vine to a stately tree, and it is indeed a sweet view.”
“So ’tis, so ’tis,” says I, “I never was much of a clinger myself.
Still if females want to cling, I haint no objection. But,” says I, in
reasonable tones, “as I have said more’n a hundred times, if men think
that wimmen are obleeged to be vines, they ought to feel obleeged to
make trees of themselves, for ’em to run up on. But they won’t; some
of ’em, they will not be trees, they seem to be sot against it. And
as I have said what if a vine haint no tree convenient to cling to?
or if she has, what if the tree she clings to happens to fall through
inherient rotteness at the core, thunder and lightnin’ or etcetery? If
the string breaks what is to become of the creeper if it can’t do nothin’
but creep? Says I, “it is all well enough for a rich woman to set in a
velvet gown with her feet on the warm hearth and wonder what makes the
poor drunkard’s wife down in the street, shiver. Let her be out once with
her bare feet in the snow, and she’d find out. It haint the rich, happy,
comfortable clingers I am talkin’ in behalf of, but the poor shiverers
outside who haint nothin’ to cling to.”
“Women’s speah”--began Betsey.
“Women’s speah,” says I interuptin’ her in a magestic tone before which
Betsey quailed imperceptably. “Women’s speah is where she can do the most
good; if God had meant that wimmen should be nothin’ but men’s shadders,
He would have made gosts and fantoms of ’em at once. But havin’ made ’em
flesh and blood, with braens and souls, I believe He meant ’em to be used
to the best advantage. And the talk about wimmen havin’ to fight, and men
wash dishes, if wimmen vote, is all shear nonsense. In the Baptist church
where wimmen vote, I don’t see as they act different from other wimmen,
and I don’t see as the Baptist men act any more sheepish than common
men.” Says I “it is jest as ridiculous to say it would make a woman act
coarse and rampage round to vote, as to say that kissin’ a pretty baby,
or lovin’ books and music and pictures, makes a man a hen huzzy.”
Says I, carried away with powerful emotions, “you may shet a lion up
for years, in a room full of cambric needles and tattin shettles, and
you can’t get him to do anything but roar at ’em, it haint a lion’s
nature to do fine sewin’,” says I. “And you may tie up a old hen as
long as you please, and you can’t break her of wantin’ to make a nest,
and scratch for her chickens.” Says I--wavin’ my right hand, slow and
magestically--“you may want a green shade onto the front side of your
house, and to that end and effect you may plant a acorn, and set out a
rose bush, but all the legeslaters in creation can’t make that acorn tree
blow out with red posys, no more can they make that rose bush stand
up straight as a giant. And thier bein’ planted by the side of each
other--on the same ground and watered out of the same waterin’ jug--don’t
olter thier natural turn. _They will both help shade the winder_, but do
it in their own way which is different. And men and wimmen votin’ side by
side, would no more alter their natural dispositions than singin’ one of
Watts’es hymns together would. One will sing base, and the other air, so
long as the world stands.”
“Josiah Allen’s wife,” says Betsey, “I think your views are uronieus. We
cannot think alike about clinging, we also diffeh in our views about
caurkusses. When I consideh that ’lections and caurkusses come once every
yeah, then comes home the solemn feelin’, how wearin’ it would be for a
female to drop all her domestic labohs and avocations, and be present
at them. Josiah Allen’s wife, let us sposen’ the case, sposen’ a women
is a washin’, or churnin’ buttah, how could she leave this laboh to go
and vote?” I was so wore out, that says I, “we _will_ sposen’ the case,
sposen’ a women is a fool, how can she talk common sense?” Says I, with so
impatient a gesture that I broke off a thread, and had to tie it on agin
“you are goin’ over the same old ground agin of a woman’s time,” says I
“wimmen can drop all thier domestic labors and go to fares--town fares,
and county fares, and state fares if she can get to ’em. She will be on
the ground in time to see the first punkin and bedquilt carried on to it,
and she will stay to see the last horse, trot his last trot; she can find
time for picnics and pleasure exertions, and celebrations, and 4th of
July--that last, all day--and it would take about half a minute to vote.
But,” says I, in the most grand and noble tone I had used yet. “Men haint
took by the coat collar and dragged off to caurkusses and ’lections, they
don’t go unless they are a mind to, and I don’t suppose wimmen would be
drove there like a flock of sheep. They wouldn’t want to go; only, when
some great law was up concerning right and wrong, or her own intrinsick
interests, as givin a mother a equal right to her children, a right
she earnt naturally, a deed God himself stamped with the great seals
of fear and agony. Or bein’ taxed without representation; which breaks
the old constitution right into, in the middle, every time it is done.
