Part 3

"The poor workin' mother you speak on if she is well enough can stay at home if she has a home to stay in, and doesn't have to labor outside to sustain it. She can breathe the filthy tenement air, be frozen by its winter, choked by its summer atmosphere, she can guide and guard the youthful steps of her children as far as the doorstep and then she must drop the helpless hand, and if she is inteligent and loving hearted she can wet her pillow with vain tears thinking how her pretty innocent young girl has got to pass vile saloons full of evil men on her way to and from store and factory. The factory filled with gant childish forms, with all the care-free happiness of childhood ground from their faces by the brutal hand of Incessant Toil. Unguarded machinery on every side that one false careless move of her girl may maim or kill. Her pretty girl alone strugglin' with ontold dangers. Youth's wild blood urging her to indiscreet acts, Wolves of Prey on one side, Grim Want on the other. If the mother has a mother's heart, her body may be at home where she is so eloquently urged to be, but her heart will be abroad, in the greater home wimmen want to make safer; the home where her children spend their days. It will be hantin' the factory, the grog shop, the vile picture show, the white slaver's abode, watchin', waitin', for what may happen, what has happened so often to other mothers' children."

Samantha goes too fur when she gits to goin', and I told her so plain and square, she aggravates me. And to let her see how much I disapproved of her talk I never dained a reply to her in verbal words. But I riz up with a hauty mean on my eyebrow, and went to pokin' the kitchen fire. I poked it with all the strength of a strong man whose arguments have been spilte and whose feelin's have been wownded by his own pardner.

But I believe my soul that she thought that I did it as a hint that it wuz about dinner time, for she went out to once and hung on the teakettle. And as she did so she mentioned incidentally that she laid out to have lamb chops and green peas and mashed potatoes for dinner, with peach pie and coffee to foller. As she said this my angry emotions settled down and grew more clear and composed, some like Samantha's delicious coffee, when she drops the powdered eggshells into it.

IV

I TALK ON MAN'S PROTECTIN' LOVE FOR WIMMEN

It wuz a beautiful mornin'. I felt boyed up by the invigoration of the invigoratin' atmosphere, the boyness helped along mebby by three cups of Samantha's delicious coffee with rich cream in it, three veal cutlets brown and tender, four hot rolls light as day, several flaky baked potatoes and some biled eggs.

I felt well and I devoted my muse on this auspicious occasion to writin' specially on the protectin' love and care that men had always shown and delighted to show to females. It wuz a subject that I loved and my mind and tongue had often reverted to, follerin' the example of all the other good and great statesmen who have talked and writ on the feminist question. And I felt that I wuz abundantly qualified to do justice to it, havin' protected Samantha and lovin'ly guarded her weak footsteps for goin' on forty years.

I set with my steeled pen in hand and got so lost and wropped up in contemplation of the beautiful and inspirin' subject, and plannin' how I would handle it to the best advantage, that time passed onheeded and first I knowed I hearn by the sound of dishes rattlin' in the near and adjacent kitchen that Samantha wuz beginin' to make preparations for dinner.

The kitchen as I said wuz contagious to the settin' room and the door wuz open. I had laid out and intended to begin the chapter on this important and most congenial subject with some strong stern language calculated to shame wimmen for the unbelievin' remarks they had made on this beautiful and universal trait of my sect, and their seemin' teetotle inability to appreciate the constant onvaryin' and lovin' protection that men had always gin to the weaker and more inferior sect.

I remembered well how in a former talk with Samantha on this subject, though she had admitted willin'ly enough that there wuz lots of good generous men runnin' loose in the world. Yet she tried to dispute my insertion that _all_ men _always_ cared for and tenderly protected wimmen, by bringin' up instances where she claimed men had balked and kicked over the traces, and instead of protectin' wimmen had run 'em away into ruination and destruction.

She brung up White Slavery, political, social and industrial dependence, and the average man's inherient objection to regard wimmen as a citizen and plain human bein', bein' inclined to regard 'em either as angels or underlin's. And a lot of other trashy arguments calculated to rile a man up, yes mad a man to the very quick, who knowed what he wuz talkin' about. One who had spent the heft of his life in protectin' and guidin' her that now turned agin him and disputed him. A man who knowed as well as he knowed the looks of his linement in the shavin' glass, that man's protectin' love and care wuz all that had held wimmen up, and wuz still a proppin' her.

I spoze in my righteous indignation I may have said kinder hash things about the low down ornary traits of the inferior sect to which Samantha belonged, for she begun to bring up traits that she said some of my sect had, and throw 'em at me, traits that I know no man ever had or skursley ever had hearn on. But I must say that all the while riled up as she wuz inside of her, she kep' knittin' away on my indigo blue sock, and kep' makin' honorable exceptions of good men and smart men. But she brung up Vanity, said I and my sect wuz vain. Sez she, "If a woman tries to talk sense and reason to a man about her needs and her rights, he will generally pay her a compliment about her eyes or her nose. 'Tennyrate he will turn the subject some way and won't listen to her. But if she makes eyes at him, and talks soft nonsense, and flatters him, he will purr like a pussy cat."

'Tain't so. Who ever hearn a man purr? Purrin' is sunthin a man's nater would rebel at and scorn with perfect contemp. But I smashed that argument about vanity to once and forever. Sez I so scathin'ly that it seemed as if she must show signs of scorchin', "Did you ever see a man wear a cosset? Or carry a vanity bag?"

And then still a knittin' and still makin' exceptions of some good and generous men, she throwed the trait of selfishness in my face, said my sect had passed along down the fields of time, gatherin' up the ripe wheat and leavin' wimmen to rake up the leavin's.

'Tain't so, and even if it wuz, I presoom to say Ruth got quite a good bundle of grain out of Boazes' wheat field.

And then she took pomposity and throwed at me (still a knittin', and still makin' exceptions of some men) said lots of men stood up on a self-made pedestal lookin' down mentally on them who in many cases wuz their superiors, but she added that wimmen wuz more to blame for this trait in men than they wuz, for they had been educated to look up to men instead of lookin' sideways where they ort to find him on a level at her side.

It is needless to say to any one who knows my keenness of inteleck that I took immegiate advantage of this slip of her tongue and sez, "I am glad that you admit, Samantha, that wimmen are always in the wrong. I and my sect have always knowed it, and we've always laid the blame on 'em from Eve down to Miss Pankhurst."

And that seemed to set her off agin, and she brung up my blindness. Blind as a bat! Them wuz her words she throwed at me, at _me_! who has got eyes as keen as a eagle's. That injustice did rankle and make me hash and say hash things.

But she kep' cam on the outside, kep' on with her knittin' and intimidated agin that though there wuz lots of good generous men in the world, yet it had always been a trait of the average man from Solomon to Harry Thaw to look upon woman as a plaything or a convenience. And then she brung up inconsistency and how men showed it in the laws they made, _criminal inconsistency_, she called it. Sez she, "A girl must be twenty-one when she is considered by men lawmakers wise enough to sell them a hen, or buy a cat. But yet at the age of ten in one state, twelve in another, she is considered by them wise and prudent enough to sell them the crowning jewel of her life with the payment of lifelong shame, agony, and despair, and mebby a little candy. Men make such laws," sez she, "not for their own sweet young girls, but for some other men's daughters, just like the infamous White Slave traffic that sells every year thousands and thousands of young girls into a livin' death. And I think," sez she, "when men make such shameful barbarous laws it is high time for 'em to have help from angels or wimmen or sunthin' or ruther."

"That hain't religious, Samantha," sez I, "to speak of angels makin' laws, tendin' corkuses and such. As a deacon I object to it."

Sez she, "As a deacon you better object to the laws I'm talkin' about, and if clergymen, deacons and church members generally, would all rise agin 'em, they'd be stamped out pretty sudden." Sez she, "When the young girls of our country are considered of equal importance with cows and clover to oversee and protect, there will be different laws, and I believe wimmen's votin' will hasten that day."

