I want to raise our kid to be a poor man’s son, and then, if it’s necessary, we can always teach him how to be a rich one’s.  Child nature is human nature, and a man who understands it can make his children like the plain, sensible things and ways as easily as the rich and foolish ones.  I remember a nice old lady who was raising a lot of orphan grandchildren on a mighty slim income.  They couldn’t have chicken often in that house, and when they did it was a pretty close fit and none to throw away.  So instead of beginning with the white meat and stirring up the kids like a cage full of hyenas when the “feeding the carnivora” sign is out, she would play up the pieces that don’t even get a mention on the bill-of-fare of a two-dollar country hotel.  She would begin by saying in a please-don’t-all-speak-at-once tone, “Now, children, who wants this dear little neck?” and naturally they all wanted it, because it was pretty plain to them that it was something extra sweet and juicy.  So she would allot it as a reward of goodness to the child who had been behaving best, and throw in the gizzard for nourishment.  The nice old lady always helped herself last, and there was nothing left for her but white meat.

It isn’t the final result which the nice old lady achieved, but the first one, that I want to commend.  A child naturally likes the simple things till you teach him to like the rich ones; and it’s just as easy to start him with books and amusements that hold sense and health as those that are filled with slop and stomach-ache.  A lot of mothers think a child starts out with a brain that can’t learn anything but nonsense; so when Maudie asks a sensible question they answer in goo-goo gush.  And they believe that a child can digest everything from carpet tacks to fried steak, so whenever Willie hollers they think he’s hungry, and try to plug his throat with a banana.

You want to have it in mind all the time while you’re raising this boy that you can’t turn over your children to subordinates, any more than you can your business, and get good results.  Nurses and governesses are no doubt all right in their place, but there’s nothing “just as good” as a father and mother.  A boy doesn’t pick up cuss-words when his mother’s around or learn cussedness from his father.  Yet a lot of mothers turn over the children, along with the horses and dogs, to be fed and broken by the servants, and then wonder from which side of the family Isobel inherited her weak stomach, and where she picked up her naughty ways, and why she drops the h’s from some words and pronounces others with a brogue.  But she needn’t look to Isobel for any information, because she is the only person about the place with whom the child ain’t on free and easy terms.

I simply mention these things in passing.  Life is getting broader and business bigger right along, and we’ve got to breed a better race of men if we’re going to keep just a little ahead of it.  There are a lot of problems in the business now—­trust problems and labor problems—­that I’m getting old enough to shirk, which you and the boy must meet, though I’m not doing any particular worrying about them.  While I believe that the trusts are pretty good things in theory, a lot of them have been pretty bad things in practice, and we shall be mighty slow to hook up with one.