Samantha on the Woman Question | Page 5

made a effort so voyalent that she got away. A good woman, who bein' nothin' but a woman couldn't do anything towards onclinchin' them powerful arms that wuz protectin' her, helped her to slip through 'em. And Serepta come to Jonesville to live with a sister of that good woman; changed her name so's it wouldn't be so easy to find her; grew up to be a nice industrious girl. And when the woman she wuz took by died she left Serepta quite a handsome property.
And finally she married Lank Burpee, and did considerable well it wuz spozed. Her property, put with what little he had, made 'em a comfortable home and they had two pretty children, a boy and a girl. But when the little girl wuz a baby he took to drinkin', neglected his bizness, got mixed up with a whiskey ring, whipped Serepta--not so very hard. He went accordin' to law, and the law of the United States don't approve of a man's whippin' his wife enough to endanger her life, it sez it don't. He made every move of hisen lawful and felt that Serepta hadn't ort to complain and feel hurt. But a good whippin' will make anybody feel hurt, law or no law. And then he parted with her and got her property and her two little children. Why, it seemed as if everything under the sun and moon, that could happen to a woman, had happened to Serepta, painful things and gauldin'.
Jest before Lank parted with her, she fell on a broken sidewalk: some think he tripped her up, but it never wuz proved. But anyway Serepta fell and broke her hip hone; and her husband sued the corporation and got ten thousand dollars for it. Of course the law give the money to him and she never got a cent of it. But she wouldn't have made any fuss over that, knowin' that the law of the United States wuz such. But what made it so awful mortifyin' to her wuz, that while she wuz layin' there achin' in splints, he took that very money and used it to court up another woman with. Gin her presents, jewelry, bunnets, head-dresses, artificial flowers out of Serepta's own hip money.
And I don't know as anything could be much more gauldin' to a woman than that--while she lay there groanin' in splints, to have her husband take the money for her own broken bones and dress up another woman like a doll with it.
But the law gin it to him, and he wuz only availin' himself of the glorious liberty of our free Republic, and doin' as he wuz a mind to. And it wuz spozed that that very hip money wuz what made the match. For before she wuz fairly out of splints he got a divorce from her and married agin. And by the help of Serepta's hip money and the Whiskey Ring he got her two little children away from her.

II
"THEY CAN'T BLAME HER"
And I wonder if there is a woman in the land that can blame Serepta for gittin' mad and wantin' her rights and wantin' the Whiskey Ring broke up, when they think how she's been fooled round with by men; willed away, and whipped, and parted with, and stole from. Why, they can't blame her for feelin' fairly savage about 'em, as she duz.
For as she sez to me once, when we wuz talkin' it over, how everything had happened to her. "Yes," sez she, with a axent like bone-set and vinegar, "and what few things hain't happened to me has happened to my folks."
And sure enough I couldn't dispute her. Trouble and wrongs and sufferin's seemed to be epidemic in the race of Pester wimmen. Why, one of her aunts on her father's side, Huldah Pester, married for her first husband, Eliphelet Perkins. He wuz a minister, rode on a circuit, and he took Huldah on it too, and she rode round with him on it a good deal of the time. But she never loved to, she wuz a woman that loved to be still, and kinder settled down at home.
But she loved Eliphelet so well that she would do anything to please him, so she rode round with him on that circuit till she wuz perfectly fagged out.
He wuz a dretful good man to her, but he wuz kinder poor and they had hard times to git along. But what property they had wuzn't taxed, so that helped some, and Huldah would make one dollar go a good ways.
No, their property wuzn't taxed till Eliphelet died. Then the supervisor taxed it the very minute the breath left his body; run his horse, so it wuz said, so's to be sure to git it onto the tax