said she cholericly, "I was that sick of his stuttering and muttering,
an' holdin' his meetin's at Jimmeny's (we all know that that means
free drinks), an' after waitin' all my life fer it I'm not goin' to
cast the only vote that maybe I'll live to have, for a feller that
buys his votes with grog. There's precious little to choose between
them. They only want the glory of bein' in parliament for theirselves,
and for the time bein' have rose a flute about the country goin' to
the dogs and them bein' the people to save it; but once the election's
over that's all we'll hear of 'em, and though they'd lick our boots
now, they're so glad to know us, they'd forget all about us then. The
one who can blow the loudest will get in, and as it must be one it
might as well be this feller that can talk, an' could keep up his end
of the stick in parliament, as there's no doubt this talkin' an' blow
has become such a great trade one has to go to the wall without it."
"Well, I'm going for Walker too, because he's something to look at,"
said Carry.
"The women was goin' to put in _clean_ men an' do strokes," sneered
Uncle Jake, "an' it turns out they'd vote for the best-lookin'
man,--nice state of affairs that is."
"Ah! it's all very fine for a man to buck w'en a thing treads on his
own toes; it would be thought a terrible thing for a woman to vote for
a good-lookin' man an' pass over merit, but that's what's been done to
women all the time. The good-lookin' ones got all the honours, whether
they deserved 'em or not, and those complainin' agen this was jeered
at an' called 'Shrieking sisters,' but it's a different tune now."
"Uncle, _darling_, who are you going to vote for?" inquired Andrew.
"For Henderson, of course, an' I reckon all the women here with votes
ought, too."
"And why, pray?" asked grandma, her eyes flashing a challenge, while
her faithful guardswomen, Carry and Dawn, suspended work to see how
the argument ended.
"For the look of the thing to start with. It don't look well to see
the wimmen of the family goin' agen the men."
"No, it don't look like Nature as men make believe it ought to be, for
once to see a woman have a opinion of her own, and not the man just
telling that his opinion wuz hers too, without knowing anythink about
it, an' women having to hold their tongue for peace' sake because they
wasn't in a position to help theirselves. An' if it seems so dreadful
that way, you better come over to our side, as there's more of us than
you, an' majority ought to rule."
"What did you do at _your_ meeting last night, uncle?" inquired Dawn.
"Old Hollis is head of the committee, an' he says the first thing for
all the committee men to do was to see the women of the men goin' for
Henderson was the same way," he replied.
"Oh, an' so you thought you could come the Czar on us, did you? an'
the Government, accordin' to Hollis's make out, is a fool to give
women a vote; like in your case instead of giving me an' Carry a vote
each, it ought to have give you three."
"Oh, Mr Sorrel!" said I, "what a joke! Was he really so ignorant as
that; surely he was joking too?"
Uncle Jake had sufficient wit to take this opportunity of changing his
tactics.
"No," he said, "some people is terrible narrer; for my part I always
believe in wimmen holdin' their own opinion."
"So long as they didn't run contrary to yours," said grandma with a
sniff. "There's heaps more like you. Women can always think as much as
they like, an' they could get up on a platform an' talk till they
bust, as long as they didn't want the world to be made no better, an'
they wouldn't be thought unwomanly. It's soon as a woman wants any
practical good done that she is considered a unwomanly creature."
Uncle Jake was outdone and relapsed into silence.
"An' that's just what I would have expected of old Hollis," continued
grandma, who seemed to have a knowledge of people's doings rivalling
that necessary to an efficient police officer. "I'll tell you what he
is," and the old dame directed her remarks to me. "He is the old chap
Mrs Bray was sayin' ain't goin' to vote this time because the women
has got one and the monkeys will be havin' one next. Just what the
likes of him would say! He's a old crawler whose wife does all the
work while he walks around an' tells how he killed the bear, an'
that's the sort of man who's always to be heard sayin' woman is a
inferior animal that ought to be kep' on a chain as he thinks fit.
You'll never hear the kind of man like Bray (who is a man an' keeps
his wife like a princess) sayin' that sort of thing--it's only the old
Hollises and such. I'll tell you what old Hollis is. He got out of
work here a few years back, w'en things was terrible dull, an' so his
wife had to keep him, and with a child for every year they had been
married. She rared chickens an' plucked 'em and sold 'em around the
town, an' went without necessaries w'en she was nursin' to keep him in
tobacco. That's the kind of man _he_ is, if you want to know. Of
course, bein' a animal twice her superior, he had to go about suckin'
a pipe, and of course he couldn't deny hisself anythink. What do you
think of that?"
