The co-citizens

^! THE HI
COCITIZENS
CORRA HARRIS

THE CO-CITIZENS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR >
A Circuit Ridert Wife Eve* Second Husband The Recording Angel In. Search of a Husband

" Do you know what he meunx, Mali, sending for the oldest and fairest woman in Jorduntuicn to meet him at this outrageous hour of the afternoon?"

THE CO-CITIZENS
BY
CORRA HARRIS
Ittttstrated By Hanson Booth
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK

Copyright, 1915, by
DOTJBLEDAY, PAGE & CoMPANT
AH rigliit reserved, including ikat of translation into foreign language*,
including the Scandiuaria*
, 1915, IT TKX nCTOKUL TIW CO, . T.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
" Do you know what he means. Setah, sending for the oldest and ugliest, and the youngest and fairest woman i Jordantown to meet him at this outrageous hour of the afternoon?" ........... Frontitpieot
FACING PAQB
" 1 want to ash you a delicate question: where ish the ladies? I havent sheen a woman in four hours!" . . . 44
" You may be mayor of this town before you are thirty. A fat mayoress would never do*"......... 84
" Bob! Ill make a confession to you. Its been horrid, from first to last. When we are married I want to sit at home and darn your socks you do wear holes in thiMti, dont you? "................ 4U

THE CO-CITIZENS
CHAPTER I
WHEN Sarah Hayden Mosely died, she did something. Most people do not. They cease to do. They are forgotten. The grass that springs above their dust is the one re current memory which the earth publishes of them long after the world has been eased of their presence, the fever of their prayers and hopes. It was the other way with this dim little old woman. During the whole of her life she had never done anything. She was one of those faint whispers of femininity who missed the ears of mankind and who faded into the sigh of widowhood without attracting the least attention. She was simply the " relic" of William J. Mosely, who at the tune of his death was the richest man inJordantown. And by the same token, after his death, Sarah became the richest woman. She had no children,
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no relatives. She was detached in every way, even

from her own property, which was managed by

the agent, Samuel Briggs, and was still known as

the "William J. Mosely Estate." She attended

divine service every Sunday morning, always wear ing a black silk frock and a black bonnet tied under her sharp little chin, always sitting erect and alone

in her pew, always staring straight in front of her, but not at the minister. Recalling this circumstance

afterward, Mabel Acres said: "She must have been thinking of that all the time,

not of the sermon."

She paid one dollar a year to the Woman's Home

and Foreign Missionary Society and twenty cents extra for "incidentals." She contributed five dol

lars each quarter toward the Reverend Paul Stacey's

salary. And she never, under any circumstance, gave more, no matter how urgent the appeal. She was suspected of being a miser. There was nothing

else of which she could be suspected. So far as any

one knew in Jordantown, she permitted herself only one luxury: this was a canary bird, not yellow, but green. It was a very old bird, as canaries go. Some

body once said: "Old Sarah's making her canary

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last as long as possible!" Every night when she

retired to her room, she took the cage in with her,

hung it above her bed on a hook, and threw her

petticoat over it to keep the bird quiet during the

night.

On the morning of the 6th of April Mrs. Mosely

did not appear at the usual hour, which was six

o'clock. The maid waited breakfast until the toast

was cold. Then she went to the door and knocked.

No reply. She opened the door, and fell with a

scream to the floor. Something soft and swift like

wings brushed her face. She could not tell what it

was. She saw nothing.

The gardener, hearing her cries, ran in. They both

approached the bed. They beheld the face of their

mistress looking like the yellowed dead petals of a

rose, wrinkled, withered, awfully still on the pillow.

The woman screamed again.

"She's dead! it was her spirit that brushed my face

just now!"

"No, it was the canary. The cage is empty," said the gardener.

"I tell you the thing I felt was white!" cried the

woman.

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"Pelt! If you'd looked, you'd have wen it was

that green canary!" persisted the man. This was the beginning of a great whispering up

roar in Jordantown, of violent curiosity and anxious

speculation.

No one ever called upon Sarah, and she never

made visits. Now every one came. They listened

to the maid's story. All the little boys in town were

looking for the canary. They never found it.

"I told you so!" sniffled the maid.

On the day of the funeral all the business houses

in Jordantown were closed. It was as if a Sabbath

had dropped down in the middle of the week. Pale

young clerks lounged idly beneath the awnings of the

stores. Servants stared from the back doors. Spar

rows rose in whirls from the dust and screeched

ribald comments from the blooming magnolia trees.

The funeral procession was a long one, and included all the finest automobiles and all the best people

in Jordantown--not that the best people had ever known the deceased, but most of them sustained

anxious, interest-bearing relations to the William J. Mosely Estate. No one was weeping. No one was

even looking sad. Everybody was talking. One

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might have said this procession was a moving dicto graph of Sarah Moaely, whom no one knew.

The Reverend Paul Stacey and Samuel Briggs

occupied the car next to the hearse. They were at least the nearest relations to the present situation.

"She was not a progressive woman," Stacey was

saying.

"No," answered Briggs, frowning. He was think

ing of his own future, not this insignificant womans

past.

"No heirs, I hear?" "None."

"In that case she would naturally leave most, probably all, of the estate to the church or to some charity. That kind of woman usually does," Stacey concluded cheerfully.
"This land of woman does not!" Briggs objected quickly. "She was the kind who does not make a will at all. Leaves everything in a muddle. No sense of responsibility. I have always contended that since the law classes women with minors and children they should not be trusted with property. They should have guardians!"
"You are sure there is no will?"

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" Absolutely. If she had drawn one, I should have

been consulted," answered the agent.

"It seems strange that she should have been so

remiss," Stacey murmured.

"Not at all. Making a will is like ordering your

grave clothes. Takes nerve. Mrs. Mosely didn't

have any. She was merely a little old gray barnacle

sticking to her husband's estate. She--hello!

What's the matter?"

The procession halted. Both men leaned forward

and stared. An old-fashioned brougham was being

drawn slowly by a very fat old white horse into the

too narrow space between the hearse and Briggs's

car. Seated in the brougham was the erect figure

of a very thin old man. His hair showed beneath

his high silk hat like a stiff white ruff on his neck.

His hands were clasped over a gold-headed cane.

His whole appearance was one of extreme dignity and

reverence. The procession at once took on the

decent air of mourning.

" Judge Regis! What's he got to do with this, I'd

like to know!" growled Briggs.

After the brief service at the grave the company

scattered. The men gathered in groups talking in

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rumbling undertones. The women wandered along

the flowering paths.

"We must do something about that baby's grave over there. The violets are not blooming as they

should. The ground needs mulching," said Mrs. Sasnett, who was the president of the Woman's

Civic League and Cemetery Association. "I think we made a mistake to trim that crimson

rambler so close in the Coleman lot. It is not bloom

ing so well this year," said Mrs. Acres.

" No place for a crimson rambler, anyhow. I told Agatha she should have planted a white rose."

"If we are to take care of this cemetery, I think

we should have something to say about what is

planted here, anyhow," added Mrs. Acres petulantly. "We will have. There's been a committee ap

pointed to draw up resolutions covering that," an

swered Mrs. Sasnett, who was also a firm woman.

"I hope Sarah Mosely has left something to the Civic League and Cemetery Association," said an

other woman walking behind. "I doubt it, she had no public spirit. We could

never interest her in the work. Such a pity."

"And in these days when women are taking hold

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and doing things. I called on her myself when we

were putting out plants along the railroad embank

ment beside the station and asked her for a contribu

tion, even if it was only a few dozen nasturtiums.

But she said she wasnt interested."

"I wonder what she has done with her money.

Nobody seems to know."

They stood staring back at the grave, which was

now deserted except for the sextons men, who were filling it, and a tall thin old man who stood with his

head bare, leaning upon his cane with an air of rever

ence. Beneath the coffin lid below Sarah Mosely

lay with her hands folded, faintly smiling like a

little withered girl who has done something, left a curious deed which was to puzzle those who were

still awake when they discovered what she had done.

And it did.

It was the afternoon of the same day. The doors of all the business houses were open. Jordantown

had taken off its coat and was busy in its shirt sleeves

trying to make up for the trade lost during the morning. Customers came and went, merchants

frowned, clerks smiled. Teams passed. Children

returning from school added, by their joyous in-

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difference, irritation to the general situation. All

the sparrows were back in the dust of the street dis

cussing its merits. And everywhere men were gathered in groups talking about something the

Something. The business of the town was like a

house toppling upon sand as long as no one knew

what was to be the disposition of the Mosely Estate. This was what every one was talking about.

Jordantown is one of those old Southern commu nities large enough to have "corporations," a mayor and council, but small enough for members of "the

best families" not to speak to members of other "best

families." Everybody had "feelings" and they

showed them, especially if they were not agreeable.

It was not a progressive place, due, partly, to its

ante-bellum sense of dignity, but more particularly to the fact that when a business firm was about to

fail, it did not fail. It borrowed enough to "tide

over" from the agent of the William J. Mosely Es

tate. This interfered with that natural law in the business world as everywhere else, the survival of

the fittest. Everybody survived, the fit and the

unfit, which is death to competition and that arterial excitation without which trade becomes stagnation.

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Three men sat in the private office of the National

Bank, the windows of which overlooked the town

square. They were the tutelary deities of all public

occasions in the town. They always sat on the

platform behind the speaker on Decoration Days.

They were supposed to control municipal elections,

but not one of them had ever "run" for an office.

Deities don't. They are the powers behind the

throne. These men represented Providence in

Jordantown. And Providence is always behind the

scenes. The trouble now was that by an ordinary

and inevitable process of nature they had lost con

trol of the situation. A little old woman had died

who had no sense, and who for that very reason

might have done something foolish with the William

J. Mosely Estate, which was the very foundation

upon which all deities and providences rested in that

place.

"The Estate owns your National Bank Building,

doesn't it?" asked Martin Acres, who knew that

it did.

"Yes, and a controlling interest in the stock be

sides, more is the pity! I never like to have a

woman own stock in my bank," Stark Coleman

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answered, throwing himself back upon the spring of his revolving chair.
"Why?" This from Acres, who did like to have women make accounts at his store.
"Dangerous. It is well enough for women to owe--that's their nature--but not to own. Look at the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad scandal!"
He was a short fat man with large blue eyes be neath swollen lids, and at the present moment some inner pressure seemed to increase their prominence.
"What has that to do with women?" "Proves my point. Wouldn't have been such a racket over that scandal if half the widows and orphans in New England hadn't been pinched. Men are good losers. They keep quiet. Know better than to destroy their credit by squealing. Women have no credit, so they all squeal. And the senti mental public always adds to the clamour," Coleman concluded, mopping his face. "Briggs collects rent from every store and busi ness house around this square," Acres went on. "And he told me he handles mortgages on nine teen thousand acres of land in this county," laughed

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the third man, who was young and who had been

listening with the detached air of a humourist.

"You can afford to laugh, Sasnett," retorted the

banker; "you arc one of the few men in this town

not affected by this--er--disaster. But a good many

of the rest of us may find ourselves in a hell of a

hole if that woman has willed everything she had

to the church or to some orphan asylum!"

"Why?" asked Sasnett, still smiling in the pro

voking manner of a man v.-ho has nothing to lose.

"I couldn't do business with every loan and in

vestment to be passed upon by a board of directors

reeking with preachers and eleemosynary trustees.

Tiiey are all damphules, with empty breeches pock

ets, and craws filled with morbid scruples. How do

1 know there won't be a woman among them! Good

Lord! Think of a woman on the board of directors

in a bank!" snorted Coleman.

"Well, it couldn't be as bad as that," said Acres,

as he pulled at the ends of his wiry gray moustache.

"Yes, it can! It can be as bad as hell, I tell you.

Nobody knows what that woman's done. And when

you don't know what a woman's done, you may be sure

it's worse than you can imagine!" Coleman insisted.

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"Carter is beside himself. Briggs holds a mort

gage of sixteen hundred on the Signal and he was to

let Carter have four hundred more to-day. Now the

loan's called off. He tells me the Signal must sus

pend publication if he can't raise the money," Sas-

nett put in.

"At least he'll sell a few hundred copies extra Sat

urday if he prints Sarah Mosely's will," said Acres.

"But if there is no will?"

"What does Briggs say?"

"Oh, Briggs!" laughed Sasnett, "he's as mad as a

horsefly that's been slapped off. He says there is no

will. But he doesn't really know. He's zooning

around wondering if he'll be able to light again on

the flanks of the estate."

"Begis made himself rather conspicuous at the

funeral to-day--wonder why," remarked Coleman

thoughtfully.

"Whim. Old men like to show up on such occa

sions. They are next of kin to funerals, feel their

dust almlcing on their bones when anybody dies."

"There he comes now!" exclaimed Acres.

The Judge was indeed approaching, walking

smartly up the street to the National Bank Build-

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Ing. He was one of those old men who somehow recall a cavaky sword, slightly bent, of exceedingly

good metal. He retained, you might say, merely the skin and bones of a splendid countenance. The skin was brown as parchment, and wrinkled, but the bones were elegant--Hamlet's skull, not Yor-

ick's. His eyes were perfectly round, gray below a

kind of yellow brilliance, as if an old eagle within looked out beneath the steel bars of those bristling

brows. His nose belonged to the colonial period of

American history. It was an antique, and a very

fine one, well preserved, high bridge, straight, with thin nostrils which drew up at the corners to hold

the singularly patient whimsical smile in place

which his mouth made. All told, the Judge's coun tenance was one of those de luxe histories of a gen

tleman not often seen outside of the best literature, but sometimes seen in an old Southern town where

some gentleman has also managed to retain the ex ceeding honour of being a man as well.

His long black coat-tails clung as close as a scab bard to his thin legs. He wore a high silk hat and

a white carnation hi his buttonhole. He looked

neither to the right nor to the left. Apparently he

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was the one man in sight who was not concerned

about the question of what had become or would

become of the William J. Mosely Estate.

As he approached the Bank Building, a very large

red-faced old man with a white moustache and goatee

turned his head in the opposite direction, wrinkled

his nose, which was naturally Roman and cynical,

and grunted. This was Colonel Marshall Adams.

He and the Judge did not "speak." They had not

spoken to one another in thirty years. This re

quires great firmness of character when you live

within speaking distance in a town where talking is

the chief occupation. They both had that--firmness.

It was always one of the agreeable sensations in

Jordantown to see these two old men come near

enough together to exchange a word or a salutation.

The sensation consisted in the fact that they never

did it.

The Judge tucked his gold-headed cane under his

arm and ascended the stairs which led to his office

on the floor above the bank. The Colonel went off,

rumbling through his Roman nose, down the street.

He did not walk, he paced, as if he were stepping

upon pismires, with his feet wide apart. This was

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due to the fact that so much of the time walking

was a matter of carefully balancing himself against

the strange unsteadiness, the heaving and rolling of

the ground beneath him. And this was due in turn

to the fact that the Colonel was never himself ex

cept when he was "not himself," but had been ex

alted about four fingers in a glass above the level of

the common man--a condition which has always

affected the flat permanency of the earth, ofteA

causing it to rise unaccountably before such persons,

to meet them even more than halfway. The Colonel

had had long experience in this matter, and he

walked warily from force of habit even when he was

sober.

The difference between Judge Begis and Colonel

Adams was this: when the Judge perceived that he

was about to meet the Colonel face to face, he never

turned aside. But when the Colonel perceived that

he was about to meet the Judge, he always did. It

was the way each of them had of expressing his con

tempt for the other.

As the Colonel negotiated himself around the next

corner with the rotary motion of a slightly inebriate

straddle-legged old planet, he almost collided with

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another body which was more nearly spherical and which had apparently no legs at all, only two widetoed "Old Lady's Comforts" showing beneath the hem of her dress. These toes were now set far apart. The very short old lady above them seemed to have caved in above the waistline, but below it

she was globular to a remarkable degree. Her face

was wrinkled like fine script and very florid. Her upper lip was delicately crimped and sunken. Her lower lip stuck out and reached up in an effort to

meet the situation, the situation being more and longer teeth in the lower jaw. Her nose was that of a girl, retrouss6, still impertinent.

She stood regarding the Colonel with that con

tradictory uplook of her faded blue eyes which was pathetic, and that tilt of her nose which was offensive, with her lips primped tight after the manner of a wo

man who is getting ready to wash behind the ears of

a small boy. She always put the Colonel in this class

when she looked at him, and he resented it. He re sented it now by removing his Kentucky Colonel

straw hat and glaring his bow at her, as if that was a concession he made to his own dignity, not to her.
"Good afternoon, Colonel Adams! Y-.Y11, who

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are you running from now?" she said by way of

seizing his ears.

"Madam!" he exclaimed, puffing out his breast,

"no man would dare ask such a question! For four

years the enemy of my country never saw the back

of Marshall Adams--and----"

"And you've been retreating ever since," she

added.

"From what?" he demanded, slowly purpling with

impotent rage.

"From the Present, from things that are," she

answered.

"Madam, I'm an old man, I prefer the grandeur

of the past to those follies to which you, and women

like you, would commit the present."

"But there's Selah, she at least belongs to the

Present."

"Selah belongs to me, thank God!"

"She belongs to herself. You are robbing her of

her own life."

"No woman ever belonged to herself, Madam, es

pecially a young and beautiful woman. She is an

ineffable estate which all men buy with love and

hold with all the strength they have."

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"For shame, sir! You are a brigand keeping

your daughter in a cave."

"My house is not so fine as Selah deserves, but

it is not a cave," he retorted, flattening himself

sidewise in order to pass.

"All the same you are a brigand, robbing your

own flesh and blood of life and happiness," she thrust

at him as he went by, waddling on herself after the

manner of a fat old duck.

This was Susan Walton, the one celebrated char

acter Jordantown had produced since the Civil War,

and she was a source of embarrassment rather

than pride. According to the ethics of that place

no woman should be known beyond her own church

and parlour, much less celebrated. Judge Regis

was a distinguished jurist, of course, and Marshall

Adams had been a famous leader of forlorn hopes in

the Confederate Army. But it is one thing to be

distinguished at the bar or famous in battle fifty

years ago, and quite another thing to be celebrated

in the present. Susan was that thing. It was said

of her that she had kept her husband, an elegant

soft old gentleman, in Congress for a quarter of a

century and up to the very day of his death by being

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a thorn in the side of the political life of the state.

She kept scrapbooks in which she pasted dangerous

and damaging information about politicians and

prominent men generally. Whenever one of them

became a candidate in opposition to her husband,

she prepared an awful obituary of him from her en

cyclopedia of past records; and he usually with

drew from the race or was defeated. Few men live

who can face their former deeds in a political cam

paign. She made public speeches at a time when no

other woman in the South would go further than give

her "experience" in church or read a missionary

report before the Woman's District Conference.

She was for temperance and education even before

the days of Local Option and when the public

school system consisted of eight weeks in the sum

mer. She was the only woman who had ever had

the honour, if it was an honour, to address the State

Legislature when a bill was pending there concern

ing Child Labour; and she did it in the high falsetto

voice of a mother who calls her sons out of a ball-

game in the public square. It was said that she

actually did address that dignified body as "boys,"

and that the "boys" liked it. She had the brains

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of a man and the temper of an indignant but tender

hearted woman. This is an exact description of her

literary style, which was not literary, but it was

versatile in wit and sarcasm and outrageous ve

racity. She used it as an instrument of torture and

vengeance in the public prints upon the characters

of political demagogues, liquor interests, and the

state treasury. And what she said was violently

effective. Her victims might persist hi the error of

their ways, but not one of them ever recovered from

the face-scratching fury of her attack.

Add to this the fact that she was a suffragist in

the days when there was only one other woman in the

state who believed in citizenship for women, and

that she never ceased to "agitate" for suffrage, and

you receive a faint impression of this old termagant

celebrity who had put Jordantown "on the map"

and had given it a reputation for broadmindedness

at a distance which it in no way deserved.

Susan did not herself press the point of being a

celebrity in her own appearance. She did not look

the part. She did not even try. She was sixty

years old, wore black frocks which touched the

pavements behind as she walked and were raised

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some eight inches above it in front, owing to that

perfect frankness with which age is always willing

to confess its stomach. She had worn the same

bonnet for five years, tied under her protruding chin.

Sometimes she changed the ribbons, but she never changed the "shape."

She nodded to the three men seated near the open

window in the bank. Then she paused at the bottom

of the steps which led to the second floor and sighed.

"This staircase was built for men to climb," she

grumbled as she began the ascent. She stood on the

step below and put her right foot on the one above,

but she did not alternate with the left. The gears

in her left knee were not strong enough to bear the

necessary lift. Her feet made a flat all-heel-and-toe

sound as she went up, very emphatic. When she

reached the top her face was red, and she was "out-

of breath." But she went on panting down the hall,

looking at the lettering on the doors of the various

offices. Printed on a large ground-glass door she

saw " Mike Prim." She wrinkled her nose, adjusted

her spectacles, poked out her neck and stared at it.

"Humph! Mike Prim! Nothing else! What

does he do? How does he make a living? Every

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man in this town knows, and not a single woman!" she said to herself.

She came to the door at the end of the hall upon which was printed, "John Regis, Attorney-at-law."
She opened it without knocking and stood upon the threshold.
"Well, John Regis, you must think you are still a young man, keeping your office at the top of this ladder staircase," she complained, raising her hand kerchief and dabbing her face.
"Come in, Susan, and take this chair by the win

dow," said the Judge. Rising from his desk and coming forward, he conducted her elegantly to the chair.

"It's forty years since I was here," she said, look ing about her, "and you've not changed a thing.

You are scarcely changed yourself, John." "The man is changed, Susan. Forty years make

more difference in a man than they do in things,"

he answered gently.

"The same books, all so thick and awful looking. I remember that day I thought you must be the wisest man in the world--to know all that was in them."

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"I didn't know, and I don't know yet," he put

in, smiling. "The same chairs, the same brown prints on the
wall. And that little vase, isn't it the one you had on your desk that day?" she asked, bending forward

to look at it more closely. " The very same. You put a rose into it that day,

do you remember?" "No, but I do remember that I was in love with
you, John. A woman of sixty may admit that now!"

she laughed. "I wish you had admitted it then. I tried hard
enough to win you, Susan. We should have been a

team!" "No, we should not. We are both headstrong.
We should have obstructed each other. I married

the right man." "I suppose so. Certainly you never could have
henpecked me into Congress the way you did Jim

Walton! Why did you do it?" he asked, showing the ends of a sword smile as he regarded her.
"Well, you see I couldn't go myself," she laughed. "So you sent your husband, next best thing." " It wasn't so bad. I helped him, you know."

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"Wrote all his speeches, kicked up all of his dust

for him, didnt you?"

"Not all, but I helped."

"With your scrapbooks, for example?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"If you had been a man, Susan, youd not have

survived some of the things youve said and done."

" If Id had the rights you men keep from us Id never have done them!" she retorted quickly.

"I dont know," he replied, wagging his head and

smiling. " Having rights, including the ballot, would not change the nature of a woman! Tell me, Susan,

have I escaped the scrapbooks? Ive wondered many

times if you were keeping record of me, too."

"You never did anything I could put in. And if you had " she hesitated.

"Would you have pasted it down against me?" he finished.

" I dont know. Im glad I wasnt tempted. How

have you kept yourself so aloof all these years, John

so far above the furious issues of our times? "

"Not above, not above, my dear," he objected;

"Ive been busy. The law b a legal profession, not

an illegal one, like politics."

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They looked at each other and laughed, then the

Judge added:

" And it may be I was afraid of your famous scrap-

books!"

"You were never afraid of anything," she re turned.

"Yes, I am. I'm afraid of something now," he

answered, Sipping the pages of some papers which

lay upon his desk. " I'm an old man holding in my

hands a fuse which I must light presently, and I

dread the consequences."

i

"What are you talking about?" she exclaimed,

leaning forward and staring at him in faint alarm

as if she did indeed smell something burning.

"I cannot tell you yet. I'm waiting for the other

party," he answered.

" The other party ? Whom do you expect? What

does all this mean, anyway? Why was I summoned

here? Have we not had enough excitement for one

day, with the funeral this morning, and with every

man in this town holding his breath for fear of what

will happen to him when the William J. Mosely

Estate is wound up? I've heard nothing else for

two days. Not a word about the poor woman, who

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29

might as well have been a shadow on the wall of her

house for all she meant to anybody until she died,"

she said, fanning herself and looking at him irritably.

"She was a great woman," he said simply.

