Women for votes

by Elizabeth Hughes

MRS. BROWN. So should I.

MR. BECKER. To try and make a Suffragist of her, I suppose. You women are all natural proselytizers.

MRS. BROWN. No, indeed. I should like to meet Mrs. Van Tousel because she is an old-fashioned woman. I am an old-fashioned woman and like seeks like.

MR. BECKER. You an old-fashioned woman? How absurd! How about your Bridge playing?

MRS. BROWN. I only do that to please my friends. Old-fashioned women were brought up to study how to please.

MR. BECKER. And Cochon, there, doesn’t he make you up-to-date?

MRS. BROWN. He is a domestic animal, a barn yard animal, and all old-fashioned women used to busy themselves about barn yard animals. I remember when I was a little girl, I used to go with my grandmother on the farm every morning to see the pigs fed. It is only lately, Mr. Becker, that the hog business has been incorporated and taken away from the list of home activities. Women’s work used to be in the home, but now they are driven out to work in factories and offices. Women used to be guardians of the hearth like the Vestal Virgins, but now they are driven out into the world to earn money to pay for the gas that the gas stove consumes. Instead of the “eternal flame,” we have the intermittent gas jet. My cook tries to make it eternal though, she always forgets to turn it off.

MR. VAN TOUSEL. Bravo, Mrs. Brown. We shall soon have you on the platform making speeches.

MRS. BROWN. Not on your life. I was only trying to point out the changes in the times to Mr. Becker.