"That its pathos lies in its commonness."
"I reckon you didn't hear of him goin' out an' pluckin' the fowls then
an' sayin', 'Wife, a woman's place w'en she has a young family is in
the house.' No fear! She worked at this poultry business, an' it was
surprisin' how she got on--worked it up to a big poultry farm, till he
took a hand in doin' a little of the work an' takin' _all_ the credit.
Now they live by it altogether; an' he was interviewed by the papers a
little while ago, and it was blew about the reward of enterprise,--how
he had started from nothink, an' it never said a word how she started
an' rared his babies an' done it all, an' does most now, while he
walks about to illustrate what a superior bein' he is. That's the way
with all the poultry industry. Women was the pioneers in it, an' now
it's worked up to be payin', men has took it over and think they have
done a stroke. Not so far back a man would consider hisself disgraced
that knew one kind of fowls from another,--he would be thought a old
molly-coddle. The women tried to keep a few hens an' the men always
tried to kill them, an' said they'd ruin the place, an' at the same
time they hunt them was always cryin' out an' gruntin' that there
wasn't enough eggs to eat, an' why didn't the hens lay the same as
they used w'en they was boys. They expected the women to rare them on
nothink, or at odd moments, the same way as they expect them to do
everythink else. Now, even the swells is gone hen mad, an' the papers
are full of poultry bein' a great industry, but it was women started
it."
Upon strolling abroad that morning we found a huge placard bearing the
advice--"Vote for Olliver Henderson, M.L.A., the Local Candidate,"
decorating the post of the gateway through which we gained the
highroad.
Uncle Jake was credited with this erection, so Andrew made himself
absent at a time when there was need of his presence, and thereby
caused a deal of friction in the vicinity of grandma, but with the
result that by midday Uncle Jake's placard was covered by another,
reading: "Vote for Leslie Walker, the Opposition Candidate, and Save
the Country!"
At three o'clock this was obscured by a reappearance of Henderson's
advertisement, which was the cause of Uncle Jake being too late to
catch that evening's train with a load of oranges he had been set to
pack. At the risk of leaving the milking late, Andrew was setting out
to once more eclipse this by Walker's poster, only that grandma
adjudicated regarding the matter.
"Jake, you have one side of the gate, an' Andrew you take the other.
Put up your papers side by side and that will be a good advertisement
of liberty of opinion; an' Jake, if you haven't got sense to stick to
this at your time of life, I'm sorry for you; and if you haven't
Andrew at yours, I'll have to knock it into you with a strap,--now
_mind_! An' if you don't get your work done you'll go to no more
meetin's."
"Right O! I'll vote for me grandma every time," responded Andrew.
This proved an effective threat, for political meetings had become the
joy of life to the electors of Noonoon. As a tallow candle if placed
near can obscure the light of the moon, so the approaching election
lying at the door shut out all other worldly doings. The
Russo-Japanese war became a movement of no moment; the season, the
price of lemons and oranges, the doings of Mrs Tinker, the inability
of the municipal council to make the roads good, and all other
happenings, became tame by comparison with politics. They were
discussed with unabating interest all day and every day, and by
everyone upon all occasions. Even the children battled out differences
regarding their respective candidates on the way home from school,
rival committees worked with unflagging energy, and all buildings and
fences were plastered with opposing placards. This pitch of enthusiasm
was reached long before the sitting parliament had dissolved or a
polling day had been fixed; for this State election was contested with
unprecedented energy all over the country, but in no electorate was it
more vigorously and, to its credit, more good-humouredly fought than
in the fertile old valley of Noonoon.
It was the only chance the unfortunate electors had of bullying the
lordly M.P.'s and would-be M.P.'s, who, once elected, would fatten on
the parliamentary screw and pickings without showing any return, and
right eagerly the electors took their present opportunity.
