Margaret Kesiah, Obkine Injun of Canada.
And there was napkins, the linen of which was wove by my friend, the Widder Albert; and as I looked at ’em, I thought gently to myself: how many wimmen who haint got a Right, and don’t want one, could spin linen equal to this? And then amongst every other way to honor and glorify my sect that could be thought of, there was a female woman all carved out of butter. I had thought in my proud spirited hautiness of soul that I could make as handsome butter balls, and flower ’em off as nobby as any other woman of the age. But as I looked at that beautiful roll of butter all flattened out into such a lovely face, I said to myself in firm axents, though mild: “Samantha, you have boasted your last boast over butter balls.”
There was some bright happy pictures, and some that wasn’t. One was of a sick child and its mother out in the desert alone with the empty water jug standin’ by ’em. The mother holdin’ the feeble little hands, and weepin’ over him. Her heart was a desert, and she was in a desert, which made it hard for her, and hard for me too, and I was jest puttin’ my hand into my pocket after my white cotton handkerchief, when somebody kinder hunched me in the side, and lookin’ round, there was that very female lecturer I see at New York village. Says she: “Come out where it is more quiet, Josiah Allen’s wife; I want to have a little talk with you.”
THE FEMALE LECTURER
She looked perfectly full of talk, but says I: “I haint only jest commenced lookin’ round at the splendid doins in this buildin’;” says I, “I don’t want to stir out of this house for 13 or 14 hours.”
Says she, “You can come again, but I must have a talk with you.”
Says I, “Feelin’ as I do, wont you excuse me mom?”
But she wouldn’t excuse me, and seein’ she was fairly sufferin’ to talk, I led the way to a rendezvoo where I promised Josiah to be, not knowin’ how long she would talk when she got at it, for—though I am very close mouthed myself—I know well the failins of my sect in that respect. The very moment we sot down on the pleasant and secluded bench I took her to, she begun:
“What do you think of men meetin’ here to celebrate National Independance and the right of self-government, when they hold half of their own race in political bondage?”
Says I, firmly, “I think it is a mean trick in ’em.”