" Well, I'm just a tired woman. I spent the whole

morning tacking white pinks on an anchor design

for the funeral. Then I went to the cemetery with

the procession. And all the time I heard nothing

but speculation about what she bad or had not done

with her money. I was just composing myself for

a little rest before going to the Civic League and

Cemetery Association at four o'clock when your mes

senger appeared at the door. Now I want to know

what it's all about."

"Are you very much interested in the Woman's

Civic League and Cemetery Association, Susan?"

asked the Judge, by way of avoiding an answer.

"Certainly not! It's a nuisance. But the

women of this town must do something. They have

caught the public-spirit infection, and they show it

like little meddlesome girls, childishly. Have you seen the nasturtium beds they've planted around

the railroad station? That's feminine civic enter

prise! Last week they had a committee appointed

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to see the mayor about keeping the cuspidors clean

in the courthouse! And the cemetery! It's the

livest-looking place in Jordantown, more things

living and growing there than anywhere else. Even

more women. They are there every day, gardening

above the dust of the dead!"

"Why do you belong to it?" he asked.

"In self-defence, of course! There is to be a re

port from a committee about things they want

changed at the cemetery this afternoon, and I'm not

on the committee because one object of it is to con

demn the arbor-vitse trees in my lot there. They

want to cut them down. Now I will not have it!

And I must be there at four o'clock to tell them so!"

She began to fan herself vigorously.

"Listen to me, Susan; let the non-essential go.

Don't be the occasion of a split in your ranks for the

sake of a couple of shrubs. That's what destroys the

strength of parties. If the whole Democratic party

voted for any one man or issue, we should always have a democratic government. If the entire Re

publican party----"

"Listen to me, John Regis! Women are not

parties. They are always factions, little, little fac-

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31

tions, the one working against the other, because

they have no really important issue at stake. Now,

my arbor-vitae trees----"

The door opened and a young girl stood upon

the threshold hesitating, as if she was not sure she

was in the right place.

She was very tall, one of those cool, gray-eyed,

ivory-skinned brunettes who always remind the be

holder of white lilies blooming in the dark. Her lips

were full, faintly pinkly purple, and affirmative, not

beseeching. She stood with one hand upon the knob

behind her, bent a little forward, the skirt of her

white dress blown by the wind through the door, her

eyes showing almost black beneath the brim of her

white hat.

"Selah! Is it for you we've been waiting?"

This from Mrs. Walton.

"Come, Selah, you are almost late! That would

have been a bad beginning," said the Judge, rising,

taking her hand and leading her to a chair.

"You sent for me?" the girl said, as if there might

still be some mistake about that.

"Yes, yes! Sit down!"

"Mercy on us! What does the man mean? Do

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you know what he means, Selah, sending for the old est and ugliest and the youngest and fairest woman

in Jordantown to meet him in his office at this out rageous hour of the afternoon? "

"How do you do, Mrs. Walton?" Selah greeted. "I don't do at all, my dear; I'm tired of doing. I should be taking my nap!"

For a moment after Selah Adams disappeared into Judge Regis's office the hall outside was silent, a gloomy tunnel between gray walls with a square light from the window at the end above the stair case. Then a singular thing happened: the ground-

glass door at which Susan had stared with so much

contempt opened very softly as if Silence himself was behind it. The enormous head and face of a man appeared. His features were concealed in fat, his nose merely protruded, a red knob with nostrils

in the end; his mouth was wide, sucked in above a great chin covered with short black stubble; his jowls hung down, the back of his neck rolled up, and the hair upon it stuck out like bristles.

He looked up and down the hall, listened. He opened the door wide, but very softly, and came through it tiptoeing, a huge figure, almost shapeless

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33

in its monstrous rotundity. He moved with aston ishing swiftness to the staircase, looked down, then fixed his black eyes with a kind of animal ferocity upon the closed door of the Judge's office until he reached it, and laid one of his little red ears to the keyhole.
If we were permitted to observe any man or woman of our acquaintance when that person sup posed himself or herself to be absolutely alone, we should be astonished and often horrified at the un conscious revelations we would receive. The woman with the Madonna face may unmask and show the lineaments of a common shrew in her chamber. And

the virago may soften into the gentleness of a saint as she gives way to the penitence of her own thoughts. The dignified man with the air of virtue and authority might show himself as a nimble-mo tioned rascal, timid and furtive, if he believed only

God saw him. Not one of us ever acts absolutely true to what we know we are except when the door between us and every other man is closed. It is

barely possible that sometimes in the presence of a very young child we do play the role, but never be fore any other creature, however near, neither wife

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nor husband nor friend. It is the nature of the human to act before the footlights of the world even in the broad open day, and even if there is no one to witness the performance but a beggar who never saw him before and never will see him again. It is only when he is alone that the best man does not practise at least the deceit of conceit, or cast himself for some other part in the play of man.

Mike Prim was alone. He was known as a jolly, blarney-tongued, slovenly wit, who for a consider ation managed the political affairs of Jordantown and the county in a manner which was agreeable to the

"deities" already mentioned, who were not willing to do all the things in this business that must be done. He was accustomed to call himself the "servant of

the people." And naturally they paid for his ser vices. He managed campaign funds and manipu

lated election returns in a manner which was highly satisfactory. In short, he was a fat, good fellow, elastic morally, but a good fellow, popular with men, and never introduced to women. This was the r&le he played in the town.
But now, with his ear glued to the keyhole of the Judge's door, he was not on the boards. He was be-

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35

hind the scenes acting according to the laws which governed his nature. And judged by the changes in his expression as he listened, one must have inferred that his personal standards were savage beyond be lief. At first he showed only amusement, as if pres ently he might snort with mirth. His mouth worked like a worm, stretching in a grin, then a sneer. But when at last the three-cornered conversation within

ended and the Judge's voice alone reached him, his whole body seemed to stiffen. He clenched his fat fists. Amazement fled before rage upon that furious face, perspiration streamed from every pore. His eyes shot this way and that like black bullets. No other man in the world can become so infuriated as the coward, for the brave man knows that he can satisfy his anger. He reserves it as a force to use in vengeance. He is temperate in that. But the worm-soul, which must crawl and be satisfied with merely stinging the heel of his enemy, knows no such temperance. He is the victim of his impotent fury.
Mike Prim was such a worm now, and it seemed that he must be consumed. He was a hideous con flagration flaming against the door of the Judge's

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office, scarcely touching it with his huge bulk, his mind

leaping to seize upon every sound from within.

Suddenly, without taking time to stand erect, he sprang back and fled, his legs working like those of an enormous cat, with noiseless swiftness. His

door closed as gently as a feather blown in the wind, and the next moment Prim had seized his 'phone.
"Two-five-six! yes, Acres's store! What? Not in?

Well, damn him!" he muttered, as he rattled the re

ceiver and began again.

"Give me the National Bank, Central! What?

The number? You know the number! yes, five-two-

four! What? Bank closed? I don't give a hang

if it is. Coleman's in his office. Saw him there my self."
During the next hour Mr. Michael Prim called the telephone number of every prominent citizen in

Jordantown. Treason was abroad in the air, much

treason, that was conducted by Prim. And some thing akin to treason apparently was still going on in

the Judge's office. Meanwhile the streets of the town had taken on

a lighter, more frivolous aspect. Prettily dressed

women were mincing along the pavements, their par-

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37

asols bobbing up and down like variegated mush rooms. They bowed, smiled coquettishly at the

men. The men swept off their hats and smirked. All of them were lovers after the manner of lovers in

the South. That is to say, they adored all women, and these ladies were accustomed to being loved after

the manner of Southern women. They lived for

that, nothing else. Pretty goods, expensive goods,

and nice, virtuous little baggages. Speculators in

love, but not deliberate moral beings. They had

nice consciences, easily satisfied. They had nice

minds, easily blinded. Some of them were little

termagants, all the dearer for that to men who like

to conquer the shrew in a woman, if they do not have to do it too often. Besides, these little doll ladies were public spirited. They did dainty things about

town, and they were charming while they were doing

them. At this very moment they were on their way

to the Woman's Civic League and Cemetery Associ

ation, which was meeting with Mabel Acres, who

was the wife of the most prominent merchant in the

town, and by the same token she always served the

most expensive refreshments. Not a single one of

them as they passed beneath the windows of the

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National Bank Building would or could have be

lieved that her whole nature and attitude toward

man was to be changed before night. Susan Walton, strangely excited and enhanced,

now happened to glance through the window, and

the sight of the fluttering feminine pageant below reminded her of something.

"Come, Selah!" she exclaimed, rising with un expected alacrity. " We are due at the Civic League and Cemetery Association, and we have work to do there!"

"If I'm not mistaken in your expression, Susan,

this will be the last meeting of that organization,"

said the Judge.

"I'm hopeful that it is. The women in this town

only want something to do. And we've got it at

last, if only we can make them see it!" she said, as she passed through the door which he held open for

her, accompanied by Selah, who wore the half-

baptized look of a vague young soul still in doubt.

"Not a word about her arbor-vitae trees," said the Judge as he returned to his desk. " I doubt if they'll

ever be mentioned again. The weeds will take the

cemetery, and the women will stop fussing about

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30

clean cuspidors in the courthouse. But what a din

we shall have in this town when they really get going.

Well, God help us, it had to come! They are no

longer one flesh with us."

A town without women in the streets is like a meadow without flowers, a bay tree without leaves, like the air without the wings of birds in it and the sweet sounds they make there about their feathers and affairs.
Now since four o'clock not a woman had been seen on the streets of Jordantown, if one excepted an oc casional bandanna-headed negress. Not a fan had been purchased, not a paper of pins, nor a yard of lace. Trade languished. Nobody knew yet what was wrong, but every man on the square missed some thing. They thought they were still worried about the Mosely will, and they were. But over and above that they had a sense of not being entirely present. For a man to be sufficiently conscious of himself, there must always be the possibility of a woman in sight before whom he may magnify himself at least in his own imagination. The Jordantown Square citizens lacked this mirror. They wandered from

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corner to corner expecting to find it, to see some where near or far the flutter of a woman's skirt, the sky of a woman's eyes. But they did not know that this was what they were after. Each one pretended to himself that he was looking for another man. And when two of them met, they went on to the next cor ner together, both looking for some one else. Then they separated, excused themselves, each hurrying in the opposite direction.
The afternoon passed. Clerks were idle; they

stood in doorways looking up and down the street. Prominent citizens left their chairs beneath the courthouse awning to avoid other prominent citi

zens whom they saw approaching. Still they could not avoid one another.
"Any news?" asked Acres of Coleman, whom he met coming out of the courthouse.

"Not a thing. Clerk says no will has been pro bated there to-day. Briggs was right. There isn't any. He thinks the court will appoint him admin istrator."
"And he looks his thought," sneered Acres; "been

strutting around all the afternoon, swelled fit to

burst."

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41

"Well, he may, nobody can tell. See you later,"

said Coleman, hastening his steps.

" Wait! hold on! I thought you were going in my

direction. I wanted to ask you something," ex

claimed Acres, detaining him.

" No, I'm going back to the bank. What? "

"Have you seen Mike?"

"Yes, just from his office. Sent for me. No, he

says he's in the dark, too," answered Coleman, still

struggling against this companionship.

"He's always in the dark. Would be if he knew

all about it," Acres grumbled.

At this moment the huge amorphous figure of a

man emerged sidewise from the staircase of the Na

tional Bank Building. He looked back up the stairs,

shot a glance up and down the street, then he moved

like a blur around the corner into the darkening

shadows. This was a habit he had which the inno

cent people of the town had not sufficient experience

to interpret. He never started forth without look

ing both ways. He never walked any distance

without looking back over his shoulder.

"That's Mike now!" exclaimed Acres. "Not a

dollar in his pocket, and he owns this town."

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"Yes, he has got dollars in his pocket, plenty of

'em. He's been collecting for the campaign fund

this afternoon--quarterage you know!" sneered

Coleman, who had just paid his.

"Aims to be the next mayor, doesn't he?"

"No, worse than that: he's going to be representa

tive from this county in the next legislature!"

"Bob Sasnett will have something to say about

that. He told me to-day he might run. That

means he will."

" Well, he hasn't got anything else to do. He's the

only man in town who is independent of Mike. He

can furnish his own campaign fund. Good night!"

said Coleman, determined to be gone this time.

" Wonder what's the matter with Coleman," mut

tered Acres, hurrying to meet Carter, the editor of

the Signal, only to see him vanish into the drug

store. " Wonder what's the matter with everybody.

Hello, Colonel Adams, that you?"

"Yesh, it's me, Mabel; whatcher want," answered

the Colonel, bracing himself against the courthouse.

He always called Acres "Mabel," after his wife.

"Well, how do you feel--pretty good?" said the

little gossip, grinning up in the old red face.

"'1 it-ant to o.s7i you a delicate question--irliere ixh tin' ladies ? I harent sheen a woman in four hours' "

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43

"No, shuxl I do not. I feel like a child on a

cold night wish all the bedclothes pulled off me--

thatsh how I feel. How do you feel? "

"Same here, Colonel!"

" Mabel, me boy," whispered the old man, sway

ing gently as he attempted to fix his eyes upon the

other's face, "I want to ash you a delicate question:

where ish the ladies? I haven't sheen a woman in

four hours, Mabel! Think of that and in a town

full of the pretties' women in thish state. What does

it mean? Thash what I want to ash you. I'm

famished, I'm thirshty, for the shight of a pretty face!"

"That's so," said Acres; "what does it mean?

Hadn't thought of it before, but----"

"Oh, my God! what would thish world be without the ladies, Mabel! If we wish 'em like thish in four

hours, how could we live wishout 'em forever! We

could not, shur!" He began to weep, a poor old man of the past, standing in the twilight of the village

street, looking up and down like a lost child crying

for its mother. Then he moved on, refusing "Mabel's" arm.

Men began to close their offices and shops; window

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sashes banged; keys rattled in locks. More men

appeared upon the streets. They lighted cigars,

loitered, not quite ready yet to go home. When a

man knows his wife and daughters are at home, he feels safe. He is in no hurry to be there himself.

This was the hour when every man in Jordantown was accustomed to know that. If any one had asked

a single one of them the question, "Where's your wife?" he would have answered, "At home, of

course!" It was only the Colonel, half seas over,

who had his doubts, but the Colonel was notoriously

psychic where women were concerned.

At this very moment a queer thing happened: a stream of women poured into the square and took

their way down both sides of it, almost treading upon the toes of the men as they passed. And they were

walking leisurely.

These were undoubtedly the same women who had

passed at four o'clock on their way to the Civic

League and Cemetery Association. Every man in

the streets recognized them. Yet they were not the

same. They did not return salutations. For the

first time the men were ignored, not exactly snubbed,

but literally not seen by the women in Jordantown.

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45

And each man was alone, there were not enough of them together to talk about it; they could only feel and wonder, as they stood staring in amazement at those fluttering white and black and blue and pink

figures disappearing around corners and down the avenues.
The sense of femininity is only a sense of weakness. And what we call masculinity is only the sense of

strength, which may belong to women as well as to men under the same conditions. The men on the square had just witnessed a miracle, never seen be

fore in this world--the rise of egotism in the fem inine portion of the community, which caused every one of them to enter that zone of man on an equal footing with men in consciousness. And naturally the men did not understand that. They were so dazed that they could not even discuss it with one another. What they had experienced was too subtle to put into words. Not a man of them looked any other man in the face as they followed those women home. But every one of them was asking himself some question: " What's my wife doing out so late? " "Why didn't Selah Adams speak to me?" "What in

hell's that old cat, Susan Walton, up to now, wading

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by me as if she owned the town? " " Oh, it's nothing! they were embarrassed at being out so late!" "But why then did they walk so infernally like Odd Fel

lows coming home from the lodge at midnight?" "I'll know presently!" said Magnis Carter, as
he flirted around the corner into the avenue. "I'll ask Carrie!"

And, as good as his word, he did. "Carrie, what's the Civic League and Cemetery Association mean by keeping such late hours?" he

asked as he sat down to dinner. "There is no such organization here any more,

Magnis."

"Isn't? What's become of it? You women get

mad and tear up your Magna Charter?" "No, we've changed it, going to get out another

charter." "So, you've changed it? Going to be an Odd Fel
lows lodge now?" he laughed.

"Something like that," she answered coolly.

"Can't afford it, my dear; to be an Odd Fellow

costs like thunder!"

"We have plenty of funds," was the astonishing

reply.

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47

"Speak as if you'd inherited the Mosely Estate."

Silence on the part of Carrie, who sat at the other

end of the table like a Dominique hen brooding

strange eggs.

""

"Hear anything about the will?"

When there was no answer to this question, Carter

looked up at his wife.

" I say did you hear anything about Sarah Mosely's

will?"

Still no reply.

"Then you did hear something? What was it?"

His manner had become suddenly serious.

"You'll know soon enough, Magnis."

"Can't you tell me?"

"No, I cannot!"

"Secrets from your husband?"

" I never resent your keeping your affairs from me,

why should you object to my keeping mine from

you?" she answered coolly.

"Good Lord, Carrie, you look at me as if you'd

filed papers for divorce! And when did the Mosely

will become one of your affairs, I'd like to know?"

She declined to tell him that. She poked her foot

about under the table with the absent-minded stare

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a woman always has when she is trying to find the

electric bell with her extremities. She found it and

pressed all the current on, so that the maid came with

an injured put-upon air to clear the table.

Carter continued to regard his wife as if she had

become a phenomenon, and as if he was entirely ig

norant of the laws which had exalted her into the

unknown. When the servant disappeared with the

tray of indignantly rattling dishes he began again.

"Look here, Carrie, if there's any news about the

disposition of that woman's estate, I ought to have

it for the Signal. We go to press to-morrow."

"You'll get all the news you are entitled to have

in time to publish this week, Magnis, and through

the proper channels."

Three doors farther down the avenue Selah Ad

ams sat upon the front veranda, looking like the ves

tal virgin of the moon.

She had taken the precaution to enter the house

through the back door when she returned with the other women. The Colonel was fuming in the li

brary. She could hear him through the open door

as she fled noiselessly up the staircase.

"Not a light in the house, by Jove! First time

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49

in forty years I've come home to a darkened house.

No candle in the window to guide an old man's

wandering feet, nobody to greet me, no slippers--no

nothing!" he moaned.

And Selah, leaning over the banisters above,

could hear him stumbling over the chairs. She

knew what that meant. The Colonel regarded all

chairs as his mortal enemies when he was in a certain

condition. She heard the crash of the big Morris chair

as it struck the wall, and feet attacking it furiously.

Then the Colonel lumbered out into the hall.

"Hey, there! Tom! Becky! Where's every

body? By Gad! if somebody don't come, I'll-- I'll----"

" What is it, father?" came Selah's voice, tinkling like ice in a glass.
"Selah! whatsh thish mean?" he roared. "What does what mean, father?" "No light! I've just been asshaulted in my own house!" he shouted. "Assaulted?" she giggled, turning the switch. The hall below was instantly flooded with light. She beheld the Colonel leaning against the newel post, looking up but not seeing her. He was lifting

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first one foot and then the other and feeling them

tenderly with his hands.

"Yesh! thas what I shaid! That Morris chair met me at the door and barked every shin Ive got.

Get out of here!" he roared at the two servants who had entered from the kitchen. "Selah, whereve

you been?"

"Im up here, father. I didnt know it was so late. Ill be down in a minute."

To lie is not the nature of women, but it is often their necessity.

"Bring the arnica with you, me dear Im a

wounded man! But Im glad you were at home.

Ive been nervous bout you all day; theres some thing wrong in this town!"

All that had happened an hour ago. The Colonel was now peacefully snoring with both feet bandaged and elevated upon pillows; and Selah was waiting upon the veranda. She was evidently waiting. When a young and beautiful woman is not waiting for a lover, she does not look so calmly, sweetly indifferent. She is restless. She rises and looks at the moon. Now the moon was looking at Selah, embroidering

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51

her white dress with the fairy shadows of leaves, covering her face with a soft splendour, glistening like a crown of light upon her dark hair. That was the difference.

Footsteps sounded upon the gravel. The figure of a man, tall, slender, regnant, was swinging up the

walk. Selah did not move. She was that fairest thing in a darkened world, the presence achieved when a woman combines herself with silence, still ness, and moonlight.
The man sprang lightly up the steps.

"Hush!" she whispered, "don't ring the bell!"

" Selah!" he exclaimed, advancing to her. " What a vision you are!"
"Don't speak so loud," she whispered, motioning him to a seat beside her.

"I didn't, darling. I'd as lief shout before an altar as lift my voice in this chapel of the moon," he answered, taking her hand and lifting it to his lips.
"Father is not well. He's just dozed off!" she

exclaimed. "If I know anything about such dozing, it would

take an earthquake to rouse him now!"he answered,

laughing.

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Selah sighed and withdrew her hand. "If you do that, dear, I shall seize morel" he whispered, leaning forward and slipping his arm around her waist. "Don't, Mr. Sasnett!" she said so coolly that he

drew back and stared at her. '"Mr. Sasnett,' and when did I cease to be Bob,
pray? I've been Bob for a good many years to you, Selah. What's the matter? Have you seen me flirting with another girl? You have not! Have you heard of my calling on Mike Prim? You have

not! Has some one told you of the last murder I

committed? Certainly not! I haven't killed a man yet. Shall not do so until he becomes my rival

in your heart. Now what is it? Why am I 'Mr. Sasnett' upon this beautiful moonlight night when of all times I should be most tenderly Bob?"
"I can't explain," she answered.

"What is the matter with everybody in this town,

especially the women? It hasn't been an hour since mother came home and said she couldn't explain

when I asked her why she was so upset." "She was upset then?" asked the girl curiously. "Most awfully! She got out of the car like a

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58

flying squadron of rage, eyes blazing, face pale.

And when I asked her what the trouble was she

said I'd know soon enough. Now what did she

mean?"

"You'll know soon enough," repeated Selah,

smiling.

"Good heavens! What's the game, Selah?"

"We've drawn trumps at last," answered Selah.

"We! Who are we? Certainly not mother!

As she dashed--really dashed, you know, and at her

age!--upstairs to her room she informed me that she

had resigned from the presidency of the Civic League

and Cemetery Association, and that never again

would she be mixed up with women who had so far

forgotten their dignity and womanhood. Then she

banged the door."

"She did take it rather hard. I imagine your

mother is a very old-fashioned woman."

"Well, she's quite the lady, if that's what you

mean, and something of an autocrat. Did you de

pose her from the presidency this afternoon?"

"No, we dissolved the organization. There is no

Civic League and Cemetery Association now!"

"Then we'll all have weeds on our graves--and

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untidy streets!" he murmured between a snigger and

a sob.

"Was that all your mother said?" asked Selah.

"Not quite. The fact is that's why I came over

to-night. She's got her neck feathers up at you,

too, it seems. I asked her through the door if we

were to come by and pick you up for the drive we

had planned, and she----" he hesitated. "Well?"

"She said, 'Don't mention Selah Adams to me, Robert/ just like that, as if she'd seen you leading a riot or addressing a mob!"
"Yes, I know. You are a dramatist, Bob, better than you suspect!" answered Selah.
"Thanks for the 'Bob/ anyway. Now let's for get it. Mother will come around all right. She really loves you. She's only ruffled over some of your cat-scratching politics in the league. Now be a good girl and kiss me, dear!" he pleaded.
"I can't, Bob." "You mean you won't; well, I can and will," he exclaimed, placing his palms upon either side of her face and drawing her to him. " You must not I" she objected, evading him.

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55

"Why? Aren't we engaged?"

"We were engaged," she answered with a sob. "Who's broken it? Not I?"

"You will, when you know! Besides, I wish to

be released from--from----"

"Say it! You'd as well to say it as to wish it!"

he exclaimed with sudden passion.

" I don't want to say it, but I must give you your

liberty, dear." " Well, I'll not have it so long as you call me 'dear'
in that tone!" he cried.

"But I want mine!" she said, looking at him

gravely. "Don't you love me, Selah?"

" Love is not everything. There are--other things

more important than love. Every man knows that!" "No woman ought to know it! Besides, love is

everything. It's the face of every flower. It's the leaves on the trees. It's the breath of heaven. It's

the blush on your cheek, the blood in your veins and

mine, dear."

"No, liberty is more than love. And liberty is the enemy of love," she answered.