Or concernin’ equal pay, for equal labor. I spose every female clerk
and teacher and operator, who have half starved on about one third what
men get for doin’ the same work would be on hand. Like wise concerning
Temperance, I spose every drunkards wife and mother and girl would go to
the pole, that could get there. Poor things, under the Legislator they
have enjoyed the right of sufferin’; sposen’ it lets ’em enjoy the right
of suffragin’ a spell, mebby they would find it as easy if not easier.”
[Illustration: THE WIFE AND MOTHER AT A PRIMARY.]
[Illustration: BETSEY’S VIEW OF THE RESULTS.]
Jest at this minute we see the new Local Preacher, comin’ down the road
in a open buggy, and Betsey said to once she must be goin’, for her folks
would be a worryin’ after her. Says I, as she hurried to the door,
“Mebby you will get a ride.”
“Oh no,” says she, “I had a great deal rather walk afoot, I think there
is nothing like walking afoot for strengthenin’ the mussles.”
I am glad she felt so, for I see he didn’t ask her to ride. But as she
said, health is a blessing, and it is a treat indeed to have strong
mussles.
A TOWER TO NEW YORK DISCUSSED.
The summer after the Donation and Fare dawned peacefully and fair on
Jonesville and the earth. The weather was pleasant, and things seemed
to go on as Sister Wesley Minkley and I could wish them to, between
her Whitfield, and our Tirzah Ann. Thomas Jefferson every fortnight or
so dressed up in his best and went in the direction of Lawyer Snow’s.
He _said_ that “he went to a new protracted meetin’ that they had jest
started up that way.” I don’t say that he didn’t, but I will say that
they protracted ’em pretty late. I don’t make no matches nor break none,
but I must say that things look promisin’ and agreable in the direction
of the children. Whitfield Minkley, and Maggy Snow, is agreeable to me,
_very_; so they be to Josiah.
Josiah thinks considerable of Maggy’s bein’ so fore-handed. I say
_myself_ if she hadn’t but one hand in the line of riches, or no hand
at all, she would still be _my_ choice. She is a straight-forward
sensible girl--with no affectation, or sham about her. She reminds me
of what Samantha Allen was, before she had changed her maiden name of
Smith. Whether they are really engaged or not, I don’t know, for Thomas
J. is such a hand for fun that you can’t find out anything from him no
more than you could from the wind. But good land! there is time enough.
The children shan’t marry anybody in one good five years from now, if I
have my say about it. But as I told Josiah, I remember we was a talkin’
it over last fall, as we sot out a new orchard--I was a holdin’ the
trees for him and says I--“Josiah it is our duty to get apple trees and
children started in the right direction, and then let them take their
time to grow.”
He said, “Yes, so it was.”
He feels well about it, as I say, it is agreeable to us both, and then
Josiah’s crops looked well, the crows took a little of his corn, but it
had come on, and bid fair to be a first rate crop. And as for his oats
and barley and winter wheat, they couldn’t be bettered.
The Editer of the Augur had brought home his bride, a good lookin’ light
complected woman, who seemed devoted to him and the two twins. They went
to house keepin’ in a bran new house, and it was observed that he bought
a cottage bedstead that didn’t have any posts, and life for him seemed
blest and peaceful.
Betsey Bobbet did not pine away and expire as might be expected by
cursory readers of her last poem in the Jonesville Gimlet. But any deep
philosipher who had made the Human Race, his (or her) study for any
length of time, never worrys over such efushions, knowin’ that affliction
is like the measles, and if they break out freely in pimples and poetry,
the patients are doin’ well.
Betsey had been pretty quiet for her through the winter and spring, she
hadn’t made overtures only to two more--which was a little pill doctor,
and a locul preacher who had been sent round by the Conference. As she
remarked to me, “It is so natural to get attached to your minister and
your physician.”
As I said the summer sun basked peacefully down and Jonesville almost
asleep under her rays, seemed the abode of Repose. But where was there a
Eden fenced in, but what Ambition let down the bars, or climbed over the
fence. But this was a noble Ambition, a Ambition I was proud to see a
gettin’ over the fence. It was a Ambition that leaped over into my door
yard the very day I heard the blessed tidings, that Horace Greeley was
run up for President.
