“Well, not to say crooked, Miss 'Rema; no, no. Only onconsistent, when squared up.”
“Uncle Sam, you're a puzzle to me to-day. What is inconsistent? What is there to square up?”
He fetched a long breath, and looked wondrous wise. Then, as if his main object was to irritate me, he made a long stride, and said, “Soup's a-bilin now.”
“Let it boil over, then. You must say what you mean. Oh, Uncle Sam, I only want to do the right!”
“I dessay. I dessay. But have you got the pluck, miss? Our little missy would 'a done more than that. But come to be great lady—why, they take another tune. With much mind, of course it might be otherwise. But none of 'em have any much of that to spare.”
“Your view is a narrow one,” I replied, knowing how that would astonish him. “You judge by your own experience only; and to do that shows a sad want of breadth, as the ladies in England express it.”
The Sawyer stared, and then took off his hat, and then felt all about for his spectacles. The idea of being regarded by a “female” from a larger and loftier point of view, made a new sensation in his system.
“Yes,” I continued, with some enjoyment, “let us try to look largely at all things, Uncle Sam. And supposing me capable of that, what is the proper and the lofty course to take?”
He looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, and with three words discomfited me—“Pop the question.”
Much as I had heard of woman's rights, equality of body and mind with man, and superiority in morals, it did not appear to me that her privilege could be driven to this extent. But I shook my head till all my hair came down; and so if our constitutional right of voting by color was exercised, on this occasion it claimed the timid benefit of ballot.