Samantha on the Woman Question Part 3

"Why, Lorinda," sez I, "did you ever think on't how such mothers may watch over and be the end of the law to their children with the father's full consent during infancy when they're wrastlin' with teethin', whoopin'-cough, mumps, etc., can be queen of the nursery, dispensor of pure air, suns.h.i.+ne, sanitary, and safe surroundin's in every way, and then in a few years see 'em go from her into dark, overcrowded, unsanitary, carelessly guarded places, to spend the precious hours when they are the most receptive to influence and pa.s.s man-made pitfalls on their way to and fro, must stand helpless until in too many cases the innocent healthy child that went from her care returns to her half-blind, a physical and moral wreck. The mother who went down to death's door for 'em, and had most to do in mouldin' their destiny during infancy should have at least equal rights with the father in controllin' their surroundin's during their entire youth, and to do this she must have equal legal power or her best efforts are wasted. That this is just and right is as plain to me as the nose on my face and folks will see it bom-bye and wonder they didn't before.

"And wimmen who suffer most by the lack on't, will be most interested in openin' schools to teach the fine art of domestic service, teachin' young girls how to keep healthy comfortable homes and fit themselves to be capable wives and mothers. I don't say or expect that wimmen's votin' will make black white, or wash all the stains from the legislative body at once, but I say that jest the effort to git wimmen's suffrage has opened hundreds of bolted doors and full suffrage will open hundreds more. And I'm goin' to that woman's suffrage meetin' if I walk afoot."

But here Josiah spoke up, I thought he wuz asleep, he wuz layin' on the lounge with a paper over his face. But truly the word, "Woman's Suffrage,"

rousts him up as quick as a mouse duz a drowsy cat, so, sez he, "I can't let you go, Samantha, into any such dangerous and onwomanly affair."

"Let?" sez I in a dry voice; "that's a queer word from one old pardner to another."

"I'm responsible for your safety, Samantha, and if anybody goes to that dangerous and onseemly meetin' I will. Mebby Polly would like to go with me." As stated, Polly is as pretty as a pink posy, and no matter how old a man is, nor how interestin' and n.o.ble his pardner is, he needs girl blinders, yes, he needs 'em from the cradle to the grave. But few, indeed, are the female pardners who can git him to wear 'em.

He added, "You know I represent you legally, Samantha; what I do is jest the same as though you did it."

Sez I, "Mebby that is law, but whether it is gospel is another question.

But if you represent me, Josiah, you will have to carry out my plans; I writ to Diantha Smith Trimble that if I went to the city I'd take care of Aunt Susan a night or two, and rest her a spell; you know Diantha is a widder and too poor to hire a nurse. But seein' you represent me you can set up with her Ma a night or two; she's bed-rid and you'll have to lift her round some, and give her her medicine and take care of Diantha's twins, and let her git a good sleep."

"Well, as it were--Samantha--you know--men hain't expected to represent wimmen in everything, it is mostly votin' and tendin' big meetin's and such."

"Oh, I see," sez I; "men represent wimmen when they want to, and when they don't wimmen have got to represent themselves."

"Well, yes, Samantha, sunthin' like that."

He didn't say anything more about representin' me, and Polly said she wuz goin' to ride in the parade with some other college girls. Lorinda's linement looked dark and forbiddin' as Polly stated in her gentle, but firm way this ultimatum. Lorinda hated the idee of Polly's jinin' in what she called onwomanly and immodest doin's, but I looked beamin'ly at her and gloried in her principles.

After she went out Lorinda said to me in a complainin' way, "I should think that a girl that had every comfort and luxury would be contented and thankful, and be willin' to stay to home and act like a lady."

Sez I, "Nothin' could keep Polly from actin' like a lady, and mebby it is because she is so well off herself that makes her sorry for other young girls that have nothin' but poverty and privation."

"Oh, nonsense!" sez Lorinda. But I knowed jest how it wuz. Polly bein'

surrounded by all the good things money could give, and bein' so tender-hearted her heart ached for other young girls, who had to spend the springtime of their lives in the hard work of earnin' bread for themselves and dear ones, and she longed to help 'em to livin' wages, so they could exist without the wages of sin, and too many on 'em had to choose between them black wages and starvation. She wanted to help 'em to better surroundin's and she knowed the best weepon she could put into their hands to fight the wolves of Want and Temptation, wuz the ballot. Polly hain't a mite like her Ma, she favors the Smiths more, her grand-ma on her pa's side wuz a Smith and a woman of brains and principle.

Durin' my conversation with Lorinda, I inquired about Royal Gray, for as stated, he wuz a great favorite of ourn, and I found out (and I could see it gaulded her) that when Polly united with the Suffragists he s.h.i.+ed off some, and went to payin' attention to another girl. Whether it wuz to make Polly jealous and bring her round to his way of thinkin', I didn't know, but mistrusted, for I could have took my oath that he loved Polly deeply and truly. To be sure he hadn't confided in me, but there is a language of the eyes, when the soul speaks through 'em, and as I'd seen him look at Polly my own soul had hearn and understood that silent language and translated it, that Polly wuz the light of his eyes, and the one woman in the world for him. And I couldn't think his heart had changed so sudden.

