“I don’t know what the Lord would have done Victory, but I believe I should have sent him to a good horsepittle or tarven, and hired him took care of. I never could stand it to have another husband in the same house with me and Josiah. It would seem so kind o’ curious, somethin’ in the circus way. I never could stand it never.”
“There have been a good many things Josiah Allen’s wife that you have not been required to stand, God and man united you to a good husband whom you love. But in your happiness you shouldn’t forget that some other woman has been less fortunate. In your perfect happiness, and harmony—”
“Oh!” says I candidly, “I don’t say but what Josiah and me have had our little spats Victory. Josiah will go in his stockin’ feet considerable and—”
But she interrupted of me with her eyes a flashin’,
“What would you say to livin’ with a man that forgot every day of his life that he was a man, and sunk himself into a brute. Leaving his young wife of a week for the society of the abandoned? What would you say to abuse, that resulted in the birth of a idiot child? Would you endure such a life? Would you live with the animal that he had made himself? I married a man, I never promised God nor man that I would love, honor and obey the wild beast he changed into. I was free from him in the sight of a pure God, long enough before the law freed me.”
I let her have her say out, for Josiah Allen’s wife is one to let every man or mouse tell thier principles if they have got any. And if I was conversin’ with the overseer of the bottomless pit, (I don’t want to speak his name right out, bein’ a Methodist), I would give him a chance to get up and relate his experience. But as she stopped with her voice kinder choked up, I laid my brown cotton glove gently onto her shoulder, and says I,
“Hush up Victory,” says I “wimmen must submit to some things, they can pray, and they can try to let thier sorrows lift ’em nearer to heaven, makin’ angels of ’em.”
Here Mr. Tilton spoke up and says he, “I don’t believe in the angels exclusively, I don’t see why there shouldn’t be he angels, as well as she ones.”
I was tickled, and I looked at him approvin’ly, and says I,
“Theodore you are the first man with one exception that I ever see that felt that way, and I respect you for it.” Says I, “men as a general thing think that wimmen have got to do up all the angel business there is done. Men seem to get the idee that they can do as they are a mind to and the Lord will wink at ’em. And there are lots of things that the world thinks would be awful coarse in a woman, but is all right in a man. But I don’t believe a man’s cigar smoke smells any sweeter to the Lord than a woman’s would. And I don’t believe a coarse low song, sounds any sweeter and purer in the ears of angels, because it is sung in a base voice instead of a sulfereno. I never could see why men couldn’t do somethin’ in the angel line themselves, as well as to put it all on to the wimmen, when they have got everything else under the sun to do. Not but what,” says I, “I am willen’ to do my part. I never was a shirk, and Josiah Allen will tell you so, I am willin’ to do my share of the angel business.” And says I, in a generous way, “I would do it all, if I only had time. But I love to see justice and reason. Nature feathers out geese and ganders equally, or if there is any difference the gander’s wings are the most foamin’ lookin’. Men’s shoulders are made jest the same way that wimmen’s are; feathers would look jest as well on ’em as on a woman, they can cultivate wings with jest as little trouble. What is the purest and whitest unseen feathers on a livin’ angel’s hidden wing, Theodore and Victory? They are purity, goodness, and patience, and men can grow these unbeknown feathers jest as easy as a woman can if they only set out.”