About a couple of weeks after the quiltin’, Thomas Jefferson said to Josiah, one Saturday mornin’,

“Father, can I have the old mare to go to Jonesville to-night?”

“What do you want to go to Jonesville for?” said his father, “you come from there last night.”

“There is goin’ to be a lecture on wimmin’s rights; can I have her, father?”

“I s’pose so,” says Josiah, kinder short, and after Thomas J. went out, Josiah went on—

“Wimmin’s rights, wimmin’s rights, I wonder how many more fools are goin’ a caperin’ round the country preachin’ ’em up—I am sick of wimmin’s rights, I don’t believe in ’em.”

This riled up the old Smith blood, and says I to him with a glance that went clear through to the back side of his head—

“I know you don’t, Josiah Allen—I can tell a man that is for wimmin’s rights as fur as I can see ’em. There is a free, easy swing to thier walk—a noble look to thier faces—thier big hearts and soles love liberty and justice, and bein’ free themselves they want everybody else to be free. These men haint jealous of a woman’s influence—haint afraid that she won’t pay him proper respect if she haint obleeged to—and they needn’t be afraid, for these are the very men that wimmin look up to, and worship,—and always will. A good, noble, true man is the best job old natur ever turned off her hands, or ever will—a man, that would wipe off a baby’s tears as soft as a woman could, or ‘die with his face to the foe.’

“They are most always big, noble-sized men, too,” says I, with another look at Josiah that pierced him like a arrow; (Josiah don’t weigh quite one hundred by the steelyards.)

“I don’t know as I am to blame, Samantha, for not bein’ a very hefty man.”

“You can let your sole grow, Josiah Allen, by thinkin’ big, noble-sized thoughts, and I believe if you did, you would weigh more by the steelyards.”

“Wall, I don’t care, Samantha, I stick to it, that I am sick of wimmin’s rights; if wimmin would take care of the rights they have got now, they would do better than they do do.”

Now I love to see folks use reason if they have got any—and I won’t stand no importations cast on to my sect—and so I says to him in a tone of cold and almost freezin’ dignity—

“What do you mean, Josiah?”

“I mean that women hain’t no business a votin’; they had better let the laws alone, and tend to thier house-work. The law loves wimmin and protects ’em.”

“If the law loves wimmin so well, why don’t he give her as much wages as men get for doin’ the same work? Why don’t he give her half as much, Josiah Allen?”

Josiah waved off my question, seemin’ly not noticin’ of it—and continued with the doggy obstinacy of his sect—

“Wimmin haint no business with the laws of the country.”

“If they haint no business with the law, the law haint no business with them,” says I warmly. “Of the three classes that haint no business with the law—lunatics, idiots, and wimmin—the lunatics and idiots have the best time of it,” says I, with a great rush of ideas into my brain that almost lifted up the border of my head-dress. “Let a idiot kill a man; ‘What of it?’ says the law; let a luny steal a sheep; again the law murmurs in a calm and gentle tone, ‘What of it? they haint no business with the law and the law haint no business with them.’ But let one of the third class, let a woman steal a sheep, does the law soothe her in these comfortin’ tones? No, it thunders to her, in awful accents, ‘You haint no business with the law, but the law has a good deal of business with you, vile female, start for State’s prisen; you haint nothin’ at all to do with the law, only to pay all the taxes it tells you to—embrace a license bill that is ruinin’ your husband—give up your innocent little children to a wicked father if it tells you to—and a few other little things, such as bein’ dragged off to prison by it—chained up for life, and hung, and et cetery.’”

Josiah sot motionless—and in a rapped eloquence I went on in the allegory way.

“‘Methought I once heard the words,’ sighs the female, ‘True government consists in the consent of the governed;’ did I dream them, or did the voice of a luny pour them into my ear?’

“‘Haint I told you,’ frouns the law on her, ‘that that don’t mean wimmin—have I got to explain to your weakened female comprehension again, the great fundymental truth, that wimmin haint included and mingled in the law books and statutes of the country only in a condemnin’ and punishin’ sense, as it were. Though I feel it to be bendin’ down my powerful manly dignity to elucidate the subject further, I will consent to remind you of the consolin’ fact, that though you wimmin are, from the tender softness of your natures, and the illogical weakness of your minds, unfit from ever havin’ any voice in makin’ the laws that govern you; you have the right, and nobody can ever deprive you of it, to be punished in a future world jest as hard as a man of the strongest intellect, and to be hung in this world jest as dead as a dead man; and what more can you ask for, you unreasonable female woman you?’

