But here Josiah jumped up quick and said, “he objected,” he said, “that would endanger the right wimmen always had, and ort to have of cookin’ good vittles for men and doin’ their housework, and bearin’ and bringin’ up their children, and makin’ and mendin’ and waitin’ on ’em. He said nothin’ short of a Gatlin gun could keep Samantha from speakin’ her mind about such things, and he wuzn’t willin’ to have her made sick to the stomach, and incapacitated from cookin’ by any such proceedin’s.”
The members argued quite awhile on this pint, but finally come round to Josiah’s idees, and the meetin’ for a few minutes seemed to come to a standstill, till old Cornelius Snyder got up slowly and feebly. He has spazzums and can’t hardly wobble. His wife has to support him, wash and dress him, and take care on him like a baby. But he has the use of his tongue, and he got some man to bring him there, and he leaned heavy on his cane, and kinder stiddied himself on it and offered this suggestion:
“How would it do to tie females up when they got to thinkin’ they wuz equal to men, halter ’em, rope ’em, and let ’em see if they wuz?”
But this idee wuz objected to for the same reason Josiah had advanced, as Philander well said, “wimmen had got to go foot loose in order to do the housework and cookin’.”
Uncle Sime Bentley, who wuz awful indignant, said, “I motion that men shall take away all the rights that wimmen have now, turn ’em out of the meetin’ house, and grange.”
But before he’d hardly got the words out of his mouth, seven of the members riz up and as many as five spoke out to once with different exclamations:
“That won’t do! we can’t do that! Who’ll do all the work! Who’ll git up grange banquets and rummage sales, and paper and paint and put down carpets in the meetin’ house, and git up socials and entertainments to help pay the minister’s salary, and carry on the Sunday School? and tend to its picnics and suppers, and take care of the children? We can’t do this, much as we’d love to.”
One horsey, sporty member, also under the influence of liquor, riz up, and made a feeble motion, “Spozin’ we give wimmen liberty enough to work, leave ’em hand and foot loose, and sort o’ muzzle ’em so they can’t talk.”
This seemed to be very favorably received, ’specially by the married members, and the secretary wuz jest about to record it in the moments as a scheme worth tryin’, when old Doctor Nugent got up, and sez in a firm, decided way:
“Wimmen cannot be kept from talking without endangerin’ her life; as a medical expert I object to this motion.”