Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete by Marietta Holley (the reader ebook .txt) đź“–
- Author: Marietta Holley
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CHAPTER XXII.
I got home in time to get a good supper, though mebbe I ortn't to say it.
Sure enough, Josiah Allen had killed a hen, and dressed it ready for me to brile, but it wuz young and tender, and I knew it wouldn't take long, so I didn't care.
Good land! I love to humor him, and he knows it. Casper Keeler come in jest as I wuz a-gettin' supper and I thought like as not he would stay to supper; I laid out to ask him. But I didn't take no more pains on his account. No, I do jest as well by Josiah Allen from day to day, as if he wuz company, or lay out to.
Casper came over on a errent about that buzz saw mill. He wuz in dretful good spirits, though he looked kinder peaked.
He had jest got home from the city.
It happened dretful curius, but jest at this time Casper Keeler had had to go to New York on business. He had to sign some papers that nobody else couldn't sign.
His mother had hearn of a investment there that promised to pay dretful well, so she had took a lot of stock in it, and it had riz right up powerful. Why the money had increased fourfold, and more too, and Casper bein' jest come of age, had to go and sign suthin' or other.
Wall, he went round and see lots of sights in New York. His ma's money that she had left him made him fairly luxurius as to comfort, and he had plenty of money to go sight seein' as much as he wanted to.
He went to all the theatres, and operas, and shows of all kinds, and museums, and the Brooklyn Bridge, and circuses, and receptions, and et cetery, et cetery.
He wuz a-tellin' me how much money he spent while he wuz there, kinder boastin' on it; he had went to one of the biggest, highest taverns in the hull village of New York, where the price wuz higher than the very highest pinakle on the top of it, fur higher.
And I sez, “Did you go to the Wimmen's Exchange and the Workin' Wimmen's Association, that wuz held there while you wuz there?”
And he acted real scorfin'.
“Wimmen's work!” sez he. “No, indeed! I had too much on my hands, and too much comfort to take in higher circles, than to take in any such little trifles as wimmen's work.”
Sez I, “Young man, it is a precious little you would take in in life if it hadn't been for wimmen's work. Who earned and left you the money you are a-usin'?” sez I, “who educated you and made your life easy before you?”
And then bein' fairly drove into a corner, he owned up that his mother wuz a good woman.
But his nose wuz kinder lifted up the hull of the time he wuz a-sayin' it, as if he hated to own it up, hated to like a dog.
But he got real happified up and excited afterwards, in talkin' over with Josiah what he see to the Conference.' He stayed to supper; I wuz a seasonin' my chicken and mashed potatoes, and garnishin' 'em for the table. I wuz out to one side a little, but I listened with one side of my brain while the other wuz fixed on pepper, ketchup, parsley, etc., etc.
Sez Casper, “It wuz the proudest, greatest hour of my life,” sez he, “when I see a nigger delegate git up and give his views on wimmen keepin' down in their place. When I see a black nigger stand up there in that Conference and state so clearly, so logically and so powerfully the reasons why poor weak wimmen should not be admitted into that sacred enclosure—
“When I see even a nigger a-standin' there and a-knowin' so well what wimmen's place wuz, my heart beat with about the proudest emotions I have ever experienced. Why, he said,” sez Casper, “that if wimmen wuz allowed to stand up in the Conference, they wouldn't be satisfied. The next thing they would want to do would be to preach. It wuz a masterly argument,” sez Casper.
“It must have been,” sez my Josiah.
“He seemed to have such a borrow of a weak-minded, helpless woman a-raisin' herself up out of her lower spear.”
“Well he might,” sez Josiah, “well he might.”
Truly, there are times when women can't, seeminly, stand no more. This wuz one on 'em, and I jest waded right into the argiment. I sez, real solemn like, a-holdin' the sprig of parsley some like a septer, only more sort o' riz up like and mysteriouser. Yes, I held that green sprig some as the dove did when it couldn't find no rest for the soles of its feet—no foundation under it and it sailed about seekin' some mount of truth it could settle down on. Oh how wobblin' and onsubstantial and curius I felt hearin' their talk.
“And,” sez I, “nobody is tickleder than I be to think a colored man has had the right gin him to stand up in a Conference or anywhere else. I have probable experienced more emotions in his behalf,” sez I, “deep and earnest, than any other female, ancient or modern. I have bore his burdens for him, trembled under his lashes, agonized with him in his unexampled griefs and wrongs and indignities, and I have rejoiced at the very depths of my soul at his freedom.
“But,” sez I, “when he uses that freedom to enchain another and as deservin' a race, my feelin's are hurt and my indignations are riz up.
“Yes,” sez I, a-wavin' that sprig some like a warlike banner, as my emotions swelled up under my bask waste,
“When that negro stands there a-advocatin' the slavery of another race, and a-sayin' that women ortn't to say her soul is her own, and wimmen are too weak and foolish to lift up their right hands, much less preach, I'd love to ask him where he and his race wuz twenty-five years ago, and where they would be to-day if it wuzn't for a woman usin' her right hand and her big heart and brain in his behalf, and preachin' for him all over the world and in almost every language under the sun. Everybody says that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' wuz the searchin' harrow that loosened the old, hard ground of slavery so the rich
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