The Project Gutenberg eBook of Josiah Allen on the Woman Question , by Marietta Holley

"She made me think that minute of them big rocks when I was tryin' to plough 'round 'em" (see p. 82)

Author of "Samantha on the Woman Question", "Samantha at Saratoga", "My Opinions and Betsy Bobbett's", etc.

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

For years and years I've been deeply wownded in my most sacred feelin's and my reason has been outraged by my pardner, Samantha's, writin' agin the righteous cause of man's superiority to wimmen.

But though my feelin's have been rasped and almost bleedin' from the unjust wownds I've kep' still and let her go on with other headstrong and blinded females, and argey and deny man's sole and indefrangible right to oversee and order the affairs of the universe, and specially the weak helpless female sect, the justice of which, it seems to me, a infant babe might see without spectacles.

I have curbed in my wownded sperit and my mighty inteleck with almost giant strength, and never let 'em have free play[Pg 10] in public print to dispute and overthrow them uroneous doctrines.

And my reason for this course has been twofold. First, as any male Filosifer and female Researcher knows, that owin' to her weakness of inteleck and soft nater, a woman's mind gits ruffled up easy, and that rufflin' up affects her cookin'. And under a too severe strain a female has sometimes forgot to be promp with her meals, and not notice seemin'ly that her pies wuz runnin' out, and the cookie jar gittin' empty. Such things, no matter how strong a man's inteleck is, has a deleterious effeck on his internal systern, which reacts on his branial cranium. And I've been afraid of the consequences if I onleashed the lion in me, and answered and crushed her onholy arguments in cold type.

And my second reason wuz that in spite of her almost blasphemous doctrine that wimmen are equal to men, I knowed that under them mistook idees it wuz a lackage of good horse sense and not inherient depravity that ailed her. I knowed[Pg 11] that if Samantha wuz only willin' to settle down peacefully in the shelter and shade of man's powerful strength and personality, there never wuz a better woman or a neater, equinomicler housekeeper on earth than Samantha Smith Allen, and as a maker of cream biscuit and apple dumplin's, and a frier and briler of spring chickens never outdone and seldom equalled. I've argued in private life with her till my jaws ached and my lungs wheezed with incessant labor. Have experimented in various ways and appeared before her daily for years as a shinin' sample of man's superiority. But never, never have I been able to make her own up how inferior her sect is to the more opposite one. But as I say, as long as I've suffered, I have never before took my rightful place in literatoor, never took the high peak waitin' for me to set down on, while I hurled the thunderbolts of convincin' eloquence down upon the female wimmen squirmin' beneath me.

But I dassent wait a minute longer. I have got to put a stop to the awful doin's[Pg 12] goin' on around me. And if my worst forebodin's are realized, and I've got to starve it out, I will offer myself a hungry victim to Duty, and die with my manly principles enfoldin' my gant form like a halo of glory. But mebby I've waited too long. I tremble to think on't. I ort to made the move sooner.

For things are growin' worse and worse all the time, female wimmen are risin' up on every side claimin' to be equal to men, talkin', preachin', hikin', paradin' with lyin' banners, vowin' with brazen impudence that since they bear the financial and legal burdens of citizenship, they ort to be citizens of the U.S., and since they bear children they want to protect 'em in the house and outdoors, and so on to the end of their windy arguments. Want to be citizens! how can they be? Hain't the eagle a male bird? And what duz E Pluribus Unum mean? Why, we men translated it years ago—Eminent People Us—Us males. And every fool knows that wimmen hain't a people, hain't a citizen and[Pg 13] never has been. Jest think on't, weak wimmen, underlin's, as they've always been legally and politically considered, dashin' and hikin' about, bilin' up like foamin' billers of froth and folly threatenin' to engulf our noble Ship of State. I've knowed how a strong minded man wuz needed to grasp holt of the hellum and try to steer that poor staggerin' wobblin' wimmen tosted craft into a haven of safety, into some place where men can agin enjoy their Heaven born rights to rule the world and boss round the female sect, and to turn that frothy turbulent feminist tide sweepin' out into broad paths never meant for it to sweep in, into the shaller narrer safe channels it is fitted for. I had decided not to tell Samantha about my great book aginst Female Suffrage till it wuz writ and published and the crash come. But the very day I begun my immortal work she wuz cookin' a young duck with dressin', and the delicious uroma come like incense to my nostrils, and insensibly it softened my feelin's. And I thought[Pg 14] mebby I ort to prepare her for what would be the effect of my book on her sect, and the world at large. We'd lived together for years and outside of her uroneous beliefs she'd been a kind and agreeable companion, a fur better cook and housekeeper than any Aunty Suffragist I ever see or hearn on, and had been a help and comfort to me; she wuz bakin' a plum puddin' too, and some Hubbard squash. And as I inhaled the delicious odors I felt more and more soft and meller towards her, most as soft as the squash. And so I broached the subject to her.

Sez I, "What do you think, Samantha, about my great projeck of destroyin' female suffrage? What do you think of my writin' the book?"

I said the words and paused for a reply. The kitchen wuz clean and cozy, the cheerful fire blazed; Samantha sot with smooth hair and serene face in a new gingham dress and white apron, choppin' some cabbage and celery for a salad; all wuz peace and happiness.

As I spoke the fateful words it seemed[Pg 15] as if old Nater herself wuz listenin' and peakin' in through the kitchen door to see what would happen. What would be the effect on Samantha? I dreaded, yet waited for the result. Would she overwhelm me with reproaches and entreaties to stop and not ruin her sect? Would she be overcome and swoon away? And the appaulin' thought come to me onbid, if she did who would finish up the dinner? As I asked the question she paused with the choppin' knife in her hand and sez:

"When I wuz a girl we had a Debatin' School, and there wuz one feller that we always tried to git on the side opposite to us, his talk and arguments wuz such a help to us. I hain't no objections to your writin' the book, Josiah." And then she resoomed her work with her linement cam as ever. I felt relieved, but couldn't see what sot her off to tellin' that old story at this juncter, and can't to this day, but set it down to female's inability to grasp holt of important questions, and answer 'em in a straightforward way as males do.

I knowed when I begun my great work of stompin' out Woman's Suffrage that I must proceed careful; wimmen had clogged up the road to Truth and Reason so with their fool arguments, lectures, parades, etc., I must plough through 'em and make my way clear every step I took so no clackin' arguin' female could rise up and dispute 'em.

I laid out to chase females back to the very beginin', and there in the dim light of the dawnin' day of Time to grasp holt of the unanswerable argument that proves to every reasonable mind wimmen's inferiority and man's greatness. And then chase 'em back agin through the centuries up to the present time, and there corner 'em and break down their flimsy arguments of equality, and crush 'em forever. And make an end to this male disturbin', world opsettin' bizness of Wimmen's Rights. And in divin' back into history as fur as I've doven I want to give suitable credit to my chumb, Uncle Simon Bentley. Bein' a bacheldor without no hamperin' female ties drawin'[Pg 17] on him and holdin' him back, he's had more time than I have to devote to arjous study and research on the subject, and has been a help to me. Not but what I could have equalled him or gone ahead on him if I'd been foot-loose. But Samantha and the barn stock wuz on my back, and fambly cares kep' me down. But after he mentioned to me certain things he had studied out, I told him I had thought of them very things more than one hundred times, but hadn't had time to write 'em down.

Why, in the very first beginin' of time, we find the great fact that smashes female equality down into the dirt where it belongs. We find that wimmen wuz made and manufactured jest because men wuz kinder lonesome. As Uncle Sime well sez, "It wuz jest a happen that wimmen wuz made at all. Adam happened to feel kinder lonesome alone on that big farm, and probable needed wimmen's help. And he happened to have a extra rib he could spare as well as not, and so wimmen wuz made out of[Pg 18] that spare rib. But," sez Uncle Sime, "Adam would have been as well agin off if Eve hadn't been made, and I should have told him so if I had been there." Sez he bitterly, "Men hain't been lonesome since wimmen wuz made. Oh, no! she has kep' her clack goin', and kep' men's noses down on the grindstun ever sence."

"Well," sez I, "Simon, it wuz noble in Adam to be willin' to lose one of his ribs to make her, for who knows to what hites men might have riz up if he hadn't parted with it. If us men have riz up to such a hite with one rib lackin' who knows how fur we should have gone up with the hull on 'em."

"That hain't the pint," sez Uncle Sime. "The pint is, how dast wimmen feel so big and claim to be equal to us men, when they think how, and why, and what out of they wuz created. Wimmen ort to feel thankful and grateful to men that she wuz made at all. How would she felt if she hadn't been made? I guess she would feel pretty cheap and not put on so many[Pg 19] airs, and be hikein' round preachin' to her superiors."

In his excitement Uncle Sime had enunciated that crushin' argument in a ruther loud tone. We wuz settin' on the back stoop and Samantha comin' out to shake the table-cloth must have hearn it. But instead of actin' humiliated and crushed by that masterly argument she looked at us kinder queer over her specs, folded her table-cloth camly and said nothin'.

And after she went in Uncle Sime resoomed his unanswerable arguments. "Why, beside Bible proofs I can prove it in a scientific way. Weigh up a man's bones in the stillyards and they'll weigh one hundred pounds more or less, jest the bones. And now jest think on the preposterous idee of that one little rib bone a risin' up right in the face of science and reason, and pretendin' to be equal to the hull carcass. And worse yet tryin' to stomp on him and bring him down to her level by votin'. Why, if Adam had hearn to me and kep' that rib[Pg 20] bone where it wuz, jest think what the world would have escaped, think of the jealousies, angers, revenges, weariness, expenses, wars, ruin and bloodshed caused through the centuries by changin' that rib bone into a female!"

I wuz astounded to see how deep Uncle Sime had doven into the great mysteries of human existence, not but what I'd have thought it out myself, if I'd had time from fambly cares.

But Uncle Sime went on, "Jest think, Josiah, of wimmen's wild and turbulent doin's and the commotions and troubles and sufferin's wimmen has caused males, and then think how quiet and peaceable that rib wuz before it had been meddled with, and brought into the woman question. A layin' there in Adam's side onquestionin' and cam. Never startin' up and argyin' with the liver or diafram, never sassin' the spinal collar, or disputin' the knee jints, that one small bone risin' up, and demandin' the rights that justly belong to the hull carcass. Oh, what lessons to female suffragists can[Pg 21] be drawed from that scientific fact, and how fur they can be drawed."

As long as I'd knowed Uncle Sime I never had realized before he wuz such a deep thinker, and had such a fund of scientific knowledge to back up his arguments. Of course I had 'em too, all on 'em, layin' dormer inside on me.

Of course it made a tremendous stir in Jonesville when the startlin' news got out that I wuz writin' a book agin female suffrage with the settled intention and firm determination of puttin' an end to it forever. It lifted me up to such a tottlin' hite in the estimation of the male Jonesvillians that it would have gin a weaker man the Big Head and made 'em liable to fall off. But such is my strength of mind that I kep' cool on the outside, talked in a friendly and patronizin' way to Samantha and the neighborin' wimmen, associated with the folks that had the honor to live round me, and wore the same hat. The Creation Searchin' Society of Jonesville called a special[Pg 22] meetin' to congratulate me and themselves on havin' their views on the inferiority of wimmen disseminated in my book through the entire habitable globe. I knowed my beliefs regardin' wimmen wuz the same as theirn, for we had often laid them views out side by side and compared 'em together. And Uncle Sime Bentley when I first told him on't shed tears of joy and sez he:

"At last, at last the men of Jonesville, the male men, are goin' to be hearn from, and did justice to." And he grip holt of my hand in one of hisen, and with the other he wep' onto his bandanna handkerchief tears of pure joy and thankfulness.

Deacon Henzy, Solomon Sypher, Deacon Bobbett and a lot of other bretheren in the meetin' house, talked to me about the forthcomin' book with a solemn joy and triump in their linements and told me to consider and weigh well every word I writ, up to the very ounce, "For," sez they, "the broad onwinkin' eye of the World is on you and in that eye we[Pg 23] male Jonesvillians have been demeaned and lowered and looked down on by the abominable things that wuz writ by——"

But I riz up my right hand and arm in a noble jester of warn, and sez I, "Not one word agin Samantha, bretheren, not a word!"

They see the stern wild glare in my eye, and turned it off by sayin', "Things have been writ by a female who shall be nameless, that has had a tendency to make us male Jonesvillians objects of contemp. And the uroneous and blasphemous idee has been disseminted in them writin's that females are equal to males, and want rights that we know they don't need or deserve, rights that will bring 'em to the brink of ruin if not held back by a manly arm. Now it is in the power of a male Jonesvillian to lift his sect up on the hite he's been partially knocked off of, by them writin's, and put the weaker inferior sect down into the holler place where they belong. It is your honor and your privelige, Josiah Allen, to let the hull world see how superior to females,[Pg 24] how noble, how grand is the male manhood of Jonesville U.S.A."

It wuz a solemn occasion, but I riz up to it and told 'em I laid out in my book to make such a change in public opinion that it would shake the very pillows of society, but sez I, "After the shake and the quake is over, things will settle down in their proper place agin. And then as of old, men will take their position as master and females their proper place as the tenderly governed class, lookin' up agin meekly to male men as their nateral gardeens and protectors."

Owing to the inclemency of the inclement weather, and the hardness of the wood (slippery ellum) I would had to split for extra fires, I did the writin' of my great work of destroyin' Female Suffrage in the common settin' room. I didn't feel above it. As I told Samantha, many a immortal work had been writ in a garret, and even in a prison (namely by Mr. Keats and Mr. J. Bunyan and others).

She didn't dispute me, she kep' right on with her usual housework, bakin', etc., and I almost thought the delicious uroma of her vittles which come in from the contagious kitchen wuz a inspiration to me. So dificult it is to tell what tiny springs feeds the great spoutin' fountain of genius.

On the mornin' I made this memorable[Pg 26] remark jest quoted, I hadn't more'n got started on my masterly work and wuz settin' almost drownded in the bottomless sea of Thought while Samantha wuz parin' some apples for pies, havin' fetched her pan into the settin' room, when the magestic onward and upward flow of my thought wuz arrested or dammed up, as you may say figuratively speakin', by the tall awkward obstacle of a onwelcome female figger. It wuz Betsy Bobbett Slimpsey who came in with a red and green plaid shawl wropped round her gant form, and a yeller fascinator on her humbly head.

Fascinator! Who wuz fascinated by it? I wuzn't, no indeed! And so lightnin' quick is my mind to ketch holt of any argument illustratin' wimmen's weakness of inteleck to transcribe in my volume, that I methought instantly how that one article of Betsy's attire showed plain the inferiority of her sect that I wuz tryin' to prove to the world. As I glanced at it, my eager soul questioned my active mind, "Did you ever ketch[Pg 27] a man wearin' anything on his head with such vain silly names," and my mind thundered back to my listenin' soul, "No! no sir!" The strong brain within the manly head would spurn such a coverin', and tread it into the dust. A man's fascination consists of sunthin' inside his skull, his powerful brain, his invincible will, not in a flimsy woosted affair knit with a tattin' hook. With what hauty coldness would a man spurn it, if his wife tried to put it onto his noble head to wear to meetin' or to a neighbors.

But to resoom. Betsy passed a few triflin' onimportant remarks about the weather, her hens, her husband, etc., but my keen eye pierced through her outward demeanor, which she tried to make nateral, and I see she had a ulterior object in comin' out so early in the mornin'. And soon it broke forth in speech, and she uttered the bold presumptious request that I would let her insert some of her poetry writ before, and after her marriage, in my great forthcomin' volume.

For a minute I wuz almost stunted and[Pg 28] stumped by the brazen impudence of the idee, that I would let a female have any part however small in that grand work proclaimin' and provin' the superiority of my sect. And havin' a mind so powerful and many sided it can see both sides to once, I methought how onbecomin' it would be in me and how meachin' to let females take part in a work designed to be the ruination of 'em, or that is the ruination of their claims to be equal to the sect I wuz nobly representin'. How could I grant her request without sinkin' down to the low female level?

No, I answered her promp in the negative. But she clung to the idee as clost as she ever clung to the various men she had paid attention to until her doom wuz sealed and she had with herculeanium efforts won Simon to be her pardner.

Sez she pleadin'ly, "Josiah Allen, do let me insert some of my poetry on woman's spear in your noble volume. I feel that my poems deserve immortality, but they won't never git there if a man don't help me to lift 'em up."

That idee wuz indeed grateful to me, it naterally would be to any man, but agin I answered her coldly in the negative, Samantha lookin' on, but sayin' nothin'. Anon Betsy turned to her and sez, "Josiah Allen's wife, will you not help plead with him in the name of a strugglin' sister woman?"

Samantha kep' on parin' and slicin' her greenin's but sez coldly, "I hain't no objections to it. I guess the verses will correspond pretty well with the rest of the book."

"Yes, indeed!" sez Betsy eagerly. "Our two idees about the loftier, superior sect, and the overpowerin' need of wimmen to be protected by 'em, are perfect twins, you couldn't hardly reconize 'em apart." And agin she sez in a still more hungry axent:

"Do grant my request, Josiah Allen; poetry makes a book so interestin'. Mebby it hain't necessary, but some like the tail feathers of a rooster, though they may not add to the weight of the fowl; without 'em he has a bare lonesome look.[Pg 30] Poetry may not add to the strength and matchless power of your arguments, probably nothin' could; but somehow a book looks sort o' bare and lonely without these feathery gushin's of the soul."

Sez I in a cold austere axent, "I have laid out to enrich the prose pages of my great work with my own poetry, some as lovely flowers might appear on the smooth side of a volcano, softenin' and amelioratin' the comin' roar and rush of the destroyin' fire and flames, that is to bust out and burn up Error and mistook idees in females."

"Oh, what eloquence! what grand thoughts!" sez Betsy claspin' her yeller cotton gloves together, and lookin' up to me in almost worship. "What a inteleck has been burnin' under that bald head for years. No wonder it is bald, no hair could live in such a fiery atmosphere."

As she said this my feelin's softened towards her and I felt different than I did feel. I had never liked Betsy Bobbett Slimpsey; she wuz always too sentimental and persistent to suit me. When[Pg 31] I wuz a widow man she paid me a lot of attention oninvited and onrecipercated. I never responded to her ardent overtoors. I spurned her poetry from me. And she wuz a slack housekeeper, and mizuble cook, which always riles men, and I felt relieved and glad when she got round Simon Slimpsey and won him to be her husband. But I do like her idees on man's supremacy and her clingin' idees on marriage. Such voylent and persistent efforts in that direction, by elderly onmarried females are esteemed worthy of every man's admiration, when directed in another direction than himself.

