Chapter 5

“Well, the name is immaterial, but these labors, though pocket filling, are brain wearing. And of late I and the rest of our loyal henchmen have been worn out in our labors in tariff revision. You know how we claim to help the common people by the revision; you’ve probable read about it in the papers.”

“Yes,” sez I coldly, “I’ve hearn _talk_.”

“Yes,” sez he, “but if we do succeed, after the most strenious efforts in getting the duty off champagne, green turtle, olives, etc., and put on to sugar, tea, cotton cloth and such like, with all this brain fag and brain labor—”

“And tongue labor!” sez I in a icy axent.

“Yes, after all this ceaseless toil the common people will not show any gratitude; we statesmen labor oft with aching hearts.” And he leaned his forward on his hand and sithed.

But my looks wuz like ice-suckles on the north side of a barn. And I stopped his complaints and his sithes by askin’ in a voice that demanded a reply:

“Can you and will you do Serepta’s errents? Errents full of truth and justice and eternal right?”

He said he knew they wuz jest runnin’ over with them qualities, but happy as it would make him to do ’em, he had to refuse owin’ to the fur more important matters he had named, and the many, many other laws and preambles that he hadn’t time to name over to me. “Mebby you have heard,” sez he, “that we are now engaged in making most important laws concerning moth-millers, and minny fish, and hog cholera. And take it with these important bills and the constant strain on our minds in tryin’ to pass laws to increase our own salaries, you can see jest how cramped we are for time. And though we would love to pass some laws of truth and righteousness—we fairly ache to—yet not havin’ the requisite time we are forced to lay ’em on the table or under it.”

“Well,” sez I, “I guess I may as well be a-goin’.” And I bid him a cool goodbye and started for the door. But jest as my hand wuz on the nub he jumped up and opened the door, wearin’ that boughten second-hand smile agin on his linement, and sez he:

“Dear madam, perhaps Senator B. will do the errents for you.”

Sez I, “Where is Senator B.?” And he said I would find him at his Post of Duty at the Capitol.

“Well,” I said, “I will hunt up the Post,” and did. A grand enough place for a Emperor or a Zar is the Capitol of our great nation where I found him, a good natured lookin’ boy in buttons showin’ me the Post.

VII. “NO HAMPERIN’ HITCHIN’ STRAPS”

Well, Senator B. wanted to do the errents but said it wuz not his place, and sent me to Senator C., and he almost cried, he wanted to do ’em so bad, but stern duty tied him to his Post, he said, and he sent me to Senator D., and he _did_ cry onto his handkerchief, he wanted to do the errents so bad, and said it would be such a good thing to have ’em done. He bust right into tears as he said he had to refuse to do ’em. Whether they wuz wet tears or dry ones I couldn’t tell, his handkerchief wuz so big, but I hearn his sithes, and they wuz deep and powerful ones.

But as I sez to him, “Wet tears, nor dry ones, nor windy sithes didn’t help do the errents.” So I went on his sobbin’ advice to Senator E., and he wuz huffy and didn’t want to do ’em and said so. And said his wife had thirteen children, and wimmen instead of votin’ ort to go and do likewise.

And I told him it wouldn’t look well in onmarried wimmen and widders, and if they should foller her example folks would talk.

And he said, “They ort to marry.”

And I said, “As the fashion is now, wimmen had to wait for some man to ask ’em, and if they didn’t come up to the mark and ask ’em, who wuz to blame?”

He wouldn’t answer, and looked sulky, but honest, and wouldn’t tell me who to go to to git the errents done.

But jest outside his door I met the Senator I had left sobbin’ over the errents. He looked real hilarious, but drawed his face down when he ketched my eye, and sithed several times, and sent me to Senator F. and he sent me to Senator G.

And suffice it to say I wuz sent round, and talked to, and cried at, and sulked to, and smiled at and scowled at, and encouraged and discouraged, ’till my head swum and my knees wobbled under me. And with all my efforts and outlay of oratory and shue leather not one of Serepta Pester’s errents could I git done, and no hopes held out of their ever bein’ done. And about the middle of the afternoon I gin up, there wuz no use in tryin’ any longer and I turned my weary tracks towards the outside door. But as bad as I felt, I couldn’t help my sperit bein’ lifted up some by the grandeur about me.