“Then groans the woman as the great fundymental truth rushes upon her—

“‘I can be hung by the political rope, but I can’t help twist it.’

“‘Jest so,’ says the law, ‘that rope takes noble and manly fingers, and fingers of principle to twist it, and not the weak unprincipled grasp of lunatics, idiots, and wimmin.’

“‘Alas!’ sithes the woman to herself, ‘would that I had the sweet rights of my wild and foolish companions, the idiots and lunys. But,’ says she, venturing with a beating heart, the timid and bashful inquiry, ‘are the laws always just, that I should obey them thus implicitly? There is old Creshus, he stole two millions, and the law cleared him triumphantly. Several men have killed various other men, and the law insistin’ they was out of their heads, (had got out of ’em for the occasion, and got into ’em agin the minute they was cleared,) let ’em off with sound necks. And I, a poor woman, have only stole a sheep, a small-sized sheep too, that my offspring might not perish with hunger—is it right to liberate in a triumphin’ way the two million stealer and the man murderer, and inkarcerate the poor sheep stealer? and my children was so hungry, and it was such a small sheep,’ says the woman in pleadin’ accents.

“‘Idiots! lunatics! and wimmin! are they goin’ to speak?’ thunders the law. ‘Can I believe my noble right ear? can I bein’ blindfolded trust my seventeen senses? I’ll have you understand that it haint no woman’s business whether the laws are just or unjust, all you have got to do is jest to obey ’em, so start off for prison, my young woman.’

“‘But my house-work,’ pleads the woman; ‘woman’s place is home: it is her duty to remain at all hazards within its holy and protectin’ precincts; how can I leave its sacred retirement to moulder in State’s prison?’

“‘House-work!’ and the law fairly yells the words, he is so filled with contempt at the idee. ‘House-work! jest as if house-work is goin’ to stand in the way of the noble administration of the law. I admit the recklessness and immorality of her leavin’ that holy haven, long enough to vote—but I guess she can leave her house-work long enough to be condemned, and hung, and so forth.’

“‘But I have got a infant,’ says the woman, ‘of tender days, how can I go?’

“‘That is nothing to the case,’ says the law in stern tones. ‘The peculiar conditions of motherhood only unfits a female woman from ridin’ to town with her husband, in a covered carriage, once a year, and layin’ her vote on a pole. I’ll have you understand it is no hindrance to her at all in a cold and naked cell, or in a public court room crowded with men.’

“‘But the indelikacy, the outrage to my womanly nature?’ says the woman.

“‘Not another word out of your head, young woman,’ says the law, ‘or I’ll fine you for contempt. I guess the law knows what is indelikacy, and what haint; where modesty comes in, and where it don’t; now start for prison bareheaded, for I levy on your bunnet for contempt of me.’

“As the young woman totters along to prison, is it any wonder that she sithes to herself, but in a low tone, that the law might not hear her, and deprive her also of her shoes for her contemptas thoughts—

“‘Would that I were a idiot; alas! is it not possible that I may become even now a luny?—then I should be respected.’”

As I finished my allegory and looked down from the side of the house, where my eyes had been fastened in the rapped eloquence of thought, I see Josiah with a contented countenance, readin’ the almanac, and I said to him in a voice before which he quailed—

“Josiah Allen, you haint heard a word I’ve said, you know you haint.”

“Yes I have,” says he, shettin’ up the almanac; “I heard you say wimmin ought to vote, and I say she hadn’t. I shall always say that she is too fraguile, too delikate, it would be too hard for her to go to the pole.”

“There is one pole you are willin’ enough I should go to, Josiah Allen,” and I stopped allegorin’, and spoke with witherin’ dignity and self respect—“and that is the hop pole.” (Josiah has sot out a new hop yard, and he proudly brags to the neighbors that I am the fastest picker in the yard.) “You are willin’ enough I should handle them poles!” He looked smit and conscience struck, but still true to the inherient principles of his sect, and thier doggy obstinacy, he murmured—

“If wimmin know when they are well off, they will let poles and ’lection boxes alone, it is too wearin for the fair sect.”

