Mrs. Higginson was replying. "H'm, now that's valuable data, Juanita, I owe you some gratitude for giving me that. Putting that with some conclusions I've arrived at myself, sheds light on my problem. The whole cause of our present economic unfitness as I see it in woman, may lie in this fact you give me--no bank account of her own. It's worth looking into. It's only fair a woman should handle and apportion the money through which she is expected to administer the home. And what I've discovered for myself is this. Not one woman in your thousand in this town knows the price of flour, or sugar, or bacon or any other staple she uses every day in her household, except as quoted to her at her nearest grocery. No, nor can tell you her running expenses of this year as compared with any other year under her management. Nor but is so harassed by the servant problem as it's grown to be, that her peace and comfort and almost her self-respect is undermined. And our mothers bequeathed us a wonderful article in servants here in the South, too, in the house-servants of slave-time. Organize and find out what's the matter, I say. If the fault's not in _us_, then find out where it is, even unto bank-books," laughing. "And at all events, Juanita," pacifically and smiling again, "we're agreed on one point, the essential point right now. Organize 'em. Put it to 'em, pro and con, you and I, and let 'em choose. But first, organize 'em."
It _was_ a thrilling and momentous morning as may be seen! The clerical force in pink and the clerical force in blue, entirely unable to hold its mind to the task in hand, felt that they were in touch at last with issues, real issues, throbbing, vital and essential issues!
And who shall say they were not? Though these issues, a quarter of a century old since then, are still open! And still open perhaps, and again who may say not, because as Mrs. Higginson claimed, the movement mistook the main issue?
Undoubtedly it _was_ a thrilling and momentous morning. Youth is eager, youth is full of the ardor of impatient faith, youth is impressionable. It longs to be fired! It yearns for a cause! 'Rights' is a stirring word! 'Organize' is a new one! Had the clerical force found its cause at last? It wondered.