Zest was added to the contest by both the contestants being wealthy
men, and with youth as well as means to carry it out on expensive
lines. They were equally independent of parliament as a means of
living, and being men of leisure were merely anxious for office to
raise them from the rank and file of nonentityism. Independent means
are a great advantage to a member of parliament. The penniless man
elected on sheer merit, to whom the country could look for good
things, becomes dependent upon politics for a living, is often
handicapped by a family who are loth to leave the society and comfort
to which their bread-winner's official position has raised them, and
he, held by his affection, is ready to sacrifice all convictions and
principle to remain in power. To this man politics becomes a desperate
gamble, and the country's interests can go to the dogs so long as he
can ensure re-election.
Another advantage in the Noonoon candidates which should have silenced
the pessimists, who averred there were no good clean men to enter
parliament, was that these men were both such exemplary citizens,
morally, physically, and socially, that it seemed a sheer waste of
goodness that only one could be elected.
The newspapers went politically mad, and those not any hysterical
country rags, but the big metropolitan dailies, and there was one
thing to be noted in regard to their statements that seriously needed
rectifying. What is the purpose of the great dailies but to keep the
people correctly informed as to the progress of public affairs and
events of the community at large? Most of the people are too hard at
work to forage information for themselves, or even to be thoroughly
cognisant of that collected in the newspapers, and therefore
parliamentary candidates, if not correct in their figures and
statements, should be publicly arraigned for perjury. The
Ministerialists gave one set of figures dealing with national
financial statistics and the Oppositionists gave widely different. How
was an elector to act when the platform of the former contained
nothing but a few false statements and glowing promises, and the
policy of the latter was only a few counter-acting war-whoops, and
there was no honesty, common-sense, or matter-of-fact business in the
campaign from end to end?
In this connection that remote rag, 'The Noonoon Advertiser,' shone as
a reproach to its great contemporaries. Not by their grandeur and
acclamations shall they be judged, but by the quality of their
fruits.
No bias or spleen seemed to sway the mind of this journal to one side
or the other. It recognised itself as a newspaper, not as a political
tout for this party or that, and so kept its head cool and its honour
bright and shining.
Three days after Leslie Walker's second speech he sent up a woman
advocate to address _the ladies_ and start the business of
house-to-house canvassing. This plenipotentiary, a person of rather
plethoric appearance, made herself extremely popular by assuring every
second _vote-lady_ she met that she was sure she (the vote-lady) was
intended by nature for a public speaker. This worked without a hitch
until the votresses began to tell each other what the great speaker
had said, when it naturally followed that Mrs Dash, though she thought
that Mrs Speaker had been discerning to discover this latent
oratorical talent in herself, immediately had the effervescence taken
out of her self-complacence on finding that that stupid Mrs Blank had
been assured of equal ability.
Then the Ministerialists discovered Mrs Speaker's place of abode in
Sydney, and averred her children ran about so untended as to be
undistinguishable from aboriginals, and that her housekeeping was
sending her husband to perdition; and such is the texture of human
nature unearthed at political crises, that some even went so far as to
suggest that she was a weakness of Walker's, and sneered at the
_ladies'_ candidate who had to be "wet-nursed" in his campaign by
women speakers. Henderson, they averred, had not to do this, but
fought his own battle.
"Yes," said Grandma Clay; "he mightn't be wet-nursed, but he is
bottled, _brandy_-bottled, by the men." And this could not be denied.
The women rallied round Walker because he was a temperance candidate,
whereas the tag-rag rolled up _en masse_ for Henderson, who shouted
free drinks and carried the publican's flag.
Each candidate, while praising his opponent, wound up with _but_--and
after that conjunction spoke most damningly of his policy.
Underneath the ostensible war-whoops many private and personal
cross-fires were at work to intensify the contest. The people on the
land quite naturally had a grudge against the railway folk, who only
had to work eight hours per day for more than a farmer could make in
sixteen; further, the perquisites of the railway employés were
inconceivable. By an unwritten but nevertheless imperative etiquette,
farmers had to render them tribute in the form of a portion of
whatever fruit or vegetables were consigned at Noonoon, and the
townspeople also had little to say in favour of them, averring they
were a floating population who had no interest in the welfare of the
town in which they resided, were bad customers--patronising the
publicans more than the storekeepers, and by means of their connection
with the railway were able to buy their meat and other necessaries
where they listed--where it was cheapest, and frequently this was
otherwhere than Noonoon, and yet they were in such numbers that they
could rule the political market.
Then the men on the Ministerial side were nearly gangrene with
disgust, because, as one put it, "nearly all Walker's men were women,"
and rallied round him thick and strong, and with a thoroughness and
energy worthy of their recent emancipation.
