Don't you remember last spring in Brooklyn it wuz settled once for all that a female child's life wuzn't worth only half as much as a male child ?" Sez I, "I remember a man's saying so, I don't remember it wuz proved; I myself thought it wuz about as hefty a thing as a judge ever undertook to try to set a value on two human lives with all their glorious and terrible possibilities, and," sez I, eppisodin' a little but walkin' along all the time, "how did that man know but the soul of a Florence Nightingale would wake up in that girl and bless the world for all time?
And how did he know but the boy would prove a Benedict Arnold or a Guiteau?
An evil influence to curse the world forever.

It wuz a hefty job, and if Josiah had been judge I wouldn't let him undertook it, or if he had I'd had him set an equal value on what God and nater and human affection had made equal." "Well, well," sez Josiah, "le'ss git along unless you want to stay here and preach all day on the sidewalk." "But," sez I, "I'm not preachin', Josiah, I'm eppisodin'." "Well, there is a time for eppisodin' and a time for common sense, and le'ss git along." He acted real grumpy, I guess he'd thought more on me, if I had pretended I thought his life wuz worth double mine.

But I wouldn't say I thought so not even for love's sake.

And mebby he squirmed because I said I would have him do thus and so.

Men are so queer! you can't always tell jest where the shue pinches, but you know by their actin' and behavin' that it pinches somewhere.
But Blandina sez, evidently reconnoitering the past seen in her memory, "No livin' bein' will ever make me think a man's life is not worth more than a woman's." Well, she felt so and I couldn't make her over at this late day, she'd been made too long, so Common Sense, with whom I always try to be on the most intimate terms, told me I hadn't better multiply any more words with her.