“Some wimmen are knocked down by some men, and dragged out.”
His meek tones touched my feelin’s, and I continued in more reasonable accents.
“Mebby if I was married to a man that knocked me down and dragged me out frequently, I would leave him a spell, but not one cent would I invest in another man, not a cent. I would live alone till he came to his senses, if he ever did, and if he didn’t, why when the great roll is called over above, I would answer to the name I took when I loved him and married him, hopin’ his old love would come back again there, and we would have all eternity to keep house in.”
He looked so depressted, as he sot leanin’ back in his chair, that I thought I had convinced him, and he was sick of his business, and I asked him in a helpful way,
“Hain’t there no other business you can get into, besides preachin’ up Free Love? Hain’t there no better business? Hain’t there no cornfields where you could hire out for a scare-crow—can’t you get to be United States Senator? Hain’t there no other mean job not quite so mean as this, you could get into?”
He didn’t seem to take it friendly in me, you know friendly advice makes some folks mad. He spoke out kinder surly and says he, “I hain’t done no hurt, I only want everybody to find their affinitee.”
That riled up the blood in me, and says I with spirit,
“Say that word to me agin if you dare.” Says I “of all the mean words a married woman ever listened to, that is the meanest,” says I “if you say “affinitee” here in my house, agin, young man, I will holler to Josiah.”
He see I was in earnest and deeply indignent, and he ketched up his hat and cane, and started off, and glad enough was I to see him go.