I’ve sung my song, I’ve wailed my wail.
“Wall, I call it foolish stuff,” I said, when I had finished. “Though, if I was to measure ’em with a yardstick, the lines might come out pretty nigh an equal length, and so I s’pose it would be called poetry.”
At any rate, I have made a practice, ever since, of callin’ it so; for I am one that despises envy and jealousy amongst sister authoresses. No, you never ketch me at it; I would sooner help ’em up the ladder than upset ’em, and it is ever my practice so to do. But truth must be spoke if subjects are brung up. Uronious views must be condemned by Warriors of the Right, whether ladders be upset, or stand firm, poetesses also.
I felt that this poetry attacked a tender subject, a subject dearer to me than all the world besides, the subject of Josiah. Josiah is a man.
And I say it, and I say it plain that men hain’t no such creeters as he tries to make out they be. Men are first-rate creeters in lots of things, and as good as wimmen any day of the week.
Of course, I agree with Betsy that husbands are tryin’ in lots of things; they need a firm hand to the hellum to guide ’em along through the tempestuous wave of married life, and get along with ’em. They are lots of trouble, and then I think they pay after all. Why, I wouldn’t swap my Josiah for the best house and lot in Janesville, or the crown of the Widder Albert. I love Josiah Allen. And I don’t know but the very trouble he has caused me makes me cling closer to him; you know the harder a horse’s head beats and thrashes against burdock burs, the tighter the burdocks will cling to its mane. Josiah makes me sights of trouble, but I cling to him closely.
I admit that men are curious creeters and tegus creeters, a good deal of the time. But then agin, so be wimmen, just as tegus, and I don’t know but teguser! I believe my soul, if I had got to be born again, I had almost as lives be born a man as a woman.
No, I don’t think one sect ort to boast much over the other one. They are both about equally foolish and disagreeable, and both have their goodness and nobilities. And both ort to have their rights. Now I haint one to set up and say men hadn’t ort to vote, that they don’t know enough, and hain’t good enough, and so forth, and so on. No, you don’t ketch me at it. I am one that stands up for justice and reason.
Now, the other day a wild-eyed woman with short hair, who goes round lecturin’ on wimmen’s rights, came to see me, a tryin’ to inviggle me into a plot to keep men from votin’. Says she, “The time is drawin’ near, when wimmen are a goin’ to vote, without no doubt.”