Samantha on the Woman Question | Page 2

payin' attention to her, stopped once for a day or two in Jonesville with Polly and her Ma on their way to the Cagwins' camp in the Adirondacks. And we all liked him so well that we agreed in givin' him this extraordinary praise, we said he wuz worthy of Polly, we knowed of course that wuz the highest enconium possible for us to give.
Good lookin', smart as a whip, and deep, you could see that by lookin' into his eyes, half laughin' and half serious eyes and kinder sad lookin' too under the fun, as eyes must be in this world of ourn if they look back fur, or ahead much of any. A queer world this is, and kinder sad and mysterious, behind all the good and glory on't.
He wuz jest out of Harvard school and as full of life and sperits as a colt let loose in a clover field. He went out in the hay field, he and Polly, and rode home on top of a load of hay jest as nateral and easy and bare-headed as if he wuz workin' for wages, and he the only son of a millionaire--we all took to him.
Well, when the news got out that I wuz goin' to visit Washington, D.C., all the neighbors wanted to send errents by me. Betsy Bobbet Slimpsey wanted a dozen Patent Office books for scrap books for her poetry.
Uncle Nate Gowdey wanted me to go to the Agricultural Buro and git him a paper of lettuce seed. And Solomon Sypher wanted me to git him a new kind of string beans and some cowcumber seeds.
Uncle Jarvis Bentley, who wuz goin' to paint his house, wanted me to ask the President what kind of paint he used on the White House. He thought it ort to be a extra kind to stand the sharp glare that wuz beatin' down on it constant, and to ask him if he didn't think the paint would last longer and the glare be mollified some if they used pure white and clear ile in it, and left off whitewash and karseen.
Ardelia Rumsey, who is goin' to be married, wanted me, if I see any new kinds of bedquilt patterns at the White House or the Senator's housen, to git patterns for 'em. She said she wuz sick of sun flowers and blazin' stars. She thought mebby they'd have sunthin' new, spread eagle style. She said her feller wuz goin' to be connected with the Govermunt and she thought it would be appropriate.
And I asked her how. And she said he wuz goin' to git a patent on a new kind of jack knife.
I told her that if she wanted a govermunt quilt and wanted it appropriate she ort to have a crazy quilt.
And she said she had jest finished a crazy quilt with seven thousand pieces of silk in it, and each piece trimmed with seven hundred stitches of feather stitchin'--she'd counted 'em. And then I remembered seein' it. There wuz a petition fer wimmen's rights and I remember Ardelia couldn't sign it for lack of time. She wanted to, but she hadn't got the quilt more than half done. It took the biggest heft of two years to do it. And so less important things had to be put aside.
And Ardelia's mother wanted to sign it, but she couldn't owin' to a bed-spread she wuz makin'. She wuz quiltin' in Noah's Ark and all the animals on a Turkey red quilt. I remember she wuz quiltin' the camel that day and couldn't be disturbed, so we didn't git the names. It took the old lady three years, and when it wuz done it wuz a sight to behold, though I wouldn't want to sleep under so many animals. But folks went from fur and near to see it, and I enjoyed lookin' at it that day.
Zebulin Coon wanted me to carry a new hen coop of hisen to git patented. And I thought to myself I wonder if they will ask me to carry a cow.
And sure enough Elnathan Purdy wanted me to dicker for a calf from Mount Vernon, swop one of his yearlin's for it.
But the errents Serepta Pester sent wuz fur more hefty and momentous than all the rest put together, calves, hen coop, cow and all.
And when she told 'em over to me, and I meditated on her reasons for sendin' 'em and her need of havin' 'em done, I felt that I would do the errents for her if a breath wuz left in my body. She come for a all day's visit; and though she is a vegetable widow and humbly, I wuz middlin' glad to see her. But thinkses I as I carried her things into my bedroom, "She'll want