"Well," sez she, "you better forebode to yourself another time. I wuz jest rensin' out my last biler of clothes, and I've got to whitewash the summer kitchen, and paint the buttery floor, and scrape the paper off overhead in the settin' room, so's to paper it to-morrow. And I guess that whitewashin' and scrapin' off that paper with a case knife overhead is as hefty a job as liftin' up a paper ballot, to say nothin' of the biler full of clothes I'm liftin' on and off, and sweatin' over the wash-tub. And I'll thank you to keep your forebodin's and warnin's to yourself in the future, and not call me offen my work." And she went out and shet the door hard. And that's all the thanks I got for my tender feelin's and overpowerin' desire to keep hardships from her. But I knowed she wuz expectin' company, and fixin' up and preparin' for 'em, so I overlooked it in her, and I presoom to say the thought of that company and the extra good meals we wuz sure to have, had a amelioratin' effect on me. But her hashness won't stop me nor other noble tender hearted males from worryin' about the turrible hardship and labor of votin', and tryin' our best to keep the gentle delicate females we are protectin' and guardin' from plungin' into it. But I'm so sensitive and my feelin's so easy hurt, that it must have been a minute and a half before my mind settled down agin and I could hold my steeled pen in as firm a grip as heretofore, and resoom my powerful argumentative strain. Another reason I've argued why wimmen should not vote wuz she would act so awkward in politics she would put in so many petickulars, wimmen's minds hain't stabled, they hain't got horse sense. And they don't nor won't appreciate that good old doctrine that has always been such a comfort to me and Uncle Sime and other statesmen, that what has been always will be, and to let well enough alone. No they have got to be tinkerin' and tryin' to make things better, and interfere, and talk and tell petickulars. Now if a merchant sells 'em cloth for their fambly, instead of buyin' and payin' for it and keepin' their mouth shet as a man would, they'll feel of it and pull it to and fro, fro and to. And if it hain't what he claims it is, if it is shoddy and poor, they'll talk and talk till he has to hustle round and buy good stuff, or they won't trade with him, takin' off his profits jest by petickulars.