The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1871-03-03

| the Nonans journal, Feb. 1l.1
HUMBOLDT
was the only town in Kansas where
they did not choose a woman suffrage
lecture. Here they preferred some 9TH
er subject. while in all other towns
they would have the woman question
/ discussed, and no other, except where /
have been second time to a place
Humbolt is on the Missouri, Kansas and
Texas road, and is only fifty miles from
the southern boundary of the State, not
from the Indian Territory. 1t is a very
new town, on the Neosho river, with
IOO0 inhabitants. 1t has just commenced
the erection of substantial buildings.
something better thau the temporary
cabins that spring up at first, It has
good-sized and handsome new hall, COM
mod1ous, and easy to speak in, and a
large stone hotel la process of erection.
The hotel in which / am accommodated
tonight is of the most primitive kind.
Not one of its chambers can be warmed,
nor can one go down into its little sew
en-by-ni sitting -roum TO the ire, for
the floor is covered with sleeping men.
The partitions of the sleeping-rooms are
of the thinnest board, through which I
can even hear the sleeping occupants of
the chambers breathe. l had been in
my room for two hours, vainly trying,
half frozen, to coax sleep to my bed of
straw, when four men came to their
room, opposite mine, aud commenced
discussing me and my lecture on EEOueen
Elizabeth" delivered that evening.
The transom windows over the doors
were all out if they had ever been in
and so for an hour listened to most
entertaing discussion concerning nv
ability, my personal appearance, my
age, with various speculations concern
my skill in domestic affairs, the good
ness and badness of my disposition, and
other equally important points. Who
saus that woman monopolize the gossip
ofthe community?
Three of them had quite settled it
among themselves that [ never wrote
my lecture-that was impossible!
Somebody had told them that my hus-
band was smart mana "presiding ell
der'-and he had written the lecture,
which / had 'learnt by heart" 1t was
some consolation that they allowed the
credit of:the lecture to reside in the fam
lily. The fourth one, who had also join
ed in the talk. and who said she was
raised in old Kentuck," now became my
"He'd be derned if he didn't b'lieve
that woman was smart huff to write
her own lecter. He couldn't read nor
whichever could learn it-but he
was great on figgers, and that's how
he'd come to make money. He'd carry
the derned'st heap of figgers in his head
of any Teller they ever see. None of
those railroad chaps could cheat him
he could tell to onct how many yards of
earth he'd got out and how much it
come tc. But he couldn't read or write
He'd got little woman for wife,
though, and Lord she could read an
write anything. He'd lick any Teller
that said his wife couldn't write any
thing, for he'd just set beside her, and
seen her do it. And he'd lick any Teller
that said she didn't know huff to vote,
too She knew more'n he did, and he
could vote, and she couldn't, and it was
derned shame! And when he knew
what his little woman could do, you
couldn't make him b'lieve that that
woman didn't know enough to write
her own Letter."