"You speak like a--like a----" He searched his

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imagination to find what she. did speak like, and she finished for him:
"Like an enemy!" "No, not quite so bad as that, but you are morbid,

dear. This isnt a meeting of suffragists, this is a sacrament. You and I are alone before the altar of love. We must not deny one another this sweet bread of life!"
"You said something just then about suffragists. Do you believe in suffrage for women, for your wife, for example?"
He sat up and looked at her. He began to smile teasingly, as if she were a little girl and he a patient elder person with a beam in his eye.
"So that's it, hey? You want to be a suffragist and with the suffragists stand! Of course I believe in it. I believe in letting every woman have what she wants. Now kiss me, Selah, like the dear little suffering suff you are!"
"No, I must be sure you mean that. Men say things to women they do not believe, just to humour them, just to get "
"A kiss, yes! Id vote for you for coroner, Selah, for one kiss to-night!"

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"Well, you won't get it, Mr. Sasnett, not until I

am sure, absolutely sure, you are for us, not against us."

"Us! One at a time, Selah, I say. You wouldn't have me be for all women, would you? A man loves one woman, but he can't stand 'em en masse. He'd romp like a four-year-old in a crowd of men, but a crowd of women, a commonwealth of women! Good Lord! it would be awful. Don't ask me to kiss them all, dear!"
" You are making fun of us. I knew you were not for us," she said.
"But I'm for you, heart and soul. When are we to be married? You promised to name the day."
"It will not be this year, if ever," she answered coolly.
" Not this year? It must be this year! I'm going to be representative from this county, and I want to take my bride to the Capitol with me."
"You don't know whether you will be elected or not, yet, Mr. Sasnett. It depends upon conditions of which you do not now dream. When is the election?"
"In November," he answered.

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"Before that time there will be five thousand more voters in this county than there are now!"
" Where'll they come from?" "They are here now." "In your pocket, is that what you mean?" "They may be," she answered, smiling darkly. "You speak as if you were Mike Prim, Selah. It's scandalous!"















It was Saturday afternoon, two days since the

funeral and two days since Mike Prim bent listening with such furious excitement at the keyhole of Judge Regis's office. Jordantown had become the stage upon which a mystery play was being enacted with all the farcical features ofa comedy. Every man9 especially, was doing exactly what he would have done and said if there had been footlights and an audience in front, only not one of them knew that this was so. Providence is the Great Dramatist, and secures per

fectly natural effects by providing emergencies which call for action, and by keeping every man under the delusion that he chooses his own rdle.
The suspense concerning the disposition of the Mosely Estate was only partially balanced by the

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confounded indignation of many citizens who came

and went from Mike Prim's office. "Sent for you again, too?" exclaimed Coleman

when he met Acres as he descended the stairs.

"Yes, what's the matter?" asked Acres anxiously.

"You'll find out when you get up there. He's as

mad as a rhinoceros horning sand in a desert."

"But what does he want?" Acres insisted.

"Wants you to double your subscription to the

campaign fund. Better not go up if you can't do

it. He got me for a cool hundred."

"What's he in such a hurry for? The campaign

doesn't begin for months yet!"

"He says it's on, began two days ago. Says the

liberty of every man in this county is at stake. Says

he needs a fund of four times as much as usual to

meet the situation," answered Coleman.

"What's he doing with it?""Can't tell you; not a cent of it is deposited in

the bank." "Well, I know he has taken in over a thousand

dollars in the last two days."

"It's no time to collect now with everybody in

suspense over this Mosely will," groaned Coleman.

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"I'll be hanged if it doesn't look like blackmail to

me!" exclaimed Acres.

"Why submit, then?" demanded Coleman with a

grin.

"You know we are all in too deep with Prim. You

submitted, didn't you?"

"Yes, and you will, too, when you see him. He's

got conviction in his manner and compulsion in his

tongue," said Coleman as Acres passed him upon the

stairs.

"Mabel, my boy, can you lend me fifty dol

lars?"

Acres beheld Colonel Adams standing in the deep

shadows at the top of the stairs. He wore a yellow

seersucker coat, brown linen trousers, carpet slippers,

with the toes of his right foot bandaged and exposed

through a slit in the red leather. He was forlornly

sober, pale, with his moustache drooping like a

rooster's tail in the rain.

I

"Fifty dollars, Colonel!" exclaimed Acres.

"I'm absolutely obliged to have it, Mabel."

"Make it fifty cents and I'll be glad to accommo

date you."

"Very well, fifty cents then. Thank you, Mabel.

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61

I'll just go down with this. No use to face Mike with

half a dollar. He wants fifty."

"Shearing you, too?"

"No, you can't shear a sheep that's been plucked

as clean as your hand. Prim keeps me mighty cool."

"What's he want with so much money, do you

know?"

The Colonel limped forward very painfully, placed

one hand upon Acres's shoulder, ogled Prim's door,

and whispered:

"There are only two things in this world more ex

pensive than women and wine, Mabel: politics and

piety."

"You ought to be able to economize on piety,"

Acres retorted.

"When you do that, you get in deeper with poli

tics--comes to the same thing--and I've never held

an office in my life!" he concluded with a groan, as

he placed his good foot on the second step of the

stairs and drew the other tenderly after it. When

he had descended three in this manner, he beckoned

to Acres.

"Say, Mabel, if Mike asks about me, tell him I'm

standing on the courthouse steps, with both feet

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bandaged and my trousers rolled up showing my

barked shins. Tell him I'm begging for the cause,

and as soon as I've got fifty dollars I'll be up to see

him!"

The next minute Acres was facing Prim, who sat

with his hands spread upon the desk in front of him,

his elbows sticking out, his hair bristling, his mouth

sucked in, and his eyes spitting venom. He looked

like a reptile about to spring, and Acres had much

the expression of a rabbit facing the reptile, slowly

being drawn to his fate.

"But a hundred dollars, Mike! I can't spare

that much now. Besides, what's the hurry?" he

was protesting despairingly.

"Look here, Acres, who's kept this town wide open

for five years? Mike Prim! Who's profited by that ?

Every business man in it! Who's given Jordantown

an easy reputation that draws workingmen and all

lands of men who spend liberally what they make

for what they want? Mike Prim! Who's profited

by the jug business in the back of Bill Saddler's

livery stable? Not Prim! I get my liquor cheap,

that's all. Who's borne the reputation for the dirty

work in your elections while you fellows played the

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part of law-abiding citizens and deacons and elders

in the church? Prim! But who hired me for this

job? You fellows with the ornamental virtues of

society. I was to provide all the profits of vice

to support your position. By God! do you think I

haven't kept your letters of instruction about the

Wimply campaign--that suggestion you made about

counting the election returns? I've got it! And

Coleman's order for liquor and funds to be used in

the Dry Valley district, I've got that, too. And I

have the agreement Wimply signed to keep the town

open that year you fellows were masquerading on that Law and Order Committee: You all voted for

Wimply! I've enough signatures here to put half

of you in stripes!" he exclaimed, striking the desk

with his clenched fist. "That's all right, Mike. I just wanted to know
what----"

"What I'm up to? Well, I'll tell you I aim to be

the representative from this county. It'll take a

damn sight of money to elect me, and I'm going

to be elected." "Of course, we understand that. But what's the

hurry? Campaign doesn't begin now."

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"That's all you know about it. But 7 know we

are facing a crisis in this county now. Everything I've worked for, everything you fellows have stood for secretly and made me do--all of it may be swept from under our feet in sixty days. That's why I waut money, and----"
" All right," Acres interrupted, taking out his check book," here's mine. And it's more than I can spare."
"Not if I need more!" growled Prim, listing the

check with a dozen others.

If an outlaw, armed to the teeth, had passed up and down the streets and robbed every man in Jordan-

town, they could not have appeared more dejected and, at the same time, alarmed. Conversation lan guished beneath the awnings. Men sat in their shirt sleeves, side by side, perfectly silent. You do not discuss the thorn in your side--and they all had two thorns. They were not only outraged by Prim's demands, they were suffering from the neuralgia of

suspense in regard to the Mosely Estate. "It's about time for the Signal to be out," said
Coleman, looking at his watch.

"Never is anything in it when it does come----

My God '. What was that? "

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65

The air was rent, torn to mere tatters of air, by a

long blood-curdling yell, a yell which seemed to catch its breath with battle fierceness, and then come again.

The two men rushed to the door of the bank. They beheld a scene of the wildest confusion. The square,

which a moment before had been sunken in apathy,

was now filled with terrific excitement. Men were

running from every direction toward the post office,

stumbling over yelping dogs, shouting, waving their

arms as they ran.

In front of the post office, in the yellow flare of the

setting sun, Acres and Coleman beheld a scene which

contained all the elements of dignity, rage, pathos,

and comedy.

Judge Regis stood with his silk hat perfectly level

upon his head, his cane tucked under his arm, and

he was looking over the spread sheet of the Jordan-

town Signal very much as if he stared at an enemy

over the top of an impregnable fortification.

In front of him Colonel Marshall Adams pranced like an old bird kicking bis wings. His hat and coat

lay upon the pavement. His face was a red map of

rage. He held a copy of the Signal between the

thumb and forefinger of his left hand, and at arms

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length, as if closer contact with it meant unbearable pollution. And as he trod his measure, his right fist shot out at regular intervals, each time nearer and nearer the Judge's nose, and with each motion the .Colonel sent forth that ear-splitting yell which had not been heard in Jordantown since a Confederate regiment charged a Federal division there in 1864.
Bob Sasnett was the first to reach the scene. He seized the Colonel around the waist from behind,

dragging him back so that his red slippers turned up on the heels and showed the soles.

"Look at him, gentlemen! That man has com mitted a crime!" the Colonel shouted to the gather ing crowd as he shook an accusing finger at Regis.
"A crime?" came an incredulous voice.

Regis, calmly folding his paper, looked over the head of his accuser and addressed Sasnett.
"Thank you, Sasnett, for saving his dignity. He

was a brave soldier. We must never forget that," he said, lifting his hat impersonally to courage as he made his way out of the ring of staring faces.
"Let me go, Bob!" screamed the Colonel, strug

gling. "Did you hear him? Was a brave soldier. By Gad, what am I now? And this from a man who

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67

would destroy the sanctity of fair womanhood, and

then barricades himself behind a newspaper when I demand shatisfaction."

"What's the old boy talking about?" demanded

Briggs, stretching his neck to get a view of the Colo

nel.

"If you don't believe what I shay, though I dare

any man to doubt my word, read that!" he cried,

flinging the paper from him.

The Signal fell flat and smooth upon the pavement;

there was the scraping of many feet as the crowd pushed forward, a mere instant of silence as they

read:

"The Last Will and Testament of Sarah Hayden Mosely";

then a furious rush for the post office, where every subscriber to the Signal hastily snatched his copy.
The Colonel, bereft of Sasnett's support, slid gently to a sitting posture against the lamp post, his legs wide apart, his red slippers half off. Tears filled his eyes. He wagged his head and sobbed:
"Selah! Selah! Sharper than a sherpent's

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tooth----" He could not recall the rest, he merely felt it. He was a poor old man, alone, forsaken, he

knew that.

No one noticed him. One after another the men filed out, each with the Signal wide open, and with

his eyes fastened upon a certain column.

They scattered beneath the various awnings,

singly or in groups. Not one addressed his neigh bour. Each remained concealed behind the wide

enveloping sheets which literally tittered in their

trembling hands.

CHAPTER II
S ILENCE is the luxury of wise men and the necessity of fools--which indicates how few men are wise. It is usually the man who does not know what to say, or who has nothing worth saying to impart, that does the talking. It is a form of verbal hysteria, a kind of babbling dust which he stirs by way of concealing his incapacities. And the discourse is more characteristic of women than of the opposite sex, because the lives they live tend to the innocuous, if they do not tend to neuralgia and despair. Silence in a woman is always super natural. But there are emergencies in life so dumb founding and sinister in their aspect that they bind the tongue and inform even the foolish with the mo mentary wisdom of silence and prudence.
Magnis Carter as editor of the Signal was natu rally loquacious, especially in print. He published the news with all the fluency which liquefied language permits. It was only in this manner that he was
69

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able to fill the few inside columns of the Signal. The outside pages were "patented," of course, and con

tained matter taken from other papers and maga

zines. News was so scarce in Jordantown that if a

stray dog trotted across the square, it was almost

a sensation. Not to know whose dog a dog was

afforded an opportunity for speculation and for a

change in the topic of conversation.

The singular brevity therefore with which Carter

published the most important information ever

needed and yearned for in Jordantown, was signifi

cant. Even the weekly local column was exceed ingly reserved, as if some prescience of the future

had rendered every man and woman cautious of per

forming a single act worthy of interest. Nothing

was said of the last meeting of the Ladies' Civic

League and Cemetery Association. There was no

flamboyant boasting concerning the various enter

prises. But at the top of the first column on the editorial

page, between two wide black lines, appeared this

notice:

"Death of an Estimable Christian Woman"

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The obituary of Sarah Hayden Mosely followed below. This was so brief that it might have been

placed in capital letters on her tombstone without

crowding the margins. It appeared to have been

written with the circumspection of a person who

desired his readers to understand that he was in no

way responsible for the deceased nor for her deeds.

The title was stereotyped. Every woman who died

in Jordantown appeared in the Signal obituary

tribute as "An Estimable Christian Woman."

It was at the next column that every man stared with amazement mixed with fear and indignation.

This contained "The Last Will and Testament of

Sarah Hayden Mosely," the title written in

smaller, paler type. The text of the will followed:

In the name of God, Amen. I, Sarah Hayden Mosely, being weak in body but of sound and perfect mind, do make this my last will and testament: I give and dispose of my entire estate, real and personal, to a self-perpetuating Board of Trust, the members of which are hereinafter named. The said estate shall no longer be known as the William J. Mosely Estate, but it shall be called the Co-Citizens' Foundation Fund of Jordan County. This fund shall not be subject to liquidation, but

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the income from it, or such part of it as is necessary, shall be spent each year in the effort to obtain equal suffrage for the women of Jordan County.
No part of the said income shall be spent for any other purpose until the said women shall have the right to vote in all elections held in the said county.
But after they have obtained the ballot, the said Board of Trust shall found and maintain at the expense of this fund a department of Common Law in the Jordantown Female Seminary. And all pos sible efforts shall be made to establish here a school of law for the women of this state where they may re ceive that legal training which alone insures to women the proper knowledge and mental discipline necessary for the preservation of their property and their rights as citizens of this commonwealth.
This self-perpetuating Board of Trust shall con sist of three members, one man and two women.
Each shall receive a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year for services rendered.
I appoint John Regis, Susan Walton, and Selah Adams members of this self-perpetuating Board of Trust and executors of my will. And they shall not give bond nor be held accountable to the court for the manner hi which they exercise these functions.
If any member or members of the said board ap pointed in this will shall refuse to serve, the remain ing members or member shall choose and elect a suitable person or persons to fill each vacancy.
No monument or stone shall mark my grave until the conditions of this will have been fulfilled.

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In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand

and seal this the 3d day of April, 1914.

[Seal]

SARAH HAYDEN MOSELT.

Signed and sealed by the above named Sarah Hayden Mosely as her last will and testament, and by us in her presence and at her request subscribed as witnesses.
ENDS CANN. MARY CANN.

In a brief paragraph beneath this extraordinary document the editor added that in an interview Judge John Regis admitted that all the trustees had accepted, that they were confident of carrying out the terms of the will, but that the board was not ready now to give information concerning its plans.
No woman had ever been "interviewed" in Jordantown by a newspaper reporter. This may have accounted for the fact that Carter did not call upon either Mrs. Walton or Selah Adams before going to press. Besides, the sixteen-hundred-dollar mortgage on the Signal was now owned by the Co-Citizens' Foundation. He could not trust himself even in the presence of these powerful women. The very form

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of his question, his manner, might betray his secret

feelings and do incredible damage.

In fact all domestic conversation in Jordantown

was now censored as carefully both by the men and

the women as if they belonged to opposing armies.

Every man regarded his wife with suspicion, and he

was at the same time conscious of a strange cheerful

indifference on the part of his wife that was un

natural and offensive. Half the clinging-vine love

with which women entwine their husbands is not

love at all, but a nameless anxiety due to their sense

of helplessness. Transpose the conditions of each and

the same beseeching look so often seen in women's

faces will be ludicrously mixed with the whiskers

on the faces of their lords. The only ineradi

cable difference between men and women is gender.

They are singularly alike in every other particular.

Give a woman liberty, and she will go a man one

better in license. Take a man's liberty from him,

and he surpasses any woman in timidity. If men

have more strength, women have more endurance.

If the one is more active, the other is the more per

sistent. And it depends entirely upon the emer

gency which will show the most courage. Place

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them side by side under the same conditions .to ac

complish the same thing, and while each will go

about the business in a different manner, the same

proportion of both sexes will succeed at the job.

The difficulty is that men and women neither live

nor work under the same conditions. The former

have the overwhelming advantage, owing to the

fact that they create their own public opinion and hold the balance of power, prestige, and influence.

This was precisely the balance which had been

destroyed in Jordantown. The women now had all

the advantage. It was monstrous and called for

the exercise of all the furnace language of which men

are naturally capable.

The one hope expressed everywhere was that, be

ing the timid things that they were, the women would

not know how to keep the grip they had upon the

situation.

"Hang it! They are our wives and daughters.

We ought to be able to do what we always have done, direct them and control them through their affec

tions," said Acres, turning up the ends of his mous

tache with a kind of bantam bravado.

"If a woman has nothing but her affections it is

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easy enough to manage her, but nobody knows what use she may make of her heels if she has everything else besides," growled Coleman, who had just come from a breakfast table where his wife, Agatha, had pointedly refused to give him certain information about the Co-Citizens' Foundation which he knew she had.
"It's all a huge joke, that's what this damphule will is," said Briggs gloomily.

"Of course the suffrage part of it is a joke. The

state constitution is plain on that question. Only males can vote," Acres agreed.

"But, hang it! They've got this vast estate, which affects every business interest in this town, and the devil only knows what they will do with it!" exclaimed Coleman.
"Ask your wife," Sasnett suggested. "I did ask Mabel," Acres admitted. "What'd she say?" "Said they'd collect the rents and interest first thing."

Sasnett laughed, and Briggs seized his hat and left the room with the air of an injured man.
'While these desultory conferences were being held

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all over the town Monday morning, where two or

three were gathered together on the streets, Susan

Walton was sitting opposite Judge Regis in his

office. Her knees were wide apart, her hands folded

above her fat stomach. She had untied her bon

net strings, which was a bad-weather indication.

The Judge was listening with his eye fixed keenly

upon her, the hair above his temples sticking out

like owl's ears.

"I've bluffed it so far, John Regis. I've reor

ganized the Civic League and Cemetery Association into the Co-Citizens' League, which was no small

undertaking, I can tell you. Half the women would

not have joined if they'd known what they were

doing. I got them by not explaining how immedi

ate the business of getting suffrage is, and by offer

ing scandalous committee appropriations. But I'm

shaking in my shoes. I don't know how we are to

carry out the conditions of this trust. The more

I think of it, the more I suspect Sarah Mosely of

being plain crazy!"

"She's the first woman in this country to meet the

issue of suffrage for women with the sanity of prac

tical common sense," he answered.

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"But she's limited her bequest to use in this

county. Suffrage is a state issue. I should know.

I have given years of thought to it."

"Yes, you've spent your energies like the rest of

them, Susan, in mere agitation, in parades with

transparencies bearing the legend, 'Votes for Wo

men !' The last one of you might as well be blowing

your breath against the order of things. Nothing

could be more futile."

"We are beginning to create a sentiment for suf

frage," she protested.

"Yes, in women. But can women give it to you?

What's the good of undertaking the impossible?

The income from this Foundation will not exceed

twenty thousand dollars a year. That would not

be a drop in the bucket in a state campaign, where

you would be compelled to fight the most powerful

political machines, and the graft and vice elements

of the cities, all of which are naturally opposed to

suffrage for women."

" Still, I don't see what we can do here in this county

alone with the whole state against us," she objected.

"That is the question Mrs. Mosely answered.

This little old woman fading into a mere shadow

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behind the doors of her house saw the solution which

the rest of you missed with all your breadth of vision --too much breadth of vision, Susan, is as bad as not having any at all. No focus to it, not enough rays to burn through."
"I think you know I have had some experience in political affairs, more than most women, and I must say I don't see yet where Sarah Mosely focussed her rays," snapped Susan.

"I had several conferences with her. It appeared

that she had thought of nothing else for years but this Foundation. She got the idea, she told me, from living with her husband. He was a man whose

wife was his rib, not a separate human being. He was kind to her, but she had no more liberty than a child. She never knew anything of his affairs. She told me that she was and had always been absolutely

incapable of attending to any business. She had been obliged to trust an agent. In any case she would have been forced to trust some one. She thought most women were in this condition of help lessness, and that they would remain so, always the prey of circumstances of the forces about them. And she wished to change that."

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"Go on," the old lady commanded as the Judge

paused.

He did go on. He called attention to certain

laws governing county elections. "With all your knowledge of the needs of women,

and your bitter sense of injustice, you women never thought of this simple means by which you may win.

And it was the thing Sarah Mosely grasped. She

was the first woman in America, so far as I know, to

grasp the significance of this easy and effective

method of obtaining suffrage for women. And in stead of leaving her money to a hospital, or to endow a chair or two in some university, she has left it for

this purpose. It's amazing--her vision, and the

directness with which she reasoned to the right con clusion!"

"Still I don't see how we can force this issue here,"

Mrs. Walton insisted. "Do you know, Susan, why men have the ballot

and why women have not got it?" " I have my suspicions, John. It's because they've

got everything else, including us. Because they've

got pockets in their breeches, for one thing."

"Exactly! now you've got pockets in your skirts,

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with something like twenty thousand dollars to spend

for a certain purpose. And that is not all you have.

This Board of Trust owns the majority of stock in

the National Bank, and has loaned money to nearly

all the business houses in town. You hold mort

gages on nineteen thousand acres of land in this county. You practically own the Signal. There is

not a politician anywhere who would not know he

held this county in the hollow of his hand if he had

that much influence to back him. Influence, Susan,

is not mere influence ever. It's power! You've got

that!"

"When did you become such an ardent suffragist,

John?" Susan suddenly demanded.

The Judge laughed.

"I've been a kind of mugwump of the cause for

years. If I were younger, I doubt if I should be

ardently in favour of it now. I admit that I pre

fer the dear woman to the abler ballot-bearing

woman--every man must--but before your sex

can become entirely like my sex except in gender,

Susan, I shall be where Sarah Mosely is now. It

will not matter to me. I admit, however, that I

was converted to active partisanship by Mrs.

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Mosely. I have been more impressed by that dim

little old woman than by all the arguments you, for

example, ever made for suffrage. She was herself

an unanswerable plea for the rights of women to

live, for she had never really lived at all. She looked

as if every mortgage held by her estate had been foreclosed at her expense."

"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Walton with a sigh.

" She was pathetic in her submission. Most women

submit, but still have enough to fuss about from

time to time to keep them alive."

"She was really the least submissive of you all.

She put on her thimble, threaded the needle of her

robin-headed brain, and worked all your fuss and

agitations and futile parades down to a formula by

which you can actually obtain the ballot," he put in.

"Well, coming down to this formula, what shall we do with Briggs?" she asked shrewdly. "He

looks like a dangerous factor in it to me."

"Briggs will be of use. All he needs is an expert

accountant to overhaul his books occasionally. And

we shall need him as we need a pair of tongs to handle

live coals. Besides, we cannot afford to dismiss him

now and incur his enmity.. We are not working

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up antagonism. We have one man against us al

ready who counts for all we can overcome."
"Who is that?"

"Mike Prim. He owns nothing visible. So we

have no mortgage to hold over his head. But he

practically controls this town, politically speaking." "How?"

"Don't ask me! He is not a merchant, nor a lawyer, nor a real estate agent, nor a banker, nor a broker, nor anything else that has a name, but more men--prominent citizens, farmers, labourers, tramps, beggars, anybody and everybody--go and come from bis office than to and from any other office in this town. He is the power of darkness in this county to be over come before you can win suffrage, I can tell you that."
"Well, at least Prim is tangible. He is in my line. I shall know what to do with him," answered Susaa grimly.
The Judge threw back his head and laughed. "Now you are coming, Susan! I want to see you dragging your wings before Prim!" " I do my best work in private, John, but I'm be ginning to see light. This thing really is possible. Now let us get down to business. I have an ap-

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pointment with Selah Adams. She couldn't come up here this morning. I feel anxious. Her voice

sounded like that of a child being kept in after school. Shouldn't wonder if that old family sword of a

father were making trouble." "We need Selah; her beauty and enthusiasm are
real assets to this movement," said the Judge. "Oh, we shall keep her on the board if I have
to fight a duel with Marshall Adams," she replied with a cackling laugh.
The conference which followed was of a nature so private that they instinctively adopted the tones of conspirators as they turned the pages of ledgers which Briggs had been required to submit for inspection.

