Samantha Among the Brethren | Page 5

fun of the projeck.
We found out afterwards that Casper Keeler furnished nearly all the capital for the buzz saw mill enterprise at his father's urgent request. His father, Deacon Keeler, didn't have a cent of money of his own; it fell onto Casper from his mother and aunt. They had kept a big millinery store in the town of Lyme, and a branch store in Loontown, and wuz great workers, and had laid up a big property. And when they died, the aunt, bein' a maiden woman at the time, the money naturally fell onto Casper. He wuz a only child, and they had brung him up tender, and fairly worshipped him.
They left him all the money, but left a anuety to be paid yearly to his father, Deacon Keeler, enough to support him.
The Deacon and his wife had always lived happy together--she loved to work, and he loved to have her work, so they had similar tastes, and wuz very congenial--and when she died he had the widest crape on his hat that wuz ever seen in the town of Lyme. (The crape was some she had left in the shop.)
He mourned deep, both in his crape and his feelin's, there hain't a doubt of that.
Wall, Miss Keelerses will provided money special for Casper to be educated high. So he went to school and to college, from the time he was born, almost. So he knew plenty of big words, and used 'em fairly lavish in this piece. There wuz words in it of from six to seven syllables. Why, I hadn't no idee till I see 'em with my own eye, that there wuz any such words in the English language, and words of from four to six syllables wuz common in it.
His father, Deacon Keeler, wouldn't give the paper to my companion, he thought so much of it, but he offered to lend it to him, because he said he felt that the idees it promulgated wuz so sound and deep they ought to be disseminated abroad.
The idees wuz, "that wimmen hadn't no business to set on the Conference. She wuz too weak to set on it. It wuz too high a place for her too ventur' on, or to set on with any ease. There wuzn't no more than room up there for what men would love to set on it. Wimmen's place wuz in the sacred precinks of home. She wuz a tender, fragile plant, that needed guardin' and guidin' and kep by man's great strength and tender care from havin' any cares and labors whatsoever and wheresoever and howsumever."
Josiah said it wuz a masterly dockument. And it wuz writ well. It painted in wild, glarin' colors the fear that men had that wimmen would strain themselves to do anything at all in the line of work--or would weaken her hull constitution, and lame her moral faculties, and ruin herself by tryin' to set up on a Conference, or any other high and tottlin' eminence.
The piece wuz divided into three different parts, with a headin' in big letters over each one.
The first wuz, wimmen to have no labors and cares WHATSOEVER;
Secondly, NONE WHERESOEVER;
Thirdly, NONE HOWSUMEVER.
The writer then proceeded to say that he would show first, what cares and labors men wuz willin' and anxious to ward offen women. And he proved right out in the end that there wuzn't a thing that they wanted wimmen to do--not a single thing.
Then he proceeded to tell where men wuz willin' to keep their labors and cares offen wimmen. And he proved it right out that it wuz every where. In the home, the little sheltered, love-guarded home of the farmer, the mechanic and the artizen (makin' special mention of the buzz sawyers). And also in the palace walls and the throne. There and every where men would fain shelter wimmen from every care, and every labor, even the lightest and slightest.
Then lastly came the howsumever. He proceeded to show how this could be done. And he proved it right out (or thought he did) that the first great requisit' to accomplish all this, wuz to keep wimmen in her place. Keep her from settin' on the Conference, and all other tottlin' eminences, fitted only for man's stalwart strength.
And the end of the article wuz so sort of tragick and skairful that Josiah wept when he read it. He pictured it out in such strong colors, the danger there wuz of puttin' wimmen, or allowin' her to put herself in such a high and percipitous place, such a skairful and dangerous posture as settin' up on a Conference.
[Illustration: "JOSIAH WEPT WHEN HE READ IT."]
"To have her set up on it," sez the writer, in conclusion, "would endanger her life, her spiritual, her mental and her moral growth. It