Dawn's next day for Sydney fell on another night when Leslie Walker
was speaking, but she and I did not attend this meeting, the family
being represented on this occasion by Andrew, and we went to bed and
discussed the Sydney trip while waiting for his return.
Ernest Breslaw, it appeared, had again had urgent business in Sydney
that day.
"Dawn," I said, "this is somewhat suspicious. Are you sure you are not
flirting with Ernest? I can't have his wings singed; I think too much
of him, and shall have to warn him that you are booked for 'Dora'
Eweword." This was said experimentally, for to do Dawn justice, though
she had every temptation, she had nothing of the flirt in her
composition.
"I can't go and say to him, 'Don't you fall in love with me,'" said
Dawn contentiously.
"Are you sure he has never in any way attempted to pay you a lover's
attentions?"
"Well, it's this way," she said confidentially--"you won't think me
conceited if I tell you everything straight? There have been two or
three men in love with me, and I was always able to see it straight
away, long before _they_ knew; but with Ernest, sometimes he seems to
be like they were, and then I'm afraid he's not,--at least not
_afraid_--I don't care a hang, only I wonder does he think he can
flirt with me, when he is so nice and just waltzes round the subject
without coming up to it?"
Ah! ha! In that _afraid_, which she sought to recover, the young lady
betrayed that her affections were in danger of leaving her and
betaking themselves to a new ruler, and this sudden inability to see
through another's state of mind towards her was a further sign that
they were not secure.
We are very clear of vision as to the affection tendered us, so long
as we remain unmoved, but once our feelings are stirred, their
palpitating fears so smear our sight that it becomes unreliable.
"Oh, well, it does not matter to you," I said; "you are not likely to
think of him, he's so unattractive, but I must take care that he does
not grow fond of you. If I see any danger of it, I'll tell him
something about you that will nip his affections in the bud. You won't
mind me doing that--just some little thing that won't hurt you, but
will save him unnecessary pain?" And to this she replied with seeming
indifference--
"I wish you'd tell Dora Eweword something that would shoo him off that
he'd never come back, and then I would have seen the last of him,
which would be a treat."
After this we were silent, and I thought she had gone to sleep, for
there was no sound until Andrew came tumbling up the stairs leading
from his room.
"I say!" he called, "have you got any more of that toothache stuff
from the dentist?"
"Come along," I answered, "I'll put some in for you."
"I think it's the oranges that's doin' it, I eat nearly eight dozen
to-day."
"Enough to give you the pip; you ought to slack off a little," I said,
extending him the courtesy of his own vernacular.
"I bet I'd vote for Henderson after all if I could," he continued, in
referring to the meeting, "only I'll gammon I wouldn't just to nark
Uncle Jake. Henderson is the men's man, that other bloke belongs to
wimmen. You should have heard 'em to-night! The fellers behind was
tip-top, and made such a noise at last that Walker could only talk to
the wimmen in the front. We gave him slops because he gets wimmen up
to speak for him, an' we can't give _them_ gyp. One man asked him was
he in favour of ring-barkin' thistles, and another wanted to know was
he in favour of puttin' a tax on caterpillars. He thinks no end of
himself, because he's one of these Johnnies the wimmen always runs
after," gravely explained Andrew, aged sixteen.
"We cock-a-doodled and pip-pipped till you couldn't hear your ears.
Half couldn't get in, they was climbed up an' hangin' in the
windows--little girls too along with the boys. I suppose now that
they're as near got a vote as we have, they'll be poked everywhere
just the same as if they had as good a right as us," said the boy with
the despondence of one to whom all is lost.
"It's a terrible thing they can't be made stay at home out of all the
fun like boys think they ought to be. No mistake the woman having a
vote is a terrible nark to the men--almost too much for 'em to bear,"
said Dawn, whom I had thought asleep.
"I reckon I'm goin' to every meetin', they're all right fun,"
continued Andrew. "At the both committee room they're givin' out
tickets with the men's names on, an' whoever likes can get them an'
wear 'em in their hats. Me an' Jack Bray went to this Johnny Walker's
rooms and gammoned we was for him, an' got a dozen tickets, an' when
we got outside tore 'em to smithereens; that's what we'll do all the
time."
After this Andrew disappeared down the stairs, spilling grease, and
being admonished by Dawn as he went as the clumsiest creature she had
ever seen.
