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diff --git a/30891.txt b/30891.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e7306dc --- /dev/null +++ b/30891.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5459 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Co-Citizens, by Corra Harris + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Co-Citizens + +Author: Corra Harris + +Illustrator: Hanson Booth + +Release Date: January 8, 2010 [EBook #30891] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CO-CITIZENS *** + + + + +Produced by Annie McGuire + + + + + + + + +THE CO-CITIZENS + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + _A Circuit Rider's Wife_ + _Eve's Second Husband_ + _The Recording Angel_ + _In Search of a Husband_ + + + + +[Illustration: "'_Do you know what he means, Selah, sending for the +oldest and fairest woman in Jordantown to meet him at this outrageous +hour of the afternoon?_'"] + + + + +THE + +CO-CITIZENS + + +BY +CORRA HARRIS + + +_Illustrated +By Hanson Booth_ + + +GARDEN CITY +NEW YORK +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY +1915 + + +_Copyright, 1915, by_ +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + "Do you know what he means, Selah, sending for the + oldest and ugliest, and the youngest and fairest woman in + Jordantown to meet him at this outrageous hour of the + afternoon?'" _Frontispiece_ + + "'I want to ask you a delicate question: where ish the + ladies? I haven't sheen a woman in four hours!'" 42 + + "'You may be mayor of this town before you are thirty. + A fat mayoress would never do'" 84 + + "'Bob! I'll make a confession to you. 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?'" 216 + + + + +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 recurrent 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 +time of his death was the richest man in Jordantown. And by the same +token, after his death, Sarah became the richest woman. She had no +children, 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 wearing 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 +dollars 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. Somebody once said: +"Old Sarah's making her canary 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. + +"Felt! If you'd looked, you'd have seen it was that green canary!" +persisted the man. + +This was the beginning of a great whispering uproar 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. Sparrows 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 might +have said this procession was a moving dictograph of Sarah Mosely, 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 thinking of his own future, not +this insignificant woman's 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 kind 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?" + +"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 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 blooming 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 appointed to draw up resolutions +covering that," answered Mrs. Sasnett, who was also a firm woman. + +"I hope Sarah Mosely has left something to the Civic League and Cemetery +Association," said another 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 and doing things. I +called on her myself when we were putting out plants along the railroad +embankment beside the station and asked her for a contribution, even if +it was only a few dozen nasturtiums. But she said she wasn't +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 sexton's 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 reverence. +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 indifference, +irritation to the general situation. All the sparrows were back in the +dust of the street discussing 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 communities 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 Estate. +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. + +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 control 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 besides, more is the pity! +I never like to have a woman own stock in my bank," Stark Coleman +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 beneath 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 +sentimental public always adds to the clamour," Coleman concluded, +mopping his face. + +"Briggs collects rent from every store and business house around this +square," Acres went on. + +"And he told me he handles mortgages on nineteen thousand acres of land +in this county," laughed 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 are 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 provoking manner of a man who +has nothing to lose. + +"I couldn't do business with every loan and investment to be passed upon +by a board of directors reeking with preachers and eleemosynary +trustees. They are all damphules, with empty breeches pockets, and craws +filled with morbid scruples. How do I 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. + +"Carter is beside himself. Briggs holds a mortgage 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 suspend publication +if he can't raise the money," Sasnett put in. + +"At least he'll sell a few hundred copies extra Saturday 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." + +"Regis made himself rather conspicuous at the funeral to-day--wonder +why," remarked Coleman thoughtfully. + +"Whim. Old men like to show up on such occasions. They are next of kin +to funerals, feel their dust shaking 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 Building. He was one of those old men who somehow recall +a cavalry 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 Yorick'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 countenance +was one of those _de luxe_ histories of a gentleman 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 exceeding +honour of being a man as well. + +His long black coat-tails clung as close as a scabbard to his thin legs. +He wore a high silk hat and a white carnation in his buttonhole. He +looked neither to the right nor to the left. Apparently he 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 requires 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 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 except when he was +"not himself," but had been exalted 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, often 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 Regis 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 contempt 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 another body which was more nearly spherical and which +had apparently no legs at all, only two wide-toed "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, retrousse, still +impertinent. + +She stood regarding the Colonel with that contradictory 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 woman 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 +resented 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! Well, who 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, especially a young and +beautiful woman. She is an ineffable estate which all men buy with love +and hold with all the strength they have." + +"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 character 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 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 encyclopedia of past +records; and he usually withdrew from the race or was defeated. Few men +live who can face their former deeds in a political campaign. 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 summer. 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 concerning Child Labour; +and she did it in the high falsetto voice of a mother who calls her sons +out of a bait 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 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 veracity. 