Part 27
“And after they have done, let ’em lay that telescope down, and say that wimmen don’t know enough, and haint sound-minded enough to vote; jest let ’em say it if they dare! And wimmen, too; why! her example ort to stand up in life, before some vain, frivolous wimmen I could mention—wimmen that don’t believe in havin’ a right—jest as plain as if it was worked on a canvas sampler, with a cross stitch, and hung up in their kitchens. A young woman, crowned with all the glory and honor the world could give, devotin’ her life first to God, and then to the good of her people; carryin’ her Right jest as stiddy and level as a Right ever was carried; faithful to all her duties, public and private; her brightest crown, the crown of true motherhood; no more truly the mother of princes, than mother of England. Why, the farm she had left to her by her uncle George, is so big that the sun don’t never go down on it; larger in dimensions than we can hardly think on with our naked minds; and all over that enormous farm of hern, the flowers turn no more constant to that sun, and that sun is no more consolin’ and inspirin’ to them flowers, than is the thought of this kind, gracious lady to them that work her farm on shares. Why! her memory, the memory of a woman—who had a Right—will go down to future ages as one to be revered, and almost worshiped.”
But if you’ll believe it, after all my outlay of politeness, and good manners, that feller acted mad. What under the sun ailed him I don’t know to this day, unless it was he couldn’t git over it—my praising up his mother-in-law so. Some men are at such sword’s pints with their mother-in-laws that they can’t bear a word in their favor. But I wasn’t goin’ to encourage no such feelins in him, and I was determined to be polite myself, to the last, so I says in conclusion: “Good-bye, Mr. Lorne, give my best respects to your mother-in-law.”
He give me a look witherin’ enough to wither me, if I had been easy withered, which I wasn’t. And that was the last words I said to him. Jest that minute Josiah come in, and I told him that I hadn’t no idee the Marquis of Lorne was such a feller.
Says Josiah, “I don’t believe it was Mark, it was some tyke or other; mebby it was the Widder’s hired man.”
I wouldn’t contend with him, but I knew what I did know. I went to lookin’ at some of the other pictures. There was faces that was glad and happy, and some that had desolation wrote out on ’em. There was one picture, “War Times” that made me feel very sad feelins; an old man leanin’ on a rough stun fence, lookin’ over the lonely winter fields, and thinkin’ of his boys away on the field of death—the boys that made the old farm jubilant with their happy voices and gay young faces. You can see it all in the old man’s face—the memory, the dread, and the heartache. And then there was another one “La Rota,” by name that worked on my feelins dretfully. A mother standin’ before a foundlin’ hospital, jest about puttin’ her baby into the little turnin’ box in the winder that would turn him forever from his mother’s arms into the arms of charity, which are colder. After that one kiss on the baby face, she would never see him, never know of his fate; he would be as lost to her as if she had lost him in the crowd of heavenly childern; though in that case she would know where he was: safe forever from sin and misery, and here—how could she tell what would be the baby’s fate. Oh, how bad La Rota was a feelin’; how I did pity her.
And then there was “The Prodigal,” a comin’ back in rags, and misery, and remorse, to the home he left in his pride and strength; and to see that old father a waitin’ to welcome him, and the feeble old mother bein’ helped out by her sons and daughters—a forgivin’ of him. Oh, what a idee that did give of the long sufferin’ and patience of love.
Finally, my eyes fell onto a picture that affected me more than any I had seen as yet. The name on’t was: “The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord.” They had gathered round the table for the first time since death had been there, and the minister was askin’ a blessin’. A woman sat at the head of the table with her hands clasped close, as if to crush back her agony; her face white and thin from watchin’ and sorrow—jest as a certain person’s would be if it was Josiah,—her eyes bent down, jest as if she _could not_ look at that vacant chair. On one side of her with his face bent down in grief, was a young feller about the age of Thomas Jefferson; on the other side, a girl about the age of Tirzah Ann, was kneelin’ right down by the table a sobbin’ as if her heart would break. And as I looked at it the thought would come up, though I ordered it back, “What! what if it was Josiah?” And this thought rousted up such feelins that I couldn’t control ’em, and I turned round instinctively and locked arms with him, and we went into another room.
