are two of you--the two sexes--to
love and help one another. It must be a rich and wonderful world. Tell
us--what is the work of the world, that men do--which we have not here?"

"Oh, everything," Terry said grandly. "The men do everything, with us."
He squared his broad shoulders and lifted his chest. "We do not allow
our women to work. Women are loved--idolized--honored--kept in the home
to care for the children."

"What is 'the home'?" asked Somel a little wistfully.

But Zava begged: "Tell me first, do NO women work, really?"

"Why, yes," Terry admitted. "Some have to, of the poorer sort."

"About how many--in your country?"

"About seven or eight million," said Jeff, as mischievous as ever.

CHAPTER 6. Comparisons Are Odious

I had always been proud of my country, of course. Everyone is. Compared
with the other lands and other races I knew, the United States of
America had always seemed to me, speaking modestly, as good as the best
of them.

But just as a clear-eyed, intelligent, perfectly honest, and
well-meaning child will frequently jar one's self-esteem by innocent
questions, so did these women, without the slightest appearance of
malice or satire, continually bring up points of discussion which we
spent our best efforts in evading.

Now that we were fairly proficient in their language, had read a lot
about their history, and had given them the general outlines of ours,
they were able to press their questions closer.

So when Jeff admitted the number of "women wage earners" we had, they
instantly asked for the total population, for the proportion of adult
women, and found that there were but twenty million or so at the
outside.

"Then at least a third of your women are--what is it you call them--wage
earners? And they are all POOR. What is POOR, exactly?"

"Ours is the best country in the world as to poverty," Terry told them.
"We do not have the wretched paupers and beggars of the older countries,
I assure you. Why, European visitors tell us, we don't know what poverty
is."

"Neither do we," answered Zava. "Won't you tell us?"

Terry put it up to me, saying I was the sociologist, and I explained
that the laws of nature require a struggle for existence, and that in
the struggle the fittest survive, and the unfit perish. In our economic
struggle, I continued, there was always plenty of opportunity for the
fittest to reach the top, which they did, in great numbers, particularly
in our c