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 in 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 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 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 handkerchief and dabbing her face. + +"Come in, Susan, and take this chair by the window," 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, looking 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." + +"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." + +"Wrote all his speeches, kicked up all of his dust for him, didn't you?" + +"Not all, but I helped." + +"With your scrapbooks, for example?" + +"Yes," she admitted. + +"If you had been a man, Susan, you'd not have survived some of the +things you've said and done." + +"If I'd had the rights you men keep from us I'd never have done them!" +she retorted quickly. + +"I don't 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? I've 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 don't know. I'm glad I wasn't 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; "I've been busy. The law +is a legal profession, not an illegal one, like politics." + +They looked at each other and laughed, then the Judge added: + +"And it may be I was afraid of your famous scrapbooks!" + +"You were never afraid of anything," she returned. + +"Yes, I am. I'm afraid of something now," he answered, flipping 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." + +"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 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 had 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 messenger 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 enterprise! Last week they had a committee appointed 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 report 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 condemn the +arbor-vitae 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 Republican party----" + +"Listen to me, John Regis! Women are not parties. They are always +factions, little, little factions, 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 beholder 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 you know what he means, Selah, +sending for the oldest and ugliest and the youngest and fairest woman in +Jordantown to meet him in his office at this outrageous 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 staircase. 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 in its monstrous rotundity. He moved with astonishing +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 supposed himself or herself to be absolutely alone, we +should be astonished and often horrified at the unconscious 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-motioned 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 before +any other creature, however near, neither wife 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 consideration 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 services. He managed campaign +funds and manipulated 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 role 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 behind 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 belief. At first he showed only amusement, +as if presently 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 conflagration flaming against the door of the Judge's +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 receiver 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 myself." + +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 something 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 +parasols bobbing up and down like variegated mushrooms. 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 Association, 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 National Bank Building would or could have believed +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 unexpected 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 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 occasional 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 something. 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 +corner to corner expecting to find it, to see somewhere 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 corner 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 citizens 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 probated there to-day. Briggs +was right. There isn't any. He thinks the court will appoint him +administrator." + +"And he looks his thought," sneered Acres; "been strutting around all +the afternoon, swelled fit to burst." + +"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," exclaimed 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 National 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 innocent people of the town had not sufficient experience to +interpret. He never started forth without looking 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." + +"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 representative 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," muttered Acres, hurrying to +meet Carter, the editor of the _Signal_, only to see him vanish into the +drugstore. "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. + +"No, shur! 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!" + +[Illustration: "'_I want to ash you a delicate question--where ish the +ladies? I 'aven't sheen a woman in four hours_'"] + +"Mabel, me boy," whispered the old man, swaying 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 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. 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 before in this world--the rise of +egotism in the feminine 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 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 Fellows +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 Fellows 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. + +"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 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 ignorant 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 Adams sat upon the front +veranda, looking like the vestal 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 +library. 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 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 everybody? 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 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 I've got. Get out of here!" he roared at the two +servants who had entered from the kitchen. "Selah, where've you been?" + +"I'm up here, father. I didn't know it was so late. I'll 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-- I'm a wounded man! But I'm glad +you were at home. I've been nervous 'bout you all day; there's something +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 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, stillness, 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. + +Selah sighed and withdrew her hand. + +"If you do that, dear, I shall seize more!" 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 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 depose 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 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 forget 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_!" she objected, evading him. + +"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 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 isn't 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! I'd vote for you for coroner, Selah, for one kiss +to-night!" + +"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. + +"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 of a +comedy. Every man, 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 perfectly natural effects by providing emergencies which +call for action, and by keeping every man under the delusion that he +chooses his own role. + +The suspense concerning the disposition of the Mosely Estate was only +partially balanced by the 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. + +"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 dollars?" + +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. + +"Fifty dollars, Colonel!" exclaimed Acres. + +"I'm absolutely obliged to have it, Mabel." + +"Make it fifty cents and I'll be glad to accommodate you." + +"Very well, fifty cents then. Thank you, Mabel. 