At two o'clock Selah Adams slipped softly out of the house, crossed the street, and entered Mrs. Walton's front door.
"She says come right up to her room, Miss Selah; she's busy and can't come down," said the negro maid, rolling her eyes and stifling either a snigger or a sob by slapping her hand over her mouth.
The next moment Selah stood in the door of Mrs. Walton's bedroom, staring with horrified eyes.

noli .'jin'.Hj tuioj xil/i /o joHnitt ,tq Hum

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85

Susan Walton, dad in only her essential under

wear, lay flat upon her back on the floor. She was

slowly lifting first one stockinged leg, then the other,

to a right angle with her body, at the same time

thrusting up one arm and then the other. She was

staring at the ceiling and muttering a certain formula

under her breath.

"Oh! Oh! What is the matter, Mrs. Walton? Is

it a fit?" cried Selah, staggering back.

"No! Exercise. Just had my lunch! One--

two--three! Never allow yourself to get fat, Selah!"

Up shot the other foot and arm.

"If I'd known what was before me twenty years

ago, I'd have been more careful. One--two--three!

Can't do what's before me unless I reduce. Avoid

oatmeal and cream, that's what does it! You may

be mayor of this town before you are thirty. A fat

mayoress would never do. It would suggest beer!

And look at me. I'm already so fat I have to lie

down to take my exercise! But Regis and I have

planned enough work to keep you lean this summer,"

she added, sitting up apparently satisfied with her

state of exhaustion.

"That's what I came to see you about," said the

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girl, seating herself and looking down sorrowfully. "Father is dreadfully upset. He has forbidden me to mention woman suffrage in the house."
" Well, don't, then; don't speak of it at all to him." "But he will never consent to my holding this trusteeship."

"Aren't you twenty-one?" "I'm twenty-four, as to that, but----"

"If you were your father's son, do you think he would forbid your having your own convictions and living up to them? " the older woman interrupted.
"No, but I'm only his daughter!" Selah said. "Can't you see that is provided for? If he for bade you the house, you still have twelve hundred dollars a year, which is certainly more than he could afford to give you."

"That isn't it: he can't do without me, he needs me."

"Listen to me, Selah! Men have been our little children for so long that we do not know how to wean them. Here you are, ready to resign the greatest opportunity any young woman has ever had in this state in order to stay at home and break your father's breakfast eggs and putter over him and keep him

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87

soothed by agreeing with everything he says. That's why men can vote and we can't. That's why they

get everything, and we get nothing but our board

and clothes. We've humoured and pampered them

until they have no sense of us and our needs," she concluded, twisting her hair angrily into a tight knot

on the back of her head.

"Oh, I wish I knew what was right!" cried the

girl, clasping her hands.

" We've tried the old sacrificial righteousness long enough, Selah, to know that it is not contagious so

far as we are concerned. Now you just take my ad vice, and we'll have the new righteousness for women

proved in Jordan County before the end of this year!"

"As soon as that?" cried the girl, enthused in spite of herself.

"Yes, if we can win at all we can do it in a few

months. Regis and I planned the whole campaign this morning. Give me that kimono. Now let me

have your hand. It's not so easy to get to one's feet

at sixty, Selah!" She was sublimely unconscious of the figure she

made moving across the room with the ends of her

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kimono trailing back like the gray wings of an old duck-legged hen. She gathered up some loose sheets from her desk.
"Here's the whole thing--all divided into three parts. Yours will be in some ways the most difficult. You'll have the organizing to do among the women in the country districts. But we've decided to get a good motor. You'll need to cover distances rapidly. That will be one agreeable feature at least. You and

Bob Sasnett may find it convenient to do your can vassing together!" she laughed, while Selah blushed.















If by some miracle a modern man should awaken some morning to find himself thrust back a hundred years in time, although in the same place where he had always lived, he could not believe in the reality of a single thing he saw. Every man and every woman would be merely characters in an historical romance. Every sentence he would hear would

sound like fiction. All manners and customs would seem exaggerated, sentimental, and he himself would give the impression of being a monster without breed ing or a single attribute becoming to proper man hood.

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89

If, on the other hand, he should by some incanta

tion be projected forward only fifty years in time,

still in the place of his birth, the effect of unreality

would be even more startling, especially if those

things should have happened which prophets predict

and toward which all progress tends. Conditions

would be unendurable, manners offensive. No man

would seem quite a man. No woman would seem

modest. Clothes, customs, beliefs, ambitions, and

ideals would all have changed. And he himself

would seem to them a pitiable reversion to type,

ludicrously unequal to meeting the emergencies of ad

vanced civilization. In short, there are no lasting

standards of living. Education, morals, economics,

finance, and politics are only the cards we play every

generation in the progressive euchre of evolution.

The honesty with which we play the game determines

the worth of society.

At the end of a month Jordantown had not under

gone so great a metamorphosis as fifty years would

make, but it was in the throes of a frightful evolution.

The changes already wrought were so amazing that

the author may be excused if this record fails to

convince the reader of their reality. At least half

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the citizens themselves did not and could not believe

that they were not walking in a Hideous nightmare

from which they hoped to awaken and find their

womankind properly subdued and returned to the

less conspicuous sphere of womanhood.

The first bomb exploded when Samuel Briggs re

signed as director of the National Bank. Mr. Briggs

had been elected to represent the stock owned by the

Mosely Estate. He had not only resigned, but he

had ventured to propose the name of Mrs. Susan

Walton as a suitable person to represent the same

stock which was now owned and controlled by the

Co-Citizens' Foundation Fund. He did not add

that he had been able to retain his position as agent

only by signing a contract with the Board of Trust

to obey every instruction given Him with all the

energy and influence he possessed in the town. This

demand, that he should resign as director in favour of

Mrs. Walton, was the first test made of his obedience.

Having offered his suggestions Briggs leaned back

In his chair, smoked, and stared at the ceiling, while

the eleven other directors stared at him with the

horror of honest men contemplating an armed

traitor.

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" If this is going to be a hencoop instead of a bank,

I'll draw every dollar I have in it out, and sell my

stock to the lowest bidder!" exclaimed a frowsy old

man, clawing his whiskers. This was Thaddeus

Bailey. He owned three grocery stores in Jordan-

town, and had a monopoly on that trade.

"I don't know how much money you have on de

posit, Thad, but it will take more stock than you

own to satisfy that mortgage you owe to this new

fangled female suffrage fund," answered his neigh

bour.

"What'll we do with her if we elect her?" asked

Acres.

"Better ask what she'll do with the bank?" some

one replied.

"She'D run it, that's what! Didn't she run her

husband for Congress till his tongue hung out? Ain't

she running the whole female population of this

county at the present time?"

"Hang it! I'd rather close the doors of this bank

than elect that woman a director!" exclaimed Cole-

man.

"Come to the same thing if you didn't," replied

Briggs. "Take it from me, the trustees will with-

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draw the last dollar they have invested in it. You

couldn't pay. And then they'd declare you insol

vent, appoint Susan Walton receiver, and take the

whole thing over!"

" I move we let her in, gentlemen, and appropriate

fifty dollars to add a ladies' dressing-room. Susan's

looking up. She'll need it. She's beginning to

powder her nose, and she's bought a new bonnet,

thank God!" said Bob Sasnett with his usual laugh.

When the directors were leaving the bank after

indignantly electing Mrs. Walton to the board, Cole-

man looked at Sasnett suspiciously.

" Where do you stand in this damn business, any

how, Bob?" he demanded.

"Oh, I'm not standing at present, Stark, I'm

crawling on my umbilicus same as the rest of you;

the only difference is that I retain the charm and

radiance of my countenance."

"When do you purpose to announce your candi

dacy for representative?"

Sasnett looked at him so quickly that even his

smile scarcely veiled the shrewdness of his glance.

"Waiting for the women to settle Mike Prim," he

answered. "If they don't, you fellows may elect

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93

him. Mike's so deep rooted in your affairs a man

couldn't dig him up without soiling his hands."

"Think the women can?"

"Not a doubt of it if they get wise to him, and

they are so naively unscrupulous, bless their hearts,

that they'll do some things to accomplish their pur

pose a man can't afford to do."

"And if they settle Mike, you'll run on the crino

line ticket, I suppose?" Coleman answered.

"Can't say yet, Stark; don't want to give myself

away, but I'm buying my collars at the Co-Citizens'

Cooperative League Emporium!" he said, winking

his eye and drawing up the corner of his mouth in a

most offensive manner.

This reference to the women's cooperative store

was far from being a joke.

The first floor of the old Mosely residence had

been divided in half with a partition. The walls

between the rooms on each side had been fitted up in a modern and expensive manner with shelves and

counters, middle-aisle showcase, and so forth. The

right-hand division was a drygoods and millinery

department, with such a display of hats and finery

as never had been seen before in Jordantown. The

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left division contained everything necessary to thrifty existence, from horse collars to hams, sugar

and molasses, flour and corn meal. The upper rooms of the house were used as offices

for the female trustees of the Fund, and for the

various committees, of which there were an amazing

number in order that as many women as possible

should have prominent and executive relations to the

Co-Citizens' movement.

The whole front of the place was ablaze every night with electric signs. " The Co-Citizens' League

Headquarters," winked across the front of the upper story. Beneath that " The Women's Cooperative Department Stores" winked in blue, red, and white

light splendour. This was not the worst of it: Susan Walton, aided
and abetted by John Regis, had secured the services of foreign female talent, expert saleswomen, book

keepers, and a general manager, also a female. With the assistance of these experienced persons they had purchased such a stock and assortment of goods as

no merchant in Jordantown could afford. They

paid cash, and counted the discount as part of the

profit. They figured to a cent the cost of the stock

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95

and the expense of running the store, and they sold without reference to making any profit at all. What they lost or failed to collect was charged up as "cam

paign expense" against the Foundation Fund!

"This store is a kind of suffragist flypaper put out

to catch as many as we can by offering bargains and credit to possible voters," said Susan to Judge Regis.

"But, my dear woman, bribing voters is a penal offence," exclaimed the Judge, laughing.

"This is not bribery, John. This is a premium

we are offering to get men to vote on this measure at

all. That is going to be the great difficulty. Even if we get enough of them to sign the petition to hold the election, they may outwit us by remaining away

from the polls. When men have employed every

other argument to get their way with women, they cease to argue, back their ears, plant their fore feet, and balk. We shall cause it to be known that credit can be had at this store only by persons who fur

nish sufficient assurance that they will vote in the

election!" she explained.

"But in case they vote against suffrage?" he

asked, smiling grimly. "Before time for the election we shall have con-

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vinced the men of this county of so many financial

disasters to follow upon such perfidy, that the majority

will not dare cast their ballots against us," she retorted.

"Intimidation is also a penal offence at the polls,

Susan!"

"Do you think men will ever admit that they have

been intimidated politically by women? Never!

It was you yourself who said influence is not influ

ence, its power! Weve got that. Before the spring

season is over, we shall have forced all the merchants

in this town into bankruptcy, or we shall have proper

assurance of their support. When Acres and the

rest have kicked against the pricks long enough to

realize the situation, we will let them know upon what

conditions only this store will charge regulation

prices for goods. We may offer to sell out to them.

The mercantile life does not appeal to me. This

store is not a financial venture. It is a political

guide to the polls of the county!"

"Well, you must hurry the issue, Susan. Twenty

thousand dollars will not last six months the way

you are spending it. That suffragist motor car we bought last week cost twenty-two hundred dollars!"

he warned.

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97

"If we win at all we shall do it in less than six

months," answered the valiant old termagant.

Meanwhile all was confusion in the stores on the

avenue. Drays piled high with boxes and barrels were drawn up before the doors of the League store. A

perfect thunder of industry went on within, while the

ladies of the town crowded the street from one end of

the block to the other. They talked, they inspected,

they matched samples as fast as the laces and dress

goods were placed upon the shelves and counters.

They compared prices; they were excited, elated

beyond measure. On the square trade was not

exactly languishing yet, but it stood with hands

raised in dumb astonishment. Business men had not been informed of the projected store. They

did not conceive of such outrageous competition

until the thing was actually ready to open its

doors. Even then they were not prepared for the

cut in prices. Acres continued to sell fifteen pounds

of sugar for a dollar a week after the Cooperative

Store began to sell twenty pounds for the same

price. Percale that could be bought for ten cents

a yard on the avenue, sold on the square for fifteen

cents.

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"They can't keep it up!" Acres predicted. "Juat

shows how unfit women are for business."

"But a damphule ought to know that ham can't

be sold for twelve and a half cents per pound!" cried

Thad Bailey furiously.

They had both failed to get the usual spring loan

from the National Bank, due entirely to the fact that

at the first directors' meeting, the new director had

demanded to know exactly how much they owed

already, and she refused to sanction the advance of

another dollar to any merchant in Jordantown.

"Gentlemen, I have reason to know that these

men will not be able to pay the interest upon the

loans this bank has already made to them. We

cannot afford to risk another advance," she ex

plained.

Fortunately, the two victims had absented them

selves from this meeting. But no argument or ap

peal from the others could move her.

Every one suspected the worst, but no one really

knew what was on foot, for up to this time not a

word was heard of suffrage for women.

Only one man besides Judge Regis seemed to know

what was going forward. This was Magnis Carter,

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99

and he refused to tell what he knew. He merely ex

plained that he was preparing certain announcements

for the Signal, which would of course include an ad

vertisement of the new store. If anybody wanted to know what was going on, let them read the Signal. It always contained the news. He was tremendously puffed up. He was inclined to snub the curious.

Lord save us! did anybody think he was going to give

away his own scoop?

He was also silent about a certain transaction be tween him and Susan Walton.

Three days before the formal opening of the

Cooperative Store, she surprised him at his editorial

desk. This was a deal table in a corner of the print ing office. It was littered with proof, scratch paper, scissors, mucilage, pencils, inkwells, and a case of "pie." He was engaged in sorting this. His collar and cravat hung upon a nail on the wall above the

table. He was in his shirt sleeves. His hair was

rumpled, his fingers inky.

But the first thing he thought of when he saw the old lady picking her way between bales of paper near the door of the office, was his socks. The day was

very warm, and he thought he remembered pulling

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them down to cool his legs. It was impossible to make sure. You cannot pull up your socks in the

presence of a woman, even an old woman. Be sides, she had her mouth primped severely and her

eyes fixed with a soap-and-water expression upon

him. He leaped from his chair, showing a purple rim
around each ankle and the bare skin above. He cast

a despairing glance at his collar, and made a dive for

his coat. "Oh, good afternoon, Mrs. Walton! Excuse me,"
he exclaimed, thrusting his arms in the sleeves. "I was not expecting this honour, as you see!"
She advanced and deliberately seated herself in

the chair he had vacated. "Don't trouble to put on your coat, Mr. Carter.

It's very warm in here," fanning herself. "I think we shall have to move the Signed to the Woman's

Building on the avenue. There is still the kitchen

and pantry we could use--very large pantry--make an excellent private editorial office."

" I beg pardon, Madam, what did you say? " He had forgotten his socks. His eyes protruded.

She laughed--it was the triumph of mind over matter

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101

that laugh, an old womans cackle, he being the

matter. He did not like it. He stood waiting for

an explanation, seeing that she occupied the only chair. He felt that it would take a good deal to

explain how and why she thought she could induce

him to move the office of the Signal into the kitchen

of that female rat trap on the avenue.

She came immediately to the point, a thing you

never do in business unless you are sure you have

the drop on the other fellow.

"The Co-Citizens Foundation Fund holds & mort

gage on the Signed, Mr. Carter?" She put this

affirmative in the form of a question.

"Er I believe there was a small mortgage held

by the Mosely Estate," he admitted.

"And with the four years interest due, I believe

it covers the value of the property now, doesnt it?"

She had taken out another pair of spectacles and

adjusted them upon her upturned nose.

"About," he added, dazed.

" We shall be glad to retain your services. That is

what I am here for this afternoon, to make arrange

ments with you, if possible."

Carter raised his hand, scratched his chin through

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his beard, squinted one eye, and took sight along the barrel of his personal interest at Susan.
"We are prepared to bear all the expense of pub lication and offer you a salary of one hundred dollars a month to conduct the paper; but of course we should expect to control the policy of it absolutely. We purpose to make it the organ of the Woman's Suf frage Movement here. I should myself dictate most of the editorials."
"You should, Madam?" he exclaimed. "Yes."

"And where would I come in?" "Oh, we should want you to do the work, get up advertisements, write special articles along such educational lines for the movement as we should suggest. You would 'come in' a great deal, Mr. Carter. You would be the busiest man in Jordantown." "But, good Lord--beg pardon! You want me to become a woman suffragist, Madam--and I'm a man!" "We should certainly require you to work for it. Suffrage for women is not a matter of sex. It's a question of common justice."

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103

"At what salary did you say?" he asked after a

thoughtful pause.

"One hundred dollars a month, and we pay the

expense of publication," she answered.

Carter had never cleared a dollar as editor of the

Signal. He could not even have supported himself

if he had paid the interest on his mortgage. Still

he hesitated. He was not sure that this offer did not

mean the sale of his manhood, on the installment plan,

at so much a month. He wondered what the men

would think of this arrangement. His wit in the

paper had long consisted in humorous comments

upon the modern woman, and the Suffrage Movement

in particular.

"Give me time to think it over," he said.

" Until to-morrow morning," she said, rising. " In

case you accept the position we shall expect you at nine

oclock. There is some advertising stuff for the next

issue, and I shall want to dictate an editorial."

"And if I do not accept?" he put in as she ad

vanced toward the door.

"In that case we shall take charge of the Signal

as soon as we can foreclose the mortgage," she an

swered without looking back.

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"Er--good afternoon, Mrs. Walton!" he suddenly

called after her.

"Good afternoon. Remember, promptly at nine

o'clock!" she returned, still without looking back. Carter sat for an hour after her departure scratch

ing his chin. He crossed his legs, shook his elevated

foot, showed every sign of profound concentration.

He was making up his mind to become a decimal

point in the Woman Suffrage Movement. It was

like making up his mind to be born again, and not so

well born at that!

But "promptly at nine o'clock" the following

morning he appeared at Susan's office in the

Woman's Building, accepted the nominal editor

ship of the Signal, and submitted to the in

dignity of taking down the editorial which she

dictated.

On Saturday the Signal appeared. It was a

wonder. The entire front page was taken up with

an advertisement of the Women's Cooperative Store.

The quality of everything was the best. The prices

quoted were far below what they had ever been be

fore in Jordantown.

But that which paralyzed the whole male popula-

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105

tion in the square was this announcement at the top

of the editorial page:

Owned and Controlled By ike Co-Citizens' Foundation.
Susan WaUon, Managing Editor.
Magnis Carter, Assistant Editor. Price $1.00 a year. Advertising rates reduced one half to all women and tofriends of the Suffrage Movement in Jordan County.

This was bad enough, but the crowning affront was the leading editorial.
"The Signal has become the property of the CoCitizens' Foundation Fund, bequeathed by the late Sarah Hayden Mosely for the purpose of obtaining suffrage for women in Jordan County," was the opening sentence. "Henceforth the paper will be published in the interest of the Suffrage Movement and in any other interests which do not conflict di rectly or indirectly with this movement. No matter containing adverse criticism of suffrage for women

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will be published. And no advertisements from any

source not known to be friendly to the movement will

be accepted. For this reason all those which have

not been paid for in advance have been excluded.

Business men who desire the use of our columns for

advertising should call at the office of the Signal at

their earliest convenience, to give assurance of their

support of the policy of this paper in order that they

may still use its columns as an advertising medium."

The paragraph which followed stated brazenly

that the majority of the citizens of Jordan County

were heartily in favour of suffrage for women, and

that they were determined no longer to endure "tax

ation without representation," and so forth and so

on. There was no hysterical railing about the

partialities of men for men in the administering

of law and the interpretation of the rights of citizen

ship.

The astonished readers understood for the first

time, however, that Jordantown and Jordan County

were in the grip of something stronger than feminine

sentimentality or even the Democratic party.

The office of the Signal had actually been moved

to the Woman's Building. The transit took place

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107

some time during the night. No one knew when.

Carter came and went through a side entrance for

merly used by delivery wagons when they brought

Sarah Mosely her meagre household supplies. He

remained in seclusion there, as modest as a girl, and only Susan Walton knew with what diligence he

laboured. No man dared to seek him m the seclusion

of that place. And when Mike Prim called him

over the 'phone, after the first issue of the Signal un

der the new management, demanding that he should

come to his office at once, Carter declined to obey

the summons. This was incredible. For years he

had been the henchman of Prim. He had received

from time to time modest sums for publishing copy prepared under Prim's supervision and designed to

influence public opinion in proper Prim channels.

However, late one night when Carter slipped into the quiet side street with a roll of proof under his

arm, he walked not exactly into the arms of Mike

Prim, who was standing in the shadows just outside,

but it would be more exact to say that he slipped di

rectly in vocative range of Mike's rage.

"Look here, Carter, what the -------- do you mean

by selling the Signal to these blankety-blank-blank

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women?" he exclaimed as the editor started back

astonished and for the moment disconcerted.

"Didn't. The Mosely Estate owned a mortgage

covering the paper; you know that!" he answered

quickly.

"And you know the Signal was the official organ

of our party. And you've betrayed like----"

"Stop!" hissed Carter, lifting his roll of proof

over Prim's head as if it had been a policeman's

billy. "Don't you insult me, Mike! I don't have

to take any more of your damn impudence and I won't!"

"Well, what did you sell out for?" growled Prim. "I tell you I didn't. They owned the paper. They'll own tM< town inside of six months. They've got the last one of you like 'possums with their tails in a split stick! And you'll find it out. Don't talk to me about selling the Signal t The people who own a paper always control its policies." "And what's become of your political convictions, Magma, with your apron-string editorials? " the other sneered, "A really intelligent, progressive editor, Mike, moulds public opinion. He don't get it from a vil-

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109

lage boss. I'm becoming intelligent. I'm follow

ing the trend of our times."

"The hell you are! You're sitting on that old

she-cat's footstool taking dictation!" he snorted,

turning upon his heels and slumping off down the

street.

If there is anything more exasperating than a

Republican to an old Adam Democrat of the South,

it must be the little political Eve-rib in his side turned

into a maverick female suffragist with no traditions

and no fears of consequences to keep her inside estab

lished party lines.

The scene which Jordantown presented by the

1st of June is as difficult to describe--the mere phys

ical changes--as it is to interpret these changes.

The square was practically deserted; the Acres Mer

cantile Company was not even able to hold its

country trade. Every farmer made straight for the

Women's Cooperative Store. The avenue was filled

from morning till night with wagons and buggies

and a slow-moving procession of men in hickory

shirts, and their wives and daughters. They were

drawn by curiosity and cupidity. Both were grati

fied. They received more in barter for their country

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produce; and, besides that, there was always a "committee of ladies " on hand to show them through and to enlighten them upon many things besides the price of commodities.
There is a theory to the effect that women follow men. It is based upon one-sided experience for the most part. The reason they do is because so far they have never had the opportunity to lead. The present situation in Jordantown afforded this op portunity. Women were rarely seen now upon the square, but the avenue literally teemed with men. They crowded the aisles of the stores; they blocked the sidewalks. Only the victims held aloof. Acres, Thad Bailey, and the other merchants remained bitterly faithful to the square. The usual groups of loafers occupied the courthouse veranda. Colonel Marshall Adams had apparently retired from public life. He spent his days on his farm, which lay upon the outskirts of the town. He could be seen return ing late in the evening, seated upon an old pacing horse like a wounded warrior barely able to keep in his saddle.
There was a report in Jordantown to the effect that real estate had fallen in value, that the working-

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111

men were leaving, that bankruptcy and starvation

stared every man in the face. But if this was so,

there was no way to warn the people. The Signal

published every week glowing accounts of the pros

perity of the town. The most amazing informa

tion appeared from week to week concerning the

growth of sentiment in favour of suffrage for women.

The locals were filled with complimentary notices of

the comings and goings of country matrons and

country belles who had never seen their names in

print before. And there was an occasional interview

from some woman prominent in the suffragist move

ment.

Martin Acres reached the infuriated end of his

patience when he saw the following quotation from

Mabel, who had permitted herself to be interviewed.

"Do you think women know better how to buy

and sell than men?" Mrs. Acres was asked.

