Is there any limit to a female's aggravatin'? I wouldn't dane a reply.
But I took up Ayer's Albernack with a stern cold linement, and went
to readin' the advertisements, and of course she didn't see the danger
ahead on her, of irritatin' too fur a strong nater.
She kep' right on, "No doubt wimmen are sometimes extravagant, Josiah,
no doubt they spend lots of money foolishly and worse than foolishly,
but before we decide that it ort to deprive her of political rights,
let us compare it with men's extravagance for a few minutes."
I felt above replyin' to her, but kep' my eye on the bottle of
medicine, and the woman raised from the tomb by a smell of the cork,
and she went on:
"Which party is it in a workman's home that usually wants to buy an
automobile before the little home is paid for? Mebby in some rare cases
the woman eggs the man on, but I believe that it is safe to say that
in seven cases out of ten, it is not the housekeeper and house mother
that is willin' to risk losin' the ruff that covers her baby's pretty
head, and councils waitin' a while before takin' on the extravagance
of the added expense. And which party is it, Josiah, that turns and
twists every way to save money so her boy and girl can present a decent
appearance before her mates? How many millions a year duz the horse
races, yot races and polo games and other manly amusements amount to?
How many billions a year duz the useless extravagance of tobacco cost?
Of course you can substract sunthin' for some wimmen's foolish habit of
cigarette smoking, but in the great total it would hardly count. And
in how many poor homes duz a woman toil into the night hours to mend
and make so that her family may look respectable, while her husband is
spendin' his spare hours and spare change in the corner saloon?"
Sez I, lookin' up from the Albernack with a scathin' irony that must
have scathed her, whether she owned up to it or not, "I thought it wuz
about time for you to drag in that saloon bizness."
"Yes," sez she, "it is time. How many billion dollars a year is spent
mostly by men, in the ruinous extravagance of strong drink, and how
many billions more in payin' for the effects on't, loss of labor,
jails, prisons, hospitals, police force, pauper burials, etc., etc.,
and I might string out them etc.'s, Josiah, clear from here to Grout
Hozleton's and then not begin to git in the perfectly useless and
ruinous extravagance of the liquor bizness. And I guess that take all
the wimmen's extravagance, it will count up so small in comparison
as to be lost sight on. And unlike the liquor bizness if a woman
dresses extravagantly, which no doubt she often duz, the dressmakers
and merchants and jewelers reaps a profit, if she gives extravagant
fashionable parties, the grocer, the florist, the laboring class gits
some benefit from it; it is not a danger to human life, like the heart
breakin', soul destroyin' extravagance and danger to the hull community
of the liquor traffic."
I felt above arguin' with her agin on this subject I had so often
wasted my finest eloquence on. She knowed how I felt, and I wouldn't
demean myself by repeatin' my crushin' arguments in that direction,
for I knowed as well as I sot there that she wouldn't act crushed, no
matter if she felt flat as a pan-cake. So I passed on to another faze
of woman's extravagance.
Sez I, "It hain't enough for her to spend money like water on her
bridge parties, and maskerades, and theatre and tango parties, but she
has to rack what little brain she's got, tryin' to git up new follies
that other wimmen hain't thought on; she has to have her dog parties,
and monkey parties, when them animals come dressed like human bein's
with human folks to wait on 'em. Thank Heaven! you can't say but what
male men would look down with abhorrence on such fool doin's."
But Samantha sez, "Id'no, take a stag party sometimes--mebby in the
beginin' them stags might be able to look down on the monkeys, but
after high-balls and cock-tails and gallons of shampain has been
consumed, Id'no whether them stags could look down on sober temperate
monkeys, or the monkeys look down on them, though no doubt some of the
stags behave and can see straight."
I scorned to notice this slur onto my sect, brung up I knowed to make
me swurve from my subject, but it didn't make me swurve a inch. I went
right on and brung up wimmen's extravagance in their houses.
Sez I, "Look at her gorgeous Brussels carpets, her draperies hangin'
from elegant brass poles, her superb black walnut furniture, her
glossy black hair-cloth sofias and easy chairs, a perfect riot of
extravagance, Samantha. Who can blame a man from kickin' agin it,
kickin'," sez I, "with the hull strength of a outraged nater and a
number nine shue."
