Pray You, Sir, Whose Daughter?

"Now look a-here, Mr. Avery," said John Berton, hotly, "I know what you're a-hittin' at an' you can jest save your breath. I didn't help pass that law t' apply to my girl, n' you know it damned well. I ain't in no mood just now t' have you throw it up to me that she was about the first one it ketched, neather. How was I a-goin' to know that? That there bill wasn't intended t' apply t' my girl, I tell you. An' then she hadn't ought to a said she went with him willin'ly, either. If she hadn't a said that we could a peppered him, but as it is he's all right, an – "

"That is what the law contemplates, isn't it? – for other girls, of course, not for yours," began Avery, whose natural impulses of kindness and generosity he was holding back.

"Now you hold on!" exclaimed Berton, feebly groping about for a reply. "You know I never got up that bill. You know mighty well the man that got it up an' come there an' lobbied for it, was one o' your own kind – a silk stocking.

"You know I only started it 'n' sort o' fathered it for him. I ain't no more to blame than the others. Go 'n talk t' them. I've had my dose. Go 'n talk t' King. He says yet that it's a mighty good bill – but I ain't so damned certain as I was. It don't look 's reasonable t' me's it did last session." Avery left him, in the hope that a little later on he would conclude that his present attitude toward his daughter might undergo like modification, with advantage to all concerned. It was early in the evening, and Avery concluded to step into a workingman's club on his way to his lodgings. He had no sooner entered the door, than someone recognized him as the candidate of a year ago. There was an immediate demand that he give them a speech. He had had no thought of speaking, but the opening tempted him, and the hand clapping was indent. The chairman introduced him as "the only kid-glove member in the last Legislature who didn't sell his soul, to monopoly, and put a mortgage on his heavenly home at the behest of Wall Street."

The applause which met this sally was long sustained, and the laughter, while hearty, was not altogether pleasant of tone. Avery stood until there was silence. Then he began with a quiet smile.

"Mr. Chairman and gentlemen." He paused, and looked over the room again. "I beg your pardon. I am accustomed to face men only. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen." There was a ripple of laughter over the room. "Let me say how glad I am to make that amendment, and how glad I shall be, for one, when I am able to make it in the body to which I have the honor to belong – the Legislature." Some one said: "ah, there," but he did not pause. "You labor men have taken the right view of it in this club. There is not a question, not one, in all the domain of labor or legislation which does not strike at woman's welfare as vitally as it does at man's; not one." There was feeble applause. "But I will go further. I will say, there is not only not an economic question which is not as vital to her, but it is far more vital than it is to man. The very fact of her present legal status rests upon the other awful fact of her absolute financial dependence upon men." Someone laughed, and Avery fired up. "This one fact has made sex maniacs of men, and peopled this world with criminals, lunatics, and liars! This one fact! This one fact!"

His intensity had at last forced silence, and quieted those members who were at first inclined to take as a gallant joke his opening remarks. "Let me take a text, for what I want to say to you on the economic question, from the Bible.

"Oh, give us a rest!"

"Suffer little children!"

"Remember the Sabbath day!" and like derisive calls, mingled with a laugh and distinct hisses. The gavel beat in vain; Avery waited. At last there was silence, and he said: "I was not joking. The fact that you all know me as a freethinker misled you; but although I did say that I wished to take as a sort of text a passage from the Bible, I was in earnest. This is the text: 'The rich man's wealth is his strong city; the destruction of the poor is their poverty.' Again there was a laugh, with a different ring to it, and clapping of hands.

"I think that I may assume," he went on, "that no audience before which I am likely to appear, will suspect me of accepting the Bible as altogether admirable. Some of the prophets and holy men of old, as I read of their doings in the scriptures, always impress me as having been long overdue at the penitentiary."

There was laughter and applause at this sally, and the intangible something which emanates from an audience which tells a speaker that he now has a mental grasp upon his hearers, made itself felt. The slight air of resentment which arose when he had said that he should refer for his authority to the Bible subsided, and he went on.

"But notwithstanding these facts and opinions, one sometimes finds in the Bible things that are true. Sometimes they are not only true, but they are also good. Again they are good in fact, in sentiment, and in diction. Now when this sort of conjunction occurs, I am strongly moved to drop for the time such differences as I may have with other portions and sentiments, and give due credit where credit is due.

"Therefore, when I find in the tenth chapter of Proverbs this: 'The rich man's wealth is his strong city; the destruction of the poor is their poverty,' I shake hands with the author, and travel with him for this trip at least. The prophet does not say that their destruction is ignorance, or vice, or sin, or any of the ordinary blossoms of poverty which it is the fashion to refer to as its root. He tells us the truth – the destruction of the poor is their poverty.

