“I don’t know,” says I, “but I had as lives hear ’em talk about caurkusses, as to hear ’em backbitin’ thier neighbors and tearin’ the charicters of other wimmen into bits, or talkin’ about such little things as wimmen will; why in a small place, a woman can’t buy a calico apron without the neighborhood holdin’ a inquest over it. Some think she ort to have it, some think it is extravagant in her, and some think the set flower on it is too young for her, and then they will all quarrel agin whether she ort to make it with a bib or not.” Says I “the very reason why men’s talk as a general thing is nobler than wimmen’s, is because they have nobler things to think about.” Says I “Betsey Bobbet, when did you ever know a passel of men to set down and spend a whole afternoon talkin’ about each other’s vest, and mistrustin’ such a feller painted; fill a woman’s mind with big, noble sized thoughts, and she won’t talk such little back bitin’ gossip as she does now.”
“Josiah Allen’s wife,” says Betsey, “I shall always say it is not woman’s speah to vote.”
“No,” says Josiah, “it hain’t; wimmen would vote for the handsomest men, and the men that praised thier babys, they wouldn’t stand up onto principal as men do, and then, how they would clog up the road ’lection day, tryin’ to get all the news they could, wimmen have got such itchin’ ears.”
“Itchin’ ears!” says I, “principle!” says I, in low but awful deep tones of voice, “Josiah Allen, it seems to me, that I wouldn’t try to stand up onto principle agin, till the pantaloons are wore out you hired a man with to vote your ticket.” He begun to look sheepish at once, and I continued in still more awful accents, “talk about itchin’ ears, Josiah Allen! here you have sot all the mornin’ blackin’ your boots, you have rubbed them boots till you have most rubbed holes through ’em, jest for an excuse to set here and hear me and Betsey Bobbet talk. And it hain’t the first time nuther, for I have known you Josiah Allen, when I have had female visitors, to leave your work and come in and lay on that lounge behind the stove till you was most sweltered, pretendin’ you was readin’.”
“I wuz a readin’,” says Josiah drawin’ on his boots.
“I have ketched you laughin’ over a funeral sermon, and a President’s message, what is there highlarious in a funeral sermon Josiah Allen? What is there exhileratin’ in a President’s message?”
“Wall,” says he, “I guess I’ll water the steers.”
“I should think you had better,” says I coolly, and after he went out, Betsey resumed,
“Josiah Allen’s wife, I still say it is not woman’s speah to vote,” and she continued, “I have got a few verses in my pocket, which I composed that night aftah I returned from the lecture, which embody into them the feelings of my soul concerning woman’s speah. I went to my chamber, and let down my back haih, and took out my teeth, I always feel more free somehow, and poetic, with my hair down and my teeth out, and there I wrote these stanzeys, and seeing it is you, I will read them to you.”
My firm and cast iron principles forbid my wishin’ in a reckless way that I wasn’t myself, and I was in my own house, and horspitality forbid my orderin’ her in stern accents, not to read a word of ’em, so I submitted, and she read as follows: