But Philander called a meetin’ of the Creation Searchers to make
arrangements to go. And I spoze the speech he made at the meetin’ wuz a
powerful effort. And the members most all on ’em believin’ as he
did—they said it wuz a dretful interestin’ meetin’. Sunthin’ like a
love feast, only more wrought up and excitin’.
The editor of the _Auger_ printed the whole thing in his paper, and
said it give a staggerin’ blow agin Woman’s Suffrage, and he didn’t
know but it wuz a death blow—he hoped it wuz.
“A Woman’s Parade,” sez Philander, “is the most abominable sight ever
seen on our planetary system. Onprotected woman dressed up in fine
clothes standin’ up on her feet, and paradin’ herself before strange
men. Oh! how bold! Oh! how onwomanly! No wonder,” says he, “the She
Aunties are shocked at the sight, and say they marched to attract the
attention of men. Why can’t women stay to home and set down and knit?
And then men would love ’em. But if they keep on with these bold,
forward actions, men won’t love ’em, and they will find out so. And it
has always been, and is now, man’s greatest desire and chiefest aim he
has aimed at, to protect women, to throw the shinin’ mantilly of his
constant devotion about her delikit form and shield her and guard her
like the very apples in his eyes.
“Woman is too sweet and tender a flower to have any such hardship put
upon her, and it almost crazes a man, and makes him temporarily out of
his head, to see women do anything to hazard that inheriant delicacy of
hern, that always appealed so to the male man.
“Let us go forth, clad in our principles (and ordinary clothing, of
course), and show just where we stand on the woman question, and do all
we can to assist the gentle feminine She Aunties. Lovely, retirin’
females whose pictures we so often see gracin’ the sensational
newspapers. Their white womanly neck and shoulders, glitterin’ with
jewels, no brighter than their eyes. They don’t appear there for sex
appeal, or to win admiration. No indeed! No doubt they shrink from the
publicity. And also shrink from making speeches in the Senate chambers
or the halls of Justice, but will do so, angelic martyrs that they are,
to hold their erring Suffrage sisters back from their brazen efforts at
publicity and public speakin’.”
They said his speech wuz cheered wildly, give out for publication, and
entered into the moments of the Society.
But after all, it happened real curious the day of the Parade every
leadin’ Creation Searcher had some impediment in his way, and couldn’t
go, and of course, the Society didn’t want to go without its leaders.
Mis’ Philander Daggett, the president’s wife, wuz paperin’ her settin’
room and parlor overhead. She wuz expectin’ company and couldn’t put it
off. And bein’ jest married, and thinkin’ the world of her, Philander
said he dassent leave home for fear she’d fall offen the barrel and
break her neck. She had a board laid acrost two barrels to stand up on.
And every day Philander would leave his outside work and come into the
house, and set round and watch her—he thought so much of her. I suppose
he wanted to catch her if she fell. But I didn’t think she would fall.
She is young and tuff, and she papered it real good, though it wuz
dretful hard on her arm sockets and back.
And the Secretary’s wife wuz puttin’ in a piece of onions. She thought
she would make considerable by it, and she will, if onions keep up. But
it is turrible hard on a woman’s back to weed ’em. But she is
ambitious; she raised a flock of fifty-six turkeys last year besides
doin’ her house work, and makin’ seventy-five yards of rag carpet. And
she thought onions wouldn’t be so wearin’ on her as turkeys, for
onions, she said, will stay where they are put, but turkeys are born
wanderers and hikers. And they led her through sun and rain, swamp and
swale, uphill and downhill, a-chasin’ ’em up, but she made well by ’em.
Well, in puttin’ in her onion seed, she overworked herself and got a
crick in her back, so she couldn’t stir hand nor foot for two days. And
bein’ only just them two, her husband had to stay home to see to
things.
And the Treasurer’s wife is canvassin’ for the life of William J.
Bryan. And wantin’ to make all she could, she took a longer tramp than
common, and didn’t hear of the Parade or meetin’ of the C.S.S. at all.
She writ home a day or two before the meetin’, that she wuz goin’ as
long as her legs held out, and they needn’t write to her, for she
didn’t know where she would be.
Well, of course, the Creation Searchers didn’t want to go without their
officers. They said they couldn’t make no show if they did. So they
give up goin’. But I spoze they made fun of the Woman’s Parade amongst
theirselves, and mourned over their indelikit onwomanly actions, and
worried about it bein’ too hard for ’em, and sneered at ’em
considerable.