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 expensive 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 politics--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 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 kinds 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 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." + +"That's all you know about it. But _I_ 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 want 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 Jordantown, they could not have appeared more +dejected and, at the same time, alarmed. Conversation languished 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?" + +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 Jordantown _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 +his 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 arm's 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 committed a crime!" the Colonel +shouted to the gathering 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, struggling. "Did you hear him? +_Was_ a brave soldier. By Gad, what am I now? And this from a man who +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 Colonel. + +"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 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 neighbour. Each remained concealed behind the wide +enveloping sheets which literally tittered in their trembling hands. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Silence 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 supernatural. But there are +emergencies in life so dumbfounding and sinister in their aspect that +they bind the tongue and inform even the foolish with the momentary +wisdom of silence and prudence. + +Magnis Carter as editor of the _Signal_ was naturally 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 able +to fill the few inside columns of the _Signal_. The outside pages were +"patented," of course, and contained matter taken from other papers and +magazines. 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 +significant. Even the weekly local column was exceedingly reserved, as +if some prescience of the future had rendered every man and woman +cautious of performing 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 +enterprises. + +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._" + +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 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 possible + efforts shall be made to establish here a school of law for the + women of this state where they may receive 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 consist 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 in which they exercise these functions. + + If any member or members of the said board appointed in this will + shall refuse to serve, the remaining 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. + + In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this the + 3d day of April, 1914. + + [Seal] + SARAH HAYDEN MOSELY. + + 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. + + ENOS 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 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 unnatural 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 ineradicable 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 persistent. And it depends entirely upon the emergency +which will show the most courage. Place them side by side under the +same conditions to accomplish 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, being 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 +affections," said Acres, turning up the ends of his moustache with a +kind of bantam bravado. + +"If a woman has nothing but her affections it is 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 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 bonnet 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 reorganized 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 +immediate the business of getting suffrage is, and by offering +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 practical common sense," he answered. + +"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 +Women!' 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 suffrage," 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 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 helplessness, and that they would remain so, always +the prey of circumstances of the forces about them. And she wished to +change that." + +"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 instead 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 conclusion!" + +"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, 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 mortgages 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 +prefer 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. 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 up antagonism. We have one man +against us already 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 his office than to and from any +other office in this town. He is the power of darkness in this county to +be overcome 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 Susan 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 beginning to see light. +This thing really is possible. Now let us get down to business. I have +an appointment 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. + +Susan Walton, clad in only her essential underwear, 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. + +[Illustration: "'_You may be mayor of this town before you are thirty. A +fat mayoress would never do_'"] + +"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 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 forbade 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 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 advice, 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 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 +canvassing 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 breeding or a single attribute becoming to proper manhood. + +If, on the other hand, he should by some incantation 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 advanced 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 undergone 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 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 resigned 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. + +"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 Jordantown, and had a monopoly +on that trade. + +"I don't know how much money you have on deposit, 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 neighbour. + +"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'll 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 Coleman. + +"Come to the same thing if you didn't," replied Briggs. "Take it from +me, the trustees will withdraw the last dollar they have invested in +it. You couldn't pay. And then they'd declare you insolvent, 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, Coleman looked at Sasnett suspiciously. + +"Where do you stand in this damn business, anyhow, 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 candidacy 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 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 purpose a man can't afford to do." + +"And if