When the nights grew longer and the store was closed for the evening, the milliner and her husband usually spent an hour or two in the back room looking over the newspaper which came every day from the city. The man always turned at once to the wheat reports, and the price of wool, which he read aloud to his wife, though I could see she did not care very much to hear about them; but she hunted first for the fashion notes and the bargains in millinery before she read the other news. One night while thus engaged she suddenly exclaimed:
"Here's something that is bound to hurt trade."
By trade she meant the millinery business.
"What is it?" her husband inquired, looking over the top of the page he held.
"Why, here's a lot of women who have been meeting in a convention in Chicago and getting excited and losing their heads, and passing some ridiculous resolutions."
"What kind of resolutions?" he inquired.
"Oh, they've been denouncing the fashion of wearing birds. They belong to a society called—called—something or other, I forget what. Let me see," and she ran her eye down the column. "Oh, yes, here it is. They are members of the O'Dobbin society, and they got so wrought up on the subject they took the feathers out of their hats right there in the meeting and vowed never to wear bird trimming again. Well, if such outlandish notions spread, you'll soon see how it will injure the millinery trade."
"Pshaw! you needn't worry. The protests of a handful of fanatical women can't do your business any harm," he answered carelessly, and turned to his paper again.
She shook her head. "I'm not so sure of that. I think there are some women in this very town just cranky enough to endorse such foolishness. There's Mrs. Judge Jenkins for one. I've never yet been able to sell her a real stylish hat. She won't wear birds, because she thinks it's wicked. I hope to goodness she won't consider it her duty to start an O'Dobbin society here."
From the depths of my heart I blessed those kind women who had shown their disapproval of the nefarious traffic in bird life, and had pledged themselves to our protection. True, they were but a handful compared with the millions whom the god Fashion still held in bondage, only a handful who were fighting the good fight; but would not the influence of their noble example and their pledge of mercy be spread abroad till all the women in Christian lands would join in the crusade against the wrong?