Silence reigned between us for some time, and in listening to the
trains I had forgotten the girl till her voice came across the room.
"I say, don't tell that Ernest anything not nice about me, will you?
I'll take care not to flirt with him, and I wouldn't like him to think
me not nice. I wouldn't care about any one else a scrap, but he's such
a great friend of yours, and as I hope to be with you a lot, it would
be awkward; and you know he has _said_ nothing, it might only be my
conceit to think he's going the way of other men. He took me to
afternoon tea to-day at such a lovely place,--he said he wanted to be
good to your friends, that's why he is nice to me. I don't suppose he
ever thinks of me at all any other way," she said with the despondence
of love.
So this had been chasing sleep from Beauty's eyes, as such trifles
have a knack of doing!
"Very likely," I said complacently, and smiled to myself. The only
thing to be discovered now was if the young athlete's emotions were at
the same ebb, and then what was there against plain sailing to the
happy port where honeymoons are spent?
Fortune favours the persevering, and next afternoon an opportunity
occurred for procuring the desired knowledge.
Ernest and Ada Grosvenor came in together, and to the casual observer
seemed much engrossed with each other, but I noticed that Dawn could
not speak or move, but a pair of quick dark eyes caught every detail.
So far so good, but it was necessary for Dawn to think the prize just
a little farther out of reach than it was to make it attractive to her
disposition, so I set about attaining this end by a very simple
method.
Miss Grosvenor had called to invite us to a meeting she had convened,
to listen to a public address by a lady who was going to head a
deputation to Walker afterwards, and we had decided to go. Mrs Bray's
husband also dropped in, and to my surprise proved not the hen-pecked
nonentity one would expect after hearing his wife's aggressive
diatribes, but a stalwart man of six feet, with a comely face
bespeaking solid determination in every line. And when one comes to
think of it, it is not the big blustering man or woman that rules, but
the quiet, apparently inane specimens that look so meek that they are
held up as models of propriety and gentleness. Miss Grosvenor
immediately nailed him for her meeting, and politics being the only
subject discussed, he aired his particular bug. This was his disgust
at the top-heaviness of the Labour party's demands, and the railway
people's easy times as compared with that of the farmer.
"I believe," said he, "in every man, if he can, working only eight
hours a-day--though I have to work sixteen myself for precious little
return, but these fellows are running the country to blazes. The rules
of supply and demand must sway the labour or any other market all the
world over, and they'll have to see that and haul in their sails."
"Who are you going to vote for?" inquired Andrew.
"I'm goin' for Henderson, and the missus for Walker."
"It's a wonder you don't compel Mrs Bray to vote for your man."
"No fear; I'm pleased she's taken the opposite chap, just to
illustrate my opinion on what liberty of opinion should be; but I
won't deny," he concluded, with a humorous smile, "that I mightn't be
so pleased with her going against me if I was set on either of them,
but as it is neither are worth a vote, so that I'm pretty well
sitting on a rail myself."
"I thought your first announcement almost too liberal to be true,"
laughed Miss Grosvenor.
"No, I will say that Mr Bray is a man does treat his women proper, and
give 'em liberty," said grandma.
"An' a nice way they use it," sniffed Carry _sotto voce_.
As we set out to the meeting Miss Grosvenor mentioned to me that she
was endeavouring to find suitable speakers to address her association,
and asked did I know of any one. Here was an opening for a thrust in
the game of parry I was setting on foot between Dawn and Ernest
Breslaw.
"Ask my friend Mr Ernest to deliver an address: 'Women in Politics,'"
I said, "that is his particular subject. He is a most fluent speaker,
and loves speaking in public, nothing will delight him more."
"I'll ask him at once," said she.
This was as foundationless a fairy-tale as was ever spun, for Ernest
could not say two words in public upon any occasion. That he was
usually tendered a dinner and was called upon to make a speech, he
considered the drawback of wresting any athletic honours. Whether
women were in politics or the wash-house was a sociological abstrusity
beyond his line of thought, and not though it cost him all his fortune
to refuse could he have decently addressed any association even on
beloved sporting matters. Hence his consternation when Miss Grosvenor
approached him. At first he was nonplussed, and next thing, taking it
as a joke on my part, was highly amused. Miss Grosvenor, on her side,
thought he was joking, with the result that there was the liveliest
and most laughable conversation between them.