Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/199

 see the efforts for quite a spell and didn't say a word, why her feet wuz squooze to that extent that her toes any good excuse for makin' a lame martyr of herself.

"Oh, they would make light, and say I wuzn't fashionable."

And I sez, "I believe I could bear that better than I could what you're sufferin' now. But I don't believe they would notice 'em, I believe you could wear a shoe big enough for your feet, so you could walk and enjoy life, and nobody would find it out, nobody would ever think to look and tell on't."

"Oh, yes, they would," sez she, "they would laugh."

"Well, mebby you would be in a condition to laugh yourself, which you are fur from bein' now," sez I pityin'ly. But I couldn't convince her, and she stood up on them pinted toes and high, slim heels, and waddled off to the bed where her dress wuz.

And then follered another battle between mind and matter, between too compressed matter, namely a big, fat waist, and a small but firm minded cosset and waist. For a long time the victory seemed to be on the side of the fat body, but it had to gin in, the last button wuz drawed to, the last fortress of flesh, which resisted to the death, wuz overcome and crowded in, and the steel walls of the prison told no tales of the agony within. Heavy skirts wuz adjusted and draped about the achin' form, the long train lay out on the carpet, and the number six hands crowded into the number four gloves, and Miss Greene Smythe wuz ready to go and enjoy fashionable life. She said she wouldn't go until dear Mr. Allen come, but we would go and sit down on the balcony, where it would be pleasanter than here.

Well, as we sot there in that upper piazza we could