Part 10 (1/2)

And in my mind I drawed pictures of the different modes of our American women and our English sisters, each workin' for the same cause, but in what a different manner. Of course, our English sisters may have more reason for their militant doin's; more unjust laws regarding marriage--divorce, and care of children, and I can't blame them married females for wantin' to control their own money, specially if they earnt it by scrubbin' floors and was.h.i.+n'. I can't blame 'em for not wantin' their husbands to take that money from them and their children, specially if they're loafers and drunkards. And, of course, there are no men so n.o.ble and generous as our American men. But jest lookin' at the matter from the outside and comparin'

the two, I wuz proud indeed of our Suffragists.

While our English sisters feel it their duty to rip and tear, burn and pillage, to draw attention to their cause, and reach the gole (which I believe they have sot back for years) through the smoke and fire of carnage, our American Suffragettes employ the gentle, convincin' arts of beauty and reason. Some as the quiet golden suns.h.i.+ne draws out the flowers and fruit from the cold bosom of the earth. Mindin' their own business, antagonizin' and troublin' no one, they march along and show to every beholder jest how earnest they be. They quietly and efficiently answer that argument of the She Auntys, that women don't want to vote, by a parade two hours in length, of twenty thousand. They answer the argument that the ballot would render women careless in dress and reckless, by organizin'

and carryin' on a parade so beautiful, so harmonious in color and design that it drew out enthusiastic praise from even the enemies of Suffrage.

They quietly and without argument answered the old story that women was...o...b..siness-like and never on time, by startin' the Parade the very minute it was announced, which you can't always say of men's parades.

It wuz a burnin' hot day, and many who'd always argued that women hadn't strength enough to lift a paper ballot, had prophesied that woman wuz too delicately organized, too ”fraguile,” as Betsy Bobbet would say, to endure the strain of the long march in the torrid atmosphere.

But I told Josiah that women had walked daily over the burning plow shares of duty and domestic tribulation, till their feet had got calloused, and could stand more'n you'd think for.

And he said he didn't know as females had any more burnin' plow shares to tread on than men had.

And I sez, ”I didn't say they had, Josiah. I never wanted women to get more praise or justice than men. I simply want 'em to get as much--just an even amount; for,” sez I, solemnly, ”'male and female created He them.'”

Josiah is a deacon, and when I quote Scripture, he has to listen respectful, and I went on: ”I guess it wuz a surprise even to the marchers that of all the ambulances that kept alongside the Parade to pick up faint and swoonin' females, the only one occupied wuz by a man.”

Josiah denied it, but I sez, ”I see his boots stickin' out of the ambulance myself.” Josiah couldn't dispute that, for he knows I am truthful. But he sez, sunthin' in the sperit of two little children I hearn disputin'. Sez one: ”It wuzn't so; you've told a lie.”

”Well,” sez the other, ”You broke a piece of china and laid it to me.”

Sez Josiah, ”You may have seen a pair of men's boots a-stickin' out of the ambulance, but I'll bet they didn't have heels on 'em a inch broad, and five or six inches high.”

”No, Josiah,” sez I, ”you're right. Men think too much of their comfort and health to hist themselves up on such little high tottlin' things, and you didn't see many on 'em in the Parade.”

But he went on drivin' the arrow of higher criticism still deeper into my onwillin' breast. ”I'll bet you didn't see his legs tied together at the ankles, or his trouses slit up the sides to show gauze stockin's and anklets and diamond buckles. And you didn't see my sect who honored the Parade by marchin' in it, have a goose quill half a yard long, standin'

up straight in the air from a coal-scuttle hat, or out sideways, a hejus sight, and threatenin' the eyes of friend and foe.”

”And you didn't see many on 'em in the Parade,” sez I agin. ”Women, as they march along to Victory, have got to drop some of these senseless things.

In fact, they are droppin' em. You don't see waists now the size of a hour gla.s.s. It is gettin' fas.h.i.+onable to breathe now, and women on their way to their gole will drop by the way their high heels; it will git fas.h.i.+onable to walk comfortable, and as they've got to take some pretty long steps to reach the ballot in 1916, it stands to reason they've got to have a skirt wide enough at the bottom to step up on the gole of Victory. It is a high step, Josiah, but women are goin' to take it. They've always tended to cleanin' their own house, and makin' it comfortable and hygenic for its members, big and little. And when they turn their minds onto the best way to clean the National house both sects have to live in to make it clean and comfortable and safe for the weak and helpless as well as for the strong--it stands to reason they won't have time or inclination to stand up on stilts with tied-in ankles, quilled out like savages.”

”Well,” said Josiah, with a dark, forebodin' look on his linement, ”_we shall see_.”

”Yes,” sez I, with a real radiant look into the future. ”_We shall see_, Josiah.”

But he didn't have no idea of the beautiful prophetic vision I beheld with the eyes of my sperit. Good men and good women, each fillin' their different spears in life, but banded together for the overthrow of evil, the uplift of the race.

X

”THE CREATION SEARCHIN' SOCIETY”

It was only a few days after we got home from New York that Josiah come into the house dretful excited. He'd had a invitation to attend a meetin'

of the Creation Searchin' Society.

”Why,” sez I, ”did they invite you? You are not a member?”

”No,” sez he, ”but they want me to help 'em be indignant. It is a indignation meetin'.”

”Indignant about what?” I sez.