"Now, ain't that the truth?" exclaimed the Widow Pratt. "Sometimes
when I read some of the truck about what women have took a notion to
turn out and do in the world, I get right skeered about what are a-
going to happen to the babies and men in the time to come."

"Don't worry about 'em, Bettie," laughed Mother Mayberry, with a
quizzical sparkle in her eyes. "Even when women have got that right
to march in the front rank with the men and carry some of the flags,
that they are a-contending for, they'll always be some foolish
enough to lag behind with babies on they breasts, a string of
children following and with always a snack in her pocket to feed the
broke down front-rankers, men or women. You'll find most Providence
women in that tag-gang, I'm thinking; but let's do our part in
whooping on the other sisters that have got wrongs to right."

"I suppose the world really has done women injustice in lots of
ways," said the singer lady plaintively, for she had very lately,
for the first time in her life, felt the sit-still-and-hold-your-
hands-while-he-rides-away grind, and it had struck in deep.

"Yes, I suppose so," answered Mother Mayberry, as she picked up
little Hoover, who was nodding like a top-heavy petunia in a breeze,
and stretched him across her lap for a nap. "But as long as she have
got the spanking of man sprouts from they one to ten years she
oughter make out to get in a vote to suit herself, as time comes
along, especially if she have picked her husband right."

"She--she can't--can't pick her husband," hazarded the singer lady
desperately.