“Human nater, and especially wimmen human nater is considerable the same in the year 18 and 1800, and I’ll bet a cent, (or I wouldn’t be afraid to bet a cent, if I believed in bettin’,) that if Sarah had had her way, Hagar wouldn’t have got even that loaf of bread and bottle of water. It says, Abraham got up early—probable before Sarah was up—and give ’em to her, and started her off. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if Sarah twitted Abraham about that loaf of bread every time she did a bakin’, for a number of years after. And that bottle. I dare persume to say, if the truth was known, that she throwed that bottle in his face more’n a hundred times, deplorin’ it as the toughest-hided, soundest bottle in all Beersheba.
“But as I said, I wasn’t there, and Abraham turned her out, and Hagar had a hard time of it out in the desert, toilin’ on alone through its dreary wastes, hungry for bread, and hungry for love; dying from starvation of soul and body; deceived; despised; wronged; deserted; lonely; broken-hearted; and carrying with all the rest of her sorrow—as mothers will—the burden of her child’s distress. Why, this woman’s wrongs and misery opened the very gates of Heaven, and God’s own voice comforted and consoled her; again Eternal Justice and Mercy spoke out of Heaven for wimmen. Why is it that his childern on earth will continue to be so deaf and dumb—deaf as a stun—for 6000 years.
“But from that time to this, take it between the Abrahams and the Sarahs of this world, the Hagars have fared hard, and the Abrahams have got along first rate; the Hagars have been turned out into the desert to die there, and the Abrahams that ruined ’em, have increased in flocks and herds; are thought a sight of and are high in the esteem of wimmen. Seems as though the more Hagars they fit out for the desert business, the more feathers it is in their cap. Every Hagar they start out is a new feather, till some get completely feathered out; then they send ’em to Congress, and think a sight on ’em.
“I declare for’t it is the singularest thing I ever see, or hearn tell on, how folks that are so just in every thing else, are so blinded in this one. And” says I almost wildly—for I grew more and more agitated every minute, and eloquent—“the female sect are to blame for this state of affairs;” says I, “men as a general thing, all good men, have better idees in this matter than we do, enough sight. Wimmen are to blame—meetin’ house wimmen and all,—you and I are to blame sister Minkley,” says I. “As a rule the female sect wink at men’s sins, but not a wink can you ever git out of them about our sins. Not a wink. We have got to toe the mark in morals, and we ort to make them toe the mark. And if we did, we should rise 25 cents in the estimation of every good man, and every mean one too, for they can’t respect us now, to toady and keep a winkin’ at ’em when they wont at us; they can’t respect us. We ort to require as much purity and virtue in them, as they do in us, and stop winkin’.” Says I, “Winkin’ at men’s sins is what is goin’ to ruin us all, the hull caboodle of us; ruin men, ruin wimmen, Jonesville, and the hull nation. Let the hull female race, fur and near, bond and free, in Jonesville and the world, stop winkin’.”
I don’t believe I had been any more eloquent sense war times; I used to get awful eloquent then, talkin’ about the colored niggers. And I declare I don’t know where, to what heights and depths my eloquence would have flown me off to, if I hadn’t jest that minute heard a low, lady-like snore—sister Minkley was asleep. Yes, she had forgot her troubles; she was leanin’ up ag’inst the high pile of rag carpetin’, that kinder fenced us in, fast asleep. But truly, she haint to blame. She has bad spells,—a sort of weakness she can’t help. But jest at that very minute my Josiah came up and says he:
“Come Samantha! haint you about ready to go?”
“Yes,” says I, for truly principle had tuckered me out. Josiah’s voice had waked up sister Minkley, and she give a kind of a start, and says she:
“Amen, sister Allen! I can say amen to that with all my heart. You talked well sister Allen, especially towards the last. You argued powerful.”
I wasn’t goin’ to twit her of not hearin’ a word of it. Brother Minkley jest that minute sent in word that he was ready, and to hurry up, for the colts wouldn’t stand. (He had hired a neighborin’ team.) And so we two wimmen, sister Minkley and I started home from ’lection.
I don’t know as I ever see Josiah Allen in any better spirits, than he was, as we started off on our tower homewards. He had been to the clothin’ store and bought him a new Sentinal neck-tie, red, white and blue. It was too young for him by forty years, and I told him so; but he said he liked it the minute he sot his eyes on it, it was so dressy. That man is vain. And then ’lection bid fair to go the way he wanted it to. He was awful animated, his face was almost wreathed in a smile, and before the old mare had gone several rods, he begun what a neat thing it was, and what a lucky hit for the nation, that wimmen couldn’t vote. And he kep’ on a talkin’, that man did, as he was a carryin’ me home from ’lection, about how it would break a woman’s modesty down to go to the pole, and how it would devour her time and so 4th, and so 4th. And I was that tired out and fatigued a talkin’ to sister Minkley that I let him go on for more’n a mile, and never put in my note at all. Good land! I’d heerd it all over from him, word for word, more’n a hundred times, and so I sot still. I s’pose he never thought how it was my lungs that ailed me, that I had used ’em almost completely up in principle, how I was almost entirely out of wind. And though a woman’s will may be good, and her principles lofty, still she can’t talk without wind. For truly in the words of a poem, I once perused: