Samantha on the Woman Question | Page 9

such a witherin' way that I should most probable withered him, only he is blind in one side, and I wuz on the blind side, but he argued with me, and said that it wuz no worse than to give licenses for other kinds of meanness.
He said they give licenses now to steal--steal folkses senses away, and then they could steal everything else, and murder and tear round into every kind of wickedness. But he didn't ask that. He wanted things done fair and square: he jest wanted to steal horses. He wuz goin' West, and he thought he could do a good bizness, and lay up somethin'. If he had a license he shouldn't be afraid of bein' shet up or shot.
But I refused the job with scorn; and jest as I wuz refusin', the cars snorted, and I wuz glad they did. They seemed to express in that wild snort something of the indignation I felt.
The idee!

III
"POLLY'S EYES CROWED TENDER"
Lorinda wuz dretful glad to see us and so wuz her husband and Polly. But the Reunion had to be put off on account of a spell her husband wuz havin'. Lorinda said she could not face such a big company as she'd invited while Hiram wuz havin' a spell, and I agreed with her.
Sez I, "Never, never, would I have invited company whilst Josiah wuz sufferin' with one of his cricks."
Men hain't patient under pain, and outsiders hain't no bizness to hear things they say and tell on 'em. So Polly had to write to the relations puttin' off the Reunion for one week. But Lorinda kep' on cookin' fruit cake and such that would keep, she had plenty of help, but loved to do her company cookin' herself. And seein' the Reunion wuz postponed and Lorinda had time on her hands, I proposed she should go with me to the big out-door meetin' of the Suffragists, which wuz held in a nigh-by city.
"Good land!" sez she, "nothin' would tempt me to patronize anything so brazen and onwomanly as a out-door meetin' of wimmen, and so onhealthy and immodest." I see she looked reproachfully at Polly as she said it. Polly wuz arrangin' some posies in a vase, and looked as sweet as the posies did, but considerable firm too, and I see from Lorinda's looks that Polly wuz one who had to leave father and mother for principle's sake.
But I sez, "You're cookin' this minute, Lorinda, for a out-door meetin'" (she wuz makin' angel cake). "And why is this meetin' any more onwomanly or immodest than the camp-meetin' where you wuz converted, and baptized the next Sunday in the creek?"
"Oh, them wuz religious meetin's," sez she.
"Well," sez I, "mebby these wimmen think their meetin' is religious. You know the Bible sez, 'Faith and works should go together,' and some of the leaders of this movement have showed by their works as religious a sperit and wielded aginst injustice to young workin' wimmen as powerful a weepon as that axe of the 'Postles the Bible tells about. And you said you went every day to the Hudson-Fulton doin's and hearn every out-door lecture; you writ me that there wuz probable a million wimmen attendin' them out-door meetin's, and that wuz curosity and pleasure huntin' that took them, and this is a meetin' of justice and right."
"Oh, shaw!" sez Lorinda agin, with her eye on Polly. "Wimmen have all the rights they want or need." Lorinda's husband bein' rich and lettin' her have her way she is real foot loose, and don't feel the need of any more rights for herself, but I told her then and there some of the wrongs and sufferin's of Serepta Pester, and bein' good-hearted (but obstinate and bigoted) she gin in that the errents wuz hefty, and that Serepta wuz to be pitied, but she insisted that wimmen's votin' wouldn't help matters.
But Euphrasia Pottle, a poor relation from Troy, spoke up. "After my husband died one of my girls went into a factory and gits about half what the men git for the same work, and my oldest girl who teaches in the public school don't git half as much for the same work as men do, and her school rooms are dark, stuffy, onhealthy, and crowded so the children are half-choked for air, and the light so poor they're havin' their eyesight spilte for life, and new school books not needed at all, are demanded constantly, so some-one can make money."
"Yes," sez I, "do you spoze, Lorinda, if intelligent mothers helped control such things they would let their children be made sick and blind and the money that should be used for food for poor hungry children be squandered on _on_-necessary books they are too faint with hunger to study."
"But wimmen's votin'