1 files changed, 3426 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/7833-0.txt b/7833-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c6938f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/7833-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3426 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Samantha on the Woman Question, by Marietta Holley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Samantha on the Woman Question
+
+Author: Marietta Holley
+
+Release Date: May 20, 2003 [eBook #7833]
+[Most recently updated: February 15, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Eric Eldred, William Flis and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA ON THE WOMAN QUESTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Samantha on the Woman Question
+
+by Marietta Holley
+
+“Josiah Allen’s Wife”
+
+Author of
+
+“Samantha at Saratoga,” “My Opinions” and
+“Betsey Bobbet’s,” etc.
+
+
+Contents
+
+ I. “SHE WANTED HER RIGHTS”
+ II. “THEY CAN’T BLAME HER”
+ III. “POLLY’S EYES GROWED TENDER”
+ IV. “STRIVIN’ WITH THE EMISSARY”
+ V. “HE WUZ DRETFUL POLITE”
+ VI. “CONCERNING MOTH-MILLERS AND MINNY FISH”
+ VII. “NO HAMPERIN’ HITCHIN’ STRAPS”
+ VIII. “OLD MOM NATER LISTENIN’”
+ IX. THE WOMEN’S PARADE
+ X. “THE CREATION SEARCHIN’ SOCIETY”
+
+[Illustration:
+“And I wonder if there is a woman in the land that can blame Serepta
+for wantin’ her rights.”]
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+ “AND I WONDER IF THERE’S A WOMAN IN THE LAND THAT CAN BLAME SEREPTA
+ FOR WANTIN’ HER RIGHTS”
+ “I WANTED TO VISIT THE CAPITOL OF OUR COUNTRY.... SO WE LAID OUT TO
+ GO”
+ “HE’D ENTERED POLITICAL LIFE WHERE THE BIBLE WUZN’T POPULAR; HE’D
+ NEVER READ FURTHER THAN GULLIVER’S EPISTLE TO THE LILIPUTIANS”
+ “SEZ JOSIAH, ‘DOES THAT THING KNOW ENOUGH TO VOTE?’”
+
+
+
+
+I.
+“SHE WANTED HER RIGHTS”
+
+
+Lorinda Cagwin invited Josiah and me to a reunion of the Allen family
+at her home nigh Washington, D.C., the birthplace of the first Allen we
+knowed anything about, and Josiah said:
+
+“Bein’ one of the best lookin’ and influential Allens on earth now, it
+would be expected on him to attend to it.”
+
+And I fell in with the idee, partly to be done as I would be done by if
+it wuz the relation on my side, and partly because by goin’ I could hit
+two birds with one stun, as the poet sez. Indeed, I could hit four on
+’em.
+
+My own cousin, Diantha Trimble, lived in a city nigh Lorinda’s and I
+had promised to visit her if I wuz ever nigh her, and help bear her
+burdens for a spell, of which burden more anon and bom-by.
+
+Diantha wuz one bird, the Reunion another, and the third bird I had in
+my mind’s eye wuz the big outdoor meeting of the suffragists that wuz
+to be held in the city where Diantha lived, only a little ways from
+Lorinda’s.
+
+And the fourth bird and the biggest one I wuz aimin’ to hit from this
+tower of ourn wuz Washington, D.C. I wanted to visit the Capitol of our
+country, the center of our great civilization that stands like the sun
+in the solar system, sendin’ out beams of power and wisdom and law and
+order, and justice and injustice, and money and oratory, and talk and
+talk, and wind and everything, to the uttermost points of our vast
+possessions, and from them clear to the ends of the earth. I wanted to
+see it, I wanted to like a dog. So we laid out to go.
+
+[Illustration: “I wanted to visit the Capitol of our country.... So we
+laid out to go.”]
+
+Lorinda lived on the old Allen place, and I always sot store by her,
+and her girl, Polly, wuz, as Thomas J. said, a peach. She had spent one
+of her college vacations with us, and a sweeter, prettier, brighter
+girl I don’t want to see. Her name is Pauline, but everybody calls her
+Polly.
+
+The Cagwins are rich, and Polly had every advantage money could give,
+and old Mom Nater gin her a lot of advantages money couldn’t buy,
+beauty and intellect, a big generous heart and charm. And you know the
+Cagwins couldn’t bought that at no price. Charm in a girl is like the
+perfume in a rose, and can’t be bought or sold. And you can’t handle or
+describe either on ’em exactly. But what a influence they have; how
+they lay holt of your heart and fancy.
+
+Royal Gray, the young man who wuz payin’ attention to her, stopped once
+for a day or two in Jonesville with Polly and her Ma on their way to
+the Cagwins’ camp in the Adirondacks. And we all liked him so well that
+we agreed in givin’ him this extraordinary praise, we said he wuz
+worthy of Polly, we knowed of course that wuz the highest enconium
+possible for us to give.
+
+Good lookin’, smart as a whip, and deep, you could see that by lookin’
+into his eyes, half laughin’ and half serious eyes and kinder sad
+lookin’ too under the fun, as eyes must be in this world of ourn if
+they look back fur, or ahead much of any. A queer world this is, and
+kinder sad and mysterious, behind all the good and glory on’t.
+
+He wuz jest out of Harvard school and as full of life and sperits as a
+colt let loose in a clover field. He went out in the hay field, he and
+Polly, and rode home on top of a load of hay jest as nateral and easy
+and bare-headed as if he wuz workin’ for wages, and he the only son of
+a millionaire—we all took to him.
+
+Well, when the news got out that I wuz goin’ to visit Washington, D.C.,
+all the neighbors wanted to send errents by me. Betsy Bobbet Slimpsey
+wanted a dozen Patent Office books for scrap books for her poetry.
+
+Uncle Nate Gowdey wanted me to go to the Agricultural Buro and git him
+a paper of lettuce seed. And Solomon Sypher wanted me to git him a new
+kind of string beans and some cowcumber seeds.
+
+Uncle Jarvis Bentley, who wuz goin’ to paint his house, wanted me to
+ask the President what kind of paint he used on the White House. He
+thought it ort to be a extra kind to stand the sharp glare that wuz
+beatin’ down on it constant, and to ask him if he didn’t think the
+paint would last longer and the glare be mollified some if they used
+pure white and clear ile in it, and left off whitewash and karseen.
+
+Ardelia Rumsey, who is goin’ to be married, wanted me, if I see any new
+kinds of bedquilt patterns at the White House or the Senator’s housen,
+to git patterns for ’em. She said she wuz sick of sun flowers and
+blazin’ stars. She thought mebby they’d have sunthin’ new, spread eagle
+style. She said her feller wuz goin’ to be connected with the Govermunt
+and she thought it would be appropriate.
+
+And I asked her how. And she said he wuz goin’ to git a patent on a new
+kind of jack knife.
+
+I told her that if she wanted a govermunt quilt and wanted it
+appropriate she ort to have a crazy quilt.
+
+And she said she had jest finished a crazy quilt with seven thousand
+pieces of silk in it, and each piece trimmed with seven hundred
+stitches of feather stitchin’—she’d counted ’em. And then I remembered
+seein’ it. There wuz a petition fer wimmen’s rights and I remember
+Ardelia couldn’t sign it for lack of time. She wanted to, but she
+hadn’t got the quilt more than half done. It took the biggest heft of
+two years to do it. And so less important things had to be put aside.
+
+And Ardelia’s mother wanted to sign it, but she couldn’t owin’ to a
+bed-spread she wuz makin’. She wuz quiltin’ in Noah’s Ark and all the
+animals on a Turkey red quilt. I remember she wuz quiltin’ the camel
+that day and couldn’t be disturbed, so we didn’t git the names. It took
+the old lady three years, and when it wuz done it wuz a sight to
+behold, though I wouldn’t want to sleep under so many animals. But
+folks went from fur and near to see it, and I enjoyed lookin’ at it
+that day.
+
+Zebulin Coon wanted me to carry a new hen coop of hisen to git
+patented. And I thought to myself I wonder if they will ask me to carry
+a cow.
+
+And sure enough Elnathan Purdy wanted me to dicker for a calf from
+Mount Vernon, swop one of his yearlin’s for it.
+
+But the errents Serepta Pester sent wuz fur more hefty and momentous
+than all the rest put together, calves, hen coop, cow and all.
+
+And when she told ’em over to me, and I meditated on her reasons for
+sendin’ ’em and her need of havin’ ’em done, I felt that I would do the
+errents for her if a breath wuz left in my body. She come for a all
+day’s visit; and though she is a vegetable widow and humbly, I wuz
+middlin’ glad to see her. But thinkses I as I carried her things into
+my bedroom, “She’ll want to send some errent by me”; and I wondered
+what it would be.
+
+And so it didn’t surprise me when she asked me if I would lobby a
+little for her in Washington. I spozed it wuz some new kind of tattin’
+or fancy work. I told her I shouldn’t have much time but would try to
+git her some if I could.
+
+And she said she wanted me to lobby myself. And then I thought mebby it
+wuz a new kind of dance and told her, “I wuz too old to lobby, I hadn’t
+lobbied a step since I wuz married.”
+
+And then she explained she wanted me to canvas some of the Senators.
+
+And I hung back and asked her in a cautious tone, “How many she wanted
+canvassed, and how much canvas it would take?”
+
+I had a good many things to buy for my tower, and though I wanted to
+obleege Serepta, I didn’t feel like runnin’ into any great expense for
+canvas.
+
+And then she broke off from that subject, and said she wanted her
+rights and wanted the Whiskey Ring broke up.
+
+And she talked a sight about her children, and how bad she felt to be
+parted from ’em, and how she used to worship her husband and how her
+hull life wuz ruined and the Whiskey Ring had done it, that and
+wimmen’s helpless condition under the law and she cried and wep’ and I
+did. And right while I wuz cryin’ onto that gingham apron, she made me
+promise to carry them two errents of hern to the President and git ’em
+done for her if I possibly could.
+
+She wanted the Whiskey Ring destroyed and her rights, and she wanted
+’em both inside of two weeks.
+
+I told her I didn’t believe she could git ’em done inside that length
+of time, but I would tell the President about it, and I thought more’n
+likely as not he would want to do right by her. “And,” sez I, “if he
+sets out to, he can haul them babies of yourn out of that Ring pretty
+sudden.”
+
+And then to git her mind offen her sufferin’s, I asked how her sister
+Azuba wuz gittin’ along? I hadn’t heard from her for years. She married
+Phileman Clapsaddle, and Serepty spoke out as bitter as a bitter
+walnut, and sez she:
+
+“She’s in the poor-house.”
+
+“Why, Serepta Pester!” sez I, “what do you mean?”
+
+“I mean what I say, my sister, Azuba Clapsaddle, is in the poor-house.”
+
+“Why, where is their property gone?” sez I. “They wuz well off. Azuba
+had five thousand dollars of her own when she married him.”
+
+“I know it,” sez she, “and I can tell you, Josiah Allen’s wife, where
+their property has gone, it has gone down Phileman Clapsaddle’s throat.
+Look down that man’s throat and you will see 150 acres of land, a good
+house and barn, twenty sheep and forty head of cattle.”
+
+“Why-ee!” sez I.
+
+“Yes, and you’ll see four mules, a span of horses, two buggies, a
+double sleigh, and three buffalo robes. He’s drinked ’em all up, and
+two horse rakes, a cultivator, and a thrashin’ machine.”
+
+“Why-ee!” sez I agin. “And where are the children?”
+
+“The boys have inherited their father’s habits and drink as bad as he
+duz and the oldest girl has gone to the bad.”
+
+“Oh dear! oh dear me!” sez I, and we both sot silent for a spell. And
+then thinkin’ I must say sunthin’ and wantin’ to strike a safe subject
+and a good lookin’ one, I sez:
+
+“Where is your Aunt Cassandra’s girl? That pretty girl I see to your
+house once?”
+
+“That girl is in the lunatick asylum.”
+
+“Serepta Pester,” sez I, “be you tellin’ the truth?”
+
+“Yes, I be, the livin’ truth. She went to New York to buy millinery
+goods for her mother’s store. It wuz quite cool when she left home and
+she hadn’t took off her winter clothes, and it come on brilin’ hot in
+the city, and in goin’ about from store to store the heat and hard work
+overcome her and she fell down in a sort of faintin’ fit and wuz called
+drunk and dragged off to a police court by a man who wuz a animal in
+human shape. And he misused her in such a way that she never got over
+the horror of what befell her when she come to to find herself at the
+mercy of a brute in a man’s shape. She went into a melancholy madness
+and wuz sent to the asylum.”
+
+I sithed a long and mournful sithe and sot silent agin for quite a
+spell. But thinkin’ I must be sociable I sez: “Your aunt Cassandra is
+well, I spoze?”
+
+“She is moulderin’ in jail,” sez she.
+
+“In jail? Cassandra in jail!”
+
+“Yes, in jail.” And Serepta’s tone wuz now like worm-wood and gall.
+
+“You know she owns a big property in tenement houses and other
+buildings where she lives. Of course her taxes wuz awful high, and she
+didn’t expect to have any voice in tellin’ how that money, a part of
+her own property that she earned herself in a store, should be used.
+But she had been taxed high for new sidewalks in front of some of her
+buildin’s. And then another man come into power in that ward, and he
+naterally wanted to make some money out of her, so he ordered her to
+build new sidewalks. And she wouldn’t tear up a good sidewalk to please
+him or anybody else, so she wuz put to jail for refusin’ to comply with
+the law.”
+
+Thinkses I, I don’t believe the law would have been so hard on her if
+she hadn’t been so humbly. The Pesters are a humbly lot. But I didn’t
+think it out loud, and didn’t ophold the law for feelin’ so. I sez in
+pityin’ tones, for I wuz truly sorry for Cassandra Keeler:
+
+“How did it end?”
+
+“It hain’t ended,” sez she, “it only took place a month ago and she has
+got her grit up and won’t pay; and no knowin’ how it will end; she lays
+there amoulderin’.”
+
+I don’t believe Cassanda wuz mouldy, but that is Serepta’s way of
+talkin’, very flowery.
+
+“Well,” sez I, “do you think the weather is goin’ to moderate?”
+
+I truly felt that I dassent speak to her about any human bein’ under
+the sun, not knowin’ what turn she would give to the talk, bein’ so
+embittered. But I felt that the weather wuz safe, and cotton stockin’s,
+and hens, and factory cloth, and I kep’ her down on them for more’n two
+hours.
+
+But good land! I can’t blame her for bein’ embittered agin men and the
+laws they’ve made, for it seems as if I never see a human creeter so
+afflicted as Serepta Pester has been all her life.
+
+Why, her sufferin’s date back before she wuz born, and that’s goin’
+pretty fur back. Her father and mother had some difficulty and he wuz
+took down with billerous colick, voylent four weeks before Serepta wuz
+born. And some think it wuz the hardness between ’em and some think it
+wuz the gripin’ of the colick when he made his will, anyway he willed
+Serepta away, boy or girl whichever it wuz, to his brother up on the
+Canada line.
+
+So when Serepta wuz born (and born a girl ontirely onbeknown to her)
+she wuz took right away from her mother and gin to this brother. Her
+mother couldn’t help herself, he had the law on his side. But it killed
+her. She drooped away and died before the baby wuz a year old. She wuz
+a affectionate, tenderhearted woman and her husband wuz overbearin’ and
+stern always.
+
+But it wuz this last move of hisen that killed her, for it is pretty
+tough on a mother to have her baby, a part of her own life, took right
+out of her own arms and gin to a stranger. For this uncle of hern wuz a
+entire stranger to Serepta, and almost like a stranger to her father,
+for he hadn’t seen him since he wuz a boy, but knew he hadn’t any
+children and spozed that he wuz rich and respectable. But the truth wuz
+he had been runnin’ down every way, had lost his property and his
+character, wuz dissipated and mean. But the will wuz made and the law
+stood. Men are ashamed now to think that the law wuz ever in voge, but
+it wuz, and is now in some of the states, and the poor young mother
+couldn’t help herself. It has always been the boast of our American law
+that it takes care of wimmen. It took care of her. It held her in its
+strong protectin’ grasp so tight that the only way she could slip out
+of it wuz to drop into the grave, which she did in a few months. Then
+it leggo.
+
+But it kep’ holt of Serepta, it bound her tight to her uncle while he
+run through with what property she had, while he sunk lower and lower
+until at last he needed the very necessaries of life and then he bound
+her out to work to a woman who kep’ a drinkin’ den and the lowest hant
+of vice.
+
+Twice Serepta run away, bein’ virtuous but humbly, but them strong
+protectin’ arms of the law that had held her mother so tight reached
+out and dragged her back agin. Upheld by them her uncle could compel
+her to give her service wherever he wanted her to work, and he wuz
+owin’ this woman and she wanted Serepta’s work, so she had to submit.
+
+But the third time she made a effort so voyalent that she got away. A
+good woman, who bein’ nothin’ but a woman couldn’t do anything towards
+onclinchin’ them powerful arms that wuz protectin’ her, helped her to
+slip through ’em. And Serepta come to Jonesville to live with a sister
+of that good woman; changed her name so’s it wouldn’t be so easy to
+find her; grew up to be a nice industrious girl. And when the woman she
+wuz took by died she left Serepta quite a handsome property.
+
+And finally she married Lank Burpee, and did considerable well it wuz
+spozed. Her property, put with what little he had, made ’em a
+comfortable home and they had two pretty children, a boy and a girl.
+But when the little girl wuz a baby he took to drinkin’, neglected his
+bizness, got mixed up with a whiskey ring, whipped Serepta—not so very
+hard. He went accordin’ to law, and the law of the United States don’t
+approve of a man’s whippin’ his wife enough to endanger her life, it
+sez it don’t. He made every move of hisen lawful and felt that Serepta
+hadn’t ort to complain and feel hurt. But a good whippin’ will make
+anybody feel hurt, law or no law. And then he parted with her and got
+her property and her two little children. Why, it seemed as if
+everything under the sun and moon, that could happen to a woman, had
+happened to Serepta, painful things and gauldin’.
+
+Jest before Lank parted with her, she fell on a broken sidewalk: some
+think he tripped her up, but it never wuz proved. But anyway Serepta
+fell and broke her hip hone; and her husband sued the corporation and
+got ten thousand dollars for it. Of course the law give the money to
+him and she never got a cent of it. But she wouldn’t have made any fuss
+over that, knowin’ that the law of the United States wuz such. But what
+made it so awful mortifyin’ to her wuz, that while she wuz layin’ there
+achin’ in splints, he took that very money and used it to court up
+another woman with. Gin her presents, jewelry, bunnets, head-dresses,
+artificial flowers out of Serepta’s own hip money.
+
+And I don’t know as anything could be much more gauldin’ to a woman
+than that—while she lay there groanin’ in splints, to have her husband
+take the money for her own broken bones and dress up another woman like
+a doll with it.
+
+But the law gin it to him, and he wuz only availin’ himself of the
+glorious liberty of our free Republic, and doin’ as he wuz a mind to.
