And when Josiah tells me how highly tickled he is he is a man—when he says it in a sort of a pensive and dreamy way, kinder miselanious like—I don’t resent it in him but on the contrary approve of it in him, highly. But once in a while he will get to feelin’ kind o’ cross and uppish, and say it to me in a sort of a twittin’ way, and boastin’.
Mebby he will begin by readin’ out loud to me sunthin’ against wimmen’s rights, in the World or almanac, or some other high-toned periodical; sometimes it will be awful cuttin’ arguments aginst wimmen. And after he gets through readin’ it he will speak out in such a sort of a humiliatin’ way about how awful tickled he is, he is a man, so he can vote, and help keep the glorious old state of New York on its firm basis of nobility, morality, and wise economy.
Why, says he to me the other afternoon (feelin’ fractious was the cause of his sayin’ it at the time), says he: “Wimmen are dretful simple creeters; gossipin’, weak, weak-minded, frivolous bein’s; extravagant, given to foolish display. They don’t mind the cost of things if they can only make a big show. So different from men, they be. Why,” says he proudly and boastfully, “you never in your life ketched a man gossipin’ over their neighbors’ affairs. You never see ’em meddlin’ the least mite with scandal and evil talkin’. Men are economical, sound-minded. They spend only jest what they need, what is useful—nothin’ more, not a cent more. Why,” says he, “take it with wimmen’s foolish extravagance and love of display, what would the glorious old state of New York come to if it was sot under her rain? And they are so weak, too,—wimmen be. Why, old Error would take ’em by the nose” (Josiah, I think, is a practicin’ allegory. He uses flowery rhetoricks and simelys as much agin as he used to use ’em.) And he repeated agin, with a haughty look: “Old Error would take ’em by the nose, as it were, and lead ’em into all sorts of indiscretions, and weakness, and wickedness, before they knew it.
“Why, if we men of New York state had a woman’s incapability of grapplin’ with wrong, and overthrowin’ of it: if we had her love of scandal and gossip; if we had her extravagance and love of display, where would the glorious old state of New York be to-day? Where would her morals be? Where would her finankle and money affairs be?”
And Josiah leaned back in his chair, and crossed his legs over each other, as satisfied and contented a crossin’ as I ever see, and says agin:
“If I was ever proud and tickled about anything in my life, Samantha Allen, I am tickled to think I am a man.”
He had been readin’ a witherin’ piece out of the almanac to me—an awful deep, skareful piece aginst wimmen’s suffrage. And feelin’ cross and fractious, he did look so awful overbearin’ and humiliatin’ onto me, on account of my bein’ a woman, that I sprunted right up and freed my mind to him. I am very close-mouthed naturally, and say but very little, but I can’t stand everything.
While he was talkin’ I had been a fixin’ a new tow mop that I had been a spinnin’ into my patented mop-stick, and had jest got it done. And I riz right up and pinted with it at a picture of the new capitol at Albany that hung over the sink. It was a noble and commandin’ gesture (though hard to the wrist). It impressed him dretfully, I could see it did. I had that sort of a lofty way with me as I gestured, and went on in awful tones to say:
A MONUMENT OF MEN’S ECONOMY.
