“Fathers bein’ killed with labor, and a world layin’ in wickedness, and wimmen dotin’ on dogs; hundreds of thousands of houseless and homeless childern—little fair souls bein’ blackened by ignorance and vice with a black that can’t never be rubbed off this side of heaven, and immortal wimmen spendin’ their hull energies in keepin’ a pup’s hair white; little tender feet bein’ led down into the mire and clay, that might be guided up to heaven’s door, and wimmen utterly refusin’ to notice ’em, so rampant and sot on leadin’ round a pup by a string. Good heavens!” says I, “it makes me sweat to think on it;” and I pulled out my cotton handkerchief and wiped my forred almost wildly. I s’pose my warm emotions had melted down my icy mean a very little, for Delila Ann spoke up in a little chirker voice, and says she:
“If you was one of the genteel kind, you would feel different about it;” says she—a tryin’ to scare me—“I mistrust that you haint genteel.”
“That don’t scare me a mite,” says I, “I hate that word and always did,” says I still more warmly, “there is two words in the English language that I feel cold, and almost hauty towards, and they are ‘affinity,’ such as married folks hunt after, and ‘genteel.’ I wish,” says I, “that these two words would join hands and elope the country; I’d love to see their backs, as they sot out, and bid ’em a glad farewell.” She see she hadn’t skairt me, and the thought of my mission goared me to that extent, that I rose up my voice to a high key and went on wavin’ my right hand in as eloquent a wave as I had by me—I keep awful eloquent waves a purpose to use on occasions like these—and says I:
“I am a woman that has got a vow on me; I am a Promiscous Advisor by trade, and I can’t shirk out when duty is a pokin’ me in the side; I must speak. And I say unto you Delila Ann, and the hull on you promiscous, that if you would take off some of your bobinet lace, empty your laps of pups and dime novels, and go to work and lift some of the burdens from the breakin’ back of Melankton Spicer, you would raise yourselves in my estimation from 25 to 30 cents, and I don’t know but more.”
“Oh,” says Delila Ann, “I want my girls to marry; and it haint genteel for wimmen to work; they wont never catch a bo if they work.”
“Well,” says I almost coldly, “I had ruther keep a clear conscience and a single bedstead, than twenty husbands and the knowledge that I was a father killer; but,” says I in reasonable tones—for I wanted to convince ’em—“it haint necessary to be lazy, to read dime novels, and lead round pups, in order to marry; if it was, I should be a single woman to-day.”
“Oh I love to read dime novelth,” says the lispin’ one; “I love to be thad and weep, it theemth tho thweet, tho thingularly thweet.”
Says I, “There is a tragedy bein’ lived before your eyes day after day that you ort to weep over; a father killin’ himself for his wife and childern—bearin’ burdens enough to break down a leather man—and they a spendin’ their time a leadin’ round whiffet pups.”
“Whiffet pups!” says Delila in angry tones, “they are poodles.”
“Well,” says I calmly, “whiffet poodle pups, if that suits you any better, it don’t make any particular difference to me.”