It was a beautiful mornin’ in October. The trees in the woods nigh by, had all got their new fall suits on, red and purple and orange, while further back, the old hills seemed to be a settin’ up with a blue gauze vail on. There was a little mite of a breeze blowin’ up through the orchard, where the apples lay in red and yellow heaps in the green grass. Everything looked so beautiful and fresh, that as I went out on the doorstep to shake the table-cloth, my heart fairly sung for joy. And I exclaimed to Josiah in clear, happy tones,

“What a day it is, Josiah, to gather the winter apples and pull the beets.”

He says, “Yes, Samantha, and after you get your work done up, don’t you s’pose you could come out and pick up apples a spell?”

I told him in the same cheerful tones I had formally used, “that I would, and that I would hurry up my dishes as fast as I could, and come out.”

But alas! how little do we know what trial a hour may bring forth; this hour brought forth Betsey Bobbet. As I went to the door to throw out my dishwater, I see her comin’ through the gate. I controlled myself pretty well, and met her with considerable calmness. She was in awful good spirits. There had been a lecture on Free Love to Jonesville; Prof. Theron Gusher had been a lecturin’ there, and Betsey had attended to it, and was all full of the idee. She begun almost before she sot down, and says she,

“Josiah Allen’s wife you can’t imagine what new and glorious and soaring ideahs that man has got into his head.”

“Let him soar,” says I coldly, “it don’t hurt me.”

Says she, “He is too soaring a soul to be into this cold unsympathizing earth, he ought by good right to be in a warmeh speah.”

Says I coldly, and almost frigidly, “From what I have heard of his lecture I think so too, a good deal warmer.”

Says she, “He was to our house yesterday, he said he felt dreadful drawed to me, a kind of a holy drawing you know, I neveh saw such a saintly, heavenly minded man in my life. Why he got into such a spirutal state—when motheh went out of the room a minute—he kissed me moah than a dozen times; that man is moah than half a angel, Josiah Allen’s wife.”

I gave her a look that pierced like sheet lightnin’ through her tow frizzles and went as much as half through her brain.

“Haint Theron Gusher a married man?”

“Oh yes, some.”

“Some!” I repeated in a cold accent, “He is either married or he haint married one or the other,” and again I repeated coldly “is he a married man Betsey?”

“Oh yes, he has been married a few times, or what the cold world calls marrying—he has got a wife now, but I do not believe he has found his affinity yet, though he has got several bills of divorcement from various different wimmen trying to find her. That may be his business to Jonesville, but it does not become me to speak of it.”

Says I “Betsey Bobbet!” and I spoke in a real solemn camp meetin’ tone, for I was talkin’ on deep principle; says I, “you say he is a married man—and now to say nothin’ of your own modesty if you have got any and stand up onto clear principle, how would you like to have your husband if you had one, round kissin’ other wimmen?”

“Oh,” says she, “His wife will neveh know it, neveh!”

“If it is such a pious, heavenly, thing, why not tell her of it?”

“Oh Prof. Gusheh says that some natures are too gross and earthly to comprehend how souls can meet, scorning and forgetting utterly those vile, low, clay bodies of ours. He does not think much of these clay bodies anyway.”

“These clay bodies are the best we have got,” says I, “And we have got to stay in ’em till we die, and the Lord tells us to keep ’em pure, so he can come and visit us in ’em. I don’t believe the Lord thinks much of these holy drawin’s. I know I don’t.”

Betsey sot silently twistin’ her otter colored bonnet strings, and I went on, for I felt it was my duty.

“Married men are jest as good as them that haint married for lots of purposes, such as talkin’ with on the subject of religeon, and polytix and miscelanious subjects, and helpin’ you out of a double wagon, and etcetery. But when it comes to kissin’, marryin’ spiles men in my opinion for kissin’ any other woman only jest their own wives.”

“But suppose a man has a mere clay wife?” says Betsey.

Says I, “Betsey, Josiah Allen was goin’ to buy a horse the other day that the man said was a 3 year old; he found by lookin’ at her teeth that she was pretty near 40; Josiah didn’t buy it. If a man don’t want to marry a clay woman, let him try to find one that haint clay. I think myself that he will have a hard time to find one, but he has a perfect right to hunt as long as he is a mind to—let him,” says I in a liberal tone. “Let him hire a horse and sulkey, and search the country over and over. I don’t care if he is 20 years a huntin’ and comparin’ wimmin a tryin’ to find one to suit him. But when he once makes up his mind, I say let him stand by his bargain, and make the best of it, and not try afterwards to look at her teeth.”