I own I suffered from them clingin' idees of hern durin' my widowerhood till Samantha rendered me immune. But under all them sufferin's of mine and my almost hopeless efforts to shy off from her, and avoid her, yet I felt that her adorin' love and her warm clingin' attentions to males wuz eminently becomin' to a female if only turned off from me onto some more willin' man.[Pg 32] All these thoughts chased each other through my brain, but still I kep' the cool superiority of my sect and sez coldly:

"I want no female thought to cumber and weigh down the sails of my skyward bound volume."

But sez she in a humble pleadin' manner, so becomin' in a female and agreeable to males, "My poetry all breathes the weakness and inferiority of my sect, and the overwhelmin' need we have to be protected by the nobler uplifteder sect. And though Simon has been bedrid for years and his brain had softened even when we wuz wed, and he and his numerous children have been hard for my emmanuel strength to support and take care on, yet I found in my union to a male man a dignity and rest I had never known in my more single state." Here Betsy sithed hard a few times, for she wuz indeed weary, she works hard and fares hard and shows it, but she continued:

"Is it not possible that in a humble[Pg 33] way my verses may give a tiny puff of wind, that added to your mighty roarin' gusts will waft your grand craft upward and onward on its Heaving sent mission of elevatin' men up, and helpin' 'em in this turrible epock of time they're passin' through. And rebukin' and lowerin' females down for their bold doin's, in opposin' and badgerin' their natural gardeens and protectors, their brazen efforts to be equal to 'em which is a crime agin Nater.

"For though as I said, Simon can't lift his head from the piller, and his language to me is awful at times, and extremely profane, and boot-jacks have been throwed at me, and teacups and sassers smashed agin my form, and milk porridge and catnip tea have deluged me from them flyin' cups and bowls, yet, as I said, I felt through all, even when I wuz bruised and wet as sop, that when he gin me his name at the altar, he gin with it a dignity and uplifted feelin', that nothin' else could give or take away. And I would fain have them[Pg 34] womanly idees of mine made immortal by appearin' in your noble volume as a pattern for bolder onwomanly wimmen to foller."

As Betsy paused I once more waded out bare legged into the sea of thought. Thinkses I even a tiny drop of water helps to make the mighty Ocean, and the Ocean he never repels the humble drop. Though a female, Betsy wuz a human bein' like myself. Wuz it right for me to deny her the boon of immortality in the pages of my great work? What wuz my duty in the matter?

I rubbed my forward, behind which my brain wuz revolvin' with lightnin' speed, with my forefinger, gittin' considerable ink on the outside of my brain (namely my forward) which Samantha reminded me of afterwards and finally I sez:

"I will give this triflin' matter due consideration, Betsy Slimpsey, and let you know the result of my cogitations. And now," sez I, wavin' my hand towards the outside door in a noble lordly wave,[Pg 35] "Woman depart! leave me to my thoughts."

She went, Samantha accompanyin' her to the doorstep on which I hearn her dickerin' with Betsy for some Rhode Island hen's eggs to set, so irresponsive and oncongenial is a female pardner ofttimes and onmindful of the great historical event happenin' so near her, and the great man she is throwed amongst. Alas! how often is genius bound down and trammeled in its own environment.

When Samantha come in lookin' cheerful, for she could git the eggs on a even swop for our Brown Leghorns, I asked her agin about it, for every married man will testify that you can't depend on what a pardner will say before other wimmen on such a occasion. Sez I, "Would you honor Betsy by lettin' her put some of her verses in my great volume? Do you think," sez I anxiously, "that it will clog and weigh it down too much?"

I didn't really know what she meant, but as she immegiately retired into the buttery to make and roll out her pie crust, I didn't want to interrupt her, for every man knows that a woman needs the hull of what little mind she's got at such a time. Such apple pies as Samantha makes with tender flaky crust and delicious interior are a work of art, and requires ondivided attention.

So I wuz throwed back onto my own resources and judgment, and didn't try to argy no more. Duty and pity for her and her sect conquerored in the end, and the next day I gin my consent and Betsy sent down by one of her various stepchildren a bran sack full of her poetry, which I emptied for convenience into a huge dish pan which wuz exempt from work by age.

How tickled and full of triump Betsy wuz, and it wuz enough to tickle any female to have her poetry appear in the pages of my gigantic effort. The follerin' verses of hern writ before her mar[Pg 37]riage I culled at random from the dish pan and subjoin:

Last night as I meandered out
To meditate apart,
Secluded in my parasol,
Deep subjects shook my heart.
The earth, the skies, the prattling brooks
All thundered in my ear—
It is matrimony, it is matrimony,
That is a woman's spear.

Day, with a red shirred bunnet on
Had down for China started,
Its yellow ribbons fluttered o'er
Her head as she departed—
She seemed to wink her eyes on me
As she did disappear—
And say it is matrimony, Betsy
That is a woman's spear.

A rustic had broke down his team,
I mused almost in tears,
How can a yoke be borne along
By half a pair of steers?
Even thus in wrath did Nature speak
Hear, Betsy Bobbett, hear;
It is matrimony, it is matrimony,
That is a woman's spear.
[Pg 38]
I saw a pair of roses
Like wedded pardners grow,
Sharp thorns did pave their mortal path,
Yet sweetly did they blow.
They seemed to blow these glorious words
Into my willing ear,
It is matrimony, it is matrimony
That is a woman's spear.

Two gentle sheep upon the hills,
How sweet the twain did run,
As I meandered gently on
And sot down on a stun;
They seemed to murmur sheepishly
Oh Betsy Bobbett, dear—
It is matrimony, it is matrimony,
That is a woman's spear.

Sweet wuz the honeysuckle's breath
Upon the ambient air,
Sweet wuz the tender coo of doves,
Yet sweeter husbands are;
All Nature's voices poured these words
Into my willing ear,
B. Bobbett, it is matrimony,
That is a woman's spear.

Cephas Slinker stopped yesterday mornin' and had a little talk with me over the barnyard fence. I pitied Cephas; he don't live happy with his wife, she's hard on him, and they have frequent spells. They had one last night, and he got up and started for Jonesville quick as he'd had his breakfast. He said he never stopped to git a stick of wood or a pail of water (they bring their water from a spring under the hill) but he hurried away he said for fear she'd begin on him agin, and aggravate him. He wanted sympathy, and I see he needed it, so he told me about it.

He's been out of a job for some time, and his wife has took in washin' and worked round for the neighbors to keep 'em goin'.

He said he wuz to Jonesville all day[Pg 40] yesterday lookin' for a job. He said he thought the best way to find one wuz to set right still in some place where men wuz comin' and goin' all the time, so they could see him handy if they wanted to hire him. But he said he never got a job, or no hopes of one, and he went home completely discouraged and deprested, and he said that if he ever felt the need of tender words from a comfortin' companion it wuz then; he said he felt so bad that he went in and busted these words right out to his wife, "I want to be soothed and comforted."

And if you'll believe it she told him, "if he wanted to be soothed to soothe himself." Jest so hash and onfeelin' she spoke. He said she wuz splittin' kindlin' wood at the time to git supper, and she struck at that wood as if she would bring the woodhouse down. And I guess from his tell that he gin it to her hot and heavy. But 'tennyrate she refused outright to soothe and comfort him, and if that hain't a wife's duty what is? It has always been called so, as I told Samantha.[Pg 41] She asked what Cephas and I wuz talkin' so long about, and I had to tell her.

And she said she see Miss Slinker go home from Deacon Gowdey's where she'd done a two weeks washin'. She wuz pushin' the baby carriage in front of her with her twins in it, and a bag of potatoes, and little Cephas draggin' at her skirts and cryin' to be carried, and she looked as if she would sink down in her tracts. And it seemed, sez Samantha, "as tired as she wuz she had to split wood to git supper. And how could she soothe and comfort anybody droudgin' round as she had all day and all wore out? Under the circumstances it wuzn't reasonable in Cephas to ask it."

That's jest the way on't, wimmen will argy and argy and try to have the last word. I wouldn't say no more for I knowed it wuz no use. But I must say that when Samantha has the time she's always ready to soothe and comfort me if I'm in trouble. She sez it is a woman's nater to want to help and comfort the man she loves, but he ort to be reasonable[Pg 42] and not ask it of her as Cephas did. Under such circumstances she said it wouldn't hurt him to soothe her a spell.

I see I couldn't make no headway arguin' with her, so I kep' demute and went to writin' on the subject I'd laid out to hold forth on which is as follers.

When the first thought of writin' this great work bust onto my soul like the blazin' sun risin' up and pourin' down his dazzlin' beams onto Jonesville and the surroundin' world, there wuz one idee that stood towerin' up like a Light House. One fundamental truth I laid out to lift up so high and make so plain that even a female's feeble comprehension could grasp it, and see its first and primary importance. And that wuz that wimmen should not try to have Rights, but at all hazards and under all circumstances not fail to marry a man, and secondly I laid out to prove that them two things Matrimony and Rights could never by any possibility be combined and run together.

For truly these two great truths are[Pg 43] what we male men have considered the very ground work and underpinnin' of our strongest and most unanswerable arguments agin Wimmen's Suffrage, Marriage—Home—Clean Children—Housework—Good Vittles—oh, how sweet them words have always sounded in men's ears and are still a soundin', and how eminently fitted to wimmen's weak tender minds and patient confidin' naters. And how obnoxious and loathsome to every male ear have been and are now, the words Justice—Freedom—Equality.

Oh, how continuously and loudly have my male bretheren, we and us, twanged upon them two strings on life's lyre, and tried to make females jine in the melogious song, tried to make 'em comprehend the beauty and full meanin' on 'em.

And right here before I go any furder mebby I ort to stop and make it plain to the modern female who is always tryin' to pick flaws and argy, that I said l-y-r-e and not liar, which they might out of clear aggravation try to make out I meant when I made the hullsale insertion that[Pg 44] marriage is woman's duty, and a perfect heaven on earth, and woman's suffragin' is ruination and come straight from Hadees.

I had writ a hull chapter full of the most beautiful and high flown eloquence on this most congenial subject, and proved I thought to every right minded person that it wuz the duty and delightful privelige of every female to stop immegiately seekin' for Rights, and marry to a man to once. It wuz a lovely chapter, and very affectin' in spots, so much so I shed several tears over it, as I told Samantha, when she glanced over it at my request. I longed for her appreciation of my genius, if she didn't share my idees, but she only made this remark:

She didn't explain what she meant by this remark. But I most knew by the looks on her linement that she wuz makin' light on't. But I wuzn't goin' to pay no attention to slurs comin' from them that want Rights. Her remark only goaded me on to amplify on the[Pg 45] beautiful subject, and I had spent I presoom to say most a teaspunful of ink, and pretty nigh half a pad of paper, besides a soul full of emotion on it, when my dear friend and Literary Adviser, Uncle Sime Bentley come in, and Samantha bein' then out in the buttery makin' sugar cookies and spice cake, I had a clear field and read the chapter over to him, longin' for sympathy and admiration, and feelin' sure I'd tapped the right tree to git the sweet sap of true understandin' and appreciation flow out and heal my wownded sperit, when to my great surprise (and it wouldn't been any more shock to me if I'd tapped a butnut tree and see it run blue ink) Uncle Sime jined in with Samantha's idees, and objected to my hullsale insertion that it wuz the bounden duty of every human bein' to marry.

As I read it over to him, expectin' to be interrupted by a warm hand grasp of sympathy and lovin' praise of my idees, I see a dark shadder pass over his linement and he wiggled round oneasy in his chair and finally he said:

"That won't do, Josiah! You've got to change that or you'll git lots of the Jonesvillians down on you," sez he. "There are a good many bacheldors round here, and their feelin's will feel hurt."

Sez I in a sombry dissapinted axent, "I guess I can handle the subject so's not to hurt their feelin's."

"Id'no," sez he, "lots on 'em might have married if they'd wanted to, and there are three or four grass widowers too, or mebby I should say hay widowers, for they're pretty old for grass." And Simon continued feelin'ly:

"This book of yourn, Josiah, is as dear to me as if it sprung like a sharp simeter from my own brain, and I can't bear to see you make any statement in it that will be called a slur on our sect."

Strange as it wuz I hadn't thought on that side of the subject till Simon pinted it out to me, my barn chores and fambly cares are so wearin' on me that it had slipped my mind, though probable I should thought on't of my own accord when I had time. But I see the minute[Pg 47] my attention wuz drawed to it that I must meller the chapter down for the good of my own sect. And after Simon went home (he had come to borry a auger) I meditated on the other side, what you might call the off side of the argument and I see different from what I had seen. And I brung up convincin' incidents and let 'em run through my mind.

Firstly, I see I wuz hittin' my dear friend Simon, hittin' him hard, for he wuz a bacheldor, though he thought too much on me to mention his own wownded feelin's. But when I realized what I had done it fairly stunted me, for it wuz like kickin' my own shins with a hard cowhide boot to hit Simon. And I see that take it with all the grass and hay widowers, and what you might call plain bacheldors, there wuz a good many male Jonesvillians who would had reason to feel riled up, and I wuzn't one to cast no slurs onto my own sect.

Id'no why a number of them bacheldors hadn't married, for they wuz well off and might have married if they'd[Pg 48] wanted to. I guess it wuz jest because they didn't feel like it. And my mind is so strong and keen I see immegiately how that would spile my argument that females must turn their backs on Rights, and marry at all hazards and under all circumstances. For it stands to reason that a woman can't marry if a man is not forthcomin', and hadn't ort to be blamed for it. And I could see every time a man hung back it left a female in the lurch.

I see I must wiggle out on't the best I could for I'll be hanged when it come down to brass tacks and I figgered it out, I dassent print a word of what I'd writ; as beautious and eloquent as it wuz I had got to drop it onwillin'ly into the waist basket. For I see that besides a lackage of men caused by hangin' back which wuz of itself a overwhelmin' argument, I see how lots of the females wuz situated that had turned their backs on matrimony. Susan Jane Adsit stayed to home to take care of her old father, and by the time he died she'd got off the notion of marryin'.

Huldah Pendergrast wuz humbly as[Pg 49] the old Harry, and Samantha sez that a man always puts a pretty face before reason or religion, 'tennyrate no man had ever asked her to marry I knowed, so how could she help her single state.

Amelia Burpee wuz left a orphan with five younger children that she promised her dyin' ma to take care on, and when she got them all rared up and settled down in life, she wuz too tuckered out to think of matrimony.

And Serepta Corkins wuz a born man hater, would git over the fence ruther than meet one in the road. She didn't want a man, and Heaven knows a man didn't want her.

Luella Pitkin's bo died durin' engagement, and she never wanted to look at a man after that. And her sister, Drusilla, wuz all took up with music, and no man could ever take the place with her of B flat, or high G.

And Abigail Mooney's feller she wuz engaged to got led off and married another girl, and Abigail went into a incline and the doctor had hard work to raise her up,[Pg 50] besides all her own folks did with spignut and wild cherry bark and other strengthenin' and soothin' herbs.

And Almina Hagadone's feller left her because she fell and broke her hip durin' engagement. And Id'no but it wuz for the best, for how could she bring up a fambly with only one hip.

And so it went on, the hull train of single wimmen swep' through my brain, follered by a crowd of widders, grass, and hay, and sod. And as I mentally stared at 'em I see what I'd done on insistin' that they should every one on 'em marry a man and stay to home, when they hadn't no man and no home to stay in. Why, I wuz fairly browbeat and stumped to see what a ticklish place I would stood in with the Jonesvillians, if I had writ my chapter as I laid out to, that wimmen must marry and must not vote.

I see I had got to turn round and take a new tact. But it wuz like tearin' a bulldog from a good shank bone to uproot a man from that inborn belief. And I thought it over pro and con, con and[Pg 51] pro, till my head got fairly dizzy and in one of the dizziest spells this thought come to me that mebby Simon's bein' a bacheldor had hampered him and colored his advice, and thinkses I before I lay down in the dust my old beloved belief for good and all, it won't do any hurt to jest mention the subject casually to Samantha agin, which I did.

I sez in a meachiner axent than I ginerally use, for I felt fur more meachin' than I had felt, sez I, "Samantha, wimmen ort to marry instead of votin'."

"But," sez I, recoverin' with a herculaneum effort a little of my usual feelin' of male superiority, "that is very different, Samantha. Men have bigger, roomier minds, wimmen and politics can sort o' run side by side through 'em without crowdin' each other. But female minds bein' more narrer and contracted they naterally can't, and hadn't ort to try to hold more'n one on 'em.

"But," sez I with a last effort to put[Pg 52] forth the beautious arguments that my sect has clung to for ages, I sez in a deep protectin' axent, "marriage is the holiest, the most beautifulest state on this earth."

"Yes," sez Samantha reasonably, "a happy marriage is, I guess, about as nigh Heaven as folks ever git on earth, but how many do you find, Josiah?"

"Oceans on 'em," sez I, "oceans on 'em," for I wuzn't goin' to spile my argument entirely till I had to.

"Yes," sez Samantha, "there is once in a while one that looks so from the outside, and mebby it looks so from the inside. But," sez she, "the hands of divorce lawyers are pretty busy nowadays. Marriage," sez Samantha, "is a divine institution, but its beauty has been dimmed by the rust of unjust and foolish idees and practices. Always when time honored customs change from the old to the new, from bad to better, there is a period of upheaval and unrest, until the new becomes natural and common.

"Wimmen," sez Samantha, "are be[Pg 53]ginin' to look upon marriage differently than they used to. They look now on both sides of the question. Instead of settin' with folded hands in a shadowy bower, waitin' and listenin' for the prancin' steed that is to bring the Prince to her feet to ask for her lily white hand, which she gives him with grateful, rapturous tears of joy, wimmen are now standin' up on their feet in broad daylight, lookin' on every side of the marriage question and lettin' the full light of day shine on it, the same light they've got to live under after the hazy days of the honeymoon are over."

Them forward practical idees of hern riled me, and I sez, "I guess men have sunthin' to complain on in the marriage question."

"Yes indeed they have," sez Samantha (with a justice no doubt ketched from me). "Lots of silly simperin' girls look upon marriage as a means to be supported without labor, an unlimited carnival of picture shows, circuses and candy. But in the good times comin' when men have[Pg 54] learned not to look exclusively for a pretty face and kittenish ways, and seek the sterling qualities of common sense, thrift, and industry, qualities that will keep the domestic hearth bright when the honeymoon has waned, girls will begin to prize and practice these traits which men find admirable.

