Feminism -- Fiction; Sex role -- Fiction; Women's rights -- Fiction
Durin’ my conversation with Lorinda, I inquired about Royal Gray, for
as stated, he wuz a great favorite of ourn, and I found out (and I
could see it gaulded her) that when Polly united with the Suffragists
he shied off some, and went to payin’ attention to another girl.
Whether it wuz to make Polly jealous and bring her round to his way of
thinkin’, I didn’t know, but mistrusted, for I could have took my oath
that he loved Polly deeply and truly. To be sure he hadn’t confided in
me, but there is a language of the eyes, when the soul speaks through
’em, and as I’d seen him look at Polly my own soul had hearn and
understood that silent language and translated it, that Polly wuz the
light of his eyes, and the one woman in the world for him. And I
couldn’t think his heart had changed so sudden. But knowin’ as I did
the elastic nature of manly affection, I felt dubersome.
This other girl, Maud Vincent, always said to her men friends, it wuz
onwomanly to try to vote. She wuz one of the girls who always gloried
in bein’ a runnin’ vine when there wuz any masculine trees round to
lean on and twine about. One who always jined in with all the idees
they promulgated, from neckties to the tariff, who declared cigar smoke
wuz so agreeable and welcome; it did really make her deathly sick, but
she would choke herself cheerfully and willin’ly if by so chokin’ she
could gain manly favor and admiration.
She said she didn’t believe in helpin’ poor girls, they wuz well enough
off as it wuz, she wuz sure they didn’t feel hunger and cold as rich
girls did, their skin wuz thicker and their stomachs different and
stronger, and constant labor didn’t harm them, and working girls didn’t
need recreation as rich girls did, and woman’s suffrage wouldn’t help
them any; in her opinion it would harm them, and anyway the poor wuz
on-grateful.
She had the usual arguments on the tip of her tongue, for old Miss
Vincent, the aunt she lived with, wuz a ardent She Aunty and very
prominent in the public meetin’s the She Auntys have to try to compel
the Suffragists not to have public meetin’s. They talk a good deal in
public how onwomanly and immodest it is for wimmen to talk in public.
And she wuz one of the foremost ones in tryin’ to git up a school to
teach wimmen civics, to prove that they mustn’t ever have anything to
do with civics.
Yes, old Miss Vincent wuz a real active, ardent She Aunty, and Maud
Genevieve takes after her. Royal Gray, his handsome attractive
personality, and his millions, had long been the goal of Maud’s
ambition. And how ardently did she hail the coolness growing between
him and Polly, the little rift in the lute, and how zealously did she
labor to make it larger.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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