There is always a time for a man if he wants to keep his dignity intack before females, to stop arguin' with 'em. That time had come to me at that juncture, and I knowed that it would be more dignified to show a manly superiority to such hullsale calumnity of my sect so I looked hautily at her, and didn't dain to reply to her in verbal words though I grated my teeth some, as I walked out of the settin' room with head erect into the kitchen, and brought in a armful of wood from the contagious woodshed with my head still held high, and hung on the teakettle with a hauty mean. For I felt that some of Samantha's good vittles would soothe my wownded and perturbed sperit if anything could and they did cam me.

I thought of that former interview with my pardner as I sot there preparin' my mind for the masterful effort I wuz about to make.

As I said more formerly I had intended to begin the chapter at this epock of time with a few witherin' remarks calculatin' to rebuke wimmen and wither 'em. I laid out to stun 'em and skair 'em with the artillery of my brilliant eloquence, my protectin' love for the weaker sect riz up so powerful, and my anger wuz so hot agin them that had dasted to deny it.

I felt that they _did_ believe in men's constant and tender protection, but held out and denied it jest to be mean, jest to carry out their sect's well known desire to argy and aggravate us. And as I meditated on these things and thought of my former talk with Samantha I have jest related, I held my steeled pen in almost a iron grip, and my linement I knowed growed fearful to look upon, charged as it wuz with the awakened powers of a strong man.

When jest as I wuz beginin' the turrible rebukin' words Samantha opened the oven door in the contagious kitchen and the fragrant breath of a lemon custard pie floated out, accompanied with the delicious uroma of a roast chicken with dressin'.

And as on so many former occasions, the delicious odor seemed to enter into and permenate my hull mental and physical systern and soften 'em and quiet my wild and dangerous emotions, I felt mellerer towards her and her sect, and I held my steeled pen in a gentler, softer grip. And instead of the thunderbolt of convincin' argument I had even begun to transcribe, I sez to Samantha, who had come in with a pan of potatoes to peel, and my voice wuz as sweet as the lemon custard.

"You do know, don't you, dear Samantha, that it has always been men's chief aim and desire to protect the weaker inferior sect?" sez I tenderly. "Any man that has the sperit of manhood within him will agree with me." Agin I inhaled into my nostrils the sweet uroma comin' from the contagious kitchen, and sez I in a still tenderer axent, "Men love to protect wimmen, don't you think so?"

Sez Samantha in a cam reasonable voice peelin' away at her potatoes, "A man loves to protect and warn a woman agin every man only himself." Sez she, "Amanda Peedick wuz protected by men and warned."

And I sez kinder short, my tenderer emotions driv back into myself, "What of it, what if she wuz!"

And then she had to go on and recall to my mind that triflin' incident that had occurred and took place in Jonesville the fall before.

Sez she, "You remember, Josiah, old man Peedick who wuz rich as a Jew, left all his money to his boys, a handsome propputy to each one on 'em, and Almina who had stayed to home and took care on him, and lifted him, and rubbed him, and soaked him, and swet him, and dressed and fed him, he only left the house and apple orchard.

"The boys all had splendid homes in the city, but their houses wuz either too big or too small, or too hot or too cold, to have Almina live with 'em, and she wuz expected to git her livin' out of the apples. They wuz first class grafts, none so good anywhere round, and brought the very highest price, and she would got a good livin' and laid up money, if she had been left alone, if she hadn't been protected and warned.

"But every single one of them brothers would come out from the city and warn her agin the other brothers, and tell her how easy it wuz for a weak innocent woman to be deceived and cheated by designin' men, her nearest relation mebby. And that a gentle female's mind wuzn't strong enough to grapple with depravity, and she must lean on him for protection, and he would see her through, so every single one on 'em told her, and warned her agin the other six brothers.

"And Amanda would feel real affectionate and grateful to each one on 'em in turn, and be glad she had such a strong protector and warner to take care of her. And every single time they come to protect and warn her they would take home a few bushels of them delicious apples, and when they got through protectin' and warnin' her, she didn't have apples enough left to make a mess of sass."