Well, Josiah always loves to have me with him, an’ though he’d made
light of the Parade, he didn’t object to my goin’. And suffice it to
say that we arrove at that Middleman’s safe and sound, though why we
didn’t git lost in that grand immense depo and wander ’round there all
day like babes in the woods, is more’n I can tell.
The Middleman wuzn’t dishonest: he convinced Josiah on it. He had
shipped the colored eggs somewhere, and of course he couldn’t pay as
much, and he never had hearn of _Ratage_ or _Satage_. He wuz a real
pleasant Middleman, and hearing me say how much I wanted to see the
Woman’s Parade, he invited us to go upstairs and set by a winder, where
there was a good view on’t. We’d eat our lunch on the train and we
accepted his invitation, and sot down by a winder then and there,
though it wuz a hour or so before the time sot for the Parade. And I
should have taken solid comfort watchin’ the endless procession of men
and women and vehicles of all sorts and descriptions, but Josiah made
so many slightin’ remarks on the dress of the females passin’ below on
the sidewalk, that it made me feel bad. And to tell the truth, though I
didn’t think best to own up to it to him, I _did_ blush for my sect to
see the way some on ’em rigged themselves out.
“See that thing!” Josiah sez, as a woman passed by with her hat drawed
down over one eye, and a long quill standin’ out straight behind more’n
a foot, an’ her dress puckered in so ’round the bottom, she couldn’t
have took a long step if a mad dog wuz chasin’ her—to say nothin’ of
bein’ perched up on such high heels, that she fairly tottled when she
walked.
Sez Josiah: “Does that _thing_ know enough to vote?”
“No,” sez I, reasonably, “she don’t. But most probable if she had
bigger things to think about she’d loosen the puckerin’ strings ’round
her ankles, push her hat back out of her eyes, an’ get down on her feet
again.”
“Why, Samantha,” says he, “if you had on one of them skirts tied ’round
your ankles, if I wuz a-dyin’ on the upper shelf in the buttery, you
couldn’t step up on a chair to get to me to save your life, an’ I’d
have to die there alone.”
“Why should you be dyin’ on the buttery shelf, Josiah?” sez I.
“Oh, that wuz jest a figger of speech, Samantha.”
“But folks ort to be mejum in figgers of speech, Josiah, and not go too
fur.”
“Do you think, Samantha, that anybody can go too fur in describin’ them
fool skirts, and them slit skirts, and the immodesty and indecensy of
some of them dresses?”
[Illustration: “Sez Josiah, ‘Does that thing know enough to vote?’”]
“I don’t know as they can,” sez I, sadly.
“Jest look at that thing,” sez he again.
And as I looked, the hot blush of shame mantillied my cheeks, for I
felt that my sect was disgraced by the sight. She wuz real pretty, but
she didn’t have much of any clothes on, and what she did wear wuzn’t in
the right place; not at all.
Sez Josiah, “That girl would look much more modest and decent if she
wuz naked, for then she might be took for a statute.”
And I sez, “I don’t blame the good Priest for sendin’ them away from
the Lord’s table, sayin’, ‘I will give no communion to a Jezabel.’ And
the pity of it is,” sez I, “lots of them girls are innocent and don’t
realize what construction will be put on the dress they blindly copy
from some furrin fashion plate.”
Then quite an old woman passed by, also robed or disrobed in the
prevailin’ fashion, and Josiah sez, soty vosy, “I should think she wuz
old enough to know sunthin’. Who wants to see her old bones?” And he
sez to me, real uppish, “Do you think them things know enough to vote?”
But jest then a young man went by dressed fashionably, but if he hadn’t
had the arm of a companion, he couldn’t have walked a step; his face
wuz red and swollen, and dissipated, and what expression wuz left in
his face wuz a fool expression, and both had cigarettes in their
mouths, and I sez, “Does _that_ thing know enough to vote?” And jest
behind them come a lot of furrin laborers, rough and rowdy-lookin’,
with no more expression in their faces than a mule or any other animal.
“Do _they_ know enough to vote?” sez I. “As for the fitness for votin’
it is pretty even on both sides. Good intelligent men ortn’t to lose
the right of suffrage for the vice and ignorance of some of their sect,
and that argument is jest as strong for the other sect.”
