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Samantha on the Woman Question

M >> Marietta Holley >> Samantha on the Woman Question



Produced by Eric Eldred, William Flis
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.




[Illustration: "And I wonder if there is a woman in the land that can
blame Serepta for wantin' her rights."]


SAMANTHA ON THE

WOMAN QUESTION

BY

MARIETTA HOLLEY

"Josiah Allen's Wife"

Author of

"Samantha at Saratoga," "My Opinions" and
"Betsey Bobbet's," etc.




CONTENTS

I. "SHE WANTED HER RIGHTS"

II. "THEY CAN'T BLAME HER"

III. "POLLY'S EYES GROWED TENDER"

IV. "STRIVIN' WITH THE EMISSARY"

V. "HE WUZ DRETFUL POLITE"

VI. "CONCERNING MOTH-MILLERS AND MINNY FISH"

VII. "NO HAMPERIN' HITCHIN' STRAPS"

VIII. "OLD MOM NATER LISTENIN'"

IX. THE WOMEN'S PARADE

X. "THE CREATION SEARCHIN' SOCIETY"




ILLUSTRATIONS

"AND I WONDER IF THERE'S A WOMAN IN THE LAND THAT CAN BLAME SEREPTA FOR
WANTIN' HER RIGHTS" (p. 29). Frontispiece

"I WANTED TO VISIT THE CAPITOL OF OUR COUNTRY.... SO WE LAID OUT TO GO"

"HE'D ENTERED POLITICAL LIFE WHERE THE BIBLE WUZN'T POPULAR; HE'D NEVER
READ FURTHER THAN GULLIVER'S EPISTLE TO THE LILIPUTIANS"

"SEZ JOSIAH, 'DOES THAT THING KNOW ENOUGH TO VOTE?'"




I

"SHE WANTED HER RIGHTS"


Lorinda Cagwin invited Josiah and me to a reunion of the Allen family at
her home nigh Washington, D.C., the birthplace of the first Allen we knowed
anything about, and Josiah said:

"Bein' one of the best lookin' and influential Allens on earth now, it
would be expected on him to attend to it."

And I fell in with the idee, partly to be done as I would be done by if
it wuz the relation on my side, and partly because by goin' I could hit
two birds with one stun, as the poet sez. Indeed, I could hit four on 'em.

My own cousin, Diantha Trimble, lived in a city nigh Lorinda's and I had
promised to visit her if I wuz ever nigh her, and help bear her burdens for
a spell, of which burden more anon and bom-by.

Diantha wuz one bird, the Reunion another, and the third bird I had in my
mind's eye wuz the big outdoor meeting of the suffragists that wuz to be
held in the city where Diantha lived, only a little ways from Lorinda's.

And the fourth bird and the biggest one I wuz aimin' to hit from this tower
of ourn wuz Washington, D.C. I wanted to visit the Capitol of our country,
the center of our great civilization that stands like the sun in the solar
system, sendin' out beams of power and wisdom and law and order, and
justice and injustice, and money and oratory, and talk and talk, and wind
and everything, to the uttermost points of our vast possessions, and from
them clear to the ends of the earth. I wanted to see it, I wanted to like a
dog. So we laid out to go.

[Illustration: "I wanted to visit the Capitol of our country.... So we
laid out to go."]

Lorinda lived on the old Allen place, and I always sot store by her, and
her girl, Polly, wuz, as Thomas J. said, a peach. She had spent one of her
college vacations with us, and a sweeter, prettier, brighter girl I don't
want to see. Her name is Pauline, but everybody calls her Polly.

The Cagwins are rich, and Polly had every advantage money could give,
and old Mom Nater gin her a lot of advantages money couldn't buy, beauty
and intellect, a big generous heart and charm. And you know the Cagwins
couldn't bought that at no price. Charm in a girl is like the perfume in a
rose, and can't be bought or sold. And you can't handle or describe either
on 'em exactly. But what a influence they have; how they lay holt of your
heart and fancy.