But knowin' as I did the elastic nature of manly affection, I felt dubersome.

This other girl, Maud Vincent, always said to her men friends, it wuz onwomanly to try to vote. She wuz one of the girls who always gloried in bein' a runnin' vine when there wuz any masculine trees round to lean on and twine about. One who always jined in with all the idees they promulgated, from neckties to the tariff, who declared cigar smoke wuz so agreeable and welcome; it did really make her deathly sick, but she would choke herself cheerfully and willin'ly if by so chokin' she could gain manly favor and admiration.

She said she didn't believe in helpin' poor girls, they wuz well enough off as it wuz, she wuz sure they didn't feel hunger and cold as rich girls did, their skin wuz thicker and their stomachs different and stronger, and constant labor didn't harm them, and working girls didn't need recreation as rich girls did, and woman's suffrage wouldn't help them any; in her opinion it would harm them, and anyway the poor wuz on-grateful.

She had the usual arguments on the tip of her tongue, for old Miss Vincent, the aunt she lived with, wuz a ardent She Aunty and very prominent in the public meetin's the She Auntys have to try to compel the Suffragists not to have public meetin's. They talk a good deal in public how onwomanly and immodest it is for wimmen to talk in public. And she wuz one of the foremost ones in tryin' to git up a school to teach wimmen civics, to prove that they mustn't ever have anything to do with civics.

Yes, old Miss Vincent wuz a real active, ardent She Aunty, and Maud Genevieve takes after her. Royal Gray, his handsome attractive personality, and his millions, had long been the goal of Maud's ambition. And how ardently did she hail the coolness growing between him and Polly, the little rift in the lute, and how zealously did she labor to make it larger.

Polly and Royal had had many an argument on the subject, that is, he would begin by makin' fun of the Suffragists and their militant doin's, which if he'd thought on't wuz sunthin' like what his old revolutionary forbears went through for the same reasons, bein' taxed without representation, and bein' burdened and punished by the law they had no voice in making, only the Suffragettes are not nearly so severe with their opposers, they haven't drawed any blood yet. Why, them old Patriots we revere so, would consider their efforts for freedom exceedingly gentle and tame compared to their own b.l.o.o.d.y battles.

And Royal would make light of the efforts of college girls to help workin'

girls, and the encouragement and aid they'd gin 'em when they wuz strikin'

for less death-dealin' hours of labor, and livin' wages, and so forth. I don't see how such a really n.o.ble young man as Royal ever come to argy that way, but spoze it wuz the dead hand of some rough onreasonable old ancestor reachin' up out of the shadows of the past and pus.h.i.+n' him on in the wrong direction.

So when he begun to ridicule what Polly's heart wuz sot on, when she felt that he wuz fightin' agin right and justice, before they knowed it both pairs of bright eyes would git to flas.h.i.+n' out angry sparks, and hash words would be said on both sides. That old long-buried Tory ancestor of hisen eggin' him on, so I spoze, and Polly's generous sperit rebellin' aginst the injustice and selfishness, and mebby some warlike ancestor of hern pus.h.i.+n'

her on to say hash things. 'Tennyrate he had grown less attentive to her, and wuz bestowin' his time and attentions elsewhere.

And when she told him she wuz goin' to ride in the automobile parade of the suffragists, but really ridin' she felt towards truth and justice to half the citizens of the U.S., he wuz mad as a wet hen, a male wet hen, and wuz bound she shouldn't go.

Some men, and mebby it is love that makes 'em feel so (they say it is), and mebby it is selfishness (though they won't own up to it), but they want the women they love to belong to them alone, want to rule absolutely over their hearts, their souls, their bodies, and all their thoughts and aims, desires, and fancies. They don't really say they want 'em to wear veils, and be shet in behind lattice-windowed harems, but I believe they would enjoy it.

They want to be foot loose and heart loose themselves, but always after Ulysses is tired of world wandering, he wants to come back and open the barred doors of home with his own private latch-key, and find Penelope knitting stockings for him with her veil on, waitin' for him.

That sperit is I spoze inherited from the days when our ancestor, the Cave man, would knock down the woman he fancied, with a club, and carry her off into his cave and keep her there shet up. But little by little men are forgettin' their ancestral traits, and men and wimmen are gradually comin'

out of their dark caverns into the suns.h.i.+ne (for women too have inherited queer traits and disagreeable ones, but that is another story).

Well, as I said, Royal wuz mad and told Polly that he guessed that the day of the Parade he would take Maud Vincent out in the country in his motor, to gather May-flowers. Polly told him she hoped they would have a good time, and then, after he had gone, drivin' his car lickety-split, harem skarum, owin' to his madness I spoze, Polly went upstairs and cried, for I hearn her, her room wuz next to ourn.

And I deeply respected her for her principles, for he had asked her first to go May-flowering with him the day of the Suffrage meeting. But she refused, havin' in her mind, I spoze, the girls that couldn't hunt flowers, but had to handle weeds and thistles with bare hands (metaforically) and wanted to help them and all workin' wimmen to happier and more prosperous lives.

