Marietta Holley

As we wended our way back to Miss Asters’es to dinner, Betsey said she guessed after all she would go and take dinner to her cousin Ebeneezer’s, for her Pa hadn’t give her much money. Says she,

“I hate to awfully. It is revoltin’ to all the fineh feelings of my nature to take dinneh theah, afteh I have been so—” she stopped suddenly, and then went on agin. “But Pa didn’t make much this yeah, and he didn’t give me much money, he nor Ma wouldn’t have thought they could have paid my faih heah on the cars, if they hadn’t thought certain, that Ebeneezah’s wife would be took from us, and I—should do my duty by coming. So I guess I will go theah and get dinneh.”

Thinks’es I to myself, “If your folks had brought you up to emanual labor, if they had brought you up to any other trade only to get married, you might have money enough of your own to buy one dinner independent, without dependin’ on some man to earn it for you.” But I didn’t say nothin’, but proceeded onwards to the tavern where I put up. When I got there I met Johnothan Beans’es ex wife, and says she,

“Oh, I forgot, there is a lady here that wanted to see you when you got back.”

“Who is it,” says I.

“It is a female lecturer on wimmen’s rights,” says she.

Well, says I, “Principle before vittles, is my theme, fetch her on.”

Says she, “Go into your room and I’ll tell her you have come, and bring her there. She is awful anxious to see you.”

Well, says I, “I’m visible to the naked eye, she won’t have to take a telescope,” and in this calm state of mind I went into my room and waited for her.

Pretty soon she came in.

Jonothan Beans’es ex wife introduced us, and then went out. I rose up and took holt of her hand, but I give it a sort of a catious shake, for I didn’t like her looks. Of all the painted, and frizzled, and ruffled, and humped up, and laced down critters I ever see, she was the cap sheaf. She had a hump on her back bigger than any camel’s I ever see to a managery, and no three wimmen ever grew the hair that critter had piled on to her head.

I see she was dissapointed in my looks. She looked dreadful kinder scornful down onto my plain alpaca, which was made of a sensible length. Hers hung down on the carpet. I’ll bet there was more’n a bushel basket of puckers and ruffles that trailed down on to the floor behind her, besides all there was on the skirt and waist.

She never said a word about my dress, but I see she looked awful scornful on to it. But she went on to talk about Wimmen’s Rights, and I see she was one of the wild eyed ones, that don’t use no reason. I see here was another chance for me to do good—to act up to principle. And as she give another humiliatin’ look onto my dress, I become fully determined in my own mind, that I wouldn’t shirk out from doin’ my duty by her, and tell her jest what I thought of her looks. She said she had just returned from a lecturin’ tower out in the Western States, and that she had addressed a great many audiences, and had come pretty near gettin’ a Wimmen’s Rights Governor chosen in one of the States. She got to kinder preachin’ after a while, and stood lookin’ up towards the cealin’, and her hands stretched out as if she was a lecturin’. Says she,

“Tyrant man shan’t never rule us.” Says I, “I haint no objection to your makin’ tyrant man better, if you can—there is a chance for improvement in ’em—but while we are handlin’ ‘motes,’ sister, let us remember that we have got considerable to do in the line of ‘beams.’” Says I, “To see a lot of immortal wimmen together, sometimes, you would think the Lord had forgot to put any brains into their heads, but had filled it all up with dress patterns, and gossip, and beaux, and tattan.”

ON A LECTURIN’ TOWER.

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“Tyrant man has encouraged this weakness of intellect. He has for ages made woman a plaything; a doll; a menial slave. He has encouraged her weakness of comprehension, because it flattered his self love and vanity, to be looked up to as a superior bein’. He has enjoyed her foolishness.”

“No doubt there is some truth in what you say, sister, but them days are past. A modest, intelligent woman is respected and admired now, more than a fool. It is so in London and New York village, and,” says I with some modesty, “it is so in Jonesville.”

“Tyrant man,” begun the woman agin. “Tyrant man thinks that wimmen are weak, slavish idiots, that don’t know enough to vote. But them tyrants will find themselves mistaken.”

The thought that Josiah was a man, came to me then as it never had before. And as she looked down from the cealin’ a minute on to my dress with that scornful mene, principle nerved me up to give her a piece of my mind.

Says I, “No wonder men don’t think that we know enough to vote when they see the way some wimmen rig themselves out. Why says I, a bachelder that had always kept house in a cave, that had read about both and hadn’t never seen neither, would as soon take you for a dromedary as a woman.”

She turned round quicker’n lightnin’, and as she did so, I see her hump plainer’n ever.

Says she, “Do you want to insult me?”

“No,” says I, “my intentions are honorable, mom.

“But,” says I, puttin’ the question plain to her, “would you vote for a man, that had his pantaloons made with trails to ’em danglin’ on the ground, and his vest drawed in to the bottom tight enough to cut him into, and his coat tails humped out with a bustle, and somebody else’s hair pinned on the back of his head? Would you?” says I solemnly fixin’ my spectacles keenly onto her face. “Much as I respect and honor Horace Greeley, if that pure-minded and noble man should rig himself out with a bustle and trailin’ pantaloons, I wouldn’t vote for him, and Josiah shouldn’t neither.”