"And another thing, Josiah, thoughtful inteligent wimmen are getting so they don't admire the crop of wild oats that used to be considered inevitable, and in a way dashing and admirable. Instead of blindly accepting what the Prince danes to bestow upon her and asking nothing in return, she demands the same things of him he asks of her, the same purity he demands of her, and why not the same moral and legal rights, since they are both human bein's, made as all mortals are of God and clay?"

I gin a deep groan here, showin' plain how distasteful them forward onwomanly idees wuz to me. But she went right on onheedin' my sithes, or the dark frown gatherin' on my eyebrows.

Sez she, "So many avenues of pleasant lucrative employment are open now to wimmen, and the epithet, Old Maid, is not as of old a badge of contumely, that wimmen won't take a ticket for the lottery of marriage, for but one reason, the only reason that ever made marriage honorable and respectable, and that is true love, not a light mental fancy, nor a short lived physical attraction, but the love that in spite of earthly shadows illuminates hovel and palace, and makes both on 'em the ante-room of Paradise. The love that upholds, inspires, overlooks faults, is constant in sun and shade, and lasts down to the dark valley, and throws its light acrost it into the very Land of Light."

Them words sounded good to me, they sounded some like what I had writ more formerly on the subject, and I jined in fervently. "Yes, indeed, and why can't females settle down in matrimony and stay to home with their famblys, and take care of their children?" and I quoted a few words from the dear chapter I had[Pg 56] writ first. "There woman is a queen, the poorest female in the slummiest slum is a monark in that sacred place."

"Yes," sez Samantha, "sometimes a good man makes a wife supremely happy. But too often nowdays a bright healthy young woman finds in the life she has pictured as the dooryard of Eden a worse serpent than Eve found there, a loathsome souvenir of her husband's old gay life which destroys her own health and happiness, and which she has to hand down to her children's children, makin' 'em invalids and idiots.

"The poor workin' mother you speak on if she is well enough can stay at home if she has a home to stay in, and doesn't have to labor outside to sustain it. She can breathe the filthy tenement air, be frozen by its winter, choked by its summer atmosphere, she can guide and guard the youthful steps of her children as far as the doorstep and then she must drop the helpless hand, and if she is inteligent and loving hearted she can wet her pillow with vain tears thinking how her pretty[Pg 57] innocent young girl has got to pass vile saloons full of evil men on her way to and from store and factory. The factory filled with gant childish forms, with all the care-free happiness of childhood ground from their faces by the brutal hand of Incessant Toil. Unguarded machinery on every side that one false careless move of her girl may maim or kill. Her pretty girl alone strugglin' with ontold dangers. Youth's wild blood urging her to indiscreet acts, Wolves of Prey on one side, Grim Want on the other. If the mother has a mother's heart, her body may be at home where she is so eloquently urged to be, but her heart will be abroad, in the greater home wimmen want to make safer; the home where her children spend their days. It will be hantin' the factory, the grog shop, the vile picture show, the white slaver's abode, watchin', waitin', for what may happen, what has happened so often to other mothers' children."

Samantha goes too fur when she gits to goin', and I told her so plain and[Pg 58] square, she aggravates me. And to let her see how much I disapproved of her talk I never dained a reply to her in verbal words. But I riz up with a hauty mean on my eyebrow, and went to pokin' the kitchen fire. I poked it with all the strength of a strong man whose arguments have been spilte and whose feelin's have been wownded by his own pardner.

But I believe my soul that she thought that I did it as a hint that it wuz about dinner time, for she went out to once and hung on the teakettle. And as she did so she mentioned incidentally that she laid out to have lamb chops and green peas and mashed potatoes for dinner, with peach pie and coffee to foller. As she said this my angry emotions settled down and grew more clear and composed, some like Samantha's delicious coffee, when she drops the powdered eggshells into it.

It wuz a beautiful mornin'. I felt boyed up by the invigoration of the invigoratin' atmosphere, the boyness helped along mebby by three cups of Samantha's delicious coffee with rich cream in it, three veal cutlets brown and tender, four hot rolls light as day, several flaky baked potatoes and some biled eggs.

I felt well and I devoted my muse on this auspicious occasion to writin' specially on the protectin' love and care that men had always shown and delighted to show to females. It wuz a subject that I loved and my mind and tongue had often reverted to, follerin' the example of all the other good and great statesmen who have talked and writ on the feminist question. And I felt that I wuz abundantly qualified to do justice to it,[Pg 60] havin' protected Samantha and lovin'ly guarded her weak footsteps for goin' on forty years.

I set with my steeled pen in hand and got so lost and wropped up in contemplation of the beautiful and inspirin' subject, and plannin' how I would handle it to the best advantage, that time passed onheeded and first I knowed I hearn by the sound of dishes rattlin' in the near and adjacent kitchen that Samantha wuz beginin' to make preparations for dinner.

The kitchen as I said wuz contagious to the settin' room and the door wuz open. I had laid out and intended to begin the chapter on this important and most congenial subject with some strong stern language calculated to shame wimmen for the unbelievin' remarks they had made on this beautiful and universal trait of my sect, and their seemin' teetotle inability to appreciate the constant onvaryin' and lovin' protection that men had always gin to the weaker and more inferior sect.

I remembered well how in a former talk with Samantha on this subject, though she had admitted willin'ly enough that there wuz lots of good generous men runnin' loose in the world. Yet she tried to dispute my insertion that all men always cared for and tenderly protected wimmen, by bringin' up instances where she claimed men had balked and kicked over the traces, and instead of protectin' wimmen had run 'em away into ruination and destruction.

She brung up White Slavery, political, social and industrial dependence, and the average man's inherient objection to regard wimmen as a citizen and plain human bein', bein' inclined to regard 'em either as angels or underlin's. And a lot of other trashy arguments calculated to rile a man up, yes mad a man to the very quick, who knowed what he wuz talkin' about. One who had spent the heft of his life in protectin' and guidin' her that now turned agin him and disputed him. A man who knowed as well as he knowed the looks of his linement in the shavin'[Pg 62] glass, that man's protectin' love and care wuz all that had held wimmen up, and wuz still a proppin' her.

I spoze in my righteous indignation I may have said kinder hash things about the low down ornary traits of the inferior sect to which Samantha belonged, for she begun to bring up traits that she said some of my sect had, and throw 'em at me, traits that I know no man ever had or skursley ever had hearn on. But I must say that all the while riled up as she wuz inside of her, she kep' knittin' away on my indigo blue sock, and kep' makin' honorable exceptions of good men and smart men. But she brung up Vanity, said I and my sect wuz vain. Sez she, "If a woman tries to talk sense and reason to a man about her needs and her rights, he will generally pay her a compliment about her eyes or her nose. 'Tennyrate he will turn the subject some way and won't listen to her. But if she makes eyes at him, and talks soft nonsense, and flatters him, he will purr like a pussy cat."

'Tain't so. Who ever hearn a man purr? Purrin' is sunthin a man's nater would rebel at and scorn with perfect contemp. But I smashed that argument about vanity to once and forever. Sez I so scathin'ly that it seemed as if she must show signs of scorchin', "Did you ever see a man wear a cosset? Or carry a vanity bag?"

And then still a knittin' and still makin' exceptions of some good and generous men, she throwed the trait of selfishness in my face, said my sect had passed along down the fields of time, gatherin' up the ripe wheat and leavin' wimmen to rake up the leavin's.

'Tain't so, and even if it wuz, I presoom to say Ruth got quite a good bundle of grain out of Boazes' wheat field.

And then she took pomposity and throwed at me (still a knittin', and still makin' exceptions of some men) said lots of men stood up on a self-made pedestal lookin' down mentally on them who in many cases wuz their superiors, but she added that wimmen wuz more to blame[Pg 64] for this trait in men than they wuz, for they had been educated to look up to men instead of lookin' sideways where they ort to find him on a level at her side.

It is needless to say to any one who knows my keenness of inteleck that I took immegiate advantage of this slip of her tongue and sez, "I am glad that you admit, Samantha, that wimmen are always in the wrong. I and my sect have always knowed it, and we've always laid the blame on 'em from Eve down to Miss Pankhurst."

And that seemed to set her off agin, and she brung up my blindness. Blind as a bat! Them wuz her words she throwed at me, at me! who has got eyes as keen as a eagle's. That injustice did rankle and make me hash and say hash things.

But she kep' cam on the outside, kep' on with her knittin' and intimidated agin that though there wuz lots of good generous men in the world, yet it had always been a trait of the average man[Pg 65] from Solomon to Harry Thaw to look upon woman as a plaything or a convenience. And then she brung up inconsistency and how men showed it in the laws they made, criminal inconsistency, she called it. Sez she, "A girl must be twenty-one when she is considered by men lawmakers wise enough to sell them a hen, or buy a cat. But yet at the age of ten in one state, twelve in another, she is considered by them wise and prudent enough to sell them the crowning jewel of her life with the payment of lifelong shame, agony, and despair, and mebby a little candy. Men make such laws," sez she, "not for their own sweet young girls, but for some other men's daughters, just like the infamous White Slave traffic that sells every year thousands and thousands of young girls into a livin' death. And I think," sez she, "when men make such shameful barbarous laws it is high time for 'em to have help from angels or wimmen or sunthin' or ruther."

"That hain't religious, Samantha," sez I, "to speak of angels makin' laws, tendin'[Pg 66] corkuses and such. As a deacon I object to it."

Sez she, "As a deacon you better object to the laws I'm talkin' about, and if clergymen, deacons and church members generally, would all rise agin 'em, they'd be stamped out pretty sudden." Sez she, "When the young girls of our country are considered of equal importance with cows and clover to oversee and protect, there will be different laws, and I believe wimmen's votin' will hasten that day."

There is always a time for a man if he wants to keep his dignity intack before females, to stop arguin' with 'em. That time had come to me at that juncture, and I knowed that it would be more dignified to show a manly superiority to such hullsale calumnity of my sect so I looked hautily at her, and didn't dain to reply to her in verbal words though I grated my teeth some, as I walked out of the settin' room with head erect into the kitchen, and brought in a armful of wood from the contagious woodshed with my head still held high, and hung on the[Pg 67] teakettle with a hauty mean. For I felt that some of Samantha's good vittles would soothe my wownded and perturbed sperit if anything could and they did cam me.

I thought of that former interview with my pardner as I sot there preparin' my mind for the masterful effort I wuz about to make.

As I said more formerly I had intended to begin the chapter at this epock of time with a few witherin' remarks calculatin' to rebuke wimmen and wither 'em. I laid out to stun 'em and skair 'em with the artillery of my brilliant eloquence, my protectin' love for the weaker sect riz up so powerful, and my anger wuz so hot agin them that had dasted to deny it.

I felt that they did believe in men's constant and tender protection, but held out and denied it jest to be mean, jest to carry out their sect's well known desire to argy and aggravate us. And as I meditated on these things and thought of my former talk with Samantha I have jest related, I held my steeled pen in almost a iron grip,[Pg 68] and my linement I knowed growed fearful to look upon, charged as it wuz with the awakened powers of a strong man.

When jest as I wuz beginin' the turrible rebukin' words Samantha opened the oven door in the contagious kitchen and the fragrant breath of a lemon custard pie floated out, accompanied with the delicious uroma of a roast chicken with dressin'.

And as on so many former occasions, the delicious odor seemed to enter into and permenate my hull mental and physical systern and soften 'em and quiet my wild and dangerous emotions, I felt mellerer towards her and her sect, and I held my steeled pen in a gentler, softer grip. And instead of the thunderbolt of convincin' argument I had even begun to transcribe, I sez to Samantha, who had come in with a pan of potatoes to peel, and my voice wuz as sweet as the lemon custard.

"You do know, don't you, dear Samantha, that it has always been men's chief aim and desire to protect the weaker inferior sect?" sez I tenderly. "Any man[Pg 69] that has the sperit of manhood within him will agree with me." Agin I inhaled into my nostrils the sweet uroma comin' from the contagious kitchen, and sez I in a still tenderer axent, "Men love to protect wimmen, don't you think so?"

Sez Samantha in a cam reasonable voice peelin' away at her potatoes, "A man loves to protect and warn a woman agin every man only himself." Sez she, "Amanda Peedick wuz protected by men and warned."

And I sez kinder short, my tenderer emotions driv back into myself, "What of it, what if she wuz!"

And then she had to go on and recall to my mind that triflin' incident that had occurred and took place in Jonesville the fall before.

Sez she, "You remember, Josiah, old man Peedick who wuz rich as a Jew, left all his money to his boys, a handsome propputy to each one on 'em, and Almina who had stayed to home and took care on him, and lifted him, and rubbed him, and soaked him, and swet him, and[Pg 70] dressed and fed him, he only left the house and apple orchard.

"The boys all had splendid homes in the city, but their houses wuz either too big or too small, or too hot or too cold, to have Almina live with 'em, and she wuz expected to git her livin' out of the apples. They wuz first class grafts, none so good anywhere round, and brought the very highest price, and she would got a good livin' and laid up money, if she had been left alone, if she hadn't been protected and warned.

"But every single one of them brothers would come out from the city and warn her agin the other brothers, and tell her how easy it wuz for a weak innocent woman to be deceived and cheated by designin' men, her nearest relation mebby. And that a gentle female's mind wuzn't strong enough to grapple with depravity, and she must lean on him for protection, and he would see her through, so every single one on 'em told her, and warned her agin the other six brothers.

"And Amanda would feel real affectionate and grateful to each one on 'em in turn, and be glad she had such a strong protector and warner to take care of her. And every single time they come to protect and warn her they would take home a few bushels of them delicious apples, and when they got through protectin' and warnin' her, she didn't have apples enough left to make a mess of sass."

But what of it, what had that got to do with my great work that wuz seethin' through my brain? That shows how triflin' and how ornary a woman's mind is, to bring up that old story whilst my brain wuz workin' to a almost dangerous degree inside of my forward tryin' to prove to the female masses at large the great fact of men's protectin' love and the needecessity for it, to prove to 'em as I laid out to prove to the listenin' world that wimmen wuz naterally inferior to men, their brains smaller and lighter, when weighed up in the stillyards. Their emmanuel strength less, their idees more[Pg 72] whifflin' and onstabled, and that therefore and accordin'ly wimmen needed and had got to have man's masterful mind and emmanuel strength to protect her from the evils and wickedness of the world, and specially from the awful tuckerin' and dangerous job of votin'.

At this juncter I paused for a minute to collect my thoughts together and then I brought forth from my brain this convincin' argument.

If wimmen don't need a man to protect her and take care on her, why is she so much more ignorant of sin and depravity? Why is there five times more men in prisons and penitentiaries than there is wimmen, if they knowed as much about crime as men do?

"No," sez I, soarin' up in eloquence, "what a man has been through and been educated up to in business and political life, he knows how to protect tender females from. Why," sez I, fairly carried away on the wings of my own eloquence, "men can teach wimmen more in one day about criminal wickedness, graft,[Pg 73] false witnessing, drunkenness, bribery, political corruption of all kinds, than she can learn from her own sect in months. Not but what," sez I reasonably, "she can learn some from some on 'em, but not nigh so much nor nigh so fast."

I didn't know but Samantha would take lumbago from my cuttin' remarks, but she didn't seem to. She took up her pan of peeled potates and prepared to leave the room. But as she went out she said sunthin' agin about that old Debatin' School, and the feller she always tried to git on the other side of the argument, so's to help her out. Showin' as plain as the nose on your face jest how queer wimmen are, how their minds will wander, and how impossible it is to keep 'em down to the subject under discussion.

In my tremenjous efforts to succor my sufferin' and women-hounded sect at this awful epock of time, I have already held forth on the beautiful and congenial subject of the love and protectin' care males have always loved to show towards females. But agin I take up my steeled pen to write upon this most important subject. For I agin warn my sect solemnly that this beautiful trait in me and us, is what we should enlarge upon, and insist on makin' the female sect admit at this epock of danger and revolt.

Yes, my sufferin' sect, we should make 'em own up to it, peacefully if we can, but if necessary let us insert it into their obstinate craniums with a crowbar and hammer. For though a weaker in[Pg 75]teleck may not grasp its importance and extreme needecessity, it is plain to the eagle eye of a Researcher and Reformer of females that if they admit this, they have got to admit all that follers, the perfect peace and rest they feel surrounded by these noble traits as by a shinin' mantilly.

With this worthy end in view I've tried to warn Samantha time and agin that if females insisted on risin' up and demandin' their Rights they would become so obnoxious to the stronger and opposite sects that men would lose that tender courtesy they have always loved to show towards wimmen. But I've never been able to skair her, and I don't know as I ever shall. Mebby this Great Work of mine when it is finished and lanched onto a waitin' world may dant her, but, I don't know, I feel dubersome about it.

Sez she when I brung it up to her agin, "Men and wimmen are born with different traits; wimmen have love and tenderness and sympathy towards the helpless,[Pg 76] babies, husbands, etc.; you insist that votin' hain't changed nor harmed men's courtesy and chivalry you talk so much about, so why should votin' break down these inborn traits in wimmen that men admire?"

"But you will see that it will," sez I, "and methought I had proved it to you on a former occasion that it is a scientific fact proved by such scientific men as myself, Simon Bentley Esq., and other deep thinkers, that the very minute a woman goes to the pole that very minute a man's courtesy and chivalry towards her is utterly destroyed."

But if you'll believe it even this turrible idee didn't seem to skair her. She sez, "If I can't have but one I'd ruther have justice than courtesy, but I'd like both, and don't see why I can't have 'em."

But I sez agin firmly and decisively, "You can't have both on 'em, for if a woman votes, by that brazen and onbecomin' move of hern, wimmen lose that winnin' weakness and appealin' charm for men, their helplessness before the law,[Pg 77] and their clingin' dependence upon them to take care of them and their propputy that is so endearin' to my sect. And if they spile this by their obnoxious act of votin' they must take the awful consequences."

Sez Samantha, "It has worked well in other states; it has helped men, wimmen and children mentally, socially and legally. If it wuz such a dangerous thing as you say it is, why have men granted suffrage to wimmen after it has been tried for twenty years or more in a neighborin' state, right in their own dooryard as you may say? Would they venter if they hadn't found that it wuz a good thing?"

Sez I hautily, "I am not talkin' about other states or other countries, or other males or other females. I am working and writing in the interests of Jonesville and its environin' environs. I am tryin' to ward off with my right hand, and my steeled pen the waves of error that I see in my own mind sweepin' down nigher and nigher onto us."

