the reappearance of Mr Pornsch, who came for afternoon tea, during
which he invited himself to evening tea later on, and before it took
Dawn's time in the drawing-room trying some late songs. Dawn averred
that it was with difficulty she had restrained from setting fire to
him or attacking him with the piano-stool.
He got so far with his "love-making" on this occasion that he had
asked Dawn to take a little walk with him, which she had readily
consented to do, as it would enable her to entrap him for the
tarring-and-feathering upon which she had determined.
"He is going to meet me over among the grapes in the shade of the
osage breakwind. Do you think we will be able to manage him? Let us be
sure to have everything well arranged," whispered Dawn to me as we
came to evening tea.
Near the appointed time of tryst, when the first division of the
Western mail was roaring by--the warm red lights from its windows
shedding a glow by the viaduct--she and I betook ourselves to the far
end of Grandma Clay's vineyard, where we were securely screened by the
osage orange hedge on one side and the grape-canes and their stakes on
the other. Dawn carried a two-pound treacle-tin filled with tar, and
which had been sitting on the end of the stove during the afternoon to
melt into working order. Carry, who had entered into the affair with
vim, had her share of the arrangements in readiness, and was secreted
nearer the house to act as sentinel, and to run to our assistance if
summoned by a prearranged whistle.
Dawn placed me and the superannuated hair broom, with which she had
armed me, behind a grape-vine, and herself took up a position before
it and beside a hole about eighteen inches deep and two feet square
which she had excavated.
Mr Pornsch was soon to be heard tripping and blundering along, while
the starlight, to which our eyes had grown accustomed, showed the
river where the dead girl whom we were there to avenge had ended her
miserable existence.
"Dawn, my pet, where are you? Curse the grape-vines," he gasped.
"I'm here, _uncle darling_," she responded, the two last words under
her breath.
Directed by her voice, he neared till we could discern his bulk.
"My little queen," he exclaimed, the tone of his voice betraying that
which defiled the crisp glory of the night for as far as it carried.
"Just wait a minute till I see where we are," said Dawn, "or we will
be getting all tangled up in these canes."
With this she started back, causing him to do likewise, and drawing a
swab on a stick from the pot in her hand, she brought a consignment of
the black sticky tar a resounding smack on his face, and following it
with others thick and fast, exclaimed--
"There! There! That's all for you!"
Mr Pornsch naturally stepped backwards into the excavation, as
designed, and sat down as completely and largely helplessly as one of
his figure could be counted upon to do, and coming to Dawn's
assistance I planted the broom on his chest, and bore with my feeble
strength upon him. It was quite sufficient to detain him, seeing he
was now stretched on the broad of his back with his amidship
departments foundered in two feet of indentation.
Dawn thoroughly plastered his face and head, and in spitting to keep
his mouth clear he lost his false teeth. He attempted to bellow, but
jabbing his mouth full Dawn soon cowed him into quietude.
"Shut up, you old fool; if you make a noise we have six more girls
waiting in a boat to fling you in the river and drag you up and down
for a while tied on to a rope like a porpoise. Do you think you'll
float?"
This had the desired effect, though he spluttered a little.
"What is the meaning of this? Have you all gone mad? I met you here at
your own request to speak about helping you with your singing, and
you've evidently put a wicked construction on my action. I demand a
full explanation and an abject apology."
"Well," said Dawn, punctuating her remarks with little dabs of the
tar, "the explanation is that we're doing this to show what we think
of a murderer. Even if Miss Flipp had not drowned herself, but had
lived to be an outcast, you would be still a murderer of her soul."
"What's this?" he blustered.
"We have several witnesses ready to give evidence regarding all that
passed between you and the unfortunate girl supposed to be your niece
during your midnight calls upon her," I interposed, speaking for the
first time, "so bluff or pretence of any kind on your part is
unavailing. Remain silent and hear what we intend to say."
"We're dealing with this case privately," continued Dawn, "because the
laws are not fixed up yet to deal with it publicly. Old
alligators--one couldn't call you men, and it's enough to make decent
men squirm that you should be at large and be called by the same
name--can act like you and yet be considered respectable, but this is
to show you what _decent_ women think of your likes, and their spirits
are with us in armies to-night in what we are doing. They'd all like
to be giving your sort a wipe from the tar-pot, and then if you were
set alight it would not be half sufficient punishment for your crimes.
We haven't a law to squash you yet, but soon as we can we'll make one
that the likes of you shall be publicly tarred and feathered by those
made outcasts by the system of morality you patronise," vehemently
said this ardent and practical young social reformer, who was more
rabid than a veteran temperance advocate in fighting for her ideal of
social purity.