But before Josiah could reply, we hearn the sound of gay music, and the
Parade began to march on before us. First a beautiful stately figure
seated fearlessly on a dancin’ horse, that tossted his head as if proud
of the burden he wuz carryin’. She managed the prancin’ steed with one
hand, and with the other held aloft the flag of our country. Jest as
women ort to, and have to. They have got to manage wayward pardners,
children and domestics who, no matter how good they are, will take
their bits in their mouths, and go sideways some of the time, but can
be managed by a sensible, affectionate hand, and with her other hand at
the same time she can carry her principles aloft, wavin’ in every
domestic breeze, frigid or torrid, plain to be seen by everybody.
Then come the wives and relations of Senators and Congressmen, showin’
that bein’ right on the spot they knowed what wimmen needed. Then the
wimmen voters from free Suffrage states, showin’ by their noble looks
that votin’ hadn’t hurt ’em any. They carried the most gorgeous banner
in the whole Parade. Then the Wimmen’s Political Union, showin’ plain
in their faces that understandin’ the laws that govern her ain’t goin’
to keep woman from looking beautiful and attractive.
On and on they come, gray-headed women and curly-headed children from
every station in life: the millionairess by the working woman, and the
fashionable society woman by the business one. Two women on horseback,
and one blowin’ a bugle, led the way for the carriage of Madam
Antoinette Blackwell. I wonder if she ever dreamed when she wuz tryin’
to climb the hill of knowledge through the thorny path of sex
persecution, that she would ever have a bugle blowed in front of her,
to honor her for her efforts, and form a part of such a glorious Parade
of the sect she give her youth and strength to free.
How they swept on, borne by the waves of music, heralded by wavin’
banners of purple and white and gold, bearin’ upliftin’ and noble
mottoes. Physicians, lawyers, nurses, authors, journalists, artists,
social workers, dressmakers, milliners, women from furrin countries
dressed in their quaint costumes, laundresses, clerks, shop girls,
college girls, all bearin’ the pennants and banners of their different
colleges: Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, etc., etc. High-school pupils,
Woman’s Suffrage League, Woman’s Social League, and all along the
brilliant line each division dressed in beautiful costumes and carryin’
their own gorgeous banners. And anon or oftener all along the long,
long procession bands of music pealin’ out high and sweet, as if the
Spirit of Music, who is always depictered as a woman, was glad and
proud to do honor to her own sect. And all through the Parade you could
see every little while men on foot and on horseback, not a great many,
but jest enough to show that the really noble men wuz on their side.
For, as I’ve said more formally, that is one of the most convincin’
arguments for Woman’s Suffrage. In fact, it don’t need any other. That
bad men fight against Women’s Suffrage with all their might.
Down by the big marble library, the grand-stand wuz filled with men
seated to see their wives march by on their road to Victory. I hearn
and believe, they wuz a noble-lookin’ set of men. They had seen their
wives in the past chasin’ Fashion and Amusement, and why shouldn’t they
enjoy seein’ them follow Principle and Justice? Well, I might talk all
day and not begin to tell of the beauty and splendor of the Woman’s
Parade. And the most impressive sight to me wuz to see how the leaven
of individual right and justice had entered into all these different
classes of society, and how their enthusiasm and earnestness must
affect every beholder.
And in my mind I drawed pictures of the different modes of our American
women and our English sisters, each workin’ for the same cause, but in
what a different manner. Of course, our English sisters may have more
reason for their militant doin’s; more unjust laws regarding
marriage—divorce, and care of children, and I can’t blame them married
females for wantin’ to control their own money, specially if they earnt
it by scrubbin’ floors and washin’. I can’t blame ’em for not wantin’
their husbands to take that money from them and their children,
specially if they’re loafers and drunkards. And, of course, there are
no men so noble and generous as our American men. But jest lookin’ at
the matter from the outside and comparin’ the two, I wuz proud indeed
of our Suffragists.
