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