IV

"STRIVIN' WITH THE EMISSARY"

But I am hitchin' the horse behind the wagon and to resoom backwards. The Reunion wuz put off a week and the Suffrage Meetin' wuz two days away, so I told Lorinda I didn't believe I would have a better time to carry Serepta Pester's errents to Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. Josiah said he guessed he would stay and help wait on Hiram Cagwin, and I approved on't, for Lorinda wuz gittin'

wore out.

And then Josiah made so light of them errents I felt that he would be a drawback instead of a help, for how could I keep a calm and n.o.ble frame of mind befittin' them lofty errents, and how could I carry 'em stiddy with a pardner by my side pokin' fun at 'em, and at me for carryin' 'em, jarrin'

my sperit with his scorfin' and onbelievin' talk?

And as I sot off alone in the trolley I thought of how they must have felt in old times a-carryin' the Urim and Thumim. And though I hadn't no idee what them wuz, yet I always felt that the carriers of 'em must have felt solemn and high-strung. Yes, my feelin's wuz such as I felt of the heft and importance of them errents not alone to Serepta Pester, but to the hull race of wimmen that it kep' my mental head rained up so high that I couldn't half see and enjoy the sight of the most beautiful city in the world, and still I spoze its grandeur and glory sort o' filtered down through my conscientiousness, as cloth grows white under the sun's rays...o...b..known to it.

Anon I left the trolley and walked some ways afoot. It wuz a lovely day, the sun shone down in golden splendor upon the splendor beneath it. Broad, beautiful clean streets, little fresh green parks, everywhere you could turn about, and big ones full of flowers and fountains, and trees and statutes.

And anon or oftener I pa.s.sed n.o.ble big stun buildings, where everything is made for the nation's good and profit. Money and fish and wisdom and all sorts of patented things and garden seeds and tariffs and resolutions and treaties and laws of every shape and size, good ones and queer ones and reputations and rates and rebates, etc., etc. But it would devour too much time to even name over all that is made and onmade there, even if I knowed by name the innumerable things that are flowin' constant out of that great reservoir of the Nation, with its vast crowd of law-makers settin' on the lid, regulatin' its flow and spreadin' it abroad over the country, thick and thin.

But on I went past the Capitol, the handsomest buildin' on the Globe, standin' in its own Eden of beauty. By the Public Library as long as from our house to Grout Hozleton's, and I guess longer, and every foot on't more beautifler ornamented than tongue can tell. But I didn't dally tryin' to pace off the size on't, though it wuz enormous, for the thought of what I wuz carryin' bore me on almost regardless of my matchless surroundin's and the twinges of rumatiz.

And anon I arrived at the White House, where my hopes and the hopes of my sect and Serepta Pester wuz sot. I will pa.s.s over my efforts to git into the Presence, merely sayin' that they were arjous and extreme, and I wouldn't probably have got in at all had not the Presence appeared with a hat on jest goin' out for a walk, and see me as I wuz strivin' with the emissary for entrance. I spoze my n.o.ble mean, made more n.o.ble fur by the magnitude of what I wuz carryin', impressed him, for suffice it to say inside of five minutes the Presence wuz back in his augience room, and I wuz layin' out them errents of Serepta's in front of him.

He wuz very hefty, a good-lookin' smilin' man, a politer demeanored gentlemanly appearner man I don't want to see. But his linement which had looked so pleasant and cheerful growed gloomy and deprested as I spread them errents before him and sez in conclusion:

"Serepta Pester sent these errents to you, she wanted intemperance done away with, the Whiskey Ring broke up and destroyed, she wanted you to have nothin' stronger than root beer when you had company to dinner, she offerin' to send you some burdock and dandeline roots and some emptins to start it with, and she wanted her rights, and wanted 'em all by week after next without fail."

He sithed hard, and I never see a linement fall furder than hisen fell, and kep' a-fallin'. I pitied him, I see it wuz a hard stent for him to do it in the time she had sot, and he so fleshy too. But knowin' how much wuz at the stake, and how the fate of Serepta and wimmen wuz tremblin' in the balances, I spread them errents out before him. And bein' truthful and above board, I told him that Serepta wuz middlin' disagreeable and very humbly, but she needed her rights jest as much as though she wuz a wax-doll. And I went on and told him how she and her relations had suffered from want of rights, and how dretfully she had suffered from the Ring till I declare talkin' about them little children of hern, and her agony, I got about as fierce actin' as Serepta herself, and entirely onbeknown to myself I talked powerful on intemperance and Rings, and such.

When I got down agin onto my feet I see he had a still more worried and anxious look on his good-natured face, and he sez: "The laws of the United States are such that I can't do them errands, I can't interfere."

"Then," sez I, "why don't you make the United States do right?"

He said sunthin' about the might of the majority, and the powerful corporations and rings, and that sot me off agin. And I talked very powerful and allegored about allowin' a ring to be put round the United States and let a lot of whiskey dealers and corporations lead her round, a pitiful sight for men and angels. Sez I, "How duz it look before the nations to see Columbia led round half-tipsy by a Ring?"