And I went on with a soarin' eloquence[Pg 78] enough to melt the heart of a salamander, "I stand at the Gate of Jonesville as the boy stood on the burnin' deck when all but him had flowed, and I will stand there protectin' that Gate, and us male Jonesvillians from infringin' and encroachin' females till I'm sot fire to."

I waved out my hand in a noble jester as I spoke, and spozed mebby it would touch Samantha's heart. But she looked at me over her specs from head to foot in the cool aggravatin' way wimmen have sometimes, and I read in her eyes the remark she didn't utter:

But I didn't reply to that unuttered tant, I felt above it, and went on, "I am not the only man who takes that firm onchangeable position. England has a high official who occupies the same noble poster. He don't heed or care what females want or don't want, nor what other statesmen want or don't want. Nor he don't care what is goin' on in other parts of the world, or not goin' on. His proud[Pg 79] position is to shield England from the encroachin' army of Female Suffragists. To do what he's made up his mind to do, and nothin' can't stop him, not threats, nor reason, nor argument, nor broken winders, nor torn coat tails. A good hard shakin' from a female can't change him, nor shake his resolve out of him, nor hunger strikes, nor fleein' wimmen, nor pursuin' ones. He stands side by side with me. And even if it brought the towers of Jonesville and England in ruins at our four feet we would not then change our two great minds.

"His bizness is to not look to see what is done in other places or not done, but to protect his own Green Isle from what he's made up his mind is dangerous and infringin'.

"Oh," sez I with a deep heart felt sithe, "would that we two congenial souls might meet and sympathize with each other. But though sea and land divides our bodies, our sperits meet and flow together." I wuz almost lost in the rapped idee of the sweet conference meetin' we[Pg 80] two could enjoy together. But anon I gin my attention to the subject momentarily broke in upon (for my mind is so large and roomy it is big enough for several trains of thought to run through it at one time).

And I sez as I remarked prior and heretofore, "Samantha, that courtesy in males is a most beautiful trait; you see it everywhere, to mill and to meetin', as the old sayin' is. Now last week when I wuz to the conference, Uncle Sime and I wuz in a crowded street car and a dretful fat woman come in, heftier than you are, Samantha."

"Is it possible?" sez she coldly (she thinks I make light of her heft but I don't; it hain't nothin' to make light of, specially when you lift her in and out the democrat).

"Yes," sez I, "she wuz even fatter than you are, and she come in red-faced and pantin' from the exertion. And a young chap who had been settin' with two or three other young fellers carryin' on and laughin', the very minute she[Pg 81] come wheezin' in, he riz up and sez to her:

"You see, Samantha," sez I, "how that inborn courtesy in males inserted itself even in a street car."

"Yes, I see," sez Samantha in a still colder axent, but I could tell by her linement that she wuzn't a mite convinced. And I went on a praisin' up that noble trait of my sect, and tryin' to convince her how universal it wuz, and how turrible it would be for females to lose it, but she kep' on a knittin' on my blue sock, and sez in quite a reasonable axent for a female to use:

"Yes, to see a great hearted noble man guard and protect a woman is a beautiful sight, but," sez she, "that trait, though sometimes seen, is not universal."

But she kep' right on in the persistent, irritatin' way wimmen have; as I've said prior and before, they can't seem to be[Pg 82] willin' to give up to man's superior judgment, they're bound to talk and argy. And her voice wuz as firm as any rock in our medder, and if there is anything more firmer and aggravatin' than them I'd like to see 'em. She made me think that minute of them big rocks when I wuz tryin' to plough round 'em. I see I could jest as easy make a furrer through them as through her sot obstinate old mind as she said agin:

As she made that damagin' insertion agin, is it any wonder that the plough of my manly judgment struck fire from her rocky obstinacy? I acted fearful wrathy and disputed her right up and down.

Sez I, "That is sunthin' that no man will stand for; they will not brook bein' accused of a lack of courtesy towards wimmen." I acted dretful indignant, for in this turrible time us men have got to lay holt of every little nub of argument and hang onto it like a dog to a bone, or the Lord only knows what will become[Pg 83] on us, or how low a hole we will be ground down into by the high heels of females.

Sez Samantha, "I admit there are beautiful instances of men protectin' and guardin' wimmen, but how wuz it with Fez Lanfear? He wuz always boastin' about men's courtesy and chivalry, and how did it come out?"

I sot silent and scratched my head for a minute or so, not as Samantha intimidated to try to dig out a favorable idee, no, it itched.

And I sez, "Id'no as I blame Fez for always talkin' about this trait in his sect, and Id'no as I blame him for what it led to." He see how necessary it wuz to insist on men's havin' these traits, and his wife would argy agin him, and he'd git riled up. He always had to be real sharp with her and boss her, for if he hadn't he would lost the upper hand of her, which every man ort to have, and she would took the advantage on him and run on him. For the propputy all belonged to her and it made Fez discouraged, and took his ambition away, and he couldn't seem to set[Pg 84] himself to work, and all the comfort he had wuz in arguin' on them traits of men and playin' on the fiddle and base drum, so she rented her place and they lived on what she got for it.

But knowin' it wuz her ruff that covered him, and her chairs he sot in, and her vittles he et, and clothes he wore, made him irritated and fraxious, and he knowed he'd got to sass her and act uppish towards her or he wouldn't be nothin' nor nobody. And she would act real disagreeable and tell him she'd love to see some of the courtesy of his sect he talked so much about showed out by him to home, and she doubted he had any, and knowin' that he had oceans of it, for every man has, it naterally madded him.

And one washin' day they got to arguin' and he brung up them noble traits of men, and their onvaryin' courtesy and generosity towards wimmen. And right in the midst on't she asked him to bring in two pails of water to finish her washin' on account of her havin' a lame back.

He wuz practicin' a new piece entitled[Pg 85] "Woman, Lovely Woman," and bein' so interested in it and bein' broke off so sudden from melody and men's noble traits to act as a chore boy (he'd argyed so much he could argy and fiddle) and a smartin' I spoze from the dispute they wuz havin', he wouldn't git her the water and told her real short to git it herself.

And as she started with two pails for the water—they brung it up from the creek by hand, for Fez had never had time to make a cistern—she twitted him agin about that courtesy of men towards wimmen, and bein' so high strung and independent sperited, he up and hit her and knocked her down, and stood over her a hollerin':

"Now will you dispute me agin, and say that men don't show any courtesy towards wimmen?" And bein' browbeat and skairt (for he wuz a great strong man and she a little mite of a woman and tired out) she had to knuckle down and admit that men did have courtesy, oceans of it. But he wouldn't git the water, he showed his independence there[Pg 86] and she better kep' still and not aggravated him.

Lots of folks blamed him, Samantha did, them that see shaller, and didn't see deep into first causes. He told Uncle Sime and me jest how it wuz; he said that mad and aggravated as he wuz he didn't forgit that his wife belonged to the weaker and tenderer sect, and it wuz a husband's duty and privelige to take care on her and shield her from harm. And he said he didn't hit her hard at all, only gin her a little tunk to let her know who wuz master there and that he wouldn't brook female arguin', and he said that if she hadn't been so tuckered out it wouldn't have hurt her much of any, and he wuz as surprised as she wuz when she tumbled over. But he said seein' she laid there on the floor he see it wuz his duty to his own sect to make her own up how truly superior men wuz, and how much courtesy they had, for he thought mebby he should never git so good a chance agin to make her own up to them noble traits of men. Uncle Sime and I[Pg 87] both see how Fez felt and what driv him to do what he did.

I tell you agin it is a perilous and agonizin' epock of time for the male sect at home and abroad. Men in America havin' to set curled up on a bench by the side of the road, and see weak wimmen, underlin's, a marchin' by 'em in the center of the street with brass bands and banners a flyin'. And in England the highest official of the Empire held by the collar and shook by a weak female jest like a spitball thrower of a schoolboy, and couldn't resent it in court owin' to his havin' so much dignity at the stake.

Oh, my downtrod sect! what are we a comin' to? I do git so wrought up a meditatin' on the dretful things that are a happenin' to us men nowdays, and how browbeat and how humiliated we are by our inferiors, I git so cast down and deprested that my melancholy sperit has to bust out in poetry. For some time I've had them feelin's. Now last Christmas night I had such a spell, and I had to git[Pg 88] out of bed and put Samantha's crazy quilt round me (and it seemed as if that insane quilt made me feel more high strung and wild) and go out in the settin' room and ease my strugglin' sperit in verse.

Why, sometimes it seems if I didn't have this safety valve to my bustin', swellin' emotions it seems almost as if I should have to be hooped to keep myself together. But poetry kinder easies me a little. Now last Saturday night I writ the follerin' verses as late as leven P.M. We'd been to meetin' as usual, and had a splendid Christmas dinner. Samantha, as I have mentioned prior and before this, with all the weaknesses and shortcomin's of her inferior sect, is a masterly cook. But it is all nonsense her thinkin' I et too much; I didn't eat more'n four pieces of mince pie, and three helpin's of plum puddin', besides the turkey and vegetables and salad and such. If a strong man belongin' to a strong and superior sect can't stand that, it is a pity.

She insisted that it wuz a nightmair[Pg 89] that sot on my chist and rid me out of bed into the settin' room that time o' night. But it wuzn't no such thing, it wuz my melancholy and deprested sperit that overcome me a thinkin' of my sect and what wuzn't to be.

It seems as if everything melancholy and cast down appeared right in front on me. Seems as if I could see old Fate a encouragin' and pompeyin' the more opposite sect, and turnin' her back and lookin' down onto me and my sect, and refusin' me and us things she might have gin us if she'd a mind to. But bein' a female we might know she'd be contrary and love to tromple on us, and on me in petickular. As I sot there in them solemn night hours, with Samantha sleepin' peacefully in the next room and the old clock tickin' away as if onmindful of the sufferin' sperit near it, it seemed as if every mean jab old Fate had ever gin me from her sharp elbows and hard knuckles riz right up before me, and I seemed to see all the agreable things she might have did for the benefit of me and[Pg 90] my sect if she hadn't been so contrary, but as I said, what could you expect of a female? My feelin's wuz turrible; the verses I gin vent to relieved me a little some like prickin' a bile and after writin' 'em I went back to bed and slep' so sound that I never hearn Samantha buildin' a fire and gittin' breakfast till the sweet uroma of the coffee and briled chops stole on my wakened senses and I forgot for the moment the trials of me and my sect and felt better than I did feel. The verses wuz entitled:

Yes Christmas has come, it got here at last,
A bringin' me memories out of the past,
And a pair of galluses, a necktie sad—
A gray night-shirt and a paper pad;
Useful presents, but nothin' gay,
Useful presents, dum 'em! I say!
I wanted some jew'lry for the brethren to see,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.

Ministers preach 'tis a blessed day,
And so it is in a meetin' house way;
But to me it has been a day of gloom,
Samantha I see didn't like the broom,
[Pg 91]And mop-stick, and pair of cowhide shues,
It took me the heft of a hour to chuse;
It made me deprested, and mournfulee
I've mused on the things that wuzn't to be.

Weak females risin' on every hand
Pertendin' that they're equal to man—
Wantin' to stand right up by his side,
Instead of the place where they ort to abide
Down in the safety and peace at his feet;
Oh the dear old times, so happy so sweet,
Will never come back to my sect, nor to me,
No, it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.

Yes, I guess old Fate made a slip of her pen,
When fixin' the lot of the children of men,
'Twas bad for the world and for me I ween
That I wuzn't born a king or a queen;
My bald head shines out bare and cold,
Or wears a hat, oh a crown of gold
Would set it off fur agreabler to me,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.

Fate sets a writin' in darkness and night,
'Tain't spozeable she always gits things right;
To the poor she sends ten children or more
Crowdin' in through Famine Wolves round the door,
While for one kid the rich may vainly sigh,
But she flirts her skirts and passes 'em by;
Why hain't villains shot while the good go free?
It wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.
[Pg 92]
A poet comes with his dreamy way
Right into a nest of common clay;
And in pious home a soul gits in
The size of the hole in the head of a pin;
So 'tain't so strange some feller and I
Should git mixed up on our way through the sky;
If I had to be born why not been he.
It wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.

Fate sort o' yanked me and throwed me down
On a Yankee hillside bare and brown;
And gin me a chance to die or live
Accordin' to labor I had to give;
I couldn't eat stuns or a burdock burr,
So I had to hustle and make things purr,
No bread-fruit round, nor no custard-tree;
No, it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.

Now that other feller that might have been me
By a turn of Fate's pen, oh in luxury
He lays and counts up his millions in bed,
With his crown on the bed-post over his head;
I wonder by Snum! if he thinks it straight—
For me to be small and him to be great;
When I might have been him and he might have been me,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.

I'd ask how he'd like it to take off his crown
And to good hard hoein' knuckle down.
Or plantin', or hayin', or a weed pullin' bee
In onion beds, (dum 'em from A to Z!)
[Pg 93]I bet I could work on his feelin's so deep
He'd up and divide a part of his heap,
Jest a thinkin' of how he might have been me—
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.

Now that feller's wife, I presoom to say
That some of the time he has his way;
He's so tarnal lucky and happy and fat,
It would be jest like him to git even that.
Oh I'd dearly love to have it to say
That once, jest once I'd had my way
When Samantha and I didn't chance to agree,
But it wuzn't to be, it wuzn't to be.

Samantha of course had to find fault with these sad but beautiful verses. And she asked me what them letters meant I had strung along after my name, showin' plain the inherient weakness of a female's brain.

Of course a man would see to once that they stood for Path Master and Salesman in the Jonesville Cheese Factory. I had talked it over with Uncle Sime and we both agreed that at this time, when the hull race of men wuz facin' complete insignificance, if not teetotal anhiliation, it behooved us to lay holt of every speck of dignity we could[Pg 94] lay our hands on, and we both thought them letters made my name look more noble and riz up.

But Samantha didn't like the verses at all, and agin advanced the uroneous idee that it wuz my liver that ailed me instead of genius.

Sez she, "If folks will gorge themselves 'till their eyes stand out with fatness,' as the Good Book sez, how can they see plain to gratefully count over the blessin's the past year has brought 'em, and lay plans to pass on some of their good cheer to them that set in the shadders of grief and poverty?"

She said I'd be all right in a day or two, and if I wuzn't she should soak my head, and doctor me, for, sez she, "I hain't goin' to have anybody round writin' such deprestin' and ongrateful verses.

"Lots of times," sez she, "if sentimental and melancholy poets would git their livers to workin' better they wouldn't harrer up their readers so. Catnip would help 'em to look on the brighter side of life, or thoroughwort."

And she didn't like the last pathetic and interestin' stanza; she said I'd had my way, or thought I'd had it time and agin. And agin she said it wuz my liver that ailed me, and she even approached me with some catnip tea.

Good heavens! Catnip! to curb my soarin' sperit, and soothe the ardent emotions of my soul.

A regular fool idee. You might know it sprung from a female's brain, or ruther the holler spot where brains should be—Gracious heaven! Catnip!

As I've repeated time and agin it is a apaulin' epock of time us males are a passin' through. More and more, day by day and year by year the female sect is a infringin' on us. Right after right, privelige after privelige, dear to our manly souls as the very apples in our eyes, are grasped holt on by encroachin' female hands and torn away from us weak and helpless men.

From birth to death the infringin' goes on, you can't take up a newspaper now but you see signs on't. In the good old times when a man had a child born to him to carry on his name and his propputy to future generations, he took the credit on't. How is it told on now? instead of puttin' it in as it used to be, and ort to be, "John Smith has got a[Pg 97] son, John Smith Jr."—it is writ down now in this fool way:

"A son is born to John and Mary Smith." What's the use on't? John's name is enough any fool would know there wuz a female somewhere connected with the event in a womanly onobstrusive way, but why do they have to bring her name forward to set her up, and spile her, and mention all these little petickulars?

Why, how wuz it in Bible times, as I asked Samantha, sez I, "From the very first it wuz set down as it ort to be and a sample to foller, Noah begot Ham, and Ham begot Cush, and Cush begot Nimrod, and they kep' on begettin' and begettin', chapter after chapter, and no female's name connected with it in any way, shape or manner." Sez I, "Hain't that a solemn proof, Samantha, that females are inferior and wuzn't considered worth writin' about?" Sez I, "You nor no other Female Suffragist can squirm out of that."

Sez Samantha, "Men translated the Bible, but I can tell you," sez she, "that[Pg 98] when Miss Ham, racked with agonizin' pain, went down to death's door for little Cush, whilst Mr. Ham wuz santerin' round Canean smart as a cricket, and probable flirtin' with some good lookin' four-mother, if Miss Ham had writ it up for the Daily Paper her name would been mentioned in the transaction."

That's jest the way it is, even Bible proof can't stop wimmen's clack and argyin'. Yes, jest as I said, infringin' follers a man from the cradle to the grave. For I'll be hanged if you don't see it writ nowdays, "James Brown, beloved husband of Sarah Brown." How bold, how forward! husband of! It seems as if it is enough to make his grampa, old Jotham Brown, turn over in his grave and try to git up, to stop such doin's. He lived in a time when females knowed their place and kep' in it. He had twenty-one children by his seven different wives, and every one on 'em wuz put in the paper and the old Fambly Bible credited to him; ketch him havin' any female's name mixed up with it, oh no! They[Pg 99] couldn't infringe on him, not whilst he wuz alive, they couldn't. He worked his wives hard, and when one died off, he married another. He said as long as the Lord kep' takin' 'em, he should.

As I said no female couldn't git the better of him whilst he wuz alive, but they played a nasty mean trick on him after he wuz dead. His last wife wuz a high headed creeter, or would have been if he hadn't broke her in, and held her head down with such a tight rain. But owin' to his disagreein' with all his children and bloody relatives she got the propputy all in her hands, and after he died she got tall noble gravestuns for every one of his different wives, almost monuments, with a long verse of poetry on each one on 'em, and their names writ down in full.

"Mahala Eliza—Mehitable Jane—Amanda Mandana—Drusilly Charity—Priscilla Charlotte—Alzina Trypheena—Diantha Cordelia—all carved in big deep letters, and their names before they wuz married. These seven high stuns[Pg 100] stood in a sort of a half circle with a little low stun in the center and on it printed in little letters wuz:

It looked dretful; but his children all hatin' him as they did they didn't interfere. But it wuz a mean trick and she couldn't have done it if he'd been alive, no indeed. But seein' he wuzn't there to rain her in and hold her down, she took the advantage on him as wimmen will if you give 'em the chance. Folks all thought she done it to come up with him for bein' so hard on his different wives, and keepin' 'em down so, and I presoom she did. I presoom she wuz a regular female infringer and suffrager.

