Let Us Be Just September 1917

I hate to write the end of the story.

No, not the end!

No story is ever ended!

Two little girls had disagreed, as was to be expected,

because they were so temperamentally different. They wanted

to play in different ways, and as they had to play together,

all operations were stopped while they argued the question.

The elder of the two had a sharp tongue and a great

facility for using it. The other was slow to speak but

quick to act, and they both did their best according

to their abilities.

Said the first little girl: "You've got a snub nose and your

hair is just a common brown color. I heard Aunt Lottie say so!

Don't you wish your hair was a b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l golden like mine,

and your nose a fine shape? Cousin Louisa said that about me.

I heard her!"

The second little girl could not deny these things. Her dark skin,

brown hair, and snub nose, compared to her sister's lighter coloring

and regular features, were a tragedy in her little life. She could think

of nothing cutting to reply, for she was not given to saying unkind things

nor was her tongue nimble enough to say them, so she stood digging her

bare toes into the ground, hurt, helpless, and tongue-tied.

The first girl, seeing the effect of her words, talked on. "Besides,

you're two years younger than I am, and I know more than you, so you

have to mind me and do as I say!"

This was too much!

Sister was prettier, no answer could be made to that. She was older,

it could not be denied; but that gave her no right to command. 

At last here was the chance to act!

"And you have to mind me," repeated the first little girl.

"I will not!" said the second little girl and then, to show her utter

contempt for such authority, this little brown girl slapped her

elder, golden-haired sister.

I hate to write the end of the story. No, not the end! No story is

ever ended!  It goes on and on, and the effects of this one followed the

little girl all her life, showing her hatred of injustice.  I should say that

I dislike to tell what came next, for the golden-haired sister ran crying

and told what happened, except her own part in the quarrel, and the little

brown girl was severely punished. To be plain, she was soundly

spanked and set in a corner.

She did not cry but sat glowering at the parent who punished her and

thinking in her rebellious little mind that when she was large enough,

she would return the spanking with interest.

It was not the pain of the punishment that hurt so much as the sense of

injustice, the knowledge that she had not been treated fairly by one from

whom she had a right to expect fair treatment, and that there had been a

failure to understand where she had thought a mistake impossible.

She had been beaten and bruised by her sister's unkind words and had

been unable to reply. She had defended herself in the only way possible

for her and felt that she had a perfect right to do so, or if not, then

both should have been punished.

Children have a fine sense of justice that sometimes is far truer than

that of older persons, and in almost every case, if appealed to, will prove

the best of help in governing them. When children are ruled through their

sense of justice, there are no angry thoughts left to rankle in their minds.

Then a punishment is not an injury inflicted upon them by someone who is

larger and stronger but the inevitable consequence of their own acts and

the child's mind will understand this much sooner than one would think.

What a help all their lives in self-control and self-government 

this kind of training would be!

We are prone to put out so much emphasis on the desirability of

mercy that we overlook the beauties of the principals of justice. The

quality of mercy is a gracious, beautiful thing; but with more justice in

the world, there would be less need for mercy, and exact justice is

most merciful in the end.

The difficulty is that we are so likely to make mistakes, we cannot trust

our own judgment and so must be merciful to offset our own shortcomings;

but I feel sure when we are able to comprehend the workings of the principles

of justice, we shall find that instead of being opposed to each other,

infallible justice and mercy are one and the same thing.

"Let Us Be Just"

September 1917

By Laura Ingalls Wilder

From the book, "Little House In The Ozarks"

A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler

The Rediscovered Writings

Edited by Stephen W. Hines

(1991)