Josiah denied it, but I sez, “I see his boots stickin’ out of the ambulance myself.” Josiah couldn’t dispute that, for he knows I am truthful. But he sez, sunthin’ in the sperit of two little children I hearn disputin’. Sez one: “It wuzn’t so; you’ve told a lie.” “Well,” sez the other, “You broke a piece of china and laid it to me.” Sez Josiah, “You may have seen a pair of men’s boots a-stickin’ out of the ambulance, but I’ll bet they didn’t have heels on ’em a inch broad, and five or six inches high.” “No, Josiah,” sez I, “you’re right. Men think too much of their comfort and health to hist themselves up on such little high tottlin’ things, and you didn’t see many on ’em in the Parade.” But he went on drivin’ the arrow of higher criticism still deeper into my onwillin’ breast. “I’ll bet you didn’t see his legs tied together at the ankles, or his trouses slit up the sides to show gauze stockin’s and anklets and diamond buckles. And you didn’t see my sect who honored the Parade by marchin’ in it, have a goose quill half a yard long, standin’ up straight in the air from a coal-scuttle hat, or out sideways, a hejus sight, and threatenin’ the eyes of friend and foe.” “And you didn’t see many on ’em in the Parade,” sez I agin. “Women, as they march along to Victory, have got to drop some of these senseless things. In fact, they are droppin’ em. You don’t see waists now the size of a hour glass. It is gettin’ fashionable to breathe now, and women on their way to their gole will drop by the way their high heels; it will git fashionable to walk comfortable, and as they’ve got to take some pretty long steps to reach the ballot in 1916, it stands to reason they’ve got to have a skirt wide enough at the bottom to step up on the gole of Victory. It is a high step, Josiah, but women are goin’ to take it. They’ve always tended to cleanin’ their own house, and makin’ it comfortable and hygenic for its members, big and little. And when they turn their minds onto the best way to clean the National house both sects have to live in to make it clean and comfortable and safe for the weak and helpless as well as for the strong—it stands to reason they won’t have time or inclination to stand up on stilts with tied-in ankles, quilled out like savages.” “Well,” said Josiah, with a dark, forebodin’ look on his linement, “_we shall see_.” “Yes,” sez I, with a real radiant look into the future. “_We shall see_, Josiah.” But he didn’t have no idea of the beautiful prophetic vision I beheld with the eyes of my sperit. Good men and good women, each fillin’ their different spears in life, but banded together for the overthrow of evil, the uplift of the race. X. “THE CREATION SEARCHIN’ SOCIETY” It was only a few days after we got home from New York that Josiah come into the house dretful excited. He’d had a invitation to attend a meetin’ of the Creation Searchin’ Society. “Why,” sez I, “did they invite you? You are not a member?”