I had always respected Horace, he had always been dear to me. And when I
say dear, I want it to be plainly understood--I insist upon it that it
_shall_ be understood--that I mean dear, in a scriptural, and political
sense. Never sense I united myself to Josiah Allen, has my heart swerved
from that man so much as the breadth of a horse hair. But Horace’s
honest pure views of life, has endeared him to every true lover of the
Human Race, Josiah Allen’s wife included. Of course we don’t think alike
on every subject. No 2 human bein’s ever did. Horace and I differ on
some things such as biled vittles, Wimmen’s Rights, and cream biscuit.
He don’t believe in biled vittles, and it is my favorite beverage. He is
a unbeliever in salaratus, I myself don’t see how he makes cream biscuit
fit to eat without it. And he--not havin’ me to influence him--hadn’t
come out on to the side of wimmen’s havin’ a Right. But as a general
thing, Horace Greeley was to be found onto the side of Right. He was
onto the side of the weak, the down trodden. He was always a plottin’ to
do some good to somebody, and I felt that if the eyes of his spectacles
could be once opened onto this subject of wimmen’s havin’ a Right, that
he would be more help to us, than a army of banners. Months before he was
run up for President I had felt this, and in the fall of 1871, as Josiah
was a settin’ by the fire alone, he a readin’ the World and I a knittin’
says I to him,
“Josiah are you willin’ that I should go down to New York village on a
tower, and have a talk with Horace about the Human race and wimmen’s
havin’ a right?”
Josiah didn’t seem to be willin’, he looked up from the World, and
muttered somethin’ about “Tammany’s ring.”
I don’t know when the old Smith blood so riled up in me as it did then.
I remember I riz right up where I set in front of the stove, and waved my
right hand, I was so excited, and says I,
“Josiah Allen if you have lived with me goin on 15 years, and if you
haint no more confidence in me than to think I would accept a ring from
old Tammany, then I will stay to home.” Says I, “Josiah Allen, I never
mistrusted till this very minute that you had a jealous hair in your
head,” says I, “you have fell 35 cents in my estimation to night,” says
I, “you know Josiah Allen that I haint never wore no jewelrey sense I
jined the Methodist meetin’ house, and if I did, do you spose I would
accept a ring from old Tammany, that sneakin’ old Democrat? I hate old
Tammany, I perfectly despise the old man.”
I felt so imposed upon and worked up, that I started right off to bed and
forgot to wind up the clock, or shet the buttery door, for I remember the
clock run down and the cat eat the inside out of the custard pies. Wall
from that time I never had opened my head to Josiah about goin’ off on
a tower. But I wrote Horace a letter on the subject of Wimmen’s Rights,
as good a letter as I knew how, beggin’ him to follow the example of J.
Allen’s wife, and all other noble reformers and put his shoulder blades
to the wheel.
His answer wasn’t so satisfactory as I could have wished it was, and I
knew I could do better to stand face to face with him. But as I say I
don’t know as I should ever have started up agin, if that great and good
man hadn’t been run up for President.
Now some thought it looked shiftless in the Democrats, and kinder poverty
struck in ’em, to think they had got all out of President stuff, and
had to borry some of the Republicans. But good land! where is there a
housekeeper but what will once in a while get out of tea and have to
borry a drawin’ of her neighbors? If good honest, smart men was skurse
amongst ’em, if they had got kinder run out of President timber, and
wanted to borry a little, why it would have looked dreedful tight and
unneighberly in the Republicans to have refused ’em, when they was well
on it too for President stuff, they could have spared two or three jest
as well as not, even if they never got ’em paid back. But the Democrats
only wanted to borry one, and that was Horace. The Democrats thought
everything of Horace because he put a bail onto Jeff. Davis. Josiah said
at the time that it raised him 25 cents or more in his estimation. At the
same time it madded some of the Republicans. But it didn’t me. You see
I believe jest what I think is right, and pay no attention to what the
other folks who are standin’ on my doorstep may happen to believe.
Nobody that stands on my platform--let ’em stand as close to me as they
are a mind to--not one of ’em is answerable to God for what thoughts and
principles are performin’ in my mind and soul. Josiah Allen’s wife hangs
on to nobody’s apron strings only jest her own.
As far as the party on my doorstep believe what I think is right, I am
with ’em heart and hand, but I am not one to shet up my eyes and walk
up blindly and hang on to anybody’s apron strings, not even Horace
Greeley’s, as anybody can see in the matter of biled vittles, Wimmen’s
Rights, and cream biscuit. To think you have got to believe every thing
your party does, seems jest as unreasonable to me, as it would when you
go out to pick greens, to pick skunk cabbage because cow cabbage is good
and wholesome. Why skunk cabbage is pison, jest as pison as sikuta or
ratsbane. Now the doctrine of free love as some folks preach it up, folks
in both parties, why the smell of it is jest as obnoxious in my political
and moral nostrals as the smell of sikuta is, and if anything smells
worse than that, I don’t want to go near it. Pick out the good and leave
the bad, is my theme in greens and politix.
