But those men--many of 'em who did not know a letter of the alphabet, whose naturally dull minds had become more stupified by habitual vice--those men, who wus her inferiors, and her servants in every thing else, wus each one of 'em her king here, and she his slave: and they compelled her to obey their lower wills. Wall, Cicely didn't think it wus right. Curius she should think so, some folks thought, but she did. But all this that wore on her wus as nothin' to what she felt about the boy,--her fears for his future. “What could she do--what _could_ she do for the boy, to make it safer for him in the future?” And I had jest this one answer, that I'd say over and over agin to her,-- “Cicely, you can pray! That is all that wimmen can do. And try to influence him right now. God can take care of the boy.” “But I can't keep him with me always; and other influences will come, and beat mine down. And I have prayed, but God don't hear my prayer.” And I'd say, calm and soothin', “How do you know, Cicely?” And she says, “Why, how I prayed for help when my poor Paul went down to ruin, through the open door of a grog-shop! If the women of the land had it in their power to do what their hearts dictate,--what the poorest, lowest _man_ has the right to do,--every saloon, every low grog-shop, would be closed.” She said this to Josiah the mornin' after the lecture I speak of. He sot there, seemin'ly perusin' the almanac; but he spoke up then, and says,-- “You can't shet up human nater, Cicely: that will jump out any way. As the poet says, 'Nater will caper.'” But Cicely went right on, with her eyes a shinin', and a red spot in her white cheeks that I didn't like to see. “A thousand temptations that surround my boy now, could be removed, a thousand low influences changed into better, helpful ones. There are drunkards who long, who pray, to have temptations removed out of their way,--those who are trying to reform, and who dare not pass the door of a saloon, the very smell of the liquor crazing them with the desire for drink. They want help, they pray to be saved; and we who are praying to help them are powerless. What if, in the future, my boy should be like one of them,--weak, tempted, longing for help, and getting nothing but help towards vice and ruin? Haven't mothers a right to help those they love in _every_ way,--by prayer, by influence, by legal right and might?” “It would be a dangerous experiment, Cicely,” says Josiah, crossin' his right leg over his left, and turnin' the almanac to another month. “It seems to me sunthin' unwomanly, sunthin' aginst nater. It is turnin' the laws of nater right round. It is perilous to the domestic nature of wimmen.”