"'Hallo!' said I, 'I give up the point. I take back all I said. Culpa mea, my good wife. If Blackstone does say'—
"'Not a word more about Blackstone,' said she, shaking her whip, half serious half playfully, at me; 'if I go with you, I go as somebody—a legal entity.'
"'Very well,' said I, 'we'll drop the argument.'
"'Not the argument, but the fact, Mr. W——; and admit that Blackstone was a goose, and that his law, like his logic, is all nonsense when measured by the standard of common sense and practical fact. Admit that a woman, when she becomes a wife does not become a mere nonentity, or I leave you to journey alone.'
"'Very well, my dear, let us see if we cannot compromise this matter. Suppose we allow his philosophy to stand as a general truth, making you an exception. We'll say that wives in general are nobody, but that you shall be exempt from the general rule, and be considered always hereafter, and as between ourselves, as somebody.'
"You see the shrewdness of my proposition. Firstly, it saved Blackstone; secondly, it saved me, let me down easy; and thirdly, it appealed to the womanly vanity of my wife, and it took.
"'Oh, well,' she said, as she brought her pony alongside of me, and we jogged along cosily together, 'I see no objection to that. Other wives can take care of themselves. But this compromise, as between us, Mr. W——, must be a finality. No Nebraska traps, Mr. W——. No Kansas bills hereafter. It must be a finality, mind.'
"'Very well,' said I; and a robin that was building its nest on a limb that hung over the road, paused in its labors, and burst into song, and the burden of its lay seemed to be a compromise, which, in truth, should be a FINALITY.
"We were successful in our fishing, and we followed the old-fashioned custom as to bait. We discarded the fly, using only the angle-worm. At the foot of the ripples; under the old logs; where the water went whirling under the cavernous banks; in the eddies; among the driftwood; everywhere, we found trout—not large, none weighing over six ounces, and few less than three. We caught my basket full in less then two hours, and then rode home. It was a day of enjoyment to us, you may be sure.
"And now I appeal to you, in all seriousness, my friend," the Doctor continued, addressing himself to Spalding, "if there is not something due to the wives and mothers of the present generation? Is there not some relaxation of the law necessary in vindication of the civilization of the age, against the legal barbarisms still remaining on the statute books, and adhered to by the common law, in regard to wives and mothers? Is the current of progress to flow by them for ever, bearing no reforms which shall affect them? Do not misunderstand me. I am no advocate of the practices of the 'strong-minded women,' who hold their conventions and public meetings, who unsex themselves by mounting the forum, and, throwing off the retiring modesty of the true woman, seek to secure notoriety at the price of popular contempt. But there are evils which bear heavily, too heavily, upon the women even of this country, and which, for the credit of the civilization of the age, should be corrected. As calm-minded, philanthropic men, we, the American people, should look into this subject, and, regardless of jeer and scoff, do what justice, humanity, and the right demand of us, in regard to some of the social and legal inequalities between the sexes, pertaining to the married state."