E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 31451-h.htm or 31451-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31451/pg31451-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31451/31451-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archives/American Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/littlequestionin00filliala A LITTLE QUESTION IN LADIES' RIGHTS * * * * * _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ THE HICKORY LIMB _Illustrated._ _Cloth._ _50 cents net_ "The joyful pathos is so true that it chokes you all up but leaves you happy, and one likes to be left happy." "An hour of amusement, a series of laughs from the heart out and a pleasant vista backward to the days of childhood will come to the reader of 'The Hickory Limb.'" _Cincinnati Tribune._ JOHN LANE COMPANY NEW YORK * * * * * [Illustration: "What's the matter, Margery?" "Nothing. I'm just waiting." (_See page 13_)] A LITTLE QUESTION IN LADIES' RIGHTS by PARKER H. FILLMORE Author of "The Hickory Limb," "The Rosie World," Etc. Illustrations by Rose Cecil O'Neill [Illustration] New York John Lane Company MCMXVI Copyright, 1911, By John Lane Company Copyright, 1916, By John Lane Company Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company New York, U. S. A. _Note_: The first part of this story is reprinted from "The Young Idea," now out of print; the second part has never until now appeared in book form. ILLUSTRATIONS "What's the matter, Margery?" "Nothing. I'm just waiting." _Frontispiece_ PAGE "I'm only the hired girl!" 19 "Margery, do you see him? The bees are after him!" 30 A LITTLE QUESTION IN LADIES' RIGHTS PART ONE MARGERY was sitting under the cherry tree with a certain air of expectancy. She seemed to be waiting for something or some one. Willie Jones's head popped over the back fence and Willie Jones himself, a tin pail in one hand, dropped into the Blair yard and made for the cherry tree. But Margery still gazed earnestly, tensely, into nothing. Willie Jones, evidently, was not the object of her thoughts. "What's the matter, Margery?" "Nothing. I'm just waiting." "What for?" There was no reason for telling Willie Jones, but, by the same token, there was no reason for not telling him. So Margery answered frankly: "I et a whole bagful of bananas and now Effie says I'm going to be sick and thr'up. So I'm just waiting."