While our English sisters feel it their duty to rip and tear, burn and
pillage, to draw attention to their cause, and reach the gole (which I
believe they have sot back for years) through the smoke and fire of
carnage, our American Suffragettes employ the gentle, convincin’ arts
of beauty and reason. Some as the quiet golden sunshine draws out the
flowers and fruit from the cold bosom of the earth. Mindin’ their own
business, antagonizin’ and troublin’ no one, they march along and show
to every beholder jest how earnest they be. They quietly and
efficiently answer that argument of the She Auntys, that women don’t
want to vote, by a parade two hours in length, of twenty thousand. They
answer the argument that the ballot would render women careless in
dress and reckless, by organizin’ and carryin’ on a parade so
beautiful, so harmonious in color and design that it drew out
enthusiastic praise from even the enemies of Suffrage. They quietly and
without argument answered the old story that women was onbusiness-like
and never on time, by startin’ the Parade the very minute it was
announced, which you can’t always say of men’s parades.
It wuz a burnin’ hot day, and many who’d always argued that women
hadn’t strength enough to lift a paper ballot, had prophesied that
woman wuz too delicately organized, too “fraguile,” as Betsy Bobbet
would say, to endure the strain of the long march in the torrid
atmosphere.
But I told Josiah that women had walked daily over the burning plow
shares of duty and domestic tribulation, till their feet had got
calloused, and could stand more’n you’d think for.
And he said he didn’t know as females had any more burnin’ plow shares
to tread on than men had.
And I sez, “I didn’t say they had, Josiah. I never wanted women to get
more praise or justice than men. I simply want ’em to get as much—just
an even amount; for,” sez I, solemnly, “‘male and female created He
them.’”
Josiah is a deacon, and when I quote Scripture, he has to listen
respectful, and I went on: “I guess it wuz a surprise even to the
marchers that of all the ambulances that kept alongside the Parade to
pick up faint and swoonin’ females, the only one occupied wuz by a
man.”
Josiah denied it, but I sez, “I see his boots stickin’ out of the
ambulance myself.” Josiah couldn’t dispute that, for he knows I am
truthful. But he sez, sunthin’ in the sperit of two little children I
hearn disputin’. Sez one: “It wuzn’t so; you’ve told a lie.”
“Well,” sez the other, “You broke a piece of china and laid it to me.”
Sez Josiah, “You may have seen a pair of men’s boots a-stickin’ out of
the ambulance, but I’ll bet they didn’t have heels on ’em a inch broad,
and five or six inches high.”
“No, Josiah,” sez I, “you’re right. Men think too much of their comfort
and health to hist themselves up on such little high tottlin’ things,
and you didn’t see many on ’em in the Parade.”
But he went on drivin’ the arrow of higher criticism still deeper into
my onwillin’ breast. “I’ll bet you didn’t see his legs tied together at
the ankles, or his trouses slit up the sides to show gauze stockin’s
and anklets and diamond buckles. And you didn’t see my sect who honored
the Parade by marchin’ in it, have a goose quill half a yard long,
standin’ up straight in the air from a coal-scuttle hat, or out
sideways, a hejus sight, and threatenin’ the eyes of friend and foe.”
“And you didn’t see many on ’em in the Parade,” sez I agin. “Women, as
they march along to Victory, have got to drop some of these senseless
things. In fact, they are droppin’ em. You don’t see waists now the
size of a hour glass. It is gettin’ fashionable to breathe now, and
women on their way to their gole will drop by the way their high heels;
it will git fashionable to walk comfortable, and as they’ve got to take
some pretty long steps to reach the ballot in 1916, it stands to reason
they’ve got to have a skirt wide enough at the bottom to step up on the
gole of Victory. It is a high step, Josiah, but women are goin’ to take
it. They’ve always tended to cleanin’ their own house, and makin’ it
comfortable and hygenic for its members, big and little. And when they
turn their minds onto the best way to clean the National house both
sects have to live in to make it clean and comfortable and safe for the
weak and helpless as well as for the strong—it stands to reason they
won’t have time or inclination to stand up on stilts with tied-in
ankles, quilled out like savages.”
“Well,” said Josiah, with a dark, forebodin’ look on his linement, “_we
shall see_.”
“Yes,” sez I, with a real radiant look into the future. “_We shall
see_, Josiah.”
But he didn’t have no idea of the beautiful prophetic vision I beheld
with the eyes of my sperit. Good men and good women, each fillin’ their
different spears in life, but banded together for the overthrow of
evil, the uplift of the race.
X.
“THE CREATION SEARCHIN’ SOCIETY”
It was only a few days after we got home from New York that Josiah come
into the house dretful excited. He’d had a invitation to attend a
meetin’ of the Creation Searchin’ Society.