Now about puttin’ that bail onto Jeff. Davis, though as I say it madded
my party, I was glad he put it on. Jeff. was a mean critter no doubt, but
I don’t know as chokin’ him to death with a rope would have made him any
better. I say this idee of chokin’ folks to death to reform ’em, is where
we show the savage in us, which we have brought down from our barbarious
ancestors. We have left off the war paint and war whoops, and we shall
leave off the hangin’ when we get civilized.
Says some to me, “Look at our poor Northern boys that suffered and died
in Libby prison and Andersonville through Jefferson.”
I says to ’em, “Would chokin’ Jefferson bring ’em back? if so I would
choke him myself.--not to kill him of course, but so he would feel it, I
can tell you.”
No! it was all over, and past. All the sin, and all the sorrow of the
war. And God had out of it brought a great good to the black Africans,
and the nation, in the way all good is generally brought, through
sufferin’ and tribulation. And if a nation is made perfect through
sufferin’ what should be the first lesson she should show to the world?
I say, it should be the lesson that Christ and his disciples taught,
that of all Heavenly graces, charity is the greatest. The way I looked
at it was this. The South that had been so braggin’, and selfish, and
overbearin’, stood at the door of the proud and victorious North, like
a beggar, harmless, destitute and ragged. Where is the rich happy woman
that wouldn’t give a nut-cake to a sick beggar? I don’t see myself how
she could help givin’ one, if she had any generosity and nobility
and--nut-cakes.
Jeff. Davis was all broke to pieces, and he wanted a bail put onto him
so life could grip holt of him agin, and carry him I hope towards that
heaven he turned his back to, when he was a fightin’ to uphold slavery.
Horace helped put that bail on, and so did other noble men; and all the
ministers in creation, of every persuasion, might all stand up in a row
in our door yard, and preach to me 2 days, and then I wouldn’t believe
that H. G. would turn his hand to anything he thought was wrong.
If there was any fault in him about this, it was on the side of charity
and mercy, and as a general thing that end of the board don’t tip up any
too fur in this selfish world. As a general thing, folks don’t teter on
that end of the board so much as they do on the other.
So, as I said, when I heard that Horace was run up for President, I was
so happy that my heart would have sung for joy if it had been anything
of a singer, for now, thinks’es I, with that great and good and honest
man for President, all he wants is the influence of Josiah Allen’s wife
to make him all the sufferin’ nation needs. I felt that now the time had
come for J. Allen’s wife to come out boldly and put her shoulder blades
to the wheel. I felt that if Horace could be perswaded to draw and Josiah
Allen’s wife to push, nothin’ could hender that wheel from movin’ right
onward into Freedom. And so my principles, and the great doctrine so
goared me, that I couldn’t get no rest, I felt that I _must_ see Horace
before he got sot doun in the high chair, because you know when any body
gets sot doun they don’t love to nestle round and make no changes. So I
atted Josiah about it, but he didn’t seem to be willin’. I didn’t come
right out and tell him how I was xcercised on Wimmin’s Rights, knowin’ he
was a unbeliever, but I says to him,
“Josiah, Jonesville is a good village, but nobody wants to be tied doun
even to a barell of sale molasses. Josiah, I do want to see some other
village, I do want to go to New York on a tower.”
Says he, “Samantha, what under the sun do you want to go for at your age,
why do you want to start up and go a caperin’ round the country?”
I thought a minute, and then says I, “I want to see Miss Woodhull, and
give her a real talkin’ to, about free love. I want to convince her she
is in the wrong on it,” and then says I in a kind of a blind way, “I have
got other business that I feel that it is my duty to tend to.”
But he didn’t seem to be willin’, and I wouldn’t go without his consent.
And so it went on, Josiah hangin’ back, and my principles a goarin’ me.
It wore on me. My dresses begun to hook up looser on me, and finally one
mornin’, as I dallied over my second potato, and my third egg, not eatin’
’em with no appetite, Josiah says to me, “What does ail you, Samantha,
you don’t eat nothin’, and you seem to be a runnin’ doun.”
