Samantha on the Woman Question Part 7

"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 f.a.g 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 grat.i.tude; 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 pa.s.s laws to increase our own salaries, you can see jest how cramped we are for time.

And though we would love to pa.s.s 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 b.u.t.tons 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s laws big as elephants and camels, and I wondered that they should ever try to pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s '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 gla.s.s."

"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 gla.s.s 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, Capsic.u.m, 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 s.e.x which are different, and always must be, and both s.e.xes 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 superst.i.tions 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.