Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/119

 world, Dot. To the woman who knows her place they will give their charity, but the woman who wants to keep her body from pain and her mind from worry is an object of contempt. Hm, Dot, did you get that? I'm getting pretty smart. Guess I'll get a soap box and talk birth control to the down-trodden masses."

Dot said nothing for a moment. Then she asked, "Maude, do you suppose it is really terrible pain for a woman to have a child?"

"Dot, it's unbelievable agony. If you ever have one, remember while you're in the delivery room that I told you not to do it. Dig up fifty dollars for an operation even if you have to sell your furniture."

"But, look, Maude, there's an awful lot that must be nice about a baby. People have 'em all the time and they seem happy about it."

Maude thoughtfully extinguished her cigarette. "Honey," she said, "you're an awful nice kid, but you're a moron. No offense meant. It's just a condition over which you have no control. A lot of people are morons, and ideals are meant for them. There'd be no law and order if everybody thought like I do, and I ought not tell you this, but I'm going to anyhow. Ted told me, and it's pretty near true. Did you ever notice that when there's something unpleasant to do it's always covered up with a lot of glamour commonly known as bologna? It's good for the world that the women should have babies; so they keep the fiction moving about dear little baby hands, beautiful motherhood, a woman's true mark of distinction, and so forth. It's good for the world that our men should go and be butchered and starved and diseased in their God damn armies; so we hear about glory and bravery and patriotism and that bunk. Any time you hear a lot of piping about any grand honor you're getting, take a look under it and you'll see it's the bunk."