Josiah Allen on the WomanQuestion

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

Josiah Allen on the
Woman Question

By

MARIETTA HOLLEY

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

ILLUSTRATED.

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1914, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

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

Contents

ILLUSTRATIONS

"[She Made Me Think That Minute of Them Big Rocks When I Was Tryin' to Plough Round 'Em]"
"[And She Looked As If She Would Sink Down In Her Tracts]"
"[Till She Gets 'Em All Rousted Up, and Just Boy Cote That Man Till He Has to Keep Hullsome Food]"
"[Josiah", Sez She, "a Hen Don't Cackle Till She Lays Her Egg"]

[I]

IN WHICH I RESOLVE TO WRITE A BOOK

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 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 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 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 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 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 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' 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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."

[II]

IN WHICH BETSY BOBBETT BUTTS IN

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 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 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 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. 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 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. 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 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 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, "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?"

Sez she, "It may be a good thing to have some weight hitched to it."

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 marriage I culled at random from the dish pan and subjoin:

WIMMEN'S SPEAR

Or Whisperin's of Nature to Betsy Bobbett

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.

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.

[III]

I TALK ON WIMMEN'S DUTY TO MARRY

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 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. 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 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.

"And she looked as if she would sink down in her tracts"

For truly these two great truths are 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 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:

"No wonder you shed tears! it is enough to make a graven image weep."

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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'."

And she sez, "Why can't they do both? Men marry and vote."

"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 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 beginin' 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 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 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 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 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.

[IV]

I TALK ON MAN'S PROTECTIN' LOVE FOR WIMMEN

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, 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' 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 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 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' 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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.

[V]

WHEREIN I PROVE MAN'S COURTESY TOWARDS WIMMEN

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 inteleck 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, 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, 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 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:

"You hain't big enough to make much of a bonfire."

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 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 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 come wheezin' in, he riz up and sez to her:

"'I will be one of three men to give you a seat, madam.'

"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."

Sez I, "It is; it is jest as universal as—as—any universalist ever wuz."

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 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:

"Men don't always use courtesy towards wimmen."

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 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 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 "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 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 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 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 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 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:

A CHRISTMAS OWED

By Josiah Allen, Esq., P.M.S.J.C.F.

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,
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.

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!)
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 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!

[VI]

I TALK ON FEMALES INFRINGIN'

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 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 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 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 stood in a sort of a half circle with a little low stun in the center and on it printed in little letters wuz:

"Our Husband."

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 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 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 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:

"Simon, I see ahead on us the time when I shall be called Mr. Samantha Smith."

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:

"Oh, gracious heavens, Josiah! how can we men ever stand up under that!"

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 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 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! 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' 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 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 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 lifelong pursuit of man, and matrimony, under the cold word, duty?

"Unless she see her duty plain."

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.

STANZAS ON DUTY

By Betsy Bobbett

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.

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.

[VII]