It wuz a fearful tuff job we had took onto ourselves, for we had got to
make all the things to sell out of what we could get holt of, for, of
course, our husbands all kep the money purses in their own hands, as
the way of male pardners is. But we laid out to beset 'em when they wuz
cleverer than common (owin' to extra good vittles) and get enough money
out of 'em to buy the materials to work with, bedquilts (crazy, and
otherwise), embroidered towels, shawl straps, knit socks and suspenders,
rugs, chair covers, lap robes, etc., etc., etc.

It wuz a tremendus hard undertakin' we had took onto ourselves, with all
our spring's work on hand, and not one of us Sisters kep a hired girl
at the time, and we had to do our own house cleanin', paintin' floors,
makin' soap, spring sewin', etc., besides our common housework.

But the very worst on't wuz the meetin' house wuz in such a shape that
we couldn't do a thing till that wuz fixed.

The men had undertook to fix over the meetin' house jest before the
hardness commenced. The men and wimmen both had labored side by side to
fix up the old house a little.

The men had said that in such church work as that wimmen had a perfect
right to help, to stand side by side with the male brothers, and do
half, or more than half, or even _all_ the work. They said it wuzn't
aginst the Discipline, and all the Bishops wuz in favor of it, and
always had been. They said it wuz right accordin' to the Articles. But
when it come to the hard and arjuous duties of drawin' salleries with
'em, or settin' up on Conferences with 'em, why there a line had to
be drawed, wimmen must not be permitted to strain herself in no such