Samantha on the Woman Question by Marietta Holley (love letters to the dead TXT) đ
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- Author: Marietta Holley
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âAnd I wonder if there is a woman in the land that can blame Serepta for wantinâ her rights.â
ILLUSTRATIONS âAND I WONDER IF THEREâS A WOMAN IN THE LAND THAT CAN BLAME SEREPTA FOR WANTINâ HER RIGHTSâ âI WANTED TO VISIT THE CAPITOL OF OUR COUNTRY.... SO WE LAID OUT TO GOâ âHEâD ENTERED POLITICAL LIFE WHERE THE BIBLE WUZNâT POPULAR; HEâD NEVER READ FURTHER THAN GULLIVERâS EPISTLE TO THE LILIPUTIANSâ âSEZ JOSIAH, âDOES THAT THING KNOW ENOUGH TO VOTE?âââSHE WANTED HER RIGHTSâ
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:
âBeinâ one of the best lookinâ and influential Allens on earth now, it would be expected on him to attend to it.â
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 goinâ I could hit two birds with one stun, as the poet sez. Indeed, I could hit four on âem.
My own cousin, Diantha Trimble, lived in a city nigh Lorindaâs 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 mindâs 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 Lorindaâs.
And the fourth bird and the biggest one I wuz aiminâ 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, sendinâ 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.
âI wanted to visit the Capitol of our country.... So we laid out to go.â
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 donât 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 couldnât buy, beauty and intellect, a big generous heart and charm. And you know the Cagwins couldnât bought that at no price. Charm in a girl is like the perfume in a rose, and canât be bought or sold. And you canât handle or describe either on âem exactly. But what a influence they have; how they lay holt of your heart and fancy.
Royal Gray, the young man who wuz payinâ attention to her, stopped once for a day or two in Jonesville with Polly and her Ma on their way to the Cagwinsâ camp in the Adirondacks. And we all liked him so well that we agreed in givinâ 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 lookinâ, smart as a whip, and deep, you could see that by lookinâ into his eyes, half laughinâ and half serious eyes and kinder sad lookinâ 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 onât.
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 workinâ for wages, and he the only son of a millionaireâwe all took to him.
Well, when the news got out that I wuz goinâ 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 goinâ 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 beatinâ down on it constant, and to ask him if he didnât 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 goinâ to be married, wanted me, if I see any new kinds of bedquilt patterns at the White House or the Senatorâs housen, to git patterns for âem. She said she wuz sick of sun flowers and blazinâ stars. She thought mebby theyâd have sunthinâ new, spread eagle style. She said her feller wuz goinâ to be connected with the Govermunt and she thought it would be appropriate.
And I asked her how. And she said he wuz goinâ 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 stitchinââsheâd counted âem. And then I remembered seeinâ it. There wuz a petition fer wimmenâs rights and I remember Ardelia couldnât sign it for lack of time. She wanted to, but she hadnât 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 Ardeliaâs mother wanted to sign it, but she couldnât owinâ to a bed-spread she wuz makinâ. She wuz quiltinâ in Noahâs Ark and all the animals on a Turkey red quilt. I remember she wuz quiltinâ the camel that day and couldnât be disturbed, so we didnât git the names. It took the old lady three years, and when it wuz done it wuz a sight to behold, though I wouldnât want to sleep under so many animals. But folks went from fur and near to see it, and I enjoyed lookinâ 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 yearlinâs 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 âem over to me, and I meditated on her reasons for sendinâ âem and her need of havinâ âem done, I felt that I would do the errents for her if a breath wuz left in my body. She come for a all dayâs visit; and though she is a vegetable widow and humbly, I wuz middlinâ glad to see her. But thinkses I as I carried her things into my bedroom, âSheâll want to send some errent by meâ; and I wondered what it would be.
And so it didnât surprise me when she asked me if I would lobby a little for her in Washington. I spozed it wuz some new kind of tattinâ or fancy work. I told her I shouldnât 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, âI wuz too old to lobby, I hadnât lobbied a step since I wuz married.â
And then she explained she wanted me to canvas some of the Senators.
And I hung back and asked her in a cautious tone, âHow many she wanted canvassed, and how much canvas it would take?â
I had a good many things to buy for my tower, and though I wanted to obleege Serepta, I didnât feel like runninâ 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 âem, and how she used to worship her husband and how her hull life wuz ruined and the Whiskey Ring had done it, that and wimmenâs helpless condition under the law and she cried and wepâ and I did. And right while I wuz cryinâ onto that gingham apron, she made me promise to carry them two errents of hern to the President and git âem done for her if I possibly could.
She wanted the Whiskey Ring destroyed and her rights, and she wanted âem both inside of two weeks.
I told her I didnât believe she could git âem done inside that length of time, but I would tell the President about it, and I thought moreân likely as not he would want to do right by her. âAnd,â sez I, âif he sets out to, he can haul them babies of yourn out of that Ring pretty sudden.â
And then to git her mind offen her sufferinâs, I asked how her sister Azuba wuz gittinâ along? I hadnât heard from her for years. She married Phileman Clapsaddle, and Serepty spoke out as bitter as a bitter walnut, and sez she:
âSheâs in the poor-house.â
âWhy, Serepta Pester!â sez I, âwhat do you mean?â
âI mean what I say, my sister, Azuba Clapsaddle, is in the poor-house.â
âWhy, where is their property gone?â sez I. âThey wuz well off. Azuba had five thousand dollars of her own when she married him.â
âI know it,â sez she, âand I can tell you, Josiah Allenâs wife, where their property has gone, it has gone down Phileman Clapsaddleâs throat. Look down that manâs throat and you will see 150 acres of land, a good house and barn, twenty sheep and forty head of cattle.â
âWhy-ee!â sez I.
âYes, and youâll see four mules, a span of horses, two buggies, a double sleigh, and three buffalo robes. Heâs drinked âem all up, and two horse rakes, a cultivator, and a thrashinâ machine.â
âWhy-ee!â sez I agin. âAnd where are the children?â
âThe boys have inherited their fatherâs habits and drink as bad as he duz and the oldest girl has gone to the bad.â
âOh dear! oh dear me!â sez I, and we both sot silent for a spell. And then thinkinâ I must say sunthinâ and wantinâ to strike a safe subject and a good lookinâ one, I sez:
âWhere is your Aunt Cassandraâs girl? That pretty girl I see to your house once?â
âThat girl is in the lunatick asylum.â
âSerepta Pester,â sez I, âbe you tellinâ the truth?â
âYes, I be, the livinâ truth. She went to New York to buy millinery goods for her motherâs store. It wuz quite cool when she left home and she hadnât took off her winter clothes, and it come on brilinâ hot in the city, and in goinâ about from store to store the heat and hard work overcome her and she fell down in a
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