"And who are the poor? Are they not those who, in spite of their labor, their worth, and their value to the state as good citizens are still dependent upon the good-will – the charity, I had almost said – of someone else who has power over the very food they have earned a hundred times over, and the miserable rags they are allowed to wear instead of the broadcloth they have earned? Are they not those who, because of economic conditions, are suppliants where they should be sovereign citizens, dependents where they should be free and independent and self-respecting persons?"

"Right you are!" "Drive it home!" came with the applause from the audience.

"Are they not those who must obey oppressive laws made by those who legislate against the helpless and in favor of the powerful? Are they not those whose voices are silenced by subjection, whose wishes and needs are trampled beneath the feet of the controlling class?"

The applause was ready now and instant. Avery paused. There was silence. "And who are these?" he asked, and paused again.

"What class of people more than any other – more than all others – fits and fills each and every one of these queries?" "Laboring men!" shouted several. "All of us!" "No," said Avery, "you are wrong. To all of you – to all so-called laboring men they do apply; but more than to these, in more insidious ways, do they apply to laboring women. To all women, in fact; for no matter how poor a man is, his wife and daughters are poorer; no matter how much of a dependent he is, the woman is more so, for she is the dependent of a dependent, the serf of a slave, the chattel of a chattel! The suppliant, not only for work and wage, but the suppliant at the hands of sex power for equality with even the man who is under the feet and the tyranny of wealth. They share together that tyranny and poverty, but he thrusts upon her alone the added outrage of sex subjugation and legal disability." He paused, and held up his hand. Then he said, slowly, making each word stand alone: —

"And I tell you, gentlemen, with my one term's experience in the Legislature and what it has taught me – I tell you that there is no outrage which wealth and power can commit upon man that it cannot and does not commit doubly upon woman! There is no cruelty upon all this cruel earth half so terrible as the tyranny of sex! And again, I tell you that to woman every man is a capitalist in wealth and in power, and I reiterate: – the destruction of the poor is their poverty. It has been doubly woman's destruction. Her absolute financial dependence upon men has given him the power and – alas, that I should be compelled to say it! – the will, to deny her all that is best and loftiest in life, and even to crush out of her the love of liberty and the dignity of character which cares for the better things. Look at her education! Look at the disgraceful 'annexes' and side shifts which are made to prevent our sisters from acquiring even the same, or as good, an education as we claim for ourselves. Look – " He paused and lowered his voice. "Look at the awful, the horrible, the beastly laws we pass for women, while we carefully keep them in a position where they cannot legislate for themselves. Do you know there is no law in any state – and no legislature would dare try to pass one – which would bind a ten-year-old boy to any contract which he might have been led, driven, or coaxed into, or have voluntarily made, if that contract should henceforth deprive him of all that gives to him the comforts, joys, or decencies of life! All men hold that such a boy is not old enough to make such a contract. That any one older than he, who leads him into a crime or misdemeanor, or the transfer of property, or his personal rights and liberty, is guilty of legal offence. The boy is without blame, and his contract is absolutely void – illegal. But in more than one state we hold that a little girl of ten may make the most fatal contract ever made by or for woman, and that she is old enough to be held legally responsible for her act and for her judgment. The one who leads her into it, though he be forty, fifty, or sixty years old, is guiltless before the law. I tell you, gentlemen, there is no crime possible to humanity that is as black as that infamous law, sought to be re-enacted by our own state at this very time, and which has already passed one house!" He explained, as delicately as he could, the full scope and meaning of the bill. Surprise, consternation, swept over the room. Men, a few of whom had heard of the bill before, but had given it scant attention, saw a horror and disgust in the eyes of the women which aroused for the first time in their minds, a flickering sense of the enormity of such a measure. No one present was willing that any woman should believe him guilty of approving such legislation, and yet Avery impressed anew upon them that the bill had passed one house with a good majority. On his way out of the room, a tall girl stepped to his side.

For the moment he had not recognized her. It was Francis King. She looked straight at him.

"Did my father vote for that bill?" she asked, without a prelude of greeting. Avery hesitated.

"Oh, is it you, Miss King?" he asked, "I did not see you before. Do you come here often?"

"Not very," she said, still looking at him, and with fire gathering in her eyes. "Did my father vote for that bill?" she repeated.

"Ah – I – to tell you the truth," began Avery, but she put out her hand and caught firm hold of his arm.

"Did my father vote for that bill?" she insisted, and Avery said: – "Yes, I'm sorry to say, he did, Miss King; but – so many did, you know. The fact is – "

Her fingers grasped his arm like a vice, and her lips were drawn. "Did Ettie's pa?" she demanded.

Avery saw the drift of her thought.

"God forgive him! yes," he said, and his own eyes grew troubled and sympathetic.