Royal Gray, the young man who wuz payin' attention to her, stopped once
for a day or two in Jonesville with Polly and her Ma on their way to the
Cagwins' camp in the Adirondacks. And we all liked him so well that we
agreed in givin' him this extraordinary praise, we said he wuz worthy of
Polly, we knowed of course that wuz the highest enconium possible for us to
give.

Good lookin', smart as a whip, and deep, you could see that by lookin' into
his eyes, half laughin' and half serious eyes and kinder sad lookin' too
under the fun, as eyes must be in this world of ourn if they look back fur,
or ahead much of any. A queer world this is, and kinder sad and mysterious,
behind all the good and glory on't.

He wuz jest out of Harvard school and as full of life and sperits as a
colt let loose in a clover field. He went out in the hay field, he and
Polly, and rode home on top of a load of hay jest as nateral and easy and
bare-headed as if he wuz workin' for wages, and he the only son of a
millionaire--we all took to him.

Well, when the news got out that I wuz goin' to visit Washington, D.C., all
the neighbors wanted to send errents by me. Betsy Bobbet Slimpsey wanted a
dozen Patent Office books for scrap books for her poetry.

Uncle Nate Gowdey wanted me to go to the Agricultural Buro and git him a
paper of lettuce seed. And Solomon Sypher wanted me to git him a new kind
of string beans and some cowcumber seeds.

Uncle Jarvis Bentley, who wuz goin' to paint his house, wanted me to ask
the President what kind of paint he used on the White House. He thought it
ort to be a extra kind to stand the sharp glare that wuz beatin' down on it
constant, and to ask him if he didn't think the paint would last longer and
the glare be mollified some if they used pure white and clear ile in it,
and left off whitewash and karseen.

Ardelia Rumsey, who is goin' to be married, wanted me, if I see any new
kinds of bedquilt patterns at the White House or the Senator's housen, to
git patterns for 'em. She said she wuz sick of sun flowers and blazin'
stars. She thought mebby they'd have sunthin' new, spread eagle style. She
said her feller wuz goin' to be connected with the Govermunt and she
thought it would be appropriate.

And I asked her how. And she said he wuz goin' to git a patent on a new
kind of jack knife.

I told her that if she wanted a govermunt quilt and wanted it appropriate
she ort to have a crazy quilt.

And she said she had jest finished a crazy quilt with seven thousand
pieces of silk in it, and each piece trimmed with seven hundred stitches
of feather stitchin'--she'd counted 'em. And then I remembered seein' it.
There wuz a petition fer wimmen's rights and I remember Ardelia couldn't
sign it for lack of time. She wanted to, but she hadn't got the quilt more
than half done. It took the biggest heft of two years to do it. And so less
important things had to be put aside.

And Ardelia's mother wanted to sign it, but she couldn't owin' to a
bed-spread she wuz makin'. She wuz quiltin' in Noah's Ark and all the
animals on a Turkey red quilt. I remember she wuz quiltin' the camel that
day and couldn't be disturbed, so we didn't git the names. It took the old
lady three years, and when it wuz done it wuz a sight to behold, though I
wouldn't want to sleep under so many animals. But folks went from fur and
near to see it, and I enjoyed lookin' at it that day.

Zebulin Coon wanted me to carry a new hen coop of hisen to git patented.
And I thought to myself I wonder if they will ask me to carry a cow.

And sure enough Elnathan Purdy wanted me to dicker for a calf from Mount
Vernon, swop one of his yearlin's for it.

But the errents Serepta Pester sent wuz fur more hefty and momentous than
all the rest put together, calves, hen coop, cow and all.

And when she told 'em over to me, and I meditated on her reasons for
sendin' 'em and her need of havin' 'em done, I felt that I would do the
errents for her if a breath wuz left in my body. She come for a all day's
visit; and though she is a vegetable widow and humbly, I wuz middlin' glad
to see her. But thinkses I as I carried her things into my bedroom, "She'll
want to send some errent by me"; and I wondered what it would be.