Now in the marriage notices, instead of bein' put in the newspaper in the modest becomin' way it used to be, "John Smith's son married to Mary Brown," it has to be put in Mr. and Mrs. Smith's son or daughter is married. Where is the good horse sense on't? Everybody would know that young Smith had a mother somewhere in the background, but what's[Pg 101] the use of bringin' her forward so and makin' on her? It is jest to infringe on men, that's what it is for.

And when Luke Dingman married Nancy Whittle she had the money to start a store bizness, but Luke bein' a man, his wuz the name that ort to been spoke on, and he went and got a handsome sign all painted "Luke Dingman's Store." And if you'll believe it Nancy made him git it painted all over agin "L. and N. Dingman's Store." What wuz the use of draggin' a female's initional into it? Jest to infringe on us men. But lots of men made fun on't and told Luke he'd ort to been man enough to stand his ground and kep' the first sign. They say it makes Luke real huffy, and he takes it out on Nancy, is dretful mean to her, but she's only got herself to blame, she hadn't ort to infringed on him.

And last week Samantha and I went to Philena Peedick's weddin'. And when the minister asked, "Who giveth this woman to this man?" the widder Peedick[Pg 102] walked up bold as brass, and gin Philena away, she, a female woman! Never, as I told Uncle Sime, never did I see a plainer or more flagrant case of infringin' on men's rights. Why, Philena had a male uncle there, and ruther than see such things go on I would have gin her away myself.

But thank Heaven, there is one thing they hain't changed yet, females have got to knuckle down and be gin away to a man, in marriage, that's a little comfort. "Who giveth this woman!" They have got to hear that, much as it may gald 'em.

But as I told Uncle Sime, it would be jest like 'em to try to change that. And I told him the first we knew a female would snake a man up to the altar, and the minister would be made to say, Who giveth this man to this woman? and the woman who walked him up there would say, "I give him." And then she'll hand him over to the bride. Oh, my soul! have I ever got to see that day? Uncle Sime and I both said that we hoped and[Pg 103] trusted that we would be dead and buried under our tombs before that humiliation come onto our sect.

Uncle Sime and I sympathize a lot together and talk of the good old times and forebode about the future. And one day when my sperit seemed crushed down and deprested more than common, and the future for us men looked dark and gloomy indeed, I sez to him:

Uncle Sime, though very smart, hain't got my mind, sort o' forebodin' and prophetic, and much as he'd worried about wimmen's infringin', he hadn't foreboded to that extent, and he trembled like a popple leaf at them dretful words and sez:

But I went on, turnin' the knife in the wownd, "Mr. Kittie Brown, Mr. Nellie Jones! What do you think of that, Simon?"

He groaned and sithed but didn't say[Pg 104] nothin'; it seemed as if the very idee had fairly stunted him, and I kep' still and meditated and my mind roamed back to the humiliatin' time when I laid my onwillin' nose on the grindstun, or ruther it wuz laid on for me and held there, and I signed a piece of poetry I had writ "Samantha Allen's Husband."

It hain't no use to go into the petickulars and tell all about the means employed to git me under such mortifyin' subjugation. Vittles had sunthin' to do with it, and I hain't goin' to tell no furder. But never, never shall I forgit my meachin' and downtrod linement as I surveyed it in the glass when I wuz shavin' jest afterwards. Shavin' a beard! that very act riz up and asserted the supremacy of my sect and mocked the move I had made. Oh, the sufferin's of that occasion and my vain efforts to git out of it. But Samantha never sympathized with me a mite. She said, "You've seen me doin' the same thing for years and enjoyed it, and what is sass for the gander ort to be sass for the goose."

There is another proof of wimmen's infringin'; she turned that familiar old sayin' right round to carry her pint, and put the goose where the gander always had been, and ort to be. I tell you there hain't no length a female won't go to to carry the day and infringe on men's rights.

And you might as well git blood from a white turnip as to git any pity and sympathy from 'em for my downtrod sect. For when I mentioned to Samantha my turrible forebodin' about my sect havin' to take wimmen's names at the altar, and asked her if she could begin to realize what men's humiliated and despairin' feelin's would be at such a time, she up and sez:

"Do you realize what wimmen's feelin's are at the altar? She's had to stand it. No matter how romantic and beautiful her name wuz, Miss Victoria Angela Chesterfield has had to change it for Miss Ichabod Tubbs, or Miss Peleg Hogg.

"And," sez she, "if she has a big propputy and married a man so poor he had[Pg 106] to borry his weddin' shirt, she had to hear him say, 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' when all them goods wuz a pile of debts she had to pay for him, but she had to stand it and couldn't snicker, for it wuzn't a snickerin' time.

"And a great able bodied business woman had to promise to obey a little snip of a boy, when they both knew she wuz lyin', with a priest hearin' the lie and givin' it his blessin'. My sect has had to stand considerable from yourn," sez Samantha.

No, I didn't git a mite of sympathy from her, and might have knowed it, and I'd better not said a word to her about my forebodin's.

But Uncle Simon Bentley always hears my prognostics with respectful sympathy, and he said after I come out of my meditations, and asked him agin how he would feel to take a woman's name, he sez:

"Thanks to a kind and protectin' Providence, I hain't married. But never![Pg 107] whilst I have the sperit of manhood in me would I, Simon Bentley, ever be called Miss Polly Brown. No, I would cover that alter with my goar, before I would submit to it." And to comfort me he sez, "Josiah, mebby it won't take place in our day."

But I sez, "Simon, I see it jest ahead on us if this infringin' can't be stopped, and I don't see no way to stop it."

But sez Simon in his comfortin' way, "Your book, Josiah, that great work, you forgit that. I believe it will work wonders for our poor strugglin' sect."

"No, Simon," sez I, "I don't forgit that great work for a moment of time; it is the anchor throwed out into the heavin' water of woman's revolt that is a risin' all round us. Sometimes I hope the anchor will touch the solid bottom of man's supremacy, and hold, and then I feel boyed up. But my feelin's ebbs and flows like the mighty ocean to which I have before fittin'ly compared my emotions. We both on us heave up, and heave down. To-day I am a heavin'[Pg 108] down. Oh, how deprested and dubersome I do feel," but I went on in tremblin' axents, "I am bound to make this tremenjous effort, and if you and I, Uncle Sime, and the rest of our sect have got to lay down in the dust to be trod on by the feet of underlin's, whilst layin' there under them high heels, I will have the conscientiousness that I have did what I could for my downtrod sect."

My feelin's overcome me so here that I took out my bandanna and wiped my eyes, and Uncle Sime hisen. He looked as cast down as I did, as we both realized our danger from the turrible doin's round us, and instinctively we took holt of hands and sot there sympathizin' for quite a spell.

But anon Uncle Sime had to go home. He lives with his niece and she sez, "if she has to support him, he has got to be promp to his meals, or go without," so he hastened off.

And I summoned up the brave dantless sperit of manhood and walked upright through the kitchen (we'd been settin' on[Pg 109] the back stoop). I trod with a firm bold step and braved Samantha's onsympathizin' demeanor as she stood fryin' nut cakes, and retired into the welcome seclusion of the corner sacred to my literary pursuits.

Mekanically I run my hands through the dish-pan heaped with Betsy's poetry. Oh, how sad, when a man has to turn to another female (and one he has always detested) for the sympathy and understandin' denied him on his own hearthstun. And though I despise Betsy Bobbett Slimpsey as a human bein' and a female, yet when torn and wownded from infringin' and cold remarks from my own pardner, I do draw a little mite of comfort from that granny iron dish-pan, and runnin' my hand through the poetry heaped up in it, and read how she looks up to my sect, and the becomin' and reverent views she takes on us, and me in petickular. And how it has always been the goal of her life and should be to every womanly female to be united by hook or by crook to one on us, it soothed me, it[Pg 110] brought back the dear old days when man's supremacy wuz onquestioned and he wuzn't infringed on.

And I read how she despises and looks down on the encroachments of the inferior sect to which she belongs, and how she loathes the great tide of the Feminist movement that is risin' up all over the world, threatenin' to sweep us strong males away, as frothy water, if there is enough on't will uproot giant oaks.

I read over piece after piece to cam my sperit, hurt and wownded by infringin', and my pardner's onsympathizin' words, and I picked out the follerin' one as bein' comparitively worthy a place in my great work.

This poem, writ before her marriage, I consider the most touchin'ly pathetic one of all the enormous pile on 'em I had perused. What to a feelin' mind and tender heart is more pitiful than to see a patridge hidin' his head under a maple leaf, and thinkin' his hull body is hid from the hunter? What is more affectin' than to see how Betsy tried to hide her[Pg 111] lifelong pursuit of man, and matrimony, under the cold word, duty?

Oh, what a soul of meanin' there is hid under that word, unless. A keen eye, and a tender heart can read between the lines her real meanin', her dantless resolve, as plain as the hunter sees the plump body and gray tail feathers of the patridge. But I will not keep the reader longer from the sad but beautiful poem.

Unless they do their duty see
Oh who would spread their sail
On matrimony's cruel sea
And face its angry gale?
Oh Betsy Bobbett I'll remain unless I see my duty plain.

Shall horses calmly brook a halter
Who over fenceless pastures stray?
Shall females be dragged to the altar,
And down their freedom lay?
No, no, B. Bobbett I'll remain, unless I see my duty plain.
[Pg 112]
Beware! beware, oh rabid lover
Who pines for intellect and beauty,
My heart is ice to all your overtures
unless I see my duty,
For Betsy Bobbett I'll remain unless I see my duty plain.

Come not with keys of rank and splendor
My heart's cold portals to unlock,
'Tis vain to search for feelin's tender
Too late you'll find you've struck a rock;
For Betsy Bobbett I'll remain unless I see my duty plain.

'Tis vain for you to pine and languish,
I cannot soothe your bosom's pain,
In vain are all your groans, your blandishments
I warn you are in vain;
For Betsy Bobbett I'll remain unless I see my duty plain.

You needn't lay no underhanded
Plots to ketch me, men desist
Or in the dust you will be landed
For to the last I will resist.
For Betsy Bobbett I'll remain unless I see my duty plain.

How folkses emotions will sometimes rise up entirely onexpected and onbeknown to them, and git the better on 'em. Of course we male Americans have always foreboded and felt dretful about a certain subject. But this mornin' it come over me like a black flood, the realizin' sense of the enormous labor that votin' would bring onto weak delicate females, and how impossible it wuz for their fraguile constitution and puny strength to stand up under it.

Why, how many many times we statesmen have said and preached and lectured that wimmen wuzn't much more nor less than angels, and ort to be treated as such. Tender delicate flowers, to be kep' from[Pg 114] every chillin' breeze of life that tried to blow onto 'em.

Such talk has been one of the greatest comforts of us men, and has been very affectin' and effective with lots of females. As I say I've knowed it and held forth on it for years and years, ever since this loathsome doctrine of Wimmen's Rights become so prominent in Jonesville.

But as many different emotions as I've had about it, never wuz my feelin's so wrought up as upon this occasion I speak of. My steeled pen fairly trembled in my hands, shook by my devotion to Samantha, and my determination if possible to keep her beloved and delicate form from sinkin' down under the awful fateeg of votin', and havin' Rights. I wuz so excited and strung up by my feelin's, that I felt that I must warn her agin about it that very minute, and I hollered to her to come to me to once.

I spoze my voice wuz skairful, my feelin's wuz such, and she come a hurryin' in wipin' her hands on her[Pg 115] apron, and sez she, "For the land's sake! what is the matter, Josiah? Have you got a crick?"

"No," sez I, "I've fell into fur deeper waters than any crick. It come over me like a overwhelmin' flood, the thought of the weakness of wimmen, and the arjous and tuckerin' job of votin', and how impossible it wuz for weak wimmen to not sink down under it, and I felt I had to warn you about it this very minute, and entreat you agin to shun it as you would a pizen serpent."

"Well," sez she, "you better forebode to yourself another time. I wuz jest rensin' out my last biler of clothes, and I've got to whitewash the summer kitchen, and paint the buttery floor, and scrape the paper off overhead in the settin' room, so's to paper it to-morrow. And I guess that whitewashin' and scrapin' off that paper with a case knife overhead is as hefty a job as liftin' up a paper ballot, to say nothin' of the biler full of clothes I'm liftin' on and off, and sweatin' over the wash-tub. And I'll[Pg 116] thank you to keep your forebodin's and warnin's to yourself in the future, and not call me offen my work." And she went out and shet the door hard.

And that's all the thanks I got for my tender feelin's and overpowerin' desire to keep hardships from her. But I knowed she wuz expectin' company, and fixin' up and preparin' for 'em, so I overlooked it in her, and I presoom to say the thought of that company and the extra good meals we wuz sure to have, had a amelioratin' effect on me. But her hashness won't stop me nor other noble tender hearted males from worryin' about the turrible hardship and labor of votin', and tryin' our best to keep the gentle delicate females we are protectin' and guardin' from plungin' into it.

But I'm so sensitive and my feelin's so easy hurt, that it must have been a minute and a half before my mind settled down agin and I could hold my steeled pen in as firm a grip as heretofore, and resoom my powerful argumentative strain.

Another reason I've argued why wimmen should not vote wuz she would act so awkward in politics she would put in so many petickulars, wimmen's minds hain't stabled, they hain't got horse sense. And they don't nor won't appreciate that good old doctrine that has always been such a comfort to me and Uncle Sime and other statesmen, that what has been always will be, and to let well enough alone. No they have got to be tinkerin' and tryin' to make things better, and interfere, and talk and tell petickulars. Now if a merchant sells 'em cloth for their fambly, instead of buyin' and payin' for it and keepin' their mouth shet as a man would, they'll feel of it and pull it to and fro, fro and to. And if it hain't what he claims it is, if it is shoddy and poor, they'll talk and talk till he has to hustle round and buy good stuff, or they won't trade with him, takin' off his profits jest by petickulars.

And if a grocer lets his eatin' stuff lay round outdoors for the flies to roost on, do you spoze they'll buy that stuff? No,[Pg 118] their minds not bein' bigger than them fly specks, they'll hound that man till they make him cover up that stuff or bring it into the house, and every one that has got horse sense knows it makes that man extra work, but what do they care? And if he tries to make a little more money by sellin' things that hain't jest what you might call hullsome—and of course every business man understands that he wants to make all the money he can—why, the woman that buys that stuff once, and thinks it hain't what she wants to feed her fambly on, she begins to tell petickulars; she'll call it rotten, and tell how long it has been in cold storage, she'll say "to lessen population and increase some millionaire's revenue." And she'll call his canned vegetables mouldy, and tell how his canned meat smells, and how it made her children sick, and how Eben Purdy's little girl died after eatin' it, and how it took off old Miss Lanfear.

All these little petickulars she has to dwell on with other wimmen till she gits[Pg 119] 'em all rousted up and there will be a dozen talkin' at one time, sez I, and sez he, and sez she, and sez they. And they'll keep it up and jest boycote that man till he has to keep hullsome goods that cost him most as much agin, and of course cuts down his profits, but they don't think of that.

And how them wimmen found fault with the decision of the Supreme court, that pizen could be used to bleach flour, when they knew the Supreme court is composed of the very smartest men in the Nation. And they knowed them supreme men didn't approve of usin' enough pizen in it to kill the aged and infants.

But they had to argy and boast that if they wuz supreme wimmen, they wouldn't had a mite of pizen put into bread, jest as if grown folks can't stand a little pizen now and then. But you can see plain that they claim that wimmen can manage the home and food bizness better than men, and want to find fault with men and git the upper hands on 'em.

And it is jest so with milk. A fool ort to know that it makes a man as much agin work to fuss and clean off his cows and his stables every day, and keep his milk absolutely clean. But what do they care if a man breaks his back cleanin' his stables and washin' off his cows' tits. They'll talk and put in every little petickular about how many babies wuz killed by his bad milk, and how many folks got tomain from it, till they carry the day and git the milk they want. Another man made to toe the mark by petickulars.

And it is jest so with stuff throwed into the street—why, a man can't call his soul his own, and throw a old cabbage or rotten potato into the street without their interferin' with him, and makin' him clean up his primises and keep a covered garbage can.

"Till she gets 'em all rousted up, and just boycote that man till he has to keep hullsome food"

Now jest imagine what that meddlin' interferin' sperit would be if carried into politics, if public officials wuz a prey to woman's petickulars. Now spozin' a man wuz nominated for some high office that[Pg 121] hain't mebby jest exactly square. For as Uncle Sime sez, "What man is square in public life? No," he sez, "you'll find 'em every shape and size, except 4 by 4."

But wimmen can't accept that scientific statement, made by folks that know, that men are made in such a way that public life and politics wears and rubs on their square corners, and digs into and destroys their shape, so as Uncle Sime sez, "They can't help bein' crooked."

But wimmen's brains hain't strong enough, and their naters and consciences hain't elastic enough to comprehend such matters. They always have and always will pay more attention to them little petickulars of Right and Wrong than men have time to. As I've said before, they can't see big, they see little. They'll talk it over together how many million dollars is made by the White Slave trade every year, ketchin' sweet young girls, they'll say by the net of their love, by drink, by pizened needles, flattery, lies, treachery, takin' 'em from health, home and happiness, and throwin' 'em to the[Pg 122] lions of Lust and Greed, into livin' deaths.

Oh, yes, they'll put in all the petickulars. And they'll ask how many millions wuz made by highway graft, tax-payers wadin' through mud, whilst high officials, contractors and public grabbers stuff the tax-payer's money in their pockets. And they'll bring up stories about all the other big corporations and money grabbers.

And how much blood money is made yearly by whiskey sellin'? That is the main fountain their petickulars gush from. Now if a smart hustlin' saloon keeper is nominated for some high office and wimmen could vote, what would be the consequence? Why, they would jest onloose them petickulars onto him and he would be washed completely away on 'em.

They wouldn't know any better than to peek and pry into his bizness, and run it down to the lowest notch. Jest as if a bizness that is good enough for the U.S. Govermunt isn't good enough for them. No, their naters bein' such, and they've got such itchin' ears, they'll pry round[Pg 123] into every crook and turn of that man's bizness, and talk about it till they git the hull community riled up. The hull wimmen crew will pin on their white ribbings, and git their heads together, tellin' some story agin him, and the bizness he represents, and go into all the petickulars, sez I, and sez he, and sez she, and sez they.

"Le'me see," sez they, "when wuz it he got Hen Daggett so drunk that he went home and whipped his wife, and most killed her and her next baby wuz born a fool.

