“The sexes liv strickly apart, I spect?”
“Yay.”
“It’s kinder singler,” sez I, puttin on my most sweetest look and speakin in a winnin voice, “that so fair a made as thou never got hitched to some likely feller.” [N.B.—She was upards of 40 and homely as a stump fence, but I thawt I’d tickil her.]
“I don’t like men!” she sed, very short.
“Wall, I dunno,” sez I, “they’re a rayther important part of the populashun. I don’t scarcely see how we could git along without ’em.”
“Us poor wimin folks would git along a grate deal better if there was no men!”
“You’ll excoos me, marm, but I don’t think that air would work. It wouldn’t be regler.”
“I’m afraid of men!” she sed.
“That’s onnecessary, marm. You ain’t in no danger. Don’t fret yourself on that pint.”
“Here, we’re shot out from the sinful world. Here, all is peas. Here, we air brothers and sisters. We don’t marry and consekently we hav no domestic difficulties. Husbans don’t abooze their wives—wives don’t worrit their husbans. There’s no children here to worrit us. Nothin to worrit us here. No wicked matrimony here. Would thow like to be a Shaker?”