And so it didn't surprise me when she asked me if I would lobby a little
for her in Washington. I spozed it wuz some new kind of tattin' or fancy
work. I told her I shouldn't have much time but would try to git her some
if I could.

And she said she wanted me to lobby myself. And then I thought mebby it wuz
a new kind of dance and told her, "I wuz too old to lobby, I hadn't lobbied
a step since I wuz married."

And then she explained she wanted me to canvas some of the Senators.

And I hung back and asked her in a cautious tone, "How many she wanted
canvassed, and how much canvas it would take?"

I had a good many things to buy for my tower, and though I wanted to
obleege Serepta, I didn't feel like runnin' into any great expense for
canvas.

And then she broke off from that subject, and said she wanted her rights
and wanted the Whiskey Ring broke up.

And she talked a sight about her children, and how bad she felt to be
parted from 'em, and how she used to worship her husband and how her
hull life wuz ruined and the Whiskey Ring had done it, that and wimmen's
helpless condition under the law and she cried and wep' and I did. And
right while I wuz cryin' onto that gingham apron, she made me promise to
carry them two errents of hern to the President and git 'em done for her if
I possibly could.

She wanted the Whiskey Ring destroyed and her rights, and she wanted 'em
both inside of two weeks.

I told her I didn't believe she could git 'em done inside that length of
time, but I would tell the President about it, and I thought more'n likely
as not he would want to do right by her. "And," sez I, "if he sets out to,
he can haul them babies of yourn out of that Ring pretty sudden."

And then to git her mind offen her sufferin's, I asked how her sister Azuba
wuz gittin' along? I hadn't heard from her for years. She married Phileman
Clapsaddle, and Serepty spoke out as bitter as a bitter walnut, and sez
she:

"She's in the poor-house."

"Why, Serepta Pester!" sez I, "what do you mean?"

"I mean what I say, my sister, Azuba Clapsaddle, is in the poor-house."

"Why, where is their property gone?" sez I. "They wuz well off. Azuba had
five thousand dollars of her own when she married him."

"I know it," sez she, "and I can tell you, Josiah Alien's wife, where their
property has gone, it has gone down Phileman Clapsaddle's throat. Look down
that man's throat and you will see 150 acres of land, a good house and
barn, twenty sheep and forty head of cattle."

"Why-ee!" sez I.

"Yes, and you'll see four mules, a span of horses, two buggies, a double
sleigh, and three buffalo robes. He's drinked 'em all up, and two horse
rakes, a cultivator, and a thrashin' machine."

"Why-ee!" sez I agin. "And where are the children?"

"The boys have inherited their father's habits and drink as bad as he duz
and the oldest girl has gone to the bad."

"Oh dear! oh dear me!" sez I, and we both sot silent for a spell. And then
thinkin' I must say sunthin' and wantin' to strike a safe subject and a
good lookin' one, I sez:

"Where is your Aunt Cassandra's girl? That pretty girl I see to your house
once?"

"That girl is in the lunatick asylum."

"Serepta Pester," sez I, "be you tellin' the truth?"

"Yes, I be, the livin' truth. She went to New York to buy millinery goods
for her mother's store. It wuz quite cool when she left home and she hadn't
took off her winter clothes, and it come on brilin' hot in the city, and in
goin' about from store to store the heat and hard work overcome her and she
fell down in a sort of faintin' fit and wuz called drunk and dragged off to
a police court by a man who wuz a animal in human shape. And he misused her
in such a way that she never got over the horror of what befell her when
she come to to find herself at the mercy of a brute in a man's shape. She
went into a melancholy madness and wuz sent to the asylum."

I sithed a long and mournful sithe and sot silent agin for quite a spell.
But thinkin' I must be sociable I sez:

"Your aunt Cassandra is well, I spoze?"

"She is moulderin' in jail," sez she.

