If I had said some of the things I have referred to, and said them in
his hearing, he would have destroyed me. He would, indeed. He would,
provided the opportunity remained with him. But it would not,
for I would have had judgment enough to take some strychnine first
and say my smart thing afterward. The fair record of my life has
been tarnished by just one pun. My father overheard that, and he
hunted me over four or five townships seeking to take my life.
If I had been full-grown, of course he would have been right;
but, child as I was, I could not know how wicked a thing I
had done.
I made one of those remarks ordinarily called "smart things"
before that, but it was not a pun. Still, it came near causing a
serious rupture between my father and myself. My father and mother,
my uncle Ephraim and his wife, and one or two others were present,
and the conversation turned on a name for me. I was lying there
trying some India-rubber rings of various patterns, and endeavoring
to make a selection, for I was tired of trying to cut my teeth on
people's fingers, and wanted to get hold of something that would
enable me to hurry the thing through and get something else.
Did you ever notice what a nuisance it was cutting your teeth on
your nurse's finger, or how back-breaking and tiresome it was trying
to cut them on your big toe? And did you never get out of patience
and wish your teeth were in Jerico long before you got them half cut?
To me it seems as if these things happened yesterday.
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