While our husbands did the thinking and held the pursestrings too.

Miss Harper come and tell us this—a lecturer—you know.

Law me! how beautiful she talked; her words jest seemed to flow

As smooth and easy as the brook—she looked and moved so quiet;

But she fairly shook old Wendletown, she raised up sech a riot;

And when I heerd her tell about us women’s “wasted years,”

Although I’m old and tough, you’d think, I couldn’t keep from tears.

Soon all the wives and mothers too, began to see quite plain

That jest to bake and churn and mend was laboring in vain:

While Mrs. Cap’n Brown she come and sez, sez she to me,