"God may forgave him if he's a mind to," exclaimed Francis, "but I don't want no such God around me, if he does. Any God that wants to forgive men for such work as that ain't fit to associate with no other kind of folks but such men; but I don't mean to allow a good little girl like Ettie to live in the same house with a beast if I know it. She shan't go home again now, not if her pa begs on his knees. He ain't fit to wipe her shoes. 'N my pa!" she exclaimed, scornfully. "My pa talkin' about Ettie being bad, and settin' bad examples for decent girls! Him a talkin'! Him livin' in the same house with my little sister 'n me! Him!" The girl was wrought to a frenzy of scorn, and contempt, and anger. They had passed out with the rest into the street.

"Shall I walk home with you?" asked Avery. "Are you alone?"

"Yes, I'm alone," she said, with a little dry sob. "I'm alone, an' I ain't goin' home any more. Not while he lives there. It's no decent place for a girl – living in the house with a man like that. I ain't goin' home. I'm goin' to – " It rushed over her brain that she had no other place to go. She held her purse in her hand; it had only two dollars and a few cents in it. She had bought her new dress with the rest. Her step faltered, but her eyes were as fiery and as hard as ever.

"You'd better go home," said Avery, softly. "It will only be the harder for you, if you don't. I'm sorry – "

She turned on him like a tigress. They were in Union Square now. "Even you think it is all right for good girls to be under the control and live with men like that! Even you think I ought to go home, an' let him boss me an' make rules fer me, an' me pretend to like it an believe as he does, an' look up to him, an' think his way's right an' best! Even you!"

"No, no," said Avery, softly. "You must be fair, Miss King. I don't think it's right; but – but – I said it was best just now, for – what else can you do?" The girl was facing him as they stood near the fountain in the middle of the square.

"That's just what I was meaning to show to-night when I said what I did to the club, of the financial dependence of women; it is their destruction; it destroys their self-respect; it forces them to accept a moral companionship which they'd scorn if they dared; it forces them to seem to condone and uphold such things themselves; it forces them to be the companions and subordinates of degraded moral natures, that hold wives and daughters to a code which they will not apply to themselves, and which they seek to make void for other wives and daughters; it – " "You told me to go home," she said, stubbornly. "I'm not goin'! I make money enough to live on. I always spent it on – on things to wear; but – but I can live on it, an' I'm goin' to. I ain't goin' to live in the house with no such a man. He ain't fit to live with. I won't tell ma an' the girls – yet; not till – "

She paused, and peered toward the clock in the face of the great stone building across the street. "Do you think it's too late fer me t' talk a minute with Miss Gertrude?" she asked, with her direct gaze, again. "She'd let me stay there one night, I guess, n' she'd tell me – I c'd talk to her some."

"If you won't go home," he said, slowly, "I suppose it would be best for you to go there, but – it is rather late. Go home for to-night, Miss Francis! I wish you would. Think it over to-night, please. Let me take you home to-night. Go to Miss Gertrude to-morrow, and talk it over." His tone had grown gentle and more tender than he knew. He took the hand she had placed on his arm in his own, and tried to turn toward her street. She held stubbornly back. "For my sake, to please me – because I think it is best – won't you go home to-night?" She looked at him again, and a haze came in her eyes. She did not trust herself to speak, but she turned toward her own street, and they walked silently down the square. His hand still held her own as it lay on his arm.

"Thank you," he said, and pressed her fingers more firmly for an instant and then released them. He had taken his glove off in the hall and had not replaced it. When they reached the door of her father's house, she suddenly grasped his ungloved hand and kissed it, and ran sobbing up the steps and into the house without a word.

"Poor girl," thought Avery, "she is not herself to-night. She has never respected nor loved her father much, but this was a phase of his nature she had not suspected before. Poor child! I hope Gertrude – " and in the selfishness of the love he bore for Gertrude, he allowed his thoughts to wander, and it did not enter his mind to place anything deeper than a mere emotional significance upon the conduct of the intense, tall, dark-eyed girl who had just left him.

He did not dream that at that moment she lay face down on her bed sobbing as if her heart would break, and yet, that a strange little flutter of happiness touched her heart as she held her gloved hand against her flushed cheek or kissed it in the darkness. It was the hand Avery had held so long within his own, as it lay upon his arm. At last the girl drew the glove off, and going to her drawer, took out her finest handkerchief and lay the glove within, wrapping it softly and carefully. She was breathing hard, and her face was set and pained. At two o'clock she had fallen asleep, and under her tear-stained cheek there was a glove folded in a bit of soft cambric. Poor Francis King! The world is a sorry place for such as you, and even those who would be your best friends often deal the deadliest wounds. Poor Francis King! Has life nothing to offer you but a worn glove and a tear-stained bit of cambric? Is it true? Need it be true? Is there no better way? Have we built your house with but one door, and with no window? Smile at the fancies of your sleep, child; to-morrow will bring memory, reality, and tears. You are a woman now. Yesterday you were but an unformed, strong-willed girl. Poor Francis King! sleep late to-morrow, and dream happily if you can. Poor Francis King, to-morrow is very near!