"Of course they do. Isn't it women who have

to cook, or see to it? Then why shouldn't they know

better than men what is proper food for their families?

And isn't it women that make the clothes and who

wear most of them? So we naturally know better

what stuffs we need for clothes. If you could see

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the ugly dimities and ginghams and calicoes we have

worn in this town all our lives, chosen by colour

blind merchants who do not know what is becoming

to us! Things are different here this spring, our

groceries are of a better quality, and our frocks are

infinitely more becoming."

There was more in the same tenor. But Acres was too angry to read further. He rushed into his

wife's room with the Signal in his hand.

"Did you say that, Mabel?" he shouted, thrusting

the offensive page beneath her nose.

"What, Martin?" she exclaimed, lifting her hand

to thrust it aside as she stared up at her husband.

"Did you give out this scandalous interview

criticising me and my business?" he insisted.

"Why, Martin, how could you think such a thing!

I never uttered a critical word of my husband in my life!"

"Then you didn't say it?"

"Let me see what you are talking about," she

said, craning her neck to see the print. "Oh that!

Yes, Mrs. Walton asked me to say something to show how natural it is, and how right, you know, for

women to keep a store, do the sedentary things

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while men do the hard things--till the ground, and

all that. Did you read----"

"No, by Gad! I didn't read far enough to see

that you wanted me to become a day labourer!"

"Oh, I wasn't speaking of you, dear, I was just

promulgating one of the theories of our movement.

I was so flattered when Mrs. Walton asked me----"

"Your movement be damned, Mabel! Enough

of a thing is enough. You will resign to-morrow

from this plagued movement which is carrying us all

to the devil!"

"But, Martin, I can't; I'm chairman of the Finance

Committee. Mrs. Walton----"

"Don't let me hear that old viper's name again

in this house. She's the serpent in this town tempt

ing the last one of you to----"

"I can't have you speak disrespectfully of our

chief, dear," said Mabel with frigid dignity.

"And what's your husband, I'd like to know!"

"Why, you, you are just my husband, Martin, as

I used to be just your wife!"

' "Good Lord, Mabel, you are crazy! Don't you

know you are helping that gang to drive me into

bankruptcy!"

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Mrs. Acres was the living feminine likeness of

Pin Money. She was very small, very fair, with

faded blue eyes. Her clothes were always too tight, and she wore narrow ruffles like the hope, the mere

hope, of feathers and wings to come.

She looked up now into her husband's face with a

curious little white smile. "I know that I am all that stands between you

and ruin, Martin. I've been waiting to talk to you,

to give you a hint, but our affairs are not entirely

in shape. We are not ready to show our hand." "To show her hand! And this from my own

wife!" groaned Acres, beginning to stride up and

down the room. "Listen, dear," said Mabel, rising and following

him. "I ought not to do it, but I will give you just

one little hint."

"All right, hint!" he sneered.

"Call on Judge Regis to-morrow, and tell him you

are very much interested in suffrage for women in

this county. Say that you'd like to take your part

in bringing it about. Just that, no more. And you'll

see what happens." She turned her head to one side

and looked at him with treacherous sweetness.

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115

"I'll be hanged if I do!"

"Be reasonable, Martin!" "Don't talk to me about being reasonable. I'm one of the few reasonable beings left in this town." "Well, that kind of reason is out of fashion now.

You've got to share our reasons, Martin. Women

have a rationality you men do not recognize; now

you've got to."

"I win not! But suppose I do?" "You'll get immediate relief from your present

financial pressure, for one thing."

"Tell that to the marines!"

"Very well. I'll stand between you and--and

ruin as long as I can, but if you don't give in I can't

save you!" she whimpered. "AndwhataboutThadBaileyandBaldwinandSad-
dler and all the other merchants? " he asked curiously, with his nose pointed like a terrier who smells a rat.
"The sooner you or somebody persuades them to

go to Judge Regis and make the same agreement, the sooner you'll get what you want," she replied.

"And what we don't want! Do you think for a moment the men in this county would give women the vote even if they could, Mabel?"

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"I don't think about it, Martin, I know you are

going to be forced to do it, and I want you to give in before it is too late to save your credit; you'll be a

day labourer before you know it if you don't listen to reason," she concluded tearfully.
"Reason! Reason! A set of crazy women dic tating to men. What is reason?" shouted the furi ous little merchant as he rushed from the room.

The domestic atmosphere of Jordantown from one end to the other was charged with thunderstorm

possibilities. The wives of all the citizens were at tending hurriedly to their household affairs, and then attending to other affairs which were not household. Every day some council or committee met in the Woman's Building. They even met in the evenings.

Putting on their hats and taking the latchkey, they went out as nonchalantly as ever their husbands

had gone. They weathered the rage of these hus bands with singular calm, very much as mothers cheerfully witness the tantrums of their growing

children. The fact that they went out in the eve nings was not remarkable. The women of Jordantown were pious. They attended prayer meetings

regularly: they made up the congregation on Wednes-

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117

day evenings. But now they neglected this ser

vice and gathered in the upper chambers of the

Woman's Building. The community was going to the

dogs. Every man said so to every other man he met

on the square, but no man confided to the other

that his wife had been out until half-past ten o'clock

the night before.

One evening Stark Coleman was in the library

reading the Signal. His wife came in, seated herself,

and overflowed the low rocking-chair on the other side

of the table with her voluminous skirts. She was

tall and very huge. Her face was as placid as that

of a clock which has just marked the last hour of the

day and has nothing to do but tick-lock until bed

time.

This was the one hour of the day when they were

alone together after the children had been put to bed.

They usually spent it in silence. Probably no two

people in the world have as little to say to one an

other as a husband and wife after they have been

married a dozen years. Each knows all the other

thinks. They become fearful mind readers of one

another's most secret thoughts. Long ago they set

tled all their differences in the struggles of their first

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ardent loving years. Henceforth one commands while the other obeys. Everything is finished be

tween them but their lives. These go on like weary vegetation from which their children gather the fruit.
Coleman had enjoyed several years of this kind of peace. It never occurred to him to wonder if his

wife did. She had the children. He liked the quiet evenings after the noise and bustle in the bank, with

his wife for a mere presence. And without being

aware of the fact, he liked the diffidence with which she always awaited his pleasure, never breaking in rudely upon his rest with her feminine affairs unless he signified his willingness to listen.
During the past two months, however, he was aware of a different quality in Mrs. Coleman's silence. She held to it even when he wished to talk, answering

him in monosyllables. She was preoccupied. The senseless turmoil in which the town had been thrown by the Co-Citizens' agitation was foreign to all he had ever known of her nature and retiring disposition,

and he was loath to connect her with it. But he could not help knowing that she was interested, to what extent he did not know, owing to this growing reserve. Still he did his best to defend her in his

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119

thoughts. She had spent the whole of her married

life bearing children very much as a tree puts out

leaves every spring. This year it seemed to have

occurred to her that she would not have a baby. At

least she did not. Instead of that she had taken

a verdant new lease on life herself, apparent in the

figured muslins which she got from the Cooperative

Store. Coleman attributed her activities, which he

called "social," to the fact that she could "go out."

She looked now in the soft lamplight like an enor

mous azalea in full bloom. She sat with folded hands

humming a tune, not any known air, but one of those

nasal harmonies women sometimes accomplish

through their noses as a cat purrs to signify content.

The humming annoyed Coleman. Everything

annoyed him these days. He fidgeted, slapped one

knee violently over the other, and jerked the Signal

open as if he would rend it sheet from sheet.

"Hu-u-m, hu-e-e-u-m hum!" droned Mrs. Cole

man, her eyes fixed upon a large chromo of the Virgin

Mary and the Infant Jesus hanging upon the oppo

site wall.

Perspiration broke out in beads upon her husband's

brow. He uncrossed his legs and brought his foot

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down with a bang on the floor. Surely she would

understand that he was disturbed. She did not.

She went on. "H-u-m, hu-e-e-um, hum----"

He leaped from his chair, strutted into the hall and out upon the veranda.
"Hu-u-e-e hum!"

It followed him through the windows of the li'

brary, which were open.

He rushed back, his hands denched behind his

back, his whole body inflated with rage.

" Agatha!" he exclaimed, planting himself squarely

in front of her. " Will you stop making a trombone

of your nose?"

"You must be nervous," she said, looking up at

him serenely.

"I am nervous, I'm nearly crazy. This town is

going to hell!"

"Your language, Stark! If----"

"Don't talk to me about my language, Agatha! The native speech of hell is blasphemy, and I've

been in it for two months. I should think you would

have noticed the condition I'm in."

"I have."

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121

"Then why do you make that infernal noise through your nose?"

"I suppose it's because I am happy." Shesaidthat!

"Happy! Look here, I must prepare you for

what's coming. The bank's going to fail." "Oh, no!"

" Yes, it is. We haven't made a loan in six weeks.

We've been obliged to turn down nearly fifty thou

sand dollars* worth of investments since that woman

became director. She represents a majority of the

stocks and she refuses to lend a dollar or to risk a single

cent on anything in this town. The bank might as

well be a miser's box. Business is at a standstill."

"Not on the avenue. We are doing splendidly in

the Cooperative Store."

" We? Are you in that thing, too? "

"Nearly every woman here is, except Mrs. Sas-

nett, even the poorest. You have no idea how inter

ested they are. I never dreamed so many women

of all classes wanted the ballot."

"Agatha, I must insist upon your withdrawing

from that bedlam in the Woman's Building. I did

not suspect that you were really interested. It is

unwomanly."

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"I can't, Stark. I'm chairman of the Income

Committee, and----"

"Who's chairman of the Dead Cat Committee?"

he sneered.

"Mike Prim, we think," she laughed.

He gasped. It was a kind of pollution for a

woman even to know of Prim's existence.

"And I'm enjoying the work so much," Agatha

went on.

" You are enjoying ruining your husband! That's

what you mean, even if you do not know it," he

accused.

"On the contrary, I'm saving you, Stark. If it

was not for the prominent part I've taken in this

movement, and the influence I'm expected to exert

over you, you would not now be president of the

bank."

"Upon my word!"

" I've been waiting to talk to you, dear, to explain.

I've only waited until you should realize the situa

tion. I knew you wouldn't listen before," she went

on kindly.

"Very well, the first thing I want you to explain

M what good you think this damnation Foundation

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123

will accomplish by destroying the business and credit

of this town?" he said, drawing up a chair and seat ing himself belligerently in front of her.
"We shall induce you to favour the cause of suf frage----"

"Even supposing it is possible according to the constitution of this state for us to give women the

ballot, don't you know that you are only exciting an

tagonism, making an enemy of every voter in the county?" he interrupted.

"Until you understand, yes, possibly. But when you do realize that we hold the situation in our hands, your common sense will compel you to surrender in order to escape the pressure. It's so simple," she

smiled. "It is! It's damn simple! Only a set of foolish

women could have devised such a plan! Think I'm

going to knuckle to that old Walton cat! She's

taking all of the cash out of the bank as fast as it comes in to run her schemes, and----"

"She is only taking the rent and interest on the

property of the Foundation as it is deposited. I sup

pose you were in the habit of lending it." "Of course, what do you think a bank is for?"

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"You'll never have the use of another dollar until

you give in." " It's all nonsense this ballot for women, Agatha; we

can't give it to you, and God knows I don't want to!" "Why?"

"It's against nature. Women lack the wisdom, the experience, the er--the shrewdness to conduct the affairs of government. You have no idea how many wheels within wheels there are."
"Yes, we have, Stark, we know all about Mike Prim! If you are wise you will not drive us to deal with Prim!" she said, looking at him queerly. " And besides," she went on, "we have had the shrewdness, aa you call it, to block the business of this town. You'll never be able to do anything so long as we hold you up."
"You can't stop the commerce of a whole county with twenty thousand dollars, Agatha. You may Inconvenience ua for a time but----"
"It isn't the interest we count upon, you see-- that's the smallest part of it. It's the way we have our capital invested. It's the land beneath your feet, the boards above your head, the stock in your bank, the goods in your stores. We've got moat of

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125

it! I wish you would listen to reason, Stark!" she

concluded.

He had not heard half of it. He was wondering

what she meant by that reference to Prim. But he

caught the last sentence.

"And suppose I do listen to reason, as you call it. How would I go about it?" he asked as he would have

tested the strength of an enemy, not that he had the

remotest intention of following her advice.

"Go to Judge Regis in the morning and tell Inm that you are interested in suffrage for women. Say

that you are heartily in favour of it and----"

"I'll be hanged if I do! I'll----"

The telephone bell rang. Coleman went out in the

hall to answer the call.

"Yes, I'm here," his wife heard him say. " What's the matter? Oh, all right, be glad to see

you."

He returned to the library still frowning, very

angry, but really thankful for any diversion which seemed to lead from an offensive discussion.

" Wonder what's up now. Stacey has just called.

Wants to see me at once. Coining right over," he

explained.

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"Church business. I'll go up and see if the children are comfortable. It's very warm," Agatha said in nocently as she left the room.

Five minutes later Stacey came in. He looked like

a good man whose salvation had been mortgaged for

its full value. He parted his long coat-tails and sat

down. He regarded Coleman with a watery ex

pression. TTia mouth was pulled up in the middle

and drawn down at the corners.

"I suppose Mrs. Coleman has already informed

you?" he began in sepulchral tones.

"About what?" asked Coleman, who warily

avoided admitting that he was not in Agatha's con

fidence.

"About what happened this afternoon at the

Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary meeting."

"My wife is still upstairs with the children," he

evaded.

"I saw Mrs. Sasnett as soon as it was over. She

came straight to me and told me all that had oc

curred. Really I could not have believed such a

thing could happen in a Christian community!" he

groaned.

"What did happen? Has that Walton woman

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127

garnisheed the missionary collection?" asked Coleman impatiently.
" Worse than that! I fear there will be no collec tion," he answered, wagging his head. Then he went on:
"Mrs. Sasnett, as you know, is a very loyal worker. She's president of the society here. She did what she could to prevent the catastrophe, but she was powerless. Then she resigned. This was Rally Day, you know. The women from all the county churches came in. There must have been two hundred of them. We looked forward to a very profitable meeting. I prayed the opening prayer myself. Then I had some calls to make. It was after I went out that it happened," the infer ence being that had he remained it could not possibly have happened. "The minutes were read. Mrs. Sasnett made an address. Then, as is the custom, she opened the meeting for general discussion.
"She said that before any one else had time to get up, Mrs. Walton arose and began to speak. As presi dent, Mrs. Sasnett told me she tried to stop her when she realized the iniquitous trend of her remarks. But she was unable to do so. The women in the con-

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gregation actually clapped their hands and insisted that she should be allowed to go on.
"That woman--I can hardly bring myself to speak of her with respect--began by saying that she

had long felt called as a Christian citizen--she used the term citizen--to inform the women of our church of the mistake they were making with their mission ary dues. She had too much confidence in their motherhood to believe they would be guilty of such

heathen conduct if they really understood. "The report Mrs. Sasnett gave was so vivid I'm
able to quote the very words of Mrs. Walton's out rageous assault upon the church.

"'This state ranks third from the bottom in the United States in illiteracy, and Jordan County ranks third from the bottom in this state! We have a public school system which lasts only five months in the year!' That was her opening sen tence.

"'Do you know what this means, women of Jor dan County? That your children will be the bond servants of the next generation. That they will not

be fitted to hold any but the lowest positions in so ciety and in the industrial world. If your daughters

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149

many they must marry ignorant men. If they do

not marry and seek to better their condition in the

world, they cannot do so, they must enter factories,

become servants. They will not know how to spell

well enough to be stenographers even. If your sons

remain on the farms, they will be renters; they can

not hold the land. Ignorance means bankruptcy for

the poor farmer now. If they leave the farm for the

cities, they will become street-car drivers, porters,

janitors, day labourers. The time has passed when

a country boy without education can go to the city,

make a hit, and become President of the United

States. Instead of that they are forced to accept

the lowest society the city affords. They are the

victims of its vices.

"'Now listen to me. The women of this state

pay more to home and foreign missions in the various

churches than the state does for the common school

1

fund. Where does your money go? To found schools

j

in Soochow, China, and Yokohama, Japan, and in

Kobe, and in Siam, and in Africa. You do not know

it, but you women pay two thirds of all the money

that goes to support the church. You do that much

toward building churches, supporting connectional

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officers, prelates, pastors, missions, the whole thing,

and you are not even allowed a voice in determining

the way your money shall be spent. You do the

"Lord's work," and the men profit by it. You pray

most of the prayers that are prayed properly in secret.

You furnish four fifths of all the piety--and your own

children grow up in ignorance. Do you think the

Lord blesses such labour and sacrifice? I tell you

He will not. Look at your children, mothers, you

women from the farms, who left them this very

day working in the fields, when they should be in

school!'

"Mrs. Sasnett says that she wrought so upon the

emotions of those women that they actually wept.

"She went on reminding them of the sacrifices

they made to raise their missionary dues. She even

went so far as to call attention to their clothes, their

hats that were so old-fashioned. She calculated

what they contributed one way and another to the

church, Coleman, as if that were a crime. Then she

concluded by telling them that they could have

schools nine months in the year for their own children

with the best teachers if they would only do the

Lord's work and pay the same amount for this pur-

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131

pose. And when Mrs. Sasnett tried to interrupt

her, she grew violent.

"'Hold up your right hand, every woman present

who is willing to pledge herself to give never another

dollar to foreign missions or to the support of the

church until her children have schools nine months

in the year!'

"And would you believe it, nearly all of them held

up their hands. Some of the old women shouted!

Mrs. Sasnett said it resembled a love-feast. She

said they crowded around Mrs. Walton as if--well,

as if she'd been a preacher!"

He sighed and looked at Coleman, who made no

comment. He was chairman of the Board of Stew

ards in the Jordantown church, and he was making

a rapid mental calculation of the deficit that was

likely to occur.

"Of course," Stacey went on, "they were excited.

There will be a reaction when we remind them of

their vows to support the institutions of the church.

But what am I to do, meanwhile? I have not taken

any collections for this year."

"Don't take them now!" said Coleman quickly. .

"It may be worse later on. You know that Miss

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Adams has been canvassing the county for weeks,

arranging those Co-Citizens' Leagues in every voting

precinct. I hear that she has made capital out of

that failure in Porter County where they tried to

float a bond issue to secure a full school term. The

men voted it down, especially the farmers. Claimed

that they needed the children to work the crops and

gather them. She's using that to prove that we need

compulsory education in this county and that we'll

never get it until the women can vote." "I don't know what Marshall Adams can be think

ing of, allowing his daughter to get into this mess!"

said Coleman.

Stacey looked at him. He wondered if this man

knew how deep his own wife was in the same " mess."

"I suppose you have heard that they are getting

ready for a big mass meeting here?" he ventured.

"That so?"

"Going to announce their plans, I hear."

" Well, I hope they do. When we know what they

are up to, we will know how to stop them."

"You think we can?"

" Certainly! Can women force us to the polls, or

compel us to vote for this silly measure? Besides,

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133

the state constitution is a perfect protection; only

males can vote. This is all a form of feminine hys

teria, Stacey; it's bound to pass. Just sit tight in the

boat and wait. I don't mind telling you that the

trustees of this--d--er--this Foundation are spend

ing their income like water. When that gives out,

they'll be at the end of their tether. They can't touch

the principal."

"But they might borrow on it," Stacey put in

doubtfully as he arose to take his departure.

This was a devilish possibility of which Coleman

had not thought. He was angry with Stacey for

suggesting it.

"Damphule to leave the church with Susan Wal-

ton in it!" he grumbled as he went upstairs.

Agatha was already in bed. She lay with her

hands crossed above the coverlid, her eyes closed, her

face resting upon the pillow as serene as the epitaph

of a good woman on a large white tombstone.

He undressed stealthily. He would no more have

disturbed her than he would have thrust a thorn in

his side. He turned out the light and lay down be

side her, scarcely allowing himself the relief of a sigh.

Instantly Agatha's eyes flew open. She lay very

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still watching him. She could make out his nose in

the dark. It was a powerfully built, upstanding nose

which even the shadows of the night did not entirely

conceal. Slowly she divined his features one by one.

A man, even the ablest, looks very helpless in his

sleep. She saw his chin drop, his mouth open. Then

the silence was parted by a certain sound, exactly the

same sound she had heard every night since she had

married--"Ha-a-w-s-ah! Ah-ha-a-w-sah." It was a

cross between the bray of an ass and the excruciating

grief of a cat.

Most men come down to this the moment they

sink into the unconsciousness of slumber. It is a

kind of reversion to type which they suffer without

knowing it.

Agatha had often lain awake resenting the blasts

which Coleman sent through his nose. But to

night the sound touched some cord of tenderness.

It reminded her of the years and years they had lived

together as they could never live again. She laid her

hand gently upon his breast. He gave a terrific snort,

then groaned. Even in his sleep he was troubled.

She, his wife, had failed him in some dear intimacy

of the soul. She wondered how she would be able

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185

to hold out against him. It was no use to pretend

that she was not against him. She knew that she

was, that nothing but an incredible change in the

order of things could unite them again as they had

been; that even then they would be different. They

would spend the remainder of their lives adjusting

themselves to strange conditions. She began to

weep softly. She was glad that at least nothing

could change Stark's snore!





One reason why more men do not join the oldest

order in the world--the Brotherhood of Man--is be

cause its constitution and by-laws are neither secret

nor cryptic. Everybody knows what they, are, and

everybody knows what they mean. "Love thy

neighbour as thyself," "Do unto others as you would

have them do unto you," "Judge not, that ye be not

judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall

be judged; and with what measure ye mete it shall

be measured to you again."

There is a whole Book filled with these regulations

for the governing of this ancient order. But it has

the largest circulation of any book in the civilized

world, and any one is eligible to membership by

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some profession of faith. So you cannot choose

your brethren. This is directly opposed to one of

our strongest instincts as social animals: the instinct

of election and selection in this present world. The

Brotherhood does what it can, of course, to segregate

the different classes and caste of men into creeds

and missions and saints and sinners. But it is not

successful, and the failure has resulted, especially

among men, in the founding of innumerable secret

orders--to say nothing of adolescent college fraterni

ties, where youths are trained in snobbishness, and

to all the traditions and mysteries which mask these

orders. There is no more virtue in being a Mason, or

a Knight of Pythias, or an Elk, or an Odd Fellow

than there is in being a Christian gentleman, but there

is more distinction among men. So they are com

plimented to be chosen and elected to one of these

goat-riding organizations.

Women have never been accepted as members of

these orders, though they are sometimes annexed

under a separate "star," for example, or as mere

useful "Rebecca" appendages. Enough "Eastern

Stars," or "Rebeccas" in a town will do all the drudg

ery, bake all the cakes, and get ready generally for

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137

the annual celebration of the real order to which they

have been annexed, you understand. But they

never share the inner shrine privileges with their

lords. They do not wear the royal purple, nor the

red-and-gold-lace uniforms of the Knights, nor carry

banners. If you see them at all they will be tacked

on to the end of the parade, with cotton-ribbon

badges pinned to their bosoms just to show that they

sustain a meek cup-bearing culinary relation to the

Sons of Heaven prancing in front.

Still, if they could, women would indulge in the

same vanity of secret orders. The trouble is that

they are so situated in life that they cannot hold

together, unless they are in a shirtwaist factory and

join a labour union. The great majority are con

fined, one in a house, or in the innocuous desuetude

of society, where there is no bond of common interest,

but violent feminine competition. They have no

issue which unites them; they do not hold together.

They do well to hold the men. This keeps them anx

ious, tearful, deceitful, and busy, besides being dear

and sweet for the same purpose.

But of all creatures they do crave mysteries. And

they do love secrets--something to whisper

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Selah Adams, by virtue of the fact that during her

college years she had belonged to a sorority with

Greek letter coverings and many gruesome rites

within, was the one person engaged in the suffrage

campaign who recognized the advantage to be de

rived from secrecy in organizing the women for the

struggle. She perceived the appeal that this would

make to their pride and ambition. It was at her sug

gestion that all the work of committees in Jordan-

town should be conducted as quietly as possible.

The women were pledged not to betray plans to any

one but women belonging to the League. So when

women of all classes discovered that they would be

received most cordially in an organization fostered

by the leading ladies of the place, they hastened to

join. For the first time social lines in Jordantown

disappeared. The banker's wife walked down the

steps of the Woman's Building arm in arm with the

grocer's wife. In their first stages of growth all polit

ical movements are divinely democratic. It is not

until the thing has been reduced to a working formula

that some boss seizes the formula and the tyrannies of monarchical methods begin.

