She don't shuffle round in "skimpt"
raiment, and awkward shoes, and cotton gloves, with horn side-combs
fastening six hairs to her temples; nor has she a sharp nose,
and angular jaw, and hollow cheeks, and only two front teeth.
She don't read "Law's Serious Call," or keep a cat or
a snuff-box, or go to bed at dark, save on vestry-meeting nights,
nor scowl at little children, or gather catnip, or apply a broomstick
to astonished dogs.
Not a bit of it. The modern "old
maid" is round and jolly, an dhas her full complement of
hair and teeth, and two dimples in her cheek, and has a laugh
as musical as a bobolink's song. She wears pretty, nicely fitting
dresses, too, and cunning little ornaments around her plump throat,
and becoming bits of color in her hair, and at her breast, in
the shape of little knots and bows; and her waist is shapely,
and her hands have sparkling rings, and no knuckles; and her foot
is cunning, and is prisoned in a bewildering boot; and she goes
to concerts and parties and suppers and lectures and matinees,
and she don't go alone either; and she lives in a nice hous, earned
by herself, and gives jolly little teas in it. She don't care
whether she is married or not, nor need she. She can afford to
wait, as men often do, till they have "seen life," and
when their bones are full of aches, and their blood tamed down
to water, and they have done going out, and want somebody to swear
at and to nurse them--then marry!
Ah! the modern old maid has her
eye-teeth cut. She takes care of herself, instead of her sister's
nine children, through mumps, and measles, and croup, and chicken-pox,
and lung fever and leprosy, and what not.
She don't work that way for
no wages and bare toleration, day and night. No, sir! If she has
no money, she teaches, or she lectures, or she writes books or
poems, or she is a book-keeper, or she sets types, or she does
anything but hang onto the skirts of someone else's husband, and
she feels well and independent in consequence, and holds up her
head with the best, and asks no favors, and "Woman's Rights"
has done it!
That awful bugbear, "Woman's
Rights!" which small souled men, and, I am sorry to say,
narrow women too, burlesque and ridicule, and won't believe
in, till the Juggernaut of Progress knocks them down and rides
over them, because they will neither climb up on it, nor get out
of the way.
The fact is, the Modern Old
Maid is as good as the Modern Young Maid, and a great deal better,
to those who have outgrown bread and buter. She has sense as well
as freshness, and coversation and repartee as well as dimples
and curves.
She carries a dainty parasol, and
a natty little umbrella, and wears killing bonnets, and has live
poets and sages and philosophers in her train, and knows how to
use her eyes, and don't care if she never sees a cat, and couldn't
tell a snuff-box from a patent reaper, and has a bank-book and
dividends: yes, sir! and her name is Phoebe or Alice; and Woman's
Rights has done it.
more articles by Fanny Fern