+And it wuz spozed that that very hip money wuz what made the match. For
+before she wuz fairly out of splints he got a divorce from her and
+married agin. And by the help of Serepta’s hip money and the Whiskey
+Ring he got her two little children away from her.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+“THEY CAN’T BLAME HER”
+
+
+And I wonder if there is a woman in the land that can blame Serepta for
+gittin’ mad and wantin’ her rights and wantin’ the Whiskey Ring broke
+up, when they think how she’s been fooled round with by men; willed
+away, and whipped, and parted with, and stole from. Why, they can’t
+blame her for feelin’ fairly savage about ’em, as she duz.
+
+For as she sez to me once, when we wuz talkin’ it over, how everything
+had happened to her. “Yes,” sez she, with a axent like bone-set and
+vinegar, “and what few things hain’t happened to me has happened to my
+folks.”
+
+And sure enough I couldn’t dispute her. Trouble and wrongs and
+sufferin’s seemed to be epidemic in the race of Pester wimmen. Why, one
+of her aunts on her father’s side, Huldah Pester, married for her first
+husband, Eliphelet Perkins. He wuz a minister, rode on a circuit, and
+he took Huldah on it too, and she rode round with him on it a good deal
+of the time. But she never loved to, she wuz a woman that loved to be
+still, and kinder settled down at home.
+
+But she loved Eliphelet so well that she would do anything to please
+him, so she rode round with him on that circuit till she wuz perfectly
+fagged out.
+
+He wuz a dretful good man to her, but he wuz kinder poor and they had
+hard times to git along. But what property they had wuzn’t taxed, so
+that helped some, and Huldah would make one dollar go a good ways.
+
+No, their property wuzn’t taxed till Eliphelet died. Then the
+supervisor taxed it the very minute the breath left his body; run his
+horse, so it wuz said, so’s to be sure to git it onto the tax list, and
+comply with the law.
+
+You see Eliphelet’s salary stopped when his breath did. And I spoze the
+law thought, seein’ she wuz havin’ trouble, she might jest as well have
+a little more; so it taxed all the property it never had taxed a cent
+for before.
+
+But she had this to console her that the law didn’t forgit her in her
+widowhood. No; the law is quite thoughtful of wimmen by spells. It sez
+it protects wimmen. And I spoze that in some mysterious way, too deep
+for wimmen to understand, it wuz protectin’ her now.
+
+Well, she suffered along and finally married agin. I wondered why she
+did. But she wuz such a quiet, home-lovin’ woman that it wuz spozed she
+wanted to settle down and be kinder still and sot. But of all the bad
+luck she had. She married on short acquaintance, and he proved to be a
+perfect wanderer. He couldn’t keep still, it wuz spozed to be a mark.
+
+He moved Huldah thirteen times in two years, and at last he took her
+into a cart, a sort of covered wagon, and traveled right through the
+western states with her. He wanted to see the country and loved to live
+in the wagon, it wuz his make. And, of course, the law give him control
+of her body, and she had to go where he moved it, or else part with
+him. And I spoze the law thought it wuz guardin’ and nourishin’ her
+when it wuz joltin’ her over them prairies and mountains and abysses.
+But it jest kep’ her shook up the hull of the time.
+
+It wuz the regular Pester luck.
+
+And then another of her aunts, Drusilly Pester, married a industrious,
+hard-workin’ man, one that never drinked, wuz sound on the doctrines,
+and give good measure to his customers, he wuz a groceryman. And a
+master hand for wantin’ to foller the laws of his country as tight as
+laws could be follered. And so knowin’ that the law approved of
+moderate correction for wimmen, and that “a man might whip his wife,
+but not enough to endanger her life”; he bein’ such a master hand for
+wantin’ to do everything faithful and do his very best for his
+customers, it wuz spozed he wanted to do the best for the law, and so
+when he got to whippin’ Drusilly, he would whip her too severe, he
+would be too faithful to it.
+
+You see what made him whip her at all wuz she wuz cross to him. They
+had nine little children, she thought two or three children would be
+about all one woman could bring up well by hand, when that hand wuz so
+stiff and sore with hard work.
+
+But he had read some scareful talk from high quarters about Race
+Suicide. Some men do git real wrought up about it and want everybody to
+have all the children they can, jest as fast as they can, though wimmen
+don’t all feel so.
+
+Aunt Hetty Sidman said, “If men had to born ’em and nuss ’em
+themselves, she didn’t spoze they would be so enthusiastick about it
+after they had had a few, ‘specially if they done their own housework
+themselves,” and Aunt Hetty said that some of the men who wuz exhortin’
+wimmen to have big families, had better spend some of their strength
+and wind in tryin’ to make this world a safer place for children to be
+born into.
+
+She said they’d be better off in Nonentity than here in this world with
+saloons on every corner, and war-dogs howlin’ at ’em.
+
+I don’t know exactly what she meant by Nonentity, but guess she meant
+the world we all stay in, before we are born into this one.
+
+Aunt Hetty has lost five boys, two by battle and three by licensed
+saloons, that makes her talk real bitter, but to resoom. I told Josiah
+that men needn’t worry about Race Suicide, for you might as well try to
+stop a hen from makin’ a nest, as to stop wimmen from wantin’ a baby to
+love and hold on her heart. But sez I, “Folks ort to be moderate and
+mejum in babies as well as in everything else.”
+
+But Drusilly’s husband wanted twelve boys he said, to be law-abidin’
+citizens as their Pa wuz, and a protection to the Govermunt, and to be
+ready to man the new warships, if a war broke out. But her babies wuz
+real pretty and cunning, and she wuz so weak-minded she couldn’t enjoy
+the thought that if our male statesmen got to scrappin’ with some other
+nation’s male law-makers and made another war, of havin’ her grown-up
+babies face the cannons. I spoze it wuz when she wuz so awful tired she
+felt so.
+
+You see she had to do every mite of her housework, and milk cows, and
+make butter and cheese, and cook and wash and scour, and take all the
+care of the children day and night in sickness and health, and make
+their clothes and keep ’em clean. And when there wuz so many of ’em and
+she enjoyin’ real poor health, I spoze she sometimes thought more of
+her own achin’ back than she did of the good of the Govermunt—and she
+would git kinder discouraged sometimes and be cross to him. And knowin’
+his own motives wuz so high and loyal, he felt that he ort to whip her,
+so he did.
+
+And what shows that Drusilly wuzn’t so bad after all and did have her
+good streaks and a deep reverence for the law is, that she stood his
+whippin’s first-rate, and never whipped him. Now she wuz fur bigger
+than he wuz, weighed eighty pounds the most, and might have whipped him
+if the law had been such. But they wuz both law-abidin’ and wanted to
+keep every preamble, so she stood it to be whipped, and never once
+whipped him in all the seventeen years they lived together. She died
+when her twelfth child wuz born. There wuz jest ten months difference
+between that and the one next older. And they said she often spoke out
+in her last sickness, and said, “Thank fortune, I’ve always kep’ the
+law!” And they said the same thought wuz a great comfort to him in his
+last moments. He died about a year after she did, leavin’ his second
+wife with twins and a good property.
+
+Then there wuz Abagail Pester. She married a sort of a high-headed man,
+though one that paid his debts, wuz truthful, good lookin’, and played
+well on the fiddle. Why, it seemed as if he had almost every
+qualification for makin’ a woman happy, only he had this one little
+eccentricity, he would lock up Abagail’s clothes every time he got mad
+at her.
+
+Of course the law give her clothes to him, and knowin’ that it wuz the
+law in the state where they lived, she wouldn’t have complained only
+when they had company. But it wuz mortifyin’, nobody could dispute it,
+to have company come and have nothin’ to put on. Several times she had
+to withdraw into the woodhouse, and stay most all day there shiverin’,
+and under the suller stairs and round in clothes presses. But he
+boasted in prayer meetin’s and on boxes before grocery stores that he
+wuz a law-abidin’ citizen, and he wuz. Eben Flanders wouldn’t lie for
+anybody.
+
+But I’ll bet Abagail Flanders beat our old revolutionary four-mothers
+in thinkin’ out new laws, when she lay round under stairs and behind
+barrels in her night-gown. When a man hides his wife’s stockin’s and
+petticoats it is governin’ without the consent of the governed. If you
+don’t believe it you’d ort to peeked round them barrels and seen
+Abagail’s eyes, they had hull reams of by-laws in ’em and preambles,
+and Declarations of Independence, so I’ve been told. But it beat
+everything I ever hearn on, the lawful sufferin’s of them wimmen. For
+there wuzn’t nothin’ illegal about one single trouble of theirn. They
+suffered accordin’ to law, every one on ’em. But it wuz tuff for ’em,
+very tuff. And their bein’ so dretful humbly wuz another drawback to
+’em, though that too wuz perfectly lawful, as everybody knows.
+
+And Serepta looked as bad agin as she would otherwise on account of her
+teeth. It wuz after Lank had begun to git after this other woman, and
+wuz indifferent to his wife’s looks that Serepta had a new set of teeth
+on her upper jaw. And they sot out and made her look so bad it fairly
+made her ache to look at herself in the glass. And they hurt her gooms
+too, and she carried ’em back to the dentist and wanted him to make her
+another set, but he acted mean and wouldn’t take ’em back, and sued
+Lank for the pay. And they had a law-suit. And the law bein’ such that
+a woman can’t testify in court, in any matter that is of mutual
+interest to husband and wife, and Lank wantin’ to act mean, said that
+they wuz good sound teeth.
+
+And there Serepta sot right in front of ’em with her gooms achin’ and
+her face all swelled out, and lookin’ like furiation, and couldn’t say
+a word. But she had to give in to the law. And ruther than go toothless
+she wears ’em to this day, and I believe it is the raspin’ of them
+teeth aginst her gooms and her discouraged, mad feelin’s every time she
+looks in the glass that helps embitter her towards men, and the laws
+men have made, so’s a woman can’t have control of her own teeth and her
+own bones.
+
+Serepta went home about 5 P.M., I promisin’ sacred to do her errents
+for her.
+
+And I gin a deep, happy sithe after I shot the door behind her, and I
+sez to Josiah I do hope that’s the very last errent we will have to
+carry to Washington, D.C., for the Jonesvillians.
+
+“Yes,” says he, “an’ I guess I will get a fresh pail of water and hang
+on the tea kettle for you.”
+
+“And,” I says, “it’s pretty early for supper, but I’ll start it, for I
+do feel kinder gone to the stomach. Sympathy is real exhaustin’.
+Sometimes I think it tires me more’n hard work. And Heaven knows I
+sympathized with Serepta. I felt for her full as much as if she was one
+of the relations on _his_ side.”
+
+But if you’ll believe it, I had hardly got the words out of my mouth
+and Josiah had jest laid holt of the water pail, when in comes
+Philander Dagget, the President of the Jonesville Creation Searchin’
+Society and, of course, he had a job for us to do on our tower. This
+Society was started by the leadin’ men of Jonesville, for the purpose
+of searchin’ out and criticizin’ the affairs of the world, an’ so far
+as possible advisin’ and correctin’ the meanderin’s an’ wrong-doin’s of
+the universe.
+
+This Society, which we call the C.S.S. for short, has been ruther quiet
+for years. But sence woman’s suffrage has got to be such a prominent
+question, they bein’ so bitterly opposed to it, have reorganized and
+meet every once in a while, to sneer at the suffragettes and poke fun
+at ’em and show in every way they can their hitter antipathy to the
+cause.
+
+Philander told me if I see anything new and strikin’ in the way of
+Society badges and regalia, to let him know about it, for he said the
+C.S.S. was goin’ to take a decided stand and show their colors. They
+wuz goin’ to help protect his women endangered sect, an’ he wanted
+sunthin’ showy and suggestive.
+
+I thought of a number of badges and mottoes that I felt would be
+suitable for this Society, but dassent tell ’em to him, for his idees
+and mine on this subject are as fur apart as the two poles. He talked
+awful bitter to me once about it, and I sez to him:
+
+“Philander, the world is full of good men, and there are also bad men
+in the world, and, sez I, did you ever in your born days see a bad man
+that wuzn’t opposed to Woman’s Suffrage? All the men who trade in, and
+profit by, the weakness and sin of men and women, they every one of
+’em, to a man, fight agin it. And would they do this if they didn’t
+think that their vile trades would suffer if women had the right to
+vote? It is the great-hearted, generous, noble man who wants women to
+become a real citizen with himself—which she is not now—she is only a
+citizen just enough to be taxed equally with man, or more
+exhorbitantly, and be punished and executed by the law she has no hand
+in makin’.”
+
+Philander sed, “I have always found it don’t pay to talk with women on
+matters they don’t understand.”
+
+An’ he got up and started for the door, an’ Josiah sed, “No, it don’t
+pay, not a cent; I’ve always said so.”
+
+But I told Philander I’d let him know if I see anything appropriate to
+the C.S.S. Holdin’ back with a almost Herculaneum effort the mottoes
+and badges that run through my mind as bein’ appropriate to their
+society; knowin’ it would make him so mad if I told him of ’em—he never
+would neighbor with us again. And in three days’ time we sot sail. We
+got to the depo about an hour too early, but I wuz glad we wuz on time,
+for it would have worked Josiah up dretfully ef we hadn’t been, for he
+had spent most of the latter part of the night in gittin’ up and
+walkin’ out to the clock seein’ if it wuz train time. Jest before we
+started, who should come runnin’ down to the depo but Sam Nugent
+wantin’ to send a errent by me to Washington. He wunk me out to one
+side of the waitin’ room, and ast “if I’d try to git him a license to
+steal horses.”
+
+It kinder runs in the blood of the Nugents to love to steal, and he
+owned up it did, but he said he wanted the profit of it. But I told him
+I wouldn’t do any sech thing, an’ I looked at him in such a witherin’
+way that I should most probable withered him, only he is blind in one
+side, and I wuz on the blind side, but he argued with me, and said that
+it wuz no worse than to give licenses for other kinds of meanness.
+
+He said they give licenses now to steal—steal folkses senses away, and
+then they could steal everything else, and murder and tear round into
+every kind of wickedness. But he didn’t ask that. He wanted things done
+fair and square: he jest wanted to steal horses. He wuz goin’ West, and
+he thought he could do a good bizness, and lay up somethin’. If he had
+a license he shouldn’t be afraid of bein’ shet up or shot.
+
+But I refused the job with scorn; and jest as I wuz refusin’, the cars
+snorted, and I wuz glad they did. They seemed to express in that wild
+snort something of the indignation I felt.
+
+The idee!
+
+
+
+
+III.
+“POLLY’S EYES CROWED TENDER”
+
+
+Lorinda wuz dretful glad to see us and so wuz her husband and Polly.
+But the Reunion had to be put off on account of a spell her husband wuz
+havin’. Lorinda said she could not face such a big company as she’d
+invited while Hiram wuz havin’ a spell, and I agreed with her.
+
+Sez I, “Never, never, would I have invited company whilst Josiah wuz
+sufferin’ with one of his cricks.”
+
+Men hain’t patient under pain, and outsiders hain’t no bizness to hear
+things they say and tell on ’em. So Polly had to write to the relations
+puttin’ off the Reunion for one week. But Lorinda kep’ on cookin’ fruit
+cake and such that would keep, she had plenty of help, but loved to do
+her company cookin’ herself. And seein’ the Reunion wuz postponed and
+Lorinda had time on her hands, I proposed she should go with me to the
+big out-door meetin’ of the Suffragists, which wuz held in a nigh-by
+city.
+
+“Good land!” sez she, “nothin’ would tempt me to patronize anything so
+brazen and onwomanly as a out-door meetin’ of wimmen, and so onhealthy
+and immodest.” I see she looked reproachfully at Polly as she said it.
+Polly wuz arrangin’ some posies in a vase, and looked as sweet as the
+posies did, but considerable firm too, and I see from Lorinda’s looks
+that Polly wuz one who had to leave father and mother for principle’s
+sake.
+
+But I sez, “You’re cookin’ this minute, Lorinda, for a out-door
+meetin’” (she wuz makin’ angel cake). “And why is this meetin’ any more
+onwomanly or immodest than the camp-meetin’ where you wuz converted,
+and baptized the next Sunday in the creek?”
+
+“Oh, them wuz religious meetin’s,” sez she.
+
+“Well,” sez I, “mebby these wimmen think their meetin’ is religious.
+You know the Bible sez, ‘Faith and works should go together,’ and some
+of the leaders of this movement have showed by their works as religious
+a sperit and wielded aginst injustice to young workin’ wimmen as
+powerful a weepon as that axe of the ’Postles the Bible tells about.
+And you said you went every day to the Hudson-Fulton doin’s and hearn
+every out-door lecture; you writ me that there wuz probable a million
+wimmen attendin’ them out-door meetin’s, and that wuz curosity and
+pleasure huntin’ that took them, and this is a meetin’ of justice and
+right.”
+
+“Oh, shaw!” sez Lorinda agin, with her eye on Polly. “Wimmen have all
+the rights they want or need.” Lorinda’s husband bein’ rich and lettin’
+her have her way she is real foot loose, and don’t feel the need of any
+more rights for herself, but I told her then and there some of the
+wrongs and sufferin’s of Serepta Pester, and bein’ good-hearted (but
+obstinate and bigoted) she gin in that the errents wuz hefty, and that
+Serepta wuz to be pitied, but she insisted that wimmen’s votin’
+wouldn’t help matters.
+
+But Euphrasia Pottle, a poor relation from Troy, spoke up. “After my
+husband died one of my girls went into a factory and gits about half
+what the men git for the same work, and my oldest girl who teaches in
+the public school don’t git half as much for the same work as men do,
+and her school rooms are dark, stuffy, onhealthy, and crowded so the
+children are half-choked for air, and the light so poor they’re havin’
+their eyesight spilte for life, and new school books not needed at all,
+are demanded constantly, so some-one can make money.”
+
+“Yes,” sez I, “do you spoze, Lorinda, if intelligent mothers helped
+control such things they would let their children be made sick and
+blind and the money that should be used for food for poor hungry
+children be squandered on _on_-necessary books they are too faint with
+hunger to study.”
+
+“But wimmen’s votin’ wouldn’t help in such things,” sez Lorinda, as she
+stirred her angel cake vigorously.
+
+But Euphrasia sez, “My niece, Ellen, teaches in a state where wimmen
+vote and she gits the same wages men git for the same work, and her
+school rooms are bright and pleasant and sanitary, and the pupils, of
+course, are well and happy. And if you don’t think wimmen can help in
+such public matters just go to Seattle and see how quick a bad man wuz
+yanked out of his public office and a good man put in his place, mostly
+by wimmen’s efforts and votes.”
+
+“Yes,” sez I, “it is a proved fact that wimmen’s votes do help in these
+matters. And do you think, Lorinda, that if educated, motherly,
+thoughtful wimmen helped make the laws so many little children would be
+allowed to toil in factories and mines, their tender shoulders bearin’
+the burden of constant labor that wears out the iron muscles of men?”
