Women
By Zona Gale
(Contemporary American writer and suffragist. In “The American Magazine.”)
They looked from farm house window;
Their joyless faces showed
Between the curtain and the sill—
You saw them from the road.
They looked up while they churned and cooked
And washed and swept and sewed.
Some could die and some just lived, and many a one went mad,
But it’s “Mother be up at four o’clock,” the menfolk bade.
They looked from town-house windows,
A shadow on the shade
Rose-touched by colorful depths of room
Where harmonies were made.
Within, the women went and came,
And delicately played.
Some could grow, and some could work, but many of them were dead.
“We must be gowned and gay tonight when the men come home,” they said.
They looked from factory windows
Where many an iron gin
Drew in their days and ground their days
On the black wheels within,
Drew in their days and wove their days
To a web exceeding thin.
And they suffered what women have suffered over and over again.
And it’s “Double your speed for a living wage, ye mothers and wives of men!”
They looked from brothel windows,
And caught the curtain down.
A piteous, beckoning hand thrust out,
To summon or clod, or clown.
They named them true, they named them true,
The Women of the Town.
Some could live and some just died, and most of them none could know,
And it’s “What if the fallen women vote?” from the men who keep them so.