“Why,” sez I, “did they invite you? You are not a member?”
“No,” sez he, “but they want me to help ’em be indignant. It is a
indignation meetin’.”
“Indignant about what?” I sez.
“Fur be it from me, Samantha, to muddle up your head and hurt your
feelin’s by tellin’ you what it’s fur.” And he went out quick and shet
the door. But I got a splendid dinner and afterwards he told me of his
own accord.
I am not a member, of course, for the president, Philander Daggett,
said it would lower the prestige of the society in the eyes of the
world to have even one female member. This meetin’ wuz called last week
for the purpose of bein’ indignant over the militant doin’s of the
English Suffragettes. Josiah and several others in Jonesville wuz
invited to be present at this meetin’ as sort of honorary members, as
they wuz competent to be jest as indignant as any other male men over
the tribulations of their sect.
Josiah said so much about the meetin’, and his Honorary Indignation,
that he got me curious, and wantin’ to go myself, to see how it wuz
carried on. But I didn’t have no hopes on’t till Philander Daggett’s
new young wife come to visit me and I told her how much I wanted to go,
and she bein’ real good-natered said she would make Philander let me
in.
He objected, of course, but she is pretty and young, and his nater
bein’ kinder softened and sweetened by the honey of the honeymoon, she
got round him. And he said that if we would set up in a corner of the
gallery behind the melodeon, and keep our veils on, he would let her
and me in. But we must keep it secret as the grave, for he would lose
all the influence he had with the other members and be turned out of
the Presidential chair if it wuz knowed that he had lifted wimmen up to
such a hite, and gin ’em such a opportunity to feel as if they wuz
equal to men.
Well, we went early and Josiah left me to Philander’s and went on to do
some errents. He thought I wuz to spend the evenin’ with her in
becomin’ seclusion, a-knittin’ on his blue and white socks, as a woman
should. But after visitin’ a spell, jest after it got duskish, we went
out the back door and went cross lots, and got there ensconced in the
dark corner without anybody seein’ us and before the meetin’ begun.
Philander opened the meetin’ by readin’ the moments of the last
meetin’, which wuz one of sympathy with the police of Washington for
their noble efforts to break up the Woman’s Parade, and after their
almost Herculaneum labor to teach wimmen her proper place, and all the
help they got from the hoodlum and slum elements, they had failed in a
measure, and the wimmen, though stunned, insulted, spit on, struck,
broken boneded, maimed, and tore to pieces, had succeeded in their
disgustin’ onwomanly undertakin’.
But it wuz motioned and carried that a vote of thanks be sent ’em and
recorded in the moments that the Creation Searchers had no blame but
only sympathy and admiration for the hard worked Policemen for they had
done all they could to protect wimmen’s delicacy and retirin’ modesty,
and put her in her place, and no man in Washington or Jonesville could
do more. He read these moments, in a real tender sympathizin’ voice,
and I spoze the members sympathized with him, or I judged so from their
linements as I went forward, still as a mouse, and peeked down on ’em.
He then stopped a minute and took a drink of water; I spoze his
sympathetic emotions had het him up, and kinder dried his mouth, some.
And then he went on to state that this meetin’ wuz called to show to
the world, abroad and nigh by, the burnin’ indignation this body felt,
as a society, at the turrible sufferin’s and insults bein’ heaped onto
their male brethren in England by the indecent and disgraceful doin’s
of the militant Suffragettes, and to devise, if possible, some way to
help their male brethren acrost the sea. “For,” sez he, “pizen will
spread. How do we know how soon them very wimmen who had to be spit on
and struck and tore to pieces in Washington to try to make ’em keep
their place, the sacred and tender place they have always held
enthroned as angels in a man’s heart—”
Here he stopped and took out his bandanna handkerchief, and wiped his
eyes, and kinder choked. But I knew it wuz all a orator’s art, and it
didn’t affect me, though I see a number of the members wipe their eyes,
for this talk appealed to the inheriant chivalry of men, and their
desire to protect wimmen, we have always hearn so much about.
“How do we know,” he continued, “how soon they may turn aginst their
best friends, them who actuated by the loftiest and tenderest emotions,
and determination to protect the weaker sect at any cost, took their
valuable time to try to keep wimmen down where they ort to be, _angels
of the home_, who knows but they may turn and throw stuns at the
Capitol an’ badger an’ torment our noble lawmakers, a-tryin’ to make
’em listen to their silly petitions for justice?”