But what of it, what had that got to do with my great work that wuz seethin' through my brain? That shows how triflin' and how ornary a woman's mind is, to bring up that old story whilst my brain wuz workin' to a almost dangerous degree inside of my forward tryin' to prove to the female masses at large the great fact of men's protectin' love and the needecessity for it, to prove to 'em as I laid out to prove to the listenin' world that wimmen wuz naterally inferior to men, their brains smaller and lighter, when weighed up in the stillyards. Their emmanuel strength less, their idees more whifflin' and onstabled, and that therefore and accordin'ly wimmen needed and had got to have man's masterful mind and emmanuel strength to protect her from the evils and wickedness of the world, and specially from the awful tuckerin' and dangerous job of votin'.

At this juncter I paused for a minute to collect my thoughts together and then I brought forth from my brain this convincin' argument.

If wimmen don't need a man to protect her and take care on her, why is she so much more ignorant of sin and depravity? Why is there five times more men in prisons and penitentiaries than there is wimmen, if they knowed as much about crime as men do?

"No," sez I, soarin' up in eloquence, "what a man has been through and been educated up to in business and political life, he knows how to protect tender females from. Why," sez I, fairly carried away on the wings of my own eloquence, "men can teach wimmen more in one day about criminal wickedness, graft, false witnessing, drunkenness, bribery, political corruption of all kinds, than she can learn from her own sect in months. Not but what," sez I reasonably, "she can learn some from some on 'em, but not nigh so much nor nigh so fast."

I didn't know but Samantha would take lumbago from my cuttin' remarks, but she didn't seem to. She took up her pan of peeled potates and prepared to leave the room. But as she went out she said sunthin' agin about that old Debatin' School, and the feller she always tried to git on the other side of the argument, so's to help her out. Showin' as plain as the nose on your face jest how queer wimmen are, how their minds will wander, and how impossible it is to keep 'em down to the subject under discussion.

V

WHEREIN I PROVE MAN'S COURTESY TOWARDS WIMMEN

In my tremenjous efforts to succor my sufferin' and women-hounded sect at this awful epock of time, I have already held forth on the beautiful and congenial subject of the love and protectin' care males have always loved to show towards females. But agin I take up my steeled pen to write upon this most important subject. For I agin warn my sect solemnly that this beautiful trait in me and us, is what we should enlarge upon, and insist on makin' the female sect admit at this epock of danger and revolt.

Yes, my sufferin' sect, we should make 'em own up to it, peacefully if we can, but if necessary let us insert it into their obstinate craniums with a crowbar and hammer. For though a weaker inteleck may not grasp its importance and extreme needecessity, it is plain to the eagle eye of a Researcher and Reformer of females that if they admit this, they have got to admit all that follers, the perfect peace and rest they feel surrounded by these noble traits as by a shinin' mantilly.

With this worthy end in view I've tried to warn Samantha time and agin that if females insisted on risin' up and demandin' their Rights they would become so obnoxious to the stronger and opposite sects that men would lose that tender courtesy they have always loved to show towards wimmen. But I've never been able to skair her, and I don't know as I ever shall. Mebby this Great Work of mine when it is finished and lanched onto a waitin' world may dant her, but, I don't know, I feel dubersome about it.

Sez she when I brung it up to her agin, "Men and wimmen are born with different traits; wimmen have love and tenderness and sympathy towards the helpless, babies, husbands, etc.; you insist that votin' hain't changed nor harmed men's courtesy and chivalry you talk so much about, so why should votin' break down these inborn traits in wimmen that men admire?"

"But you will see that it will," sez I, "and methought I had proved it to you on a former occasion that it is a scientific fact proved by such scientific men as myself, Simon Bentley Esq., and other deep thinkers, that the very minute a woman goes to the pole that very minute a man's courtesy and chivalry towards her is utterly destroyed."

But if you'll believe it even this turrible idee didn't seem to skair her. She sez, "If I can't have but one I'd ruther have justice than courtesy, but I'd like both, and don't see why I can't have 'em."

