Читать книгу The Journals of Major Peabody: A Portfolio of Deceptions, Improbable Stories and Commentaries about Upland Game Birds, Waterfowl, Dogs and Popular Delusions - Galen Winter - Страница 8

Women’s Rights

Never let it be said Major Nathaniel lacks proper respect for the female of the species. He neither derides their abilities nor considers them to be inferior to the male animal in any way. Frankly, I believe he is just a bit afraid of them. (Personally, I think men have good reason to be afraid of women.) His attitude may have been formed by the experiences he amassed during his short term marriage.

The Major’s election never to re-marry supports my thesis. I believe he fears a wife might insist he become a better man and change what she would most probably consider to be his errant way of life It almost happened during his first venture into what turned out to be a very stormy relationship.

During the marriage, Peabody’s Lefever 20 ga. gathered dust and complained of disuse. The Major was forced to start a savings account. In spite of the fact of his careful cleaning of the necklace after he retrieved it, his then wife insisted he get rid of his dog just because it had eaten that favorite bit of her jewelry. After the divorce Peabody felt like a slave who had been liberated. Undoubtedly, his ex felt the same way.

This does not mean the Major dislikes women. On the contrary, he enjoys their presence, but he has adopted the classic position enunciated by William Claude Dunkenfield who claimed: “A woman is like an elephant. I like to look at them but I wouldn’t want to own one.”

Major Peabody believes in the equality of the sexes. He treats women in the same way he treats his male associates. This gets him into serious trouble with some members of the opposing sex, but others enjoy his fairness and his company. A case in point is the desirable and somewhat unattainable, lovely Stephanie.

The lovely Stephanie’s family and the Peabody family have been friends for generations and she and I have been affianced for over five years. She is intelligent, independent and very committed to the causes of Women’s Rights. It is her insistence on independence which has, I believe, delayed any formal ceremony legalizing our union. I’m sure she believes marriage amounts to some sort of surrender.

It was Major Peabody who was instrumental in first bringing us together. He had been invited to participate in a Western Hemisphere shotgunning expedition. It was to start with goose shooting in Greenland and then move south to Labrador for duck. The succeeding stops were: Upper Michigan for Ruffed Grouse, Iowa for pheasant, Mexico and Colombia for dove, Uruguay for Perdiz, Argentina for goose, and then back to Philadelphia for recuperation.

The mere thought of such an expedition was enough to cause Major Peabody to salivate. It was a once-in-a-lifetime hunt and he intended to participate. Of course, it was a very expensive undertaking. Of course, the Major had no backlog of funds available to support the costs of the five week project. When he asked for an advance from his Spendthrift Trust, of course, I had to again show him the terms of the Agreement which specifically allowed no advances of any sort.

Peabody reacted by contacting the lovely Stephanie for advice on how to convince me to allow advance payments of his monthly stipends. The lovely Stephanie and I met to confer prior to the initiation of legal action. The contractual limitations on Peabody’s ability to get early distributions as well as the rights of the residual beneficiaries and my duty to protect the trust corpus were explained. I gave the lovely Stephanie a copy of the trust instrument.

After studying it, her attorneys concluded the document was carefully drafted and contained no loopholes through which Peabody could squeeze. The Major’s attempt at legal action ended before it began. It also began my personal association with the lovely Stephanie. It has never ended (though, some of my friends believe it never really started.).

In spite of the (to him) disagreeable conclusion of his threatened lawsuit, Major Peabody, the lovely Stephanie and I remain good friends. Occasionally, the Major invites both of us to dinner at Bookbinders. Those invitations are usually extended during the last week of a month when Peabody is short of cash.

Privately, the lovely Stephanie tells me how much she appreciates the fact that Major Peabody does not insult her by adopting the male chauvinist insistence on grabbing the check. He allows her to pick up the bill. (In deference to maintaining my reputation with other customers who may be watching, the lovely Stephanie graciously allows me to pay the bill.)

The lovely Stephanie also appreciates the Major’s sensitivity to other important issues of the Women’s Rights movement. I’ve heard him tell her the women’s tees at the golf courses should be destroyed since they suggest an inequality between the sexes. I’ve heard him tell her the popular trout fisherman’s artificial fly should be re-named The Royal Coachperson. I’ve heard him tell her the Federal Department of Interior’s Fish and Game people should be chastised for assigning 25 points to the drake Mallard and only fifteen to the hen.

If the lovely Stephanie has a minor flaw detracting from her perfection, it might be her strident attitude in regard to matters concerning women’s rights and the equality of the sexes. Though the thought has occurred to me, I’ve never had the courage to suggest the Major might be putting her on.

I’ve certainly never hinted at my growing belief that men and women really are different. Women do strange things. They give peculiar anniversary gifts for one thing. I thought she knew I didn’t hunt.

* * * * *

The Major crouched in a duck blind on a backwater of the Mississippi River near La Crosse, Wisconsin. He smiled as he thought of a dinner conversation with the lovely Stephanie.

In a few weeks, she had told him, it would be exactly five years since she and the Major’s Trustee first met. Peabody took advantage of her comment to point out the traditionally established anniversary gifts were demeaning to women. The historically proper presents for an eighth anniversary (electric appliances), the ninth (pottery) and the thirteenth (lace) as well as the various gem stones were, in the Major’s opinion, “based on the archaic attitude that the head of the household should give housewifely sops to the little woman”.

Major Peabody went on to state: “This disparaging affront to women should be ended and assigned to the obscurity it deserves”. Then, after mentioning the classic gift for the fifth anniversary was something made of wood, he said: “Stephanie, my dear, why don’t you strike a blow for equality and instead of awaiting for some depreciating gift from your man, give him the anniversary present? And I know just the thing to give him.”

The Major’s reverie was broken when a flock of Bluebill, flying in their un-patterned and disorganized manner, came into sight. They responded to the Major’s calling and came directly to his blind. They set their wings and slipped air as they dropped towards his newly acquired set of two dozen wooden decoys.

The decoys were a gift from the attorney who managed his Spendthrift Trust at the Smythe Hauser Engels & Tauchen law firm. (Major Peabody had to promise he would never tell the lovely Stephanie where or how he got them.)