I told Samantha one day that another strong reason why wimmen hadn't
ort to vote, and why they would be such a dangerous element in politics
wuz that they prevaricated and exaggerated to such a alarmin' extent.
Sez I, "A woman can't tell a story straight to save her life--but has
to put in so many exaggerations and stretch out facts so you couldn't
reconize 'em when she gits 'em pulled out to the length she pulls 'em.
They don't seem to have any idee of plain straightforward truthfulness
such as my sect has. As long as they've seen men appearin' before 'em,
tellin' the exact truth from day to day, and from year to year, they
can't or won't foller his example.
"That trait of theirn," sez I, "is bad enough in the home and social
circle, for there their men folks can head 'em off, and cover things
up and make excuses for 'em, and tell the story straight. But if it
wuz carried into public life where their men folks couldn't reach 'em,
and quell 'em down, and ameliorate the effects on it, where would this
nation be? It would be looked down on and shawed at by Foreign Powers
as a nation of exaggerators and false witnessors, and it ort to be.
"Wimmen can't seem to learn to tell the truth and 'nothin' but the
truth,' and that is the reason, Samantha," sez I, "that that clause wuz
put in the law books; it wuz designed to try to skair female witnesses,
and drive 'em into tellin' the truth. But it hain't done it."
I wuz gittin' real eloquent and riz up, for nothin' pleases a man more
than to teach his wimmen folks great truths and enlighten 'em about
laws. But Samantha had to bring me down from the hite I wuz on, in the
aggravatin' way females have. And as it turned out I wuz kinder sorry
I had dwelt on that trait of females that particular time, for she said
in the irritatin' way wimmen have of bringin' up facts at times when
there hain't no use of bringin' 'em up and when it is inconvenient for
'em to be brung.
Sez she, "I would talk about exaggeration in females, and men's love
for exact truth, after what took place in this settin' room only last
evenin'."
I didn't reply to her for there are times when silent disapproval is
better than argument. I knowed what she meant, and I knowed she wanted
to spile my argument, in the ornary way females have, so, as I say, I
treated them words with silent contemp and went out to the barn. But I
spoze I may as well tell you how it wuz, for if I don't she may tell
it and make it out worse than it wuz. Condelick Henzy come over here
last night after supper to borry my neck-yoke and Dr. Meezik from Zoar,
where he used to live, went to see Condelick on bizness, and his wife
told him he wuz here so he stopped here on his way home (I mistrust
Condelick owes him though he didn't dun him before us).
They're both on 'em good natered easy-goin' men, and love to talk and
tell stories. And I brung up a basin of good sick-no-furder apples, and
they set and et apples and talked and talked. They both on 'em love to
brag about what they've seen and hearn and naterally both on 'em want
to tell the biggest story about it. Onfortinately Samantha wuz in the
room to work on a new insane bed-quilt. And of course she has to find
fault and cricketcise what they said and won't make allowances for high
sperits.
Sez Dr. Meezik, "When I wuz a young man my folks lived on a farm that
run along one side on a creek. And one day I wuz down on the creek lot
hoein' corn and a bear come down on the ice from the big woods, and I
rushed right out on the ice and killed that bear with my hoe."
Sez Condelick, "That's nothin' to what I did at about the same time.
I lived on that same creek though furder south; it wuz dretful rich
land. And I raised a cabbage there that wuz so big I hollered out the
stem on't and made a boat of it, and used it to ferry me acrost that
very stream of water."
"And it wuz jest about that time," sez Dr. Meezik, "le'me see, it wuz
on my birthday about nine minutes past four o'clock in the afternoon,
or it may have been nine and a half minutes past, I always want to be
perfectly exact in my statements, but we will let it go at nine minutes.
"I wuz a great hunter in them days and fearless as a lion as you may
know by my goin' out on the ice to meet that bear who had come to eat
green corn, and killed him with my hoe handle.
"I had gone a little further north than I had ever gone before, and I
come out to a big clearin' that I had never seen. I should say it wuz
half a degree north of where we're settin' now, or it might have been
half a pint further, a man can't be too exact and particular in telling
such things, for some folks if they wanted to pick flaws and find
fault might doubt his statement. But I didn't have my pocket compass
with me and I wuz so surprised at what I see there that I don't know
that I should thought to use it if I had had it.
"I must say that as many strange things as I've seen and heard I never
wuz so surprised as I wuz at what I see there.
"Right there in that big clearin' there wuz a perfect army of tinkers
makin' a immense brass kettle. There wuz jest one hundred of 'em, for I
counted 'em over twice so's to be sure of gittin' the exact number. I
am always so perfectly reliable in my statements, and am bound to git
the smallest petickulars jest right. I spoze I got the habit partly
from weighin' out my medicines so exact.
"And them tinkers wuz hammerin' away for all they wuz worth on that
kettle, and you may judge of the size of it when I tell you them
workmen wuz so fur apart they couldn't hear each other a hammerin'."
Even Condelick Henzy wuz took back and browbeat and sez mekanically,
"What do you spoze they wuz goin' to do with the kettle?"
"Well," sez Dr. Meezik, "they didn't tell me, for I didn't want to act
forward and ask, but I always spozed they wuz goin' to use it to bile
your cabbage in."
Just at this epock of time Samantha gathered up her insane piece work
and left the room. She didn't say nothin', but I knowed by the looks of
her linement jest as well as I know now, that she'd throw that kettle
and that cabbage in my face some time the most inconvenient for me, and
you can see plain she's done it and now I hope she's satisfied.
As I said I went out to the barn and kinder fussed round cleanin' up
some, and I never see Samantha agin till dinner time. I wuzn't afraid
to go in and meet her and have her resoom her argument agin. No, I
skorn the importation. I belong to a fearless sect, and am almost
unacquainted with the word fear, though I know there is such a word in
the Dictionary.
