Mitch Miller | Page 8

house is mortgaged and he's hard up. But a fine house is
always a bait to young men; and old folks always put out a bait in order
to marry their daughters off."
Ma said: "Nothin' of the kind. They don't have to put out any bait. Look
at you--was there any bait about me?"
"No," says pa.
"Of course there wasn't," said ma. "And you went around sayin' it
would kill you if I didn't marry you--and besides I have your letters for
it."
"Oh, well," says pa, "a fellow always does that."
"Yes," ma said, "you're right, a fellow always does that, bait or no bait.
And I think the way you talk about marriage sometimes is just awful,
and if the children heard you, you'd be raisin' up children that
suspicions marriage and every holy thing." And she went on to say that
there was something wrong with pa and with lots of men, who went
around cryin' and pretendin' to die, and then after they got the girl,
talked about baits, and about bein' fooled.
And pa said: "Do you know what a woman is?"
And ma said: "I don't know what you think she is."

"A woman," says pa, "is a bottle of wine. If you look at it and leave it
alone, never open it, the wine is as harmless as water. And if you leave
a woman alone, she can't do nothin' to you. She's just there on the table
or the shelf--harmless and just a woman, just like the bottle of wine is
just a bottle of wine. But if you get in love with her, that's like drinkin'
the wine; she gets hold of you, and you begin to talk and tell your
secrets, and make promises, and give your money away, just like a
drunk man. Then if you marry her, that's like getting over the wine; you
wake up and find you've been drunk and you wonder what you've said,
and if you remember, you smile at yourself, and your wife throws up to
you what you said and that you wrote her letters. And the man who put
wine, women and song together, put three things that was just the same
together."
And ma says: "No, a woman ain't a bottle of wine at all; a woman is a
bird."
"What kind?" says pa.
And ma says: "I don't know the name of the bird, but it roosts on the
back of the hippopotamus. The hippopotamus is big and clumsy like a
man and can't see very well, just like a man, and has lots of enemies
like a man; so when enemies come this here bird sets up an awful
clatter and squawkin' and that warns the hippopotamus and so he can
run or defend himself. And if it wasn't for women, men couldn't get
along, because they have to be warned and told things all the time, and
given pointers what to do and how to act, and what is goin' on
around--and the fact is women is brains, and men is just muscle."
And pa says, "How does this bird live, if it's on the back of the
hippopotamus all the time?" That kind of got ma, for she knew if the
bird got off the back of the hippopotamus to eat, it couldn't warn the
hippopotamus, and as the bird has to live, ma was kind of stumped, and
she says--"Oh, well the bird lives all right, it catches things that flies
by."
"It does?" says pa. "You don't know your botany--that bird feeds off of
the delicious insects that is on the back of the hippopotamus. So it don't

have to get off for food, the same as a woman. And that ain't all," says
pa; "men are performers and women is the audience; and women just
sit and look and criticize, or maybe applaud if they like the performer;
and men have to act their best, write the best books, and make the best
speeches, and get the most money so as to please women which is the
audience--and a woman can't do nothin' but applaud or criticize, and
stir up the men to do their best--just because men, until they know
better, want to please the women so as to get them for wives or
somethin'."
And so pa went on till ma said: "I've heard enough of this--" and she
went into the next room and slept with Little Billie.
And pa called out and said, "You ain't mad, are you?" And ma called
back, "Just keep to your own self and shut up."
But as I can't come back to this again, I'll say that Mr. Bennett did fail
and lose everything; and in about a year Nellie came back, her