But she went right on without mindin’ me—“Man has always tried to dwarf our intellects; cramp our souls. The sore female heart pants for freedom. It is sore! and it pants.”

Her eyes was rolled up in her head, and she had lifted both hands in a eloquent way, as she said this, and I had a fair view of her waist, it wasn’t much bigger than a pipe’s tail. And I says to her in a low, friendly tone. “Seein’ we are only females present, let me ask you in a almost motherly way, when your heart felt sore and pantin’ did you ever loosen your cosset strings? Why,” says I, “no wonder your heart feels sore, no wonder it pants, the only wonder is, that it don’t get discouraged and stop beatin’ at all.”

She wanted to waive off the subject, I knew, for she rolled up her eyes higher than ever, and agin she began “Tyrant man”—

Agin I thought of Josiah, and agin I interrupted her by sayin’ “Men haint the worst critters in the world, they are as generous and charitable agin, as wimmen are, as a general thing.”

“Then what do you want wimmen to vote for, if you think so?”

“Because I want justice done to every human bein’. Justice never hurt nobody yet, and rights given through courtesy and kindness, haint so good in the long run, as rights given by law. And besides, there are exceptions to every rule. There are mean men in the world as well as good ones. Justice to wimmen won’t prevent charitable men from bein’ charitable, generous men from bein’ generous, and good men from bein’ good, while it will restrain selfishness and tyrany. One class was never at the mercy of another, in any respect, without that power bein’ abused in some instances. Wimmen havin’ the right to vote haint a goin’ to turn the world over to once, and make black, white, in a minute, not by no means. But I sincerely believe it will bring a greater good to the female race and to the world.”

Says I, in my most eloquent way, “There is a star of hope a risin’ in the East for wimmen. Let us foller on after it through the desert of the present time, not with our dresses trailin’ down onto the sandy ground, and our waists lookin’ like pismires, and our hair frizzled out like maniacs. Let us go with our own hair on our heads, soberly, decently, and in order; let us behave ourselves in such a sober, christian way, that we can respect ourselves, and then men will respect us.”

“I thought,” says she, “that you was a pure Wimmen’s Righter! I thought you took part with us in our warfare with our foeman man! I thought you was a firm friend to wimmen, but I find I am mistaken.”

“I am a friend to wimmen,” says I, “and because I am, I don’t want her to make a natural born fool of herself. And I say agin, I don’t wonder sometimes, that men don’t think that wimmen know enough to vote, when they see ’em go on. If a woman don’t know enough to make a dress so she can draw a long breath in it, how is she goin’ to take deep and broad views of public affairs? If she puts 30 yards of calico into a dress, besides the trimmin’s, how is she goin’ to preach acceptably on political economy? If her face is covered with paint, and her curls and frizzles all danglin’ down onto her eyes, how can she look straight and keenly into foreign nations and see our relations there? If a woman don’t know enough to keep her dress out of the mud, how is she goin’ to steer the nation through the mud puddle of politics? If a woman humps herself out, and makes a camel of herself, how is she goin’ through the eye of a needle?”

I said these last words in a real solemn camp meetin’ tone, but they seemed to mad her, for she started right up and went out, and I didn’t care a cent if she did, I had seen enough of her. She ketched her trail in the door and tore off pretty nigh a yard of it, and I didn’t cry about that, not a mite. I don’t like these bold brazen faced wimmen that go a rantin’ round the country, rigged out in that way, jest to make themselves notorious. Thier names hadn’t ought to be mentioned in the same day, with true earnest wimmen who take thier reputations in thier hands, and give thier lives to the cause of Right, goin’ ahead walkin’ afoot through the wilderness, cuttin’ down trees, and diggin’ out stumps, makin’ a path for the car of Freedom, that shall yet roll onward into Liberty.

As soon as she was gone, I went down and eat my dinner, for I was hungry as a bear. At the dinner table Jonothan Beans’es ex wife asked me “what I would like for desert.”

I told her “I hadn’t turned my mind much that way, for I hadn’t no idee of goin’ into the desert business, I wouldn’t buy one any way, and I wouldn’t take one as a gift if I had got to settle down, and live on it. But from what I had heard Thomas Jefferson read about it, I thought the desert of Sarah was about as roomy and raised as much sand to the acre as any of ’em.”

Says she, turnin’ the subject, “will you have pie or puddin’.”

I couldn’t see then, and I have thought about it lots sense, I don’t see what started her off onto Gography all of a sudden.

After dinner I thought I would rest a spell. My talk with that female lecturer had tired me out. Principle is dreadful tuckerin’ to any body, when you make it a stiddy business. I had rather wash, any time, than to go off on a tower of it as I was. So I went to my room and sot down real comfortable. But I hadn’t sot more’n a minute and a half, when Betsey Bobbet came, and nothin’ to do, but I must go to Stewarts’es store with her. I hung back at first, but then I happened to think, if Alexander should hear—as of course he would—that I had been to the village and hadn’t been to his shop, he would have reason to feel hurt. Alexander is a real likely man, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelin’s, and it haint my way to want to slight anybody. And then I had a little tradin’ I wanted to do. So take it all together, I finally told Betsey I would go with her.