Betsey still sot silently twistin’ her bunnet strings, but I see that she was a mewsin’ on some thought of her own, and in a minute or so she broke out: “Oh, what a soaring sole Prof. Gusheh is; he soared in his lecture to that extent that it seemed as if he would lift me right up, and carry me off.”

For a minute I thought of Theron Gusher with respect, and then agin my eye fell sadly upon Betsey, and she went on,

“I came right home and wrote a poem on the subject, and I will read it to you.” And before I could say a word to help myself, she begun to read.

“You see it repeats some,” says Betsey as she finished readin’. “But Prof. Gusheh wanted me to write a him to sing at thier Free Love conventions, and he wanted a chorus to each verse, a sort of a war-cry, that all could join in and help sing, and he says these soul stirrin’ lines:

have got the true ring to them. I had to kind o’ speak against men in it. I hated too, awfully, but Prof. Gusheh said it would be necessary, in ordeh to rouse the masses. He says the almost withering sarcasm of this noble song is just what they need. He says it will go down to posterity side by side with Yankee Doodle, if not ahead of it. I know by his countenance that he thought it was superior to Mr. Doodle’s him. But what think you of it, Josiah Allen’s wife?”

“I think,” says I in a cautious tone, “that it is about off’n’ a piece with the subject.”

“Don’t you think Josiah Allen’s wife that it would be real sweet to get bills from men. It is a glorious doctrine for wimmen, so freein’ and liberatin’ to them.”

“Sweet!” says I hautily “it would be a pretty world wouldn’t it Betsey Bobbet, if every time a woman forgot to put a button onto a shirt, her husband would start up and say she wasn’t his affinitee, and go to huntin’ of her up, or every time his collar choked him.”

“Oh, but wimmen could hunt too!”

“Who would take care of the children, if they was both a huntin’?” says I sternly, “it would be a hard time for the poor little innocents, if there father and mother was both of ’em off a huntin’.”

Before I could free my mind any further about Prof. Gusher and his doctrine, I had a whole houseful of company come, and Betsey departed. But before she went she told me that Prof. Gusher had heard that I was in faver of wimmen’s rights and he was comin’ to see me before he left Jonesville.

The next day he came. Josiah was to the barn a thrashin’ beans, but I received him with a calm dignity. He was a harmless lookin’ little man, with his hair combed and oiled as smooth as a lookin’ glass. He had on a bell-crouned hat which he lifted from his head with a smile as I come to the door. He wore a plad jacket, and round his neck and hangin’ doun his bosom was a bright satten scarf into which he had stuck 2 big headed pins with a chain hitched onto each of ’em, and he had a book under his arm. He says to me most the first thing after he sot down,

“You believe in wimmin havin’ a right don’t you?”

“Yes Sir,” says I keenly lookin’ up from my knitin’ work. “Jest as many rights as she can get holt of, rights never hurt any body yet.”

“Worthy statements,” says he. “And you believe in Free Love, do you not?”

“How free?” says I cooly.

“Free to marry any body you want to, and as long as you want to, from half a day, up to 5 years or so.”

“No Sir!” says I sternly, “I believe in rights, but I don’t believe in wrongs, of all the miserable doctrines that was ever let loose on the world, the doctrine of Free Love is the miserable’st. Free Love!” I repeated in indignant tones, “it ought to be called free devlitry, that is the right name for it.”

He sunk right back in his chair, put his hand wildly to his brow and exclaimed,

“My soul aches, I thought I had found a congenial spirit, but I am decieved, my breast aches, and siths, and pants.” He looked so awful distressed, that I didn’t know what did ail him, and I looked pityin’ on him from over my spectacles and I says to him jest as I would to our Thomas Jefferson,

“Mebby your vest is too tight.”

“Vest!” he repeated in wild tones, “would I had no worse trammels than store clothes, but it is the fate of reformers to be misunderstood. Woman the pain is deeper and it is a gnawin’ me.”

His eyes was kinder rolled, and he looked so wilted and uncomfortable, that I says to him in still more pityin’ accents,

“Haint you got wind on your stummuck, for if you have, peppermint essence is the best stuff you can take, and I will get you some.”

“Wind!” he almost shouted, “wind! no, it is not wind,” he spoke so deleriously that he almost skairt me, but I kep’ up my placid demeaner, and kep’ on knittin’.

“Wimmen,” said he, “I would right the wrongs of your sect if I could. I bear in my heart the woes and pains of all the aching female hearts of the 19 centurys.”

