A NIGHT IN A ROCKING-CHAIR
By Kate Field
It may be true that America is going to perdition; that all Americans are rascals; that there are no American gentlemen; that culture, refinement, and social manners can only be found in the Old World: but if it be true, what an extraordinary anomaly it is that women, old and young, ugly and handsome, can travel alone from one end of this great country to the other, receiving only such attention as is acceptable. Having journeyed up and down the land to the extent of twenty thousand miles, I am persuaded that a woman can go anywhere and do anything, provided she conducts herself properly. Of course it would be absurd to deny that it is not infinitely more agreeable to be accompanied by the "tyrant" called "man"; but when there is no tyrant to come to lovely woman's rescue, it is astonishing how well lovely woman can rescue herself, if she exerts the brain and muscle, given her thousands of years ago, and not entirely annihilated by long disuse. I have been nowhere that I have not been treated with greater consideration than if I had belonged to the other sex. There is not a country in Europe of which this can be said; and if a nation's civilization is gauged—as the wise declare—by its treatment of women, then America, rough as it may be, badly dressed as it is, tobacco-chewing as it often is, stands head, shoulders, and heart above all the rest of the world. The Frenchwoman was right in declaring America to be le paradis des dames, and those women who exalt European gallantry above American honesty are as blind to their own interests as an owl at high noon.
There is no royal railroad to lecturing. At best it is hard work, but lecture committees "do their possible," as the Italians say, to lessen the weight, and that "possible" is heartily appreciated by such of us as inwardly long for a natural bridge between stations and hotels. A woman is never so forlorn as when getting out of a car or entering a strange hotel.
However, there never was a rule without its exception, and though courtesy has marked the majority of lecture committees for its own, a lecturer may occasionally find himself stranded upon a desert of indifference, and languish for the comforts of a home not twenty miles distant. Thus it happened that once upon arriving at my destination when the shades of evening were falling fast, and glancing about for the customary smiling gentlemen who smooth out the rough places by carrying bags, superintending the transportation of luggage, and driving you to your abiding-place in the best carriage of the period, I found no gentlemen, smiling or otherwise, to deliver me from my own ignorance.
"Carriage, ma'am?" screamed a Jehu in top-boots ornamented with a grotesque tracery of mud.
Well, yes, I would take a carriage; so up I clambered and sat down upon what in the darkness I supposed was a seat, but what gave such palpable evidences of animation in howls and attempts at assault and battery, as to prove its right to be called a boy. "An' sure the lady didn't mane to hurt ye, Jimmy," expostulated something that turned out to be the boy's mother, whereupon a baby and a small sister of the small boy sent forth their voices in unison with that of their extinguished brother.
"Driver, let me get out," I said pathetically.
"Certainly, ma'am, but where will you go to? There ain't no other carriage left."
True; and I remained, and when I was asked where I wanted to stop, I really did not know. Was there a hotel? Yes. Was there more than one hotel? No. I breathed more freely, and said I would go to the hotel.