THE COURIER-
m
THE BROWNS OF WILLOWTOWN.
(By Mrs. D. C. McKIIlip.)
For the Courier.
Wlllowton was a typical Nebraska
town, full of push, rush and energy.
It had Its quota of lawyers, doctors,
merchants, real estate men, bankers,
stockmen and preachers. It supported
two weekly papers, one devoted to
saving the country along republican
lines, the other engaged in counteract
ing the pernicious teachings of Its
rival and Inculcating equal portions of
democratic and populistic principles.
The majority of the inhabitants of
"Wlllowton had come from the east to
make their homes and fortunes in the
west, and as a consequence had im
bibed the spirit of the western pioneers
and were free and easy in their man
neis, but hearty, whole-souled, gen
erous and hospitable. Most of the
women of Wlllowton did their own
housework and the religious work for
their families on Sundays The men
seldom went to church; they general
ly went to the fair-grounds and exer
cised their horses on Ihe track, for
about the only dissipation in which
the Inhabitants of Wlllowton indulged
in was riding. It was a very poor fam
ily, Indeed, that did not keep a horso
and buggy. And Wlllowton being the
county seat the fair-grounds were the
pride of the masculine portion of the
community, whose members in pleas
ant weather felt it their communal
duty to drive around the race track,
smoke and talk politics.
Mr. George Brown was the editor of
the Wlllowton Mirror. He had come
west eighteen years before." He had
an eye for business and was said to be
well fixed. He owned three farms, the
controllinginterest in a bank, the
Wlllowton, Mirror, a good, comfortable
home, a fine span of horses, a wife and
three children. Mr. Brown was a good
man. He was kind to his wife and to his
cow and provided well for the com
forts of all, but that his wife had any
interests or aspirations outside of her
home pasture of four walls, where she
had everj thing provided for her, any
more than hij pet Jersey had with
plenty of fine clover and water never
entered his head. Mr. Brown did not
believe In the intellectual equality of
the sexes. Had he been called upon to
define his position on the subject he
could scarcely have done so. He had a
vague idea that the Creator must at
some time have stood in front of a
would have to teli me who to vote for,
because you are posted in politics and
I am not what do I know?" And Mr.
Brown would answer, "Why, nothing,
of course; what an absurd idea any
way; but those confounded suffragists
are such fools, they make me mad."
Mrs. Brown was one of those little
women who are blessed with tact She
never waved the red flag In her domes
tic pasture, but she always influenced
the movements of her bovine husband
with a bran-mash. Women's clubs
Avere another thorn in the side of Mr.
Brown, who declared the country was
going to the demnition bow-wows.
One Sunday morning after looking
over his exchanges, he told his wife
that he really did not know what we
v,eie coming to; that he had not
picked up a paper for a coon's age but
what he had seen something about
women's clubs. "What, about them?"
inquired his wife; "what are they do
ing?" "What about them?" replied
he. "Do you suppose I read the stuff?
Do you suppose I have time to read the
vaporings of short-haired women who
are neglecting their homes and chil
dren to thrust themselves into notor
iety? I don't know anything about
them, nor I don't want to either. I
never read any article where I see the
word 'club,' and I only hope to good-,
ness that this town will escape the
craze. It is a worse scourge than the
bubonic plague." "But what do they
do at them?" asked Mrs. Brown. "Do
at them!" cried Brown. "Didn't I say
I never read the stuff? Jump up and'
down and pull hair, I suppose. That's'
about what a lot of women would do
if they got together," and Mr. Brown
sniffed his contempt He had a vein
of rythm in his make-up, and the Wll
lowton Mirror was often embellished
with his original thoughts having a
jingle at the end of each line. While
freeing his mind on the woman ques
tion, he generally rhymed club with
scrub, and in his mental gymnastics
he so arranged matters that a man was
always at the end of the scrubbing
brush. While the woman was away
all the blessed live-long day at the
club.
It was the very last day of May, a
warm, beautiful morning; everybody
in the world seemed happy but Mrs.
Brown. She stood by the kitchen win
dow looking out with a clothespin in
her hand -vvith which she toyed idly.
The children were off for school. Her
husband was down-town, and she had
large binful of Intellects In skulls; that just finished the dishes. Now she had
He took up one after another.examined
it carefully, tapped it with a little
hammer to see if it were sound and
perfect, and if so tossed it onto a heap
to be used in making men; while one
of Inferior quality, deformed, cracked
or soft, was thrown on the woman's
pile. The largest, most perfect and
soundest brain in the whole collec
tion, lie thought, had been used to
finish Mr. George Brown, editor of the
Wlllowton Mirror.
Mr. Brown had no patience with the
doctrine of equal suffrage. It almost
gave him spasms. He affirmed often,
"When my wife votes I will not; when
she goes to the polls I will stay at
home. If she is going to wear the
breeches I will not" Yet he never in
formed his hearers whether in disgust
he would drape his manly form in a
mother-hubbard or invent a new and
protesting costume. Sometimes he
came home all wrought up and informd
Mrs. Brown if Nebraska ever had equal
suffrage he would leave the state and
that he would never live under petti
coat government, not he. She might
vote if she wanted to, but if she did
he wouldn'.t And his wife would say:
"Why! papa, what's the matter? I'm
the morning's work to do and dinner
to get on time, and, O, dear, what was
the use of living, anyway? It was the
same old grind over and over again.
What pleasure did she ever take any
how? She worked from morning till
night day after day, week after week,
year after year, for her family. As
long as her husband had his meals on
time and the children were clothed and
fed, what did they care for her happi
ness? They took all her toil, all her
kindnesses, all her loving attentions as
a matter of course, with never a word
of appreciation. What was she getting
out of life? Nothing, but just one
round, and round, and round again of
every-day existence, "where life
stretched out before her like a level
plain, with nothing to break the mon
otony but the shadow of a tombstone
in the distance." The alpha and omega
of her life was to wash, Iron, bake,
scrub, sew, took and wash dishes.
Here Mrs. Brown turned and hurled
the clothespin straight at the dish
pan. When a man wishes to relieve
his overcharged feelings he uses em
phatic language a woman throws
something.
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not trying to vote I haven't said any- mood; she had rue up the back stairs
thing about it If I had the right you that morning, when the children
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