"In jail? Cassandra in jail!"

"Yes, in jail." And Serepta's tone wuz now like worm-wood and gall.

"You know she owns a big property in tenement houses and other buildings
where she lives. Of course her taxes wuz awful high, and she didn't expect
to have any voice in tellin' how that money, a part of her own property
that she earned herself in a store, should be used. But she had been
taxed high for new sidewalks in front of some of her buildin's. And then
another man come into power in that ward, and he naterally wanted to make
some money out of her, so he ordered her to build new sidewalks. And she
wouldn't tear up a good sidewalk to please him or anybody else, so she wuz
put to jail for refusin' to comply with the law."

Thinkses I, I don't believe the law would have been so hard on her if she
hadn't been so humbly. The Pesters are a humbly lot. But I didn't think it
out loud, and didn't ophold the law for feelin' so. I sez in pityin' tones,
for I wuz truly sorry for Cassandra Keeler:

"How did it end?"

"It hain't ended," sez she, "it only took place a month ago and she has got
her grit up and won't pay; and no knowin' how it will end; she lays there
amoulderin'."

I don't believe Cassanda wuz mouldy, but that is Serepta's way of talkin',
very flowery.

"Well," sez I, "do you think the weather is goin' to moderate?"

I truly felt that I dassent speak to her about any human bein' under the
sun, not knowin' what turn she would give to the talk, bein' so embittered.
But I felt that the weather wuz safe, and cotton stockin's, and hens, and
factory cloth, and I kep' her down on them for more'n two hours.

But good land! I can't blame her for bein' embittered agin men and the laws
they've made, for it seems as if I never see a human creeter so afflicted
as Serepta Pester has been all her life.

Why, her sufferin's date back before she wuz born, and that's goin' pretty
fur back. Her father and mother had some difficulty and he wuz took down
with billerous colick, voylent four weeks before Serepta wuz born. And some
think it wuz the hardness between 'em and some think it wuz the gripin' of
the colick when he made his will, anyway he willed Serepta away, boy or
girl whichever it wuz, to his brother up on the Canada line.

So when Serepta wuz born (and born a girl ontirely onbeknown to her) she
wuz took right away from her mother and gin to this brother. Her mother
couldn't help herself, he had the law on his side. But it killed her.
She drooped away and died before the baby wuz a year old. She wuz a
affectionate, tenderhearted woman and her husband wuz overbearin' and
stern always.

But it wuz this last move of hisen that killed her, for it is pretty tough
on a mother to have her baby, a part of her own life, took right out of
her own arms and gin to a stranger. For this uncle of hern wuz a entire
stranger to Serepta, and almost like a stranger to her father, for he
hadn't seen him since he wuz a boy, but knew he hadn't any children and
spozed that he wuz rich and respectable. But the truth wuz he had been
runnin' down every way, had lost his property and his character, wuz
dissipated and mean. But the will wuz made and the law stood. Men are
ashamed now to think that the law wuz ever in voge, but it wuz, and is now
in some of the states, and the poor young mother couldn't help herself. It
has always been the boast of our American law that it takes care of wimmen.
It took care of her. It held her in its strong protectin' grasp so tight
that the only way she could slip out of it wuz to drop into the grave,
which she did in a few months. Then it leggo.

But it kep' holt of Serepta, it bound her tight to her uncle while he run
through with what property she had, while he sunk lower and lower until at
last he needed the very necessaries of life and then he bound her out to
work to a woman who kep' a drinkin' den and the lowest hant of vice.

Twice Serepta run away, bein' virtuous but humbly, but them strong
protectin' arms of the law that had held her mother so tight reached out
and dragged her back agin. Upheld by them her uncle could compel her to
give her service wherever he wanted her to work, and he wuz owin' this
woman and she wanted Serepta's work, so she had to submit.