Presently, or about that time we found ourselves in the French Department. I laid out to pay a good deal of attention to France, whether they showed off in the Main Buildin’ or Art Gallery, or anywhere; because, wherever I stood before their doins,—above all the beauty and grandeur of their display, I see with my mind’s eye, that gallant form that left glory and happiness behind him to come with army and treasure to help a strugglin’ land to freedom. I see that noble face—not middle-aged and brass-mounted as he looks on his monument, but young and eager eyed—a standin’ on the vessel’s keel, (or keeler) a goin’ at Liberty’s call, into a New World, and the perils and hardships of a camp; and wavin’ back a good bye to the gay pleasures of his youth, to rank, and all he loved best—his sweetheart and his native land.
I feel most skairt to say it, and don’t know as I ort to, but somehow I feel a little different about Layfayette from what I do about our own glorious Washington. For G. W. was a fightin’ for his own land, and there was most likely a little mite of selfishness mixed up with his noble emotions, (probable not more than one part in two or three hundred) but in this noble young feller these wasn’t a mite. He give all, and dared all, from pure love of Liberty, and sympathy for the oppressed. And so France’s hull doins would have looked good to me anyway for his sake. But if they had stood up on their own merits alone they would have stood firm and solid as a hemlock post newly sot. They done well, clear from the ceilin’ down. There was one picture, there was a great crowd before, and amongst the rest I see the “Creation Searchers” a standin’ in a row, a gazin up at it with a dissatisfied though nearly wooden expression of countenance. The picture was “Rizpah Defendin’ the bodies of Saul’s childern from the Eagles;” it affected me terribly—I thought of Thomas Jefferson. The wild desolation of the spot, the great beams a risin’ out of the rocks with the seven dead bodies a hangin’ up in the air—left there to die of hunger and agony,—with the slow death of agonizin’ horrer wrote out on their dead faces and their stiffened forms. And beneath them standin’ with her yeller dress and blue drapery a floatin’ back from her, is Rizpah, fightin’ back a huge vulture that with terrible open mouth and claws is contendin’ with her for the bodies of her sons. They were slain to avert the famine, and there is in her face the strength of the martyr, and the energy of despair. How that woman, so strong, so heroic by nature must have loved her two boys! It was a horrible, scareful picture but fearfully impressive. When I look at anything very beautiful, or very grand and impressive, my emotions lift me clear up above speech. I s’pose the higher we go up the less talkin’ there is done. Why if anybody could feel sociable and talkative when they first look at that picture, I believe they could swear, they wouldn’t be none too good for it. But jest at that minute when I was feelin’ so awful horrified, and lifted up, and curious, and sublime and everything, I heerd a voice sayin’ in a pert lively tone, but very scorfin’,
“That haint true to nater at all.”
“No,” says Solomon Cypher in a complainin’, fault-findin’ way, “there’s nothin’ natteral about it at all. Why!” says he strikin’ himself a eloquent blow in the pit of his stomach—“why didn’t they hang the scarecrows nearer to the cornfield?”
“And I never,” says Cornelius Cork, a holdin’ his glasses on with both hands—for his nose bein’ but small, they would fall off—“I never see a crow that looked like that; it haint shaped right for a crow.”
“The perspective of the picture haint the right size,” says Shakespeare Bobbet.
“The tone is too low down,” says Solomon Cypher; “the cheerful obscure is too big and takes up too much room.”
“Cheerful obscure,” says I in witherin’ tones, as I looked round at ’em.
“Don’t you think we know what we are a talkin’ about Josiah Allen’s wife?” says Solomon Cypher.
“I wont say that you don’t,” says I “for it wouldn’t be good manners.” I wouldn’t stay another minute where they was, and I hurried Josiah out tellin’ him Miss Bean would be a waitin’ for us at the Japan house. I told Josiah on our way that them “Creation Searchers” fairly sickened me, a runnin’ things down, and pretendin’ not to admire ’em, and lookin’ wooden, and findin’ fault.
[Sidenote: THE SPIRITUALIST]
“Well,” says Josiah, “they say they have got a reputation for wisdom to keep up, and they will do it.”
“They are keepin’ up the reputation of natteral fools,” says I warmly.
