Feminist fiction; Women -- Social and moral questions -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"I don't think the militant women are doing these things to induce men
to feel tenderly toward them, Mrs. Hays. I don't believe they care just
now whether the men feel tenderly toward them or not. Women have been
low-voiced and sweet and docile for a good many centuries, but it hasn't
gained them the right to claim their own children, or to stand up beside
men and share their higher responsibilities and privileges. I don't like
the manner of warfare, myself. While I could die at the stake if it
would do any good, I couldn't break windows and throw acid. For one
thing, it doesn't seem to me quite logical, as the damage is inflicted
on the property of persons who have nothing to do with the case. But, of
course, I can't be sure that, after the fight is won, future generations
will not honor the women who forgot their personal preferences and who
made the fight in the only way they could."
"You're such a grand talker, Miss, that it's hard running opposite to
you, but I was brought up to think that a woman ought to be as near an
angel as she could be. I never answered my husband back, no matter what
he said to me, and I moved here and there to suit him. I was always
waiting for him at home, and when he got there I stood ready to do for
him in any way I could. We was happy together, Miss, and when he was
dying he said that I had been a good wife. Them words repaid me, Miss,
as having my own way never could."
Clarinda Hays had grown fervid. There were tears in her patient eyes,
and her face was frankly broken with emotion.
Kate permitted a little silence to fall. Then she said gently:--
"I can see it is very sweet to you--that memory--very sweet and sacred.
I don't wonder you treasure it."
She let the subject lie there and arose presently and, in passing, laid
her firm brown hand on Mrs. Hays's work-worn one.
Wander was in the sitting-room and as she entered it he motioned her to
get her hat and sweater. She did so silently and accepted from him the
alpenstock he held out to her.
"Is it right to leave Honora?" he asked when they were beyond hearing.
"I had little or nothing to do down in town, and it occurred to me that
we might slip away for once and go adventuring."
"Oh, Honora's particularly well this morning. She's been reading a
little, and after she has rested she is going to try to sew. Not that
she can do much, but it means that she's taking an interest again."
"Ah, that does me good! What a nightmare it's been! We seem to have had
one nightmare after another, Honora and I."
They turned their steps up the trail that mounted westward.
"It follows this foothill for a way," said Wander, striding ahead, since
they could not walk side by side. "Then it takes that level up there and
strikes the mountain. It goes on over the pass."
"And where does it end? Why was it made?"
"I'm not quite sure where it ends. But it was made because men love to
climb."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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