“Josiah Allen,” says I, “you think that for a woman to stand up straight on her feet, under a blazin’ sun, and lift both her arms above her head, and pick seven bushels of hops, mingled with worms and spiders, into a gigantic box, day in, and day out, is awful healthy, so strengthenin’ and stimulatin’ to wimmin, but when it comes to droppin’ a little slip of clean paper into a small seven by nine box, once a year in a shady room, you are afraid it is goin’ to break down a woman’s constitution to once.”

He was speechless, and clung to Ayer’s almanac mechanically (as it were) and I continued—

“There is another pole you are willin’ enough for me to handle, and that is our cistern pole. If you should spend some of the breath you waste—in pityin’ the poor wimmin that have got to vote—in byin’ a pump, you would raise 25 cents in my estimation, Josiah Allen. You have let me pull on that old cistern pole thirteen years, and get a ten quart pail of water on to the end of it, and I guess the political pole wouldn’t draw much harder than that does.”

“I guess I will get one, Samantha, when I sell the old critter. I have been a calculatin’ to every year, but things will kinder run along.”

“I am aware of that,” says I in a tone of dignity cold as a lump of cold ice. “I am aware of that. You may go into any neighborhood you please, and if there is a family in it, where the wife has to set up leeches, make soap, cut her own kindlin’ wood, build fires in winter, set up stove-pipes, dround kittens, hang out clothes lines, cord beds, cut up pork, skin calves, and hatchel flax with a baby lashed to her side—I haint afraid to bet you a ten cent bill, that that woman’s husband thinks that wimmin are too feeble and delicate to go the pole.”

Josiah was speechless for pretty near half a minute, and when he did speak it was words calculated to draw my attention from contemplatin’ that side of the subject. It was for reasons, I have too much respect for my husband to even hint at—odious to him, as odious could be—he wanted me to forget it, and in the gentle and sheepish manner men can so readily assume when they are talkin’ to females he said, as he gently fingered Ayer’s almanac, and looked pensively at the dyin’ female revivin’ at a view of the bottle—

“We men think too much of you wimmin to want you to lose your sweet, dignified, retirin’ modesty that is your chieftest charm. How long would dignity and modesty stand firm before the wild Urena of public life? You are made to be happy wives, to be guarded by the stronger sect, from the cold blast and the torrid zone. To have a fence built around you by manly strength, to keep out the cares and troubles of life. Why, if I was one of the fair sect, I would have a husband to fence me in, if I had to hire one.”

He meant this last, about hirin’ a husband, as a joke, for he smiled feebly as he said it, and in other and happier times stern duty would have compelled me to laugh at it—but not now, oh no, my breast was heavin’ with too many different sized emotions.

“You would hire one, would you? a woman don’t lose her dignity and modesty a racin’ round tryin’ to get married, does she? Oh no,” says I, as sarcastic as sarcastic could be, and then I added sternly, “If it ever does come in fashion to hire husbands by the year, I know of one that could be rented cheap, if his wife had the proceeds and avails in a pecuniary sense.”

He looked almost mortified, but still he murmur’d as if mechanically. “It is wimmen’s place to marry and not to vote.”