+
+Polly’s eyes growed tender and wistful, and her little white hands
+lingered over her posies, and I knowed the hard lot of the poor, the
+wrongs of wimmen and children, the woes of humanity, wuz pressin’ down
+on her generous young heart. And I could see in her sweet face the
+brave determination to do and to dare, to try to help ondo the wrongs,
+and try to lift the burdens from weak and achin’ shoulders. But Lorinda
+kep’ on with the same old moth-eaten argument so broke down and feeble
+it ort to be allowed to die in peace.
+
+“Woman’s suffrage would make women neglect their homes and housework
+and let their children run loose into ruin.”
+
+I knowed she said it partly on Polly’s account, but I sez in surprise,
+“Why, Lorinda, it must be you hain’t read up on the subject or you
+would know wherever wimmen has voted they have looked out first of all
+for the children’s welfare. They have raised the age of consent, have
+closed saloons and other places of licensed evil, and in every way it
+has been their first care to help ’em to safer and more moral
+surroundin’s, for who has the interest of children more at heart than
+the mothers who bore them, children who are the light of their eyes and
+the hope of the future.”
+
+Lorinda admitted that the state of the children in the homes of the
+poor and ignorant wuz pitiful. “But,” sez she, “the Bible sez ‘ye shall
+always have the poor with you,’ and I spoze we always shall, with all
+their sufferin’s and wants. But,” sez she, “in well-to-do homes the
+children are safe and well off, and don’t need any help from woman
+legislation.”
+
+“Why, Lorinda,” sez I, “did you ever think on’t how such mothers may
+watch over and be the end of the law to their children with the
+father’s full consent during infancy when they’re wrastlin’ with
+teethin’, whoopin’-cough, mumps, etc., can be queen of the nursery,
+dispensor of pure air, sunshine, sanitary, and safe surroundin’s in
+every way, and then in a few years see ’em go from her into dark,
+overcrowded, unsanitary, carelessly guarded places, to spend the
+precious hours when they are the most receptive to influence and pass
+man-made pitfalls on their way to and fro, must stand helpless until in
+too many cases the innocent healthy child that went from her care
+returns to her half-blind, a physical and moral wreck. The mother who
+went down to death’s door for ’em, and had most to do in mouldin’ their
+destiny during infancy should have at least equal rights with the
+father in controllin’ their surroundin’s during their entire youth, and
+to do this she must have equal legal power or her best efforts are
+wasted. That this is just and right is as plain to me as the nose on my
+face and folks will see it bom-bye and wonder they didn’t before.
+
+“And wimmen who suffer most by the lack on’t, will be most interested
+in openin’ schools to teach the fine art of domestic service, teachin’
+young girls how to keep healthy comfortable homes and fit themselves to
+be capable wives and mothers. I don’t say or expect that wimmen’s
+votin’ will make black white, or wash all the stains from the
+legislative body at once, but I say that jest the effort to git
+wimmen’s suffrage has opened hundreds of bolted doors and full suffrage
+will open hundreds more. And I’m goin’ to that woman’s suffrage meetin’
+if I walk afoot.”
+
+But here Josiah spoke up, I thought he wuz asleep, he wuz layin’ on the
+lounge with a paper over his face. But truly the word, “Woman’s
+Suffrage,” rousts him up as quick as a mouse duz a drowsy cat, so, sez
+he, “I can’t let you go, Samantha, into any such dangerous and
+onwomanly affair.”
+
+“Let?” sez I in a dry voice; “that’s a queer word from one old pardner
+to another.”
+
+“I’m responsible for your safety, Samantha, and if anybody goes to that
+dangerous and onseemly meetin’ I will. Mebby Polly would like to go
+with me.” As stated, Polly is as pretty as a pink posy, and no matter
+how old a man is, nor how interestin’ and noble his pardner is, he
+needs girl blinders, yes, he needs ’em from the cradle to the grave.
+But few, indeed, are the female pardners who can git him to wear ’em.
+
+He added, “You know I represent you legally, Samantha; what I do is
+jest the same as though you did it.”
+
+Sez I, “Mebby that is law, but whether it is gospel is another
+question. But if you represent me, Josiah, you will have to carry out
+my plans; I writ to Diantha Smith Trimble that if I went to the city
+I’d take care of Aunt Susan a night or two, and rest her a spell; you
+know Diantha is a widder and too poor to hire a nurse. But seein’ you
+represent me you can set up with her Ma a night or two; she’s bed-rid
+and you’ll have to lift her round some, and give her her medicine and
+take care of Diantha’s twins, and let her git a good sleep.”
+
+“Well, as it were—Samantha—you know—men hain’t expected to represent
+wimmen in everything, it is mostly votin’ and tendin’ big meetin’s and
+such.”
+
+“Oh, I see,” sez I; “men represent wimmen when they want to, and when
+they don’t wimmen have got to represent themselves.”
+
+“Well, yes, Samantha, sunthin’ like that.”
+
+He didn’t say anything more about representin’ me, and Polly said she
+wuz goin’ to ride in the parade with some other college girls.
+Lorinda’s linement looked dark and forbiddin’ as Polly stated in her
+gentle, but firm way this ultimatum. Lorinda hated the idee of Polly’s
+jinin’ in what she called onwomanly and immodest doin’s, but I looked
+beamin’ly at her and gloried in her principles.
+
+After she went out Lorinda said to me in a complainin’ way, “I should
+think that a girl that had every comfort and luxury would be contented
+and thankful, and be willin’ to stay to home and act like a lady.”
+
+Sez I, “Nothin’ could keep Polly from actin’ like a lady, and mebby it
+is because she is so well off herself that makes her sorry for other
+young girls that have nothin’ but poverty and privation.”
+
+“Oh, nonsense!” sez Lorinda. But I knowed jest how it wuz. Polly bein’
+surrounded by all the good things money could give, and bein’ so
+tender-hearted her heart ached for other young girls, who had to spend
+the springtime of their lives in the hard work of earnin’ bread for
+themselves and dear ones, and she longed to help ’em to livin’ wages,
+so they could exist without the wages of sin, and too many on ’em had
+to choose between them black wages and starvation. She wanted to help
+’em to better surroundin’s and she knowed the best weepon she could put
+into their hands to fight the wolves of Want and Temptation, wuz the
+ballot. Polly hain’t a mite like her Ma, she favors the Smiths more,
+her grand-ma on her pa’s side wuz a Smith and a woman of brains and
+principle.
+
+Durin’ my conversation with Lorinda, I inquired about Royal Gray, for
+as stated, he wuz a great favorite of ourn, and I found out (and I
+could see it gaulded her) that when Polly united with the Suffragists
+he shied off some, and went to payin’ attention to another girl.
+Whether it wuz to make Polly jealous and bring her round to his way of
+thinkin’, I didn’t know, but mistrusted, for I could have took my oath
+that he loved Polly deeply and truly. To be sure he hadn’t confided in
+me, but there is a language of the eyes, when the soul speaks through
+’em, and as I’d seen him look at Polly my own soul had hearn and
+understood that silent language and translated it, that Polly wuz the
+light of his eyes, and the one woman in the world for him. And I
+couldn’t think his heart had changed so sudden. But knowin’ as I did
+the elastic nature of manly affection, I felt dubersome.
+
+This other girl, Maud Vincent, always said to her men friends, it wuz
+onwomanly to try to vote. She wuz one of the girls who always gloried
+in bein’ a runnin’ vine when there wuz any masculine trees round to
+lean on and twine about. One who always jined in with all the idees
+they promulgated, from neckties to the tariff, who declared cigar smoke
+wuz so agreeable and welcome; it did really make her deathly sick, but
+she would choke herself cheerfully and willin’ly if by so chokin’ she
+could gain manly favor and admiration.
+
+She said she didn’t believe in helpin’ poor girls, they wuz well enough
+off as it wuz, she wuz sure they didn’t feel hunger and cold as rich
+girls did, their skin wuz thicker and their stomachs different and
+stronger, and constant labor didn’t harm them, and working girls didn’t
+need recreation as rich girls did, and woman’s suffrage wouldn’t help
+them any; in her opinion it would harm them, and anyway the poor wuz
+on-grateful.
+
+She had the usual arguments on the tip of her tongue, for old Miss
+Vincent, the aunt she lived with, wuz a ardent She Aunty and very
+prominent in the public meetin’s the She Auntys have to try to compel
+the Suffragists not to have public meetin’s. They talk a good deal in
+public how onwomanly and immodest it is for wimmen to talk in public.
+And she wuz one of the foremost ones in tryin’ to git up a school to
+teach wimmen civics, to prove that they mustn’t ever have anything to
+do with civics.
+
+Yes, old Miss Vincent wuz a real active, ardent She Aunty, and Maud
+Genevieve takes after her. Royal Gray, his handsome attractive
+personality, and his millions, had long been the goal of Maud’s
+ambition. And how ardently did she hail the coolness growing between
+him and Polly, the little rift in the lute, and how zealously did she
+labor to make it larger.
+
+Polly and Royal had had many an argument on the subject, that is, he
+would begin by makin’ fun of the Suffragists and their militant doin’s,
+which if he’d thought on’t wuz sunthin’ like what his old revolutionary
+forbears went through for the same reasons, bein’ taxed without
+representation, and bein’ burdened and punished by the law they had no
+voice in making, only the Suffragettes are not nearly so severe with
+their opposers, they haven’t drawed any blood yet. Why, them old
+Patriots we revere so, would consider their efforts for freedom
+exceedingly gentle and tame compared to their own bloody battles.
+
+And Royal would make light of the efforts of college girls to help
+workin’ girls, and the encouragement and aid they’d gin ’em when they
+wuz strikin’ for less death-dealin’ hours of labor, and livin’ wages,
+and so forth. I don’t see how such a really noble young man as Royal
+ever come to argy that way, but spoze it wuz the dead hand of some
+rough onreasonable old ancestor reachin’ up out of the shadows of the
+past and pushin’ him on in the wrong direction.
+
+So when he begun to ridicule what Polly’s heart wuz sot on, when she
+felt that he wuz fightin’ agin right and justice, before they knowed it
+both pairs of bright eyes would git to flashin’ out angry sparks, and
+hash words would be said on both sides. That old long-buried Tory
+ancestor of hisen eggin’ him on, so I spoze, and Polly’s generous
+sperit rebellin’ aginst the injustice and selfishness, and mebby some
+warlike ancestor of hern pushin’ her on to say hash things. ’Tennyrate
+he had grown less attentive to her, and wuz bestowin’ his time and
+attentions elsewhere.
+
+And when she told him she wuz goin’ to ride in the automobile parade of
+the suffragists, but really ridin’ she felt towards truth and justice
+to half the citizens of the U.S., he wuz mad as a wet hen, a male wet
+hen, and wuz bound she shouldn’t go.
+
+Some men, and mebby it is love that makes ’em feel so (they say it is),
+and mebby it is selfishness (though they won’t own up to it), but they
+want the women they love to belong to them alone, want to rule
+absolutely over their hearts, their souls, their bodies, and all their
+thoughts and aims, desires, and fancies. They don’t really say they
+want ’em to wear veils, and be shet in behind lattice-windowed harems,
+but I believe they would enjoy it.
+
+They want to be foot loose and heart loose themselves, but always after
+Ulysses is tired of world wandering, he wants to come back and open the
+barred doors of home with his own private latch-key, and find Penelope
+knitting stockings for him with her veil on, waitin’ for him.
+
+That sperit is I spoze inherited from the days when our ancestor, the
+Cave man, would knock down the woman he fancied, with a club, and carry
+her off into his cave and keep her there shet up. But little by little
+men are forgettin’ their ancestral traits, and men and wimmen are
+gradually comin’ out of their dark caverns into the sunshine (for women
+too have inherited queer traits and disagreeable ones, but that is
+another story).
+
+Well, as I said, Royal wuz mad and told Polly that he guessed that the
+day of the Parade he would take Maud Vincent out in the country in his
+motor, to gather May-flowers. Polly told him she hoped they would have
+a good time, and then, after he had gone, drivin’ his car
+lickety-split, harem skarum, owin’ to his madness I spoze, Polly went
+upstairs and cried, for I hearn her, her room wuz next to ourn.
+
+And I deeply respected her for her principles, for he had asked her
+first to go May-flowering with him the day of the Suffrage meeting. But
+she refused, havin’ in her mind, I spoze, the girls that couldn’t hunt
+flowers, but had to handle weeds and thistles with bare hands
+(metaforically) and wanted to help them and all workin’ wimmen to
+happier and more prosperous lives.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+“STRIVIN’ WITH THE EMISSARY”
+
+
+But I am hitchin’ the horse behind the wagon and to resoom backwards.
+The Reunion wuz put off a week and the Suffrage Meetin’ wuz two days
+away, so I told Lorinda I didn’t believe I would have a better time to
+carry Serepta Pester’s errents to Washington, D.C. Josiah said he
+guessed he would stay and help wait on Hiram Cagwin, and I approved
+on’t, for Lorinda wuz gittin’ wore out.
+
+And then Josiah made so light of them errents I felt that he would be a
+drawback instead of a help, for how could I keep a calm and noble frame
+of mind befittin’ them lofty errents, and how could I carry ’em stiddy
+with a pardner by my side pokin’ fun at ’em, and at me for carryin’
+’em, jarrin’ my sperit with his scorfin’ and onbelievin’ talk?
+
+And as I sot off alone in the trolley I thought of how they must have
+felt in old times a-carryin’ the Urim and Thumim. And though I hadn’t
+no idee what them wuz, yet I always felt that the carriers of ’em must
+have felt solemn and high-strung. Yes, my feelin’s wuz such as I felt
+of the heft and importance of them errents not alone to Serepta Pester,
+but to the hull race of wimmen that it kep’ my mental head rained up so
+high that I couldn’t half see and enjoy the sight of the most beautiful
+city in the world, and still I spoze its grandeur and glory sort o’
+filtered down through my conscientiousness, as cloth grows white under
+the sun’s rays onbeknown to it.
+
+Anon I left the trolley and walked some ways afoot. It wuz a lovely
+day, the sun shone down in golden splendor upon the splendor beneath
+it. Broad, beautiful clean streets, little fresh green parks,
+everywhere you could turn about, and big ones full of flowers and
+fountains, and trees and statutes.
+
+And anon or oftener I passed noble big stun buildings, where everything
+is made for the nation’s good and profit. Money and fish and wisdom and
+all sorts of patented things and garden seeds and tariffs and
+resolutions and treaties and laws of every shape and size, good ones
+and queer ones and reputations and rates and rebates, etc., etc. But it
+would devour too much time to even name over all that is made and
+onmade there, even if I knowed by name the innumerable things that are
+flowin’ constant out of that great reservoir of the Nation, with its
+vast crowd of law-makers settin’ on the lid, regulatin’ its flow and
+spreadin’ it abroad over the country, thick and thin.
+
+But on I went past the Capitol, the handsomest buildin’ on the Globe,
+standin’ in its own Eden of beauty. By the Public Library as long as
+from our house to Grout Hozleton’s, and I guess longer, and every foot
+on’t more beautifler ornamented than tongue can tell. But I didn’t
+dally tryin’ to pace off the size on’t, though it wuz enormous, for the
+thought of what I wuz carryin’ bore me on almost regardless of my
+matchless surroundin’s and the twinges of rumatiz.
+And anon I arrived at the White House, where my hopes and the hopes of
+my sect and Serepta Pester wuz sot. I will pass over my efforts to git
+into the Presence, merely sayin’ that they were arjous and extreme, and
+I wouldn’t probably have got in at all had not the Presence appeared
+with a hat on jest goin’ out for a walk, and see me as I wuz strivin’
+with the emissary for entrance. I spoze my noble mean, made more noble
+fur by the magnitude of what I wuz carryin’, impressed him, for suffice
+it to say inside of five minutes the Presence wuz back in his augience
+room, and I wuz layin’ out them errents of Serepta’s in front of him.
+
+He wuz very hefty, a good-lookin’ smilin’ man, a politer demeanored
+gentlemanly appearner man I don’t want to see. But his linement which
+had looked so pleasant and cheerful growed gloomy and deprested as I
+spread them errents before him and sez in conclusion:
+
+“Serepta Pester sent these errents to you, she wanted intemperance done
+away with, the Whiskey Ring broke up and destroyed, she wanted you to
+have nothin’ stronger than root beer when you had company to dinner,
+she offerin’ to send you some burdock and dandeline roots and some
+emptins to start it with, and she wanted her rights, and wanted ’em all
+by week after next without fail.”
+
+He sithed hard, and I never see a linement fall furder than hisen fell,
+and kep’ a-fallin’. I pitied him, I see it wuz a hard stent for him to
+do it in the time she had sot, and he so fleshy too. But knowin’ how
+much wuz at the stake, and how the fate of Serepta and wimmen wuz
+tremblin’ in the balances, I spread them errents out before him. And
+bein’ truthful and above board, I told him that Serepta wuz middlin’
+disagreeable and very humbly, but she needed her rights jest as much as
+though she wuz a wax-doll. And I went on and told him how she and her
+relations had suffered from want of rights, and how dretfully she had
+suffered from the Ring till I declare talkin’ about them little
+children of hern, and her agony, I got about as fierce actin’ as
+Serepta herself, and entirely onbeknown to myself I talked powerful on
+intemperance and Rings, and such.
+
+When I got down agin onto my feet I see he had a still more worried and
+anxious look on his good-natured face, and he sez: “The laws of the
+United States are such that I can’t do them errands, I can’t
+interfere.”
+
+“Then,” sez I, “why don’t you make the United States do right?”
+
+He said sunthin’ about the might of the majority, and the powerful
+corporations and rings, and that sot me off agin. And I talked very
+powerful and allegored about allowin’ a ring to be put round the United
+States and let a lot of whiskey dealers and corporations lead her
+round, a pitiful sight for men and angels. Sez I, “How duz it look
+before the nations to see Columbia led round half-tipsy by a Ring?”
+
+He seemed to think it looked bad, I knew by his looks.
+
+Sez I, “Intemperance is bad for Serepta and bad for the Nation.”
+
+He murmured sunthin’ about the revenue the liquor trade brought the
+Govermunt.
+
+But I sez, “Every penny is money right out of the people’s pockets;
+every dollar the people pay into the liquor traffic that gives a few
+cents into the treasury, is costin’ the people ten times that dollar in
+the loss intemperance entails, loss of labor, by the inability of
+drunken men to do anything but wobble and stagger, loss of wealth by
+the enormous losses of property and taxation, of alms-houses,
+mad-houses, jails, police forces, paupers’ coffins, and the diggin’ of
+thousands and thousands of graves that are filled yearly by them that
+reel into ’em.” Sez I, “Wouldn’t it be better for the people to pay
+that dollar in the first place into the treasury than to let it filter
+through the dram-seller’s hands, a few cents of it fallin’ into the
+national purse at last, putrid and heavy with all these losses and
+curses and crimes and shames and despairs and agonies?”
