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+Project Gutenberg's 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'll 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
+
+Posting Date: February 12, 2015 [EBook #7833]
+Release Date: April, 2005
+First Posted: May 20, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA ON THE WOMAN QUESTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred, William Flis and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "And I wonder if there is a woman in the land that can
+blame Serepta for wantin' her rights."]
+
+
+                      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"
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"AND I WONDER IF THERE'S A WOMAN IN THE LAND THAT CAN BLAME SEREPTA FOR
+WANTIN' HER RIGHTS" (p. 29). Frontispiece
+
+"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 Alien'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 Project Gutenberg's Samantha on the Woman Question, by Marietta Holley
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA ON THE WOMAN QUESTION ***
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+Project Gutenberg's Samantha on the Woman Question, by Marietta Holley
+#2 in our series by Marietta Holley
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Samantha on the Woman Question
+
+Author: Marietta Holley
+
+Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7833]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 20, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMANTHA ON THE WOMAN QUESTION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred, William Flis
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "And I wonder if there is a woman in the land that can
+blame Serepta for wantin' her rights."]
+
+
+                      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"
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"AND I WONDER IF THERE'S A WOMAN IN THE LAND THAT CAN BLAME SEREPTA FOR
+WANTIN' HER RIGHTS" (p. 29). Frontispiece
+
+"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 Alien'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 Project Gutenberg's Samantha on the Woman Question, by Marietta Holley
+
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