"No doubt," sez Samantha, "wimmen are sometimes extravagant in makin'
their homes beautiful, but their families and admirin' friends benefit
by it. And how duz her velvet carpets and Persian rugs, her rose-wood
furniture, statuary, and costly pictures and silken draperies compare
with men's outlay and extravagance in Public Buildings; for instance,
the Capitol at Albany; wimmen have had nothing to do with that, and I
guess her most extravagant doin's in her house will compare favorably
with the millions men have spent in that house for years, and no sign
of there ever bein' an end to it."
I knowed by the look on her linement that she meant to intimidate that
there had been shiftlessnes and stealin' goin' on in that direction,
and in other public works through the country, but I refused to notice
the slur on my sect. That slur that females love to sling at us and
which we'd better treat with silent contemp, jest as I did now, for
no knowin' if we'd stoop to argy with 'em about it, what figgers and
statistics they may bring up, to prove their slurs, so as I say I
passed it over with silent disdain, but I sez in a safe general way,
fur removed from probable figgers she would be apt to throw at me
to prove her reckless insertions, I sez, puttin' a sad look onto my
linement:
"Wimmen's extravagance makes the heart of man to ache and often drives
him to a ontimely tomb, strivin' for fashionable display, strivin' for
rights she don't need." And bein' anxious to change the subject at that
juncter (I always think it is best to change the flow of my thought
occasionally) I put on a sort of a solemn, fraid look on my linement,
"Such talk as you wimmen talk is revolutionary, Samantha, and is liable
to lead to war."
And then, if you'll believe it, so contrary and hard to conquer is
females, she took advantage of that speech of mine to invay on the
expenditure of war. She asked me then and there how many billions wuz
spent every year by male men on the extravagance of man-made war, its
preperation and consequences.
I told her coldly and with a irony as iron as our old cook stove, that
as much as she expected of me, she couldn't expect me to figger up to a
cent what war had cost the nation. Sez I, "With the barn chores on my
hands, and my great work of destroyin' Woman's Suffrage do you expect
me to keep track of every cent the nation has spent on war?"
"No," sez she, "one man couldn't reckon it up if he spent his hull
lifetime at it, but jest the money spent on it yearly is two billion
five hundred million. But," sez she, "it seems that the enormous
extravagance of man in this direction and others don't unfit him for
the franchise. And if you should spend a few years tryin' to reckon
up the gigantic expenditure in money and misery, the horrors and
extravagance of war and its effects, you might feel like talkin' less
about wimmen's extravagance and how it makes her onfit to be a citizen
of the country she's born into, and helps to support with her labor and
taxes."
Oh, how aggravatin' a woman can be when she sets out to be. Much as
I think of Samantha and the tendrils of my great heart are wropped
completely round her, as big as she is round her waist--yet sometimes
on occasions like this I almost wish I wuz a bacheldor, a fur off
lonely man in some distant cave, or on some lonesome mountain peak,
encumbered not by a female who thinks she has a right to argy with me
and irritate me.
But these feelin's always come over me in the middle of the forenoon,
or the middle of the afternoon. When it comes nigh meal time, my wild
seethin' emotions gradually simmers down and as the appetizin' meals
progress so duz my feelin's change and grow less dangerous; if they
didn't I don't know what the effect would be to the world of females.
I spoze it is the way the overrulin' power has fixed it as a means of
safety to females, for with my strong nater and massive inteleck, if it
wuzn't for them three daily safety valves to let off the steam of my
indignation at female doin's, and sayin's, Heaven only knows what would
be the consequences. Things and folks would be tore to pieces for all
that I knew and utterly destroyed. For how can you curb in a outraged
and high sperited nature when it is fully rousted up, and aggravation
has gone too fur? It is well that good vittles stand guard between me
and them.
But as a man who loves peace and quiet, and despises female arguin' I
wuz glad at this juncter to see the welcome form of Uncle Sime wendin'
his way towards the barn. And I throwed down the Albernack with a hauty
movement of my right hand, and strode off barnward with my head erect.
And then we two valiant warriors in a noble cause held a meetin' of
sweet sympathy and full understandin' in the horse barn.