“Well,” says Josiah with that same triumphant look to his mean he always wore when we talked on this subject, “if there haint anything in it Samantha, why does so many do it?”
He had got the better of me for once, and he knew it. I knew well there was hundreds of folks that got up on big reputation in jest that way, so I wouldn’t multiply another word with him, for I couldn’t.
[Sidenote: THE WIMMEN’S PAVILION]
Josiah said he wanted to look at a mowin’ machine, and as I hadn’t been to the Woman’s Pavilion only to take a cursory view of it, I thought now was my time, and so I went through it with a proud and happy heart. Yes, I can truly say without lyin’ that my emotions as I went through that buildin’ was larger in size and heftier in weight than any emotions I had enjoyed sense I had been to the Sentinal. Feelin’ such feelins for my sect as I felt, holdin’ their honor and prosperity, and success nearer to my heart, than to any earthly object, (exceptin’ Josiah) I suppose if anybody could have looked inside of my mind as I wandered through them rooms, they would have seen a sight they never would have forgot the longest day they ever lived; I s’pose it would have skairt ’em most to death if they wasn’t used to seein’ emotions performin’. Oh! such proud and lofty feelins as I did enjoy a seein’ the work of my sect from all over the length and breadth of the world. The wonderful, useful inventions of the sect, showin’ the power and solid heft of her brains; the beautiful works of art showin’ her creative artist soul, and provin’ plain the healthy and vigorous state of her imagination. The wonderful wood carvin’, and dainty fancy needle work, and embroideries of all kinds you can imagine, showin’ the stiddy, patient, persistent powers of her hands and fingers; and what was fur more interestin’ to me of all, was the silent exhibit at the south entrance, showin’ what sort of a heart she has within her, a record of eight hundred and twenty-two large noble sized charities, organized and carried on by the sect which a certain person once Smith, is proud to say she belongs to.
Oh! I can truly say that I felt perfectly beautiful, a goin’ through them noble halls, a seein’ everything and more too, (as it were) from doll’s shoes, and pictures of poseys, and squirrels, and five little pigs, up to the Vision of St. Christopher, and a big statute of Eve standin’ with her arm over her face, hidin’ the shame in it. There was Injun basket work, perfectly beautiful, and settin’ by the side of it weavin’ her baskets sot as dignified and good appearin’ a woman, (though dark complexioned) as any nation of the world sent to the Sentinal. I bought a little basket of her right there on the spot, for I liked her looks, and she handed me out her card:
Margaret Kesiah, Obkine Injun of Canada.
And there was napkins, the linen of which was wove by my friend, the Widder Albert; and as I looked at ’em, I thought gently to myself: how many wimmen who haint got a Right, and don’t want one, could spin linen equal to this? And then amongst every other way to honor and glorify my sect that could be thought of, there was a female woman all carved out of butter. I had thought in my proud spirited hautiness of soul that I could make as handsome butter balls, and flower ’em off as nobby as any other woman of the age. But as I looked at that beautiful roll of butter all flattened out into such a lovely face, I said to myself in firm axents, though mild: “Samantha, you have boasted your last boast over butter balls.”
There was some bright happy pictures, and some that wasn’t. One was of a sick child and its mother out in the desert alone with the empty water jug standin’ by ’em. The mother holdin’ the feeble little hands, and weepin’ over him. Her heart was a desert, and she was in a desert, which made it hard for her, and hard for me too, and I was jest puttin’ my hand into my pocket after my white cotton handkerchief, when somebody kinder hunched me in the side, and lookin’ round, there was that very female lecturer I see at New York village. Says she: “Come out where it is more quiet, Josiah Allen’s wife; I want to have a little talk with you.”
[Sidenote: THE FEMALE LECTURER]
She looked perfectly full of talk, but says I: “I haint only jest commenced lookin’ round at the splendid doins in this buildin’;” says I, “I don’t want to stir out of this house for 13 or 14 hours.”
Says she, “You can come again, but I _must_ have a talk with you.”
Says I, “Feelin’ as I do, wont you excuse me mom?”