"And what time o' night wuz it, wuz it ten or twelve, that he got old Chawgo's boy crazy drunk and wantin' to git rid on him, histed him up on his motorcycle and started him for home, and he didn't go half a mile before he fell off and wuz killed.

"And what time of year wuz it, wuz it late in the spring or early in the summer, that them two Wizzel girls wuz took from his saloon drugged and unconscious, and not a hide or hair on 'em seen sence.

"And le'me see, wuz it on a Monday or a Tuesday, that them two men got into a drunken fight in his saloon and both on 'em got killed. No, it wuz on a Wednesday, for I remember I cut my bib apron wrong, I cut it ketrin ways, and jest as I wuz cuttin' it over, I hearn of that big railroad smash-up where two hundred got killed and maimed by a drunken engineer."

Them wimmen would bring up all them little petickulars agin that man, and his bizness lection day, jest to be mean, and to beat him. Every man and woman whiskey had destroyed, all the crime and agony and poverty it has caused, every fambly wrecked by it, every young man ruined, every young girl who went through the saloon into destruction, and the one hundred thousand deaths caused by it every year. They wouldn't know enough to keep their mouths shet at this time when it wuz so important to have 'em shet up; they'd jest clutter up the road to the pole with petickulars. And no matter how flourishin' a bizness[Pg 125] that man wuz doin', and how much money he wuz makin', and how much he wuz willin' to pay for votes, helpin' the male community in this way, they'd carry the day agin him.

They can't seem to realize what a loss in propputy it is to the man they're a houndin'. And if you twit 'em of it they'll twit back and ask, What of the one billion, four hundred million dollars loss to the country every year, caused by strong drink, and ask you if you know that as many Americans are killed every year by it as has been killed in all the battles of the world since time begun. Havin' to ask all these little leadin' questions at jest that onconvenient time and take the advantage on him.

And then when they git him turned down and some favorite religious man elected in his place, oh, how their tongues would run agin, tellin' of all the good things he'd done and would do; agin it would be sez I, and sez he, and sez she, and sez they. Wimmen can't seem to learn to set still to home, and knit, no,[Pg 126] they have got to meddle and interfere with men's bizness, as fur as they can, and woe be to us if they ever cut loose and run furder.

Why the Hullsale Liquor Dealers' Association will agree with every word I've said. They know what females are, and what they can do when they git their white ribbings on, and are banded together agin 'em, and they begin to tell petickulars. That's what makes 'em fight so agin Woman's Suffrage. They know where they and their bizness would be after a few years of wimmen's petickulars and votin', and they're willin' to pay well them that help 'em.

As I've intimidated before, to a smart hustlin' bizness man who looks out for his own interest, it is absolutely appallin' to see how Woman Suffragists stand in their own light. But in my talk about the shiftless ways of these wimmen, and their tetotle inability to see where their interests lays, I want to make a honorable exception of the modest retirin' She Auntys. Them wimmen, though females,[Pg 127] have got some good horse sense; they know which side their bread is buttered and they lay out to keep it right side up. They know who helps butter that bread. They know it is better to ride round in palace cars to their lectures agin Female Suffrage, helped by them who hate that cause like pizen, than it is to walk afoot. And they know enough to grasp special priveliges, and enjoy 'em, and they lay out to help the ones that help them.

Liquor dealers have got oceans of horse sense, and oceans of money, and they let that money flow along where it will do the most good, into female channels if necessary. Anything to dam up the big waters of Reform from risin' up and washin' 'em away, and stop Woman Suffragists from ruinin' their bizness, and tellin' petickulars and votin'. And I'll ask this question of any man or woman with the brains of a angleworm or caterpillar—Hain't it easier to float along with the current, than to fight agin it and go in the other direction? Why a fool ort to know it is.

You won't ketch them She Auntys a peekin' round huntin' for every little petickular about what the Liquor Dealers' Association stands for, and talk and tattle about the effects of liquor sellin', no indeed. And I want to say and own up that when I find a spark of horse sense in a female, I'm willin' to own up to seein' that spark shinin' out agin the background of females' nateral ignorance and folly. We Jonesvillians reconize smartness and horse sense, and I want to encourage and happify them She Auntys by sayin', that the Creation Searchin' Society of Jonesville will never be found throwin' out no slurs agin them. Neither will I as a male man, and a celebrated author, ever be found mockin' and sneerin' at 'em.

Of course they are females, but considerin' the limited amount of brains that females have and their scurcity of horse sense, they have done and are doin' the best they can. The Creation Searchin' Society of Jonesville and the Liquor Dealers' Association stand up hand in[Pg 129] hand, with me in the midst, and publicly reconize their humble helpfulness, and what more in the way of honor can any human female ask for?

I always despised petickulars, every male man duz. It's nateral when our minds are took up with big things, big thoughts, petickulars jar on us; we hain't got the time for 'em in our busy lives. But I believe few of my bretheren can say what I can, that petickulars come within one of bein' the death on 'em.

The way on't wuz Samantha wuz to Tirzah Ann's visitin' and wuz took bed sick there, and right while I wuz stark livin' alone, I wuz took down with voylent pains runnin' up and down my spinal collar, and hull body.

But the neighborin' wimmen, friends of Samantha, I will say done all they could for me, they flocked in and filled me up with milk porridge, chicken broth, etc., and sot up with me nights and waited on me, helped by their various husbands. And I should got along all right if it[Pg 130] hadn't been for the endless swarm of petickulars they driv into my room.

Talk, talk, talk, and tellin' petickulars, some on 'em smaller than the end of a nat's toe nail.

And one day when I'd been made almost delerious by 'em, I made out to open the stand draw at the head of my bed and git out a pad and pencil, and writ the follerin' verses which come from the very bottom of my soul, Heaven knows!

I've been bed-sick and very bad,
And pains and chills and cramps I've had;
And at Tirzah's Samantha come suddenly down
With pleuresy pains from heel to crown,
She couldn't git home with her plaguey crick—
So they never let her know I wuz sick.
But the neighbors turned out good and true
And stood by me to help me through,
They come alone, and they come in pairs,
They come with mules, and they come with mares;
And I felt the goodness that in 'em lay
And treated 'em well both night and day,
Till they brung in them petickulars.
[Pg 131]
They come from fur, and they come from near,
With new wild remedies strange and queer—
My mouth wuz a open and burnin' road
Down which the streams of their medicines flowed;
Streams of worm-wood and oil of tar,
And onions, and warnuts, and goose, and bar;
But my mean wuz a christian's all the while—
I sithed and swallered and tried to smile—
Till they brung in them petickulars.

They blistered my back, and they blistered my breast;
They iled my nose, and they iled my chest,
They gin me sweats of various sorts,
Hemlock and whiskey and corn and oats—
I drinked their gruel weaker'n a cat,
I drinked their whey, didn't wink at that;
I stood their faith cures, and their mind,
I took 'em all and acted resigned—
Till they brung in them petickulars.

But they tried their cures to the very last,
And I grew no better very fast;
And I spoze they thought it would brighten my gloom,
To bring some petickulars into my room.
So they drove 'em in and they talked of flies—
And of chicken's teeth, and muskeeter's eyes,
And they talked of pins, and stalks of hay,
And lettice seed, and there I lay—
A victim of small petickulars.
[Pg 132]
And one recounted a lengthy tale
About the best way to drive a nail,
And one old woman talked a hour
On a pinch of salt and a spunful of flour;
And Jane she boasted two hours the deed
She did when she pizened a pusley weed,
And there I'd sweat, and there I'd groan,
And pull my gray locks onbeknown—
A victim to small petickulars.

And a female sot with anxious frown
Disputin' herself right up and down—
As to whether the hour wuz one or two,
When their old white mare lost off its shoe—
Sometimes 'twas two, and then 'twas one,
And so through the hours that mare wuz run,
And it trompled my brain till I cried, "Whoa!
Do shue the old mair and let her go!"
But under its heels I had to lay,
And sweat, and rithe, and cuss the day—
They driv in them petickulars.

And they wondered if Jane had cloth enough
For her calico apron with bib and ruff,
And they mentally rent their robes and tore,
For fear that sunthin' wuz wrong with the gore,
Till I wished that gore wuz over it rolled,
And on Martha's boots that had been new soled,
And they almost mistrusted wuz too thin,
By pretty nigh the wedth of a pin.
[Pg 133]And I vowed I could put their souls all in,
And rattle 'em round in the head of a pin.
And there I groaned, and turned, and lay,
And sweat and sithed from day to day,
A victim to small petickulars.

Till one day I riz and cried with might,
"Bring on a earthquake into my sight,
Fetch me a cyclone good and strong,
A hurrycain, pestilence, bring 'em along,
Let me see 'em before I am dead;
Let 'em roar and romp around my bed,
But ketch 'em, kill 'em, drive 'em away,
This very minute of this very day
Every one of your dum petickulars.

"Let me be killed out square and rough,
By a good hard kick from a elephant's huff,
Or let a volcano rise and bust
This mortal frame, if bust it must.
But I swan to man that I won't die
By a kick from the off leg of a fly;
And agin I swan, that I won't give in
And go to my grave on the pint of a pin,
Killed by your dum petickulars."

My eyes wuz wild, my goery meen
Skairt 'em almost to death, I ween
The females all fled out of my sight,
The two old women mad with fright,
Jostled each other and fell over chairs;
And all on 'em said "I wuz crazier'n bears."
[Pg 134]But I settled back on my peaceful bed
And most mistrusted I wuz dead
And had got through the gate to Beuler land,
And I smiled some smiles, serene and bland,
For I never had felt such peace before,
As when I drove 'em out of the door,
Every one of them dum petickulars.

It wuz a cam beautiful mornin'; old Mom Nater seemed agreeable and serene, goin' about her mornin's work of lightin' up and warmin' the world. And Samantha seemed as busy as old Nater herself, and as cam, as she went about her work of makin' the house comfortable and clean.

As I've mentioned prior and before this a better, cleaner housekeeper than Samantha Allen never trod on no shoe leather whatsoever, or went barefoot. Equinomical, industrious, and as a cook beyond any compare. If these words wuz the last I should ever write I'd die solemnly declarin' as a housekeeper and home maker Samantha Allen can't never be beat. Oh, if her principles about female suffragin', and the inferiority of her sect, and the superiority of my sect, wuz only equal to her housekeepin',[Pg 136] what a treasure I would have in a earthen vessel (that is Bible; I don't really understand what it means, but I think it looks well for a deacon to patronize the Bible all he can conveniently, and bring into his literary work passages out on't).

I feelt meller and agreeable in my mind, as I sot there in my favorite corner almost immersed in the parfenalia of my perfession, two paper pads, a bottle of ink, a steeled pen, two lead pencils, a pen knife and the immense granny iron dish-pan containin' Betsy B.'s poetry.

And as I sot there with my steeled pen in my hand ready to begin work on my remarkable book, my mind become so impressed by the inestimable value it wuz goin' to be to the world and the male and female sect, that almost onbeknown to myself I uttered the words aloud that wuz seethin' through my large active brain.

Sez I, "Samantha, don't you believe this forthcomin' book of mine is goin' to be the greatest work of this age, or any age?"

She wuz pickin' the pin feathers offen a plump spring chicken for dinner, and she looked up at me over her specs in the cool deliberate way she has sometimes, and sez, "Josiah, a hen don't cackle till she lays her egg."

And then she resoomed her work agin, sayin' no more. Naterally my feelin's immediately hardened more hard than they had been, for I would ask any human bein' did not that one speech show what I've sot out to prove in my book, what wifflin' onstabled minds females have got, and how onfit for votin', onjinted, tottlin', wanderin' way off from the subject spoke on, flyin' down at one jump from literatoor onto poultry. For what connection, I ask, is there between the finest fruit in literature, and hens? Hens which are known to be the awkwardes and stupidest of any liven critters. What jinin' link is there between the most scathin' and convincin' arguments ever writ by mortal man, and eggs? Mute, onfeelin', onseein', eggs.

But I only gin a moment of my valu[Pg 138]able time to contemplate this prominent phase of wimmen's folly. And bein' driv back as I have often been by a lack of congenial sympathy into my own interior (my mind), my inteleck seemed to flow freer than ever, and I devoted this propishous time to enlargin' on a important subject I had not had time to enlarge on before, and that wuz the well known extravagance of females and how fatally fatal that trait which is exclusively confined to her own sect would be if let loose on the political world. And so harrered up my mind got in contemplatin' that gigantic danger to my sect, and my country, that before I knowed it I wuz speakin' my thoughts and forebodin's aloud.

Sez I, "Another insurmountable objection agin female suffragin', another fearful danger facin' the country if females should have a free run in the political field, is their well known extravagance."

Sez I, "To a Female Researcher of the prudent, equinomical male sect, it is absolutely appallin' to witness the blind[Pg 139] reckless extravagance of wimmen and their well known habits of follerin' each other's fashions blindly, like a flock of sheep jumpin' over the fence. If one woman gits a new dress the neighborin' wimmen have got to git one like it, or better, not a mite of independent sperit about 'em. Why can't they take pattern of us men who always wear jest what we please, and pay no attention to what any other male wears, pay no attention whatsumever to fashion or extravagance. In fact men would hardly know there wuz any such words as them, if it wuzn't for female doin's and the dictionary."

I knowed I had got Samantha in a corner then that she couldn't git out on and I waited with a dignified stately look on my linement to hear her say, "I gin up, Josiah; you're in the right on't." But did I hear her say this? Oh, no!

She lifted up the plump yeller skinned chicken in one hand, whilst she peered under its wings for a stray pin feather. And then she laid it down gently on the[Pg 140] pages of the World that wuz spread for its benefit over the table, I spoze to keep her dress clean, and as she looked down on the smooth crisp folds of gingham she sez:

"Yes, lots of wimmen are extravagant. But as the fashion is now, Josiah, five or six yards will make a woman a dress, and have enough left to make her husband a vest, if he would wear anything so cheap. I've got enough left of this very dress, good green and white plaid gingham, costin' ten cents per yard to make you a good cool summer vest; it would wear like iron, and I stand ready to make it, and will you wear it, Josiah?"

She thought she had me in a corner then, but my mind works so quick I answered her almost instantaneously, "Id'no as a green and white plaid vest would be becomin' to my complexion, but I will wear it if the other bretheren will."

Is there any limit to a female's aggravatin'? I wouldn't dane a reply. But[Pg 141] I took up Ayer's Albernack with a stern cold linement, and went to readin' the advertisements, and of course she didn't see the danger ahead on her, of irritatin' too fur a strong nater.

She kep' right on, "No doubt wimmen are sometimes extravagant, Josiah, no doubt they spend lots of money foolishly and worse than foolishly, but before we decide that it ort to deprive her of political rights, let us compare it with men's extravagance for a few minutes."

I felt above replyin' to her, but kep' my eye on the bottle of medicine, and the woman raised from the tomb by a smell of the cork, and she went on:

"Which party is it in a workman's home that usually wants to buy an automobile before the little home is paid for? Mebby in some rare cases the woman eggs the man on, but I believe that it is safe to say that in seven cases out of ten, it is not the housekeeper and house mother that is willin' to risk losin' the ruff that covers her baby's pretty head, and councils waitin' a while before takin'[Pg 142] on the extravagance of the added expense. And which party is it, Josiah, that turns and twists every way to save money so her boy and girl can present a decent appearance before her mates? How many millions a year duz the horse races, yot races and polo games and other manly amusements amount to? How many billions a year duz the useless extravagance of tobacco cost? Of course you can substract sunthin' for some wimmen's foolish habit of cigarette smoking, but in the great total it would hardly count. And in how many poor homes duz a woman toil into the night hours to mend and make so that her family may look respectable, while her husband is spendin' his spare hours and spare change in the corner saloon?"

Sez I, lookin' up from the Albernack with a scathin' irony that must have scathed her, whether she owned up to it or not, "I thought it wuz about time for you to drag in that saloon bizness."

"Yes," sez she, "it is time. How many billion dollars a year is spent mostly by[Pg 143] men, in the ruinous extravagance of strong drink, and how many billions more in payin' for the effects on't, loss of labor, jails, prisons, hospitals, police force, pauper burials, etc., etc., and I might string out them etc.'s, Josiah, clear from here to Grout Hozleton's and then not begin to git in the perfectly useless and ruinous extravagance of the liquor bizness. And I guess that take all the wimmen's extravagance, it will count up so small in comparison as to be lost sight on. And unlike the liquor bizness if a woman dresses extravagantly, which no doubt she often duz, the dressmakers and merchants and jewelers reaps a profit, if she gives extravagant fashionable parties, the grocer, the florist, the laboring class gits some benefit from it; it is not a danger to human life, like the heart breakin', soul destroyin' extravagance and danger to the hull community of the liquor traffic."

I felt above arguin' with her agin on this subject I had so often wasted my finest eloquence on. She knowed how I[Pg 144] felt, and I wouldn't demean myself by repeatin' my crushin' arguments in that direction, for I knowed as well as I sot there that she wouldn't act crushed, no matter if she felt flat as a pan-cake. So I passed on to another faze of woman's extravagance.

Sez I, "It hain't enough for her to spend money like water on her bridge parties, and maskerades, and theatre and tango parties, but she has to rack what little brain she's got, tryin' to git up new follies that other wimmen hain't thought on; she has to have her dog parties, and monkey parties, when them animals come dressed like human bein's with human folks to wait on 'em. Thank Heaven! you can't say but what male men would look down with abhorrence on such fool doin's."

But Samantha sez, "Id'no, take a stag party sometimes—mebby in the beginin' them stags might be able to look down on the monkeys, but after high-balls and cock-tails and gallons of shampain has been consumed, Id'no whether them[Pg 145] stags could look down on sober temperate monkeys, or the monkeys look down on them, though no doubt some of the stags behave and can see straight."

I scorned to notice this slur onto my sect, brung up I knowed to make me swurve from my subject, but it didn't make me swurve a inch. I went right on and brung up wimmen's extravagance in their houses.

Sez I, "Look at her gorgeous Brussels carpets, her draperies hangin' from elegant brass poles, her superb black walnut furniture, her glossy black hair-cloth sofias and easy chairs, a perfect riot of extravagance, Samantha. Who can blame a man from kickin' agin it, kickin'," sez I, "with the hull strength of a outraged nater and a number nine shue."

"No doubt," sez Samantha, "wimmen are sometimes extravagant in makin' their homes beautiful, but their families and admirin' friends benefit by it. And how duz her velvet carpets and Persian rugs, her rose-wood furniture, statuary, and costly pictures and silken draperies[Pg 146] compare with men's outlay and extravagance in Public Buildings; for instance, the Capitol at Albany; wimmen have had nothing to do with that, and I guess her most extravagant doin's in her house will compare favorably with the millions men have spent in that house for years, and no sign of there ever bein' an end to it."

