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slit up the sides to show gauze stockinā€™s and anklets and diamond buckles. And you didnā€™t see my sect who honored the Parade by marchinā€™ in it, have a goose quill half a yard long, standinā€™ up straight in the air from a coal-scuttle hat, or out sideways, a hejus sight, and threateninā€™ the eyes of friend and foe.ā€

ā€œAnd you didnā€™t see many on ā€™em in the Parade,ā€ sez I agin. ā€œWomen, as they march along to Victory, have got to drop some of these senseless things. In fact, they are droppinā€™ em. You donā€™t see waists now the size of a hour glass. It is gettinā€™ fashionable to breathe now, and women on their way to their gole will drop by the way their high heels; it will git fashionable to walk comfortable, and as theyā€™ve got to take some pretty long steps to reach the ballot in 1916, it stands to reason theyā€™ve got to have a skirt wide enough at the bottom to step up on the gole of Victory. It is a high step, Josiah, but women are goinā€™ to take it. Theyā€™ve always tended to cleaninā€™ their own house, and makinā€™ it comfortable and hygenic for its members, big and little. And when they turn their minds onto the best way to clean the National house both sects have to live in to make it clean and comfortable and safe for the weak and helpless as well as for the strongā€”it stands to reason they wonā€™t have time or inclination to stand up on stilts with tied-in ankles, quilled out like savages.ā€

ā€œWell,ā€ said Josiah, with a dark, forebodinā€™ look on his linement, ā€œwe shall see.ā€

ā€œYes,ā€ sez I, with a real radiant look into the future. ā€œWe shall see, Josiah.ā€

But he didnā€™t have no idea of the beautiful prophetic vision I beheld with the eyes of my sperit. Good men and good women, each fillinā€™ their different spears in life, but banded together for the overthrow of evil, the uplift of the race.

X.
ā€œTHE CREATION SEARCHINā€™ SOCIETYā€

It was only a few days after we got home from New York that Josiah come into the house dretful excited. Heā€™d had a invitation to attend a meetinā€™ of the Creation Searchinā€™ Society.

ā€œWhy,ā€ sez I, ā€œdid they invite you? You are not a member?ā€

ā€œNo,ā€ sez he, ā€œbut they want me to help ā€™em be indignant. It is a indignation meetinā€™.ā€

ā€œIndignant about what?ā€ I sez.

ā€œFur be it from me, Samantha, to muddle up your head and hurt your feelinā€™s by tellinā€™ you what itā€™s fur.ā€ And he went out quick and shet the door. But I got a splendid dinner and afterwards he told me of his own accord.

I am not a member, of course, for the president, Philander Daggett, said it would lower the prestige of the society in the eyes of the world to have even one female member. This meetinā€™ wuz called last week for the purpose of beinā€™ indignant over the militant doinā€™s of the English Suffragettes. Josiah and several others in Jonesville wuz invited to be present at this meetinā€™ as sort of honorary members, as they wuz competent to be jest as indignant as any other male men over the tribulations of their sect.

Josiah said so much about the meetinā€™, and his Honorary Indignation, that he got me curious, and wantinā€™ to go myself, to see how it wuz carried on. But I didnā€™t have no hopes onā€™t till Philander Daggettā€™s new young wife come to visit me and I told her how much I wanted to go, and she beinā€™ real good-natered said she would make Philander let me in.

He objected, of course, but she is pretty and young, and his nater beinā€™ kinder softened and sweetened by the honey of the honeymoon, she got round him. And he said that if we would set up in a corner of the gallery behind the melodeon, and keep our veils on, he would let her and me in. But we must keep it secret as the grave, for he would lose all the influence he had with the other members and be turned out of the Presidential chair if it wuz knowed that he had lifted wimmen up to such a hite, and gin ā€™em such a opportunity to feel as if they wuz equal to men.

Well, we went early and Josiah left me to Philanderā€™s and went on to do some errents. He thought I wuz to spend the eveninā€™ with her in becominā€™ seclusion, a-knittinā€™ on his blue and white socks, as a woman should. But after visitinā€™ a spell, jest after it got duskish, we went out the back door and went cross lots, and got there ensconced in the dark corner without anybody seeinā€™ us and before the meetinā€™ begun.

Philander opened the meetinā€™ by readinā€™ the moments of the last meetinā€™, which wuz one of sympathy with the police of Washington for their noble efforts to break up the Womanā€™s Parade, and after their almost Herculaneum labor to teach wimmen her proper place, and all the help they got from the hoodlum and slum elements, they had failed in a measure, and the wimmen, though stunned, insulted, spit on, struck, broken boneded, maimed, and tore to pieces, had succeeded in their disgustinā€™ onwomanly undertakinā€™.

But it wuz motioned and carried that a vote of thanks be sent ā€™em and recorded in the moments that the Creation Searchers had no blame but only sympathy and admiration for the hard worked Policemen for they had done all they could to protect wimmenā€™s delicacy and retirinā€™ modesty, and put her in her place, and no man in Washington or Jonesville could do more. He read these moments, in a real tender sympathizinā€™ voice, and I spoze the members sympathized with him, or I judged so from their linements as I went forward, still as a mouse, and peeked down on ā€™em.

He then stopped a minute and took a drink of water; I spoze his sympathetic emotions had het him up, and kinder dried his mouth, some. And then he went on to state that this meetinā€™ wuz called to show to the world, abroad and nigh by, the burninā€™ indignation this body felt, as a society, at the turrible sufferinā€™s and insults beinā€™ heaped onto their male brethren in England by the indecent and disgraceful doinā€™s of the militant Suffragettes, and to devise, if possible, some way to help their male brethren acrost the sea. ā€œFor,ā€ sez he, ā€œpizen will spread. How do we know how soon them very wimmen who had to be spit on and struck and tore to pieces in Washington to try to make ā€™em keep their place, the sacred and tender place they have always held enthroned as angels in a manā€™s heartā€”ā€

Here he stopped and took out his bandanna handkerchief, and wiped his eyes, and kinder choked. But I knew it wuz all a oratorā€™s art, and it didnā€™t affect me, though I see a number of the members wipe their eyes, for this talk appealed to the inheriant chivalry of men, and their desire to protect wimmen, we have always hearn so much about.

