The 'Odd Fellow' and the Suspicious Wife

A woman whose face baked like a baked salmon, demanded information from a young man who visited her husband to ask if he was an Odd Fellow and to ask for the password. 'I do, madam,' he meekly replied. 'Well,' said she, 'my man is one of you, and I want you to tell me if he is a secret watchman, and if he has been appointed for three hundred nights to watch the jewels? And do you meet a week? And does he have to crawl through some of that in the daytime, and take a day's work to be a candid fraud, or a part-cared burglar, or some such game as that? Take me for a fool?' The young man said that she must have been misinformed; that there was something wrong, but she interrupted him: 'There, you needn't try to play mum. I understand all about this grip game, and silent secrecy, and passwords. You can't fool me! You would not tell me for a farm in Snohomish, would you? I don't suppose you would tell me when my husband comes home with a hairpin in his hat and a lady's collar on, instead of his own, whether he has been taking a Snohomish degree or been at a surprise party. Oh, no, you're innocent, you are.' The young Odd Fellow ventured to remark that he did not realize the drift of the inquiry. 'Oh, no; I see it all now. You're all in it for each other, and you'd say the broken earring I found in his pocket belonged to you, wouldn't you? And if I should ask you who Araminta is that I caught him talking to himself about, you'd say it was the goat you intended to ride; and if I should ask you about this muttering I hear of 'pass,' 'order it up,' 'set 'em up and give me another hot one,' and all that sort of thing, I suppose you'd say it was all connected with your initiation degrees and necessary to the order.' The young man meekly replied, as he tried to move away, that he was in a hurry; that perhaps Brother Buckup would give all the necessary information; that he could not really understand—but she caught him up before he could finish the sentence: 'No, you don't understand. Oh, no! You wouldn't tell me for a pan of doughnuts what kind of laws you make, that says a woman can't be a Daughter of Rebekah merely because she's got a wart on her nose. That's what he tells me; and then he says I should have a medical examination, and that the law is that we are to wash the dishes when they have those stalling jubilees. Oh, yes; it's all very nice to leave your poor wife at home on account of a wart and sore feet, but I am going to find out this business. I am going to find out whether one man can hold all the offices through the year, and sit up six nights to the week, and tell his wife she can't be a Rebekah, and to go to some death-trap, or whatever you call 'em, just on account of a little thing like that. I won't trouble you any longer, as probably you want to pass and 'set 'em up' somewhere; but I'll watch that chap of mine, and if I find there is too much goat to it, I'll forget that I am a woman, and if I don't make his head look like a double bumped balloon, and he'll have to wear my wash-tub over it for the next three months,' and she slid into the nearest store and bought a japa-pumpkin and a stove-lifter.