If you want to be
consistent, if you're bound to make angels of wimmen, you ort to furnish a
free safe place for 'em to soar in. You ort to keep the angels from bein'
tormented and bruised and killed, etc."
"Ahem," sez he, "as it were, ahem."
But I kep' right on, for I begun to feel noble and by the side of myself:
"This talk about wimmen bein' outside and above all participation in the
laws of her country, is jest as pretty as anything I ever hearn, and jest
as simple. Why, you might jest as well throw a lot of snowflakes into the
street, and say, 'Some of 'em are female flakes and mustn't be trompled
on.' The great march of life tromples on 'em all alike; they fall from one
common sky, and are trodden down into one common ground.
"Men and wimmen are made with divine impulses and desires, and human
needs and weaknesses, needin' the same heavenly light, and the same human
aids and helps. The law should mete out to them the same rewards and
punishments.
"Serepta sez you call wimmen angels, and you don't give 'em the rights of
the lowest beasts that crawl on the earth. And Serepta told me to tell you
that she didn't ask the rights of a angel; she would be perfectly contented
and proud, if you would give her the rights of a dog--the assured political
rights of a yeller dog.' She said yeller and I'm bound on doin' her 'errent
jest as she wanted it done, word for word.
"A dog, Serepta sez, don't have to be hung if it breaks the laws it is not
allowed any hand in making; a dog don't have to pay taxes on its bone to a
Govermunt that withholds every right of citizenship from it; a dog hain't
called undogly if it is industrious and hunts quietly round for its bone
to the best of its ability, and tries to git its share of the crumbs that
falls from that table bills are laid on.
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