ver felt in conscience called to say where Cain an' Abel got
married, or what it was as the Jews lit out from Egypt on a'count of. I
tell you what it is, Mrs. Lathrop, you've forgotten what it is to have a
man around your house. There's somethin' just about the way a man eats
an' sleeps as gets very aggravatin' to any woman after the new's off. I
begin to see what men invented gettin' married for,--it was so they
could kite around an' always be sure they had one woman safe chained up
at home to do their cookin' an' washin'. Why, I ain't married to Elijah
a _tall_, an' yet just havin' him in the house is gettin' me more an'
more under his thumb every day that he stays with me. I feel to stay in
the square an' I find myself hurryin' home 'cause he likes hot biscuits,
an' I feel to turn his washstand around an' I leave it where it is for
no better reason than as he likes it where it is. It's awful the way a
man gets the upper hand of a woman! Lord knows I've no love for Elijah
an' yet I'm caperin' upstairs an' downstairs when he ain't in a hurry
an' tearin' my legs off scamperin' when he is, until I declare I feel
mad at myself--I certainly do.

"An' now, there he is fallin' in love with 'Liza Em'ly, the last girl in
the world as he'd ought to even dream of marryin', an' I talk to him
an' talk to him, an' tell him so, an' tell him so, an' it don't make no
more impression than when you rub a cat behind her ear."

"Why, a cat--" protested Mrs. Lathrop.

"Yes, an' so does Elijah. It just tickles him half to death to hear
'Liza Em'ly's mere name, an' he don't care what any one says about her
just so long as it's about her.

"I see the minister down in the square to-day an' I told him my opinion
of it all right to his face. But the minister didn't have no heart for
'Liza Em'ly--he's too used up discussin' what under the sun is to be
done with Henry Ward Beecher. He says it's suthin' just awful about
Henry Ward Beecher's feelin' for Emma Sweet, an' he told me frank an'
open as personally it's been so terrible easy for him to get himself
married an' get consequences that he can't find nothin' to point his
index finger into Henry Ward Beecher with about this unrequited
affection of his for Emma. He says as he never knowed as a _man_ could
have unrequited affection afore an' he really seems to feel more'n a
little hurt over it. He says he can't well see how to restrain Henry
Ward Beecher an' it's town talk as Henry Ward Beecher