The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1858-03-13
For Emery's Journal Of Agriculture.
ChiIdren's Wrongs.
Dy Mrs. +. D. GAsE.

"Oh. hush your teasing; l am too busy
l. DWELL, | want q whip and string tie
to it,"
Don't you see I'm ironing, you littl
plague, your
81 want whip and a string tied to it,
repeated the fat, rosy checked, brich
. eyed boy, full of strength, nerve and en-
ergy, this cold morning, the fifteenth O
February, in the snug farmhouse Of
in the town Of, in the State of Til
nois
Reader, I am not speaking a fiction
but plain, sober fact.
Frank was just four years old, and
child for his mother to be proud Of Hi
sister had gone to school, and the cool ali
shut the child in the house. Mother wa!
busy ironing, getting dinner and taking
care generally.
Frank wanted something to do. HI
Got knife, and to show the manliness
that was sprouting in his young heart, at
tackled the stove, calling it big tree
Cnceremoneously, the knife was snatched
from his hand, no reason given him, and
his independence set up a fearful yell,
which brought an unceremoneous blow
upon the side of his head, to make him
stop his noise, which had the effect to
produce an accumulation Of discordant
sounds. But the mother had to 90 out
just then, SO the boy sobbcd himself oui-
ct over the picture Of hedgehog, which
| | pointed ont to him in book
/ Il
his restless spirit wanted new impulse
So he mounted the woodbox, and imag-
ined Buck and Jerry, just ahead, needed
thcsdiscipline which he had seen his faith
er use over those notable farm helps.
Master Frank asked good naturedly
enough at first, "for his whip and a string
tied to it, But his request not being
cheerfully answered, he grew into furious
discomfort His mother told him he
could not have it, that she had not got
ono, she could not and would not stop
But he had been too we'll trained to annoy
and conquer, to give up,
lie teased, till she could hear no longer
and then produced the whip and string,
asserting at the same time, "that the
stick was pap's ramrod, and he would
kill her for taking it down, if he was to
see it She did not fix the string to
suit the fastidious taste Of the young gen
tleman, and he screamed Justify to have
it done another way. The mother refused
and after calling her darling child the
"hatetuIlest young one that ever lived, "
and threatening him with the terrors of
the rod in her hands, she again yielded
and took of the string, and declared she
would not touch 1t again, and threw string
and all upon the neor, called him little
''hound,' and went to ironing.
But Frank knew Ito be sure he did
that he could carry the day, and he yelrd
louder than ever, and stamped and raved
like a mad child, till his mother, wholly
out Of patience, seized him with the pas
sion Of tigrcss, and catching up the
whip, she beat his little body with a
force that might have shamed the hu-
manity of an OK driver
The boy, that bright, beautiful, loving
child, writhed and screamed in his tor
turc, in madness. Acoin and again, she
babe him "stop' stop your crying this
instant, or you'll get it worsc'--as if the
child thus irritated and thus suffering
could stop. For a good half hour this
contest was kept up, till my very soul
was suffering with the child, and tho all
unused to the work Of interference be-
tween parent aud offspring, | begged her
to desist, which she soon consented to
i - 81, 4xy l.,
Just as he wanted it at first,
The little fellow stihed his sobs as best
be could, and as soon as the pain was gone
used his whip to his hearts content; aud
the stiff ramrod came in contact with his
mothers face, and forthwith came
blow for his carlessness, and the ramrod
was stripped Of its string, the string cast
angrily into the Ere, and the rod put back
in its place.
Another paroxysm Of madness at her
injustice brought another beating, and
before eleven o'clock this blessed day,
that little child has had three terrible
whippings, ahree terrible, furious, mad
fits, been told more than twenty lies,
taught deception, wrong, injustice, re-
venge, retaliation, tyranny and inhumani- |
ty--and all from his mother.
The little girl came home from school,
but had hardly got within the door till
she was threatened whipping, if GER
tain acts were committed But the acts
were committed, and the promise was !
not redeemed. Another transgression |
brought blows and bangs, that scattered |
the sunshine of that pure young brow, |
and turned the whole house into a scene
Of discord.
Is this mother one standing alone in
these errors2 Not at all Her ways are
common-I might almost say they are
patterned after by the majority. l. this
mother ignorant, i'll tempered or vicious2 |
Not more than common. She is young,
good looking, cheerful (whcn not in a
furry with her children talks sensibly
and thinks some, is member of church |
and means, yes, she really means, to walk
worthily in life. But these things are
habits, habits learned of the mother be-
fere her, perchanco, and of which she is
ignorant, really ignorant.
She has not the remotest idea of these
deformities of her life, still less of the
awful magnitude of the wrong she is do
ing to her children Could she see her
ways mirrorod forth fully in all their
hideousness, would she not shrink from
them, and struggle to rcform9 We be- |
lieve that the slumbcring kindness of
mothers heart may be reused to take hold
of the true interest of her children.
She will, one of these days, teach her