THE DANGER OF AN IDEA.
I had not been in command of the Caribas more than a month before I
discovered that Donna Elenora, the wife of the Kantoon of the near-by
ship Cormorant, and Fidette had their heads together and were engaged
in the promulgation of a great social reform. They were also in
communication with other ships in our immediate neighborhood.
They had undertaken the laudable task of “ameliorating the condition
of woman”--among the Sargassons.
I was prepared to admit that the status of woman among the Sargassons
was not what it ought to be. She had considerable liberty, although
she was not pampered with Parisian dresses and hats. She had no
really laborious duties to perform, and, had she been inclined, might
have devoted considerable time to the development of her mind and
the beautifying of her person. I never had observed that she took
advantage of her opportunities. Instead, therefore, of frowning upon
the movement, I determined to encourage it by every means in my power.
No better field on the face of the sea or land could be found in
which to give the woman question a supreme test.
I was a believer in woman’s rights. I remembered the injustices under
which my poor mother had suffered in South Brooklyn, and I was
determined that if Fidette were bereft of any privileges she ought
to have, I would see that they were conceded to her. All I wanted to
know was whether the women of Sargasso could agree upon any policy
that was reasonably sure to better their condition.
At the outset what threatened to be an insuperable barrier arose. The
Sargassons have not a written language. Had they possessed a common
tongue, it is doubtful if many of the women addressed could have
deciphered the petitions. The brief verses or inscriptions written
upon the tarpon scales, and that passed current for their literature,
were chiefly extracts from the Spanish or Portuguese poets, badly
memorized.
When the Sargasson women had once tasted the sweets of liberty, there
was little doubt that they would improve intellectually, morally and
physically. I remembered to have heard and read during my last shore
life, heated arguments upon this very thing. I recalled the fact that
a stubborn effort had been made to eliminate the word “male” from the
constitution of my native State. I knew from my mother that, when
she first entered the married state, she had no position recognized
before the law. She had no legal right to her earnings; no legal
right to direct and care for her children, and in politics she was
absolutely denied any consideration whatever. I had often admitted
in my own heart that a woman’s life under such circumstances was
necessarily unhappy, and I felt glad, owing to the active agitation
of a few noble-hearted women, that most of the barriers restricting
woman’s progress and intelligence had been swept away. I was just as
pleased that this was true as any woman could have been.
I recognized the fact also that woman had become a great industrial
factor in the progress of the western world. She owned vast amounts
of property, on which she was taxed, and, therefore, had a right to
say what special uses she would prefer made of the money so exacted.
Woman suffrage had been tried in one of our largest States, Wyoming,
with good effect, and had there been found to improve home life
instead of destroying it. I was a convert.
Sending for Fidette, I had a calm and very agreeable conversation
with her upon the subject. She owned up, frankly, that she and Donna
Elenora had undertaken to preach a propaganda against the subjective
condition of woman in Sargasso. They believed that her superior
intelligence and good looks entitled her to more consideration than
she received. Fidette denounced the theory that among a people where
women were few they received greater respect than in countries where
they were many. She asserted what I recognized as a startling truth,
that the great bulk of the personal property at present existing in
Sargasso was in the hands of her sex.
As diamonds, pearls and other precious stones had no commercial
value among the Sargasson people, it had been the custom, whenever
a derelict was added to the group, to divide the jewels and
silverware among the wives of the Kantoons. These in turn had passed
the trinkets down to their daughters, and in that way many of the
Sargasson women possessed jewel boxes that would have caused the
noblest women of Europe to turn green with envy. Such a thing as a
theft of jewels was unknown, because they never could be worn in
public by the unlawful possessor, and, of course, escape to any part
of the world where a market could be found was guarded against.
I entered heartily into the movement for bettering the condition of
the Sargasson women.
Fidette was delighted. She foresaw the immortality that awaited her.
Her name would be handed down through generations as the champion
of her sex! In her ecstasy, she went to her cabin, took down her
mandolin, and, in the quaint jargon of the Sargassons, sang, in words
as light as air:
Wurra, wurra, wink-o-chee,
“Vous etes mucho fond o’ me?”
No can marry esta girl
Quando jeune, y dans le whirl;
Mais, oui? Mais, non!
Pero--Hope on!
This jargon may be very freely translated thus:
Alack! alas! my own sea loon,
“For love of me you’re in the moon?”
But you can’t marry this one girl
While she’s young and in the whirl,
You can? You can’t!
But hope--hope on!
While Fidette sang I made merry with my memory.
When I lived in Brooklyn I had a cousin who belonged to a wealthy
family and was a member of a very famous woman’s club called the
Amazons, and from her I learned that after the ladies who belonged
to that organization had possessed themselves of all the “rights”
that could not make their escape, they began to wrangle with each
other as to which of them should enjoy the acquired privileges. The
idea of having them in common did not satisfy. One incident that I
remember to have heard mentioned impressed me greatly. It arose out
of the annual election for the presidency. The tall and stately dame
who held that honored post very nearly failed of a renomination.
There was considerable feeling in the club in opposition to her, but
when she realized that a younger candidate was to be named in her
stead she burst into a flood of tears and made a pathetic appeal to
the assembly for a continuance in authority. The result was that the
meeting closed with a semi-hysterical burst of tears on all sides.
The moral of this bit of retrospection is that I felt perfectly sure
Fidette and Donna Elenora would be less confidential toward each
other at the end of a month than they were at the moment of arranging
their friendly compact. Therefore, not approving of the sociability
that had sprung up between them, I believed that the quickest way to
destroy it was to encourage it.