CHAPTER II.
DICKEY DOWNY'S MEDITATION It hath the excuse of youth.
-- _Shakespeare._ That night I pondered long upon what my mother had told me.

Ever since I left my shell I had been taught to respect my elders, and that it was a mark of ill manners and bad breeding for children to question the superior knowledge of those much older than themselves.
Notwithstanding this, in my secret heart I could not help thinking that my mother was mistaken in her estimate of women when she called them wicked.

She had surely misjudged them.

However, I took good care not to mention these doubts to her.
I had heard from my grandmother, who had traveled a great deal from the tropics to the North and back again, that women were the leaders in the churches and were foremost in all Christian and philanthropic work; that they provided beautiful homes for orphan children, where they took care of them and nursed them when they were sick.

She told me about the hospitals where diseased and aged people were kindly cared for by them.