Says he: “Look at the position of the childern of these unions, that would be left fatherless. What a sad scene it would be; helpless infancy made a mark for contumely and sneers; babyhood blamed, scorned.”
Says I: “They wouldn’t be scorned, not by anybody whose scorn would be worth havin’. Nobody but a fool or a luny is in the habit of blamin’ folks for doin’ what they can’t help doin’, and bein’ what they can’t help bein’. Blame the childern! Why, good land!” says I, “I should jest as soon set out and scold a mornin’-glory or a white violet for the looks of the ground they sprung from. God’s own purity is writ in the clear eyes of babyhood, and in the blue heart of them mornin’-glories. Blossoms of light, mornin’-glories, springin’, God knows how or why, out of the black mould, out of darkness and decay. Who could look scoffin’ly or irreverently on ’em, or on them other blossoms of innocence, springin’ as mysteriously from as dark a soil, and touched by the hand of God with as pure and divine a beauty.”
“Unpractical, unpractical female, led away as females ever are by sympathies and views of right and wrong. Oh! thank Heaven! thank Heaven! such dangerous qualities are not incorporated into politics. I should tremble for the nation if it were so.”
And agin he looked fiercely at the stove-hearth.
“Unpractical female, what would become of the childern left, as it were, fatherless?”
Says I: “If the parents of the childern are rich enough, let ’em support ’em; and the poor ones—I know a man who will adopt the hull lot, and be glad of the chance,” says I proudly. “It is a uncle of mine, a uncle I am proud to own. Samuel is his name, and nobility and generosity is his nater.” Says I: “Let these childern and the wimmen, if necessary, be took care of by the government, and let the evil end with this generation.”
“But what would the position of these wimmen be in society; what would they be?”
“What be they now?” says I agin. And I snapped out that “now” considerable snappish, for I was gettin’ a good deal wore out with him. Says I: “You seem to think it would be the death-blow to their reputation to stop sinnin’, stop livin’ in wickedness; but there is where you and I differ. I should think as much agin of ’em.”
And says I: “If a evil is a goin’ to stop, it has got to begin to stop sometime, or else it won’t never get stopped. More of these unholy unions have taken place durin’ the past year than ever before in the same length of time. Powerful efforts are bein’ made to strengthen and extend the power of the system. And it must either be stopped, or else go on widening and spreading, and destroying this beautiful new world as it destroyed so many other strong, proud nations that were glorious in the past.” Says I: “Can I set still and see it go on, and can Josiah set still, and other female pardners, and other Josiahs, and not long to lift a hand to turn back this flood of woe and desolation?”
Here Josiah groaned aloud. He had his thoughts there on that lounge, though he lay middlin’ still. His thoughts goared him worse than that stitch did, ten times over. And I felt sorry for him, my feelin’s for him are such; and I brought his name in in a friendly way, just because my love for him was so strong, and I forgive him so.