+
+He seemed to think it would, I see by the looks of his linement he did.
+Every honorable man feels so in his heart, and yet they let the Liquor
+Ring control ’em and lead ’em round. “It is queer, queer as a dog.” Sez
+I, “The intellectual and moral power of the United States are rolled up
+and thrust into that Whiskey Ring and bein’ drove by the whiskey
+dealers jest where they want to drive ’em.” Sez I, “It controls New
+York village and nobody denies it, and the piety and philanthropy and
+culture and philosophy of that village has to be drawed along by that
+Ring.” And sez I, in low but startlin’ tones of principle:
+
+“Where, where is it a-drawin’ ’em to? Where is it drawin’ the hull
+nation to? Is it drawin’ ’em down into a slavery ten times more abject
+and soul-destroyin’ than African slavery ever wuz? Tell me,” sez I
+firmly, “tell me!”
+
+He did not try to frame a reply, he could not find a frame. He knowed
+it wuz a conundrum boundless as truth and God’s justice, and as
+solemnly deep in its sure consequences of evil as eternity, and as sure
+to come as that is.
+
+Oh, how solemn he looked, and how sorry I felt for him, for I knowed
+worse wuz to come, I knowed the sharpest arrow Serepta Pester had sent
+wuz yet to pierce his sperit. But I sort o’ blunted the edge on’t what
+I could conscientiously. Sez I, “I think myself Serepta is a little
+onreasonable, I myself am willin’ to wait three or four weeks. But
+she’s suffered dretful from intemperance from the Rings and from the
+want of rights, and her sufferin’s have made her more voylent in her
+demands and impatienter,” and then I fairly groaned as I did the rest
+of the errent, and let the sharpest arrow fly from the bo.
+
+“Serepta told me to tell you if you didn’t do these errents you should
+not be President next year.”
+
+He trembled like a popple leaf, and I felt that Serepta wuz threatenin’
+him too hard. Sez he, “I do not wish to be President again, I shall
+refuse to be nominated. At the same time I _do_ wish to be President
+and shall work hard for the nomination if you can understand the
+paradox.”
+
+“Yes,” sez I, “I understand them paradoxes. I’ve lived with ’em as you
+may say, all through my married life.”
+
+A clock struck in the next room and I knowed time wuz passin’ swift.
+
+Sez the President, “I would be glad to do Serepta’s errents, I think
+she is justified in askin’ for her rights, and to have the Ring
+destroyed, but I am not the one to do them.”
+
+Sez I, “Who is the man or men?”
+
+He looked all round the room and up and down as if in hopes he could
+see someone layin’ round on the floor, or danglin’ from the ceilin’,
+that would take the responsibility offen him, and in the very nick of
+time the door opened after a quick rap, and the President jumped up
+with a relieved look on his linement, and sez:
+
+“Here is the very man to do the errents.” And he hastened to introduce
+me to the Senator who entered. And then he bid me a hasty adoo, but
+cordial and polite, and withdrew himself.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+“HE WUZ DRETFUL POLITE”
+
+
+I felt glad to have this Senator do Serepta’s errents, but I didn’t
+like his looks. My land! talk about Serepta Pester bein’ disagreeable,
+he wuz as disagreeable as she any day. He wuz kinder tall and looked
+out of his eyes and wore a vest. He wuz some bald-headed, and wore a
+large smile all the while, it looked like a boughten one that didn’t
+fit him, but I won’t say it wuz. I presoom he’ll be known by this
+description. But his baldness didn’t look to me like Josiah Allen’s
+baldness, and he didn’t have the noble linement of the President, no
+indeed. He wuz dretful polite, good land! politeness is no name for it,
+but I don’t like to see anybody too good. He drawed a chair up for me
+and himself and asked me:
+
+If he should have the inexpressible honor and delightful joy of aiding
+me in any way, if so to command him to do it or words to that effect. I
+can’t put down his second-hand smiles and genteel looks and don’t want
+to if I could.
+
+But tacklin’ hard jobs as I always tackle ’em, I sot down calm in front
+of him with my umbrell on my lap and told him all of Serepta’s errents,
+and how I had brought ’em from Jonesville on my tower. I told over all
+her sufferin’s and wrongs from the Rings and from not havin’ her
+rights, and all her sister’s Azuba Clapsaddle’s, and her Aunt Cassandra
+Keeler’s, and Hulda and Drusilly’s and Abagail Flanderses injustices
+and sufferin’s. I did her errents as honorable as I’d love to have one
+done for me, I told him all the petickulars, and as I finished I said
+firmly:
+
+“Now can you do Serepta Pesterses errents and will you?”
+
+He leaned forward with that disagreeable boughten smile of hisen and
+took up one corner of my mantilly, it wuz cut tab fashion, and he took
+up the tab and said in a low insinuatin’ voice, lookin’ clost at the
+edge of the tab:
+
+“Am I mistaken, or is this beautiful creation pipein’ or can it be
+Kensington tattin’?”
+
+I drawed the tab back coldly and never dained a reply; agin he sez, in
+a tone of amiable anxiety, “Have I not heard a rumor that bangs are
+going out of style? I see you do not wear your lovely hair bang-like or
+a-pompadouris? Ah, women are lovely creatures, lovely beings, every one
+of ’em.” And he sithed, “You are very beautiful,” and he sithed agin, a
+sort of a deceitful lovesick sithe. I sot demute as the Spinks, and a
+chippin’ bird tappin’ his wing aginst her stuny breast would move it
+jest as much as he moved me by his talk or his sithes. But he kep’ on,
+puttin’ on a sort of a sad injured look as if my coldness wuz ondoin’
+of him.
+
+“My dear madam, it is my misfortune that the topics I introduce,
+however carefully selected by me, do not seem to be congenial to you.
+Have you a leanin’ toward Natural history, madam? Have you ever studied
+into the habits and traits of our American Wad?”
+
+“What?” sez I. For truly a woman’s curosity, however parlyzed by just
+indignation, can stand only just so much strain. “The what?”
+
+“The wad. The animal from which is obtained the valuable fur that
+tailors make so much use of.”
+
+Sez I, “Do you mean waddin’ eight cents a sheet?”
+
+“Eight cents a pelt—yes, the skins are plentiful and cheap, owing to
+the hardy habits of the animal.”
+
+Sez I, “Cease instantly. I will hear no more.”
+
+Truly, I had heard much of the flattery and little talk statesmen will
+use to wimmen, and I’d hearn of their lies, etc.; but truly I felt that
+the half had not been told. And then I thought out-loud and sez:
+
+“I’ve hearn how laws of eternal right and justice are sot one side in
+Washington, D.C., as bein’ too triflin’ to attend to, while the
+Legislators pondered over and passed laws regardin’ hen’s eggs and
+bird’s nests. But this is goin’ too fur—too fur. But,” sez I firmly, “I
+shall do Serepta’s errents, and do ’em to the best of my ability, and
+you can’t draw off my attention from her wrongs and sufferin’s by
+talkin’ about wads.”
+
+“I would love to obleege Serepta,” sez he, “because she belongs to such
+a lovely sect. Wimmen are the loveliest, most angelic creatures that
+ever walked the earth; they are perfect, flawless, like snow and
+roses.”
+
+Sez I firmly, “They hain’t no such thing; they are disagreeable
+creeters a good deal of the time. They hain’t no better than men, but
+they ort to have their rights all the same. Now Serepta is disagreeable
+and kinder fierce actin’, and jest as humbly as they make wimmen, but
+that hain’t no sign she ort to be imposed upon; Josiah sez she hadn’t
+ort to have rights she is so humbly, but I don’t feel so.”
+
+“Who is Josiah?” sez he.
+
+Sez I, “My husband.”
+
+“Ah, your husband! Yes, wimmen should have husbands instead of rights.
+They do not need rights; they need freedom from all cares and
+sufferin’. Sweet lovely beings! let them have husbands to lift them
+above all earthly cares and trials! Oh! angels of our homes!” sez he,
+liftin’ his eyes to the heavens and kinder shettin’ ’em, some as if he
+wuz goin’ into a spazzum. “Fly around, ye angels, in your native hants;
+mingle not with rings and vile laws, flee away, flee above them!”
+
+And he kinder waved his hand back and forth in a floatin’ fashion up in
+the air, as if it wuz a woman flyin’ up there smooth and serene. It
+would have impressed some folks dretful, but it didn’t me. I sez
+reasonably:
+
+“Serepta would have been glad to flew above ’em, but the Ring and the
+vile laws lay holt of her onbeknown to her and dragged her down. And
+there she is all bruised and broken-hearted by ’em. She didn’t meddle
+with the political Ring, but the Ring meddled with her. How can she fly
+when the weight of this infamous traffic is holdin’ her down?”
+
+“Ahem!” sez he. “Ahem, as it were. As I was saying, my dear madam,
+these angelic angels of our homes are too ethereal, too dainty to
+mingle with rude crowds. We political men would fain keep them as they
+are now; we are willing to stand the rude buffetin’ of—of—voting, in
+order to guard these sweet delicate creatures from any hardships. Sweet
+tender beings, we would fain guard thee—ah, yes, ah, yes.”
+
+Sez I, “Cease instantly, or my sickness will increase, for such talk is
+like thoroughwort or lobelia to my moral and mental stomach. You know
+and I know that these angelic tender bein’s, half-clothed, fill our
+streets on icy midnights, huntin’ up drunken husbands and fathers and
+sons. They are driven to death and to moral ruin by the miserable want
+liquor drinkin’ entails. They are starved, they are froze, they are
+beaten, they are made childless and hopeless by drunken husbands
+killin’ their own flesh and blood. They go down into the cold waves and
+are drowned by drunken captains; they are cast from railways into death
+by drunken engineers; they go up on the scaffold and die for crimes
+committed by the direct aid of this agent of Hell.
+
+“Wimmen had ruther be flyin’ round than to do all this, but they can’t.
+If men really believed all they say about wimmen, and I think some on
+’em do in a dreamy sentimental way—If wimmen are angels, give ’em the
+rights of angels. Who ever hearn of a angel foldin’ up her wings and
+goin’ to a poor-house or jail through the fault of somebody else? Who
+ever hearn of a angel bein’ dragged off to police court for fightin’ to
+defend her children and herself from a drunken husband that had broke
+her wings and blacked her eyes, got the angel into the fight and then
+she got throwed into the streets and imprisoned by it? Who ever hearn
+of a angel havin’ to take in washin’ to support a drunken son or father
+or husband? Who ever hearn of a angel goin’ out as wet-nurse to git
+money to pay taxes on her home to a Govermunt that in theory idolizes
+her, and practically despises her, and uses that money in ways
+abominable to that angel. If you want to be consistent, if you’re bound
+to make angels of wimmen, you ort to furnish a free safe place for ’em
+to soar in. You ort to keep the angels from bein’ tormented and bruised
+and killed, etc.”
+
+“Ahem,” sez he, “as it were, ahem.”
+
+But I kep’ right on, for I begun to feel noble and by the side of
+myself:
+
+“This talk about wimmen bein’ outside and above all participation in
+the laws of her country, is jest as pretty as anything I ever hearn,
+and jest as simple. Why, you might jest as well throw a lot of
+snowflakes into the street, and say, ‘Some of ’em are female flakes and
+mustn’t be trompled on.’ The great march of life tromples on ’em all
+alike; they fall from one common sky, and are trodden down into one
+common ground.
+
+“Men and wimmen are made with divine impulses and desires, and human
+needs and weaknesses, needin’ the same heavenly light, and the same
+human aids and helps. The law should mete out to them the same rewards
+and punishments.
+
+“Serepta sez you call wimmen angels, and you don’t give ’em the rights
+of the lowest beasts that crawl on the earth. And Serepta told me to
+tell you that she didn’t ask the rights of a angel; she would be
+perfectly contented and proud, if you would give her the rights of a
+dog—the assured political rights of a yeller dog.’ She said yeller and
+I’m bound on doin’ her ’errent jest as she wanted it done, word for
+word.
+
+“A dog, Serepta sez, don’t have to be hung if it breaks the laws it is
+not allowed any hand in making; a dog don’t have to pay taxes on its
+bone to a Govermunt that withholds every right of citizenship from it;
+a dog hain’t called undogly if it is industrious and hunts quietly
+round for its bone to the best of its ability, and tries to git its
+share of the crumbs that falls from that table bills are laid on.
+
+“A dog hain’t preached to about its duty to keep home sweet and sacred,
+and then see that home turned into a place of danger and torment under
+laws that these very preachers have made legal and respectable. A dog
+don’t have to see its property taxed to advance laws it believes
+ruinous, and that breaks its own heart and the heart of other dear
+dogs. A dog don’t have to listen to soul-sickening speeches from them
+that deny it freedom and justice, about its bein’ a damask rose and a
+seraph, when it knows it hain’t; it knows, if it knows anything, that
+it is jest a plain dog.
+
+“You see Serepta has been embittered by the trials that politics,
+corrupt legislation have brought right onto her. She didn’t want
+nothin’ to do with ’em, but they come onto her onexpected and
+onbeknown, and she feels that she must do everything she can to alter
+matters. She wants to help make the laws that have such a overpowerin’
+influence over her. She believes they can’t be much worse than they are
+now, and may be a little better.”
+
+“Ah,” interrupted the Senator, “if Serepta wishes to change political
+affairs, let her influence her children, her boys, and they will carry
+her benign and noble influence forward into the centuries.”
+
+“But the law took her boy, her little boy and girl, away from her.
+Through the influence of the Whiskey Ring, of which her husband wuz a
+shinin’ member, he got possession of her boy. And so the law has made
+it perfectly impossible for her to mould it indirectly through him,
+what Serepta duz she must do herself.”
+
+“Ah! my dear woman. A sad thing for Serepta; I trust _you_ have no
+grievance of this kind, I trust that your estimable husband is, as it
+were, estimable.”
+
+“Yes, Josiah Allen is a good man, as good as men can be. You know men
+or wimmen can’t be only jest about so good anyway. But he’s my choice,
+and he don’t drink a drop.”
+
+“Pardon me, madam, but if you are happy in your married relations, and
+your husband is a temperate good man, why do you feel so upon this
+subject?”
+
+“Why, good land! if you understood the nature of a woman you would know
+my love for him, my happiness, the content and safety I feel about him
+and our boy, makes me realize the sufferin’s of Serepta in havin’ her
+husband and boy lost to her; makes me realize the depth of a wife’s and
+mother’s agony when she sees the one she loves goin’ down, down so low
+she can’t reach him; makes me feel how she must yearn to help him in
+some safe sure way.
+
+“High trees cast long shadows. The happier and more blessed a woman’s
+life is, the more duz she feel for them that are less blessed than she.
+Highest love goes lowest, like that love that left Heaven and descended
+to earth, and into it that He might lift up the lowly. The pityin’
+words of Him who went about pleasin’ not Himself, hants me and inspires
+me; I’m sorry for Serepta, sorry for the hull wimmen race of the
+nation, and for the men too. Lots of ’em are good creeters, better than
+wimmen, some on ’em. They want to do right, but don’t exactly see the
+way to do it. In the old slavery times some of the masters wuz more to
+be pitied than the slaves. They could see the injustice, feel the wrong
+they wuz doin’, but old chains of Custom bound ’em, social customs and
+idees had hardened into habits of thought.
+
+“They realized the size and heft of the evil, but didn’t know how to
+grapple with it, and throw it. So now, many men see the evils of this
+time, want to help, but don’t know the best way to lay holt of ’em.
+Life is a curious conundrum anyway, and hard to guess. But we can try
+to git the right answer to it as fur as we can. Serepta feels that one
+of the answers to the conundrum is in gittin’ her rights. I myself have
+got all the rights I need or want, as fur as my own happiness is
+concerned. My home is my castle (a story and a half wooden one, but
+dear). My towers elevate me, the companionship of my friends give
+social happiness, our children are prosperous and happy. We have
+property enough for all the comforts of life. And above all other
+things my Josiah is my love and my theme.”
+
+“Ah, yes!” sez he, “love is a woman’s empire, and in that she should
+find her full content—her entire happiness and thought. A womanly woman
+will not look outside that lovely and safe and beautious empire.”
+
+Sez I firmly, “If she hain’t a idiot she can’t help it. Love is the
+most beautiful thing on earth, the most holy and satisfyin’. But I do
+not ask you as a politician, but as a human bein’, which would you like
+best, the love of a strong, earnest tender nature, for in man or woman
+‘the strongest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring,’ which
+would you like best, the love and respect of such a nature full of wit,
+of tenderness, of infinite variety, or the love of a fool?
+
+“A fool’s love is wearin’, it is insipid at best, and it turns to
+vinegar. Why, sweetened water must turn to vinegar, it is its nater.
+And if a woman is bright and true-hearted, she can’t help seein’
+through an injustice. She may be happy in her own home. Domestic
+affection, social enjoyments, the delights of a cultured home and
+society, and the companionship of the man she loves and who loves her,
+will, if she is a true woman, satisfy her own personal needs and
+desires, and she would far ruther for her own selfish happiness rest
+quietly in that love, that most blessed home.
+
+“But the bright quick intellect that delights you can’t help seein’ an
+injustice, can’t help seein’ through shams of all kinds, sham
+sentiment, sham compliments, sham justice. The tender lovin’ nature
+that blesses your life can’t help feelin’ pity for them less blessed
+than herself. She looks down through the love-guarded lattice of her
+home from which your care would fain bar out all sights of woe and
+squaler, she looks down and sees the weary toilers below, the hopeless,
+the wretched. She sees the steep hills they have to climb, carryin’
+their crosses, she sees ’em go down into the mire, dragged there by the
+love that should lift ’em up. She would not be the woman you love if
+she could restrain her hand from liftin’ up the fallen, wipin’ tears
+from weepin’ eyes, speakin’ brave words for them that can’t speak for
+themselves. The very strength of her affection that would hold you up
+if you were in trouble or disgrace yearns to help all sorrowin’ hearts.
+
+“Down in your heart you can’t help admirin’ her for this, we can’t help
+respectin’ the one that advocates the right, the true, even if they are
+our conquerors. Wimmen hain’t angels; now to be candid, you know they
+hain’t. They hain’t any better than men. Men are considerable likely;
+and it seems curious to me that they should act so in this one thing.
+For men ort to be more honest and open than wimmen. They hain’t had to
+cajole and wheedle and use little trickeries and deceits and indirect
+ways as wimmen have. Why, cramp a tree limb and see if it will grow as
+straight and vigorous as it would in full freedom and sunshine.
+
+“Men ort to be nobler than women, sincerer, braver. And they ort to be
+ashamed of this one trick of theirn, for they know they hain’t honest
+in it, they hain’t generous. Give wimmen two or three generations of
+moral and legal freedom and see if men will laugh at ’em for their
+little deceits and affectations. No, men will be gentler, and wimmen
+nobler, and they will both come nearer bein’ angels, though most
+probable they won’t be any too good then, I hain’t a mite afraid of
+it.”
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+“CONCERNING MOTH-MILLERS AND MINNY FISH”
+
+
+The Senator kinder sithed, and that sithe sort o’ brought me down onto
+my feet agin as it were, and a sense of my duty, and I spoke out agin:
+
+“Can you and will you do Serepta’s errents?”
+
+He evaded a direct answer by sayin’, “As you alluded to the little
+indirect ways of women, dearest madam, you will pardon me for saying
+that it is my belief that the soft gentle brains of females are
+unfitted for the deep hard problems men have to grapple with. They are
+too doll-like, too angelically and sweetly frivolous.”
+
+“No doubt,” sez I, “some wimmen are frivolous and some men foolish, for
+as Mrs. Poyser said, ‘God made women to match the men,’ but these few
+hadn’t ort to disfranchise the hull race of men and wimmen. And as to
+soft brains, Maria Mitchell discovered planets hid from masculine eyes
+from the beginnin’ of time, and do you think that wimmen can’t see the
+black spots on the body politic, that darkens the life of her and her
+children?
+
+“Madame Curie discovered the light that looks through solid wood and
+iron, and you think wimmen can’t see through unjust laws and practices,
+the rampant evils of to-day, and see what is on the other side, see a
+remedy for ’em. Florence Nightingale could mother and help cure an
+army, and why hain’t men willin’ to let wimmen help cure a sick
+legislation, kinder mother it, and encourage it to do better? She might
+much better be doin’ that, than playin’ bridge-whist, or rastlin’ with
+hobble skirts, and it wouldn’t devour any more time.”
+
+He sot demute for a few minutes and then he sez, “While on the subject
+of women’s achievements, dearest madam, allow me to ask you, if they
+have reached the importance you claim for them, why is it that so few
+women are made immortal by bein’ represented in the Hall of Fame? And
+why are the four or five females represented there put away by
+themselves in a remote unadorned corner with no roof to protect them
+from the rough winds and storms that beat upon them?”
+
+Sez I, “That’s a good illustration of what I’ve been sayin’. It wuz
+owin’ to a woman’s gift that America has a Hall of Fame, and it would
+seem that common courtesy would give wimmen an equally desirable place
+amongst the Immortals. Do you spoze that if women formed half the
+committee of selection—which they should since it wuz a woman’s gift
+that made such a place possible—do you spoze that if she had an equal
+voice with men, the names of noble wimmen would be tucked away in a
+remote unroofed corner?
+
+“Edgar Allan Poe’s genius wuz worthy a place among the Immortals, no
+doubt; his poems and stories excite wonder and admiration. But do they
+move the soul like Mrs. Stowe’s immortal story that thrilled the world
+and helped free a race?—yes, two races—for the curse of slavery held
+the white race in bondage, too. Yet she and her three or four woman
+companions face the stormy winds in an out-of-the-way corner, while Poe
+occupies his honorable sightly place among his fifty or more male
+companions.
+
+“Wimmen have always been admonished to not strive for right and justice
+but to lean on men’s generosity and chivalry. Here wuz a place where
+that chivalry would have shone, but it didn’t seem to materialize, and
+if wimmen had leaned on it, it would have proved a weak staff, indeed.
+
+“Such things as this are constantly occurring and show plain that
+wimmen needs the ballot to protect her from all sorts of wrongs and
+indignities. Men take wimmen’s money, as they did here, and use it to
+uplift themselves, and lower her, like taxin’ her heavily and often
+unjustly and usin’ this money to help forward unjust laws which she
+abominates. And so it goes on, and will, until women are men’s equals
+legally and politically.”
+
+“Ahem—you present things in a new light. I never looked at this matter
+with your eyes.”
+
+“No, you looked at ’em through a man’s eyes; such things are so
+customary that men do ’em without thinkin’, from habit and custom, like
+hushin’ up children’s talk, when they interrupt grown-ups.”
+
+Agin he sot demute for a short space, and then said, “I feel that
+natural human instinct is aginst the change. In savage races that knew
+nothin’ of civilization, male force and strength always ruled.”
+
+“Why,” sez I, “history tells us of savage races where wimmen always
+rule, though I don’t think they ort to—ability and goodness ort to
+rule.”
+
+“Nature is aginst it,” sez he.
+
+But I sez firmly, “Bees and lots of other insects and animals always
+have a female for queen and ruler. They rule blindly and entirely,
+right on through the centuries, but we are enlightened and should not
+encourage it. In my opinion the male bee has just as good a right to be
+monarch as his female pardner has, if he is as good and knows as much.
+I never believed in the female workin’ ones killin’ off the male drones
+to save winterin’ ’em; they might give ’em some light chores to do
+round the hive to pay for their board. I love justice and that would be
+_my_ way.”
+
+Agin he sithed. “Modern history don’t seem to favor the scheme—” But
+his axent wuz as weak as a cat and his boughten smile seemed crackin’
+and wearin’ out; he knowed better.
+
+Sez I, “We won’t argy long on that p’int, for I might overwhelm you if
+I approved of overwhelmin’, but, will merely ask you to cast one eye on
+England. Was the rain of Victoria the Good less peaceful and prosperous
+than that of the male rulers who preceded her? And you can then throw
+your other eye over to Holland: is their sweet queen less worthy and
+beloved to-day than other European monarchs? And is her throne more
+shaky and tottlin’ than theirn?”
+
+He didn’t try to dispute me and bowed his head on his breast in a
+almost meachin’ way. He knowed he wuz beat on every side, and almost to
+the end of his chain of rusty, broken old arguments. But anon he
+brightened up agin and sez, ketchin’ holt of the last shackly link of
+his argument:
+
+“You seem to place a great deal of dependence on the Bible. The Bible
+is aginst the idee. The Bible teaches man’s supremacy, man’s absolute
+power and might and authority.”
+
+“Why, how you talk,” sez I. “In the very first chapter the Bible tells
+how man wuz turned right round by a woman, tells how she not only
+turned man round to do as she wanted him to, but turned the hull world
+over.
+
+“That hain’t nothin’ I approve of; I don’t speak of it because I like
+the idee. That wuzn’t done in a open honorable manner as things should
+be done. No, Eve ruled by indirect influence, the gently influencing
+men way, that politicians are so fond of. And she brought ruin and
+destruction onto the hull world by it.
+
+“A few years later when men and wimmen grew wiser, when we hear of
+wimmen rulin’ Israel openly and honestly, like Miriam, Deborah and
+other likely old four mothers, things went on better. They didn’t act
+meachin’ and tempt, and act indirect.”
+
+He sithed powerful and sot round oneasy in his chair. And sez he, “I
+thought wimmen wuz taught by the Bible to serve and love their homes.”
+
+“So they be. And every true woman loves to serve. Home is my supreme
+happiness and delight, and my best happiness is found in servin’ them I
+love. But I must tell the truth, in the house or outdoors.”
+
+Sez he faintly, “The Old Testament may teach that women have some
+strength and power. But in the New Testament in every great undertaken’
+and plan men have been chosen by God to carry them through.”
+
+“Why-ee!” sez I, “how you talk! Have you ever read the Bible?”
+
+He said evasively, his grandmother owned one, and he had seen it in
+early youth. And then he went on in a sort of apologizin’ way. He had
+always meant to read it, but he had entered political life at an early
+age where the Bible wuzn’t popular, and he believed that he had never
+read further than the Epistles of Gulliver to the Liliputians.
+
+Sez I, “That hain’t Bible, there hain’t no Gulliver in it, and you mean
+Galatians.”
+
+Well, he said, that might be it, it wuz some man he knew, and he had
+always heard and believed that man wuz the only worker that God had
+chosen.
+
+“Why,” sez I, “the one great theme of the New Testament—the salvation
+of the world through the birth of Christ—no man had anything to do
+with. Our divine Lord wuz born of God and Woman. Heavenly plan of
+redemption for fallen humanity. God Himself called woman into that
+work, the divine work of saving a world, and why shouldn’t she continue
+in it? God called her. Mary had no dream of publicity, no desire of a
+world’s work of suffering and renunciation. The soft air of Galilee
+wropped her about in its sweet content, as she dreamed her quiet dreams
+in maiden peace—dreamed, perhaps, of domestic love and happiness.
+
+“From that sweetest silence, the restful peace of happy innocent
+girlhood, God called her to her divine work of helpin’ redeem a world
+from sin. And did not this woman’s love and willin’ obedience, and
+sufferin’ set her apart, baptize her for this work of liftin’ up the
+fallen, helpin’ the weak?
+
+[Illustration: “He’d entered political life where the Bible wuzn’t
+popular; he’d never read further than Gulliver’s Epistle to the
+Liliputians.”]
+
+“Is it not a part of woman’s life that she gave at the birth and
+crucifixion? Her faith, her hope, her sufferin’, her glow of divine
+pity and joyful martyrdom. These, mingled with the divine, the pure
+heavenly, have they not for nineteen hundred years been blessin’ the
+world? The God in Christ would awe us too much; we would shield our
+eyes from the too blindin’ glory of the pure God-like. But the tender
+Christ who wept over a sinful city, and the grave of His friend, who
+stopped dyin’ on the cross to comfort His mother’s heart, provide for
+her future—it is this womanly element in our Lord’s nature that makes
+us dare to approach Him, dare to kneel at His feet?
+
+“And since woman wuz so blessed as to be counted worthy to be co-worker
+with God in the beginnin’ of the world’s redemption; since He called
+her from the quiet obscurity of womanly rest and peace into the blessed
+martyrdom of renunciation and toil and sufferin’, all to help a world
+that cared nothin’ for her, that cried out shame upon her.
+
+“He will help her carry on the work of helpin’ a sinful world. He will
+protect her in it, she cannot be harmed or hindered, for the cause she
+loves of helpin’ men and wimmen, is God’s cause too, and God will take
+care of His own. Herods full of greed and frightened selfishness may
+try to break her heart by efforts to kill the child she loves, but she
+will hold it so clost to her bosom he can’t destroy it; and the light
+of the Divine will go before her, showin’ the way through the desert
+and wilderness mebby, but she shall bear it into safety.”
+
+“You spoke of Herod,” sez he dreamily, “the name sounds familiar to me.
+Was not Mr. Herod once in the United States Senate?”
+
+“Not that one,” sez I. “He died some time ago, but I guess he has
+relatives there now, judgin’ from laws made there. You ask who Herod
+wuz, and as it all seems a new story to you, I will tell you. When the
+Saviour of the world wuz born in Bethlehem, and a woman wuz tryin’ to
+save His life, a man by the name of Herod wuz tryin’ his best out of
+selfishness and greed to murder Him.”
+
+“Ah! that was not right in Herod.”
+
+“No, it hain’t been called so. And what wuzn’t right in him hain’t
+right in his relations who are tryin’ to do the same thing to-day.
+Sellin’ for money the right to destroy the child the mother carries on
+her heart. Surroundin’ him with temptations so murderous, yet so
+enticin’ to youthful spirits, that the mother feels that as the laws
+are now, the grave is the only place of safety that God Himself can
+find for her boy. But because Herod wuz so mean it hain’t no sign that
+all men are mean. Joseph wuz as likely as he could be.”
+
+“Joseph?” sez he pensively. “Do you allude to our venerable speaker,
+Joe Cannon?”
+
+“No,” sez I. “I’m talkin’ Bible—I’m talkin’ about Joseph; jest plain
+Joseph.”
+
+“Ah! I see. I am not fully familiar with that work. Being so engrossed
+in politics, and political literature, I don’t git any time to devote
+to less important publications.”
+
+Sez I candidly, “I knew you hadn’t read it the minute you mentioned the
+book of Liliputians. But as I wuz sayin’, Joseph wuz a likely man. He
+had the strength to lead the way, overcome obstacles, keep dangers from
+Mary, protect her tenderer form with the mantilly of his generous
+devotion.
+
+“_But she carried the Child on her bosom_; ponderin’ high things in her
+heart that Joseph never dreamed of. That is what is wanted now, and in
+the future. The man and the woman walkin’ side by side. He a little
+ahead, mebby, to keep off dangers by his greater strength and courage.
+She a-carryin’ the infant Christ of Love, bearin’ the baby Peace in her
+bosom, carryin’ it into safety from them that seek to destroy it.
+
+“And as I said before, if God called woman into this work, He will
+enable her to carry it through. He will protect her from her own
+weaknesses, and the misapprehensions and hard judgments and injustices
+of a gain-sayin’ world.
+
+“Yes, the star of hope is risin’ in the sky brighter and brighter, and
+wise men are even now comin’ to the mother of the new Redeemer, led by
+the star.”
+
+He sot demute. Silence rained for some time; and finally I spoke out
+solemnly through the rain:
+
+“Will you do Serepta’s errents? Will you give her her rights? And will
+you break the Whiskey Ring?”
+
+He said he would love to do the errents, I had convinced him that it
+would be just and right to do ’em, but the Constitution of the United
+States stood up firm aginst ’em. As the laws of the United States wuz,
+he could not make any move toward doin’ either of the errents.
+
+Sez I, “Can’t the laws be changed?”
+
+“Be changed? Change the laws of the United States? Tamper with the
+glorious Constitution that our fore-fathers left us—an immortal sacred
+legacy.”
+
+He jumped up on his feet and his second-hand smile fell off. He kinder
+shook as if he wuz skairt most to death and tremblin’ with horrow. He
+did it to skair me, I knew, but I knowed I meant well towards the
+Constitution and our old forefathers; and my principles stiddied me and
+held me firm and serene. And when he asked me agin in tones full of awe
+and horrow:
+
+“Can it be that I heard my ear aright? Or did you speak of changin’ the
+unalterable laws of the United States—tampering with the Constitution?”
+
+“Yes, that is what I said. Hain’t they never been changed?”
+
+He dropped that skairful look and put on a firm judicial one. He see
+that he could not skair me to death; an’ sez he, “Oh, yes, they’ve been
+changed in cases of necessity.”
+
+Sez I, “For instance durin’ the Oncivil war it wuz changed to make
+Northern men cheap bloodhounds and hunters.”
+
+“Yes,” he said, “it seemed to be a case of necessity and economy.”
+
+“I know it,” sez I; “men wuz cheaper than any other breed of
+bloodhounds the slave-holders could employ to hunt men and wimmen with,
+and more faithful.”
+
+“Yes,” he said, “it wuz a case of clear economy.”
+
+And sez I: “The laws have been changed to benefit liquor dealers.”
+
+“Well, yes,” he said, “it had been changed to enable whiskey dealers to
+utilize the surplus liquor they import.”
+
+Sez he, gittin’ kinder animated, for he wuz on a congenial and familar
+theme, “Nobody, the best calculators in drunkards, can exactly
+calculate how much whiskey will be drunk in a year; and so, ruther than
+have the whiskey dealers suffer loss, the law had to be changed. And
+then,” sez he, growin’ still more candid in his excitement, “we are
+makin’ a powerful effort to change the laws now so as to take the tax
+off of whiskey, so it can be sold cheaper, and obtained in greater
+quantities by the masses. Any such great laws would justify a change in
+the Constitution and the laws; but for any frivolous cause, any trivial
+cause, madam, we male custodians of the sacred Constitution stand as
+walls of iron before it, guarding it from any shadow of change.
+Faithful we will be, faithful unto death.”
+
+Sez I, “As it has been changed, it can be agin. And you jest said I had
+convinced you that Serepta’s errents wuz errents of truth and justice,
+and you would love to do ’em.”
+
+“Well, yes, yes—I would love to—as it were—. But, my dear madam, much
+as I would like to oblige you, I have not the time to devote to the
+cause of Right and Justice. I don’t think you realize the constant
+pressure of hard work that is ageing us and wearing us out, before our
+day.
+
+“As I said, we have to watch the liquor interest constantly to see that
+the liquor dealers suffer no loss—we have to do that, of course.”
+
+And he continued dreamily, as if losin’ sight of me and talkin’ to
+himself: “The wealthy Corporations and Trusts, we have to condemn them
+loudly to please the common people, and help ’em secretly to please
+ourselves, or our richest perkisits are lost. The Canal Ring, the
+Indian Agency, the Land Grabbers, the political bosses. In fact, we are
+surrounded by a host of bandits that we have to appease and profit by;
+oh, how these matters wear into the gray matter of our brains!”
+
+“Gray matter!” sez I, with my nose uplifted to its extremest height, “I
+should call it black matter!”
+
+“Well, the name is immaterial, but these labors, though pocket filling,
+are brain wearing. And of late I and the rest of our loyal henchmen
+have been worn out in our labors in tariff revision. You know how we
+claim to help the common people by the revision; you’ve probable read
+about it in the papers.”
+
+“Yes,” sez I coldly, “I’ve hearn _talk_.”
+
+“Yes,” sez he, “but if we do succeed, after the most strenious efforts
+in getting the duty off champagne, green turtle, olives, etc., and put
+on to sugar, tea, cotton cloth and such like, with all this brain fag
+and brain labor—”
+
+“And tongue labor!” sez I in a icy axent.
+
+“Yes, after all this ceaseless toil the common people will not show any
+gratitude; we statesmen labor oft with aching hearts.” And he leaned
+his forward on his hand and sithed.
+
+But my looks wuz like ice-suckles on the north side of a barn. And I
+stopped his complaints and his sithes by askin’ in a voice that
+demanded a reply:
+
+“Can you and will you do Serepta’s errents? Errents full of truth and
+justice and eternal right?”
+
+He said he knew they wuz jest runnin’ over with them qualities, but
+happy as it would make him to do ’em, he had to refuse owin’ to the fur
+more important matters he had named, and the many, many other laws and
+preambles that he hadn’t time to name over to me. “Mebby you have
+heard,” sez he, “that we are now engaged in making most important laws
+concerning moth-millers, and minny fish, and hog cholera. And take it
+with these important bills and the constant strain on our minds in
+tryin’ to pass laws to increase our own salaries, you can see jest how
+cramped we are for time. And though we would love to pass some laws of
+truth and righteousness—we fairly ache to—yet not havin’ the requisite
+time we are forced to lay ’em on the table or under it.”
+
+“Well,” sez I, “I guess I may as well be a-goin’.” And I bid him a cool
+goodbye and started for the door. But jest as my hand wuz on the nub he
+jumped up and opened the door, wearin’ that boughten second-hand smile
+agin on his linement, and sez he:
+
+“Dear madam, perhaps Senator B. will do the errents for you.”
+
+Sez I, “Where is Senator B.?” And he said I would find him at his Post
+of Duty at the Capitol.
+
+“Well,” I said, “I will hunt up the Post,” and did. A grand enough
+place for a Emperor or a Zar is the Capitol of our great nation where I
+found him, a good natured lookin’ boy in buttons showin’ me the Post.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+“NO HAMPERIN’ HITCHIN’ STRAPS”
+
+
+Well, Senator B. wanted to do the errents but said it wuz not his
+place, and sent me to Senator C., and he almost cried, he wanted to do
+’em so bad, but stern duty tied him to his Post, he said, and he sent
+me to Senator D., and he _did_ cry onto his handkerchief, he wanted to
+do the errents so bad, and said it would be such a good thing to have
+’em done. He bust right into tears as he said he had to refuse to do
+’em. Whether they wuz wet tears or dry ones I couldn’t tell, his
+handkerchief wuz so big, but I hearn his sithes, and they wuz deep and
+powerful ones.
