Says I, “Victory, men are dreadful tryin’ by spells, do you suppose I have lived with one for upwards of 15 years, and hain’t found it out? But suppose a mother deserts a child because he is wormy, and tears his breeches. She brought him into the world, and it is her duty to take care of him. Do you suppose a store keeper ought to take back a pink calico dress, after you have made it up, and washed it because the color washes out of it, you ought to have tried it before it was cut off. I married Josiah Allen with both eyes open, I didn’t wear spectacles then, I wasn’t starved to it nor thumbscrewed into it, and it is my duty to make the best of him.”
Says she, “When a woman finds that her soul is clogged and hampered, it is a duty she owes to her higher nature to find relief.”
Says I, “When a woman has such feelin’s, instead of leavin’ her lawful husband and goin’ round huntin’ up a affinitee, let her take a good thoroughwert puke. Says I, in 9 and ½ cases out of 10, it is folkes’es stomachs that are clogged up insted of their souls. Says I, there is nothin’ like keepin’ the stomach in good order to make the moral sentiments run good. Now our Tirzah Ann, Josiah’s girl by his first wife, I kinder mistrusted that she was fallin’ in love with--” I almost said it right out Shakespeare Bobbet, but I thought of Betsey, and turned it “with a little feller that hadn’t hardly got out of his roundabouts, she bein’ at the same time in pantalettes. Well I give her a good thoroughwert puke, and it cured her, and if his mother,” says I with a keen look onto Betsey, as I thought of my night of troubles, “If his mother had served him in the same way, it would have saved some folks a good deal of sufferin’.”
I see that agin I was wanderin’ off’en the subject, and I says in a deep solemn tone,
Mr. Tilton spoke up for most the first time, and says he, “I think you are wrong in your views of divorce, Josiah Allen’s wife.”
I looked into his handsome face and my feelin’s rose up strong I couldn’t throw ’em, they broke loose and says I, in almost tremblin’ tones,
“It is you that are in the wrong on it, Theodore,” says I, “Theodore, I have read your poetry when it seemed as if I could ride right up to heaven on it, though I weigh 200 and 10 pounds by the steelyards. There is one piece by the name of “Life’s Victory.” I haint much of a hand for poetry, but I read it for the first time when I was sick, and it seemed as if it carried me so near to heaven, that I almost begun to feather out. And when I found out who the author was, he seemed as near to me as Thomas Jefferson, Josiah’s boy by his first wife. Theodore, I have kept sight of you ever sense, jest as proud of you, as if you was my own son-in-law, and when you went off into this free love belief I felt bad.” I took out my white 25 cent handkerchif, for a tear came within I should say half or three quarters of a inch from my eye-winkers. I held my handkerchif in my hand, the tear come nearer and nearer--he looked agitated--when up spoke Miss Woodhull.