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?"