I had spoke real eloquent, and I knew it, but I felt that I had been carried away slightly by my emotions, from the mission I had come on—to try to convince Miss Woodhull where she was wrong. And so after a minutes silence, I broke out agin mildly, for I felt that if I give way to anger or impatience my mission was lost.
“Another thing you are wrong in Victory, is to think you can be lawfully married without any minister or justice of the peace. I knew that all you needed was to have it set before you plain by some female that wished you well; you are wrong in it Victory, and I tell you so plain, and to show you that I am your well wisher, I thought after I had convinced you that you was in the wrong, I would make you this offer. That if you and Col. Blood will go home with Betsey and me, Elder Wesley Minkley shall marry you right in my parlor, and it shan’t cost you a cent, for I will pay him myself in dried apples.”
Says she, “I don’t want any ceremony, I want the only tie to hold me to my husband to be love, the one sacred tie.”
“Love is a first rate tie,” says I, mildly, holdin’ on to my temper first rate, “upwards of 15 years ago, I give one of the most remarkable proofs of it, that has ever been seen in this country;” (and for a minute my mind wandered off onto that old revery, why did I love Josiah Allen?) But collectin’ my mind together I spoke onwards, with firm and cast iron principle. “Still, although I felt that sacred tie unitin’ Josiah and me in a double beau knot that couldn’t be untwisted, the first time we met, still, if Elder Wesley Minkley hadn’t united us at the alter—or mother’s parlor, I should have felt dreadful floatin’ round in my mind. It would have seemed too curious and onstiddy kinder, as if Josiah and me was liable to fall all to pieces at any time, and waver off in the air like two kites that had broke loose from thier strings.” Says I, firmly, “Thier would be a looseness to it, I couldn’t stand.”
She said I would get accustomed to it, and that custom made many things seem holy that were unholy, and many things sinful that were pure in the sight of God.
But still I murmured with a sad look, but firm as old Bunker Hill, “I couldn’t stand it, Victory, it would seem too much like a circus.
“And then agin, Victory, you are in the wrong of it about divorces. ‘What God has joined togather let no man put asunder.’”
Says she, “Josiah Allen’s wife, if divorces were free to-morrow, would you get one from Josiah?”
“Never!” says I, and my best dress most bust open at the breast, (them biases always was took up a little too snug) at the idee of partin’ from Josiah.
“Well, what is it that would hold you so fast to each other that nothin’ but death could separate you? was it the few words you said before the minister?”