Oh, my land! to stand in the immense hall and look up, and up, and see all the colors of the rain-bow and see what wonderful pictures there wuz up there in the sky above me as it were. Why, it seemed curiouser than any Northern lights I ever see in my life, and they stream up dretful curious sometimes. And as I walked through that lofty and most beautiful place and realized the size and majestic proportions of the buildin’ I wondered to myself that a small law, a little unjust law could ever be passed in such grand and magnificent surroundin’s. And I sez to myself, it can’t be the fault of the place anyway; the law-makers have a chance for their souls to soar if they want to, here is room and to spare to pass laws big as elephants and camels, and I wondered that they should ever try to pass laws as small as muskeeters and nats. Thinkses I, I wonder them little laws don’t git to strollin’ round and git lost in them magnificent corridors. But I consoled myself, thinkin’ it wouldn’t be no great loss if they did. But right here, as I wuz thinkin’ on these deep and lofty subjects, I met the good natured young chap that had showed me round and he sez:

“You look fatigued, mom.” (Soarin’ even to yourself is tuckerin’.) “You look very fatigued; won’t you take something?”

I looked at him with a curious silent sort of a look; for I didn’t know what he meant. Agin he looked clost at me and sort o’ pityin’; and sez he, “You look tired out, mom. Won’t you take something? Let me treat you to something; what will you take, mom?”

I thought he wuz actin’ dretful liberal, but I knew they had strange ways in Washington anyway. And I didn’t know but it wuz their way to make some present to every woman that comes there, and I didn’t want to act awkward and out of style, so I sez:

“I don’t want to take anything, and don’t see any reason why you should insist on’t. But if I have got to take sunthin’ I had jest as soon have a few yards of factory cloth as anything. That always comes handy.”

I thought that if he wuz determined to treat me to show his good feelin’s towards me, I would git sunthin’ useful and that would do me some good, else what wuz the good of bein’ treated? And I thought that if I had got to take a present from a strange man, I would make a shirt for Josiah out of it. I thought that would save jealousy and make it right so fur as goodness went.

“But,” sez he, “I mean beer or wine or liquor of some kind.”

I riz right up in my shues and dignity, and glared at him.

Sez he, “There is a saloon right here handy in the buildin’.”

Sez I in awful axents, “It is very appropriate to have it here handy!” Sez I, “Liquor duz more towards makin’ the laws of the United States from Caucus to Convention than anything else duz, and it is highly proper to have it here so they can soak the laws in it right off before they lay ’em onto the table or under ’em, or pass ’em onto the people. It is highly appropriate,” sez I.

“Yes,” sez he. “It is very handy for the Senators and Congressmen, and let me get you a glass.”

“No, you won’t!” sez I firmly. “The nation suffers enough from that room now without havin’ Josiah Allen’s wife let in.”

Sez he, “If you have any feeling of delicacy in goin’ in there, let me make some wine here. I will get a glass of water and make you some pure grape wine, or French brandy, or corn or rye whiskey. I have all the drugs right here.” And he took a little box out of his pocket. “My father is a importer of rare old wines, and I know just how it is done. I have ’em all here, Capsicum, Coculus Indicus, alum, copperas, strychnine; I will make some of the choicest, oldest, and purest imported liquors we have in the country, in five minutes if you say so.”

“No!” sez I firmly, “when I want to foller Cleopatra’s fashion and commit suicide, I will hire a rattlesnake and take my pizen as she did, on the outside.”

Well, I got back to Hiram Cagwin’s tired as a dog, and Serepta’s errents ondone. But my conscience opholded me and told me I had done my very best, and man or woman can do no more.

Well, the next day but one wuz the big outdoor suffrage meetin’. And we sot off in good season, Hiram feelin’ well enough to be left with the hired help. Polly started before we did with some of her college mates, lookin’ pretty as a pink with a red rose pinned over a achin’ heart, so I spoze, for she loved the young man who wuz out with another girl May-flowering. Burnin’ zeal and lofty principle can’t take the place in a woman’s heart of love and domestic happiness, and men needn’t be afraid it will. There is no more danger on’t than there is of a settin’ hen wantin’ to leave her nest to be a commercial traveler. Nature has made laws for wimmen and hens that no ballot, male or female, can upset.

