Chapter 2. "They Can't Blame Her"

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_ CHAPTER II. "THEY CAN'T BLAME HER"

And I wonder if there is a woman in the land that can blame Serepta for gittin' mad and wantin' her rights and wantin' the Whiskey Ring broke up, when they think how she's been fooled round with by men; willed away, and whipped, and parted with, and stole from. Why, they can't blame her for feelin' fairly savage about 'em, as she duz.

For as she sez to me once, when we wuz talkin' it over, how everything had happened to her. "Yes," sez she, with a axent like bone-set and vinegar, "and what few things hain't happened to me has happened to my folks."

And sure enough I couldn't dispute her. Trouble and wrongs and sufferin's seemed to be epidemic in the race of Pester wimmen. Why, one of her aunts on her father's side, Huldah Pester, married for her first husband, Eliphelet Perkins. He wuz a minister, rode on a circuit, and he took Huldah on it too, and she rode round with him on it a good deal of the time. But she never loved to, she wuz a woman that loved to be still, and kinder settled down at home.

But she loved Eliphelet so well that she would do anything to please him, so she rode round with him on that circuit till she wuz perfectly fagged out.

He wuz a dretful good man to her, but he wuz kinder poor and they had hard times to git along. But what property they had wuzn't taxed, so that helped some, and Huldah would make one dollar go a good ways.

No, their property wuzn't taxed till Eliphelet died. Then the supervisor taxed it the very minute the breath left his body; run his horse, so it wuz said, so's to be sure to git it onto the tax list, and comply with the law.

You see Eliphelet's salary stopped when his breath did. And I spoze the law thought, seein' she wuz havin' trouble, she might jest as well have a little more; so it taxed all the property it never had taxed a cent for before.

But she had this to console her that the law didn't forgit her in her widowhood. No; the law is quite thoughtful of wimmen by spells. It sez it protects wimmen. And I spoze that in some mysterious way, too deep for wimmen to understand, it wuz protectin' her now.

Well, she suffered along and finally married agin. I wondered why she did. But she wuz such a quiet, home-lovin' woman that it wuz spozed she wanted to settle down and be kinder still and sot. But of all the bad luck she had. She married on short acquaintance, and he proved to be a perfect wanderer. He couldn't keep still, it wuz spozed to be a mark.

He moved Huldah thirteen times in two years, and at last he took her into a cart, a sort of covered wagon, and traveled right through the western states with her. He wanted to see the country and loved to live in the wagon, it wuz his make. And, of course, the law give him control of her body, and she had to go where he moved it, or else part with him. And I spoze the law thought it wuz guardin' and nourishin' her when it wuz joltin' her over them prairies and mountains and abysses. But it jest kep' her shook up the hull of the time.

It wuz the regular Pester luck.

And then another of her aunts, Drusilly Pester, married a industrious, hard-workin' man, one that never drinked, wuz sound on the doctrines, and give good measure to his customers, he wuz a groceryman. And a master hand for wantin' to foller the laws of his country as tight as laws could be follered. And so knowin' that the law approved of moderate correction for wimmen, and that "a man might whip his wife, but not enough to endanger her life"; he bein' such a master hand for wantin' to do everything faithful and do his very best for his customers, it wuz spozed he wanted to do the best for the law, and so when he got to whippin' Drusilly, he would whip her too severe, he would be too faithful to it.

You see what made him whip her at all wuz she wuz cross to him. They had nine little children, she thought two or three children would be about all one woman could bring up well by hand, when that hand wuz so stiff and sore with hard work.

But he had read some scareful talk from high quarters about Race Suicide. Some men do git real wrought up about it and want everybody to have all the children they can, jest as fast as they can, though wimmen don't all feel so.

Aunt Hetty Sidman said, "If men had to born 'em and nuss 'em themselves, she didn't spoze they would be so enthusiastick about it after they had had a few, 'specially if they done their own housework themselves," and Aunt Hetty said that some of the men who wuz exhortin' wimmen to have big families, had better spend some of their strength and wind in tryin' to make this world a safer place for children to be born into.

She said they'd be better off in Nonentity than here in this world with saloons on every corner, and war-dogs howlin' at 'em.

I don't know exactly what she meant by Nonentity, but guess she meant the world we all stay in, before we are born into this one.

