Samantha at the St. Louis ExpositionHolley, Marietta
General
Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition
Holley, Marietta
Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904 : Saint Louis, Mo.) -- Fiction
She talked powerful about it, and I sez: "Jane Olive, I've gin a good
deal of thought to this subject, and I think this house of yourn is a
good idee, but to my mind it don't cover the hull ground. Now I will
give five dollars for the Home for Fallen Wimmen and the other five for
the Home for Fallen Men."
Sez she, and she screamed the words right out: "There hain't any such
institution in the hull city!"
"Why, there must be!" sez I. "It hain't reasonable that there shouldn't
be. Why, if a man and a woman go along over a bridge together, and both
fall through, and are maimed and broke to pieces, they are carried to a
male and female hospital to be mended up. Or if they fall through a
sidewalk or anywhere else they have to both be doctored up and have the
same splints on and rubbed with the same anarky, etc."
"That's very different," sez Jane Olive.
"Why different?" sez I. "If they both fall morally their morals ort to
be mended up agin both on 'em. The woman ort to be carried to the Home
for Fallen Wimmen, the Home for Magdalenes, and the men to the Home for
Fallen Men, the Home for Mikels."
"There hain't no such place!" sez Jane Olive agin decidedly.
Sez I, "Did you ever inquire?"
"No," sez she, "I wouldn't make a fool of myself by inquirin' for such a
thing as that, Home for Mikels! I don't know what you mean by that
anyway."
"Why," sez I, "fallen men angels. You know Mikel wuz a angel once and he
fell."
"Well, there is no such place," sez she, tossin' her head a little.
"Well," sez I, "you ort to know, you're from the city and I hain't; but
I know that if there hain't such a place it's a wicked thing. Just look
at them poor fallen men that are walkin' the streets night after night,
poor creeters goin' right down to ruin and nobody trying to lead 'em up
agin to the way of safety and virtue--poor fallen, ruined men! I feel to
pity 'em."
Sez Jane Olive, "Oh, shaw! they don't feel ruined, they're all right,
I'll resk them."
"How do you know how they feel? Take a tender hearted, innocent man,
that some bad, designin' woman has led astray, led him on till she has
betrayed and ruined him, and he feels that the screen door of society is
shet aginst him----"
"Oh, shaw!" sez Jane Olive agin. "The door of society hain't shet aginst
the man, it never is."
"Then," sez I, "there is sunthin' wrong with the door and it ort to be
tended to."
Sez she, "Things are winked at in a bad man that hain't in a bad woman."
"Not by me," sez I firmly. "The man won't git a wink out of me more or
less than I would give to the woman."
"It don't hurt a man," sez Jane Olive. "And," sez she, "no self
respectin' man goes to any place that hain't licensed and respectable."
"If such houses are respectable," sez I, "and the law makes 'em so, why
hain't the wimmen called so that keep 'em? Why hain't the wimmen looked
up to that work there?"
Sez Jane Olive, "You don't talk no good sense at all."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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