I said that I would do anything in my power. Her help would be invaluable, not merely because of the money she might give, but because of the influence of her name; the attention she could draw to any cause she chose. I explained to her the aims and the methods of our child-labour committee. We lobbied to get new legislation; we watched officials to compel them to enforce the laws already existing; above all, we worked for publicity, to make people realise what it meant that the new generation was growing up without education, and stunted by premature toil. And that was where she could help us most—if she would go and see the conditions with her own eyes, and then appear before the legislative committee this winter, in favour of our new bill!
She turned her startled eyes upon me at this. Her ideas of doing good in the world were the old-fashioned ones of visiting and almsgiving; she had no more conception of modern remedies than she had of modern diseases. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly make a speech!” she exclaimed.
“Why not?” I asked.
“I never thought of such a thing. I don’t know enough.”
“But you can learn.”
“I know, but that kind of work ought to be done by men.”
“We’ve given men a chance, and they have made the evils. Whose business is it to protect the children if not the women’s?”
She hesitated a moment, and then said: “I suppose you’ll laugh at me.”
“No, no,” I promised; then as I looked at her I guessed. “Are you going to tell me that woman’s place is the home?”
“That is what we think in Castleman County,” she said, smiling in spite of herself.