But she wouldn’t excuse me, and seein’ she was fairly sufferin’ to talk, I led the way to a rendezvoo where I promised Josiah to be, not knowin’ how long she would talk when she got at it, for—though I am very close mouthed myself—I know well the failins of my sect in that respect. The very moment we sot down on the pleasant and secluded bench I took her to, she begun:
“What do you think of men meetin’ here to celebrate National Independance and the right of self-government, when they hold half of their own race in political bondage?”
Says I, firmly, “I think it is a mean trick in ’em.”
Says she, bitterly: “Can’t you say sunthin’ more than that?”
“Yes,” says I, “I can, and will; it is mean as pusly, and meaner.”
Says she, “What do you think of their meetin’ here and glorifyin’ the sentiment up to the heavens in words, ‘true government consists in the consent of the governed’ and tramplin’ it practically down to the dust under their feet? What do you think of this great ado over grantin’ the makin’ of our laws to the Irishman jest out of prison, whom they dislike and despise—and denyin’ these rights to intelligent, native-born citizens, whom they love and respect? What do you think of their taxin’ the Christian and earnest souled woman, worth half a million, and leave it to men, not worth the shoes they wear to the pole, the ignorant, and the vicious, to vote how that money shall be used; she, by the work of her hands or brains, earnin’ property to be used in this way, in makin’ and enforcin’ laws she despises and believes to be ruinous, and unjust in the sight of God and man. What do you think of this?” says she.
Says I, with a calm but firm dignity: “I think pusly is no meaner.”
“Oh!” says she, turnin’ her nose in the direction of the Main Buildin’ and shakin’ her brown lisle thread fist at it, “how I despise men! Oh, how sick I be of ’em!” And she went on for a long length of time, a callin’ ’em every name I ever heerd men called by, and lots I never heerd on, from brutal whelps, and roarin’ tyrants, down to lyin’ sneakin’ snipes; and for every new and awful name she’d give ’em, I’d think to myself: why, my Josiah is a man, and Father Smith was a man, and lots of other relatives, and 4 fathers on my father’s side. And so says I:
“Sister, what is the use of your runnin’ men so?” says I, mildly, “it is only a tirin’ yourself; you never will catch ’em, and put the halter of truth onto ’em, while you are a runnin’ ’em so fearfully; it makes ’em skittish and baulky.” Says I, “Men are handy in a number of ways, and for all you seem to despise ’em so, you would be glad to holler to some man if your horse should run away, or your house git a fire, or the ship go to sinkin’, or anything.”
Says she, “Men are the most despiseable creeters that ever trod shoe leather.”
“Well,” says I, calmly, “take wimmen as a race, mom, and they don’t cherish such a deadly aversion to the other sect as you seem to make out they do; quite the reverse and opposite. Why, I have seen wimmen act so, a follerin’ of ’em up, pursuin’ of ’em, clingin’ to ’em, smilin’ almost vacantly at ’em; I have seen ’em act and behave till it was more sickenin’ than thoroughwort to my moral stomach.” Says I, “I cherish no such blind and almost foolish affection for ’em as a sect, (one, I almost worship) but I have a firm, reasonable, meetin’-house esteem for ’em, as a race. A calm, firm regard, unmoved and stiddy as a settin’ hen; I see their faults, plainly, very—as my Josiah will testify and make oath to; and I also see their goodnesses, their strength, their nobilities, and their generosities—which last named are as much more generous than ourn, as their strength is stronger.”
Says I, “Pause a moment, mom, in your almost wild career of runnin’ men down, to think what they have done; look round the world with your mind’s eye, and see their work on land and sea. See the nations they have founded; see the cities stand where there used to be a wilderness: see the deserts they have made to blossom like a rosy; see the victories they have got over time and space,—talkin’ from one end of the world to the other in a minute, and travellin’ almost as quick, through mountains and under the water, and every thing. See how old ocian herself—who used to roar defiance at ’em—was made by ’em to bile herself up into steam to git the victory over herself. And in spite of the thunder that tried to scare ’em out, see how they have drawrd the lightnin’ out of the heavens to be their servant. Look there,” says I, pintin’ my forefinger eloquently towards the main Halls: Machinery, Agricultural—and so 4th—“see the works of that sect you are runnin’ so fearfully; see their time-conquerin’, labor-savin’ inventions, see—”
“I won’t see,” says she, firmly, and bitterly. “I won’t go near any of their old machines; I’ll stand by my sect, I’ll stick to the Woman’s Pavilion. I haint been nigh Machinery Hall, nor the Main Buildin’, nor the Art Gallery, nor I won’t neither.”
