Some Things We Want

Written For The Mayflower Some Things We Want By Mrs Celestia R. Colby Said a gentleman to me the other day, "I wish you would write an article for the "Ladies Volunteer," (an unpretending little paper which is sometimes "got up" by the ladies of "our society" for our own private benefit ) "and tell us plainly and clearly just what you want" and he added with bitter sarcasm, "it would be something that I never knew a writer or lecturer upon woman's rights, to old yet!" Of course [underlined: "I"] have not the vanity to suppose that [underlined: "I"] can accomplish what so many more learned and more gifted, have failed to do; viz, make that man understand what the advocates of woman's rights demand, for it is one thing to explain, and quite another to give the understanding: and we have the faintest possible suspicion that his case is hopeless, on the ground of the man "convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still. Neither shall I attempt to show [underlined: "all"] that we ask but just jot down a few items, as the moments snatched from labor or slumber will permit. And here let me say that we do not merely ask a change of legislation in our future, knowing well that were the [^underlined: "all"] laws that oppress woman struck from the statute books to day, that a tyrant ten-fold stronger exists in the [underlined: "Customs"] that bind men and [underlined: "women too, willing"] victims in their fetters of adamant, and like an iron shroud cramps and crushes every [crossed out: "every"] effort, every struggle of those who would be truly free.

And then who sees now a days such fires as glowed and flashed and snapped and crackled in that huge old fireplace, that [underlined: "filled"] as well as "occupied" one side of the room, and [omitted: "made", written above: "sent"] a free, ["^wild,"] rollicking, merry blaze nd the open chimney where the "hook and trammel" hung, and strove in vain to look black and gloomy in the midst of the blaze, but the sparks would chase each other in a merry dance over the hooks, and and seem like a stream of living, firey beads strung upon an invisible thread, that kept breaking and left then to scatter in wild confusion, to "go out" and come again in a swifter redder string of firey points. [written vertically; "Mary"] Into the recess of that huge fireplace [written above: "in winter"] were, daily piled a huge "back-log" with its cheerful partner the "forestick", making a sort of platform upon which was [solid?] stick after stick, of course wood, and the spaces between were duly filled with [written above: "well"] proportioned "middle sticks" without number, the whole well [dinked?] with brands and chips, and then the merry blaze leaped up the pile fro the [written above: "glowing"] coals as they were carefully raked open, and [omitted: "wre"] lapped then [omitted: "[Congress?]"] of [flamse?] around the huge logs, until in their wreathing embrace the whole melted away into [underlined: "brightness"] and after having duly performed their proper mission in the houshold, assisting in all the loyal culinary affairs of the family, as well as doing duty as assistant laundress, there was left a [written above: "our"] 'miniature mountain of coals, that still seemed to hoard in [ommitted: "their," written above: "its"] heart all the ["^concentrated"] heat and brightness of that huge pile of wood, over which the flame still