Selah adopted the same plan of secrecy in organ-

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izing women's Co-Citizens' Leagues in the country

neighbourhoods. This was her part of the work.

She was not only beautiful in a grave and dignified

fashion, she had the adorable gift of youth when it

came to relating herself to elder women.

She was one of the sensations, blessing the eyes and stimulating the imagination of all travellers

along country roads as she passed in her car from

one neighbourhood to another. She was invariably

accompanied upon these expeditions by some farm

er's wife who was already an officer in some other

League. She wore white linen tailored clothes and a

three-cornered white turban, with a pair of white

wings spread and lifted high at the back of her head,

which is the one proper place for wings on a mortal

The brain of a man or woman is the only soaring

part of them. Sublimated spiritual bodies may look

naturally supernatural with wings attached to the

breastbone or between the shoulders behind, but

the fairest, most spiritual, woman would appear a

trifle ludicrous with them anywhere else unless she

should be dancing a ballet with no skirts on worth

mentioning. Selah achieved a sort of glorified pres

ence very grateful to the eyes of the farmers' wives

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and daughters, who did not understand how much of

it was due to the wings on her hat.

Her method was simple after she had made the first round of the county, visiting the women in their homes and explaining the purpose of the Co-Citizens'

Leagues. Each week the Signal published her itin

erary. She would meet the women of Possum Trot on such and such a day. She would address the CoCitizens' League of SugarValley on Tuesdayafternoon.

She would meet with the Co-Citizens of Dry Pond on Friday afternoon--always at the schoolhouse.

In addition to this the Signal invariably gave glow ing accounts of the progress of the suffrage senti

ment everywhere. There was no means of proving that the Signal was lying. It was the only paper published in the county, and it was sent free of

charge to every woman in the county. But never

was there a single line reporting what transpired at any of the meetings. The Odd Fellows, who were exceedingly plentiful all over the county, were al

most open books compared to the secrecy and mys

tery attending these meetings of their women. It is not generally known, but nearly all farmers*
wives are in favour of suffrage for women. It is

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not known, because almost without exception they deny that they are if there is a man within earshot of their protestations. The patriarchal hold upon them is stronger in the country places, because the economic necessities of the situation uphold the patriarch and not his wife. She obeys, not only her husband, but the laws of the seasons with the labour of her hands.

There were at first many timid souls whom Selah Adams could not draw into her conspiracy. But these were strengthened from week to week with the amazing assurances they read in the Signal, to the effect that Jordan County was coming out of the dark ages: "Men as well as women are impatient to see their wives and mothers and daughters exercise the inalienable right of every freeborn American Citizen!" And so on and so forth.
"Who are the men?" asked every man. Echo answered: "Who?"

No one believed there were any such cowardly males among them, but they could not prove it. The men were growing more and more silent, partly through anxiety and partly with grim confidence

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that no way could be found to force this issue of

suffrage on the voters of the county. The women

remained maliciously silent on this point. If they had any plan, not the most ingratiating persuasions from their nearest mankind could induce them to

reveal it. The lives of most women on remote farms are

tragic beyond belief. They appear natural and commonplace only because the victims are trained

in endurance, not in the vocabulary of expression. There are thousands of farmers' wives in every rural community who endure hardships undreamed of in

the sweatshops of commerce. There are no laws

to protect them from long hours, nor any to protect their children. They average sixteen hours a day,

while the hardest working man takes at least two

hours at noon in which to rest. They may complain of backache, of rheumatism, of any number of

stitches in their sides, but they never complain of

the long, long day's work. On the contrary, if the

worst comes to worst, especially during the harvest season, they think they will get up an hour earlier

the next morning and maybe "get through" what

they have to do.

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When one of them dies of the strain, she just dies. The obituary notice of her as the wife of so-and-so never tells how she just "gave out," having borne eight children and having done the cooking, washing, ironing, and sewing for the family, besides "helping

in the fields." It was to these women that Selah came with her
definite plans for better conditions for them and their children. She brought them the refreshment

of social intercourse, and united them in a secret common cause. It was difficult to accomplish against the' order and very nature of their lives. Sometimes she failed.

One day she called at a little farmhouse hidden

away from the public road in one of the mountain coves. There were no children about, no noisy

cackling of cocks and hens, no flowers in the yard,

not a sound to break the awful silence of the accom

panying hills. It was as if life died there long ago and left behind only the rickety skeleton of a house as a mournful epitaph.
But inside, an old woman sat mending bags. She wore a gray calico slip, tied in around the waist with her apron strings; both were ragged, abominably

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soiled. Her hair was white; strands of it hung around her neck from a little knot twisted tight on the back of her head. Her face was ghastly white, wrinkled, toothless, but the pale blue eyes, rolling wildly, senselessly, in the cavernous sockets, gave her an expression so terrible that Selah started back invol untarily as she lifted her head, stared at her, and went on with her mending on the ill-smelling meal sack. This was the wife of Jake Terry.
The Terrys had had nine children. They all worked in the field. None of them had ever gone to school. They were poor with a desperation of poverty undreamed of even in the slums.
But Terry had a sawmill. At last when his sons

were old enough to work, he began to make money. The wife and daughters did the farming. Then, quite inconveniently, Mrs. Terry took leave of her senses. She was violent in her efforts to throw her self in the mill pond. She was sent to the asylum and remained there three years--until she was no longer violent. Then she was brought home, still witless, but able in a mechanical way from long habit to do the things she had always done. Terry thought that this was better than hiring some one.

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His children had married or "run off" and left him.

So the old wife went back into the treadmill. She

was obsessed with the idea of work. She would not

sleep. Sometimes she would spring out of the bed

in the dead hours of the night, kindle a fire in the

slatternly stove, and "start breakfast." She was

always hurrying from one task to another.

"How do you do, Mrs. Terry?" Selah ventured,

still standing in the doorway.

"My hens is all dead!" cried the old woman.

"I've come to see you about something," Selah

said, advancing.

"No, you ain't; nobody ever comes here. My

children are all dead, too!" she wailed.

"They are not dead, they are married," Selah said

soothingly.

"My hens is all dead, and my children is all dead,

and I'm dead, too. Women don't live, you know,

they jest work." This last in a low, confidential

tone as she stretched the wrinkles of her face in

to a ghastly grin. "I've heard of you," she went

on. "You think you are going to make the wo

men live same as men. You can't do it. We

ain't for ourselves, we are jest made for them. I

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wouldn't mind it so much if my hens hadn't all

died!"

Selah fled from the house, climbed into the car,

and commanded the chauffeur to drive on.

"I knew it wasn't any use for you to go in there,"

said Mrs. Deal, staring at the girl's stricken face.

"Did she tell you all her hens were dead?"

"Yes, but it wasn't that, nor her forlorn condition;

it was something else. She said she waa dead, too:

" Women don't live you know, they just work!' Ah,

it was awful!"

" We've had four women from this settlement sent

to the asylum just like that," Mrs. Deal added after

a pause as they moved swiftly along the fragrant

June road.

It was Saturday afternoon; they were on their

way to a meeting of the Co-Citizens' League at

Possum Trot. Mr. Deal, a prosperous farmer, was

also the justice of the peace in the tiny mountain

village; and this also happened to be the day when

he retailed justice in small sentences in the usual

neighbourhood squabbles.

Court had adjourned as they entered the village.

Men stood in groups before the one store, talking in

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undertones as women passed--all going in the direc

tion of the schoolhouse, which stood exactly opposite. Deal was "dressed up"--that is to say, he wore his

coat, collar, and tie. He stood combing his whiskers

and looking over his steel-rimmed spectacles at Mrs. Deal, who descended from the automobile and fol

lowed Selah into the house.

Presently another man flirted his head to one side,

spat on the ground, and looked at Deal, whose face

above his whiskers was puffed out in a fat smile.

"Helendamnation, Squire! what does all this female gaddin' and gittin* together and whisperin'

mean?" he snickered.

"Nothin'!" answered Deal.

"What we goin' to do about it?" "Nothin'!"

"But they tell me they're fixin' to vote or bust." "Well, they won't! it's just a piece of devilment started by Susan Walton to pretend she's earnin' her salary as trustee of that fool Fund the Mosely woman left. She's puttin' the Adams girl up to this. 'Tain't nothin'. Susan Walton ain't the husband of my wife nor the head of my family. What I say goes in my house!"

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"I don't know, things is gittin' mighty queer, es pecially the women. My wife's quit talkin'! I

hear they're fixin' to boycott us durin* the harvest season if we don't vote for 'em!"

"I've been married twenty years, and my wife's never refused to do what I tell her yet. I don't

reckon she'll begin now by refusin' to cook for me and them that sets at my table."

During this exchange of opinions both men had

made their way slowly across the street and entered

the group of men who were gathering about the schoolhouse door.

Far down in the cool brown shadows within, Selah

Adams was standing upon the teacher's rostrum. She

was speaking in low terms which could not be heard

from the door, which had been left open for cool

ness. Fifty women sat below her in creaking split-bot tom chairs, with faces as rapt and attentive as if they

had been listening to a revival sermon. Some of

them were mature maidens of thirty years; some were

young wives who had reached that stage of feminine

dissolution when women cease to curl their front hair and permit their short back locks to hang down in

a doleful fringe upon the back of their necks. The

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majority of them, however, were elderly matrons. Their shoulders had that noble giving droop which only women show who have reached the sublimity of nurturing many children at their breasts. They were all moving palmetto fans with the serene air of fat, ugly old goddesses who had passed out of the desire of man and had now returned to their own woman's sanity.
"Squire, I don't like them goings on in thar!" "What you talMn' about?" "That gal, she looks damn dangerous seditious.

I can't hear what she's sayin', but them women they can, and they look like they was bein' converted. They got the same expression females always have durin' a revival, when they've made up their pra'rmeetin' minds to do what the preacher tells 'em if they burn at the stake for it! I tell you that gal's got 'em. They'll follow her as if she was a 'pillow' of cloud by day and of fire by night, leadin' 'em through the Red Sea to the Promised Land!"
"I'll show you who one of 'em will follow!" ex

claimed Deal, advancing to the door. His long forked shadow fell across the silent
figures in the audience as he thrust his head in and

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craned his neck until he caught sight of Mrs. Deal

seated at the far end of the first row.

"Molly!" he called sternly.

The even rhythm of Molly's fan did not change.

She did not so much as turn her head. Her large

blue eyes upturned beneath their thick lids never

wavered from Selah's face.

" Molly, come out! I'm waitin' for you!" shouted

the Squire in a louder, unmistakable voice of com

mand.

Selah paused, nodded to a young girl, and mur

mured, "Close the door, Mary," very much in the

same preoccupied tone she might have used if she

had said, "Mary, shoo the chickens out!" It was a

splendid triumph for Selah.

The next moment a roar of laughter went up in the

street beyond the closed door. A red spot flamed

upon Molly Deal's cheeks, but her fan went on

swinging gently to and fro. Her eyes were still

fixed upon Selah's smiling face.

The meeting was important. The day and even

the hour was fixed when the women would announce

the plans by which they were determined to obtain

suffrage in Jordan County. So far the men had not

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received a hint as to what these plans were. The

whole movement seemed senseless and hopeless,

merely causing furious antagonism and outrageous

embarrassment; for Mrs. Walton's perversities as

director of the bank had been felt far and wide in the

country districts, where farmers were not only unable

to secure loans, but many who had mortgaged their

land to the Mosely Estate now found themselves

facing the possibility of foreclosure.

There was to be a mass meeting in Jordantown the

first Saturday in July. Selah informed the Leagues

of this as she made this tour from one community to

another. The purpose of the great mass meeting

was fully explained, and plans were laid for getting

as many people to attend as possible.

At last, as the shades of evening fell, the women

filed out of the schoolhouse, strange, exasperatingly

potential figures to the Odd Fellow husbands who

had waited impatiently outside for them. Molly

Deal climbed silently into the red-and-green spring

wagon beside her equally silent husband. Selah

waved her hand prettily from the car as she passed

up the road in the direction of Jordantown. She

was fairly contented with the progress made in the

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County Leagues. She had worked indefatigably for nearly three months, organizing, teaching, and inspir ing the proper spirit of life and hope, as she called it, in the women.

But the test was yet to come. All depended upon the success of the mass meeting, its effects upon the men. Would they understand the gravity of re fusing to cooperate with the women? She refused

to contemplate the disasters, the bitter suspense and disappointment if they did hold out. It seemed strange that not a single man had guessed the method

the suffragists would adopt to win. She was ex cited, elated, hopeful, and at the same time she was sad. She thought of her father, so bereaved by he? conduct. Her eyes filled with tears at the vision of him mournfully silent in the evenings, too much cast down to even reproach her with her perfidy. Then she began to laugh as a certain thought came to her. He had ceased to show his diminished head on the

streets of Jordantown. He had been sober for two months, spending all of his time attending to his farm. He was like a good soldier, who in the face of a decisive battle indulges in no weakness, keeps his wits about him. She was sure he was camping in the

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spirit beneath her walls, waiting for the citadel to fall. They practised the fine honour of noble enemies. He never asked her any question about what was going forward in the suffrage ranks. He even broke his own eggs at breakfast with the proud air of a man who neither asks nor gives quarter.

"Father," she would say at the breakfast table, "let me break your eggs!"

"No, Selah, I'm an old man, I've come upon evil days in my own house, but I am still able to attend to my simple wants. Pray don't let me detain you" --seeing that she wore her hat, and that the abom inable car would be purring at the curb.
" Very well, then, I'll be off, but expect me back before night," she would say, kissing him on the forehead.

"No, I do not expect you home before night. I never do. It would not surprise me if you didn't get in before midnight. I'm prepared for anything now!" he would answer without looking up.
Nevertheless, she made it a rule always to get back from her engagements before he came in.
"Is that you, father?" she would call down the staircase.

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"Yes, just came in, but I didn't expect to find

you here," he would answer accusingly.

It could not be said that they kept the peace.

Rather they kept a truce, smiling on the part of

Selah, coldly dignified on the part of the Colonel.

One evening she came down unexpectedly, and

surprised him sneaking in with one enormous bunch

of June roses which he had brought in from the farm. "How lovely, and how sweet of you to think of

me!" she exclaimed.

" I did not think of you, and these are not for you.

If I'd been gathering flowers for you, Selah, I should have brought bachelor buttons!" he answered as he

passed out into the darkened avenue, still carrying

his posy ludicrously upside down.

It was another month before she or any one else

knew what he did with them.

She had tried to put Bob Sasnett out of her

thoughts, but not very successfully. Love is the finest logic nature ever achieves. Nothing, no

argument however reasonable and expedient, can

withstand it. She thought continually of him as an

enemy she must face sooner or later. She loved him

--at least she feared that she did. But she wu still

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so young that she longed for sacrifice. She wished to give the whole of her life to women. She could not do that and give the whole of her heart to Bob. She did not reflect that this is the law of women's

hearts with which no privilege of citizenship can interfere, and that all the other women for whom she sacrificed herself would be doing just this thing if there should be enough men about to receive their hearts. One thing was certain: she had "grown." She was no longer the girl she had been, shrinking, timid, yet filled with longings to live her own life, to do things. Three months ago she had but one outlook, that of marrying Bob Sasnett and spending the remainder of her days as Mrs. Sasnett's daughterin-law--that is to say, in total eclipse. Xow, she reflected, as the car rolled silently toward the distant courthouse dome, showing gray above the trees of Jordantown, now some day she might become a lawyer and plead a case beneath that very dome!
" Good evening, sweet Goddess of Liberty! Deign to bend your far-seeing eyes upon your humble slave!"
"Mr. Sasnett!" exclaimed Selah, as he advanced from the deep shade of an elm tree beside the road, where he appeared to have been standing.

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"No, not 'Mr. Sasnett!' I left him an hour since, vainly contending with Susan Walton, in the effort

to gain her consent for the bank to extend the loan

to the Acres Mercantile Company another six

months, and----"

Selah laughed.

"Don't interrupt, Minerva! I say that I left this

fellow Sasnett imploring her, paying her undue com

pliments with this charitable end in view, while

Acres waited outside the door of the directors' room.

This poor adventurer whom you behold bound at

present to your chariot wheel, is none other than

'Bob,'" he concluded, smiling up at her with whim

sical audacity.

"But what are you doing out here at this hour?

It's almost tea time," she exclaimed with well-sim

ulated innocence.

"Waiting for you," he replied, accusing her inno

cence with a stare so bold that she blushed.

" That was kind of you. Get in!" she said, thrust

ing the door of the car open and making room for him

on the seat.

"It is not my idea to return to the er--goddessridden metropolis of Jordantown as the obvious cap-

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tive of Minerva," he replied, backing off. "I ven

tured to hope that you would descend and walk back

with me," he explained.

" I can't," she objected, " I always try to be home when father comes, and it's already late."
"Old boy won't be in for another hour. He's

having his wheat thrashed; met one of the men taking

more sacks out just now. He says it will be nine

o'clock before they finish."

Still she hesitated, looking down at him.

"Come!" he insisted, "I've something very im

portant to tell you."

"Are you sure it's important?" she asked waver-

ingly.

"Absolutely! Whole future of your movement,

as you call it, may depend upon it!" he assured her

with suspicious gravity.

"Very well, then, I'll come," she agreed, allowing

him to assist her down into the road.

"Drive on, Charles!" Sasnett commanded, sur

reptitiously placing a dollar in the negro's hand to

insure a quick departure.

The car sprang forward, disregarding all speed

limits, leaving the two lovers veiled in yellow dust,

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which lifted presently, wind blown, rolling out over

the fields beyond like dried sunlight. The road lay

before them, a golden band between widespreading trees, fading into the shadows of evening.

They walked in silence, Selah waiting for what he should tell her, wondering vaguely if at last the men had divined their plans, and if this was the news he brought. She feared it might be something dis agreeable, since he was in no hurry to begin. She looked at him surreptitiously, and flushed to find that he was also regarding her in the same sidewise, secret manner.
"Well, what is it?" she demanded quickly to cover her embarrassment.
"What is what?" he asked innocently. "The important something that you have to tell me."

"That I love you," he answered shamelessly. "Oh!" exclaimed Selah, looking unutterable re proach.

"Isn't that important? Do you think the bal lot will satisfy your whole heart and nature, make life one glad song? Will women cease to love men when they can vote? Not on your life, dear! Look at

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your Co-Citizens now. Didn't Susan Walton have

a husband who honoured and obeyed her till the day

of his death? Doesn't the fact that they have hus

bands add to the interest Mabel Acres and Agatha

Coleman have in the suffrage question? Do you

think poor Miss Mary Heath would refuse a pro

posal of marriage, even if she controlled every man's

vote in the town? Believe me, those little adoles

cent Citizenesses-to-be, the seminary girls, do not

primp and pile their curls bewitchingly over their

ears because they want the ballot. It's the daily

petition they make of themselves for lovers!"

"That is your egregious masculine conceit, Bob,

imagining every woman is thinking of winning lovers

and husbands. We love ourselves. We do our best

to look well because we have a satisfaction in our own

appearance!" Selah exclaimed with indignant heat.

"Of course, and I must say you bear charming

witness to your own sweet perfection, dear," he

laughed, "but yon don't see my point."

"I will not! It is not a point anyway, it's--it's--

a joke you make at our expense!" she accused.

"No, beloved, it really is well taken, my position.

But your mind is so obsessed, all of your thoughts

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are so focussed upon one of the mere incidents of life,

that you are missing the real issue of happiness.

Let me explain."

"You can't do it, but you may try," she conceded.

"Love, Selah, is the one thing that must always

come to pass in the hearts of men and women. It

doesn't matter under what conditions they live, they

must love or die unfulfilled in the very purpose for

which they were created. It is a season in the life of

us, dear, a season, you understand--the time when

nature blooms in us, when the fragrance of our very

spirits ascends in tender emotions, in the perfume of

language, in looks such as the gaze with which I now

behold you, and which makes your cheek one anthol

ogy of roses!" he concluded, as the warm colour rose

like a red wreath beneath her ivory skin. "But

listen, dear, the season passes. The rose fades.

The strength of man changes, passes into the strength

of achievement or into the dead leaves of failure.

Then where will we be, Selah, you and I?"

"Well be doing our share of the world's work,

sanely and well, I hope," she answered quickly.

"Granted, though it's an awful gamble. But sup

pose you succeed. Suppose you win everything and

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more than you are now contending for. Suppose at forty you are nominated for Congress from this dis trict, do you think I'd ask you then to be my wife? Not if I had failed as much as you had succeeded! I would not, because I could not love you as I love you now. Don't cry! But I swear I will not marry

you then!" he ended, laughing.

"And do you think I'd want to marry you then?"

she asked, amazed. " Yes, I know you will; if not me, some other man.
You will have discovered that doing the world's work even well is a thankless job, and that fame and suc

cess are the husks that swine do eat compared with even the tears and griefs of love. But you will not be lovable then, Selah; you will only be horribly intelligent and capable. I can see that, the way

you are tending now. You will have gray hair, thin, too. You will draw it back like a conviction, and wind it in a knot at the back of your head as tight as a narrow-minded conclusion. You will have lost the damask flush of youth. I think your

cheek bones will stick up, too prominent, you know, as if your character had knobbed up under your eyes. There will be a staircase of political wrinkles upon

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your forehead. Your eyes---- Oh, my God! I

cannot bear the vision I see of you, with your eyes

showing like gray stones casting eddies of wrinkles!

And you'll be lank, the skeleton left by the passing of

a great and successful movement undertaken for

the emancipation of woman!"

"And if I married you, how should I look at

forty?" asked Selah with shrewish shrewdness.

"Oh, my beloved, I don't know. I should not

know even then. You would be my wife, the mother

of my children--as sacred as that--the memory of

my youth distilled, the citadel of my mature years,

the alabaster box of my hopes and faith in the life

to come! I couldn't see you at all, Selah, for you

would have become everything to me, and a man

can't see or foretell that much."

She looked at him, her eyes shining behind her

tears like distant windows of light through the rain

on a dark night. How could she keep faith with the

Cause of Woman while the Cause of Man stood be

fore her so gallantly portrayed!

" Bob," she whispered, " I--you are so dear. You

cannot know how dear you are to me. I've just

found out myself, but----"

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"But what?" he cried impatiently.

" You must wait. I can't, I just can't give you my

whole heart now. It seems to have gone from me,

some fierce energy of life. I've got to do this thing

that we've set out to do before I can promise, before

I'll know myself."

"Well, for God's sake, hurry then and do it," he

answered, not pleased.

"You'll help, won't you?" she asked softly.

"There are times when I fear I'd help you commit

murder if the victim stood between us, Selah, but

really I don't know how I can help you win *h'g fight

for suffrage in Jordan County. The whole thing

seems so far fetched. I can't see what you are

driving at. You have effectually tied up things for

the men, but what good will that do? I don't want

to discourage you, but I can only think harm will

come of it without your having accomplished your

purpose."

She was singularly serene under this discourage

ment. She even changed the subject.

"When do you begin your campaign as candidate

for representative?" she asked as they entered the

avenue.

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"Two bodies cannot revolve in the same orbit. I'm waiting until you quit revolving in the county. I hear you make the Co-Citizens write their names in their own blood when they sign the vow not to

reveal the secrets of the League. Is that so?" he

laughed. "Not quite so bad as that. But they do keep the
vow, don't they? Not one of you will know our plans until we reveal them ourselves at the mass meeting. But you are going to run for the legisla ture?" she insisted, returning to that.
"I'm not sure; I'm waiting to see what Prim's go

ing to do. I----" " We will take care of Prim," she put in. "Oh, you will? And which one of you has been

chosen to murder him, you or Susan? Nothing

short of death, I think, will rid this town of him." " We shall not resort to capital punishment unless

it is absolutely necessary," she laughed, "but I think

I can assure you of one thing: Prim will not be a ,

candidate." "Thanks!" he said, but without conviction. "Does
Prim know he is not to run?" almost sarcastically. "Not yet," she laughed.

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"Good night, Minerva!" he murmured, kissing

her hand.

"Good night, Bob, and remember you can go

ahead. Prim will not be in your way."

"I'll wait, thank you; I'm young; I can afford to

take my time gathering county laurels for my brow.

And no decent man could oppose Prim without get

ting smeared with political slime. Sticks, too!"

