"Why, it is a matter of history that way back in the centuries the preachers of that time had a meetin' to settle the question, and when they took a vote on't, the majority on 'em stood out on the popular side and cast their votes agin 'em, and vowed and declared that females hadn't no souls. And it wuz only by the vote of one single solitary man that it wuz carried in their favor and decided that they had souls.
"And I should think females would be so grateful to that noble man for what he done for 'em, for his bein' willin' to admit that they had souls, that they would honor the hull sect to which he belonged, and look up to 'em in humble and grateful gratitude, and never try to argy with 'em and aggravate 'em. For let me ask you, Samantha," sez I, in a solemn axent, "where would wimmen have been if that man had held out and jined in with the rest, and decided that wimmen hadn't got any soul? Where would they been then, and where would they be to-day?"
"Jest where they always wuz and are now," sez Samantha camly helpin' herself to a apple dumplin'. "It seems that it wuz men that started the question in the first place, and I spoze that if wimmen hadn't been so wore out and hampered by her hard work of takin' care of men, cookin', mendin', and cleanin' for 'em and bringin' up their children, etc., they might have had a jury of wimmen set on men to find out if they had souls. But I don't spoze they had a minute's time to spare from their hard work no more than I have, and I don't spoze it would make any difference either way. The main thing is whether men and wimmen have got souls to-day, and use them souls for the good of mankind, instead of lettin' 'em grow hard, or wither away in indifference to the woes and wants of the world, and the cause of Eternal Justice for every one, male and female."
That is jest the way with wimmen, they've got to talk and argy and try to have the last word. You can't seem to make 'em act meachin' and beholdin' to men anyway you can work it, and it seems to me I've tried every way there is from first to last.
But I wouldn't argy no more, I felt above it. I helped myself to my fourth apple dumplin' with a look of silent contemp on my linement, also I had the same look when I poured the lemon sass over it and took my third cup of coffee.
And my linement still showed to a clost observer the marks of a tried though hauty sperit, as I riz up from the table and retired with a high step to my sacred corner to resoom my literary efforts.
Sometimes pardners are real aggravatin' to each other and a trial to be borne with. And though I don't know what I'd do if I should ever lose Samantha, it don't seem as if I could ever eat another woman's vittles after livin' on the fat of the land as you may say for forty years.
Yet there are times when you set smartin' under wownds your pardner has gin your sperit and from arguments she no need to have brung up, and you see a widow man a passin' by, you have feelin's that can skursly be told on. You can see by the looks of his face and hands that he don't wash any oftener than he wants to, and never combs his hair and don't change his clothes till the Board of Health gits after him. And you know he never goes to meetin', and throws off girl blinders boldly, and stays out nights till as late as ten P.M. onquestioned and onscolded. And don't have to clean his shues when he goes in, and never curbs his appetite, but eats like a hog and enjoys himself.
Why, much as you love the dear pardner of your bosom, and prize the excelent food she cooks, and the clean comfortable home she makes for you—the air of freedom that seems to blow from that widow man (kinder stale air too) yet it fans your clean head and clean stiff shirt bosom like a breath from the Isle of Freedom.
And so after Samantha had hurt my feelin's and wownded my self respect by remindin' me of the incident mentioned, when if she had kep' still I should have come off victorious in my argument, I retired into the solitude of my corner in the settin' room where Betsy Bobbett's poetry lay heaped up in the dish-pan and I read with feelin' that I couldn't skursly describe the follerin' verses which I spoze Betsy writ after her husband had wownded her feelin's. And in readin' it I dedicate it silently to my brother men who have been aggravated by their pardners.