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Original in possession of Mr. James Whitehead, Emporia, Kas. Martinez, California, February 13, 1913. Mr. James Whitehead,
Hot Springs, Ark. Dear friend: Your painful letter came to me in my lonely library writing den while hard at work on an
Alaska book which should have been written a score of years ago. Seldom, if ever, have I received a letter that has given
me so much mingled pleasure and pain - pleasure in hearing from a friend of my boyhood, and learning from you, the best and
final authority, that the reports on the use of the Solomonierod in your father's household, gleaned half a century ago from
neighbors, including my sisters, brothers, and brothers-in-law, were, to say the least, grossly exaggerated; and pain from
having been led to write by my lifelong hatred of cruelty that which has given you pain. I never did intentional injustice
to any human being or animal, and I have directed my publishers to cancel all that has so grievously hurt you. For a full
understanding of the matter I wish to inform you that the four articles that have appeared in the November, December, January
and February numbers of the Atlantic were taken from the Ms. of a book entitled, My Boyhood and youth, being the first volume
of my autobiography, soon to be published. I corrected the last of the galley proofs several weeks ago and wrote the publishers
that they need not send me the page proofs since their proof-readers were so careful and able. Therefore, I have not seen
any of them, and am unable to tell how far the work has progressed. Possibly part or all of this first volume may be stereotyped,
or even printed. If not printed, the unfortunate page will be cut out of the plate at whatever cost. And at the worst, only
a comparatively small first edition may have been printed, and the part that has caused so much trouble will not appear in
the ten or twenty following editions. I have good reason, as doubtless you know, to hate the habit of child-beating, having
seen and felt its effects in some of their worst forms in my father's house; and all my life I have spoken against the habit
in season and out of season. But you make a great mistake in taking what I have written as a judgment or history of your father's
character, as I hope to show in another volume. You doubtless know that character is made up of many particulars, and that
it is grossly unfair to try the whole general character of any man by one particular, however striking and influential it
may be. I was far from doing so in sketching the evil of child-beating from which we both have so bitterly suffered. When
the rod is falling on the flesh of a child and, what may oftentimes be worse, heart breaking scolding falling on its tender
little heart, it makes the whole family seem far from the Kingdom of Heaven. In all the world I know of nothing more pathetic
and deplorable than a broken-hearted child, sobbing itself to sleep after being unjustly punished by a truly pious and conscientious
misguided parent. Compare this Solomonie treatment with Christ's. King Solomon has much to answer for in this particular,
though I suppose he may in some measure be excused by the trying irritating size of his family. Your father, like my own,
was, I devoutly believe, a sincere Christian, abounding in noble qualities, preaching the Gospel without money or price while
working hard for a living, clearing land, blacksmithing, able for anything, and from youth to death never abating one jot
his glorious foundational religious enthusiasm. I revere his memory with that of my father and the New EnglandPuritans,-types
of the best American pioneers whose unwavering faith in God's eternal righteousness forms the basis of our country's greatness.
Come and see me, and let us become better acquainted after all these eventful years. I hear of you occasionally through my
brothers and always 05375