Samantha Among the Brethren | Page 5

as a general thing they
get along first rate, I guess, or as well as married folks in general, and
he makes a good deal of her.
I guess they get along without any more than the usual amount of
difficulties between husbands and wives, and mebby with less. I know
this, anyway, that she just about worships the Deacon.
Wall, as I say, it was the very day that these three deacons went to
Loontown to meet Deacon Keeler and Deacon Huffer, to have a
conference together as to the interests of the buzz saw mill that I first
heard the news that wimmen wuz goin' to make a effort to set on the
Methodist Conference, and the way I heerd on't wuz as follows:
Josiah Allen brought home to me that night a paper that one of the
foreign deacons, Deacon Keeler, had lent him. It contained a article that
wuz wrote by Deacon Keeler's son, Casper Keeler--a witherin' article
about wimmen's settin' on the Conference. It made all sorts of 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