always makes a great show of opposing everything that looks toward the
enlargement of the work or privileges of women. Such a man insists on
the shadow of authority because he can not have the substance. It is a
great satisfaction to him that his wife can never be president, and that
she can not make speeches in prayer-meeting. While he retains these
badges of superiority, he is still in some sense head of the family.

So when Mrs. Anderson loyally reminded her husband that she had always
let him have his own way, he believed her because he wanted to, though
he could not just at the moment recall the particular instances. And
knowing that he must yield, he rather liked to yield as an act of
sovereign grace to the poor oppressed wife who begged it.

"Well, if you insist on it, of course, I will not refuse you," he said;
"and perhaps you are right." He had yielded in this way almost every day
of his married life, and in this way he yielded to the demand that
August should he discharged. But he agreed with his wife that Julia
should not know anything about it, and that there must be no
leave-taking allowed.

The very next day Julia sat sewing on the long porch in front of the
house. Cynthy Ann was getting dinner in the kitchen at the other end of
the hall, and Mrs. Anderson was busy in her usual battle with dirt. She
kept the house clean, because it gratified her combativeness and her
domineering disposition to have the house clean in spite of the
ever-encroaching dirt. And so she scrubbed and scolded, and scolded and
scrubbed, the scrubbing and scolding agreeing in time and rhythm. The
scolding was the vocal music, the scrubbing an accompaniment. The
concordant discord was perfect. Just at the moment I speak of there was
a lull in her scolding. The symphonious scrubbing went on as usual.