CHAPTER HI
O NE very hot morning early in July Mike Prim came up the staircase of the National Bank Building. He stood for a moment in the hall, breathing heavily from the exertion of bear ing his great weight up the steps. He took off his straw hat and mopped his red face. Then he glared at the door of Judge Regis's office.
"That's the long-legged old devil's horse who's put the women up to all this damnation!" he growled as he entered his own office and closed the door.
He took off his coat, then his collar and tie, flung them with bis hat on a chair, and sat down to his desk. Then he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. He placed his elbows on the desk and his enormous folded chin in his two hands. So he sat, a monstrous figure, with his great paunch filling his white shirt like a concealed balloon, with his hideously hairy arms naked halfway, and his thick
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hands purple beneath the weight of his amorphously fat face, his little reptilian eyes staring at the oppo site wall.

He was at his wits' end. He was not making good

at his business, and he knew it. What was worse, everybody else knew it. He had had few callers of late. Campaign collections had dwindled to almost nothing. They were getting bold in their refusals to contribute at all. "Why didn't he do something?" "What were they paying him for if it was not to do something?" "Was he going to let a set of fanatical women down him and take things in their own hands?" These were some of the questions they asked him which he could not answer satisfac

torily. In vain he advised patience, and even more vainly he vowed he could and would stop the wo men's damphulishness at the proper time. They did not believe him; they pointed out that business had already stopped. From being the one who threatened, he had become the one who cajoled, while every man who came in offered him veiled threats instead of dollars.
He was furious, and he was obliged to conceal his fury. He hated these rebellious men even more

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than he hated the upstart women. He was deter mined, if the opportunity offered, to be revenged upon them for their insolence. But how? This was

the matter he revolved in his snake-licking mind as he stared at the wall, and he was in a hurry to reach a solution of his difficulty. Stark Coleman had called

him before he was out of bed that morning to say that

there had been a citizens' meeting the night before,

and that he, Coleman, would be up to see him at ten o'clock. In the first place, why had he not been notified of the citizens' meeting. He usually pre sided on these occasions when the tutelary deities of Jordantown gathered in Coleman's office, or more

frequently in his own office, to discuss the ways and means by which the principles of the Democratic party could be made to contribute most liberally to the liberty of man, especially in Jordantown. In the second place, the tone of Coleman's voice was

cool, offensively so. He detected a note of com

mand in it. Suppose Coleman should be coming

up to inform him of certain changes in the policy which would govern the manifestations of the demo cratic principle? In short, suppose he was about to be dismissed from his office? True, it was an

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office without a name, but it had been a lucrative

position.

There was a knock upon the door. He Sung him

self back, looked hastily at his watch and saw that it was barely nine o'clock. Coleman must be anxious,

he thought, to keep an appointment in such a hurry,

which was a good sign. "Come in!" he shouted, whirling around on his

swivel chair to face the door. It opened with a quick inward thrust and Susan

Walton walked in. She carried her everlasting little

black reticule in one hand, and in the other she held

--of all things in this world--an empty brown-linen

laundry bag, swinging by the strings! "Good morning, Mr. Prim!" she said, looking at

him pleasantly over the top of her spectacles, as if it

was the most natural thing for her to drop in in

formally. He was too amazed to return her salutation. He

stared at her, then he bowed his thick neck and

stared at the flabby bag. He did not even offer her

a seat, but she was in no way disconcerted by that.

She chose a chair, drew it up in front of him, sat

down, and crumpled the bag up in her lap.

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"I came to see you on a matter of business, Mr.

Prim," she said, coining briskly to the point. "I

suppose you've been expecting me?"

"No," he managed to say.

" I'd given you credit then for more sense than you

seem to have, for I'm the only hope you have now."

She said that in tones of conviction.

"You are the last person in the world I'd look upon

as a--hope!" he returned slowly, widening his lips

into a grin which was also a sneer.

"You are at the end of your rope. You've been

90 for a month. You can't squeeze another dollar

out of this town for your campaign fund. The men

have lost confidence in you."

"How'd you come by so much useful informa

tion?" he interrupted.

"I have it. That's the point. You'll never dare

announce yourself a candidate for representative.

You gave that up three months ago."

"What makes you think so?" he asked, fixing his

eyes upon her face with deep reptilian concentration.

"I don't think, I know it. You went on with

your collections for private, personal reasons. But

you did not deposit a single dollar of it in this bank,

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and you knew from the day Sarah Mosely's wiU was read up here in Judge Regis's office that you did not

have a ghost of a chance to be elected, and you made up your mind that day not to run."
"Your powers of penetration are well known, Madam, but again I must ask you how you have

penetrated so far into my secret thoughts, granting of course for the sake of argument that you have done so?" he said, now in complete possession of bis

faculties, and coolly on guard.

"I saw you listening at Judge Regis's office door

the day the will was read, and the day we first dis cussed our plans for winning equal suffrage for wo

men in this country. You are the only man in it who has known positively from the first that we can do it!" she answered, and showed her nerve by keep ing her gaze fixed imperturbably upon him.
He bent forward, his face slowly purpling with rage, his fists clenched, his upper lip skinned back

from his teeth as he hissed: "You are a--you did

not see me!"

"I didn't see you, that's a fact, but I saw your shadow in the ground-glass door, cast by the light

from the window at the end of the hall. Nobody

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could mistake it for any other shape who'd ever seen you, Mike Prim!"
They sat for the briefest moment measuring each other, he with incredible ferocity, and Susan with her lips primped, grimly fearless.
"Now that we understand each other, let's get down to business!" she began.
"To business?" he snarled. "Yes, this is the situation: you can't run for the legislature; you don't want to! You have squeezed every dollar you can get out of the Democrats here." She sniffed at the word. " They have lost confidence in you as manager of their political ends. They've begun to suspect your game. It's only a question of hours, I might say of one hour, before you get your walking papers, so to speak; for they are mad, Mike Prim. They are as angry as men always are when they realize that they've been duped and robbed----"

"If you were not a woman you couldn't sit there and say such things to me. Anyhow, I won't stand it! What's your business, as you call it?" he ex claimed, heaving his huge bulk from the chair and coming to his feet.

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"Sit down! Sit down, Mr. Prim. I am here to make you a definite proposition!"
"Make it!" he growled, still standing, his feet wide apart, glowering down at her.
"The Co-Citizens' Foundation is prepared to pur chase your papers----"
"My papers?" "Yes, your letters, your political correspondence." "Think they are valuable?" "We can get on without them, but we are willing to pay a reasonable price for them. We know that they are valuable to a certain extent." "How?"

" You remember your conversation with Stark Coleman the day you threatened him with certain letters you had of his and of other prominent citizens here. Miss Adams heard what you said on that occasion."
"So she's added eavesdropping to her other ac complishments?" he exclaimed venomously.
"Not eavesdropping, but Coleman left the door slightly ajar; she had come back up here to get some papers from Judge Regis, and, hearing such inter esting conversation going on, naturally she listened. What will you take for these letters?" she demanded.

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" I'd have to think about it," he said, sitting down. " I'll buy them now or not at all," she said.

"Aim to publish them?" he asked, grinning. He was beginning to be in a very good humour.

"That's our affair, but I don't mind telling you that we do not intend to publish them."

"And if I refuse?" he held out.

"In that case you must abide by the consequen

ces, you and the men who wrote the letters. We shall publish all we know about them, what you

yourself claimed for them, and leave the next grand
jury to make the proper investigations." "Humph!"

"Naturally we should try to see to it that you did not escape," she added.
"What will you pay for them?" he demanded. "Five hundred dollars for every scrap of paper in this desk, and immunity for you--for turning state's evidence you know!" "They are worth more than that," he said, taking no notice of the insult. They bargained back and forth. Prim was really in a hurry to close the trade. He wished to be able to handle Coleman when he came in. It was five

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minutes to ten o'clock when they finally closed the deal.
"But I can't take a check," he objected sud

denly. "I thought as much. I've brought the money.
A thousand dollars is too much. This bag isn't half

full!" she exclaimed, shaking it down, drawing up the strings, and looking at it. Then she counted out the bills on the desk, every drawer of which was now empty.
Some one came up the stairs and walked briskly forward in the hall outside.
Prim had barely time to snatch the fluttering green and yellow bills before Stark Coleman entered the room, without the ceremony of knocking.
It would be difficult to say which showed the greater surprise at seeing the other, he or Susan Walton, tightly clutching her bulging laundry bag.
"Good morning, Mr. Coleman," she said, waddling

rapidly toward the door. "Good morning, Madam!" he returned. "Fine large day!" She said this from the door as

she went out. Coleman turned angrily to Prim, who was stand-

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ing reared back, feet wide apart, hands in his pock

ets, grinning broadly.

"What's she doing in here?" he demanded. "Wanted me to help the cause!" he answered

shamelessly.

" What'd she have in that bag?"

"Duly linen--wash day. Talcing it to the Co-

Citizens' Laundry!"

"Didn't know they had one."

"Yes, they have. She's soliciting patronage!"

"Well, I'll be damned! You don't mean to tell

me that woman was up here to get----" "My soiled office linen," Prim obligingly finished.

"She was, and I let her have every scrap of it," he

answered symbolically.

He turned, seized his collar and tie, and reached

for the button at the back of his neck.

"Look here, Mike, things aren't going right in this

town," Coleman began, having lighted a fresh cigar without offering one to Prim, who went on adjusting

his collar. "We had a meeting last night and the

general opinion was that you are not holding the situ

ation down as we expected you would."

When there was no reply from Prim, who was

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holding his head back and struggling to make ends meet over his front collar button, he went on:

"We don't blame you, but the fact is we want to make a change."

"Good idea!" said Prim.

"Glad you feel that way. Knew you would, but the boys thought you might be willing to dispose of the records and papers that have accumulated here." Coleman looked up and caught Prim's eye

fixed upon him. " They're of no value to you. And we are prepared to offer you, well, more than they are worth. We----"
"Want my memoirs, do you?" laughed Prim,

seizing his coat. "That's it, for the archives, you know. How
much will you take for them?"

"I wouldn't sell them to you, Stark Coleman, for

all the cash you could rake and scrape out of your measly little old Co-Citizens' Bank!" he answered, thrusting his arms into the sleeves of his coat,

hunching it up on his shoulders, and making for

the door. Coleman could not believe his ears, and now he
could not believe his eyes. The man was actually

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leaving the room. He took the cigar from his mouth, and lifted his hand in a commanding gesture.
"Hold on, Prim!"

"Hold on yourself if you can! I'm off! A hen pecked town is no place for a man!" he sneered,

banging the door. Coleman stood a moment stupefied. HeheardPrim
thundering downstairs. Then suddenly he returned to his senses. He rushed to the desk, and pulled out one drawer after another. Not a scrap of paper remained in a single one of them.
"My God!" he groaned, burying his face in his hands. He had no doubt at all as to the quality of the linen in Susan Walton's laundry bag.

Meanwhile Prim was standing on the platform of the vestibule train tying his cravat. He had not taken the trouble to buy a ticket. He had actually swung on board the train as it moved slowly out of the depot along the track which ran directly behind the National Bank Building.















The Fourth of July fell on Saturday, the day wisely chosen by the Women's Leagues for their mass meeting. Bills were posted advertising this "his-

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torical event" far and wide in every post office, and

country store, in mills, gin houses, and at every

crossroad in the county.

Co-Citizens Mass Meeting Great Historical Eventl
At Jordcmlotm Hall. July iA, 3&0 p. m.
Speeches by Prominent Leader* of the Movement!
Announcement of Election Plant! Everybody incitedI

If anything could have added to the crowds which gathered in Jordantown every year on this day, these impudent circulars were calculated to do it.
"Election plans! by gad!" exclaimed Squire Deal when he found one of the obnoxious bills posted on the doorofthelittiecourtroominPossumTrot. "Whosaid there was going to be an election, I'd like to know. Darndest piece of impudence I ever saw in my life!"
"Maybe they'll tell us what their rickrack polit ical platform is, too!" said another farmer.

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Nevertheless, they all went to Jordantown on the

appointed day. It was their custom to go, and they

were determined that this woman foolishness should

not interfere with their long-established habit of

celebrating the Fourth.

The sun rose blistering hot. Clouds of dust rolled

above every highway to the town, and out of it moved

a long procession of vehicles, buggies, wagons, even ox

carts, all filled with men, women, and children.

Jordantown was doing its best to look glorious.

It had thrown off for a moment the lethargy of busi

ness depression. Flags waved, the Town Hall was

literally swathed in yellow bunting, with a great

white canvas stretched across the top of the doors,

upon which was printed in black letters a foot long:

Co-Citizens' Mass Meeting I s$o p. m.
Don't Miss lit
The square teamed with life and glory. Mules brayed, horses neighed, dogs yelped, man hailed his

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fellowman. Matrons in calico frocks and sunbon-

nets walked side by side with their daughters in

white muslin and pink sashes, with gala hats on

their young heads. The avenue was a sight and a

scandal. Strings ran across from house to house

high above the heads of the throng, upon which little

yellow flags with "Votes for Women" hung thick as

waving goldenrod upon October hills, alternating

with the red, white, and blue larkspur of the national

colours. The Women's CoSperative Store was a

seething beehive of activity. There was a cake and

lemonade stand stretching across the entire front,

where, for the first time in the history of glorious

Fourths, you got your lemonade and gluttonous

wedges of cake free of charge. This may or may

not have accounted for the fact that, as the day ad

vanced, the avenue outdid the square in popularity.

The latter was barely able to hold its own by means of a very tall greased pole with a ten-dollar bill stick

ing on top of it, which was to be had by any boy

climbing the pole. The crowd yelled itself hoarse

as urchin after urchin slid back to defeat. Finally a little fellow, who had surreptitiously smeared the in

side of his breeches with pitch, reached the top and

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seized the prize. The crowd went wild, threw its hats high in the air over this performance, then, with the fickleness of its nature, it turned again toward the avenue and the free lemonade dis pensed by the fairest maidens in Jordantown. But before the stream could turn the corner, a longlegged black pig greased with the lard of its forbears was turned loose--to become the property of any man who could catch and hold him. A wild scram ble ensued. The pig darted this way and that, slipped nimbly through detaining hands, until, by much handling, his grease was rubbed off, and he was held, a squealing trophy, by a young farmer. One after another the attractions of the square failed, and the crowd surged into the avenue, where it was fed to repletion--all free of charge. The stomach of man is singularly elemental in its cravings, and not subject to political or any other influence which fails to meet this demand.
Long before three o'clock in the afternoon the Town Hall was filled and jammed to its doors with men and women. The farmers were in such high good humour that, laying all masculine prejudice aside, they were determined to witness the last fea-

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tore of the day's entertainment, or rather they would

indulge in the humour of gratifying their mascu

line prejudices at the mass meeting. They stamped

their feet, they hooted, they looked at the still empty

stage and demanded to know where were the leaders

of the "Crinoline Campaign." They whispered and

nudged each other and shouted ribald laughter.

At ten minutes to three o'clock a line of women

filed on the rostrum and took their chairs at the back

of it. They were the representatives of the Co-

Citizens' County Leagues. There were twenty-five

of them, and they ranged in age and dignity all the way from Granny White, who was seventy, to the

youngest bride from Apple Valley. Granny White

looked like a crooked letter of the female alphabet

in a peroda waist frock with a very full skirt, and

a black silk sunbonnet upon her old palsied head,

which wagged incessantly. The bride wore her

wedding dress, which was now a trifle too tight for

her. She looked like a pale young Madonna scarcely

able to bear the weighty honour which had been

thrust upon her. Some of the other women were

enormously fat, some were pathetically lean, but

they all faced the jeering crowd below with amazing

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assurance. They represented the harvest of all the virtues and sorrows and sacrifices of women for cen turies, and all unconsciously they showed it with a

calm accusing majesty.

The audience, which was largely composed of men,

stared at them and grew suddenly silent. They recognized their wives and mothers in those serene

faces, and manhood forbids that you should hoot

at your own blood-and-bone kin womenfolk. So they changed the subject. They began to talk, a

perfect hurricane of inconsequential comments on

every imaginable subject except the subject of wo

men and their rights.

Promptly at three o'clock Judge Regis came

through a side door upon the rostrum, accompanied by Susan Walton and Selah Adams. The women

took their places in two empty chairs among those

at the back; the Judge approached the table in the

middle of the rostrum, stood for a moment, a tall and elegant figure, looking out over the sea of faces below

him. Then, lifting the gavel, he rapped for order.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began in slow, dis

tinct tones," I have the honour and privilege of open

ing the most remarkable meeting ever held in this

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county or state. We are about to make history, which is becoming to this memorial day of American Independence. I shall not address you upon the

momentous issue at hand. Others far more capable will speak to you presently on that. I shall only state the purpose of the meeting.
"We are assembled here to learn for the first time how the brave women who have done such valiant work for the cause of suffrage in this county have succeeded in their efforts beyond their most sanguine * hopes----"

"Hear! Hear! Ha! ha! Oh, haw-haw, haw!" The wall shook with the cannonade of masculine

mirth. The Judge waited patiently. Then he rapped
loudly for order, and in the lull he went on, not hur

rying: "--and to reveal to you the plans by which this
county will have the great distinction of being the first one in this or any other Southern state to give the ballot to our women, who have proved by nearly three hundred years of devotion and virtue and sacri fice for us and our children their worthiness for this trust.

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"The speakers of the afternoon are Miss Selah

Adams and Mrs. Susan Walton. I have the honour to introduce Miss Adams, who will address you upon

some general aspects of the question under discus sion."
"Adams! Adams! Adams!" yelled the audi ence.

But before the Judge could retire or Selah could rise from her chair, one of those incidents occurred which sometimes inform a public occasion with humour and pathos. At this moment Colonel Marshall Adams entered the hall. He had not heard Judge Regis's "opening remarks," but he had spent an unusually glorious Fourth. He was magnificently

befuddled, and for the first time in three months he was the regnant intoxicated ideal of what a gen

tleman and a soldier should be. He was a man among men, equal to any emergency, capable of leading a forlorn hope, or entering the lists for a lady's hand. He had forgotten, if he had ever known, the object of this meeting; but when he heard his

name loudly called, he understood at once; he re

called the fact that he had something eloquent and momentous to say.

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He squared his shoulders, lifted his old standard-

bearing presence, and made for the rostrum. Before

any one could stop him--if any one in the roaring

throng would have done so--he stood beside the

table, one hand resting heavily upon it, the other

thrust into the tightly buttoned breast of his yellow

seersucker coat.

He was received with deafening applause. He

waited, as he must have waited long ago at the charge

of his regiment when it climbed the breastworks of

the enemy in the roar of a thousand guns, his head

erect, his nostrils dilated, his eyes glistening--only

slightly wavering upon his Fourth of July legs.

"Ladies and gentlemen: It was with surprise

not unmixed with pardonable pride that I heard you

calling my name upon this momentous occasion.

But never has Marshall Adams failed to listen to the

call of his country in dishtresh!" he cried, making a

determined effort to control his inebriated aitches

and waving his sword arm defiantly.

"And we are in^ dire distress, my countrymen!

Never since the bloodstained days of eighteen shixty-

five have we been in such need of courage. We face

a terrible situation. I addresh you in behalf of

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these fair woman whom we shee before us, and who

are about to suffer the irreparable loss of their sphere.

No greater calamity could befall this great nation.

For four long years, through the snows of winter and

the heat of summer, we fought for them, my country

men, to preserve their homes, their traditions, their

honour and pride as the fairest flowers in this fair

land!" Deafening applause, during which the

Colonel waited, sanctified by his emotions; then

waving his hand for silence, he went on:

"And we did preserve them! The Yankees re

lieved us of the burden of a few unprofitable slaves.

They slew the best and the bravest of our men. They

took our wealth and reduced us to unimaginable

poverty and hardship. But, thank God, we saved

our women! We returned to them ragged, wounded,

footsore, and despairing, and we found them faithful

as the stars in their courses. More inspiring than

'pillows' of fire by night and of cloud by day, they

led us back to hope and love and prosperity. They

were the trophies of the brave which no enemy could

wrest from us----"

"Oh Lord! listen to him! That thar's a man

talkin' up thar!" shouted an old veteran.

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"--and we went on shaving 'em, gentlemen! There has never been another country in the world reduced

to ashes by war where the women were not forced

to work shoulder to shoulder with the men after

ward to reclaim her. But we treasured our women. We did the work, we kept them comely and fine.

We educated them when we could not educate our

selves. We poured our wealth at their feet--and

that's why they have the smallest feet in America,

gentlemen, the fairest skin, the softest palms." There was a slight spiffing to be heard here among

the farmers' wives, but he went on to his conclusion: "And now, my comrades, we must save them

again; they are about to be dragged from the shanct-

ity of the home, from the altar of the fireside, into

the grime and dirt of publicity. There is a movement

on foot to thrust the ballot, gentlemen, into their un steady hands! My God! My God! where is your

gallantry and courage? Where is your manhood that

you think of giving these gentle creatures your work

to do, and lose what a hundred to one Yankees could

not take from you?"

He looked about him with terrific scorn.

"I did not think that I should ever again appear

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in their dear defence. I'm an old man, my glory

has departed. You shee before you--you shee--be fore--you----"

He lifted his hand to his forehead as if suddenly

he was dazed, sunken into the dream of years. His knees bent, he would have fallen. Selah sprang

swiftly forward, placed his arm over her shoulder,

and supported him. He sank slowly into the chair

she had just vacated. She made sure swiftly from

long experience that he had only reached the coma of a familiar state. Then she went back to the

front of the stage and began to speak.

The Colonel looked up vaguely, saw her standing

there as one remembers a vision in a dream.

"That's it, Selah, my love! Give 'em 'Curfew

Shall Not Ring To-night," he murmured, as his head

sank upon his breast.

"You have listened to the brave speech of a brave

gentleman, my friends," she began, "and I would not

if I could subtract one lovely word from that lovely

tribute to the men and women and order to which he

belongs. What he has said is the truth, raised to

the eloquence of a martial soul. Until the present

time we women, as he told you, have figured chiefly

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in religion, poetry, and romance. We have been that part of the imaginations of men which creates creeds, poetry, windmills, and fiction. We have no reputation for any other form of existence. We have been purely imaginary beings living in physical bodies for just men. Our character is a legend in vented by men; it could never fit a real human be ing. Yet we have accepted it, and tried to believe in it. You have indeed kept us, but we have not lived at all except for you. We are not the authors of a single standard governing our lives. Do you under stand what that means, you men who live only ac cording to your own will and purpose?"
They listened to her in silence. They studied her in amazement. But we do not applaud an accusing angel, and they did not applaud Selah, who stood so elegantly fair and tall, a slim figure with earnest dark eyes bent in passionate appeal upon their faces.
"It was men," she went on, "who divided women into three great classes--virgins, wives, and prosti tutes, a purely physical classification. You com manded chastity. We have never had the right to choose it. Women have never been real parents. They are only the mothers of the children of men.

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The small, almost negligible influence they have over their sons proves that. After the years of childhood are passed sons sustain only a sentimental relation

to their mothers. They are inspired by them merely as religion or poetry inspires. Your institutions,

social, moral, economic, and political, do not repre sent us nor our needs. But they represent you men.
"Every civilization is a bachelor civilization,

with good or bad provision in it for the protection of women. But we do live, and like other sentient

beings we desire to express ourselves in life, not merely in poetry. Listen, men," she said, bending sweetly forward like a lily in the golden gloom.

"After they had knowledge, the first pair, man and woman, went out of the garden together 1 But you, with your beautiful but mistaken chivalry, have gone out and left us in the garden, the helpless, kept women of your love and desires. We wish to come

out, to be with you. We must come! Once we have tasted knowledge, once we know what better things we are for, we must follow you to the ends of the earth. This everlasting garden where you keep us is no place for a thoughtful person. It is too lim

ited by innocence and idleness. We are no longer

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innocent, we know the same things you know; we have the same education, the same thoughts, the same aspirations. Disobedience is not always a sin. When the first man and woman tasted of the fruit of knowledge, they simply assumed a terrific respon sibility. But they assumed it together! You are withholding from us this right to live by your side. We are doing too much, or nothing at all. And you are not sharing justly with us. We are losing our old places in your hearts. After all, this is not the golden age of poetry and knights. The very pedes tal upon which we once stood in your regard has been overturned by realities. We have ceased to be your ideals dearly cherished. It is not our fault nor yours. No one is to blame. This movement of women is as natural as any other growth. We are migrating out of the legendary into the real; we are passing from sentiment and romance into his tory. And we have arrived! Nothing can stop us. You only shame yourselves, your manhood, and your honour if you oppose us. We must succeed because we are right!"
She turned suddenly, and went back into the wings.

