The intuition of women is certainly wonderful. Even such an accomplished diplomat as myself was floored on the spot by a little girl.
Well, the days wore on, and our walks became to me walks in an unknown realm. Her little casual references to mother, brother, home, friends and daily work gave me a vista of a life not even imagined by me. To live as she, in well-regulated household and according to well-ordained schedule, had never been desired by me and, therefore, never been considered by me.
"If that kind of life turns out such fine little women, it can't be so bad after all, and may be worth trying," was my train of reasoning, and a dull but positive desire to try that sort of life began to rankle in my soul.
While I was engaged in these musings, she did not keep entirely quiet, but put me through the most severe kind of civil service. I had to answer so many questions—and truthfully, too, as she could tell a fabrication immediately—until I honestly believe every hour of my life was covered. The finish of it all was that I was made the subject of several of the most scathing lectures ever delivered. Those sermons fairly made my blood boil, and often, under my breath, I wished she were a man, that I could close the lecturing for good and all with a blow.
It is simply awful how impudent little people—and especially women—are. And the worst of it is that we big fellows have to stand it from them.
She had a peculiarly direct way of getting at things and never minced matters. The effect of it was that I began to shrink into myself.
A leering knave, I had stood on the pinnacle of wickedness; had grinned and sneered at decency, manhood and womanhood; had thought myself a "somebody" because the laws of God and man were unregarded by me, and because a chorus of fools and friends had always shouted an amen to my deeds, and now—now I awoke to the pitiful fact that I was not only a "nobody," but a despicable, contemptible thing, without the least of claims to the grandest title—man.
Yes, there was no denying the fact, the "somebody" had fallen, sadly fallen from his horse, and all his house of cards had been knocked into smithereens by a little bit of a schoolma'am.
A KINDERGARTEN OF ONE.
CHAPTER XV.