they settle Mike, you'll run on the crinoline 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' Cooeperative 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 cooeperative 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 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 Cooeperative 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, bookkeepers, 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 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 "campaign 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 furnish 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 convinced 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 influence, it's power! We've 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. + +"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 Cooeperative 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. + +"They can't keep it up!" Acres predicted. "Just 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 explained. + +Fortunately, the two victims had absented themselves from this meeting. +But no argument or appeal 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, and he refused to tell what he knew. He merely +explained that he was preparing certain announcements for the _Signal_, +which would of course include an advertisement 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 between him and Susan +Walton. + +Three days before the formal opening of the Cooeperative Store, she +surprised him at his editorial desk. This was a deal table in a corner +of the printing 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 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. Besides, 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 _Signal_ 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--that laugh, an old woman's 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 a mortgage on the _Signal_, 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, doesn't 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 arrangements with you, if possible." + +Carter raised his hand, scratched his chin through 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 publication 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 Suffrage 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." + +"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 o'clock. 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 advanced toward the door. + +"In that case we shall take charge of the _Signal_ as soon as we can +foreclose the mortgage," she answered without looking back. + +"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 scratching 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 editorship +of the _Signal_, and submitted to the indignity 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 Cooeperative +Store. The quality of everything was the best. The prices quoted were +far below what they had ever been before in Jordantown. + +But that which paralyzed the whole male population in the square was +this announcement at the top of the editorial page: + + _Owned and Controlled_ + _By the Co-Citizens' Foundation._ + _Susan Walton,_ + _Managing Editor._ + _Magnis Carter,_ + _Assistant Editor._ + _Price $1.00 a year._ + _Advertising rates reduced one half to all women and + to friends 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 Co-Citizens' 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 +directly or indirectly with this movement. No matter containing adverse +criticism of suffrage for women 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 "taxation 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 citizenship. + +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 some time during the night. No one +knew when. Carter came and went through a side entrance formerly 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 in the seclusion of that place. And when Mike Prim called him over +the 'phone, after the first issue of the _Signal_ under 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 directly in vocative range of +Mike's rage. + +"Look here, Carter, what the ---- do you mean by selling the _Signal_ to +these blankety-blank-blank 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 this 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_! The people who own a paper always control its +policies." + +"And what's become of your political convictions, Magnis, with your +apron-string editorials?" the other sneered. + +"A really intelligent, progressive editor, Mike, moulds public opinion. +He don't get it from a village boss. I'm becoming intelligent. I'm +following 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 established party lines. + +The scene which Jordantown presented by the 1st of June is as difficult +to describe--the mere physical changes--as it is to interpret these +changes. The square was practically deserted; the Acres Mercantile +Company was not even able to hold its country trade. Every farmer made +straight for the Women's Cooeperative 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 gratified. They received more in +barter for their country 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 opportunity. 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 returning 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 workingmen 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 prosperity of the town. The most amazing information +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 movement. + +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 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 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 tempting 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!" + +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. + +"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 will 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. + +"And what about Thad Bailey and Baldwin and Saddler 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?" + +"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 dictating to men. What is reason?" +shouted the furious 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 attending 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 husbands with singular calm, very much as mothers cheerfully +witness the tantrums of their growing children. The fact that they went +out in the evenings was not remarkable. The women of Jordantown were +pious. They attended prayer meetings regularly: they made up the +congregation on Wednesday evenings. But now they neglected this service +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 large. 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-tock +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 another 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 settled all their differences in the +struggles of their first ardent loving years. Henceforth one commands +while the other obeys. Everything is finished between 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 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 +Cooeperative 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 enormous 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. Coleman, her eyes fixed upon a +large chromo of the Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus hanging upon the +opposite wall. + +Perspiration broke out in beads upon her husband's brow. He uncrossed +his legs and brought his foot 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 library, which were open. + +He rushed back, his hands clenched 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." + +"Then why do you make that infernal noise through your nose?" + +"I suppose it's because I am happy." She said that! + +"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 thousand 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 Cooeperative Store." + +"We? Are