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Advice to Little Girls · The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty six of The thirty thousand Dollars Bequest and
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  Speaker 1: Other Stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. The thirty thousand Dollar Bequest
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  Speaker 1: and Other Stories by Mark Twain, Section twenty six. Advice
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  Speaker 1: to little girls. Good little girls ought not to make
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  Speaker 1: mouths at their teachers for every trifling offense. This retaliation
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  Speaker 1: should only be resorted to under peculiarly aggravated circumstances. If
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  Speaker 1: you have nothing but a rag doll stuffed with sawdust,
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  Speaker 1: while one of your more fortunate little playmates has a
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  Speaker 1: costly china one, you should treat her with a show
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  Speaker 1: of kindness. Nevertheless, and you ought not to attempt to
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  Speaker 1: make a forcible swap with her unless your conscience would
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  Speaker 1: justify you in it, and you know you are able
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  Speaker 1: to do it. You ought never to take your little
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  Speaker 1: brother's chewing gum away from him by main force. It
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  Speaker 1: is better to rope him in with the promise of
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  Speaker 1: the first two dollars and a half you find floating
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  Speaker 1: down the river on a grindstone in the artless simplicity
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  Speaker 1: natural to this time of life. He will regard it
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  Speaker 1: as a perfectly fair transaction. In all ages of the world,
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  Speaker 1: this eminently plausible fiction has lured the obtuse infant to
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  Speaker 1: financial ruin and disaster. If at any time you find
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  Speaker 1: it necessary to correct your brother, do not correct him
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  Speaker 1: with mud. Never, on any account throw mud at him,
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  Speaker 1: because it will spoil his clothes. It is better to
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  Speaker 1: scald him a little, for then you obtain desirable results.
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  Speaker 1: You secure his immediate attention to the lessons you are inculcating,
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  Speaker 1: and at the same time your hot water will have
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  Speaker 1: a tendency to remove impurities from his person and possibly
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  Speaker 1: the skin in spots. If your mother tells you to
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  Speaker 1: do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you won't.
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  Speaker 1: It is better and more becoming to intimate that you
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  Speaker 1: will do as she bids you, and then afterward act
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  Speaker 1: quietly in the matter according to the dictates of your
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  Speaker 1: best judgment. You should ever bear in mind that it
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  Speaker 1: is to your kind parents that you are indebted for
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  Speaker 1: your food and for the privilege of staying home from
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  Speaker 1: school when you let on that you are sick. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: you ought to respect their little prejudices, and humor their
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  Speaker 1: little whims and put up with their little foibles until
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  Speaker 1: they get to crowding you too much. Good little girls
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  Speaker 1: always show marked deference for the aged. You ought never
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  Speaker 1: to sass old people unless they sass you first. And
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  Speaker 1: of advice to little girls.