cions marriage and every holy thing." And she went on to say that
there was something wrong with pa and with lots of men, who went around
cryin' and pretendin' to die, and then after they got the girl, talked
about baits, and about bein' fooled.

And pa said: "Do you know what a woman is?"

And ma said: "I don't know what you think she is."

"A woman," says pa, "is a bottle of wine. If you look at it and leave it
alone, never open it, the wine is as harmless as water. And if you leave
a woman alone, she can't do nothin' to you. She's just there on the
table or the shelf--harmless and just a woman, just like the bottle of
wine is just a bottle of wine. But if you get in love with her, that's
like drinkin' the wine; she gets hold of you, and you begin to talk and
tell your secrets, and make promises, and give your money away, just
like a drunk man. Then if you marry her, that's like getting over the
wine; you wake up and find you've been drunk and you wonder what you've
said, and if you remember, you smile at yourself, and your wife throws
up to you what you said and that you wrote her letters. And the man who
put wine, women and song together, put three things that was just the
same together."

And ma says: "No, a woman ain't a bottle of wine at all; a woman is a
bird."

"What kind?" says pa.

And ma says: "I don't know the name of the bird, but it roosts on the
back of the hippopotamus. The hippopotamus is big and clumsy like a man
and can't see very well, just like a man, and has lots of enemies like a
man; so when enemies come this here bird sets up an awful clatter and
squawkin' and that warns the hippopotamus and so he can run or defend
himself. And if it wasn't for women, men couldn't get along, because
they have to be warned and told things all the time, and given pointers
what to do and how to act, and what is goin' on around--and the fact is
women is brains, and men is just muscle."

And pa says, "How does this bird live, if it's on the back of the
hippopotamus all the time?" That kind of got ma, for she knew if the
bird got off the back of the hippopotamus to eat, it couldn't warn the
hippopotamus, and as the bird has to live, ma was kind of stumped, and
she says--"Oh, well the bird lives all right, it catches things that
flies by."

"It does?" says pa. "You don't know your botany--that bird feeds off of
the delicious insects that is on the back of the hippopotamus. So it
don't have to get off for foo