"No, he wuzn't, he liked it, there's one of the pints I'm comin' at, how these modern wimmen will pull the wool over men's eyes, no matter how smart he is naterally. They did seem to have good times together, laughin' and talkin' together, settin' to the table a hour or so, a visitin' away as if they hadn't seen each other for a month. But merciful heavens! the subjects they talked on and discussed over! It seemed that she knew every crook and turn on subjects that Bill's grandma never had heard on by name. Hygeen, books, Street Cleanin', Hospital work, Charities, Political affairs from pole to pole and Scientific subjects--Radium, Electricity, Spiritualism, Woman's Suffrage, which they both believed in. There seemed to be no end to the subjects they talked about. So different from pa and ma's talk. They eat their meals in perfect and solemn silence most all the time, ma always waitin' on him. And if she did venter any remarks to him they usually didn't fly no higher than hen's eggs or neighborhood doin's. Do you spoze that pa would stood it havin' a wife that acted as if she knew as much as he did? Not much. "But Bill's wife wuz right up to snuff as well informed as Bill wuz, and Bill didn't seem to know enough to be jealous and mad about a wife actin' as if she wuz on a equality with him. It made me ashamed to think a male relation on my own side should act so meachin'. And in one thing she even went ahead of Bill, owin' to the money men had spent on her. She sung like a bird, and evenin's Bill would lay back in his chair before the open fireplace and listen to her singin' and playin' them old songs and look at her as if he worshipped her. He didn't seem to want to stir out of the house evenin's unless she went too, lost all his ambition to go out and have a good man time, seemed perfectly happy where he wuz. And he used to be a great case to be out nights and act like a man amongst men. "But," sez Uncle Sime, "I believe that one of the things that galded me most amongst all the galdin' things I see and hearn there, wuz Bill's wife's independence in money matters. Economic Independence! That wuz one of her fool idees. Oh, how often I thought of you, Josiah, and wished you wuz there to put down what I see and hearn in the beautiful language you know so well how to use." My feelin's wuz touched and I sez solemnly, "Simon, I would loved to been there, and if I couldn't help you I could have sot and sympathized with you."