girl! She stood by
Arvilly. They wuz made friends on that dretful night when they had
stood by the men they loved, one killed and the other to be killed by
the govermunt. Poor things! they wuz bein' protected, I spoze our
govermunt would call it; it always talks a good deal about protectin'
wimmen; 'tennyrate the mantilly of the law hung over 'em both and
shaded 'em, one man layin' dead, shot through the heart, the other
condemned to be shot, both on 'em by legal enactments, both men not
knowin' or meanin' any more harm than my Josiah up in Jonesville if he
had been sot fire to by law and then hung by law because he smoked and
blistered. Good land! them that sets a fire knows that there has got
to be smoke and blisters, there must be.

The officers they wuz just dumb-foundered at the sight of a woman with
a bask waist on in that position--a bein' court-martialed for
desertion--and her speech dumb-foundered 'em still more, so I spoze; I
hearn it from one who wuz there.

Sez Arvilly to 'em, and they wuz drew up in battle array as you may
say, dressed up in uniform and quite a few on 'em, the Stars and
Stripes behind 'em, and the mantilly of the law drapin' 'em in heavy
folds. And I don't spoze that through her hull life Arvilly wuz ever
so eloquent as on that occasion. All her powers of mind and heart wuz
electrified by the dretful shock and agony she had underwent, and her
words fell like a hard storm of lightenin' and hail out of a sky when
it is just stored full of electrical power and has got to bust out.

Sez Arvilly: "You men represent the force and power of the govermunt
that falsely sez it is the voice of the people; we two represent the
people. As you are the force and power and will of the law, we are the
endurance, the suffering. You decide on a war. When did a woman ever
have any voice in saying that there should be a war? They bear the
sons in agony that you call out to be butchered; their hearts are torn
out of their bosoms when they let their husbands, sons and lovers go
into the hell of warfare, and you tax all her property to raise money
to help furnish the deadly weapons that kill and cut to pieces the
warm, living, loving forms that they would give their lives for.

"But you men decide on a war, as you have on this. You say it wuz from
motives of philanthropy and justice; you drag us, the people, out of
peaceful, happy homes to leave all we love, to face mutilation, agony
and death; you say your ca