“Judith doesn’t mean such things,” explained Jean; “I don’t believe she wants David to teach her to be a blacksmith. But there is a woman in Dunellen who has a sick husband, and she is doing his work in the butcher’s shop.”
“Would you rather go to Washington, that city of opportunities for girls? The government offices are filled with women, and young women. Those who pass the civil service examination must be over twenty. Many states of the Union are represented. As the departments close at four in the afternoon, some of the girls take time for other employments, or for study. One I read of attends medical lectures at night. Some, who love study, belong to the Chautauqua Circle. French women, as a rule, have a good business education. In the common schools they are taught household bookkeeping. The French woman is expected to help her husband in his business.”
“Not if he is a blacksmith,” interjects the blacksmith’s wife.
“Harper has published a series called the Distaff Series: all the mechanical work, type-setting, printing, binding, covering, and designing was all done by women.”
“I think I would rather make the inside of a book,” said Judith. “But think of the women that do that and every kind of a book.”
“A lady took the four hundred dollar prize mathematical scholarship at Cornell University. There were twelve applicants; nine were women.”
“That is hard work,” acknowledged Judith, to whom Arithmetic and Algebra were never a success. She had even shed tears over Geometry, and how Roger had laughed at her.
“There’s a lady on Long Island who has a farm of five hundred acres; they call the farm, ‘Old Brick.’”
“Horrid name,” interrupted Jean, turning carefully the narrow hem of the coarse towel.
“It was a dairy farm, but she found milk not profitable enough, and gave it up and made a study of live stock. She has made a reputation as a stock raiser; she raises trotters and road horses,” said Mrs. Lane, watching the effect of her words upon Judith.