But the third time she made a effort so voyalent that she got away. A
good woman, who bein' nothin' but a woman couldn't do anything towards
onclinchin' them powerful arms that wuz protectin' her, helped her to slip
through 'em. And Serepta come to Jonesville to live with a sister of that
good woman; changed her name so's it wouldn't be so easy to find her; grew
up to be a nice industrious girl. And when the woman she wuz took by died
she left Serepta quite a handsome property.

And finally she married Lank Burpee, and did considerable well it wuz
spozed. Her property, put with what little he had, made 'em a comfortable
home and they had two pretty children, a boy and a girl. But when the
little girl wuz a baby he took to drinkin', neglected his bizness, got
mixed up with a whiskey ring, whipped Serepta--not so very hard. He went
accordin' to law, and the law of the United States don't approve of a man's
whippin' his wife enough to endanger her life, it sez it don't. He made
every move of hisen lawful and felt that Serepta hadn't ort to complain
and feel hurt. But a good whippin' will make anybody feel hurt, law or no
law. And then he parted with her and got her property and her two little
children. Why, it seemed as if everything under the sun and moon, that
could happen to a woman, had happened to Serepta, painful things and
gauldin'.

Jest before Lank parted with her, she fell on a broken sidewalk: some
think he tripped her up, but it never wuz proved. But anyway Serepta fell
and broke her hip hone; and her husband sued the corporation and got ten
thousand dollars for it. Of course the law give the money to him and she
never got a cent of it. But she wouldn't have made any fuss over that,
knowin' that the law of the United States wuz such. But what made it so
awful mortifyin' to her wuz, that while she wuz layin' there achin' in
splints, he took that very money and used it to court up another woman
with. Gin her presents, jewelry, bunnets, head-dresses, artificial flowers
out of Serepta's own hip money.

And I don't know as anything could be much more gauldin' to a woman than
that--while she lay there groanin' in splints, to have her husband take the
money for her own broken bones and dress up another woman like a doll with
it.

But the law gin it to him, and he wuz only availin' himself of the glorious
liberty of our free Republic, and doin' as he wuz a mind to. And it wuz
spozed that that very hip money wuz what made the match. For before she wuz
fairly out of splints he got a divorce from her and married agin. And by
the help of Serepta's hip money and the Whiskey Ring he got her two little
children away from her.




II

"THEY CAN'T BLAME HER"


And I wonder if there is a woman in the land that can blame Serepta for
gittin' mad and wantin' her rights and wantin' the Whiskey Ring broke up,
when they think how she's been fooled round with by men; willed away, and
whipped, and parted with, and stole from. Why, they can't blame her for
feelin' fairly savage about 'em, as she duz.

For as she sez to me once, when we wuz talkin' it over, how everything had
happened to her. "Yes," sez she, with a axent like bone-set and vinegar,
"and what few things hain't happened to me has happened to my folks."

And sure enough I couldn't dispute her. Trouble and wrongs and sufferin's
seemed to be epidemic in the race of Pester wimmen. Why, one of her aunts
on her father's side, Huldah Pester, married for her first husband,
Eliphelet Perkins. He wuz a minister, rode on a circuit, and he took Huldah
on it too, and she rode round with him on it a good deal of the time. But
she never loved to, she wuz a woman that loved to be still, and kinder
settled down at home.

But she loved Eliphelet so well that she would do anything to please him,
so she rode round with him on that circuit till she wuz perfectly fagged
out.

He wuz a dretful good man to her, but he wuz kinder poor and they had hard
times to git along. But what property they had wuzn't taxed, so that helped
some, and Huldah would make one dollar go a good ways.

No, their property wuzn't taxed till Eliphelet died. Then the supervisor
taxed it the very minute the breath left his body; run his horse, so it wuz
said, so's to be sure to git it onto the tax list, and comply with the law.

You see Eliphelet's salary stopped when his breath did. And I spoze the
law thought, seein' she wuz havin' trouble, she might jest as well have a
little more; so it taxed all the property it never had taxed a cent for
before.

