“But if you vote you have got to go before a board of men, and how tryin’ to delicacy that would be.”
“I went before a board of men when I joined the meetin’ house, and when I got the premium for my rag carpet, and I still live and call myself a respectable character, but,” says I in a vain of unconcealed sarcasm “if these delicate ball characters are too modest to go in broad daylight armed with a umbrell before a venerable man settin’ on a board, let ’em have a good old female board to take thier votes.”
“Would it be lawful to have a female board?” says Betsey.
“Wimmen can be boards at charity schools--poor little paupers, pretty hard boards they find ’em some times--and they can be boards at fairs, and hospitals, and penitentarys, and picnics, and African missions, and would it be any worse to be a board before these delicate wimmen,” says I, almost carried away with enthusiasm, “I would be a board myself.”
“Yes you would make a pretty board,” says Josiah, “you would make quite a pile of lumber.” I paid no attention to his sarkastic remark, and Betsey went on.
“It would be such public business Josiah Allen’s wife for a woman to recieve votes.”
“I don’t know as it would be any more public business, than to sell Episcopal pin cushiens, Methodist I scream, or Baptist water melons, by the hour to a permiscuus crowd.”
But says Betsey, “’twould devouh too much of a female’s time, she would not have time to vote, and perform the other duties that are incumbient upon her.”
Says I, “Wimmen find time for thier everlastin’ tattin’ and croshain’. They find plenty of time for thier mats, and their tidys, their flirtations, thier feather flowers, and bead flowers, and hair flowers, and burr flowers, and oriental paintin’s, and Grecian paintin’s, and face paintin’s. They spend more time a frizzin’ thier front hair than they would, to learn the whole constitution by heart; and if they get a new dress they find plenty of time to cut it all up into strips, jest to pucker it up and set it on agin. They can dress up in thier best and patrol the streets as regular as a watchman, and lean over the counter in dry good stores till they know every nail in ’em by heart. They find plenty of time for all this, and to go to all the parties they can hear of, and theatres and conserts, and shows of all kinds, and to flirt with every man they can lay holt of, and to cover their faces with their fans and giggle; but when it comes to an act as simple and short as puttin’ a letter into the post office, they are dreadful short on it for time.”