before I can teach it. Well – and what then? The child, to be good for anything, must be taught some time or other that it cannot gain its point by crying. Why not now? Of course it should not be placed in bed till it is sufficiently weary; nor should it be frightened at being left in a dark room alone, or left alone at all, while the trial is being made. This attended to, if it cry – let it cry. It will be a struggle of two or three nights and no more; perhaps not that; and the moral lesson is learned; after that obedience comes easy.

      It is a mistake to suppose, you who are so greedy of a child's love, that it is more attached to that person who indulges its every whim, than to the one who can firmly pronounce the monosyllable no, when necessary. The most brutal word I ever heard spoken, was from a grown man to a widowed mother, who belonged to that soul-destroying class of parents who "could never deny a child anything" and whose whole life had been one slavish endeavor to gratify his every whim without regard to her own preferences or inclination; and whenever you see such a man, you may know he had just such a mother; or, having one wiser, that her attempts at government had been neutralized by one of the don't-cry-dear-and-you-shall-have-it fathers. It is so strange that parents who crave to be so fondly remembered by their children in after years, should be thus short-sighted. It is so strange, that when they desire next to this, that everybody else should consider their children supremely lovely and winning, that they should take so direct a method to render them perfectly disagreeable. Strange that they should never reflect that some poor wife, in the future, will rue the day she ever married that selfish, domineering tyrant, now in embryo in that little boy. Strange that the mother of that blue-eyed little girl never thinks that the latter may curse her own daughter with that same passionate temper, which never knew paternal restraint. Stranger still, that parents launching these little voyagers on the wide ocean of time, without chart, rudder, or compass, should, when in after days they suffer total shipwreck, close the doors of their hearts, and homes, in their shamed and sorrowful faces.

      I think there is nothing