“Josiah Allen,” says I, “Anybody would think to hear you talk that a woman couldn’t do but just one of the two things any way—marry or vote, and had got to take her choice of the two at the pint of the bayonet. And anybody would think to hear you go on, that if a women could live in any other way, she wouldn’t be married, and you couldn’t get her to.” Says I, looking at him shrewdly, “if marryin’ is such a dreadful nice thing for wimmen I don’t see what you are afraid of. You men act kinder guilty about it, and I don’t wonder at it, for take a bad husband, and thier haint no kind of slavery to be compared to wife slavery. It is jest as natural for a mean, cowardly man to want to abuse and tyranize over them that they can, them that are dependent on ’em, as for a noble and generous man to want to protect them that are weak and in their power. Figurin’ accordin’ to the closest rule of arithmetic, there are at least one-third mean, dissopated, drunken men in the world, and they most all have wives, and let them tread on these wives ever so hard, if they only tread accordin’ to law, she can’t escape. And suppose she tries to escape, blood-hounds haint half so bitter as public opinion on a women that parts with her husband, chains and handcuffs haint to be compared to her pride, and her love for her children, and so she keeps still, and suffers agony enough to make four first class martyrs. Field slaves have a few hours for rest at night, and a hope, to kinder boy them up, of gettin’ a better master. But the wife slave has no hope of a change of masters, and let him be ever so degraded and brutal is at his mercy day and night. Men seem to be awful afraid that wimmen won’t be so fierce for marryin’ anybody, for a home and a support, if they can support themselves independent, and be jest as respectable in the eyes of the world. But,” says I,

“In them days when men and wimmen are both independent—free and equal, they will marry in the only true way—from love and not from necessity. They will marry because God will join their two hearts and hands so you can’t get ’em apart no how. But to hear you talk Josiah Allen, anybody would think that there wouldn’t another woman marry on earth, if they could get rid of it, and support themselves without it.” And then I added, fixin’ my keen grey eyes upon his’en. “You act guilty about it Josiah Allen. But,” says I, “just so long as the sun shines down upon the earth and the earth answers back to it, blowin’ all out full of beauty—Jest so long as the moon looks down lovin’ly upon old ocien makin’ her heart beat the faster, jest so long will the hearts and souls God made for each other, answer to each other’s call. God’s laws can’t be repealed, Josiah Allen, they wasn’t made in Washington, D. C.”

I hardly ever see a man quail more than he did, and to tell the truth, I guess I never had been quite so eloquent in all the 14 years we had lived together—I felt so eloquent that I couldn’t stop myself and I went on.

“When did you ever see a couple that hated each other, or didn’t care for each other, but what their children, was either jest as mean as pusley—or else wilted and unhappy lookin’ like a potato sprout in a dark suller? What that potato sprout wants is sunshine, Josiah Allen. What them children wants is love. The fact is love is what makes a home—I don’t care whether its walls are white, stone, marble or bass wood. If there haint a face to the winder a waitin’ for you, when you have been off to the store, what good does all your things do you, though you have traded off ten pounds of butter? A lot of folks may get together in a big splendid house, and be called by the same name, and eat and sleep under the same roof till they die, and call it home, but if love don’t board with ’em, give me an umbrella and a stump. But the children of these marriages that I speak of, when they see such perfect harmony of mind and heart in their father and mother, when they have been brought up in such a warm, bright, happy home—they can’t no more help growin’ up sweet, and noble, and happy, than your wheat can help growin’ up straight and green when the warm rain and the sunshine falls on it. These children, Josiah Allen, are the future men and wimmens who are goin’ to put their shoulder blades to the wheel and roll this world straight into millenium.” Says Josiah,

“Wimmen are too good to vote with us men, wimmen haint much more nor less than angels any way.”

When you have been soarin’ in eloquence, it is always hard to be brought down sudden—it hurts you to light—and this speech sickened me, and says I, in a tone so cold that he shivered imperceptibly.

“Josiah Allen, there is one angel that would be glad to have a little wood got for her to get dinner with, there is one angel that cut every stick of wood she burnt yesterday, that same angel doin’ a big washin’ at the same time,” and says I, repeatin’ the words, as I glanced at the beef over the cold and chilly stove, “I should like a handful of wood Josiah Allen.”

“I would get you some this minute Samantha,” says he gettin’ up and takin’ down his plantin’ bag, “but you know jest how hurried I be with my spring’s work, can’t you pick up a little for this forenoon? you haint got much to do have you?”

“Oh no!” says I in a lofty tone of irony, “Nothin’ at all, only a big ironin’, ten pies and six loves of bread to bake, a cheese curd to run up, 3 hens to scald, churnin’ and moppin’ and dinner to get. Jest a easy mornin’s work for a angel.”

“Wall then, I guess you’ll get along, and to-morrow I’ll try to get you some.”

I said no more, but with lofty emotions surgin’ in my breast, I took my axe and started for the wood-pile.