Samantha on the Woman Question | Page 6

list, and comply with the law.
You see Eliphelet's salary stopped when his breath did. And I spoze the law thought, seein' she wuz havin' trouble, she might jest as well have a little more; so it taxed all the property it never had taxed a cent for before.
But she had this to console her that the law didn't forgit her in her widowhood. No; the law is quite thoughtful of wimmen by spells. It sez it protects wimmen. And I spoze that in some mysterious way, too deep for wimmen to understand, it wuz protectin' her now.
Well, she suffered along and finally married agin. I wondered why she did. But she wuz such a quiet, home-lovin' woman that it wuz spozed she wanted to settle down and be kinder still and sot. But of all the bad luck she had. She married on short acquaintance, and he proved to be a perfect wanderer. He couldn't keep still, it wuz spozed to be a mark.
He moved Huldah thirteen times in two years, and at last he took her into a cart, a sort of covered wagon, and traveled right through the western states with her. He wanted to see the country and loved to live in the wagon, it wuz his make. And, of course, the law give him control of her body, and she had to go where he moved it, or else part with him. And I spoze the law thought it wuz guardin' and nourishin' her when it wuz joltin' her over them prairies and mountains and abysses. But it jest kep' her shook up the hull of the time.
It wuz the regular Pester luck.
And then another of her aunts, Drusilly Pester, married a industrious, hard-workin' man, one that never drinked, wuz sound on the doctrines, and give good measure to his customers, he wuz a groceryman. And a master hand for wantin' to foller the laws of his country as tight as laws could be follered. And so knowin' that the law approved of moderate correction for wimmen, and that "a man might whip his wife, but not enough to endanger her life"; he bein' such a master hand for wantin' to do everything faithful and do his very best for his customers, it wuz spozed he wanted to do the best for the law, and so when he got to whippin' Drusilly, he would whip her too severe, he would be too faithful to it.
You see what made him whip her at all wuz she wuz cross to him. They had nine little children, she thought two or three children would be about all one woman could bring up well by hand, when that hand wuz so stiff and sore with hard work.
But he had read some scareful talk from high quarters about Race Suicide. Some men do git real wrought up about it and want everybody to have all the children they can, jest as fast as they can, though wimmen don't all feel so.
Aunt Hetty Sidman said, "If men had to born 'em and nuss 'em themselves, she didn't spoze they would be so enthusiastick about it after they had had a few, 'specially if they done their own housework themselves," and Aunt Hetty said that some of the men who wuz exhortin' wimmen to have big families, had better spend some of their strength and wind in tryin' to make this world a safer place for children to be born into.
She said they'd be better off in Nonentity than here in this world with saloons on every corner, and war-dogs howlin' at 'em.
I don't know exactly what she meant by Nonentity, but guess she meant the world we all stay in, before we are born into this one.
Aunt Hetty has lost five boys, two by battle and three by licensed saloons, that makes her talk real bitter, but to resoom. I told Josiah that men needn't worry about Race Suicide, for you might as well try to stop a hen from makin' a nest, as to stop wimmen from wantin' a baby to love and hold on her heart. But sez I, "Folks ort to be moderate and mejum in babies as well as in everything else."
But Drusilly's husband wanted twelve boys he said, to be law-abidin' citizens as their Pa wuz, and a protection to the Govermunt, and to be ready to man the new warships, if a war broke out. But her babies wuz real pretty and cunning, and she wuz so weak-minded she couldn't enjoy the thought that if our male statesmen got to scrappin' with some other nation's male law-makers and made another war, of havin' her grown-up babies face the cannons. I spoze it wuz when she wuz so awful tired she felt so.
You see she had to