Aunt Hetty has lost five boys, two by battle and three by licensed saloons, that makes her talk real bitter, but to resoom. I told Josiah that men needn't worry about Race Suicide, for you might as well try to stop a hen from makin' a nest, as to stop wimmen from wantin' a baby to love and hold on her heart. But sez I, "Folks ort to be moderate and mejum in babies as well as in everything else."

But Drusilly's husband wanted twelve boys he said, to be law-abidin' citizens as their Pa wuz, and a protection to the Govermunt, and to be ready to man the new warships, if a war broke out. But her babies wuz real pretty and cunning, and she wuz so weak-minded she couldn't enjoy the thought that if our male statesmen got to scrappin' with some other nation's male law-makers and made another war, of havin' her grown-up babies face the cannons. I spoze it wuz when she wuz so awful tired she felt so.

You see she had to do every mite of her housework, and milk cows, and make butter and cheese, and cook and wash and scour, and take all the care of the children day and night in sickness and health, and make their clothes and keep 'em clean. And when there wuz so many of 'em and she enjoyin' real poor health, I spoze she sometimes thought more of her own achin' back than she did of the good of the Govermunt--and she would git kinder discouraged sometimes and be cross to him. And knowin' his own motives wuz so high and loyal, he felt that he ort to whip her, so he did.

And what shows that Drusilly wuzn't so bad after all and did have her good streaks and a deep reverence for the law is, that she stood his whippin's first-rate, and never whipped him. Now she wuz fur bigger than he wuz, weighed eighty pounds the most, and might have whipped him if the law had been such. But they wuz both law-abidin' and wanted to keep every preamble, so she stood it to be whipped, and never once whipped him in all the seventeen years they lived together. She died when her twelfth child wuz born. There wuz jest ten months difference between that and the one next older. And they said she often spoke out in her last sickness, and said, "Thank fortune, I've always kep' the law!" And they said the same thought wuz a great comfort to him in his last moments. He died about a year after she did, leavin' his second wife with twins and a good property.

Then there wuz Abagail Pester. She married a sort of a high-headed man, though one that paid his debts, wuz truthful, good lookin', and played well on the fiddle. Why, it seemed as if he had almost every qualification for makin' a woman happy, only he had this one little eccentricity, he would lock up Abagail's clothes every time he got mad at her.

Of course the law give her clothes to him, and knowin' that it wuz the law in the state where they lived, she wouldn't have complained only when they had company. But it wuz mortifyin', nobody could dispute it, to have company come and have nothin' to put on. Several times she had to withdraw into the woodhouse, and stay most all day there shiverin', and under the suller stairs and round in clothes presses. But he boasted in prayer meetin's and on boxes before grocery stores that he wuz a law-abidin' citizen, and he wuz. Eben Flanders wouldn't lie for anybody.

But I'll bet Abagail Flanders beat our old revolutionary four-mothers in thinkin' out new laws, when she lay round under stairs and behind barrels in her night-gown. When a man hides his wife's stockin's and petticoats it is governin' without the consent of the governed. If you don't believe it you'd ort to peeked round them barrels and seen Abagail's eyes, they had hull reams of by-laws in 'em and preambles, and Declarations of Independence, so I've been told. But it beat everything I ever hearn on, the lawful sufferin's of them wimmen. For there wuzn't nothin' illegal about one single trouble of theirn. They suffered accordin' to law, every one on 'em. But it wuz tuff for 'em, very tuff. And their bein' so dretful humbly wuz another drawback to 'em, though that too wuz perfectly lawful, as everybody knows.

And Serepta looked as bad agin as she would otherwise on account of her teeth. It wuz after Lank had begun to git after this other woman, and wuz indifferent to his wife's looks that Serepta had a new set of teeth on her upper jaw. And they sot out and made her look so bad it fairly made her ache to look at herself in the glass. And they hurt her gooms too, and she carried 'em back to the dentist and wanted him to make her another set, but he acted mean and wouldn't take 'em back, and sued Lank for the pay. And they had a law-suit. And the law bein' such that a woman can't testify in court, in any matter that is of mutual interest to husband and wife, and Lank wantin' to act mean, said that they wuz good sound teeth.

And there Serepta sot right in front of 'em with her gooms achin' and her face all swelled out, and lookin' like furiation, and couldn't say a word. But she had to give in to the law. And ruther than go toothless she wears 'em to this day, and I believe it is the raspin' of them teeth aginst her gooms and her discouraged, mad feelin's every time she looks in the glass that helps embitter her towards men, and the laws men have made, so's a woman can't have control of her own teeth and her own bones.