Josiah and Lorinda and I went in the trolley in good season, so’s to git a sightly place, Lorinda protestin’ all the time aginst the indelicacy and impropriety of wimmen’s appearin’ in outdoor meetin’s, forgittin’, I spose, the dense procession of wimmen that fills the avenues every day, follerin’ Fashion and Display. As nigh as I could make out the impropriety consisted in wimmen’s follerin’ after Justice and Right.

Josiah’s face looked dubersome. I guess he wuz worryin’ over his offer to represent me, and thinkin’ of Aunt Susan and the twins.

But as it turned out I met Diantha while Josiah wuz in a shop buyin’ some peppermint lozengers, and she said her niece had come from the West, and they got along all right. So that lifted my burden. But I thought best not to tell Josiah, as he wuz so bound to represent me. I thought it wouldn’t do any hurt to let him think it over about the job a man took on himself when he sot out to represent a woman. They wouldn’t like it in lots of ways, as willin’ as they seem to be in print.

Wimmen go through lots of things calm and patient that would make a man flinch and shy off like a balky horse, and visey versey. I wouldn’t want to represent Josiah lots of times, breakin’ colts, ploughin’ greensward, cuttin’ cord-wood etc., etc. Men and wimmen want equal legal rights to represent themselves and their own sex which are different, and always must be, and both sexes don’t want to be hampered and sot down on by the other one. That is gauldin’ to human nater, male or female.

We got a good place nigh the speakers’ stand, and we hadn’t stood there long before the parade hove in sight, the yeller banners streamin’ out like sunshine on a rainy day, police outriders, music, etc.

More than a hundred automobiles led the parade and five times as many wimmen walkin’ afoot. A big grand-stand with the lady speakers and their friends on it, all dressed pretty as pinks. For the old idee that suffragists don’t care for attractive dress and domestic life wuz exploded long ago, and many other old superstitions went up in the blaze.

Those of us who have gray hair can remember when if a man spoke favorably of women’s rights the sarcastic question was asked him: “How old is Susan B. Anthony?”

And this fine wit and cuttin’ ridicule would silence argument and quench the spirit of the upholder.

But the world moves. Susan’s memory is beloved and revered, and the contemptious ridicule of the onthinkin’ and ignorant only nourished the laurels the world lays on her tomb.

At that time accordin’ to popular opinion a suffragist wuz a slatternly woman with uncombed locks, dangling shoe strings, and bloomers, stridin’ through an unswept house onmindful of dirty children or hungry husband, but the world moves onward and public opinion with it. Suffragists are the best mothers, the best housekeepers, the best dressers of any wimmen in the land. Search the records and you’ll find it so, and why?

Because they know sunthin’, it takes common sense to make a gooseberry pie as it ort to be. And the more a woman knows and the more justice she demands, the better for her husband. The same sperit that rebels at tyranny and injustice rebels at dirt, disorder, discomfort, and all unpleasant conditions.

I looked ahead with my mind’s eye and see them pretty college girls settled down in pleasant homes of their own, where sanitary laws prevailed, where the babies wuzn’t fed pickles and cabbage, and kep’ in air-tight enclosures. Where the husbands did not have to go outside their own homes to find cheer and comfort, and intelligent conversation, and where Love and Common Sense walked hand in hand toward Happiness and Contentment, Justice, with her blinders offen her eyes, goin’ ahead on ’em. I never liked the idee of Justice wearin’ them bandages over her eyes. She ort to have both eyes open; if anybody ever needed good eyesight she duz, to choose the straight and narrer road, lookin’ backward to see the mistakes she has made in the past, so’s to shun ’em in the future, and lookin’ all round her in the present to see where she can help matters, and lookin’ fur off in the future to the bright dawn of a Tomorrow. To the shinin’ mount of Equal Rights and full Liberty. Where she sees men and wimmen standin’ side by side with no halters or hamperin’ hitchin’ straps on either on ’em. He more gentle and considerate, and she less cowardly and emotional.

Good land! what could Justice do blind in one eye and wimmen on the blind side? But good sensible wimmen are reachin’ up and pullin’ the bandages offen her eyes. She’s in a fair way to git her eyesight. But I’m eppisodin’, and to resoom forward.