No, I had considerable putterin' round to do in the barn, and hen
house, and so I stayed out there till I hearn the welcome sound of the
dinner bell and smelt even from the barn door the agreable odors risin'
from a first class dinner.
The smell and taste of the tender roast lamb and lushious vegetables
softened my feelin's considerable, or would have if it hadn't been for
the look on Samantha's face. It wuzn't a cross look nor a mean one,
would that it wuz, for I could handle them looks better.
No, it wuz a kind of a superior look, as if she had conquored me in
the argument about exaggeration and prevarication, and wuz gloatin'
over the _contrary temps_ that had occurred in the settin' room only
the evenin' before, the little incident that broke down my excelent
argument.
And of all the looks that mankind ever read on a woman's linement, the
one a man can't stand is a superior look, a look that says as plain as
words, "I like you and pity you, but I can't help lookin' down on you,
Poor Thing!" That look from a inferior sect always aggravates a man so
that he hain't skursly answerable for what he sez and duz.
And almost onbeknown to me I broke forth in a crushin' argument
designed to crush her and change that look on her linement to one of
humbleness becomin' to a female. Sez I, "Our sect has been the makin'
of yourn, and it seems that when a female considers and thinks on all
that men have done for wimmen and are willin' to do for 'em, they would
have some feelin's of gratitude towards 'em, but they don't; they
delight in argyin' with 'em and tryin' to git the better on 'em."
Instead of my smart reasonable words affectin' her favorably it seemed
as if the look I despised deepened on her linement; not a sign did I
see of meach, nor a sign of humble gratitude, and I wuz so irritated by
it that I lanched right out in the crushin' argument that I had on my
mind and that ort to bring female feathers droopin' down in the very
dust.
Sez I, "Do you ever pause to think, Samantha, of the inestimable boon
wimmen owe to men? Why," sez I, "if it hadn't been for a man, wimmen
wouldn't had no souls to-day."
"How do you make that out?" sez Samantha, helpin' herself camly to some
more dressin'.
"Why, it is a matter of history that way back in the centuries the
preachers of that time had a meetin' to settle the question, and when
they took a vote on't, the majority on 'em stood out on the popular
side and cast their votes agin 'em, and vowed and declared that females
hadn't no souls. And it wuz only by the vote of one single solitary man
that it wuz carried in their favor and decided that they had souls.
"And I should think females would be so grateful to that noble man for
what he done for 'em, for his bein' willin' to admit that they had
souls, that they would honor the hull sect to which he belonged, and
look up to 'em in humble and grateful gratitude, and never try to argy
with 'em and aggravate 'em. For let me ask you, Samantha," sez I, in
a solemn axent, "where would wimmen have been if that man had held out
and jined in with the rest, and decided that wimmen hadn't got any
soul? Where would they been then, and where would they be to-day?"
"Jest where they always wuz and are now," sez Samantha camly helpin'
herself to a apple dumplin'. "It seems that it wuz men that started the
question in the first place, and I spoze that if wimmen hadn't been so
wore out and hampered by her hard work of takin' care of men, cookin',
mendin', and cleanin' for 'em and bringin' up their children, etc.,
they might have had a jury of wimmen set on men to find out if _they_
had souls. But I don't spoze they had a minute's time to spare from
their hard work no more than I have, and I don't spoze it would make
any difference either way. The main thing is whether men and wimmen
have got souls to-day, and use them souls for the good of mankind,
instead of lettin' 'em grow hard, or wither away in indifference to
the woes and wants of the world, and the cause of Eternal Justice for
every one, male and female."
That is jest the way with wimmen, they've got to talk and argy and try
to have the last word. You can't seem to make 'em act meachin' and
beholdin' to men anyway you can work it, and it seems to me I've tried
every way there is from first to last.
But I wouldn't argy no more, I felt above it. I helped myself to my
fourth apple dumplin' with a look of silent contemp on my linement,
also I had the same look when I poured the lemon sass over it and took
my third cup of coffee.
And my linement still showed to a clost observer the marks of a tried
though hauty sperit, as I riz up from the table and retired with a high
step to my sacred corner to resoom my literary efforts.
Sometimes pardners are real aggravatin' to each other and a trial to be
borne with. And though I don't know what I'd do if I should ever lose
Samantha, it don't seem as if I could ever eat another woman's vittles
after livin' on the fat of the land as you may say for forty years.
Yet there are times when you set smartin' under wownds your pardner has
gin your sperit and from arguments she no need to have brung up, and
you see a widow man a passin' by, you have feelin's that can skursly be
told on. You can see by the looks of his face and hands that he don't
wash any oftener than he wants to, and never combs his hair and don't
change his clothes till the Board of Health gits after him. And you
know he never goes to meetin', and throws off girl blinders boldly, and
stays out nights till as late as ten P.M. onquestioned and onscolded.
And don't have to clean his shues when he goes in, and never curbs his
appetite, but eats like a hog and enjoys himself.
Why, much as you love the dear pardner of your bosom, and prize the
excelent food she cooks, and the clean comfortable home she makes for
you--the air of freedom that seems to blow from that widow man (kinder
stale air too) yet it fans your clean head and clean stiff shirt bosom
like a breath from the Isle of Freedom.
And so after Samantha had hurt my feelin's and wownded my self respect
by remindin' me of the incident mentioned, when if she had kep' still
I should have come off victorious in my argument, I retired into the
solitude of my corner in the settin' room where Betsy Bobbett's poetry
lay heaped up in the dish-pan and I read with feelin' that I couldn't
skursly describe the follerin' verses which I spoze Betsy writ after
her husband had wownded her feelin's. And in readin' it I dedicate it
silently to my brother men who have been aggravated by their pardners.