All our teachers were eagerly interested.
“We want so much to know—you have the whole world to tell us of, and we have only our little land! And there are two of you—the two sexes—to love and help one another. It must be a rich and wonderful world. Tell us—what is the work of the world, that men do—which we have not here?”
“Oh, everything,” Terry said grandly. “The men do everything, with us.” He squared his broad shoulders and lifted his chest. “We do not allow our women to work. Women are loved—idolized—honored—kept in the home to care for the children.”
“What is ‘the home’?” asked Somel a little wistfully.
But Zava begged: “Tell me first, do no women work, really?”
“Why, yes,” Terry admitted. “Some have to, of the poorer sort.”
“About how many—in your country?”
“About seven or eight million,” said Jeff, as mischievous as ever.
[a]id="link2HCH0006">] CHAPTER 6.
Comparisons Are Odious
I had always been proud of my country, of course. Everyone is. Compared with the other lands and other races I knew, the United States of America had always seemed to me, speaking modestly, as good as the best of them.