Says she: “Mebby you have heerd about it; is it so, or not? I must know,” says she.
Says I, in anxious axents, for she looked fearfully bad: “Is it your childern’s future you are a worryin’ about? Is your companion’s morals a totterin? Is the Human Race on your mind, a tirin’ you, Mahala?”
“No!” says she. “It haint none of them triflin’ things, but I heerd a rumor that they wasn’t a goin’ to wear poleynays trimmed up the back. Do you know? Can you tell me what they are a goin’ to do?”
Oh! what a wild gloomy glarin’ look settled down onto her face as she asked me this question:
“They” says I, a bustin’ right out almost wildly, “who is old They that is leadin’ my sect into chains and slavery?” Says I, almost by the side of myself with emotion, “Bring him up to me, and lemme wrastle with him, and destroy him.” Says I, “I hear of that old tyrant on all sides. If he gives the word, wimmen will drop their dresses right down a yard into the mud, or tack ’em up to their knees; they will puff ’em out like baloons, or pin ’em back, a bandegin’ themselves like mummies; they will wear their bunnets on the back of their necks leavin’ their faces all out in the sun, or they will wear ’em over their forwards, makin’ ’em as blind as a bat—leavin’ the backside of their heads all out to the weather; they will wear low slips as thin as paper, or be mounted up on high heels like a ostridge; they will frizzle their hair all up on top of their heads like a rooster’s comb, or let it string down their backs like a maniac’s; and if I ask ’em wildly why these things are so; they say they do it because They do it. I find old They at the bottom of it.
“And where does all the slander, and gossip, and lies come from? You find a lie that there wont anybody father, and jest as sure as you live and breathe, every time, you can track it back to old They. They said it was so. And,” says I, growin’ almost wild again, “who ever see him come up in a manly way and own up to anything? Who ever sot eyes on him? A hidin’ himself, and a lyin’, is his strong pint. I hate old They! I perfectly despise the old critter.”
I see my emotions was a renderin’ me nearly wild for the time bein’, and with a fearful effort, I collected myself together, some, and continued on in a more milder tone, but awful earnest, and convincing: “Fashion is king and They is his prime minister and factorum; and between ’em both, wimmen is bound hand and foot, body and soul. And,” says I in a sort of a prophecyin’ tone, “would that some female Patrick Henry or George Washington would rise up and set ’em free from them tyrants.” Says I, “It would be a greater victory for female wimmen, than the one the male sect, mostly, are a celebratin’ to the Sentinal this summer.”
“Sentinal!” says she. “Celebrate!” she murmured in enquirin’ axents.
“Yes,” says I, “haint you heerd on it Mahala—the big Sentinal that is to Filadelfy;” says I, in considerable dry axents, “I didn’t know as there was a dog on the American continent but what had heerd of it, and talked it over—with other dogs.” Says I, “They talked about it to Jonesville more’n they did the weather, or their neighbors, or anything.”
“Well,” says she, “it seems as if I heerd the word once, when I was a scrapin’ out the suller, or was it when I was a whitewashin’ the wood-house. I can’t tell,” says she; “but anyway I know I was a cleanin’ sunthin’ or other, or makin’ ruffles, and a workin’ so hard that it slipped completely out of my mind.”