+
+But as I sez to him, “Wet tears, nor dry ones, nor windy sithes didn’t
+help do the errents.” So I went on his sobbin’ advice to Senator E.,
+and he wuz huffy and didn’t want to do ’em and said so. And said his
+wife had thirteen children, and wimmen instead of votin’ ort to go and
+do likewise.
+
+And I told him it wouldn’t look well in onmarried wimmen and widders,
+and if they should foller her example folks would talk.
+
+And he said, “They ort to marry.”
+
+And I said, “As the fashion is now, wimmen had to wait for some man to
+ask ’em, and if they didn’t come up to the mark and ask ’em, who wuz to
+blame?”
+
+He wouldn’t answer, and looked sulky, but honest, and wouldn’t tell me
+who to go to to git the errents done.
+
+But jest outside his door I met the Senator I had left sobbin’ over the
+errents. He looked real hilarious, but drawed his face down when he
+ketched my eye, and sithed several times, and sent me to Senator F. and
+he sent me to Senator G.
+
+And suffice it to say I wuz sent round, and talked to, and cried at,
+and sulked to, and smiled at and scowled at, and encouraged and
+discouraged, ’till my head swum and my knees wobbled under me. And with
+all my efforts and outlay of oratory and shue leather not one of
+Serepta Pester’s errents could I git done, and no hopes held out of
+their ever bein’ done. And about the middle of the afternoon I gin up,
+there wuz no use in tryin’ any longer and I turned my weary tracks
+towards the outside door. But as bad as I felt, I couldn’t help my
+sperit bein’ lifted up some by the grandeur about me.
+
+Oh, my land! to stand in the immense hall and look up, and up, and see
+all the colors of the rain-bow and see what wonderful pictures there
+wuz up there in the sky above me as it were. Why, it seemed curiouser
+than any Northern lights I ever see in my life, and they stream up
+dretful curious sometimes. And as I walked through that lofty and most
+beautiful place and realized the size and majestic proportions of the
+buildin’ I wondered to myself that a small law, a little unjust law
+could ever be passed in such grand and magnificent surroundin’s. And I
+sez to myself, it can’t be the fault of the place anyway; the
+law-makers have a chance for their souls to soar if they want to, here
+is room and to spare to pass laws big as elephants and camels, and I
+wondered that they should ever try to pass laws as small as muskeeters
+and nats. Thinkses I, I wonder them little laws don’t git to strollin’
+round and git lost in them magnificent corridors. But I consoled
+myself, thinkin’ it wouldn’t be no great loss if they did. But right
+here, as I wuz thinkin’ on these deep and lofty subjects, I met the
+good natured young chap that had showed me round and he sez:
+
+“You look fatigued, mom.” (Soarin’ even to yourself is tuckerin’.) “You
+look very fatigued; won’t you take something?”
+
+I looked at him with a curious silent sort of a look; for I didn’t know
+what he meant. Agin he looked clost at me and sort o’ pityin’; and sez
+he, “You look tired out, mom. Won’t you take something? Let me treat
+you to something; what will you take, mom?”
+
+I thought he wuz actin’ dretful liberal, but I knew they had strange
+ways in Washington anyway. And I didn’t know but it wuz their way to
+make some present to every woman that comes there, and I didn’t want to
+act awkward and out of style, so I sez:
+
+“I don’t want to take anything, and don’t see any reason why you should
+insist on’t. But if I have got to take sunthin’ I had jest as soon have
+a few yards of factory cloth as anything. That always comes handy.”
+
+I thought that if he wuz determined to treat me to show his good
+feelin’s towards me, I would git sunthin’ useful and that would do me
+some good, else what wuz the good of bein’ treated? And I thought that
+if I had got to take a present from a strange man, I would make a shirt
+for Josiah out of it. I thought that would save jealousy and make it
+right so fur as goodness went.
+
+“But,” sez he, “I mean beer or wine or liquor of some kind.”
+
+I riz right up in my shues and dignity, and glared at him.
+
+Sez he, “There is a saloon right here handy in the buildin’.”
+
+Sez I in awful axents, “It is very appropriate to have it here handy!”
+Sez I, “Liquor duz more towards makin’ the laws of the United States
+from Caucus to Convention than anything else duz, and it is highly
+proper to have it here so they can soak the laws in it right off before
+they lay ’em onto the table or under ’em, or pass ’em onto the people.
+It is highly appropriate,” sez I.
+
+“Yes,” sez he. “It is very handy for the Senators and Congressmen, and
+let me get you a glass.”
+
+“No, you won’t!” sez I firmly. “The nation suffers enough from that
+room now without havin’ Josiah Allen’s wife let in.”
+
+Sez he, “If you have any feeling of delicacy in goin’ in there, let me
+make some wine here. I will get a glass of water and make you some pure
+grape wine, or French brandy, or corn or rye whiskey. I have all the
+drugs right here.” And he took a little box out of his pocket. “My
+father is a importer of rare old wines, and I know just how it is done.
+I have ’em all here, Capsicum, Coculus Indicus, alum, copperas,
+strychnine; I will make some of the choicest, oldest, and purest
+imported liquors we have in the country, in five minutes if you say
+so.”
+
+“No!” sez I firmly, “when I want to foller Cleopatra’s fashion and
+commit suicide, I will hire a rattlesnake and take my pizen as she did,
+on the outside.”
+
+Well, I got back to Hiram Cagwin’s tired as a dog, and Serepta’s
+errents ondone. But my conscience opholded me and told me I had done my
+very best, and man or woman can do no more.
+
+Well, the next day but one wuz the big outdoor suffrage meetin’. And we
+sot off in good season, Hiram feelin’ well enough to be left with the
+hired help. Polly started before we did with some of her college mates,
+lookin’ pretty as a pink with a red rose pinned over a achin’ heart, so
+I spoze, for she loved the young man who wuz out with another girl
+May-flowering. Burnin’ zeal and lofty principle can’t take the place in
+a woman’s heart of love and domestic happiness, and men needn’t be
+afraid it will. There is no more danger on’t than there is of a settin’
+hen wantin’ to leave her nest to be a commercial traveler. Nature has
+made laws for wimmen and hens that no ballot, male or female, can
+upset.
+
+Josiah and Lorinda and I went in the trolley in good season, so’s to
+git a sightly place, Lorinda protestin’ all the time aginst the
+indelicacy and impropriety of wimmen’s appearin’ in outdoor meetin’s,
+forgittin’, I spose, the dense procession of wimmen that fills the
+avenues every day, follerin’ Fashion and Display. As nigh as I could
+make out the impropriety consisted in wimmen’s follerin’ after Justice
+and Right.
+
+Josiah’s face looked dubersome. I guess he wuz worryin’ over his offer
+to represent me, and thinkin’ of Aunt Susan and the twins.
+
+But as it turned out I met Diantha while Josiah wuz in a shop buyin’
+some peppermint lozengers, and she said her niece had come from the
+West, and they got along all right. So that lifted my burden. But I
+thought best not to tell Josiah, as he wuz so bound to represent me. I
+thought it wouldn’t do any hurt to let him think it over about the job
+a man took on himself when he sot out to represent a woman. They
+wouldn’t like it in lots of ways, as willin’ as they seem to be in
+print.
+
+Wimmen go through lots of things calm and patient that would make a man
+flinch and shy off like a balky horse, and visey versey. I wouldn’t
+want to represent Josiah lots of times, breakin’ colts, ploughin’
+greensward, cuttin’ cord-wood etc., etc. Men and wimmen want equal
+legal rights to represent themselves and their own sex which are
+different, and always must be, and both sexes don’t want to be hampered
+and sot down on by the other one. That is gauldin’ to human nater, male
+or female.
+
+We got a good place nigh the speakers’ stand, and we hadn’t stood there
+long before the parade hove in sight, the yeller banners streamin’ out
+like sunshine on a rainy day, police outriders, music, etc.
+
+More than a hundred automobiles led the parade and five times as many
+wimmen walkin’ afoot. A big grand-stand with the lady speakers and
+their friends on it, all dressed pretty as pinks. For the old idee that
+suffragists don’t care for attractive dress and domestic life wuz
+exploded long ago, and many other old superstitions went up in the
+blaze.
+
+Those of us who have gray hair can remember when if a man spoke
+favorably of women’s rights the sarcastic question was asked him: “How
+old is Susan B. Anthony?”
+
+And this fine wit and cuttin’ ridicule would silence argument and
+quench the spirit of the upholder.
+
+But the world moves. Susan’s memory is beloved and revered, and the
+contemptious ridicule of the onthinkin’ and ignorant only nourished the
+laurels the world lays on her tomb.
+
+At that time accordin’ to popular opinion a suffragist wuz a slatternly
+woman with uncombed locks, dangling shoe strings, and bloomers,
+stridin’ through an unswept house onmindful of dirty children or hungry
+husband, but the world moves onward and public opinion with it.
+Suffragists are the best mothers, the best housekeepers, the best
+dressers of any wimmen in the land. Search the records and you’ll find
+it so, and why?
+
+Because they know sunthin’, it takes common sense to make a gooseberry
+pie as it ort to be. And the more a woman knows and the more justice
+she demands, the better for her husband. The same sperit that rebels at
+tyranny and injustice rebels at dirt, disorder, discomfort, and all
+unpleasant conditions.
+
+I looked ahead with my mind’s eye and see them pretty college girls
+settled down in pleasant homes of their own, where sanitary laws
+prevailed, where the babies wuzn’t fed pickles and cabbage, and kep’ in
+air-tight enclosures. Where the husbands did not have to go outside
+their own homes to find cheer and comfort, and intelligent
+conversation, and where Love and Common Sense walked hand in hand
+toward Happiness and Contentment, Justice, with her blinders offen her
+eyes, goin’ ahead on ’em. I never liked the idee of Justice wearin’
+them bandages over her eyes. She ort to have both eyes open; if anybody
+ever needed good eyesight she duz, to choose the straight and narrer
+road, lookin’ backward to see the mistakes she has made in the past,
+so’s to shun ’em in the future, and lookin’ all round her in the
+present to see where she can help matters, and lookin’ fur off in the
+future to the bright dawn of a Tomorrow. To the shinin’ mount of Equal
+Rights and full Liberty. Where she sees men and wimmen standin’ side by
+side with no halters or hamperin’ hitchin’ straps on either on ’em. He
+more gentle and considerate, and she less cowardly and emotional.
+
+Good land! what could Justice do blind in one eye and wimmen on the
+blind side? But good sensible wimmen are reachin’ up and pullin’ the
+bandages offen her eyes. She’s in a fair way to git her eyesight. But
+I’m eppisodin’, and to resoom forward.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+“OLD MOM NATER LISTENIN’”
+
+
+There wuz some pleasant talkin’ and jokin’ between bystanders and
+suffragettes, and then some good natured but keen and sensible
+speeches. And one pretty speaker told about the doin’s at Albany and
+Washington. How women’s respectful pleas for justice are treated there.
+How the law-makers, born and nussed by wimmen and dependent on ’em for
+comfort and happiness, use the wimmen’s tax money to help make laws
+makin’ her of no legal importance only as helpless figgers to hang
+taxation and punishment on.
+
+Old Mom Nater had been listenin’ clost, her sky-blue eyes shinin’ with
+joy to see her own sect present such a noble appearance in the parade.
+But when these insults and indignities wuz brung up to her mind agin
+and she realized afresh how wimmen couldn’t git no more rights accorded
+to her than a dog or a hen, and worse. For a hen or a dog wouldn’t be
+taxed to raise money for turkle soup and shampain to nourish the
+law-makers whilst they made the laws agin ’em—Mom Nater’s eyes clouded
+over with indignation and resentment, and she boo-hooed right out
+a-cryin’. Helpless tears, of no more account than other females have
+shed, and will, as they set on their hard benches with idiots,
+lunaticks, and criminals.
+
+Of course she wiped up her tears pretty soon, not willin’ to lose any
+of the wimmen’s bright speeches. But when her tear-drops fell fast,
+Josiah sez to me, “You’ll see them wimmen run like hikers now, wimmen
+always thought more of shiffon and fol-de-rols than they did of
+principle.”
+
+But I sez, “Wait and see,” (we wuz under a awnin’ and protected).
+
+But the young and pretty speaker who wore a light silk dress and
+exquisite bunnet, kep’ right on talkin’ jest as calmly as if she didn’t
+know her pretty dress wuz bein’ spilte and her bunnet gittin’ wet as
+sop, and I sez to Josiah:
+
+“When wimmen are so in earnest, and want anything so much they can
+stand soakin’ in their best dresses, and let their Sunday bunnets be
+spilte on their heads, not noticin’ ’em seemin’ly, but keep right on
+pleadin’ for right and justice, they are in a fair way of gittin’ what
+they are after.”
+
+He looked kinder meachin’ but didn’t dispute me.
+
+The speeches wuz beautiful and convincin’, and pretty soon old Mom
+Nater stopped cryin’ to hear ’em, and she and I both listened full of
+joy and happiness to see with what eloquence and justice our sect wuz
+pleadin’ our cause. Their arguments wuz so reasonable and convincin’
+that I said to myself, I don’t see how anybody can help bein’ converted
+to this righteous cause, the liftin’ up of wimmen from her
+uncomfortable crouchin’ poster with criminals and idiots, up to the
+place she should occupy by the side of other good citizens of the
+United States, with all the legal and moral rights that go with that
+noble title.
+
+And right whilst I wuz thinkin’ this, sunthin’ wuz happenin’ that
+proved I wuz right in my eppisodin’, and somebody awful sot agin it wuz
+bein’ converted then and there (but of this more anon and bom-bye). We
+stayed till we heard the last word of the last speech, I happy and
+proud in sperit, Lorinda partly converted, she couldn’t help it, though
+she wouldn’t own up to it at that juncter. And Josiah lookin’ real
+deprested, the thought of representin’ me wuz worryin’ him I knew, for
+I hearn him say (soty vosy), “Represent wimmen or not, I hain’t goin’
+to set up all night with no old woman, and lift her round, nor dry nuss
+no twins.”
+
+And thinkin’ his sperit wuz pierced to a sufficient depth by his
+apprehension, so reason could be planted and take root, and he wouldn’t
+be so anxious in the future to represent a woman, I told him what
+Diantha said and we all went home in good sperits. The sun shone clear,
+the rain had washed the face of the Earth till it shone, and everything
+looked gay and joyous.
+
+When we got to Lorinda’s we see a auto standin’ in front of the door
+full of flowery branches in front and the pink posies lookin’ no more
+bright and rosy than the faces of the two young folks settin’ there. It
+wuz Polly and Royal.
+
+It seemed that when he and Maud got back from the country (and they
+didn’t stay long, Royal wuz so restless and oneasy) Maud insisted on
+his takin’ her to the suffrage meetin’ jest to make fun on’t, so I
+spoze. She thought she had rubbed out Polly’s image and made a
+impression herself on Royal’s heart that only needed stompin’ in a
+little deeper, and she thought ridicule would be the stomper she
+needed.
+
+But when they got to the meetin’ and he see Polly settin’ like a lily
+amongst flowers, and read in her lovely face the earnest desire to lift
+the burden from the heavy laden, comfort the sorrowful, right the
+wrong, and do what she could in her day and generation—
+
+I spoze his eyes could only see her sweet face. But he couldn’t help
+his ears from hearin’ the reasonable, eloquent words of earnest and
+womanly wimmen, so full of good sense and truth and justice that no
+reasonable person could dispute ’em, and when he contrasted all this
+with the sneerin’ face, the sarcastic egotistic prattle of Maud, the
+veil dropped from his eyes, and he see with the New Vision.
+
+You know how it wuz with Saul the Scoffer who went breathin’ out
+vengeance, and Eternal Right stopped him on his way with its great
+light. Well, I spoze it wuz a bright ray from that same light that
+shone down into Royal’s heart and made him see. He wuz always good
+hearted and generous—men have always been better than the laws they
+have made. He left Maud at her home not fur away and hastened back,
+way-laid Polly, and bore her home in triumph and a thirty-horse-power
+car.
+
+It don’t make much difference I spoze how or where anybody is
+converted. The Bible speaks of some bein’ ketched out of the fire, and
+I spoze it is about the same if they are ketched out of the rain.
+’Tennyrate the same rain that washed some of the color off Maud’s
+cheeks, seemed to wash away the blindin’ mist of prejudice and
+antagonism from Royal’s mental vision, leavin’ his sperit ready for the
+great white light of truth and justice to strike in. And that very day
+and hour he come round to Polly’s way of thinkin’, and bein’ smart as a
+whip and so rich, I suppose he will be a great accusation to the cause.
+
+Well, the next day but one the Allens met in a pleasant grove on the
+river shore and we had a good growin’ time. Royal bein’ as you may say
+one of the family, took us all to the grove in his big tourin’ car, and
+the fourth trip he took Polly alone, and wuzn’t it queer that, though
+the load wuz fur lighter, it took him three times as long as the other
+three trips together? Why, they never got there till dinner wuz on the
+table, and then they didn’t seem to care a mite about the extra good
+food.
+
+But I made allowances, for as I looked into their glowin’ faces I
+knowed they wuz partakin’ of fruit from the full branches of first
+love, true love. Rich fruit that gives the divinest satisfaction of any
+this old earth affords. Food that never changes through the centuries,
+though fashion often changes, and riotous plenty or food famine may
+exalt or depress the sperit of the householder. Nothin’ but time has
+any power over this divine fruitage. He gradually, as the light of the
+honeymoon wanes, whets his old scythe and mows down some of the
+luxuriant branches, either cuttin’ a full swath, or one at a time, and
+the blessed consumers have to come down to the ordinary food of
+mortals. But this wuz still fur away from them.
+
+And I knowed too that the ordinary food of ordinary mortals partook of
+under the full harvest moon of domestic comfort and contentment wuz not
+to be despised, though fur different. And the light fur different from
+the glow and the glamour that wropped them two together and all the
+rest of the world away from ’em.
+
+But I’m eppisodin’ too much, and to resoom forward.
+
+As I said, we had a happy growin’ time at the Reunion, Josiah bein’ in
+fine feather to see the relation on his side presentin’ such a noble
+appearance. And like a good wife I sympathized with him in his pride
+and happiness, though I told him they didn’t present any better
+appearance than the same number of Smiths would. And their cookin’,
+though excellent, wuz no better than the Smiths could cook if they sot
+out to.
+
+He bein’ so good natered didn’t dispute me outright, but said he
+thought the Allens made better nut-cakes than the Smiths.
+
+But they don’t, no such thing. In fact I think the Smith nut-cakes are
+lighter and have a more artistic twist to ’em and don’t devour so much
+fat a-fryin’.