But I sez agin firmly and decisively, "You can't have both on 'em, for if a woman votes, by that brazen and onbecomin' move of hern, wimmen lose that winnin' weakness and appealin' charm for men, their helplessness before the law, and their clingin' dependence upon them to take care of them and their propputy that is so endearin' to my sect. And if they spile this by their obnoxious act of votin' they must take the awful consequences."

Sez Samantha, "It has worked well in other states; it has helped men, wimmen and children mentally, socially and legally. If it wuz such a dangerous thing as you say it is, why have men granted suffrage to wimmen after it has been tried for twenty years or more in a neighborin' state, right in their own dooryard as you may say? Would they venter if they hadn't found that it wuz a good thing?"

Sez I hautily, "I am not talkin' about other states or other countries, or other males or other females. I am working and writing in the interests of Jonesville and its environin' environs. I am tryin' to ward off with my right hand, and my steeled pen the waves of error that I see in my own mind sweepin' down nigher and nigher onto us."

And I went on with a soarin' eloquence enough to melt the heart of a salamander, "I stand at the Gate of Jonesville as the boy stood on the burnin' deck when all but him had flowed, and I will stand there protectin' that Gate, and us male Jonesvillians from infringin' and encroachin' females till I'm sot fire to."

I waved out my hand in a noble jester as I spoke, and spozed mebby it would touch Samantha's heart. But she looked at me over her specs from head to foot in the cool aggravatin' way wimmen have sometimes, and I read in her eyes the remark she didn't utter:

"You hain't big enough to make much of a bonfire."

But I didn't reply to that unuttered tant, I felt above it, and went on, "I am not the only man who takes that firm onchangeable position. England has a high official who occupies the same noble poster. He don't heed or care what females want or don't want, nor what other statesmen want or don't want. Nor he don't care what is goin' on in other parts of the world, or not goin' on. His proud position is to shield England from the encroachin' army of Female Suffragists. To do what he's made up his mind to do, and nothin' can't stop him, not threats, nor reason, nor argument, nor broken winders, nor torn coat tails. A good hard shakin' from a female can't change him, nor shake his resolve out of him, nor hunger strikes, nor fleein' wimmen, nor pursuin' ones. He stands side by side with me. And even if it brought the towers of Jonesville and England in ruins at our four feet we would not then change our two great minds.

"His bizness is to not look to see what is done in other places or not done, but to protect his own Green Isle from what he's made up his mind is dangerous and infringin'.

"Oh," sez I with a deep heart felt sithe, "would that we two congenial souls might meet and sympathize with each other. But though sea and land divides our bodies, our sperits meet and flow together." I wuz almost lost in the rapped idee of the sweet conference meetin' we two could enjoy together. But anon I gin my attention to the subject momentarily broke in upon (for my mind is so large and roomy it is big enough for several trains of thought to run through it at one time).

And I sez as I remarked prior and heretofore, "Samantha, that courtesy in males is a most beautiful trait; you see it everywhere, to mill and to meetin', as the old sayin' is. Now last week when I wuz to the conference, Uncle Sime and I wuz in a crowded street car and a dretful fat woman come in, heftier than you are, Samantha."

"Is it possible?" sez she coldly (she thinks I make light of her heft but I don't; it hain't nothin' to make light of, specially when you lift her in and out the democrat).

"Yes," sez I, "she wuz even fatter than you are, and she come in red-faced and pantin' from the exertion. And a young chap who had been settin' with two or three other young fellers carryin' on and laughin', the very minute she come wheezin' in, he riz up and sez to her:

"'I will be one of three men to give you a seat, madam.'

"You see, Samantha," sez I, "how that inborn courtesy in males inserted itself even in a street car."

"Yes, I see," sez Samantha in a still colder axent, but I could tell by her linement that she wuzn't a mite convinced. And I went on a praisin' up that noble trait of my sect, and tryin' to convince her how universal it wuz, and how turrible it would be for females to lose it, but she kep' on a knittin' on my blue sock, and sez in quite a reasonable axent for a female to use:

"Yes, to see a great hearted noble man guard and protect a woman is a beautiful sight, but," sez she, "that trait, though sometimes seen, is not universal."

Sez I, "It is; it is jest as universal as--as--any universalist ever wuz."