“Oh, good morning, Miss Coggswell! Do sit down. Yes, isn’t it? So
spring-like and balmy. Oh, not at all; I’m never busy. I’m always glad
to see callers. On business? Oh, I don’t know anything about business!
About Suffrage! Why, you look so lady-like! Become a Suffragist? Me? Oh,
I’m happily married! Oh, excuse me! I don’t mean but what you are far
happier unmarried—of course you are, or you wouldn’t have stayed so.
But—well, really, I don’t know the first principles of this suffrage
business. Not necessary? Oh, I think I ought to know what I’m joining;
and, besides, the suffrage people are such frumps. What! They’re going
to dress better? Well, I’m glad of it. But, really, you know, I’m not a
bit suffragy. Why, I’m afraid of a mouse, and I just love lingerie
ribbons! And, anyway, I should vote just as Bob told me to, and I’m sure
everyone else would, so it would just double the men’s votes, you see.
The unmarried women? Yes, that’s so; I’d forgotten them. But I suppose
they’d ask their brothers-in-law or their ministers or somebody, for you
certainly can’t tell how to vote by reading the papers!
“Oh, it’s all in the future, and you only want me to help the cause?
What! as an ornament? Oh, Miss Coggswell! Why, I don’t know? Who? Oh,
Mrs. Hemingway-Curtis! And Mrs. Vanderheyden-Wellsbacher! Oh, why they
wear lovely clothes! They’re the kind of people that might be called
‘classy.’ I never use that word, but somehow it seems to fit them. They
want notoriety, the same as the people in the country papers who have
their back fence painted.
“And you want me to write papers? Oh, yes, I could do that. I belong to
the Pallas At Home Circle. You just tell the government how to make the
laws, and you purify politics, and things like that. That part is easy
enough. Of course I’ve kept up with the suffrage movement; one must be
intelligent. I know all about how they want the shirtwaist makers not to
make so many waists, and I don’t wonder! I don’t wear them any more,
anyway; nobody does.
“And vivisection? Oh, yes, I read a lot about that. They want poor, dumb
animals to have a vote. Oh, I understand those things well enough, but
I’m really too busy to do much about them. Oh, you only want me to lend
my name. Yes, I do want honest politics; but I think they’re too honest
as it is. They won’t let you smuggle in a little bit of lace or anything
like that, as we used to do. I don’t mind paying the customs, but it’s
so much more fun to smuggle! As if two or three little bits of lace
would hurt the United States government!
“Equal rights? Have half of Bob’s money? Oh, I have more than that now!
What! Some women don’t? Well, if they don’t know how to get it, they
don’t deserve to have it.
“And, then, you see, I’m such a home-body, and I’m perfectly daffy over
my children! You should see Bobbins since he had his curls cut off!
Broke my heart; but such a duck of a mannie! And Gwen is the dearest
baby! Just think! Yesterday she was eating her bread and jam, and she
said—Oh, well, of course, if you haven’t time to listen—Yes, I
see,—business.
“Well,—Oh, I never could speak in public! Oh, just sit on the stage and
wear lovely gowns? Yes, I’d rather like that.
“Well, I suppose I might be persuaded to become a suffragist; but I
think I’d rather have an aeroplane.
“Yes, I do believe in independence. I think every woman ought to have a
mind of her own and decide upon her own actions. I hate a wobbly-minded
woman! Well, about this suffrage business, I’ll ask my husband and do as
he says.”