+
+But I’d hate to set Josiah down to any better vittles. I d’no as I
+would dast let him loose at the table at a Smith reunion, for he eat
+fur too much as it wuz. I had to give him five pepsin lozengers and
+some pepper tea. And then I looked out all night for night mairs to
+ride on his chist. But he come through it alive though with
+considerable pain.
+
+We stayed two or three days longer with Lorinda, and then she and Hiram
+went part way with us as we visited our way home. We’ve got relations
+livin’ all along the river that we owed visits to. And we went to see a
+number of ’em and enjoyed our four selves first rate. These things all
+took place more than a year ago and another man sets in the high chair,
+before which I laid Serepta’s errents, a man not so hefty mebby weighed
+by common steelyards, but one of noble weight judged by mental and
+moral scales.
+
+I d’no whether I’d had any better luck if I’d presented Serepta’s
+errents to him. Sometimes when I look in the kind eyes of his picter,
+and read his noble and eloquent words that I believe come from his very
+soul, I think mebby I’d been more lucky if he’d sot in the chair that
+day. But then I d’no, there are so many influences and hendrances
+planted like thorns in the cushion of that chair that a man, no matter
+how earnest he strives to do jest right, can’t help bein’ pricked by
+’em and held back. And I know he could never done them errents in the
+time she sot, but I’m in hopes he’ll throw his powerful influence jest
+as fur as he can on the side of right, and justice to all the citizens
+of the U.S., wimmen as well as men.
+
+’Tennyrate, he has showed more heroism now than many soldiers who risk
+life on the battle field. For the worst foe to fight and conquer is
+Ridicule; and he and others in high places have attackted Fashion so
+entrenched in the solid armour of Habit that most public men wouldn’t
+have dasted to take arms agin it.
+
+And the long waves of Time must swash up agin the shores of Eternity,
+before the good it has done can be estimated. How fur the influence has
+extended. How many weak wills been strengthened. How many broken hearts
+healed. How many young lives inspired to nobler and saner living.
+
+But to resoom forward, I can’t nor won’t carry them errents of
+Serepta’s there again. It is too wearin’ for one of my age and my
+rheumatiz. What a tedious time I did put in there. It wuz a day long to
+be remembered by me.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+THE WOMEN’S PARADE
+
+
+Josiah come home from Jonesville one day, all wrought up. He’d took off
+a big crate of eggs and got returns from several crates he’d sent to
+New York, an’ he sez to me:
+
+“That consarned Middleman is cheatin’ me the worst kind. I know the
+yaller Plymouth Rock eggs ort to bring mor’n the white Leghorns;
+they’re bigger and it stands to reason they’re worth more, and he don’t
+give nigh so much. I believe he eats ’em himself and that’s why he
+wants to git ’em cheaper.”
+
+“No Middleman,” sez I, “could eat fifty dozen a week.”
+
+“He could if he eat enough at one time. ’Tennyrate, I’m goin’ to New
+York to see about it.”
+
+“When are you goin’?” sez I.
+
+“I’m goin’ to-morrow mornin’. I’m goin’ in onexpected and I lay out to
+catch him devourin’ them big eggs himself.”
+
+“Oh, shaw!” sez I. “The idee!”
+
+“Well, I say the Trusts and Middlemen are dishonest as the old Harry.
+Don’t you remember what one on ’em writ to Uncle Sime Bentley and what
+he writ back? He’d sent a great load of potatoes to him and he didn’t
+get hardly anything for ’em, only their big bill for sellin’ ’em. They
+charged him for freightage, carage, storage, porterage, weightage, and
+to make their bill longer, they put in _ratage_ and _satage_.
+
+“Uncle Sime writ back ‘You infarnel thief, you, put in “stealage” and
+keep the whole on’t.’”
+
+But I sez, “They’re not all dishonest. There are good men among ’em as
+well as bad.”
+
+“Well, I lay out to see to it myself, and if they ever charge me for
+‘ratage’ and ‘satage’ I’m goin’ to see what they are, and how they
+look.”
+
+“Well,” sez I, “if you’re bound to go, I’ll get up and get a good
+breakfast and go with you.” It was the day of the Woman’s Suffrage
+Parade and I wanted to see it. I wanted to like a dog, and had ever
+since I hearn of it. Though some of the Jonesvillians felt different.
+The Creation Searchin’ Society wuz dretful exercised about it. The
+President’s stepma is a strong She Aunty and has always ruled Philander
+with an iron hand. I’ve always noticed that women who didn’t want any
+rights always took the right to have their own way. But ’tennyrate
+Philander come up a very strong He Aunty. And he felt that the Creation
+Searchers ort to go to New York that day to assist the Aunties in
+sneerin’ at the marchers, writin’ up the parade, and helpin’ count ’em.
+Philander wuz always good at figures, specially at subtraction, and he
+and his Step Ma thought he ort to be there to help.
+
+I told Josiah I guessed the She Aunties didn’t need no help at that.
+
+But Philander called a meetin’ of the Creation Searchers to make
+arrangements to go. And I spoze the speech he made at the meetin’ wuz a
+powerful effort. And the members most all on ’em believin’ as he
+did—they said it wuz a dretful interestin’ meetin’. Sunthin’ like a
+love feast, only more wrought up and excitin’.
+
+The editor of the _Auger_ printed the whole thing in his paper, and
+said it give a staggerin’ blow agin Woman’s Suffrage, and he didn’t
+know but it wuz a death blow—he hoped it wuz.
+
+“A Woman’s Parade,” sez Philander, “is the most abominable sight ever
+seen on our planetary system. Onprotected woman dressed up in fine
+clothes standin’ up on her feet, and paradin’ herself before strange
+men. Oh! how bold! Oh! how onwomanly! No wonder,” says he, “the She
+Aunties are shocked at the sight, and say they marched to attract the
+attention of men. Why can’t women stay to home and set down and knit?
+And then men would love ’em. But if they keep on with these bold,
+forward actions, men won’t love ’em, and they will find out so. And it
+has always been, and is now, man’s greatest desire and chiefest aim he
+has aimed at, to protect women, to throw the shinin’ mantilly of his
+constant devotion about her delikit form and shield her and guard her
+like the very apples in his eyes.
+
+“Woman is too sweet and tender a flower to have any such hardship put
+upon her, and it almost crazes a man, and makes him temporarily out of
+his head, to see women do anything to hazard that inheriant delicacy of
+hern, that always appealed so to the male man.
+
+“Let us go forth, clad in our principles (and ordinary clothing, of
+course), and show just where we stand on the woman question, and do all
+we can to assist the gentle feminine She Aunties. Lovely, retirin’
+females whose pictures we so often see gracin’ the sensational
+newspapers. Their white womanly neck and shoulders, glitterin’ with
+jewels, no brighter than their eyes. They don’t appear there for sex
+appeal, or to win admiration. No indeed! No doubt they shrink from the
+publicity. And also shrink from making speeches in the Senate chambers
+or the halls of Justice, but will do so, angelic martyrs that they are,
+to hold their erring Suffrage sisters back from their brazen efforts at
+publicity and public speakin’.”
+
+They said his speech wuz cheered wildly, give out for publication, and
+entered into the moments of the Society.
+
+But after all, it happened real curious the day of the Parade every
+leadin’ Creation Searcher had some impediment in his way, and couldn’t
+go, and of course, the Society didn’t want to go without its leaders.
+
+Mis’ Philander Daggett, the president’s wife, wuz paperin’ her settin’
+room and parlor overhead. She wuz expectin’ company and couldn’t put it
+off. And bein’ jest married, and thinkin’ the world of her, Philander
+said he dassent leave home for fear she’d fall offen the barrel and
+break her neck. She had a board laid acrost two barrels to stand up on.
+And every day Philander would leave his outside work and come into the
+house, and set round and watch her—he thought so much of her. I suppose
+he wanted to catch her if she fell. But I didn’t think she would fall.
+She is young and tuff, and she papered it real good, though it wuz
+dretful hard on her arm sockets and back.
+
+And the Secretary’s wife wuz puttin’ in a piece of onions. She thought
+she would make considerable by it, and she will, if onions keep up. But
+it is turrible hard on a woman’s back to weed ’em. But she is
+ambitious; she raised a flock of fifty-six turkeys last year besides
+doin’ her house work, and makin’ seventy-five yards of rag carpet. And
+she thought onions wouldn’t be so wearin’ on her as turkeys, for
+onions, she said, will stay where they are put, but turkeys are born
+wanderers and hikers. And they led her through sun and rain, swamp and
+swale, uphill and downhill, a-chasin’ ’em up, but she made well by ’em.
+Well, in puttin’ in her onion seed, she overworked herself and got a
+crick in her back, so she couldn’t stir hand nor foot for two days. And
+bein’ only just them two, her husband had to stay home to see to
+things.
+
+And the Treasurer’s wife is canvassin’ for the life of William J.
+Bryan. And wantin’ to make all she could, she took a longer tramp than
+common, and didn’t hear of the Parade or meetin’ of the C.S.S. at all.
+She writ home a day or two before the meetin’, that she wuz goin’ as
+long as her legs held out, and they needn’t write to her, for she
+didn’t know where she would be.
+
+Well, of course, the Creation Searchers didn’t want to go without their
+officers. They said they couldn’t make no show if they did. So they
+give up goin’. But I spoze they made fun of the Woman’s Parade amongst
+theirselves, and mourned over their indelikit onwomanly actions, and
+worried about it bein’ too hard for ’em, and sneered at ’em
+considerable.
+
+Well, Josiah always loves to have me with him, an’ though he’d made
+light of the Parade, he didn’t object to my goin’. And suffice it to
+say that we arrove at that Middleman’s safe and sound, though why we
+didn’t git lost in that grand immense depo and wander ’round there all
+day like babes in the woods, is more’n I can tell.
+
+The Middleman wuzn’t dishonest: he convinced Josiah on it. He had
+shipped the colored eggs somewhere, and of course he couldn’t pay as
+much, and he never had hearn of _Ratage_ or _Satage_. He wuz a real
+pleasant Middleman, and hearing me say how much I wanted to see the
+Woman’s Parade, he invited us to go upstairs and set by a winder, where
+there was a good view on’t. We’d eat our lunch on the train and we
+accepted his invitation, and sot down by a winder then and there,
+though it wuz a hour or so before the time sot for the Parade. And I
+should have taken solid comfort watchin’ the endless procession of men
+and women and vehicles of all sorts and descriptions, but Josiah made
+so many slightin’ remarks on the dress of the females passin’ below on
+the sidewalk, that it made me feel bad. And to tell the truth, though I
+didn’t think best to own up to it to him, I _did_ blush for my sect to
+see the way some on ’em rigged themselves out.
+
+“See that thing!” Josiah sez, as a woman passed by with her hat drawed
+down over one eye, and a long quill standin’ out straight behind more’n
+a foot, an’ her dress puckered in so ’round the bottom, she couldn’t
+have took a long step if a mad dog wuz chasin’ her—to say nothin’ of
+bein’ perched up on such high heels, that she fairly tottled when she
+walked.
+
+Sez Josiah: “Does that _thing_ know enough to vote?”
+
+“No,” sez I, reasonably, “she don’t. But most probable if she had
+bigger things to think about she’d loosen the puckerin’ strings ’round
+her ankles, push her hat back out of her eyes, an’ get down on her feet
+again.”
+
+“Why, Samantha,” says he, “if you had on one of them skirts tied ’round
+your ankles, if I wuz a-dyin’ on the upper shelf in the buttery, you
+couldn’t step up on a chair to get to me to save your life, an’ I’d
+have to die there alone.”
+
+“Why should you be dyin’ on the buttery shelf, Josiah?” sez I.
+
+“Oh, that wuz jest a figger of speech, Samantha.”
+
+“But folks ort to be mejum in figgers of speech, Josiah, and not go too
+fur.”
+
+“Do you think, Samantha, that anybody can go too fur in describin’ them
+fool skirts, and them slit skirts, and the immodesty and indecensy of
+some of them dresses?”
+
+[Illustration: “Sez Josiah, ‘Does that thing know enough to vote?’”]
+
+“I don’t know as they can,” sez I, sadly.
+
+“Jest look at that thing,” sez he again.
+
+And as I looked, the hot blush of shame mantillied my cheeks, for I
+felt that my sect was disgraced by the sight. She wuz real pretty, but
+she didn’t have much of any clothes on, and what she did wear wuzn’t in
+the right place; not at all.
+
+Sez Josiah, “That girl would look much more modest and decent if she
+wuz naked, for then she might be took for a statute.”
+
+And I sez, “I don’t blame the good Priest for sendin’ them away from
+the Lord’s table, sayin’, ‘I will give no communion to a Jezabel.’ And
+the pity of it is,” sez I, “lots of them girls are innocent and don’t
+realize what construction will be put on the dress they blindly copy
+from some furrin fashion plate.”
+
+Then quite an old woman passed by, also robed or disrobed in the
+prevailin’ fashion, and Josiah sez, soty vosy, “I should think she wuz
+old enough to know sunthin’. Who wants to see her old bones?” And he
+sez to me, real uppish, “Do you think them things know enough to vote?”
+
+But jest then a young man went by dressed fashionably, but if he hadn’t
+had the arm of a companion, he couldn’t have walked a step; his face
+wuz red and swollen, and dissipated, and what expression wuz left in
+his face wuz a fool expression, and both had cigarettes in their
+mouths, and I sez, “Does _that_ thing know enough to vote?” And jest
+behind them come a lot of furrin laborers, rough and rowdy-lookin’,
+with no more expression in their faces than a mule or any other animal.
+“Do _they_ know enough to vote?” sez I. “As for the fitness for votin’
+it is pretty even on both sides. Good intelligent men ortn’t to lose
+the right of suffrage for the vice and ignorance of some of their sect,
+and that argument is jest as strong for the other sect.”
+
+But before Josiah could reply, we hearn the sound of gay music, and the
+Parade began to march on before us. First a beautiful stately figure
+seated fearlessly on a dancin’ horse, that tossted his head as if proud
+of the burden he wuz carryin’. She managed the prancin’ steed with one
+hand, and with the other held aloft the flag of our country. Jest as
+women ort to, and have to. They have got to manage wayward pardners,
+children and domestics who, no matter how good they are, will take
+their bits in their mouths, and go sideways some of the time, but can
+be managed by a sensible, affectionate hand, and with her other hand at
+the same time she can carry her principles aloft, wavin’ in every
+domestic breeze, frigid or torrid, plain to be seen by everybody.
+
+Then come the wives and relations of Senators and Congressmen, showin’
+that bein’ right on the spot they knowed what wimmen needed. Then the
+wimmen voters from free Suffrage states, showin’ by their noble looks
+that votin’ hadn’t hurt ’em any. They carried the most gorgeous banner
+in the whole Parade. Then the Wimmen’s Political Union, showin’ plain
+in their faces that understandin’ the laws that govern her ain’t goin’
+to keep woman from looking beautiful and attractive.
+
+On and on they come, gray-headed women and curly-headed children from
+every station in life: the millionairess by the working woman, and the
+fashionable society woman by the business one. Two women on horseback,
+and one blowin’ a bugle, led the way for the carriage of Madam
+Antoinette Blackwell. I wonder if she ever dreamed when she wuz tryin’
+to climb the hill of knowledge through the thorny path of sex
+persecution, that she would ever have a bugle blowed in front of her,
+to honor her for her efforts, and form a part of such a glorious Parade
+of the sect she give her youth and strength to free.
+
+How they swept on, borne by the waves of music, heralded by wavin’
+banners of purple and white and gold, bearin’ upliftin’ and noble
+mottoes. Physicians, lawyers, nurses, authors, journalists, artists,
+social workers, dressmakers, milliners, women from furrin countries
+dressed in their quaint costumes, laundresses, clerks, shop girls,
+college girls, all bearin’ the pennants and banners of their different
+colleges: Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, etc., etc. High-school pupils,
+Woman’s Suffrage League, Woman’s Social League, and all along the
+brilliant line each division dressed in beautiful costumes and carryin’
+their own gorgeous banners. And anon or oftener all along the long,
+long procession bands of music pealin’ out high and sweet, as if the
+Spirit of Music, who is always depictered as a woman, was glad and
+proud to do honor to her own sect. And all through the Parade you could
+see every little while men on foot and on horseback, not a great many,
+but jest enough to show that the really noble men wuz on their side.
+For, as I’ve said more formally, that is one of the most convincin’
+arguments for Woman’s Suffrage. In fact, it don’t need any other. That
+bad men fight against Women’s Suffrage with all their might.
+
+Down by the big marble library, the grand-stand wuz filled with men
+seated to see their wives march by on their road to Victory. I hearn
+and believe, they wuz a noble-lookin’ set of men. They had seen their
+wives in the past chasin’ Fashion and Amusement, and why shouldn’t they
+enjoy seein’ them follow Principle and Justice? Well, I might talk all
+day and not begin to tell of the beauty and splendor of the Woman’s
+Parade. And the most impressive sight to me wuz to see how the leaven
+of individual right and justice had entered into all these different
+classes of society, and how their enthusiasm and earnestness must
+affect every beholder.
+
+And in my mind I drawed pictures of the different modes of our American
+women and our English sisters, each workin’ for the same cause, but in
+what a different manner. Of course, our English sisters may have more
+reason for their militant doin’s; more unjust laws regarding
+marriage—divorce, and care of children, and I can’t blame them married
+females for wantin’ to control their own money, specially if they earnt
+it by scrubbin’ floors and washin’. I can’t blame ’em for not wantin’
+their husbands to take that money from them and their children,
+specially if they’re loafers and drunkards. And, of course, there are
+no men so noble and generous as our American men. But jest lookin’ at
+the matter from the outside and comparin’ the two, I wuz proud indeed
+of our Suffragists.
+
+While our English sisters feel it their duty to rip and tear, burn and
+pillage, to draw attention to their cause, and reach the gole (which I
+believe they have sot back for years) through the smoke and fire of
+carnage, our American Suffragettes employ the gentle, convincin’ arts
+of beauty and reason. Some as the quiet golden sunshine draws out the
+flowers and fruit from the cold bosom of the earth. Mindin’ their own
+business, antagonizin’ and troublin’ no one, they march along and show
+to every beholder jest how earnest they be. They quietly and
+efficiently answer that argument of the She Auntys, that women don’t
+want to vote, by a parade two hours in length, of twenty thousand. They
+answer the argument that the ballot would render women careless in
+dress and reckless, by organizin’ and carryin’ on a parade so
+beautiful, so harmonious in color and design that it drew out
+enthusiastic praise from even the enemies of Suffrage. They quietly and
+without argument answered the old story that women was onbusiness-like
+and never on time, by startin’ the Parade the very minute it was
+announced, which you can’t always say of men’s parades.