I knowed by the look on her linement that she meant to intimidate that there had been shiftlessnes and stealin' goin' on in that direction, and in other public works through the country, but I refused to notice the slur on my sect. That slur that females love to sling at us and which we'd better treat with silent contemp, jest as I did now, for no knowin' if we'd stoop to argy with 'em about it, what figgers and statistics they may bring up, to prove their slurs, so as I say I passed it over with silent disdain, but I sez in a safe general way, fur removed from probable figgers she would be apt to throw at me to prove her reckless insertions, I sez, puttin' a sad look onto my linement:

"Wimmen's extravagance makes the heart of man to ache and often drives him to a ontimely tomb, strivin' for fashionable display, strivin' for rights she don't need." And bein' anxious to change the subject at that juncter (I always think it is best to change the flow of my thought occasionally) I put on a sort of a solemn, fraid look on my linement, "Such talk as you wimmen talk is revolutionary, Samantha, and is liable to lead to war."

And then, if you'll believe it, so contrary and hard to conquer is females, she took advantage of that speech of mine to invay on the expenditure of war. She asked me then and there how many billions wuz spent every year by male men on the extravagance of man-made war, its preperation and consequences.

I told her coldly and with a irony as iron as our old cook stove, that as much as she expected of me, she couldn't expect me to figger up to a cent what war had cost the nation. Sez I, "With the barn chores on my hands, and my great[Pg 148] work of destroyin' Woman's Suffrage do you expect me to keep track of every cent the nation has spent on war?"

"No," sez she, "one man couldn't reckon it up if he spent his hull lifetime at it, but jest the money spent on it yearly is two billion five hundred million. But," sez she, "it seems that the enormous extravagance of man in this direction and others don't unfit him for the franchise. And if you should spend a few years tryin' to reckon up the gigantic expenditure in money and misery, the horrors and extravagance of war and its effects, you might feel like talkin' less about wimmen's extravagance and how it makes her onfit to be a citizen of the country she's born into, and helps to support with her labor and taxes."

Oh, how aggravatin' a woman can be when she sets out to be. Much as I think of Samantha and the tendrils of my great heart are wropped completely round her, as big as she is round her waist—yet sometimes on occasions like this I almost wish I wuz a bacheldor, a fur off lonely[Pg 149] man in some distant cave, or on some lonesome mountain peak, encumbered not by a female who thinks she has a right to argy with me and irritate me.

But these feelin's always come over me in the middle of the forenoon, or the middle of the afternoon. When it comes nigh meal time, my wild seethin' emotions gradually simmers down and as the appetizin' meals progress so duz my feelin's change and grow less dangerous; if they didn't I don't know what the effect would be to the world of females.

I spoze it is the way the overrulin' power has fixed it as a means of safety to females, for with my strong nater and massive inteleck, if it wuzn't for them three daily safety valves to let off the steam of my indignation at female doin's, and sayin's, Heaven only knows what would be the consequences. Things and folks would be tore to pieces for all that I knew and utterly destroyed. For how can you curb in a outraged and high sperited nature when it is fully rousted up, and aggravation has gone too fur?[Pg 150] It is well that good vittles stand guard between me and them.

But as a man who loves peace and quiet, and despises female arguin' I wuz glad at this juncter to see the welcome form of Uncle Sime wendin' his way towards the barn. And I throwed down the Albernack with a hauty movement of my right hand, and strode off barnward with my head erect. And then we two valiant warriors in a noble cause held a meetin' of sweet sympathy and full understandin' in the horse barn.

I told Samantha one day that another strong reason why wimmen hadn't ort to vote, and why they would be such a dangerous element in politics wuz that they prevaricated and exaggerated to such a alarmin' extent.

Sez I, "A woman can't tell a story straight to save her life—but has to put in so many exaggerations and stretch out facts so you couldn't reconize 'em when she gits 'em pulled out to the length she pulls 'em. They don't seem to have any idee of plain straightforward truthfulness such as my sect has. As long as they've seen men appearin' before 'em, tellin' the exact truth from day to day, and from year to year, they can't or won't foller his example.

"That trait of theirn," sez I, "is bad enough in the home and social circle, for there their men folks can head 'em off, and cover things up and make excuses for 'em, and tell the story straight. But if it wuz carried into public life where their men folks couldn't reach 'em, and quell 'em down, and ameliorate the effects on it, where would this nation be? It would be looked down on and shawed at by Foreign Powers as a nation of exaggerators and false witnessors, and it ort to be.

"Wimmen can't seem to learn to tell the truth and 'nothin' but the truth,' and that is the reason, Samantha," sez I, "that that clause wuz put in the law books; it wuz designed to try to skair female witnesses, and drive 'em into tellin' the truth. But it hain't done it."

I wuz gittin' real eloquent and riz up, for nothin' pleases a man more than to teach his wimmen folks great truths and enlighten 'em about laws. But Samantha had to bring me down from the hite I wuz on, in the aggravatin' way females[Pg 153] have. And as it turned out I wuz kinder sorry I had dwelt on that trait of females that particular time, for she said in the irritatin' way wimmen have of bringin' up facts at times when there hain't no use of bringin' 'em up and when it is inconvenient for 'em to be brung.

Sez she, "I would talk about exaggeration in females, and men's love for exact truth, after what took place in this settin' room only last evenin'."

I didn't reply to her for there are times when silent disapproval is better than argument. I knowed what she meant, and I knowed she wanted to spile my argument, in the ornary way females have, so, as I say, I treated them words with silent contemp and went out to the barn. But I spoze I may as well tell you how it wuz, for if I don't she may tell it and make it out worse than it wuz. Condelick Henzy come over here last night after supper to borry my neck-yoke and Dr. Meezik from Zoar, where he used to live, went to see Condelick on bizness, and his wife told him he wuz here so he[Pg 154] stopped here on his way home (I mistrust Condelick owes him though he didn't dun him before us).

They're both on 'em good natered easy-goin' men, and love to talk and tell stories. And I brung up a basin of good sick-no-furder apples, and they set and et apples and talked and talked. They both on 'em love to brag about what they've seen and hearn and naterally both on 'em want to tell the biggest story about it. Onfortinately Samantha wuz in the room to work on a new insane bed-quilt. And of course she has to find fault and cricketcise what they said and won't make allowances for high sperits.

Sez Dr. Meezik, "When I wuz a young man my folks lived on a farm that run along one side on a creek. And one day I wuz down on the creek lot hoein' corn and a bear come down on the ice from the big woods, and I rushed right out on the ice and killed that bear with my hoe."

Sez Condelick, "That's nothin' to what I did at about the same time. I lived on that same creek though furder south; it[Pg 155] wuz dretful rich land. And I raised a cabbage there that wuz so big I hollered out the stem on't and made a boat of it, and used it to ferry me acrost that very stream of water."

"And it wuz jest about that time," sez Dr. Meezik, "le'me see, it wuz on my birthday about nine minutes past four o'clock in the afternoon, or it may have been nine and a half minutes past, I always want to be perfectly exact in my statements, but we will let it go at nine minutes.

"I wuz a great hunter in them days and fearless as a lion as you may know by my goin' out on the ice to meet that bear who had come to eat green corn, and killed him with my hoe handle.

"I had gone a little further north than I had ever gone before, and I come out to a big clearin' that I had never seen. I should say it wuz half a degree north of where we're settin' now, or it might have been half a pint further, a man can't be too exact and particular in telling such things, for some folks if they wanted to[Pg 156] pick flaws and find fault might doubt his statement. But I didn't have my pocket compass with me and I wuz so surprised at what I see there that I don't know that I should thought to use it if I had had it.

"I must say that as many strange things as I've seen and heard I never wuz so surprised as I wuz at what I see there.

"Right there in that big clearin' there wuz a perfect army of tinkers makin' a immense brass kettle. There wuz jest one hundred of 'em, for I counted 'em over twice so's to be sure of gittin' the exact number. I am always so perfectly reliable in my statements, and am bound to git the smallest petickulars jest right. I spoze I got the habit partly from weighin' out my medicines so exact.

"And them tinkers wuz hammerin' away for all they wuz worth on that kettle, and you may judge of the size of it when I tell you them workmen wuz so fur apart they couldn't hear each other a hammerin'."

Even Condelick Henzy wuz took back[Pg 157] and browbeat and sez mekanically, "What do you spoze they wuz goin' to do with the kettle?"

"Well," sez Dr. Meezik, "they didn't tell me, for I didn't want to act forward and ask, but I always spozed they wuz goin' to use it to bile your cabbage in."

Just at this epock of time Samantha gathered up her insane piece work and left the room. She didn't say nothin', but I knowed by the looks of her linement jest as well as I know now, that she'd throw that kettle and that cabbage in my face some time the most inconvenient for me, and you can see plain she's done it and now I hope she's satisfied.

As I said I went out to the barn and kinder fussed round cleanin' up some, and I never see Samantha agin till dinner time. I wuzn't afraid to go in and meet her and have her resoom her argument agin. No, I skorn the importation. I belong to a fearless sect, and am almost unacquainted with the word fear, though I know there is such a word in the Dictionary.

No, I had considerable putterin' round to do in the barn, and hen house, and so I stayed out there till I hearn the welcome sound of the dinner bell and smelt even from the barn door the agreable odors risin' from a first class dinner.

The smell and taste of the tender roast lamb and lushious vegetables softened my feelin's considerable, or would have if it hadn't been for the look on Samantha's face. It wuzn't a cross look nor a mean one, would that it wuz, for I could handle them looks better.

No, it wuz a kind of a superior look, as if she had conquored me in the argument about exaggeration and prevarication, and wuz gloatin' over the contrary temps that had occurred in the settin' room only the evenin' before, the little incident that broke down my excelent argument.

And of all the looks that mankind ever read on a woman's linement, the one a man can't stand is a superior look, a look that says as plain as words, "I like you and pity you, but I can't help[Pg 159] lookin' down on you, Poor Thing!" That look from a inferior sect always aggravates a man so that he hain't skursly answerable for what he sez and duz.

And almost onbeknown to me I broke forth in a crushin' argument designed to crush her and change that look on her linement to one of humbleness becomin' to a female. Sez I, "Our sect has been the makin' of yourn, and it seems that when a female considers and thinks on all that men have done for wimmen and are willin' to do for 'em, they would have some feelin's of gratitude towards 'em, but they don't; they delight in argyin' with 'em and tryin' to git the better on 'em."

Instead of my smart reasonable words affectin' her favorably it seemed as if the look I despised deepened on her linement; not a sign did I see of meach, nor a sign of humble gratitude, and I wuz so irritated by it that I lanched right out in the crushin' argument that I had on my mind and that ort to bring female feathers droopin' down in the very dust.

Sez I, "Do you ever pause to think, Samantha, of the inestimable boon wimmen owe to men? Why," sez I, "if it hadn't been for a man, wimmen wouldn't had no souls to-day."

"How do you make that out?" sez Samantha, helpin' herself camly to some more dressin'.

"Why, it is a matter of history that way back in the centuries the preachers of that time had a meetin' to settle the question, and when they took a vote on't, the majority on 'em stood out on the popular side and cast their votes agin 'em, and vowed and declared that females hadn't no souls. And it wuz only by the vote of one single solitary man that it wuz carried in their favor and decided that they had souls.

"And I should think females would be so grateful to that noble man for what he done for 'em, for his bein' willin' to admit that they had souls, that they would honor the hull sect to which he belonged, and look up to 'em in humble and grateful gratitude, and never try to argy with 'em[Pg 161] and aggravate 'em. For let me ask you, Samantha," sez I, in a solemn axent, "where would wimmen have been if that man had held out and jined in with the rest, and decided that wimmen hadn't got any soul? Where would they been then, and where would they be to-day?"

"Jest where they always wuz and are now," sez Samantha camly helpin' herself to a apple dumplin'. "It seems that it wuz men that started the question in the first place, and I spoze that if wimmen hadn't been so wore out and hampered by her hard work of takin' care of men, cookin', mendin', and cleanin' for 'em and bringin' up their children, etc., they might have had a jury of wimmen set on men to find out if they had souls. But I don't spoze they had a minute's time to spare from their hard work no more than I have, and I don't spoze it would make any difference either way. The main thing is whether men and wimmen have got souls to-day, and use them souls for the good of mankind, instead of lettin' 'em grow hard, or wither away in indifference[Pg 162] to the woes and wants of the world, and the cause of Eternal Justice for every one, male and female."

That is jest the way with wimmen, they've got to talk and argy and try to have the last word. You can't seem to make 'em act meachin' and beholdin' to men anyway you can work it, and it seems to me I've tried every way there is from first to last.

But I wouldn't argy no more, I felt above it. I helped myself to my fourth apple dumplin' with a look of silent contemp on my linement, also I had the same look when I poured the lemon sass over it and took my third cup of coffee.

And my linement still showed to a clost observer the marks of a tried though hauty sperit, as I riz up from the table and retired with a high step to my sacred corner to resoom my literary efforts.

Sometimes pardners are real aggravatin' to each other and a trial to be borne with. And though I don't know what I'd do if I should ever lose Samantha, it don't seem as if I could ever eat another[Pg 163] woman's vittles after livin' on the fat of the land as you may say for forty years.

Yet there are times when you set smartin' under wownds your pardner has gin your sperit and from arguments she no need to have brung up, and you see a widow man a passin' by, you have feelin's that can skursly be told on. You can see by the looks of his face and hands that he don't wash any oftener than he wants to, and never combs his hair and don't change his clothes till the Board of Health gits after him. And you know he never goes to meetin', and throws off girl blinders boldly, and stays out nights till as late as ten P.M. onquestioned and onscolded. And don't have to clean his shues when he goes in, and never curbs his appetite, but eats like a hog and enjoys himself.

Why, much as you love the dear pardner of your bosom, and prize the excelent food she cooks, and the clean comfortable home she makes for you—the air of freedom that seems to blow from that widow man (kinder stale air too)[Pg 164] yet it fans your clean head and clean stiff shirt bosom like a breath from the Isle of Freedom.

And so after Samantha had hurt my feelin's and wownded my self respect by remindin' me of the incident mentioned, when if she had kep' still I should have come off victorious in my argument, I retired into the solitude of my corner in the settin' room where Betsy Bobbett's poetry lay heaped up in the dish-pan and I read with feelin' that I couldn't skursly describe the follerin' verses which I spoze Betsy writ after her husband had wownded her feelin's. And in readin' it I dedicate it silently to my brother men who have been aggravated by their pardners.

Oh Gimlet! back again I float,
With broken wings, a weary bard;
I cannot write as once I wrote,
I have to work so very hard;
So hard my lot, so tossed about,
My muse is fairly tuckered out.
[Pg 165]
My muse aforesaid once hath flown,
But now her back is broke, and breast;
And yet she fain would crumple down;
On Gimlet's pages she would rest,
And sing plain words as there she's sot—
Haply they'll rhyme, and haply not.

I spake plain words in former days,
No guile I showed, clear was my plan;
My gole it matrimony was;
My earthly aim it was a man.
I gained my man, I won my gole;
Alas! I feel not as I fole.

Yes, ringing through my maiden thought
This clear voice rose: "Oh come up higher."
To speak plain truth with candor fraught,
To married be was my desire—
Now, sweeter still this lot doth seem,
To be a widder is my theme.

For toil hath claimed me for her own,
In wedlock I have found no ease;
I've cleaned and washed for neighbors round,
And took my pay in beans and pease;
In boiling sap no rest I took,
Or husking corn in barn and stook.

Or picking wool from house to house,
White-washing, painting, papering,
In stretching carpets, boiling souse;
E'en picking hops it hath a sting,
For spiders there assembled be,
Mosquitoes, bugs and etc.
[Pg 166]
I have to work oh! very hard;
Old Toil I know your breadth and length;
I'm tired to death, and in one word,
I have to work beyend my strength.
And mortal men are very tough
To get along with, nasty, rough.

Yes, tribulations doomed to her
Who weds a man, without no doubt,
In peace a man is singuler;
His ways they are past findin' out,
And oh! the wrath of mortal males—
To paint their ire, earth's language fails.

And thirteen children in our home
Their buttons rent their clothes they burst,
Much bread and such did they consume;
Of children they did seem the worst.
And Simon and I do disagree;
He's prone to sin continualee.

He horrors has, he oft doth kick,
He prances, yells—he will not work.
Sometimes I think he is too sick;
Sometimes I think he tries to shirk;
But 'tis hard for her in either case,
Who B. Bobbett was in happier days.

Happier? Away! such thoughts I spurn.
I count it true from spring to fall,
'Tis better to be wed, and groan,
Than never to be wed at all.
I'd work my hands down to the bone
Rather than rest a maiden lone.
[Pg 167]
This truth I cannot, will not shirk,
I feel it when I sorrow most:
I'd rather break my back with work,
And haggard look as any ghost,—
Rather than lonely vigils keep,
I'd wed and sigh and groan and weep.

Yes, I can say though tears fall quick
Can say, while briny tear-drops start,
I'd rather wed a crooked stick,
Than never wed no stick at all.
Sooner than laughed at be, as of yore
I'd ruther laugh myself no more.

I'd ruther go half clad and starved,
And mops and dish-cloths madly wave
Than have the name, B. Bobbett, carved
On head-stun rising o'er my grave.
Proud thought! now, when that stun is risen
'Twill bear two names—my name and hisen.

Methinks 'twould colder make the stun
If but one name, the name of she,
Should linger there alone—alone.
How different when the name of he
Does also deck the funeral urn;
Two wedded names, his name and hurn.

And sweeter yet, oh blessed lot!
Oh state most dignified and blest!
To be a widder calmly sot,
And have both dignity and rest.
Oh Simon, strangely sweet 'twould be
To be a widder unto thee.
[Pg 168]
The warfare past, the horrors done,
With maiden's ease and pride of wife,
The dignity of wedded one,
The calm and peace of single life,—
Oh, strangely sweet this lot doth seem;
A female widder is my theme.

I would not hurt a hair of he,
Yet did he from earth's toil escape,
I could most reconciléd be,
Could sweetly mourn e'en without crape.
Could say without a pang of pain
That Simon's loss was Betsy's gain.

I've told the plain tale of my woes,
With no deceit or language vain,
Have told whereon my hopes are rose,
Have sung my mournful song of pain.
And now I e'en will end my tale,
I've sung my song, and wailed my wail.

