have got the true ring to them. I had to kind o’ speak against men in it. I hated too, awfully, but Prof. Gusheh said it would be necessary, in ordeh to rouse the masses. He says the almost withering sarcasm of this noble song is just what they need. He says it will go down to posterity side by side with Yankee Doodle, if not ahead of it. I know by his countenance that he thought it was superior to Mr. Doodle’s him. But what think you of it, Josiah Allen’s wife?”
“I think,” says I in a cautious tone, “that it is about off’n’ a piece with the subject.”
“Don’t you think Josiah Allen’s wife that it would be real sweet to get bills from men. It is a glorious doctrine for wimmen, so freein’ and liberatin’ to them.”
“Sweet!” says I hautily “it would be a pretty world wouldn’t it Betsey Bobbet, if every time a woman forgot to put a button onto a shirt, her husband would start up and say she wasn’t his affinitee, and go to huntin’ of her up, or every time his collar choked him.”
“Oh, but wimmen could hunt too!”
“Who would take care of the children, if they was both a huntin’?” says I sternly, “it would be a hard time for the poor little innocents, if there father and mother was both of ’em off a huntin’.”
Before I could free my mind any further about Prof. Gusher and his doctrine, I had a whole houseful of company come, and Betsey departed. But before she went she told me that Prof. Gusher had heard that I was in faver of wimmen’s rights and he was comin’ to see me before he left Jonesville.
The next day he came. Josiah was to the barn a thrashin’ beans, but I received him with a calm dignity. He was a harmless lookin’ little man, with his hair combed and oiled as smooth as a lookin’ glass. He had on a bell-crouned hat which he lifted from his head with a smile as I come to the door. He wore a plad jacket, and round his neck and hangin’ doun his bosom was a bright satten scarf into which he had stuck 2 big headed pins with a chain hitched onto each of ’em, and he had a book under his arm. He says to me most the first thing after he sot down,
“You believe in wimmin havin’ a right don’t you?”