In conclusion, he entreated ’em to remember that the eye of the world
wuz on ’em, expectin’ ’em to be loyal to the badgered and woman
endangered sect abroad, and try to suggest some way to stop them
woman’s disgraceful doin’s.
Cyrenus Presly always loves to talk, and he always looks on the dark
side of things, and he riz up and said “he didn’t believe nothin’ could
be done, for by all he’d read about ’em, the men had tried everything
possible to keep wimmen down where they ort to be, they had turned deaf
ears to their complaints, wouldn’t hear one word they said, they had
tried drivin’ and draggin’ and insults of all kinds, and breakin’ their
bones, and imprisonment, and stuffin’ ’em with rubber tubes, thrust
through their nose down into their throats. And he couldn’t think of a
thing more that could be done by men, and keep the position men always
had held as wimmen’s gardeens and protectors, and he said he thought
men might jest as well keep still and let ’em go on and bring the world
to ruin, for that was what they wuz bound to do, and they couldn’t be
stopped unless they wuz killed off.”
Phileman Huffstater is a old bachelder, and hates wimmen. He had been
on a drunk and looked dretful, tobacco juice runnin’ down his face, his
red hair all towsled up, and his clothes stiff with dirt. He wuzn’t
invited, but had come of his own accord. He had to hang onto the seat
in front of him as he riz up and said: “He believed that wuz the best
and only way out on’t, for men to rise up and kill off the weaker sect,
for their wuzn’t never no trouble of any name or nater, but what wimmen
wuz to the bottom on’t, and the world would be better off without ’em.”
But Philander scorfed at him and reminded him that such hullsale doin’s
would put an end to the world’s bein’ populated at all.
But Phileman said in a hicuppin’, maudlin way that “the world had
better stop, if there had got to be such doin’s, wimmen risin’ up on
every side, and pretendin’ to be equal with men.”
Here his knee jints kinder gin out under him, and he slid down onto the
seat and went to sleep.
I guess the members wuz kinder shamed of Phileman, for Lime Peedick
jumped up quick as scat and said, “It seemed the Englishmen had tried
most everything else, and he wondered how it would work if them
militant wimmen could be ketched and a dose of sunthin’ bitter and
sickenin’ poured down ’em. Every time they broached that loathsome
doctrine of equal rights, and tried to make lawmakers listen to their
petitions, jest ketch ’em and pour down ’em a big dose of wormwood or
sunthin’ else bitter and sickenin’, and he guessed they would git tired
on’t.”
But here Josiah jumped up quick and said, “he objected,” he said, “that
would endanger the right wimmen always had, and ort to have of cookin’
good vittles for men and doin’ their housework, and bearin’ and
bringin’ up their children, and makin’ and mendin’ and waitin’ on ’em.
He said nothin’ short of a Gatlin gun could keep Samantha from speakin’
her mind about such things, and he wuzn’t willin’ to have her made sick
to the stomach, and incapacitated from cookin’ by any such
proceedin’s.”
The members argued quite awhile on this pint, but finally come round to
Josiah’s idees, and the meetin’ for a few minutes seemed to come to a
standstill, till old Cornelius Snyder got up slowly and feebly. He has
spazzums and can’t hardly wobble. His wife has to support him, wash and
dress him, and take care on him like a baby. But he has the use of his
tongue, and he got some man to bring him there, and he leaned heavy on
his cane, and kinder stiddied himself on it and offered this
suggestion:
“How would it do to tie females up when they got to thinkin’ they wuz
equal to men, halter ’em, rope ’em, and let ’em see if they wuz?”
But this idee wuz objected to for the same reason Josiah had advanced,
as Philander well said, “wimmen had got to go foot loose in order to do
the housework and cookin’.”
Uncle Sime Bentley, who wuz awful indignant, said, “I motion that men
shall take away all the rights that wimmen have now, turn ’em out of
the meetin’ house, and grange.”
But before he’d hardly got the words out of his mouth, seven of the
members riz up and as many as five spoke out to once with different
exclamations:
“That won’t do! we can’t do that! Who’ll do all the work! Who’ll git up
grange banquets and rummage sales, and paper and paint and put down
carpets in the meetin’ house, and git up socials and entertainments to
help pay the minister’s salary, and carry on the Sunday School? and
tend to its picnics and suppers, and take care of the children? We
can’t do this, much as we’d love to.”
One horsey, sporty member, also under the influence of liquor, riz up,
and made a feeble motion, “Spozin’ we give wimmen liberty enough to
work, leave ’em hand and foot loose, and sort o’ muzzle ’em so they
can’t talk.”
This seemed to be very favorably received, ’specially by the married
members, and the secretary wuz jest about to record it in the moments
as a scheme worth tryin’, when old Doctor Nugent got up, and sez in a
firm, decided way:
“Wimmen cannot be kept from talking without endangerin’ her life; as a
medical expert I object to this motion.”
“How would you put the objection?” sez the secretary.
“On the ground of cruelty to animals,” sez the doctor.
A fat Englishman who had took the widder Shelmadine’s farm on shares,
says, “I ’old with Brother Josiah Hallen’s hargument. As the father of
nine young children and thirty cows to milk with my wife’s ’elp, I ’old
she musn’t be kep’ from work, but h’I propose if we can’t do anything
else that a card of sympathy be sent to hold Hengland from the Creation
Searchin’ Society of America, tellin’ ’em ’ow our ’earts bleeds for the
men’s sufferin’ and ’ardships in ’avin’ to leave their hoccupations to
beat and ’aul round and drive females to jails, and feed ’em with
rubber hose through their noses to keep ’em from starvin’ to death for
what they call their principles.”
This motion wuz carried unanimously.
But here an old man, who had jest dropped in and who wuz kinder deef
and slow-witted, asked, “What it is about anyway? what do the wimmen
ask for when they are pounded and jailed and starved?”
Hank Yerden, whose wife is a Suffragist, and who is mistrusted to have
a leanin’ that way himself, answered him, “Oh, they wanted the
lawmakers to read their petitions asking for the rights of ordinary
citizens. They said as long as their property wuz taxed they had the
right of representation. And as long as the law punished wimmen equally
with men, they had a right to help make that law, and as long as men
claimed wimmen’s place wuz home, they wanted the right to guard that
home. And as long as they brought children into the world they wanted
the right to protect ’em. And when the lawmakers wouldn’t hear a word
they said, and beat ’em and drove ’em round and jailed ’em, they got
mad as hens, and are actin’ like furiation and wild cats. But claim
that civil rights wuz never give to any class without warfare.”
“Heavens! what doin’s!” sez old Zephaniah Beezum, “what is the world
comin’ to!” “Angle worms will be risin’ up next and demandin’ to not be
trod on.” Sez he, “I have studied the subject on every side, and I
claim the best way to deal with them militant females is to banish ’em
to some barren wilderness, some foreign desert where they can meditate
on their crimes, and not bother men.”
This idee wuz received favorably by most of the members, but others
differed and showed the weak p’ints in it, and it wuz gin up.
Well, at ten P.M., the Creation Searchers gin up after arguin’ pro and
con, con and pro, that they could not see any way out of the matter,
they could not tell what to do with the wimmen without danger and
trouble to the male sect.
They looked dretful dejected and onhappy as they come to this
conclusion, my pardner looked as if he wuz most ready to bust out
cryin’. And as I looked on his beloved linement I forgot everything
else and onbeknown to me I leaned over the railin’ and sez:
“Here is sunthin’ that no one has seemed to think on at home or abroad.
How would it work to stop the trouble by givin’ the wimmen the rights
they ask for, the rights of any other citizen?”
I don’t spoze there will ever be such another commotion and upheaval in
Jonesville till Michael blows his last trump as follered my speech.
Knowin’ wimmen wuz kep’ from the meetin’, some on ’em thought it wuz a
voice from another spear. Them wuz the skairt and horrow struck ones,
and them that thought it wuz a earthly woman’s voice wuz so mad that
they wuz by the side of themselves and carried on fearful. But when
they searched the gallery for wimmen or ghosts, nothin’ wuz found, for
Philander’s wife and I had scooted acrost lots and wuz to home
a-knittin’ before the men got there.
And I d’no as anybody but Philander to this day knows what, or who it
wuz.
And I d’no as my idee will be follered, but I believe it is the best
way out on’t for men and wimmen both, and would stop the mad doin’s of
the English Suffragettes, which I don’t approve of, no indeed! much as
I sympathize with the justice of their cause.