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" What'd she say? " asked a man in a hoarse whis
per. "Gol dern if I know! Foreign language to me!"

"The volypuke of the Woman's Movement! Didn't understand one word she said!"
" Well, you'll understand what's coming now or I'll eat my boots!" the other whispered.
lie nodded toward the stage, where Susan Walton stood, flat-footed, fat, belligerent, her mouth primped, holding her head very much as if she wore horns instead of the black bonnet tied under her chin. And she was looking over the top of her spectacles at every man, seemingly straight in the eye.
"Don't look at us that way, Susan! Makes us feel like we'd been in washing without your permis sion!" called some one, imitating a little boy's whine. There was a gale of good-natured laughter.
"Men and women," she began in her high virago voice, "we have listened to two very fine speeches this afternoon, one upholding the sentimentality of the past, the other mystically prophesying the sentimentality of the future. I'm an apostate from the past, and a disciple of the future. I've got one foot in the grave and the other foot on the ballot for

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women. I shall not deal in sentiment or prophecies, but in cold facts!"

"Told you we'd understand her, boys!" shouted

a voice.

"Go it, Susan! we all know you, and we don't have to give you no quarter!" yelled a bearded farmer standing in the back of the hall.

"Yes," screamed the old lady, shaking her fist at

him, "and I know you, Tim Gates. You've been living on your wife's land ever since you married her. And you've made her mortgage it to pay your debts!"
"Git a chip somebody and take po' Tim out on it. She's done ruin't him!"

"Come ag'in, Susan! you drawed blood that time!" shouted the voice.

"I'm coming, and I've got the facts with me!" she

cried, flirting her head in the direction from which the voice came. "I know every man in this hall: how he lives, how he votes, what he owes, what he can't or don't pay. I know how hard you farmers work your wives, harder than you do your beasts, in spite of all that fine talk we listened to from Marshall Adams, and I know how little you give

them, how little they are allowed to spend. There's

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one of you standing in plain sight of me right now

who took the fancy bedquilts your wife and daugh

ters pieced last winter and sold them to get money

to pay his taxes, though he is worth five thousand

dollars! You needn't dodge!" she laughed shrilly.

"Ill not call your name if you keep quiet and be

have. But if you men don't stop your fuss and

listen to what I have to say, I'll tell everything I

know about you."

The titters of the women became distinctly

audible for the first time in the indignant silence

which followed this threat, for they knew that she

was as good and could be even worse than her

word.

"Three months ago Sarah Mosely died and willed

all of her property to the Co-Citizens' Foundation,

Fund, with the distinct command that the interest

on this fund shall be spent to get suffrage for women

in Jordan County," she began again. "The prop

erty of this Fund consists in mortgages on nineteen

thousand acres of land in this county, in the owner

ship of most of the business houses around the square

in Jordantown, in various loans, in 60 per cent, of

the stock of the National Bank, and in other proper-

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ties, including the Signal. That is to say, gentle men, if we do not own this county, we control enough of the property in it to have a right to say how it

shall be taxed and governed. And while there is a law against bribing voters or intimidating voters, there is no law against foreclosing these loans and mortgages, nearly all of which are overdue. And I give you my word as one of the trustees of this Fund, that every one of them shall be foreclosed as fast as we can do it if our rights as citizens are not ac knowledged with all the privileges that go with citi

zenship! "And that is not all! Day before yesterday we
purchased from Mr. Mike Prim the written records of the political workings of the Democratic party in this county during the past three years--all the letters written by you men who control the county districts with the money you received or were to receive for your services, and other letters even more interesting--but not a single statement of what you actually did with these contributions. I have not had time to go over Mr. Prim's memoirs carefully, but as near as I can make out it has been a blood sucking business. Some of you have paid as high

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as three hundred dollars a year to the campaign

fund, and some of you have received as much as a

thousand dollars for delivering this town, say, in

an election, while your wives pinched and scraped

to pay the preachers and support missions in foreign

fields! The appropriations for county schools have

been bitten into with outrageous expense accounts

which took thousands of dollars from the already

meagre appropriations.

"I say these papers and letters are now the prop

erty of the Co-Citizens' Foundation; and if neces

sary we shall use them, spend your reputations as

ruthlessly and extravagantly for our ends as you

have spent the taxes of this county for your political

purposes.

"The time has passed, men, when we are to be de

ceived by that foolish fallacy by which you have so

long even deceived yourselves: that women win by

their gentle influence over you. They don't I If they

influence you at all it is for your good, not theirs.

We are in the position to use the same lever that

yon have always had--power--and we shall use it.

If you defeat us, you must destroy yourselves, your

credit, and your reputation.

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1M

"You have been boasting at the impossibility

of our even getting this issue as far as the polk.

You have been challenging us to tell you how that

can be done. That's what we are here for this

afternoon: to tell you, and to leave you perfectly free

to act as your judgment directs."

The audience moved, drew its breath, crossed and

uncrossed its knees, spat its tobacco quids upon the

floor, and craned its neck to see her better, to hear

more distinctly what she had to say. Every man in

Jordan County had been waiting for this news for

three months.

"How did you get stock low in this county fifteen

years ago?" she asked, and waited.

"Please, Mann, we voted on it!" whimpered the

same waggish voice.

"But before you voted, you got up a petition

signed by three fourths of the voting register of

the county, didn't you? And then you submitted

the petition to the Ordinary of the county, who by

the laws of this state advertised the election to be

held not sooner than thirty days. And you got

prohibition the same way! Twenty, fifteen years

ago this was the only way to close saloons and

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grogshops that were open at every crossroad and

on the streets of every town and village. We

have a state-wide temperance law now as the result

of local option laws that were enforced first until pub

lic sentiment against liquor was sufficiently strong

to control state legislation."

She paused, opened one palm, and brought her other fist down upon it with a smack that could be

heard to the back of the hall, as she exclaimed:

' 'That, gentlemen, is the way we shall win suffrage

for women in this state. We shall get it first by local

option in this county! Other counties will follow

your illustrious example and get it the same way, until the boundaries of these counties shall touch, and

the experiment is no longer an experiment but an

assured success!"

The women cheered. They made as much noise as

they could, they waved their handkerchiefs, and

emitted h'ttle feminine chirrups. But the men sat silent, staring in amazement at the little fat old lady

who was smiling at them like a gratified mother.

"Now I have told you, and all you have to do at

present is to sign that petition," she went on very pleasantly. "We have already secured to-day and

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yesterday the names of many of the leading citizens

of Jordantown. And you will find just outside the

doors of this hall two gentlemen whom you all know

very well, Mr. Stark Coleman and Mr. Martin Acres.

Each of them has a copy of the petition to be signed,

and enough extra sheets of paper for every man here

to sign his name.

"Now," she concluded, "we will close this meeting

by singing the national hymn, not only because this

day commemorates the signing of the Declaration of

Independence, but because, for all years to come, we

shall look back upon this day as the one upon which the men of this county signed the petition which

calls for liberty, rights, and justice for women!"

The twenty-five women at the back of the stage

came forward and gathered about her.

"My Country 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty----"

they sang, their voices rising high and keen, un accompanied by a single bass note. The women in the audience joined in. Colonel Adams, who had slept peacefully since his own masterly effort to protect the ladies, started now, sat up, saw the

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ecstatic faces of these women, arose, stumbled off the stage. He was satisfied. The dear creatures were singing! Nothing more becoming to women than song! Meanwhile, the men filed out bustling, and whispering, with Acres and Coleman heading the petition. That put a different face on the situation. One was the president of the bank and the other was the leading merchant of the county. If they favoured the thing, far be it from the others to oppose it--at least not the petition.
"Signing this here thing ain't votin' for women. We don't have to go to the polls on election day!"
This whisper went the rounds as they stood in line, looking curious, grinning suspiciously at Coleman and Acres, who had in fact stationed themselves on either side of the door, at little writing stands upon which the petition lay spread, with an ever-increasing list of names beneath as one man after another "put his fist to it," chaffing one another with grievous comments as they did so. And most of them secretly determined that this was the last they would have to do with the iniquitous thing.
But they were sadly mistaken. Prom opposing suffrage, many of the leading men were now pushing

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the petition. Coleman, Acres, and Bob Sasnett toured the county in their automobiles to secure signatures. They literally took the movement out of the hands of the Co-Citizens in their efforts to hasten the election. There was a tremendous spreading of the news of events going forward in Jordan County. The press of the state published extracts from the Signal, with numerous comments, later with serious prophecies of the future effects of this experiment so gallantly undertaken by the men of Jordan County. Reporters were sent down for interviews, which they got from Coleman and Acres, who calmly assumed the glory and responsibility of bringing about the coming election. For the first time in their lives they figured in the headlines of city newspapers, with their pictures on the front page. Susan Walton laughed at their vanity till her fat stomach shook like jelly.
Bob Sasnett figured as the first candidate in Jordan County who would run for office on the crinoline ticket. " Mr. Sasnett is extremely optimistic. He feels sure that he will be elected by an overwhelming majority of the crinoline vote. He is a very handsome young man," was the comment beneath his picture in a great morning daily.

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The necessary number of signatures to the petition having been secured at last, the election was duly advertised for the 16th of September.
The women were hopeful, but they were by no

means sure of success. The Foundation did not hold mortgages on all the farms by any means, neither

were all the farmers implicated in the Prim papers. The large majority of them was still composed of free

men of blameless characters, and with reputations for stubbornness that were alarming. Still, public sentiment was undoubtedly overwhelming in favour of suffrage now, and the county women held fre

quent secret League meetings at which they dis

cussed plans, the great question being to get their husbands to the polls at all.









*





The 16th of September dawned upon Jordan County like an irritable old woman with a shawl over her shoulders and a broom in her hands. The sun rose clear, but there was a hint of frost in the air

and the east wind was blowing. Ironweeds and goldenrods upon the hills bent low before it. The

cotton fields looked dishevelled with white locks

flying. The cornstalks, stripped long since of fodder,

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stood with down-hanging ears like rows of soldiers at

attention with knapsacks upon their lean backs. It was as if, overnight, Nature had suddenly got in a hurry to shift her scenes and change the season.

Whether it was the brushing, brisk, windy charac

ter of the day, or the mood of the women owing to

other circumstances, no one will ever know, but it is

already a matter of history that upon this day every

woman belonging to the Women's Co-Citizens' Leaguehadafitofhousecleaning. They cooked break

fasts for their respective families in a frenzy, scold

ing shrilly. They boxed the ears of their little boys,

drove their little girls to the churning without mercy,

clattered the breakfast dishes furiously, and in va rious ways indicated to their lords and masters that

the day belonged to them, to them exclusively, and that no man could hope to remain in peace within

range of their mops and brooms till every vestige of

summer dust and dirt was removed, every feather

bed sunned till it swelled tick tight, every quilt aired,

every rug beaten, every floor scoured, and they

themselves relaxed, exhausted, purified, and satisfied

at the end of the day. I say only their Maker could have told what in-

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spired the women of Jordan County to undertake

these arduous labours upon this particular day.

Women have instincts to which the east wind appeals

strongly. It excites their neuralgic energies. On

the other hand, it was a curious circumstance, dis

covered afterward by an exchange of confidence be

tween the desperate male victims, that this cleaning

rage was carried on almost exclusively by the mem

bers of the Women's Co-Citizens' League in each of

the voting districts of the county.

When a mere society woman desires for any reason

to avenge herself upon the man nearest to her In the

relations of life, or to bring him to terms, she may

engage in a discreet flirtation with some other man.

She knows how to exile him from his home with a

reception or a bridge party. But when a good faith

ful wife makes up her virtuous mind to humble her

man and declare her own supremacy, she pins an

ugly rag tight over her head to keep the dust out of

her hair, doubles her chin, draws her mouth into a

facial command, tucks up her skirts, moves the

furniture out of the living-room, dashes twelve gallons

of hot suds over the floor, leaps into it with an old

stiff broom, and begin* to sweep. At such a moment

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the most timid, man-fearing woman becomes august.

Her nature undergoes a swift change. She is no

longer herself, she belongs once more to the matri

archal age when she carried man like a sack on her

back and dumped him where she pleased, when she

pleased. The most tyrannical husband immediately

abrogates his authority when he sees the symptoms of

this frenzy developing in her. He takes to his heels

and remains away until she puts things in order and

returns to her senses. This is the proof of a queer

ineradicable cowardice in every man, that the

bravest and hardiest of them who does not shrink

from marching barefooted through winter snows to

meet the enemy in overwhelming numbers will fly

before the face of one woman who has made up her

mind to wet his feet with scouring water if he does

not get out of the way.

Before nine o'clock in the morning the domestic

entrails of Jordan County were out of doors, piled

in the sun, hanging upon the clotheslines, flapping in

the wind. The swish of wet brooms could be heard

in every house, mingled with the sharp voices of

scolding women. The air was filled with clouds of

dust, the sound of sticks in muffled strokes upon nigs

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and carpets like the drums of an Invading army.

These were answered by the strumming of other

sticks similarly employed in other farmyards.

It was a fact, five hundred men had been rendered

homeless for that day at least. Nevertheless, they

were holding out. An hour later only one ballot had

been cast at the polls in Possum Trot. The crowd

thickened outside the courthouse door. Men eyed

each other quizzically, morosely, some even avoided

each other's questioning glances.

" Where's Jake Terry?" some one asked helplessly.

"Who, Terry?" answered Bill Long. "He was

the first man here after the polls opened. Said if it

was the last ballot he'd ever cast he'd vote against

woman suffrage, went and put it in first for an example to the rest of us!"

"Susan Walton ain't got a mortgage on his saw

mill, or he wouldn't be so gol dern frisky about votin*

ag'in her!" growled Deal.

"What we going to do about this business, any

how?" demanded one nervously.

"Wecouldgetdrunk,"suggestedanother. "There's

nothing that takes the starch out of women and shows

'em their place quicker than that."

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"But we can't stay drunk. We got to go home

some time or other and have it out with 'em after we

are sober and penitent," put in still another victim

philosophically.

At this moment Tim Gates rode into the edge of

the crowd, his mouth stretched in a broad grin, and

his goatee working like a white peg in his chin.

"Boys," he shouted, rolling out of his saddle,

"you'd as well give it up and take your medicine.

I met a man coming from the Sugar Valley just now,

and he 'lowed that out of a hundred and fifty votes

down there this morning there wan't but three cast

ag'in suffrage for women, and one of them was

challenged. Susan Walton's got a man stationed at

every precinct, with a list of the names of the men in

that district that ain't registered nor paid their poll

tax, ready to drop 'em if they try to vote!"

"Tim, step up to the store and telephone to Dry

Pond and Calico Valley and see how the election is

going."

Cates stepped briskly. He was one of these

meddlesome persons who would sell his birthright to

gratify his curiosity. Presently he returned, cupped

his hands over his mouth, and trumpeted the news.

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"Dry Pond, forty-two ballots cast, forty-two for

suffrage, nary one and!" This joke was greeted

with a groan. "Calico Valley, seventy-four ballots cast, sixty-
eight for suffrage, six anti-suffrage! Fellow at Dry Pond says the women are beating their feather beds

for miles around, and the men air scared to death. He says----"

A tall, well-dressed man, past fifty years of age, joined the group. This was John Fairfield, the only gentleman fanner in the community, and one of the

few men whose wife was not implicated in the

Woman's Movement. She was an invalid, nearly

blind. Fairfield had been the understudy of Prim in controlling the political affairs of the community. He was very popular.

"Mr. Fairfield, how are you going to vote?" some one yelled.

" Yes, tell us what you're going to do!"

" A speech. Give us a speech!" came from a dozen husky throats.

"' We air po* wanderin' sheep to-day, away on the

mountains wild and bar'!' Put yo'crook around our

necks, John, an' lead us home with our tails behind us,

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so as our Bo Peeps'11 know us when we come an' gladden us with their soft black eyes! Ain't that the

way the poetry runs?" snickered a drunken wag,

dropping on the post-office steps and gazing up with a

befuddled air at Fairfield, who had removed his hat

and ascended the steps.

"Gentlemen," he began, "you know me." "Yes," sobbed the wag, "we know you and we

know ourselves, unfortunate creatures that we air-- an* we thought we knowed the women in this county. We've dandled some of 'em on our knees. We've drawed 'em in times past to our unworthy bosoms--but now all is changed. We've lost 'em!

Where, oh, where----"

"Shet up, you darn fool! and let us hear what he

has to say." The " darn fool" laid his head in the dust, and gave

himself up wholly to his grief.

"I was about to say," Fairfield began again, "that
you know me----" "Yes!"

"Shet up!" "--and you know I have always stood for what was right among you----"

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"Always! Give me five dollars for my rote last 'lection, ginerous man!"
Fair-field lifted his voice and hastened to drown these revelations of his generosity.
" I believe in woman! She has been the 'pillow1 of cloud by day and fire by night----"
"Candle in the window, John, don't forget that!" "--that guides us through the wilderness of the world, and now she has become the bright new star of our better destinies! We must follow her----" "Dangerous to monkey with female stars!" "--No man ever loses his way who trusts such women as we have among us." "Sampson, oh, Sampson, listen to that!" cried the voice at his feet. "For thirty years I have served one woman faith fully. I owe everything I am and everything I have to this service." Every man present had a vision of the little, frail, white-haired woman who lay in his house helpless and blind. Never before had he referred to her, but they knew his devotion. He lifted himgpJf in their regard by this one sentence. There are momenta when even the demagogue may show the halo of a

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saint. Faiifield, henchman of Prim, never suspected it, but this was the crowning hour of his life, the one moment when he stood without fear and without reproach like a true knight.
" My advice to every citizen present is that he vote this day for the women who have cast so many ballots for us in their prayers!" he concluded, bowing to their cheers.
Immediately after there was a rush for the polls. In Jordantown the day passed quietly. The women were in strict seclusion. All the "prominent

citizens" were working earnestly at the polls for the cause of suffrage. At last the hour arrived for count ing the ballots. The town had gone overwhelmingly for suffrage for women, but the returns were slow in coming from the country precincts, and great anx

iety was felt about the issues there. The rumour was current that the farmers were determined not to vote at all.
About seven o'clock some one came swiftly down the courthouse steps, and rushed across to the National Bank Building. In five minutes the square was in an uproar. Men shouted to men: "We've put 'em in! We've put the women in!"

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Stark Coleman snatched up the 'phone on his

desk. "Agatha, my dear, it's glorious news! Thank

God, we've won by a majority of 633! You are now

a voter in Jordan County!"

He hung up the receiver and ran out to Acres's

store. At the same moment Sam Briggs, who was

now a diligent clerk in Judge Regis's outer office, thrust the door open and shouted:

"They're in, Judge, by a good 633 majority!"

"All right, Briggs! finish that list of election ex

penses. We want to publish it in the Signal to

morrow!" he said quietly, as he arose and put on his hat. "Ill go over and tell Mrs. Walton. Think I've

earned that privilege, anyhow!" he added, smiling.

"You did it!" exclaimed Briggs, "you worked the

whole thing and put it across!"

"No, that speech she made in July did it," he said.

"It was a jo-darter all right, that speech!"

laughed Briggs to himself as he went back to his desk.

On his way to Mrs. Walton's residence, the Judge

passed two men. "Bill," one of them was saying to the other, "we

can't never get rid of our wives any more, nowhere,

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not even when we attend a political convention. Apt as not my wife will be my alternate!"
"Apt as not, you'll be hers, you damn fool!" he

retorted. As the Judge came up on the steps Mrs. WaHon
appeared in the door. At the sight of him there she threw up her hands and cried:
"Don't tell me we are defeated, John Begis, I can't bear it!"
"Susan, you may now run for sheriff of this county, there are enough more women than men in it to elect you. And you've got 'em in your pocket!"

he concluded, laughing as he seized her hands. " Oh!" she sobbed, sinking down into a chair. " I
thought this day would never end. Such suspense!" "Showed the white feather, too, didn't yon? I
called at your office early in the afternoon and you were not there," he teased.
"I couldn't stand it. I felt that if we should be defeated, I must hear the news in my own house--in reach of my bed!" she sobbed, half laughing.
" If I was twenty years younger, Susan, I'd ask you to marry me this night by way of celebrating our victory," he said, looking down at her.

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"If I was twenty years younger there'd be no such

victory to celebrate, John," she replied, "so you

wouldn't have asked me!"

"You should see Coleman and Acres. They are

taking all the credit of the election, strutting like

fighting cocks on the square!"

"Let them have it. I'd rather the world should

think the men gave us the ballot willingly, and that it

should never be known that we beat them out of it,"

she said, heaving a sigh of relief.

A young man and a young woman were seated behind the vine on the veranda three doors down the avenue. His arm was about her waist, her head upon his shoulder. The moon was doing what she could to cover them with the mottled shadows of leaves.
"Could you manage it in two weeks, dear? I want you for my wife before I begin my own cam paign! We'd make a honeymoon of it then, can vassing it together!" he pleaded softly.
"I'll marry you, Bob, but not for such a honey moon as that! Oh, I'm sick and tired of politics. I never want to hear the word again. I'll just barely vote for you, that's all!" she sighed.

"' Bob! ril make a confession to you. It's been horrid, from first to last.' When ire are married I irant to sit at home and darn your socks--yon do irear holes in them, don't you?' "

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"Upon my word," he laughed, drawing her closer

and kissing her. "I thought you'd be keen for the

canvass."

"Bob!" she said, sitting up and looking at him

solemnly, "I'll make a confession to you, now it's

over and we have won; it's been horrid, from first to

last. When we are married I want to sit at home and

darn your socks--you do wear holes in them, don't

you?" She laughed hysterically. "I believe it

would relieve some outraged instinct in me if I could

iron your shirts! Isn't it awful! Icrocetodojustthe

woman things--to serve you and father. I feel as if

nothingelsewill evernaturalize meagainasawoman!"

After an ineffable pause, during which her lover

had laid a laughing tribute upon her lips and brow,

she added:

"Poor father, I wonder where he is?"

"Saw him going down the avenue as I came up,

with an enormous bunch of Sowers in his hand," Bob

told her.

"Poor father" was, in fact, approaching Mrs.

Sasnett at that moment, who was seated in mourn

ful but resplendent grandeur upon a rustic bench

beneath the trees in her yard.

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She was indignant at the day's doings. She had

been indignant for months, but she thanked God

that she was still a lady, and she was determined to

remain one, to which end she had contributed that

day enough to make up for the deficit in the women's

missionary collections of her church. And she had

dressed herself in purple and fine linen by way of making out that she was a lady and nothing but a

lady.

"Colonel Adams!" she exclaimed softly, as the

Colonel approached.

"Madam, the sight of you is grateful after what

I've been through this day!" he said, kissing her

hand, and depositing the flowers upon the ground at

her feet.

"Oh! Colonel, no one can have had more sympathy

with yon than I have feltduring these trying months,"

she sighed.

"I have felt it," he returned, parting his coat tails

and seating himself beside her.

"No one could have sympathized with you so keenly in your sorrow," she murmured.
" I divined as much. I have suffered!" "I know!" she breathed.

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"My one pleasure has been the offering I have

placed upon your doorstep each evening," he sighed.

"So the flowers were from you, then?" she said, gazing at the bouquet so significantly laid now at her

feet. "I trusted your woman's intuition to know that,"

he answered, with a shade of offended dignity. "I suspected, of course, but how could I know?

You never confessed." " Who else in this shameless town would have the
sense, the feeling, to approach a lady with flowers--

they give 'em the ballot instead!"

" Don't speak of it!" she implored, lifting her hand

tragically as if to ward off a blow. "But I must speak of it, Lula," he exclaimed,

seizing the despairing hand. "As much as I hate to mention a matter so indelicate, I must, because it concerns us." They looked at each other like two

old doves. " How should it matter to us? " she asked sadly.

"Because if we do not unite against this awful

situation, we--well, we are lost!"

She sighed, as if she saw no hope anywhere in the

moonlight.

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"Will you many me, Lula?"

" Oh! Colonel Adams----"

"Under ordinary circumstances I'd never dare

hope for such a boon. I'm unworthy of you. No

man can be--but consider what will happen if you

refuse?"

"What will happen?" she exclaimed.

"You must pass the remainder of your days, the

sweetest, most beautiful years of a woman's life, in

intimate daily contact with a suffragist, with a

young woman who votes like a man!"

"God help me! What do you mean?" she cried

in genuine alarm.

"Bob's going to marry Selah! that's what I mean.

You'll have to live with them. And if you don't

marry me, I'll have to live with them!"

THE END