“And—can I go alone?”
“Alone! certainly; alone and independently. Why, everybody would laugh now-a-days to see you hanging to your father’s arm, like a child that is just learning to walk.”
“Bless me, ’Bel! how could I—excellent! Then I never shall be obliged to stay at home for lack of company, but can go when and where I please. And I am not to be annoyed any more by officious collectors and captains putting themselves every half hour in my way, to know if I am ‘comfortable, Miss?’ Alone and independently! Jubilate!”
“Thoughts have wings,” poets say; and they have said it so often that parrot prose has taken up the echo, and thinks the sentiment its own property. But “thoughts have wings,” nevertheless; and, at a flap of the wing of that last exultant thought, home, Cousin ’Bel, and all vanished; and I was on board a North River steamer, “alone and independent.” But did I shout “jubilate” now? It was the least bit in the world forlorn—that standing on the deck, with crowds of people all about me, no one caring a clay pipe-stem, whether I was happy or miserable, comfortable or suffering from fatigue and chilliness. I looked down into the water, up at the sky, gazed at the shore (rather vacantly, I must own,) and then turned to the people jostling past each other with a care-for-naught air, as though “number one is the first law of nature” had been the creed of everybody. “Independence may be a fine thing,” thought I, “no doubt it is a fine thing, but—heigho!”
Somebody stepped on my dress. “Pardon, Miss!” The words popped pertly from the lips, as men make a kind of pretence for an apology to each other, with the head turned the other way. Dear me! what had I done to forfeit my claim to that respectful deference of manner which I had always considered a woman’s birth-right? My face reddened, half with anger, half mortification; but luckily I soon remembered that “we were equal now;” and that the sacrifice could not all be on one side. There was a leveling up, and a leveling down in the Reform. Of course, we could not gain an equality of strength and independence and maintain a superiority of delicacy. That would be giving us a decided advantage. On reflection I became reconciled; but the incident had disconcerted me a little, and my position was not made more comfortable by observing that staring had become quite the fashion. It was one of the fruits of equality, to be sure; but while I drew my thick green veil, and turned away to gaze into the water, I was very nearly guilty of the heresy of wondering if we had not lost almost as much as we had gained. While I stood here, the bell rang for supper, and there was a general rush to the cabin. I hesitated a moment, (for I was afraid of being knocked down in the confusion,) and then stepped along very timidly behind.
“It will be so awkward to go in and brush about for a seat!” said bashfulness, pinching at my cheeks until there seemed to have been a fire kindled on each.
“Pooh!” answered the Reform-spirit, “elbow your way through the crowd, and allow yourself to be bullied by nobody.”
Bashfulness attempted another faint remonstrance, but I choked down the foolish suggestions, as quite unworthy a woman of spirit, and made my way resolutely along. My troublesome timidity had made me slow of foot; for, by the time I gained the door, all the passengers were seated, and the earnest clatter of knife and fork made my heart quake. “It is nothing,” thought I, “I will go in.” But I didn’t; I was alone. “This is foolish,” urged common sense, “just step in quietly; nobody will mind it.”
Ah! that was the thing. Nobody would mind it, except to look up with that rude stare which I had already learned to dread; and if there should be any trouble about finding a vacant seat—oh, it would be too much! An ounce more of mortification, and I should jump into the river. I was pretty hungry, but supper was nothing in comparison, and I retreated to the deck. By and by, the passengers returned; and by this time I had become sufficiently composed to watch others instead of thinking all the time of myself. Men were sitting, and women standing all about the deck, engaged in arguments which I found partook not a little of the tone and manner which characterized most of the contentions of last autumn. There is less of courtesy; men are more bitter and vituperative in an argument on politics than on any other subject, for the reason that they have not merely that one proposition to defend, but pride of party to support; they are not holding an argument with one man simply to establish a truth, but they are opposing a party which it is conducive to their interest—whether right or not, they think so—to put down. Precisely so was it in this case; though a few of the more magnanimous among men, or a few, tired of “making themselves slaves to keep their wives and daughters on a throne,” as somebody has it, might not have been annoyed by the Great Reform, yet the generality felt the party-spirit strong within them, and a theory did not gain any thing in their eyes by being broached by a woman. I remembered that in former days women were always the winners in a controversy; though sometimes there was a biting of lips, and a forcing of smiles, and bows, to let it be so; but now it was exactly the reverse. Perhaps you will think the cause of truth gained by the change. No such thing. There was no more impartiality than before. The volubility of the women tried hard to match itself against the stentorian voices of the men, and sometimes succeeded; the former were gainers in the light-artillery of wit, but the latter invariably came in with a heavy cannonade of put-down-ism, which would never have been attempted even by a stage-driver, in such a presence, under the old régime. While I was watching these doings, and wondering what would become of myself in this new state of things, we were all of us startled by a sudden bustle in another part of the boat—loud, angry voices in altercation, accompanied by blows. The confusion lasted but a moment, and I saw the combatants separated—a very pretty, spirited woman, and a fat elderly gentleman, who looked as though he might, in general, be quite temperate in the matter of treating himself to a fit of anger. But this time he had been provoked beyond endurance, by taunts that would have roused the good old Doubter, and had resorted to caning. The lady did not carry a cane, but she used the sharp point of her parasol to very good purpose, until the spectators interfered, and the combatants were obliged to content themselves with looking canes and parasols. The next stirring incident was the jingling of a bell along the saloon, by way of an accompaniment to “Those passengers as has not paid their fare, please step to the cap’n’s office and se-et-tle!” What next? I had hoped for a few moments of quiet, and now to commit myself to the tender mercies of the crowd! I saw a great broad-shouldered woman thrust a baby into the arms of a sheepish-looking man, probably her husband, and pull from her capacious pocket, with some ostentation, an enormous leathern-wallet. “She is going to the cap’n’s office,” thought I, and I twitched her sleeve.
“Will—will you, madam, be kind enough to procure a ticket for me?” To make such a request of a woman! But she smiled and bowed very condescendingly, flattered by the compliment I had paid her superiority. “This is a little too bad,” thought I, as the woman put the ticket in my hand. “I do not care to pass for an idiot, and I must make an effort; I see what it is that I need.” So I thought all night of the landing, and resolved, and re-resolved to “act worthy of myself” on that occasion.