Well, Well—Well
I would label this picture as 'A Day After Volunteering at the 1870s Blacksmith Shop'.
My youngest son gave me a new opinion of Mark Twain. I did honor his works, and his writing expertise, but I had read very little of Mr. Twain. For some reason I didn't care for his Tom Sawyer character. Granted, I didn't really give him much of a chance on that one, but what I had read I didn't really connect with.
One January when Old Fuzzy was on a two week mission trip, Buddy wanted me to sew him a shirt. Not just any shirt this was a replica of an 1870s 'reenactment' shirt. Buddy and his Dad (Old Fuzzy) volunteered at a local 'Living History Farm' (in Des Moines, Iowa) two days a month for a couple of years. They started out in the blacksmith business, but there were too many blacksmiths the second year due to the removal of one of the work bays in the shop. Old Fuzzy went to the implement dealer's shop and Buddy stayed in the blacksmith shop.
Be that as it may, he liked their shirts, and wanted one of his own. We bought him the material and ordered a pattern online, and we had two weeks to dabble at his shirt. While I slaved away at the cutting, sewing and the finishing/detailing of his shirt, Buddy thoughtfully read out loud to me out of a book of classic stories.
One of the stories was 'Puddin' Head Wilson', by Mr. Twain. It indeed was a classic. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a good funny read. I have a disclaimer here, however. It was written at a different period in life in our society. If a person is offended by the portrayal of that life, or those people of that life it could be offensive to them.
A few years back there was an article and a quote from an eighty old rancher in which the old man referred to someone as a 'negro', and a number of people were inflamed and called him all sorts of names. They never once stopped to consider that in his day that term was what black people were called, and as far as I know, it was accepted by them and everyone else as respectful.
We should consider these things as we go through and label people with the criteria of our times who were writing to a different era. Someday we will be history, and if and when the standards of acceptable and unacceptable change as they always do, our generation may be found wanting, when no disrespect was meant.
A writer isn't responsible for the way people respond to their environment. Perhaps the writer is just observing the way things work, and the way people work. Believe it or not humans are human and regardless of race or color you can find rich, poor, smart, dumb, honest, dishonest, and all the human characteristics with in each ethnicity.
Jumping to conclusions isn't a good way to get your exercise. I was raised to believe that most people have good in them, and we should treat all people with respect—even after some have been shown to have very little good in them, and some are not deserving of respect.
I don't remember if it was in the notes that went along with Puddin' Head, or where Buddy found the description as to how Twain disposed of characters that were no longer needed. He had one character that wandered out one dark night and 'fell into the well'. Some time later Twain had another character and the need to get rid of it, and the dark night and well worked again. After the third character disappeared in the well, he thought maybe he'd need to find some other way to dispose of his characters...
