Peace and Peach Seeds
Taken from The Modern Priscilla, May 1918

Mother gave each child a jar.  For every offense and every neglect, in went a peach seed, to stay there until some balancing act or word of kindness had redeemed it.  The plan was at first, that when five seeds had accumulated, there would be some sort of punishment or consequence.

If the mother was called to settle a dispute, she settled it promptly and justly, and bestowed peach seeds on all the children involved in the dispute.  The children soon learned to respect each other’s rights and grew to be discerning, fair-minded, and generous.

The idea of having things balance grew; and the imaginative children were stimulated to great efforts to keep a large supply of pleasant words and unselfish deeds “in stock”.  Self-control and a greater helpfulness about routine work on the children’s part gave the mother the opportunity to introduce many pleasures into the life of the home.  The cooperative effort was fostered and before long the neighborhood children grew to expect a summons at Saturday noon to come to our house for an afternoon of games and stories – that is, if in all three jars there was not, at the time, one unredeemed seed.

So for years, those peach seeds exerted on the life of a community an influence for good which is still felt.  Now these children are grown.  The son keeps a peach seed in his pocket for good luck.  One daughter is a teacher and uses this plan in classroom management.  The other daughter has five children.  On her kitchen shelf sit five jars, with a cracker tin conveniently near in which is a generous supply of peach seeds!