+
+It wuz a burnin’ hot day, and many who’d always argued that women
+hadn’t strength enough to lift a paper ballot, had prophesied that
+woman wuz too delicately organized, too “fraguile,” as Betsy Bobbet
+would say, to endure the strain of the long march in the torrid
+atmosphere.
+
+But I told Josiah that women had walked daily over the burning plow
+shares of duty and domestic tribulation, till their feet had got
+calloused, and could stand more’n you’d think for.
+
+And he said he didn’t know as females had any more burnin’ plow shares
+to tread on than men had.
+
+And I sez, “I didn’t say they had, Josiah. I never wanted women to get
+more praise or justice than men. I simply want ’em to get as much—just
+an even amount; for,” sez I, solemnly, “‘male and female created He
+them.’”
+
+Josiah is a deacon, and when I quote Scripture, he has to listen
+respectful, and I went on: “I guess it wuz a surprise even to the
+marchers that of all the ambulances that kept alongside the Parade to
+pick up faint and swoonin’ females, the only one occupied wuz by a
+man.”
+
+Josiah denied it, but I sez, “I see his boots stickin’ out of the
+ambulance myself.” Josiah couldn’t dispute that, for he knows I am
+truthful. But he sez, sunthin’ in the sperit of two little children I
+hearn disputin’. Sez one: “It wuzn’t so; you’ve told a lie.”
+
+“Well,” sez the other, “You broke a piece of china and laid it to me.”
+
+Sez Josiah, “You may have seen a pair of men’s boots a-stickin’ out of
+the ambulance, but I’ll bet they didn’t have heels on ’em a inch broad,
+and five or six inches high.”
+
+“No, Josiah,” sez I, “you’re right. Men think too much of their comfort
+and health to hist themselves up on such little high tottlin’ things,
+and you didn’t see many on ’em in the Parade.”
+
+But he went on drivin’ the arrow of higher criticism still deeper into
+my onwillin’ breast. “I’ll bet you didn’t see his legs tied together at
+the ankles, or his trouses slit up the sides to show gauze stockin’s
+and anklets and diamond buckles. And you didn’t see my sect who honored
+the Parade by marchin’ in it, have a goose quill half a yard long,
+standin’ up straight in the air from a coal-scuttle hat, or out
+sideways, a hejus sight, and threatenin’ the eyes of friend and foe.”
+
+“And you didn’t see many on ’em in the Parade,” sez I agin. “Women, as
+they march along to Victory, have got to drop some of these senseless
+things. In fact, they are droppin’ em. You don’t see waists now the
+size of a hour glass. It is gettin’ fashionable to breathe now, and
+women on their way to their gole will drop by the way their high heels;
+it will git fashionable to walk comfortable, and as they’ve got to take
+some pretty long steps to reach the ballot in 1916, it stands to reason
+they’ve got to have a skirt wide enough at the bottom to step up on the
+gole of Victory. It is a high step, Josiah, but women are goin’ to take
+it. They’ve always tended to cleanin’ their own house, and makin’ it
+comfortable and hygenic for its members, big and little. And when they
+turn their minds onto the best way to clean the National house both
+sects have to live in to make it clean and comfortable and safe for the
+weak and helpless as well as for the strong—it stands to reason they
+won’t have time or inclination to stand up on stilts with tied-in
+ankles, quilled out like savages.”
+
+“Well,” said Josiah, with a dark, forebodin’ look on his linement, “_we
+shall see_.”
+
+“Yes,” sez I, with a real radiant look into the future. “_We shall
+see_, Josiah.”
+
+But he didn’t have no idea of the beautiful prophetic vision I beheld
+with the eyes of my sperit. Good men and good women, each fillin’ their
+different spears in life, but banded together for the overthrow of
+evil, the uplift of the race.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+“THE CREATION SEARCHIN’ SOCIETY”
+
+
+It was only a few days after we got home from New York that Josiah come
+into the house dretful excited. He’d had a invitation to attend a
+meetin’ of the Creation Searchin’ Society.
+
+“Why,” sez I, “did they invite you? You are not a member?”
+
+“No,” sez he, “but they want me to help ’em be indignant. It is a
+indignation meetin’.”
+
+“Indignant about what?” I sez.
+
+“Fur be it from me, Samantha, to muddle up your head and hurt your
+feelin’s by tellin’ you what it’s fur.” And he went out quick and shet
+the door. But I got a splendid dinner and afterwards he told me of his
+own accord.
+
+I am not a member, of course, for the president, Philander Daggett,
+said it would lower the prestige of the society in the eyes of the
+world to have even one female member. This meetin’ wuz called last week
+for the purpose of bein’ indignant over the militant doin’s of the
+English Suffragettes. Josiah and several others in Jonesville wuz
+invited to be present at this meetin’ as sort of honorary members, as
+they wuz competent to be jest as indignant as any other male men over
+the tribulations of their sect.
+
+Josiah said so much about the meetin’, and his Honorary Indignation,
+that he got me curious, and wantin’ to go myself, to see how it wuz
+carried on. But I didn’t have no hopes on’t till Philander Daggett’s
+new young wife come to visit me and I told her how much I wanted to go,
+and she bein’ real good-natered said she would make Philander let me
+in.
+
+He objected, of course, but she is pretty and young, and his nater
+bein’ kinder softened and sweetened by the honey of the honeymoon, she
+got round him. And he said that if we would set up in a corner of the
+gallery behind the melodeon, and keep our veils on, he would let her
+and me in. But we must keep it secret as the grave, for he would lose
+all the influence he had with the other members and be turned out of
+the Presidential chair if it wuz knowed that he had lifted wimmen up to
+such a hite, and gin ’em such a opportunity to feel as if they wuz
+equal to men.
+
+Well, we went early and Josiah left me to Philander’s and went on to do
+some errents. He thought I wuz to spend the evenin’ with her in
+becomin’ seclusion, a-knittin’ on his blue and white socks, as a woman
+should. But after visitin’ a spell, jest after it got duskish, we went
+out the back door and went cross lots, and got there ensconced in the
+dark corner without anybody seein’ us and before the meetin’ begun.
+
+Philander opened the meetin’ by readin’ the moments of the last
+meetin’, which wuz one of sympathy with the police of Washington for
+their noble efforts to break up the Woman’s Parade, and after their
+almost Herculaneum labor to teach wimmen her proper place, and all the
+help they got from the hoodlum and slum elements, they had failed in a
+measure, and the wimmen, though stunned, insulted, spit on, struck,
+broken boneded, maimed, and tore to pieces, had succeeded in their
+disgustin’ onwomanly undertakin’.
+
+But it wuz motioned and carried that a vote of thanks be sent ’em and
+recorded in the moments that the Creation Searchers had no blame but
+only sympathy and admiration for the hard worked Policemen for they had
+done all they could to protect wimmen’s delicacy and retirin’ modesty,
+and put her in her place, and no man in Washington or Jonesville could
+do more. He read these moments, in a real tender sympathizin’ voice,
+and I spoze the members sympathized with him, or I judged so from their
+linements as I went forward, still as a mouse, and peeked down on ’em.
+
+He then stopped a minute and took a drink of water; I spoze his
+sympathetic emotions had het him up, and kinder dried his mouth, some.
+And then he went on to state that this meetin’ wuz called to show to
+the world, abroad and nigh by, the burnin’ indignation this body felt,
+as a society, at the turrible sufferin’s and insults bein’ heaped onto
+their male brethren in England by the indecent and disgraceful doin’s
+of the militant Suffragettes, and to devise, if possible, some way to
+help their male brethren acrost the sea. “For,” sez he, “pizen will
+spread. How do we know how soon them very wimmen who had to be spit on
+and struck and tore to pieces in Washington to try to make ’em keep
+their place, the sacred and tender place they have always held
+enthroned as angels in a man’s heart—”
+
+Here he stopped and took out his bandanna handkerchief, and wiped his
+eyes, and kinder choked. But I knew it wuz all a orator’s art, and it
+didn’t affect me, though I see a number of the members wipe their eyes,
+for this talk appealed to the inheriant chivalry of men, and their
+desire to protect wimmen, we have always hearn so much about.
+
+“How do we know,” he continued, “how soon they may turn aginst their
+best friends, them who actuated by the loftiest and tenderest emotions,
+and determination to protect the weaker sect at any cost, took their
+valuable time to try to keep wimmen down where they ort to be, _angels
+of the home_, who knows but they may turn and throw stuns at the
+Capitol an’ badger an’ torment our noble lawmakers, a-tryin’ to make
+’em listen to their silly petitions for justice?”
+
+In conclusion, he entreated ’em to remember that the eye of the world
+wuz on ’em, expectin’ ’em to be loyal to the badgered and woman
+endangered sect abroad, and try to suggest some way to stop them
+woman’s disgraceful doin’s.
+
+Cyrenus Presly always loves to talk, and he always looks on the dark
+side of things, and he riz up and said “he didn’t believe nothin’ could
+be done, for by all he’d read about ’em, the men had tried everything
+possible to keep wimmen down where they ort to be, they had turned deaf
+ears to their complaints, wouldn’t hear one word they said, they had
+tried drivin’ and draggin’ and insults of all kinds, and breakin’ their
+bones, and imprisonment, and stuffin’ ’em with rubber tubes, thrust
+through their nose down into their throats. And he couldn’t think of a
+thing more that could be done by men, and keep the position men always
+had held as wimmen’s gardeens and protectors, and he said he thought
+men might jest as well keep still and let ’em go on and bring the world
+to ruin, for that was what they wuz bound to do, and they couldn’t be
+stopped unless they wuz killed off.”
+
+Phileman Huffstater is a old bachelder, and hates wimmen. He had been
+on a drunk and looked dretful, tobacco juice runnin’ down his face, his
+red hair all towsled up, and his clothes stiff with dirt. He wuzn’t
+invited, but had come of his own accord. He had to hang onto the seat
+in front of him as he riz up and said: “He believed that wuz the best
+and only way out on’t, for men to rise up and kill off the weaker sect,
+for their wuzn’t never no trouble of any name or nater, but what wimmen
+wuz to the bottom on’t, and the world would be better off without ’em.”
+But Philander scorfed at him and reminded him that such hullsale doin’s
+would put an end to the world’s bein’ populated at all.
+
+But Phileman said in a hicuppin’, maudlin way that “the world had
+better stop, if there had got to be such doin’s, wimmen risin’ up on
+every side, and pretendin’ to be equal with men.”
+
+Here his knee jints kinder gin out under him, and he slid down onto the
+seat and went to sleep.
+
+I guess the members wuz kinder shamed of Phileman, for Lime Peedick
+jumped up quick as scat and said, “It seemed the Englishmen had tried
+most everything else, and he wondered how it would work if them
+militant wimmen could be ketched and a dose of sunthin’ bitter and
+sickenin’ poured down ’em. Every time they broached that loathsome
+doctrine of equal rights, and tried to make lawmakers listen to their
+petitions, jest ketch ’em and pour down ’em a big dose of wormwood or
+sunthin’ else bitter and sickenin’, and he guessed they would git tired
+on’t.”
+
+But here Josiah jumped up quick and said, “he objected,” he said, “that
+would endanger the right wimmen always had, and ort to have of cookin’
+good vittles for men and doin’ their housework, and bearin’ and
+bringin’ up their children, and makin’ and mendin’ and waitin’ on ’em.
+He said nothin’ short of a Gatlin gun could keep Samantha from speakin’
+her mind about such things, and he wuzn’t willin’ to have her made sick
+to the stomach, and incapacitated from cookin’ by any such
+proceedin’s.”
+
+The members argued quite awhile on this pint, but finally come round to
+Josiah’s idees, and the meetin’ for a few minutes seemed to come to a
+standstill, till old Cornelius Snyder got up slowly and feebly. He has
+spazzums and can’t hardly wobble. His wife has to support him, wash and
+dress him, and take care on him like a baby. But he has the use of his
+tongue, and he got some man to bring him there, and he leaned heavy on
+his cane, and kinder stiddied himself on it and offered this
+suggestion:
+
+“How would it do to tie females up when they got to thinkin’ they wuz
+equal to men, halter ’em, rope ’em, and let ’em see if they wuz?”
+
+But this idee wuz objected to for the same reason Josiah had advanced,
+as Philander well said, “wimmen had got to go foot loose in order to do
+the housework and cookin’.”
+
+Uncle Sime Bentley, who wuz awful indignant, said, “I motion that men
+shall take away all the rights that wimmen have now, turn ’em out of
+the meetin’ house, and grange.”
+
+But before he’d hardly got the words out of his mouth, seven of the
+members riz up and as many as five spoke out to once with different
+exclamations:
+
+“That won’t do! we can’t do that! Who’ll do all the work! Who’ll git up
+grange banquets and rummage sales, and paper and paint and put down
+carpets in the meetin’ house, and git up socials and entertainments to
+help pay the minister’s salary, and carry on the Sunday School? and
+tend to its picnics and suppers, and take care of the children? We
+can’t do this, much as we’d love to.”
+
+One horsey, sporty member, also under the influence of liquor, riz up,
+and made a feeble motion, “Spozin’ we give wimmen liberty enough to
+work, leave ’em hand and foot loose, and sort o’ muzzle ’em so they
+can’t talk.”
+
+This seemed to be very favorably received, ’specially by the married
+members, and the secretary wuz jest about to record it in the moments
+as a scheme worth tryin’, when old Doctor Nugent got up, and sez in a
+firm, decided way:
+
+“Wimmen cannot be kept from talking without endangerin’ her life; as a
+medical expert I object to this motion.”
+
+“How would you put the objection?” sez the secretary.
+
+“On the ground of cruelty to animals,” sez the doctor.
+
+A fat Englishman who had took the widder Shelmadine’s farm on shares,
+says, “I ’old with Brother Josiah Hallen’s hargument. As the father of
+nine young children and thirty cows to milk with my wife’s ’elp, I ’old
+she musn’t be kep’ from work, but h’I propose if we can’t do anything
+else that a card of sympathy be sent to hold Hengland from the Creation
+Searchin’ Society of America, tellin’ ’em ’ow our ’earts bleeds for the
+men’s sufferin’ and ’ardships in ’avin’ to leave their hoccupations to
+beat and ’aul round and drive females to jails, and feed ’em with
+rubber hose through their noses to keep ’em from starvin’ to death for
+what they call their principles.”
+
+This motion wuz carried unanimously.
+
+But here an old man, who had jest dropped in and who wuz kinder deef
+and slow-witted, asked, “What it is about anyway? what do the wimmen
+ask for when they are pounded and jailed and starved?”
+
+Hank Yerden, whose wife is a Suffragist, and who is mistrusted to have
+a leanin’ that way himself, answered him, “Oh, they wanted the
+lawmakers to read their petitions asking for the rights of ordinary
+citizens. They said as long as their property wuz taxed they had the
+right of representation. And as long as the law punished wimmen equally
+with men, they had a right to help make that law, and as long as men
+claimed wimmen’s place wuz home, they wanted the right to guard that
+home. And as long as they brought children into the world they wanted
+the right to protect ’em. And when the lawmakers wouldn’t hear a word
+they said, and beat ’em and drove ’em round and jailed ’em, they got
+mad as hens, and are actin’ like furiation and wild cats. But claim
+that civil rights wuz never give to any class without warfare.”
+
+“Heavens! what doin’s!” sez old Zephaniah Beezum, “what is the world
+comin’ to!” “Angle worms will be risin’ up next and demandin’ to not be
+trod on.” Sez he, “I have studied the subject on every side, and I
+claim the best way to deal with them militant females is to banish ’em
+to some barren wilderness, some foreign desert where they can meditate
+on their crimes, and not bother men.”
+
+This idee wuz received favorably by most of the members, but others
+differed and showed the weak p’ints in it, and it wuz gin up.
+
+Well, at ten P.M., the Creation Searchers gin up after arguin’ pro and
+con, con and pro, that they could not see any way out of the matter,
+they could not tell what to do with the wimmen without danger and
+trouble to the male sect.
+
+They looked dretful dejected and onhappy as they come to this
+conclusion, my pardner looked as if he wuz most ready to bust out
+cryin’. And as I looked on his beloved linement I forgot everything
+else and onbeknown to me I leaned over the railin’ and sez:
+
+“Here is sunthin’ that no one has seemed to think on at home or abroad.
+How would it work to stop the trouble by givin’ the wimmen the rights
+they ask for, the rights of any other citizen?”
+
+I don’t spoze there will ever be such another commotion and upheaval in
+Jonesville till Michael blows his last trump as follered my speech.
+Knowin’ wimmen wuz kep’ from the meetin’, some on ’em thought it wuz a
+voice from another spear. Them wuz the skairt and horrow struck ones,
+and them that thought it wuz a earthly woman’s voice wuz so mad that
+they wuz by the side of themselves and carried on fearful. But when
+they searched the gallery for wimmen or ghosts, nothin’ wuz found, for
+Philander’s wife and I had scooted acrost lots and wuz to home
+a-knittin’ before the men got there.
+
+And I d’no as anybody but Philander to this day knows what, or who it
+wuz.
+
+And I d’no as my idee will be follered, but I believe it is the best
+way out on’t for men and wimmen both, and would stop the mad doin’s of
+the English Suffragettes, which I don’t approve of, no indeed! much as
+I sympathize with the justice of their cause.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA ON THE WOMAN QUESTION ***
+
+***** This file should be named 7833-0.txt or 7833-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+    https://www.gutenberg.org/7/8/3/7833/
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
+be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
+law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
+so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
+United States without permission and without paying copyright
+royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
+of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
+and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
+the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
+of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
+copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
+easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
+of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
+Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
+do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
+by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
+license, especially commercial redistribution.
+
+START: FULL LICENSE
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
+www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
+destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
+possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
+Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
+by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
+person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
+1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
+paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
+agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
+Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
+of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
+works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
+States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
+United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
+claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
+displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
+all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
+that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
+free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
+works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
+Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
+comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
+same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
+you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
+in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
+check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
+agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
+distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
+other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
+representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
+country other than the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
+immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
+prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
+on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
+performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
+
+  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
+  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
+  United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
+  you are located before using this eBook.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
+derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
+contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
+copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
+the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
+redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
+either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
+obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
+trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
+additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
+will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
+posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
+beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
+any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
+to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
+other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
+Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+provided that:
+
+* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
+  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
+  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
+  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
+  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
+  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
+  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
+  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
+  Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
+  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
+  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
+  works.
+
+* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+  receipt of the work.
+
+* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
+are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
+from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
+the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
+forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
+Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
+contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
+or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
+other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
+cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
+with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
+with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
+lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
+or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
+opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
+the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
+without further opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
+OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
+damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
+violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
+agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
+limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
+unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
+remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
+accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
+production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
+including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
+the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
+or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
+additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
+Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
+computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
+exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
+from people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
+generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
+Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
+www.gutenberg.org
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
+U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
+Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
+to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
+and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without
+widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
+donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
+freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
+distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
+volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
+the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
+necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
+edition.
+
+Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
+facility: www.gutenberg.org
+
+This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+