Centennial,” &c.

Illustrations by True W. Williams.

I

MARIETTA HOLLEY.

TO JOSIAH AND AMERICA.

v

PREFACE.

I told Josiah that I guessed I would write a book about several things—and wimmen. Says I, “My mind has been dretful agitated lately about that certain lot of female wimmen that are sufferin’ more than tongue can tell. Why,” says I, “when I think of their agony and wrongs, it fairly makes the blood bile in my veins. I love the female sect,” says I firmly, “I am one of ’em myself.”

Says he (not wantin’ me to say a word about it), “Let ’em write about it themselves.”

Says I, “Josiah Allen, do you remember when you fell down through the barn and broke your limb, and most broke your other leg?”

“Yes,” says he, “but what of it?”

Says I, “What if I had stood still in the buttery winder, and hollered at you to help yourself, and if you was in pain to get out of it?”

“Well,” says he, “let ’em get some of their own folks to do the writin’ then. They haint none of your folks, nobody won’t expect nothin’ of you.” (He had reasons for not wantin’ me to tell all I knew about certain things.)

viBut I says in solemn tones, “Do you remember that time you fell, Josiah Allen, and I, bein’ bound down by rheumatizm, couldn’t do nothin’ but blow the dinner-horn for help, and Sam Snyder come on the run, and fetched you in, and went after the doctor?”

vi

“Throw that leg in my face, if you want to, but what of it?”

Says I, “Them sufferin’ female wimmen are bound down fur more painfully and gauling than you wuz. I haint the strength to lift ’em up myself, but I am a goin’ to toot the horn for help. I am a goin’ to blow through it powerful breaths of principle 

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