Samantha on the Woman Question | Page 3

to send some errent by me"; and I wondered what it would be.
And so it didn't surprise me when she asked me if I would lobby a little for her in Washington. I spozed it wuz some new kind of tattin' or fancy work. I told her I shouldn't have much time but would try to git her some if I could.
And she said she wanted me to lobby myself. And then I thought mebby it wuz a new kind of dance and told her, "I wuz too old to lobby, I hadn't lobbied a step since I wuz married."
And then she explained she wanted me to canvas some of the Senators.
And I hung back and asked her in a cautious tone, "How many she wanted canvassed, and how much canvas it would take?"
I had a good many things to buy for my tower, and though I wanted to obleege Serepta, I didn't feel like runnin' into any great expense for canvas.
And then she broke off from that subject, and said she wanted her rights and wanted the Whiskey Ring broke up.
And she talked a sight about her children, and how bad she felt to be parted from 'em, and how she used to worship her husband and how her hull life wuz ruined and the Whiskey Ring had done it, that and wimmen's helpless condition under the law and she cried and wep' and I did. And right while I wuz cryin' onto that gingham apron, she made me promise to carry them two errents of hern to the President and git 'em done for her if I possibly could.
She wanted the Whiskey Ring destroyed and her rights, and she wanted 'em both inside of two weeks.
I told her I didn't believe she could git 'em done inside that length of time, but I would tell the President about it, and I thought more'n likely as not he would want to do right by her. "And," sez I, "if he sets out to, he can haul them babies of yourn out of that Ring pretty sudden."
And then to git her mind offen her sufferin's, I asked how her sister Azuba wuz gittin' along? I hadn't heard from her for years. She married Phileman Clapsaddle, and Serepty spoke out as bitter as a bitter walnut, and sez she:
"She's in the poor-house."
"Why, Serepta Pester!" sez I, "what do you mean?"
"I mean what I say, my sister, Azuba Clapsaddle, is in the poor-house."
"Why, where is their property gone?" sez I. "They wuz well off. Azuba had five thousand dollars of her own when she married him."
"I know it," sez she, "and I can tell you, Josiah Alien's wife, where their property has gone, it has gone down Phileman Clapsaddle's throat. Look down that man's throat and you will see 150 acres of land, a good house and barn, twenty sheep and forty head of cattle."
"Why-ee!" sez I.
"Yes, and you'll see four mules, a span of horses, two buggies, a double sleigh, and three buffalo robes. He's drinked 'em all up, and two horse rakes, a cultivator, and a thrashin' machine."
"Why-ee!" sez I agin. "And where are the children?"
"The boys have inherited their father's habits and drink as bad as he duz and the oldest girl has gone to the bad."
"Oh dear! oh dear me!" sez I, and we both sot silent for a spell. And then thinkin' I must say sunthin' and wantin' to strike a safe subject and a good lookin' one, I sez:
"Where is your Aunt Cassandra's girl? That pretty girl I see to your house once?"
"That girl is in the lunatick asylum."
"Serepta Pester," sez I, "be you tellin' the truth?"
"Yes, I be, the livin' truth. She went to New York to buy millinery goods for her mother's store. It wuz quite cool when she left home and she hadn't took off her winter clothes, and it come on brilin' hot in the city, and in goin' about from store to store the heat and hard work overcome her and she fell down in a sort of faintin' fit and wuz called drunk and dragged off to a police court by a man who wuz a animal in human shape. And he misused her in such a way that she never got over the horror of what befell her when she come to to find herself at the mercy of a brute in a man's shape. She went into a melancholy madness and wuz sent to the asylum."
I sithed a long and mournful sithe and sot silent agin for quite a spell. But thinkin' I must be sociable I sez:
"Your aunt Cassandra is well, I spoze?"
"She is moulderin' in jail," sez she.
"In jail? Cassandra in jail!"
"Yes, in jail." And Serepta's tone wuz now like worm-wood and gall.
"You know she owns