Their Silver Wedding Journey — Volume 2 by William Dean Howells
page 24 of 156 (15%)
page 24 of 156 (15%)
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from the neighboring villages, he said, and they lived at home in the
winter on their summer tips; their wages were nothing, or less, for sometimes they paid for their places. "What a mass of information!" said March. "How did you come by it?" "Newspaper habit of interviewing the universe." "It's not a bad habit, if one doesn't carry it too far. How did Lili learn her English?" "She takes lessons in the winter. She's a perfect little electric motor. I don't believe any Yankee girl could equal her." "She would expect to marry a millionaire if she did. What astonishes one over here is to see how contentedly people prosper along on their own level. And the women do twice the work of the men without expecting to equal them in any other way. At Pupp's, if we go to one end of the out-door restaurant, it takes three men to wait on us: one to bring our coffee or tea, another to bring our bread and meat, and another to make out our bill, and I have to tip all three of them. If we go to the other end, one girl serves us, and I have to give only one fee; I make it less than the least I give any three of the men waiters." "You ought to be ashamed of that," said his wife. "I'm not. I'm simply proud of your sex, my dear." "Women do nearly everything, here," said Burnamy, impartially. "They built that big new Kaiserbad building: mixed the mortar, carried the |
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