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.
[Illustration: "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'."