VIII. “OLD MOM NATER LISTENIN’”

There wuz some pleasant talkin’ and jokin’ between bystanders and suffragettes, and then some good natured but keen and sensible speeches. And one pretty speaker told about the doin’s at Albany and Washington. How women’s respectful pleas for justice are treated there. How the law-makers, born and nussed by wimmen and dependent on ’em for comfort and happiness, use the wimmen’s tax money to help make laws makin’ her of no legal importance only as helpless figgers to hang taxation and punishment on.

Old Mom Nater had been listenin’ clost, her sky-blue eyes shinin’ with joy to see her own sect present such a noble appearance in the parade. But when these insults and indignities wuz brung up to her mind agin and she realized afresh how wimmen couldn’t git no more rights accorded to her than a dog or a hen, and worse. For a hen or a dog wouldn’t be taxed to raise money for turkle soup and shampain to nourish the law-makers whilst they made the laws agin ’em—Mom Nater’s eyes clouded over with indignation and resentment, and she boo-hooed right out a-cryin’. Helpless tears, of no more account than other females have shed, and will, as they set on their hard benches with idiots, lunaticks, and criminals.

Of course she wiped up her tears pretty soon, not willin’ to lose any of the wimmen’s bright speeches. But when her tear-drops fell fast, Josiah sez to me, “You’ll see them wimmen run like hikers now, wimmen always thought more of shiffon and fol-de-rols than they did of principle.”

But I sez, “Wait and see,” (we wuz under a awnin’ and protected).

But the young and pretty speaker who wore a light silk dress and exquisite bunnet, kep’ right on talkin’ jest as calmly as if she didn’t know her pretty dress wuz bein’ spilte and her bunnet gittin’ wet as sop, and I sez to Josiah:

“When wimmen are so in earnest, and want anything so much they can stand soakin’ in their best dresses, and let their Sunday bunnets be spilte on their heads, not noticin’ ’em seemin’ly, but keep right on pleadin’ for right and justice, they are in a fair way of gittin’ what they are after.”

He looked kinder meachin’ but didn’t dispute me.

The speeches wuz beautiful and convincin’, and pretty soon old Mom Nater stopped cryin’ to hear ’em, and she and I both listened full of joy and happiness to see with what eloquence and justice our sect wuz pleadin’ our cause. Their arguments wuz so reasonable and convincin’ that I said to myself, I don’t see how anybody can help bein’ converted to this righteous cause, the liftin’ up of wimmen from her uncomfortable crouchin’ poster with criminals and idiots, up to the place she should occupy by the side of other good citizens of the United States, with all the legal and moral rights that go with that noble title.

And right whilst I wuz thinkin’ this, sunthin’ wuz happenin’ that proved I wuz right in my eppisodin’, and somebody awful sot agin it wuz bein’ converted then and there (but of this more anon and bom-bye). We stayed till we heard the last word of the last speech, I happy and proud in sperit, Lorinda partly converted, she couldn’t help it, though she wouldn’t own up to it at that juncter. And Josiah lookin’ real deprested, the thought of representin’ me wuz worryin’ him I knew, for I hearn him say (soty vosy), “Represent wimmen or not, I hain’t goin’ to set up all night with no old woman, and lift her round, nor dry nuss no twins.”

And thinkin’ his sperit wuz pierced to a sufficient depth by his apprehension, so reason could be planted and take root, and he wouldn’t be so anxious in the future to represent a woman, I told him what Diantha said and we all went home in good sperits. The sun shone clear, the rain had washed the face of the Earth till it shone, and everything looked gay and joyous.

When we got to Lorinda’s we see a auto standin’ in front of the door full of flowery branches in front and the pink posies lookin’ no more bright and rosy than the faces of the two young folks settin’ there. It wuz Polly and Royal.

It seemed that when he and Maud got back from the country (and they didn’t stay long, Royal wuz so restless and oneasy) Maud insisted on his takin’ her to the suffrage meetin’ jest to make fun on’t, so I spoze. She thought she had rubbed out Polly’s image and made a impression herself on Royal’s heart that only needed stompin’ in a little deeper, and she thought ridicule would be the stomper she needed.

