"Well, I went to this club meetin', I can't ricollect jest what Henrietta called it, but it seems they had got together to tell about all the work they'd done in the past year, and plan out their next year's work.
"There was one lady I took particular notice of. I thought she was a married woman, but I heard 'em callin' her 'Miss Laura,' and I found out afterwards that she was an old maid. In my day, child, you could tell an old maid the minute you set eyes on her. But nowadays the old maids and the married women looks about alike, and one's jest as happy and good lookin' and busy and well contented as the other, and folks seem to think jest as much of the old maids as they do of the married women. I said somethin' o' this sort to Henrietta, and she laughed and says, 'Yes, grandma; the old maids nowadays have their hands so full lookin' after the rights o' the married women and the little children that they don't have time to grow old or worry about not bein' married, and of course,' says she, 'we can't help lovin' 'em and lookin' up to 'em when they're so good and so useful.'
"But, as I was sayin', this Miss Laura told how her club had worked for ten years to git married women their rights, so's a married woman could own her own property and manage it to suit herself and have the spendin' of her own wages while she lived and make a will when she come to die. And that made me think o' Sally Ann's experience and pore 'Lizabeth. And Miss Laura says, 'But there's one right still that a married woman hasn't got, and that is the right to her own children.' And she told how the law give the father a right to take a child away from its mother and carry it off whenever he pleased, and bring it up as he pleased and app'int its guardians. And she told how many times they'd been to the legislature to git the law changed, and said they'd have to keep on goin' till they got this right for mothers, jest like they'd got property rights for wives. And I thought of Uncle Billy's grandmother, and says I to myself: 'Don't you reckon a legislature's jest as terrifyin' to a woman as wildcats and Indians? Ain't these women got jest as much courage as their grandmothers?'
"One lady got up and told what they was doin to keep the fine trees from bein' all cut down, jest like Uncle Billy said, and that reminded me of Abram. A tree was like a brother to Abram. He was always plantin' trees, but I never knew him to cut one down unless it was dyin' or dead. You see that big sugar-maple out yonder by the fence, child? Well, right beside it there used to be a big silver poplar. There ain't a prettier tree in the world than the silver poplar. It's pretty in the sunshine and it's still prettier by night, if the moon's shinin'; and when the wind's blowin', why, I can sit and look at that tree by the hour. But it's got a bad way o' sproutin' from the root, and the young trees come up everywhere and crowd out everything else, jest like people that ain't content with their own land and always covetin' other folks' farms. Well, I got so tired o' choppin' down the young sprouts every spring and summer that I told Abram that tree had to go, and, besides, it was sp'ilin' the shape o' the young sugar-maple right by it. I reckon Abram had got tired, too, hearin' me quarrel about the sprouts comin' up in my flower-beds, so he went out to the wood-shed and got his ax. He stopped a minute on the front porch and looked up at the tree, and jest then a little breeze sprung up and every leaf blew wrong side out. And Abram laid down his ax and says he: 'Jane, I can't do it. I'll cut the sprouts down, but don't ask me to cut down a tree that looks that way when the wind blows.' And the old poplar stood, honey, till it was struck by lightnin' one summer, and died at the top. Then Abram was willin' to have it cut down.
"What was I talkin' about, honey? Oh, yes; them women's clubs. Well, I set there listenin' to 'em tellin' how their clubs had worked for this thing and that, and how hard it was to git men to see things the way they saw 'em, and it come over me all at once that they was contendin' with the same sort o' troubles us women down in Goshen had when we got our organ and our cyarpet for the church. I ricollect when we was talkin' about the cyarpet Silas Petty says: 'What's the use o' havin' that cyarpet? Hasn't this church got along fifteen years with jest these good pine boards underfoot?' And Sally Ann says: 'Yes; you men folks think that because things has always been thus and so, they've always got to be. But,' says she, 'I've noticed that when a thing always has been, most likely it's a thing that ought never to 'a' been.' And from what I could gether, listenin' to the ladies read their papers, there was the same old trouble betwixt the clubs and the legislatures that there used to be down in Goshen church, the women wantin' to go on, and the men pullin' back and standin' still.
"And one lady told about Emperor William over yonder in Germany sayin' that women oughtn't to do anything but cook and go to church and nurse the children, and says I, 'That's Silas Petty over again.' And then she went on to tell how some o' the men was findin' fault with women because families wasn't as large as they was in their great-grandmothers' day. And thinks I to myself, 'That's jest like old man Bob Crawford.'
"Well, one after another they'd stand up and tell about all the good works their clubs had done, sendin' books to the mountain people, tryin' to make better schools for the children, and havin' laws made to keep women and little children from bein' worked to death in factories and mills, and I declare, child, it reminded me more of an old-fashioned experience meetin' than anything I could think of, and says I to myself: 'Why, Uncle Billy's all wrong. This ain't Sodom and Gomorrah; it's the comin' of the kingdom of God on earth.' And when the meetin' was about to break, Henrietta got up and says, 'Grandma, the ladies want you to make them a speech'; and I jest laughed right out and says I: 'Why, honey, I can't make a speech. Whoever heard of a old woman like me makin' a speech?'
"And Henrietta says, 'Well, tell us, grandma, what you've been thinkin' about us and about our work while you've been sittin' here listenin' to us talk.' And I says, 'Well, if that's makin' a speech, I can make one, for I'm always thinkin' somethin', and thinkin' and talkin' is mighty near kin with me.' Says I, 'One thing I've been thinkin' is, that I'm like the old timber in the woods—long past my prime and ready to be cut down, and you all are the young trees strikin' your roots down and spreadin' your branches and askin' for room to grow in.' And says I, 'What I think about you ain't likely to be of much importance. I'm jest a plain, old-fashioned woman. The only sort o' club I ever belonged to was the Mite Society o' Goshen church, and the only service I ever did the State was raisin' a family o' sons and daughters, five sons and four daughters.' Says I, 'There's some folks that thinks women ought to do jest what their mothers and grandmothers did, but,' says I, 'every generation has its work. I've done mine and you're doin' yours. And,' says I, 'I look at you ladies sittin' here in your pretty parlors and your fine clothes, and back of every one of you I can see your grandmothers and your great-grandmothers, jest plain hard-workin' women like me. But,' says I, 'there ain't much difference between you, after all, except the difference in the clothes and the manners. Your grandmothers traveled their Wilderness Road, and you're travelin' yours, and one's as hard as the other. And,' says I, 'if I was in your place, I wouldn't pay a bit of attention to what the men folks said about me. Suppose you don't have as many children as your grandmothers had; I can tell by lookin' at your faces that you're good wives and good mothers; you love the three or four children you've got as well as your grandmothers loved their twelve or fifteen, and that's the main p'int—the way you love your children, not how many children you have. And further than that,' says I, 'there's such a thing nowadays as a woman havin' so many children that she hasn't got time to be a mother, but that's a p'int that men don't consider. And,' says I, 'when I think of all the good work you've done and all you're goin' to do, I feel like praisin' God. For I know you're helpin' this old world and this old State to go on like the apostle said we ought to go, "from glory to glory."'
"And bless your life," laughed Aunt Jane, "if they didn't clap their hands like they never would stop, and one lady come over and kissed me, and says, 'That's the best speech I ever heard at a woman's club.'
"And I reckon," concluded Aunt Jane with a gay laugh, "that if Uncle Billy happened to hear about me speakin' at a woman's club, he'd think that Sodom and Gomorrah was spreadin' clear down into the Goshen neighborhood."