My knittin’ dropped into my lap, and I looked up at him in surprise, and I says to him respectfully,

“No wonder you groan and sithe, it must hurt awfully.”

“It does hurt,” says he, “but it hurts a sensitive spirit worse to have it mistook for wind.”

He see my softened face, and he took advantage of it, and went on.

“Woman, you have been married, you say, goin’ on 15 years; hain’t you never felt slavish in that time, and felt that you would gladly unbind yourself?”

“Never!” says I firmly, “never! I don’t want to be unbound.”

“Hain’t you never had longings, and yearnings to be free?”

“Not a yearn,” says I calmly, “not a yearn. If I had wanted to remain free I shouldn’t have give my heart and hand to Josiah Allen. I didn’t do it deleriously, I had my senses.” Says I, “you can’t set down and stand up at the same time, each situation has its advantages, but you can’t be in both places at once, and this tryin’ to, is what makes so much trouble amongst men and wimmen. They want the rights and advantages of both stations to once—they want to set down and stand up at the same time, and it can’t be did. Men and wimmen hain’t married at the pint of the bayonet, they go into it with both their eyes open. If anybody thinks they are happier, and freer from care without bein’ married, nobody compels ’em to be married, but if they are, they hadn’t ought to want to be married and single at the same time, it is onreasonable.”

He looked some convinced, and I went on in a softer tone,

“I hain’t a goin’ to say that Josiah hain’t been tryin’ a good many times. He has raved round some, when dinner wasn’t ready, and gone in his stockin’ feet considerable, and been slack about kindlin’ wood. Likewise I have my failin’s. I presume I hain’t done always exactly as I should about shirt buttons, mebby I have scolded more’n I ort to about his keepin’ geese. But if men and wimmen think they are marryin’ angels, they’ll find out they’ll have to settle down and keep house with human critters. I never see a year yet, that didn’t have more or less winter in it, but what does it say, ‘for better, for worse,’ and if it turns out more worse than better, why that don’t part us, for what else does it say? ‘Till death does us part,’ and what is your little slip of paper that you call a bill to that? Is that death?” says I.

He quailed silently, and I proceeded on.

“I wouldn’t give a cent for your bills, I had jest as lives walk up and marry any married man, as to marry a man with a bill. I had jest as lives,” says I warmin’ with my subject, “I had jest as lives join a Mormon at once. How should I feel, to know there was another woman loose in the world, liable to walk in here any minute and look at Josiah, and to know all that separated ’em was a little slip of paper about an inch wide?”

My voice was loud and excited, for I felt deeply what I said, and says he in soothin’ tones,

“I presume that you and your husband are congenial spirits, but what do you think of soarin’ soles, that find out when it is too late that they are wedded to mere lumps of clay.”

I hadn’t fully recovered from my excited frame of mind, and I replied warmly, “I never see a man yet that wasn’t more or less clay, and to tell you the truth I think jest as much of these clay men as I do of these soarers, I never had any opinion of soarers at all.”

He sank back in his chair and sithed, for I had touched him in a tender place, but still clinging to his free love doctrine, he murmered faintly,

“Some wimmen are knocked down by some men, and dragged out.”

His meek tones touched my feelin’s, and I continued in more reasonable accents.

“Mebby if I was married to a man that knocked me down and dragged me out frequently, I would leave him a spell, but not one cent would I invest in another man, not a cent. I would live alone till he came to his senses, if he ever did, and if he didn’t, why when the great roll is called over above, I would answer to the name I took when I loved him and married him, hopin’ his old love would come back again there, and we would have all eternity to keep house in.”

He looked so depressted, as he sot leanin’ back in his chair, that I thought I had convinced him, and he was sick of his business, and I asked him in a helpful way,

“Hain’t there no other business you can get into, besides preachin’ up Free Love? Hain’t there no better business? Hain’t there no cornfields where you could hire out for a scare-crow—can’t you get to be United States Senator? Hain’t there no other mean job not quite so mean as this, you could get into?”

He didn’t seem to take it friendly in me, you know friendly advice makes some folks mad. He spoke out kinder surly and says he, “I hain’t done no hurt, I only want everybody to find their affinitee.”

That riled up the blood in me, and says I with spirit,

“Say that word to me agin if you dare.” Says I “of all the mean words a married woman ever listened to, that is the meanest,” says I “if you say “affinitee” here in my house, agin, young man, I will holler to Josiah.”

He see I was in earnest and deeply indignent, and he ketched up his hat and cane, and started off, and glad enough was I to see him go.