I admit that men are curious creeters and tegus creeters, a good deal of the time. But then agin, so be wimmen, just as tegus, and I don’t know but teguser! I believe my soul, if I had got to be born again, I had almost as lives be born a man as a woman. No, I don’t think one sect ort to boast much over the other one. They are both about equally foolish and disagreeable, and both have their goodness and nobilities. And both ort to have their rights. Now I haint one to set up and say men hadn’t ort to vote, that they don’t know enough, and hain’t good enough, and so forth, and so on. No, you don’t ketch me at it. I am one that stands up for justice and reason. Now, the other day a wild-eyed woman with short hair, who goes round lecturin’ on wimmen’s rights, came to see me, a tryin’ to inviggle me into a plot to keep men from votin’. Says she, “The time is drawin’ near, when wimmen are a goin’ to vote, without no doubt.” “Amen!” says I, “I can say amen to that with my hull heart and soul.” “And then,” says she, “when we get the staff in our own hands less we wimmen all put in together and try to keep men from votin’.” “Never!” says I. “Never! will you get me into such a scrape as that.” Says I, “men have jest exactly as good a right to vote as wimmen have. They are condemned, and protected, and controlled by the same laws that wimmen are, and so of course are equally interested in makin’ ’em. You needn’t try to inviggle me into no plot to keep men from votin’, for justice is ever my theme, and also Josiah.” Says she, bitterly, “I’d love to make these miserable sneaks try it once and see how they would like it, to have to spend their property and be hauled round, and hung by laws they hadn’t no hand in makin’.” But I still say with marble firmness, “men has jest as good a right to vote as wimmen have. And you needn’t try to inviggle me into no such plans, for I won’t be inviggled.” And so she stopped invigglin, and went off. And then agin in Betsy’s poetry (though as a neighbor, and a female authoress, I never would speak a word against it, and what I say, I say as a Warrior, and would wish to be so took) I would say in kindness that Betsy sot out in married life expectin’ too much. Now, she didn’t marry in the right way, and so she ought to have expected tougher times than the usual run of married females ort to expect, more than the ordinary tribulations of matrimony. And it won’t do to expect too much in this world anyway. If you can only bring your lives down to it, it is a sight better to expect nothing, and then you won’t be disappointed if you get it, as you most probably will. And if you get something, it will be a joyful surprise to you. But there are few indeed who has ever sot down on this calm hite of filosify.