The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-05-11
YOURS TRULY" ATTENDS A PRI-
VATE LECTURE,

Yours Truly hadn't been to Portland |
since the visit of Camilla Urso. When |
she and Jim got married, it was under
the impression that about all either of
them was in need of was a consort. A
few weeks of conjugal felicity dispelled
that delusion, however, and left them
painfully conscious that they needed al
most everything else as badly as they
needed each other. Jim doesn't like
the idea of living on the governors
land, for one thing, so he decided to
pinch and save, after the genuine New
England fashion, in which he was born
and brought up, till he could pay for a
few hundred acres of beaver-dam that
joins the homestead. Yours Truly
didn't exactly concur, but she already
finds having her own way as a wife an
altogether different thing from doing as
she pleased as girl of the period. She
soon set herself resolutely to work to
hoard and economic in every imagina-
! ble way; and in so doing so materially
assisted Jim that the land was bought
and all paid for two weeks ago, but the
deed, much to Yours Truly's mortifica-
ton, was made to Jim alone, and so re-
corded, in spite of his professed belief in
equal rights for men and women. And,
would you believe it, Mrs. D.? He ac-
tually thought it was wrong in Yours
Truly to feel annoyed over so trifliDg a
thing as having her hard earnings
decided to somebody else without any
equivalent whatever
"My darling, you haUe an equivalent"
he said, kindly.
"Can't see it," replied Yours Truly,
as she vigorously applied the broom to
the ceiling, for it was house-cleaning
time and things we're in general confu-
sion.
"Why, haven't you got me ?' he
asked, with that ludicrous show of Of
Tended egotism for which the sex is al
ways noted when the protected half OF
humanity doesn't exactly accept one OF
them as an equivalent for everything.
"Yes, Duxey, have yOu, but you
have value received without my land,
for haven't you got me 2"
Jim hadn't thought of that, dear fell
low. The truth is, that men have SC
long looked upon women as nonentities
as soon as wifehood begins that even
Jim, who is more than an average man
can't see but that the mere custody o
himself is a magnanimous reward fol
the lifelong services of the very identi'
cal wife in whom, as a girl of the period
he could recognize the inalienable righ
of self-government.
"Don't worry, darling" he replied
coaxingly. "You will always be pro
vided for while 1 live"
"But suppose you shouldn't live
what then ?"
He hadn't thought of that, either.
'Now, Duxey, look here" cried Your
Truly in her sweetest accents, for sh,
. wouldn't quarrel with the governor
r much less with Jim, "what would J Of
1 think of me if I should take som
money we both had earned and shOul,
: go and buy land with it without recog
: nizing your rights as an individual ."
'The cases are not parallel" he an
e swered, with an uneasy laugh. "I
D man is the head of the family-the nat
1 ural head, yon know"
I "Then why, if he is the natural head
= do men find it necessary to make law
: of their own to enforce this natural la,
n made by Omnipotence ?"
i Jim reflected a moment and then pre-
posed that we go to Portland and equi
ably adjust our real estate relations b
U deciding the undivided half of a quartz
township of beaver-dam land to Youl
Truly.
Il Suiting the action to the word, or d.
u string so to do, we made the journe
) and attempted to make the transfer, bI
8, failed.
lie The County Clerk, with whom we ell
D. deavored to transact the business, il
ef formed US that man could not transit
c. land to his wife for value received, fl
lie her services and earnings alike belongs
of to him, as vested right, for which 81
D, could render no equivalent other tha
is that which was his already.
ce Yours Truly was mad! Not particI
lt iarly at Jim-the Duxey-but mad {
~ general principles.
lie "What is unpaid servitude bl
W slavery? and what is slavery but u
ly paid servitude ?" she asked, rburstir
Sc into tears; and then the lawyers look,
ge pityingly upon Jim and indignant
ne upon Yours Truly, and we went back
IS the hotel under cloud of trouble.
We mo other woman would make such
~ fuss over such trifle ~ said Jim, in {
n injured tone.
ol "You wouldn't think it tride if Il
of conditions were reversed, )" replied You
lis Truly.
"Well, they're not reversed, nor wor
ed be, and that settles the question ~ a
be swered Jim. "This comes of readil
to Mrs. Duniway's Edna and Johnp 1
be stop that internal paper and keep su
it notions out of your head p'
ID, "ViU you, though ?" thought You
d. Truly, as she went supperless to be
-e- and linn Dostad off tO baar nr Dro,o,