you in that thing, too?" + +"Nearly every woman here is, except Mrs. Sasnett, even the poorest. You +have no idea how interested 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." + +"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 situation. I knew you wouldn't listen +before," she went on kindly. + +"Very well, the first thing I want you to explain is what good you think +this damnation Foundation will accomplish by destroying the business +and credit of this town?" he said, drawing up a chair and seating +himself belligerently in front of her. + +"We shall induce you to favour the cause of suffrage----" + +"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 antagonism, 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 suppose you were in the habit of +lending it." + +"Of course, what do you think a bank is for?" + +"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, as 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 us 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 most of 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 him 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. +Coming right over," he explained. + +"Church business. I'll go up and see if the children are comfortable. +It's very warm," Agatha said innocently 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 expression. +His 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 confidence. + +"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 occurred. Really I could not have believed such a +thing could happen in a Christian community!" he groaned. + +"What did happen? Has that Walton woman garnisheed the missionary +collection?" asked Coleman impatiently. + +"Worse than that! I fear there will be no collection," 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 inference 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 president, 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 congregation 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 missionary 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 outrageous 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 sentence. + +"'Do you know what this means, women of Jordan 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 society and +in the industrial world. If your daughters marry 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 cannot 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 fund. Where does your money go? To found schools 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 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 +purpose. 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 Stewards 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 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 thinking 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, the state constitution is a perfect +protection; only males can vote. This is all a form of feminine +hysteria, 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 spending 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 Walton 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 beside her, scarcely allowing himself the relief of a sigh. + +Instantly Agatha's eyes flew open. She lay very 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 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 because 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 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 fraternities, 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 +complimented 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 drudgery, bake all the cakes, and get ready +generally for 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 confined, 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 anxious, 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. + +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 derived 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 suggestion that all the work of +committees in Jordantown 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 political 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 organizing 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 farmer'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 presence +very grateful to the eyes of the farmers' wives 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 itinerary. +She would meet the women of Possum Trot on such and such a day. She +would address the Co-Citizens' League of Sugar Valley on Tuesday +afternoon. 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 glowing accounts of the +progress of the suffrage sentiment 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 almost open books compared to the secrecy and mystery +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 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 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. + +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 accompanying 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 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 involuntarily 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 herself 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. 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 into a +ghastly grin. "I've heard of you," she went on. "You think you are going +to make the women live same as men. You can't do it. We ain't for +ourselves, we are jest made for them. I 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 was 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 undertones as women passed--all going +in the direction 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 followed 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!" + +"I don't know, things is gittin' mighty queer, especially 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 coolness. Fifty women +sat below her in creaking split-bottom 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 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 talkin' 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'r-meetin' 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!" exclaimed Deal, advancing to +the door. + +His long forked shadow fell across the silent figures in the audience as +he thrust his head in and 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 command. + +Selah paused, nodded to a young girl, and murmured, "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 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 County Leagues. She had worked indefatigably for +nearly three months, organizing, teaching, and inspiring 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 +refusing to cooeperate 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 excited, elated, hopeful, and at +the same time she was sad. She thought of her father, so bereaved by her +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 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 abominable 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. + +"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 was still 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 +daughter-in-law--that is to say, in total eclipse. Now, 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. + +"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 compliments 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 +whimsical audacity. + +"But what are you doing out here at this hour? It's almost tea time," +she exclaimed with well-simulated innocence. + +"Waiting for you," he replied, accusing her innocence with a stare so +bold that she blushed. + +"That was kind of you. Get in!" she said, thrusting the door of the car +open and making room for him on the seat. + +"It is not my idea to return to the er--goddess-ridden metropolis of +Jordantown as the obvious captive of Minerva," he replied, backing off. +"I ventured 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 