But she had this to console her that the law didn't forgit her in her
widowhood. No; the law is quite thoughtful of wimmen by spells. It sez it
protects wimmen. And I spoze that in some mysterious way, too deep for
wimmen to understand, it wuz protectin' her now.

Well, she suffered along and finally married agin. I wondered why she did.
But she wuz such a quiet, home-lovin' woman that it wuz spozed she wanted
to settle down and be kinder still and sot. But of all the bad luck she
had. She married on short acquaintance, and he proved to be a perfect
wanderer. He couldn't keep still, it wuz spozed to be a mark.

He moved Huldah thirteen times in two years, and at last he took her into
a cart, a sort of covered wagon, and traveled right through the western
states with her. He wanted to see the country and loved to live in the
wagon, it wuz his make. And, of course, the law give him control of her
body, and she had to go where he moved it, or else part with him. And
I spoze the law thought it wuz guardin' and nourishin' her when it wuz
joltin' her over them prairies and mountains and abysses. But it jest kep'
her shook up the hull of the time.

It wuz the regular Pester luck.

And then another of her aunts, Drusilly Pester, married a industrious,
hard-workin' man, one that never drinked, wuz sound on the doctrines, and
give good measure to his customers, he wuz a groceryman. And a master hand
for wantin' to foller the laws of his country as tight as laws could be
follered. And so knowin' that the law approved of moderate correction for
wimmen, and that "a man might whip his wife, but not enough to endanger her
life"; he bein' such a master hand for wantin' to do everything faithful
and do his very best for his customers, it wuz spozed he wanted to do the
best for the law, and so when he got to whippin' Drusilly, he would whip
her too severe, he would be too faithful to it.

You see what made him whip her at all wuz she wuz cross to him. They had
nine little children, she thought two or three children would be about all
one woman could bring up well by hand, when that hand wuz so stiff and sore
with hard work.

But he had read some scareful talk from high quarters about Race Suicide.
Some men do git real wrought up about it and want everybody to have all the
children they can, jest as fast as they can, though wimmen don't all feel
so.

Aunt Hetty Sidman said, "If men had to born 'em and nuss 'em themselves,
she didn't spoze they would be so enthusiastick about it after they had
had a few, 'specially if they done their own housework themselves," and
Aunt Hetty said that some of the men who wuz exhortin' wimmen to have big
families, had better spend some of their strength and wind in tryin' to
make this world a safer place for children to be born into.

She said they'd be better off in Nonentity than here in this world with
saloons on every corner, and war-dogs howlin' at 'em.

I don't know exactly what she meant by Nonentity, but guess she meant the
world we all stay in, before we are born into this one.

Aunt Hetty has lost five boys, two by battle and three by licensed saloons,
that makes her talk real bitter, but to resoom. I told Josiah that men
needn't worry about Race Suicide, for you might as well try to stop a hen
from makin' a nest, as to stop wimmen from wantin' a baby to love and hold
on her heart. But sez I, "Folks ort to be moderate and mejum in babies as
well as in everything else."

But Drusilly's husband wanted twelve boys he said, to be law-abidin'
citizens as their Pa wuz, and a protection to the Govermunt, and to be
ready to man the new warships, if a war broke out. But her babies wuz
real pretty and cunning, and she wuz so weak-minded she couldn't enjoy
the thought that if our male statesmen got to scrappin' with some other
nation's male law-makers and made another war, of havin' her grown-up
babies face the cannons. I spoze it wuz when she wuz so awful tired she
felt so.

You see she had to do every mite of her housework, and milk cows, and make
butter and cheese, and cook and wash and scour, and take all the care of
the children day and night in sickness and health, and make their clothes
and keep 'em clean. And when there wuz so many of 'em and she enjoyin' real
poor health, I spoze she sometimes thought more of her own achin' back than
she did of the good of the Govermunt--and she would git kinder discouraged
sometimes and be cross to him. And knowin' his own motives wuz so high and
loyal, he felt that he ort to whip her, so he did.

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