ā€œHow do we know,ā€ he continued, ā€œhow soon they may turn aginst their best friends, them who actuated by the loftiest and tenderest emotions, and determination to protect the weaker sect at any cost, took their valuable time to try to keep wimmen down where they ort to be, angels of the home, who knows but they may turn and throw stuns at the Capitol anā€™ badger anā€™ torment our noble lawmakers, a-tryinā€™ to make ā€™em listen to their silly petitions for justice?ā€

In conclusion, he entreated ā€™em to remember that the eye of the world wuz on ā€™em, expectinā€™ ā€™em to be loyal to the badgered and woman endangered sect abroad, and try to suggest some way to stop them womanā€™s disgraceful doinā€™s.

Cyrenus Presly always loves to talk, and he always looks on the dark side of things, and he riz up and said ā€œhe didnā€™t believe nothinā€™ could be done, for by all heā€™d read about ā€™em, the men had tried everything possible to keep wimmen down where they ort to be, they had turned deaf ears to their complaints, wouldnā€™t hear one word they said, they had tried drivinā€™ and dragginā€™ and insults of all kinds, and breakinā€™ their bones, and imprisonment, and stuffinā€™ ā€™em with rubber tubes, thrust through their nose down into their throats. And he couldnā€™t think of a thing more that could be done by men, and keep the position men always had held as wimmenā€™s gardeens and protectors, and he said he thought men might jest as well keep still and let ā€™em go on and bring the world to ruin, for that was what they wuz bound to do, and they couldnā€™t be stopped unless they wuz killed off.ā€

Phileman Huffstater is a old bachelder, and hates wimmen. He had been on a drunk and looked dretful, tobacco juice runninā€™ down his face, his red hair all towsled up, and his clothes stiff with dirt. He wuznā€™t invited, but had come of his own accord. He had to hang onto the seat in front of him as he riz up and said: ā€œHe believed that wuz the best and only way out onā€™t, for men to rise up and kill off the weaker sect, for their wuznā€™t never no trouble of any name or nater, but what wimmen wuz to the bottom onā€™t, and the world would be better off without ā€™em.ā€ But Philander scorfed at him and reminded him that such hullsale doinā€™s would put an end to the worldā€™s beinā€™ populated at all.

But Phileman said in a hicuppinā€™, maudlin way that ā€œthe world had better stop, if there had got to be such doinā€™s, wimmen risinā€™ up on every side, and pretendinā€™ to be equal with men.ā€

Here his knee jints kinder gin out under him, and he slid down onto the seat and went to sleep.

I guess the members wuz kinder shamed of Phileman, for Lime Peedick jumped up quick as scat and said, ā€œIt seemed the Englishmen had tried most everything else, and he wondered how it would work if them militant wimmen could be ketched and a dose of sunthinā€™ bitter and sickeninā€™ poured down ā€™em. Every time they broached that loathsome doctrine of equal rights, and tried to make lawmakers listen to their petitions, jest ketch ā€™em and pour down ā€™em a big dose of wormwood or sunthinā€™ else bitter and sickeninā€™, and he guessed they would git tired onā€™t.ā€

But here Josiah jumped up quick and said, ā€œhe objected,ā€ he said, ā€œthat would endanger the right wimmen always had, and ort to have of cookinā€™ good vittles for men and doinā€™ their housework, and bearinā€™ and bringinā€™ up their children, and makinā€™ and mendinā€™ and waitinā€™ on ā€™em. He said nothinā€™ short of a Gatlin gun could keep Samantha from speakinā€™ her mind about such things, and he wuznā€™t willinā€™ to have her made sick to the stomach, and incapacitated from cookinā€™ by any such proceedinā€™s.ā€

The members argued quite awhile on this pint, but finally come round to Josiahā€™s idees, and the meetinā€™ for a few minutes seemed to come to a standstill, till old Cornelius Snyder got up slowly and feebly. He has spazzums and canā€™t hardly wobble. His wife has to support him, wash and dress him, and take care on him like a baby. But he has the use of his tongue, and he got some man to bring him there, and he leaned heavy on his cane, and kinder stiddied himself on it and offered this suggestion:

ā€œHow would it do to tie females up when they got to thinkinā€™ they wuz equal to men, halter ā€™em, rope ā€™em, and let ā€™em see if they wuz?ā€

But this idee wuz objected to for the same reason Josiah had advanced, as Philander well said, ā€œwimmen had got to go foot loose in order to do the housework and cookinā€™.ā€

Uncle Sime Bentley, who wuz awful indignant, said, ā€œI motion that men shall take away all the rights that wimmen have now, turn ā€™em out of the meetinā€™ house, and grange.ā€

But before heā€™d hardly got the words out of his mouth, seven of the members riz up and as many as five spoke out to once with different exclamations:

ā€œThat wonā€™t do! we canā€™t do that! Whoā€™ll do all the work! Whoā€™ll git up grange banquets and rummage sales, and paper and paint and put down carpets in the meetinā€™ house, and git up socials and entertainments to help pay the ministerā€™s salary, and carry on the Sunday School? and tend to its picnics and suppers, and take care of the children? We canā€™t do this, much as weā€™d love to.ā€

One horsey, sporty member, also under the influence of liquor, riz

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