Serepta went home about 5 P.M., I promisin' sacred to do her errents for her.

And I gin a deep, happy sithe after I shot the door behind her, and I sez to Josiah I do hope that's the very last errent we will have to carry to Washington, D.C., for the Jonesvillians.

"Yes," says he, "an' I guess I will get a fresh pail of water and hang on the tea kettle for you."

"And," I says, "it's pretty early for supper, but I'll start it, for I do feel kinder gone to the stomach. Sympathy is real exhaustin'. Sometimes I think it tires me more'n hard work. And Heaven knows I sympathized with Serepta. I felt for her full as much as if she was one of the relations on _his_ side."

But if you'll believe it, I had hardly got the words out of my mouth and Josiah had jest laid holt of the water pail, when in comes Philander Dagget, the President of the Jonesville Creation Searchin' Society and, of course, he had a job for us to do on our tower. This Society was started by the leadin' men of Jonesville, for the purpose of searchin' out and criticizin' the affairs of the world, an' so far as possible advisin' and correctin' the meanderin's an' wrong-doin's of the universe.

This Society, which we call the C.S.S. for short, has been ruther quiet for years. But sence woman's suffrage has got to be such a prominent question, they bein' so bitterly opposed to it, have reorganized and meet every once in a while, to sneer at the suffragettes and poke fun at 'em and show in every way they can their hitter antipathy to the cause.

Philander told me if I see anything new and strikin' in the way of Society badges and regalia, to let him know about it, for he said the C.S.S. was goin' to take a decided stand and show their colors. They wuz goin' to help protect his women endangered sect, an' he wanted sunthin' showy and suggestive.

I thought of a number of badges and mottoes that I felt would be suitable for this Society, but dassent tell 'em to him, for his idees and mine on this subject are as fur apart as the two poles. He talked awful bitter to me once about it, and I sez to him:

"Philander, the world is full of good men, and there are also bad men in the world, and, sez I, did you ever in your born days see a bad man that wuzn't opposed to Woman's Suffrage? All the men who trade in, and profit by, the weakness and sin of men and women, they every one of 'em, to a man, fight agin it. And would they do this if they didn't think that their vile trades would suffer if women had the right to vote? It is the great-hearted, generous, noble man who wants women to become a real citizen with himself--which she is not now--she is only a citizen just enough to be taxed equally with man, or more exhorbitantly, and be punished and executed by the law she has no hand in makin'."

Philander sed, "I have always found it don't pay to talk with women on matters they don't understand."

An' he got up and started for the door, an' Josiah sed, "No, it don't pay, not a cent; I've always said so."

But I told Philander I'd let him know if I see anything appropriate to the C.S.S. Holdin' back with a almost Herculaneum effort the mottoes and badges that run through my mind as bein' appropriate to their society; knowin' it would make him so mad if I told him of 'em--he never would neighbor with us again. And in three days' time we sot sail. We got to the depo about an hour too early, but I wuz glad we wuz on time, for it would have worked Josiah up dretfully ef we hadn't been, for he had spent most of the latter part of the night in gittin' up and walkin' out to the clock seein' if it wuz train time. Jest before we started, who should come runnin' down to the depo but Sam Nugent wantin' to send a errent by me to Washington. He wunk me out to one side of the waitin' room, and ast "if I'd try to git him a license to steal horses."

It kinder runs in the blood of the Nugents to love to steal, and he owned up it did, but he said he wanted the profit of it. But I told him I wouldn't do any sech thing, an' I looked at him in such a witherin' way that I should most probable withered him, only he is blind in one side, and I wuz on the blind side, but he argued with me, and said that it wuz no worse than to give licenses for other kinds of meanness.

He said they give licenses now to steal--steal folkses senses away, and then they could steal everything else, and murder and tear round into every kind of wickedness. But he didn't ask that. He wanted things done fair and square: he jest wanted to steal horses. He wuz goin' West, and he thought he could do a good bizness, and lay up somethin'. If he had a license he shouldn't be afraid of bein' shet up or shot.

But I refused the job with scorn; and jest as I wuz refusin', the cars snorted, and I wuz glad they did. They seemed to express in that wild snort something of the indignation I felt.

The idee! _

Read next: Chapter 3. "Polly's Eyes Crowed Tender"

Read previous: Chapter 1. "She Wanted Her Rights"

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