“I have,” says I, in triumphant, joyful tones, “I have been lost in ’em repeatedly, and expect to be again. I have been destracted and melted down in ’em, and have been made almost perfectly happy, for the time bein’, to see the wonderful fruits of men’s intellects; the labor of strong heads and hearts; to see the works of men’s genius, and enterprise, and darin’; the useful, the beautiful and grand, the heroic and sublime. Why I have been so lifted up that I didn’t know but I should go right up through the ruff, (over 200 pounds in all). I have been elevated and inspired as I don’t expect to be elevated and lifted up again for the next 100 years. And lookin’ round on what I see, and thinkin’ what I thought, it made me so proud and happy, that it was a sweet thought to me that my Josiah was a man.”
“Oh shaw!” says she, “you had better be a lookin’ at the Woman’s Pavilion, than lookin’ on what them snipes have done.”
Says I, “Do you take me for a natteral fool mom? Do you s’pose I am such a fool or such a luny, that every time I have looked at the Woman’s Pavilion, and gloried over the works of her hands and brains, I haint felt jest so—only more so?” Says I, “That buildin’ stands there to-day as a solid and hefty proof that wimmen are sunthin’ more than the delicate, and helpless zephyrs and seraphines, that they have been falsely pointed out to be.” Says I, “It is a great scientific fact, that if men go to canterin’ blindly down that old pathway of wimmen’s weakness and unfitness for labor and endurance and inability to meet financikal troubles and discouragements again, they must come bunt up ag’inst that buildin’ and recognize it as a solid fact, and pause before it respectfully, ponderin’ what it means, or else fall. They can’t step over it, their legs haint long enough.”
And says I, “It is earnest thought and work that has filled it, and that is what wimmen want to do—to do more, and say less. No stream can rise higher than its fountain; a universe full of laws to elevate wimmen can’t help her, unless she helps herself. Sufferagin’ will do a good deal, but it haint a goin’ to fill up a empty soul, or a vacant frivolous mind. There are thoughts that have got to turn right square round and travel another road; there is tattin’ and bobinet lace to be soared over; there is shoulder blades that has got to be put to the wheel. Every flag on the buildin’ seems to float out like good deeds and noble eloquent thoughts, while the gabriel ends stand firm under ’em, like the firm, solid motives and principles that great and good deeds have got to wave out from, in order to amount to anything.”
“But,” says she, “the mean snipes won’t let us vote.”
Says I calmly, “That’s so; they haint willin’ all on ’em, to give us the right of sufferagin’ jest at present, and as I have said, and say now, it is mean as pusly in ’em. But it don’t look so poor in them as it does in the wimmen that oppose it, a fightin’ ag’inst their own best interests. It seems to me that any conscientious, intelligent woman, who took any thought for herself and her sect, would want a Right to—”
Here she hollered right out interruptin’ me; says she: “Less vote! less take a hammer and go at the men, and make them let us vote this minute.”
Says I, “I’d love to convince men of the truth, but it haint no use to take a hammer and try to knock unwelcome truths into anybody’s head, male or female. The idee may be good, and the hammer may be a moral, well meanin’ hammer; but you see the dander rises up in the head that is bein’ hit, and makes a impenetrable wall, through which the idee can’t go; that is a great philosophical fact, that can’t be sailed round, or climbed over. And it is another deep scientific principle, that you can’t git two persons to think any more of each other or think any nearer alike by knockin’ their heads together. Nobody can git any water by breakin’ up a chunk of ice with a axe; not a drop; you have got to thaw it out gradual; jest like men’s and wimmen’s prejudices in the cause of Wimmen’s Rights. Public sentiment is the warm fire that is a goin’ to melt this cold hard ice of injustice that we are contendin’ ag’inst; laws haint good for much if public opinion don’t stand behind ’em pushin’ ’em onward to victory.”
“I wont wait a minute,” says she, “I will vote.”