important to tell you." + +"Are you sure it's important?" she asked waveringly. + +"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, surreptitiously 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, 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 +disagreeable, 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 reproach. + +"Isn't that important? Do you think the ballot 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 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 husbands add to +the interest Mabel Acres and Agatha Coleman have in the suffrage +question? Do you think poor Miss Mary Heath would refuse a proposal of +marriage, even if she controlled every man's vote in the town? Believe +me, those little adolescent 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 you 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 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 anthology 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 suppose you succeed. Suppose +you win everything and more than you are now contending for. Suppose at +forty you are nominated for Congress from this district, 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 success 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 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 before 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----" + +"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 +this 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 discouragement. She even changed +the subject. + +"When do you begin your campaign as candidate for representative?" she +asked as they entered the avenue. + +"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 legislature?" she insisted, +returning to that. + +"I'm not sure; I'm waiting to see what Prim's going 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. + +"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 +getting smeared with political slime. Sticks, too!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +One 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 bearing 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 his 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 hands purple beneath +the weight of his amorphously fat face, his little reptilian eyes +staring at the opposite 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 satisfactorily. In vain he advised +patience, and even more vainly he vowed he could and would stop the +women'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 than he hated the upstart women. He was +determined, 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 presided 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 command in it. Suppose Coleman should be coming up to inform +him of certain changes in the policy which would govern the +manifestations of the democratic principle? In short, suppose he was +about to be dismissed from his office? True, it was an office without a +name, but it had been a lucrative position. + +There was a knock upon the door. He flung himself 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 informally. + +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. + +"I came to see you on a matter of business, Mr. Prim," she said, coming +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 so 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 information?" 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, and you knew from the day Sarah Mosely's will 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 his 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 discussed our plans for winning equal +suffrage for women 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 keeping 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 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 +exclaimed, heaving his huge bulk from the chair and coming to his feet. + +"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 purchase 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 accomplishments?" 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 +interesting conversation going on, naturally she listened. What will you +take for these letters?" she demanded. + +"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 consequences, 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 minutes to ten o'clock when they finally closed the deal. + +"But I can't take a check," he objected suddenly. + +"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 standing reared back, feet wide +apart, hands in his pockets, 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?" + +"Dirty linen--wash day. Taking 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 situation down as we +expected you would." + +When there was no reply from Prim, who was 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 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 henpecked town is no place for +a _man_!" he sneered, banging the door. + +Coleman stood a moment stupefied. He heard Prim 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 "historical 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 Event!_ + _At Jordantown Hall, July 4th, 3:00 p. m._ + _Speeches by Prominent Leaders of the Movement!_ + _Announcement of Election Plans!_ + _Everybody invited!_ + +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 door of the little courtroom in Possum +Trot. "Who said 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 political platform is, too!" +said another farmer. + +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 business 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!_ + _3:00 p. m._ + _Don't Miss It!_ + +The square teamed with life and glory. Mules brayed, horses neighed, +dogs yelped, man hailed his fellowman. Matrons in calico frocks and +sunbonnets 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 Cooeperative 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 advanced, 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 sticking 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 inside of his +breeches with pitch, reached the top and 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 dispensed by the fairest maidens in Jordantown. But +before the stream could turn the corner, a long-legged 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 scramble 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 feature of the day's entertainment, or +rather they would indulge in the humour of gratifying their masculine +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 +assurance. They represented the harvest of all the virtues and sorrows +and sacrifices of women for centuries, 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 women 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, distinct tones, "I have the +honour and privilege of opening the most remarkable meeting ever held in +this 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 hurrying: + +"--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 sacrifice for us and our +children their worthiness for this trust. + +"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 discussion." + +"Adams! Adams! Adams!" yelled the audience. + +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 gentleman 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 recalled the fact that he had something eloquent +and momentous to say. + +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 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 countrymen, 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 relieved 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. + +"--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 afterward 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 ourselves. 