The Crux: A Novel

This story is, first, for young women to read; second, for young men to read; after that, for anybody who wants to. Anyone who doubts its facts and figures is referred to Social Diseases and Marriage, by Dr. Prince Morrow, or to Hygiene and Morality, by Miss Lavinia Dock, a trained nurse of long experience.
Some will hold that the painful facts disclosed are unfit for young girls to know. Young girls are precisely the ones who must know them, in order that they may protect themselves and their children to come. The time to know of danger is before it is too late to avoid it.
If some say Innocence is the greatest charm of young girls, the answer is, What good does it do them?
Who should know but the woman?—The young wife-to-be? Whose whole life hangs on the choice; To her the ruin, the misery; To her, the deciding voice.
Who should know but the woman?—The mother-to-be? Guardian, Giver, and Guide; If she may not foreknow, forejudge and foresee, What safety has childhood beside?
Who should know but the woman?—The girl in her youth? The hour of the warning is then, That, strong in her knowledge and free in her truth, She may build a new race of new men.
Along the same old garden path, Sweet with the same old flowers; Under the lilacs, darkly dense, The easy gate in the backyard fence— Those unforgotten hours!
The Foote Girls were bustling along Margate Street with an air of united purpose that was unusual with them. Miss Rebecca wore her black silk cloak, by which it might be seen that a call was toward. Miss Josie, the thin sister, and Miss Sallie, the fat one, were more hastily attired. They were persons of less impressiveness than Miss Rebecca, as was tacitly admitted by their more familiar nicknames, a concession never made by the older sister.
Even Miss Rebecca was hurrying a little, for her, but the others were swifter and more impatient.
Do come on, Rebecca. Anybody'd think you were eighty instead of fifty! said Miss Sallie.