The Vice President of the Creation Searchin' Society of Jonesville wuz here yesterday mornin', and as soon as he'd gone through the usual neighborly talk about the weather, the hens, his wife, and the neighbors, etc., he tipped back in his chair and pushed back his hat a little furder on his head. He never took off his hat in my sight; Samantha asked me once "if I spozed he took it off nights, or slep in it."

But I explained it to her as a kind man is always willin' to do if a female asks him properly for information.

Sez I, "I hearn him say once, Samantha, that the way he got in the habit of not takin' off his hat before wimmen wuz to impress 'em with the fact of male superiority, and to let 'em know that he wuzn't goin' to bow down before 'em and[Pg 170] act meachin'. He wuz always a big feelin' feller and after he got to be such a high official in the C.S.S. he naterally is hautier actin'."

Well, almost to once he begun to Samantha about wimmen's votin', runnin' the idee down to the very lowest notch it could go on the masculine stillyards. You see my forthcomin' great work agin Wimmen Rights has excited the male Jonesvillians dretfully, and emboldened 'em, till they act as fierce and bold as lions when they're talkin' to females.

They realize that when that immortal work is lanched onto the waitin' world the cause of Woman's Suffrage will collapse like the bladders we used to blow up in childhood, jest as sharp and sudden and jest as windy. They know that them that uphold such uroneous beliefs won't be nothin' nor nobody then, and so they begin beforehand to act more hauty and uppish towards Suffragists, and browbeat 'em. And he poked fun at the cause and slurred at it, and sneered at it till I didn't know but Samantha would take[Pg 171] lumbago from his remarks, but she didn't seem to.

She had got her mornin's work all did up slick, her gingham apron hung up behind the kitchen door, and she'd resoomed her white one trimmed with tattin'. And she sot knittin' on a pair of blue woosted socks for me, her linement as smooth and onrumpled as her hair, which wuz combed smooth round her forward. And she kep' on with her knittin', only once in a while she would look up at him over her specs in the queer way she has at times, but still kep' lookin' cam, and sayin' nothin'.

And her camness and her silence seemed to spur him on and make him bolder and more aggressiver. He thought she wuz afraid on him, but I knowed she wuzn't.

At last he flung out the remark to her that if wimmen could vote it would be the bad wimmen who would flock to the poles; Samantha wuz jest turnin' the heel in my sock and after she made the turn she said that that wuzn't so, and she brought up statisticks and throwed at[Pg 172] him (still a knittin' and seamin' two and two) provin' that it is the educated conscientious wimmen who want to help the good men of the country to make the laws to try to make the world a safer place for their children, a better, cleaner place for every one, and she threw some statements at him from States that had Woman's Suffrage for years and years to prove her insertion, but the statisticks, the figgers and the proofs piled about him onheeded, for he had got hot and excited by this time and it seemed as if Samantha's very camness madded him, and her knittin', and her seamin' two and two, and her countin' "one—two," to herself once in a while.

And sez he agin in a overbearin' skairful voice, intended to intimidate females, "I tell you it is the bad wimmen who will rush to the poles, and I can prove what I say." Sez he, "The meaner anybody is the more and the oftener they want to vote; my father is one of the best of men and you can't hardly git him to stir his stumps 'lection day. And my[Pg 173] wife's father is the meanest man in the country and he will vote from mornin' till night for either party and sell his vote where he can git the highest figger—(he don't live happy with his wife, and he went on) and so will her Uncle Josh sell his vote to anybody for a glass of whiskey, and most all the men on her side will sell their vote and make money by it. And I know more'n a dozen men right round here who do the same thing. I don't spoze you wimmen read much of any, but if you did you'd see how common graft and fraud is in politics, all the way from Jonesville to Washington. So you see," sez he, "I can prove right out what I said that it is the bad wimmen who would vote."

Samantha counted "two and two" to herself, and then said in a mild axent, "Why would a bad woman's vote be worse than a bad man's?" The Vice President see in a minute into what a deep hole his excitement and voylent desire to prove his argument had led him, and he acted sheepish as a sheep.

But anon he revived and ketched holt of the first argument he could lay his hand on, to prop up his side of the question. It wuz a argument he had read about, he didn't believe it himself, but ketched at it in his hurry.

Sez he, "We expect more from wimmen than we do from men; they're naterally better than men and we want to keep 'em so, keep 'em out of the dirt of public affairs."

Sez Samantha still a knittin' and still a lookin' cam, "You must use clean water to cleanse dirty things. I don't believe as you do. I think the good qualities of men and wimmen would heft jest about equal, and need equal treatment. But accordin' to your tell if men are so much worse than wimmen they need her help to clean up things."

Agin the Vice President see where his hasty talk and anxiety to prove his pint had led him. He wiggled round in his chair till I trembled for the legs on it, for he wuz still leanin' back in it too fur for safety. He kinder run his hand up[Pg 175] under his hat and scratched his head, but didn't seem to root any new idees out of his hair, and he finally give up, settled his hat back more firmly on his head agin, let his chair down sudden and got up and sez:

And after he went out with 'em I asked Samantha, "What do you spoze the Vice President wanted of sheep shears this time of year?" And she sez:

Well, it wuz gittin' along towards noon, as I reminded Samantha, and she riz up and put her knittin' work on the mantelry piece, resoomed her gingham apron and went out into the kitchen and soon I hearn the welcome sounds so sweet to a man's ear whether literary or profane, that preperations wuz goin' on for a good square meal.

And as I sot there peaceful and happy in my mind who should come in but my dear and congenial friend, Uncle Sime[Pg 176] Bentley. He had been on a visit to Illenoy. And after his first words of greetin' and his anxious inquiries as to how my great work wuz progressin' and gittin' along, he went on and gin me the petickulars about his journey.

He'd been on a visit to the city to see his nephew, Bill Bentley. Bill is well off and smart, and his father-in-law is rich and sent his only child, Bill's wife, to college; "jest like a fool," Uncle Sime said. "For what duz a female want with such a eddication." Sez he, "The three R's, Readin', Ritin' and Rithmetic are enough for her and would be for any woman if they worked and tended to things as my ma, Bill's grandma did.

"Up at four every mornin' summer and winter, milkin' five or six cows and then gittin' breakfast for her big fambly, hired men and all, and doin' every mite of the housework, and spinnin', weavin', makin' and mendin', and takin' sole care of her eight children, in sickness and health, and takin' care of her mother who had been as big a worker and stay-[Pg 177]at-home as she wuz, and who wuz now melancholy crazy in a little room done off the woodshed.

"How ma did work," sez Uncle Sime in a reminescin' axent, "stiddy at it from mornin' till night, never stirrin' out of the house from year to year. Oh! if she could only have lived to set a sample for Bill's wife, and instruct her in a wife's duty.

"I told Bill so," sez Uncle Sime. "And if you please," sez he, "Bill resented it, and said, ketch him a killin' his wife with work hard enough for four wimmen, and not stirrin' out of the house from year to year, he thought too much of her; sez he, 'if I wanted a slave I'd buy one and pay cash for her.'

"He didn't seem to appreciate ma's doin's no more than nothin', though as I told him, There wuz a woman whose price wuz above rubies, so different from the slack forward wimmen of to-day. So retirin', so modest and womanly, willin' to work her fingers to the bone and not complain. Never puttin' forward her[Pg 178] opinion about anything, always lookin' up to pa and knowin' he wuz always right. And if she ever did seem curious about anything outside her housework and fambly, pa would shet her up and bring her back to her duty pretty quick. Yes indeed! pa wuz the head of the house, and laid out to be. But Bill didn't seem to have no gumption and self respect at all, and wuz perfectly willin' to be on equal terms with his wife. And Bill told him she had a household allowance and a private bank account. Private bank account! I told Bill it wuz enough to make his grandma rise from her grave to see such bold onwomanly doin's.

"And Bill said 'it would be a good thing for her to rise, if she could stay up, for mebby she would take a little comfort and rest her mind and her bones a little, at this epock of time.'"

I sez, "I spoze, Simon, you didn't have nothin' fit to eat there and everything goin' to rack and ruin about the house."

"No," Uncle Sime said, "I must own[Pg 179] up that things run pretty smooth, and Bill's wife sot a good table. They had a stout woman who helped about the work and takin' care of the children, leavin' Bill's wife free to go round with Bill to meetin's and clubs and a fishin' and motor ridin', and picknickin' with him and the kids."

"No," sez Uncle Sime, "she wuz always good natered and dressed pretty, and why shouldn't she?" sez he bitterly, "havin' her own way and runnin' things to suit herself. And why shouldn't she dress pretty? Lanchin' out and buyin' everything she wanted. Not curbed down by Bill, nor askin' a man's advice at all about her clothes or housen stuff so fur as I could see."

Sez I, "Mebby Bill didn't like it so well as you thought, Simon; mebby he wuz chafin' inside on him."

"No, he wuzn't, he liked it, there's one of the pints I'm comin' at, how these modern wimmen will pull the wool over[Pg 180] men's eyes, no matter how smart he is naterally. They did seem to have good times together, laughin' and talkin' together, settin' to the table a hour or so, a visitin' away as if they hadn't seen each other for a month. But merciful heavens! the subjects they talked on and discussed over! It seemed that she knew every crook and turn on subjects that Bill's grandma never had heard on by name. Hygeen, books, Street Cleanin', Hospital work, Charities, Political affairs from pole to pole and Scientific subjects—Radium, Electricity, Spiritualism, Woman's Suffrage, which they both believed in. There seemed to be no end to the subjects they talked about. So different from pa and ma's talk. They eat their meals in perfect and solemn silence most all the time, ma always waitin' on him. And if she did venter any remarks to him they usually didn't fly no higher than hen's eggs or neighborhood doin's. Do you spoze that pa would stood it havin' a wife that acted as if she knew as much as he did? Not much.

"But Bill's wife wuz right up to snuff as well informed as Bill wuz, and Bill didn't seem to know enough to be jealous and mad about a wife actin' as if she wuz on a equality with him. It made me ashamed to think a male relation on my own side should act so meachin'. And in one thing she even went ahead of Bill, owin' to the money men had spent on her. She sung like a bird, and evenin's Bill would lay back in his chair before the open fireplace and listen to her singin' and playin' them old songs and look at her as if he worshipped her. He didn't seem to want to stir out of the house evenin's unless she went too, lost all his ambition to go out and have a good man time, seemed perfectly happy where he wuz. And he used to be a great case to be out nights and act like a man amongst men.

"But," sez Uncle Sime, "I believe that one of the things that galded me most amongst all the galdin' things I see and hearn there, wuz Bill's wife's independence in money matters. Economic[Pg 182] Independence! That wuz one of her fool idees. Oh, how often I thought of you, Josiah, and wished you wuz there to put down what I see and hearn in the beautiful language you know so well how to use."

My feelin's wuz touched and I sez solemnly, "Simon, I would loved to been there, and if I couldn't help you I could have sot and sympathized with you."

Sez Simon, "Never once durin' them six weeks I wuz there did I see her ask Bill for a cent, and how well I remember," sez Simon, "when if ma wanted the money for a pair of shues, or a gingham dress for herself, how she would have to coax pa and git him extra vittles and pompey him and beg for the money in such a womanly and becomin' way. And sometimes pa wuz real short with her and would deny her. Not but what he meant to git 'em in the end, for he wuz a noble man. But he held off, wantin' her to realize he wuz the head of the fambly, and to be looked up to."

Sez Simon, "Ma would have to manage every way for days and days to git them shues and that dress and when he did git any clothes for her pa picked 'em out himself, for ma had been brought up to think his taste wuz better'n hern."

"Yes, he did," sez Simon, "he did. He never cared so much for looks as he did the solid wear of anything." And for a few minutes Uncle Sime seemed lost in a silent contemplation of his pa's oncommon good qualities, and then he resoomed agin. "The news come right whilst I wuz there, about the leven hundred saloons closed durin' the few months since wimmen voted in that state. And Bill never resented it and even jined in with the idee that it wuz owin' to wimmen's votes largely that that and the other big temperance victories of late wuz accomplished. He didn't seem to have no more self respect than a snipe. And if you'll believe it, Josiah, Bill's wife made a public speech right whilst I wuz[Pg 184] there, sunthin' about school matters she thought wuz wrong and ort to be set right."

"Like it!" sez Uncle Sime in a indignant axent. "Why, instead of actin' ashamed and resentin' it as a man of sperit would, he went with her and made a speech too, and they carried the day and beat the side they said wuz usin' the school to make money. And I hearn 'em with my own ears comin' in at ten P.M. laughin' and jokin' together like two kids. Makin' a speech before men! Oh, what would Bill's great-grandma thought on't? She'd say she had reason for her melancholy madness, and his grandma would say she wuz glad she wuz dead."

"Most probable that is so, Simon," sez I, sympathizin' with him. "As I've intimidated to you before, Simon, time and agin, this is a turrible epock of time us male men are a passin' through, jest like a see-saw gone crazy, wimmen up and[Pg 185] stayin' up, and men down and held down. But wait till my great work agin Female Suffrage is lanched onto the world and then see what will happen, and jest as soon as I git a little ahead with my outdoor work I'm a goin' to lanch it. Then will come the upheaval and the crash, follered by peace and happiness. Men will resoom their heaven-born station as rulers and protectors of the weaker sect, and females will sink down agin into hern, lookin' up to man as their nateral gardeens and masters."

"Ma knowed it in her day and practiced it," sez Simon. "And pa knowed it and acted his part nobly. Ma wuz so retirin' and so womanly. Why, if once in a great while she took it in her head to ask about such things as Bill's wife boldly lectured about, do you spoze she'd go before any strange man to talk out about it? No, she would always ask pa to explain it to her. And I remember well how kinder wishful and wonderin' her eyes looked and yet timid and becomin'. And pa actin' his part in life as a man of[Pg 186] sperit should, would most always tell her to tend to her housework and let men run them things. But if he did feel good natered and explain 'em to her she took his word for law and gospel and acted meek and grateful to him.

"Yes, pa wuz to the head of his house and kep' females down where they belonged, and her actions wuz a pattern for wimmen to foller. And it wuz such a pity and a wonder that she had to die so early, only thirty years old when the Lord took her before her virtues wuz known to the world at large.

"I remember well the night she passed away," sez Simon, in a softer reminescener axent.

"She wanted her bed drawed up to the open winder. And she lay lookin' up to the full moon and stars a shinin' in the great clear sky. She looked up and up and kinder smiled and sez in a sort of a wishful, wonderin' axents:

"And I always spozed she meant sunthin' about how big pa wuz, and how free[Pg 187] to understand things she didn't, and hadn't ort to."

Sez I, "I hain't a doubt, Simon, but that wuz what she meant, not a doubt on't!"

Marietta Holley

Josiah Allen on the Woman Question

Illustrated, 16mo, cloth net $1.00.

A new volume from the pen of Miss Holley, marked by such quaint thoughtfulness and timely reflection as ran through "Samantha". All who read it will be bound to feel better, as indeed they should, for they will have done some hearty laughing, and have been "up against" some bits of striking philosophy delivered with point, vigor, and chuckling humor.

Samantha on the Woman Question

Illustrated, 16mo, cloth net $1.00.

"This is the book we have been waiting for. What Samantha doesn't know, isn't worth knowing—will throw a little humor on a situation which is becoming too intense. We hope it may have a wide circulation in England, for Samantha, who believes in suffrage, does not believe in dynamite, gunpowder and mobs."

—Examiner.

This story of a "return to nature," like the author's "Master of the Oaks," pulsates with real life. The scene lies in the Missouri Ozarks, a melting pot wherein those who seek the solace of nature and a living from the soil fuse their lives with the natives of the Hills in the common quest for liberty and education, love and life.

Some of the best judges of a good story as well as some of the highest authorities on "Things Chinese" pronounce this story a remarkable combination of the rarest and most irresistible type of pure romance and the truest and most realistic delineation of Chinese life. The novelty of the setting and the situations will win the instant approval of the lover of good fiction.

Dr. Holmes made a distinct place for himself among lovers of good fiction with his earlier stories, "The Victor," and "The Maid of Honor." Competent critics pronounce this new story the author's best. The hero is a man's man who wins instant admiration. Originality of humor, reality of pathos, comedy and heart tragedy are woven into the story.

For an entire generation Marietta Holley has been entertaining lovers of good humor. "My Opinion and Betsy Bobbitts" and "Samantha at the Centennial" made her name a household word. This last volume is not only timely but with all its facetiousness, keen and telling in its advocacy of "Votes for Women" and Temperance. It equals anything the author has produced.

"The homely humor of the old doctor and his childlike faith in 'the cure' is so intensely human that he captures the sympathy of the layman at once—a sympathy that becomes the deepest sort of interest."—Topeka Capital.

A story of the Mohammedan world which holds the reader's attention unfailingly from beginning to end. The narration of Selim, the Moslem's quest for a satisfying religion has the quality of reality. Dramatic interest and thrills of adventure are here in full measure. It is a worthy addition to missionary narration and in view of recent portentious events in the near East a timely and acceptable work.

The story of a "doctor of the old school" with every element which makes a novel worth the reading, plot, character delineation, setting, style—all are here. Intensely human, natural, humorous, pathetic, joyous. The originality of the plot piques the reader's curiosity and the most jaded devourer of novels will find himself irresistibly held in delightful suspense. The sentiment and suggestion and mellow philosophy which run through the story are altogether delightful.

The author of "The Bishop's Shadow" and "The Scout Master of Troop 5," has scored another conspicuous success in this new story of girl life. She shows conclusively that she knows how to reach the heart of a girl as well as that of a boy. The beautiful ritual and practices of "The Camp Fire Girls" are woven into a story of surpassing interest and charm.

The author traces the history of Christianity in Italy from its dawn in Rome, through the Protestant development, giving a concise history of the Bible in Italy, the founding of the Waldensian Mission among the Alps, the religious revival of 1800, the exile period; up to the present movement, termed "Modernism," an attempt to bring the Roman Catholic Church back to the simplicity of Christ.

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I.	In Which I Resolve to Write a Book	9
II.	In Which Betsy Bobbett Butts In	25
III.	I Talk on Wimmen's Duty to Marry	39
IV.	I Talk on Man's Protectin' Love for Wimmen	59
V.	Wherein I Prove Man's Courtesy Towards Wimmen	74
VI.	I Talk on Females Infringin'	96
VII.	About Wimmen's Foolish Love for Petickulars	113
VIII.	I Talk on Wimmen's Extravagance	135
IX.	The Danger From Wimmen's Exaggeration	151
X.	The Modern Wimmen Condemned	169

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Josiah Allen on the Woman Question

Josiah Allen on the WomanQuestion

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