But when they got to the meetin’ and he see Polly settin’ like a lily amongst flowers, and read in her lovely face the earnest desire to lift the burden from the heavy laden, comfort the sorrowful, right the wrong, and do what she could in her day and generation—

I spoze his eyes could only see her sweet face. But he couldn’t help his ears from hearin’ the reasonable, eloquent words of earnest and womanly wimmen, so full of good sense and truth and justice that no reasonable person could dispute ’em, and when he contrasted all this with the sneerin’ face, the sarcastic egotistic prattle of Maud, the veil dropped from his eyes, and he see with the New Vision.

You know how it wuz with Saul the Scoffer who went breathin’ out vengeance, and Eternal Right stopped him on his way with its great light. Well, I spoze it wuz a bright ray from that same light that shone down into Royal’s heart and made him see. He wuz always good hearted and generous—men have always been better than the laws they have made. He left Maud at her home not fur away and hastened back, way-laid Polly, and bore her home in triumph and a thirty-horse-power car.

It don’t make much difference I spoze how or where anybody is converted. The Bible speaks of some bein’ ketched out of the fire, and I spoze it is about the same if they are ketched out of the rain. ’Tennyrate the same rain that washed some of the color off Maud’s cheeks, seemed to wash away the blindin’ mist of prejudice and antagonism from Royal’s mental vision, leavin’ his sperit ready for the great white light of truth and justice to strike in. And that very day and hour he come round to Polly’s way of thinkin’, and bein’ smart as a whip and so rich, I suppose he will be a great accusation to the cause.

Well, the next day but one the Allens met in a pleasant grove on the river shore and we had a good growin’ time. Royal bein’ as you may say one of the family, took us all to the grove in his big tourin’ car, and the fourth trip he took Polly alone, and wuzn’t it queer that, though the load wuz fur lighter, it took him three times as long as the other three trips together? Why, they never got there till dinner wuz on the table, and then they didn’t seem to care a mite about the extra good food.

But I made allowances, for as I looked into their glowin’ faces I knowed they wuz partakin’ of fruit from the full branches of first love, true love. Rich fruit that gives the divinest satisfaction of any this old earth affords. Food that never changes through the centuries, though fashion often changes, and riotous plenty or food famine may exalt or depress the sperit of the householder. Nothin’ but time has any power over this divine fruitage. He gradually, as the light of the honeymoon wanes, whets his old scythe and mows down some of the luxuriant branches, either cuttin’ a full swath, or one at a time, and the blessed consumers have to come down to the ordinary food of mortals. But this wuz still fur away from them.

And I knowed too that the ordinary food of ordinary mortals partook of under the full harvest moon of domestic comfort and contentment wuz not to be despised, though fur different. And the light fur different from the glow and the glamour that wropped them two together and all the rest of the world away from ’em.

But I’m eppisodin’ too much, and to resoom forward.

As I said, we had a happy growin’ time at the Reunion, Josiah bein’ in fine feather to see the relation on his side presentin’ such a noble appearance. And like a good wife I sympathized with him in his pride and happiness, though I told him they didn’t present any better appearance than the same number of Smiths would. And their cookin’, though excellent, wuz no better than the Smiths could cook if they sot out to.

He bein’ so good natered didn’t dispute me outright, but said he thought the Allens made better nut-cakes than the Smiths.

But they don’t, no such thing. In fact I think the Smith nut-cakes are lighter and have a more artistic twist to ’em and don’t devour so much fat a-fryin’.

But I’d hate to set Josiah down to any better vittles. I d’no as I would dast let him loose at the table at a Smith reunion, for he eat fur too much as it wuz. I had to give him five pepsin lozengers and some pepper tea. And then I looked out all night for night mairs to ride on his chist. But he come through it alive though with considerable pain.

We stayed two or three days longer with Lorinda, and then she and Hiram went part way with us as we visited our way home. We’ve got relations livin’ all along the river that we owed visits to. And we went to see a number of ’em and enjoyed our four selves first rate. These things all took place more than a year ago and another man sets in the high chair, before which I laid Serepta’s errents, a man not so hefty mebby weighed by common steelyards, but one of noble weight judged by mental and moral scales.