Then I broached the subject to him agin. I expected he would object. But
he looked at me in a silent, melankolly way for about one minute, and
half or three quarters of another, and then says he in a gentle but firm
accent,
“Samantha if I can sell the old critter you can go.”
So I was left in uncertainty (as it were) for I knew he wouldn’t sell it
for less than the price he had sot it, and no knowin’ whether it would
fetch it or not. But I felt in my heart a feelin’ that I should go off on
that tower. And so I gradually but silently began makin’ preperations, I
quietly and calmly took two breadths out of my brown alapaca dress and
goared ’em and put a overskirt on to it, for I was determined not to go
to New York village without a overskirt on to me. Not that I care about
such triflin’ things myself, but I felt that I was representin’ a great
cause, and I wasn’t goin’ to put our cause to open shame by not havin’ on
a overskirt. Men sometimes say that great and strong minded wimmen are
slack in the matter of dressin’ up, I was determined to show ’em that
that weakness wasn’t mine. I wasn’t goin’ to be all tattered out, with
ends and tag locks of bows and pleatin’s, and tow curls and frizzles, but
I felt there was a megium course to pursue, and I was determined to hit
against it.
Then agin I felt that the color of my dress suited the great cause. I
wasn’t goin’ rigged out in pink muslin, or sky-blue cambric, or anything
of that sort. A good solid sensible brown seemed to be jest the thing.
Black would have seemed too much in the mournin’ line, as if we was
despondent when we wasn’t. White book muslin would have looked as if my
principles was too thin, and I was too light and triflin’, and didn’t
realize the great issues dependent on to me. No; brown alapaca with a
overskirt I felt was jest what the anxious nation required of me, as I
stood face to face with the future President of the United States--with
my spectacles calmly gazin’ into his’en, a influencin’ him in the cause
of Right.
Another reason, I won’t deny, influenced me in tryin’ to get a good
pattern for my overskirt so as to have it set good, (I got it of
Miss Gowdey and made it a little bigger round the waist,) I thought
more’n likely as not Horace’s and my picture would be took, and in the
future would be hung up by the side of that good honest old Lincoln’s
Emancipation Proclamation.
“Josiah Allen’s wife influencin’ Horace in the Great Cause of Wimmen’s
Rights.”
And though I haint vain, I thought how poor it would be, and what a eye
sore to the nation if my dress didn’t hang good. And how pleasin’ it
would be both to America and Josiah, to see me dressed in a noble and
becomin’ way. So I finished my overskirt, and silently done up my best
petticoat, and in the same mysterious manner I put some tape trimmin’ on
to the bottom of it.
And so the long and tegus days passed away from me. I felt that suspense
was a wearin’ on me. Josiah see that it was. And on Saturday mornin’ I
see him pensively leanin’ over the barn yard fence, mewsin’ as it was,
and pretty soon he hitched up the old mare, and went to Jonesville, and
when he came back he says to me, in sorrowful tones but some composed,
“Samantha, you can start to-morrow if you want to, I have sold the old
critter.”
And then he added pensively. “I wish you would have a few griddle cakes
for supper, with some maple molasses on to ’em.”
[Illustration]
GOVERNED BY PRINCIPLES.
On the next Monday mornin’, I let loose to my feelin’s as it was, and
begun to make open preparations. I baked up the best vittles the house
afforded, for I determined Josiah should live like a king durin’ his
temporary widowerhood. Then after I got through bakin’ and got the house
clean as a pin, I commenced to fix a dress to wear on the journey, for
of course I wasn’t goin’ to wear my best dress with a overskirt on the
railway. I am a master hand for bein’ careful of my clothes, and I knew
it would almost spile one of my best dresses, but I had a calico dress as
good as new. It was a dark blue ground work with a handsome sprig on it,
and after I took up two tacks in it, I felt that it was jest the thing to
wear on the tower.
I had jest put it on, and had got the lookin’ glass onto the floor to see
if it cleared the floor enough, when Thomas Jefferson come in, and says
he,
“Your dress is too short, mother, I hate to see short dresses, they look
so hihorsical.”
I answered him with dignity as I looked over my shoulder into the glass,
“Samantha Allen, whose maiden name was Smith, haint a goin’ to mop out
the cars for the railroad company, free gratis for nothin’,” and I added
with still more impressive dignity, as I hung up the lookin’ glass, “what
you mean by hihorsical I don’t know.”
He said it was a compound word derived from the Greek, “high,” to
intoxicate, and “horsical,” a race horse, which two words strained off
from the dead language and biled doun into English meant “hihorsical.”