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 sniffing 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 shanctity 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 unsteady 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 in their dear defence. +I'm an old man, my glory has departed. You shee before you--you +shee--before--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 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 invented by men; it could never fit a +real human being. 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 +understand what that means, you men who live only according 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 prostitutes, a purely physical +classification. You commanded 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. 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 represent +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_! 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 limited by innocence and idleness. We are +no longer 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 responsibility. 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 +pedestal 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 history. 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. + +"What'd she say?" asked a man in a hoarse whisper. "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. + +He 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 permission!" 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 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 Cates. 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 one of you standing in plain sight of me +right now who took the fancy bedquilts your wife and daughters 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. +"I'll not call your name if you keep quiet and behave. 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 property of this Fund consists in +mortgages on nineteen thousand acres of land in this county, in the +ownership 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 properties, including the _Signal_. That is +to say, gentlemen, 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 +acknowledged with all the privileges that go with citizenship! + +"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 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 property of the Co-Citizens' +Foundation; and if necessary 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 deceived 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! If they influence +you at all it is for your good, not theirs. We are in the position to +use the same lever that you have always had--power--and we shall use it. +If you defeat us, you must destroy yourselves, your credit, and your +reputation. + +"You have been boasting at the impossibility of our even getting this +issue as far as the polls. 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, Marm, 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 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 public 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 little 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 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, unaccompanied 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 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. From opposing suffrage, many of the +leading men were now pushing 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. + +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 frequent secret League meetings at which they discussed +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, 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 character 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' League had a fit of housecleaning. +They cooked breakfasts for their respective families in a frenzy, +scolding 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 various 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 inspired 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, discovered afterward by an exchange of confidence between +the desperate male victims, that this cleaning rage was carried on +almost exclusively by the members 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 faithful 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 begins to sweep. At such a moment +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 +matriarchal 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 rugs 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 sawmill, or he wouldn't be so +gol dern frisky about votin' ag'in her!" growled Deal. + +"What we going to do about this business, anyhow?" demanded one +nervously. + +"We could get drunk," suggested another. "There's nothing that takes the +starch out of women and shows 'em their place quicker than that." + +"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 Cates 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. + +"Dry Pond, forty-two ballots cast, forty-two for suffrage, nary one +anti!" 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 farmer 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, so as our Bo Peeps'll 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----" + +"Always! Give me five dollars for my vote last 'lection, ginerous man!" + +Fairfield lifted his voice and hastened to drown these revelations of +his generosity. + +"I believe in woman! She has been the 'pillow' 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 faithfully. 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 himself in their regard by +this one sentence. There are moments when even the demagogue may show +the halo of a saint. Fairfield, 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 counting +the ballots. The town had gone overwhelmingly for suffrage for women, +but the returns were slow in coming from the country precincts, and +great anxiety 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!" + +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 expenses. We want to +publish it in the _Signal_ to-morrow!" he said quietly, as he arose and +put on his hat. "I'll 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, 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. Walton 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 Regis, 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 you? 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. + +"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 campaign! We'd make a honeymoon of it then, canvassing it +together!" he pleaded softly. + +"I'll marry you, Bob, but not for such a honeymoon 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. + +"Upon my word," he laughed, drawing her closer and kissing her. "I +thought you'd be keen for the canvass." + +[Illustration: "'_Bob, I'll make a confession to you. 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?_'"] + +"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! I _crave_ to do just the woman things--to +serve you and father. I feel as if nothing else will ever naturalize me +again as a woman!" + +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 +flowers in his hand," Bob told her. + +"Poor father" was, in fact, approaching Mrs. Sasnett at that moment, who +was seated in mournful but resplendent grandeur upon a rustic bench +beneath the trees in her yard. + +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 you than I have +felt during 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. + +"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. + +"Will you marry 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 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Co-Citizens, by Corra Harris + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CO-CITIZENS *** + +***** This file should be named 30891.txt or 30891.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/8/9/30891/ + +Produced by Annie McGuire + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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