“And I’ll bet that old Miss Hosey and Miss Maleky jest put to it and worked and made perfect slaves of themselves.
“And with all this work, and care, and privation on their minds and hearts, they couldn’t have got such a dretful sight of sympathy and companionship out of their husbands, to say nuthin’ of help and out-door chores.
“For though the old prophets wuz jest as likely as likely could be and did what wuz perfectly necessary and right, still while they wuz out in the streets a hollerin’ ‘Woe! woe! to this wicked city!’ etc., etc., they couldn’t at the same time be to home a talkin’ affectionate to their pardners or a sawin’ wood. I’ll bet old Miss Maleky picked up more than half she burned, and split pretty nigh all her own kindlin’ wood, and killed her hens, and sot ’em, etc., etc.
“AND KILLED HER HENS.”
“Them days seem a good ways off to us, and things seen through the misty, hazy atmosphere of so many years seem sort o’ easy to us.
“But I don’t spoze water would bile then without a fire no more than it would now. And I spoze the dishes, or whatever they kep’ their vittles in then, had to be washed.
“And I spoze the goatskins and sheepskins that them good old men wandered round in had to be cleaned every now and then—it stands to reason they did. And I don’t believe them prophets did it; no, I don’t believe they had the time to, even if they thought on’t.
“No; I dare presume to say that every time you found a prophet you would find some woman a takin’ care on him, so he could have the freedom of mind and the absence of domestic cares necessary to keep his soul the calm medium through which divine truth could pour down upon a sinful world.