There was silence a moment while we listened to ascertain was there
any likelihood of our being disturbed, but the only man-made sounds
breaking the noisy crickets' chorus were the rumble of vehicles along
the highroad and the shunting of the engines at the station, so I
chimed in with promised support.
"Yes, good women have to continually suffer the degradation of your
type in all life's most sacred relations. They have to endure you at
their board and in their homes, and leering at their sweet young
daughters; and, alack! many in shame and humiliation own your stamp as
their father or the father of their sons and daughters. They have had
to endure it with a smile and hear it bolstered up as right, but those
whose moral illumination has taken place would be with us in armies
to-night if they could."
"I'm dying to give him a piece of my mind," said Carry, coming up.
"How do you like our little illustration of what we think of you?
We've done it out of a long smouldering resentment against your reign,
and this is a species of jubilation to find that the majority of
Australian men are with us, because in the vote they have furnished us
with a means of redress," and Carry finished her previously prepared
speech by throwing a clod of dirt on him.
"My grey hairs should have protected me," he muttered.
"You mean they should have protected Miss Flipp," said Dawn, "and when
a man with grey hairs carries on like this the crime is twice as
deadly. There was nothing about grey hairs when you used a lead comb
and got yourself up to kill. I thought you didn't want to make an
especial feature of them, and that's why I'm dyeing them this
beautiful treacley black. They'll look bosker when I'm done."
"Get up out of that, lest I'm tempted to do you a permanent injury," I
said, taking the broom off him.
"You can go to the stable," said Dawn, "and I hope you won't
contaminate it. Carry has a lantern and some grease and hot water, so
you can clean yourself there and put on your overcoat. Never let us
hear of you on a platform spouting about moral bills again unless you
say it is on account of the practical experience you've had of the
need of them to save weak and foolish young women from the clutches of
such as you."
Mr Pornsch arose with difficulty while Dawn struck matches to see what
he was like, and a more deplorably ludicrous spectacle never could be
seen in a pantomime. The only pity of it was that it was not a
punishment more frequently meted out to the sinners of his degree. He
raved and stuttered how he would move in the matter, but Dawn, who had
a commendable fearlessness in carrying out her undertakings, only
laughed merry little peals, and told him the best way for him to move
in the tar was towards the stable, and the best way to move out of it
was by the aid of grease, soap, hot water, and soda. The expression of
his eyes rolling and glaring amid the black was quite eerie, but
eventually we reached the stable, where Carry instructed him how to
clean himself, while Dawn jeered at him during the operation.
Having cleaned his face somewhat, he hid his neck and clothes in his
overcoat which Carry handed, put on his hat, muffled his face in his
handkerchief, and went away, Dawn administering a parting shot.
"Now, Uncle Pornsch, dear, next time you go ogling and leering round a
_decent_ girl, remember, though she may be so situated that she has to
endure you, yet she feels just as we do, that is, if she is a decent
girl, whose eyes have been opened to the facts of life."
"I feel better than I have done for a long time," she concluded, as
bearing the implements used in the adventure we three, who had agreed
upon secrecy, made towards the house.
"So do I," said Carry. "If we could only do it to all who deserve the
like, it would be grand!"
TWENTY-THREE.
UNIVERSAL ADULT SUFFRAGE.
I.
Electioneering matters ripened, and so did Carry's love affair with
Larry Witcom. In fact it got so far that she gave grandma notice, and
announced her intention of going to a married sister's home for that
process known as "getting her things ready," while Larry, in keeping
up his end of the stick, bought a neat cottage and began furnishing it
in the style approved by his circle, with bright linoleum on the
floors, plush chairs in the "parler," and china ornaments on the
overmantels.
Mrs Bray, one of those very everyday folk whose god was mammon, and
who naturally hung on every word issuing from a person of means while
she would ignore the most inimitable witticism from an impecunious
individual, began to regard the lady-help from a new point of view.
"She mightn't have done so bad for herself after all. Some of these
girls knockin' about the world not havin' nothink to their name, don't
baulk at things the same as you an' me would who's been used to plenty
and like to pick our goods, so to speak. The way things is, Larry is
as likely as most to be in a good position yet," was a sample of the
modified sentiments falling from her full red lips.
Carry was to remain at Clay's until after the election day, so that
she could cast her vote for Leslie Walker.
The political candidate thus favoured scarcely allowed three days to
pass without personally or by proxy stumping the Noonoon end of the
electorate. His last meeting in the Citizens' Hall was jam-pack an
hour before the advertised time of speaking.
The candidate on this occasion made no fresh utterances to entertain,
he merely repeated the catch cries of his party; but the air was
heavily charged with human electricity, and the questions and
"barracking" of the crowd were supremely diverting.
"Are you in favour of the Chows going to South Africa?" bawled one
elector.
"My dear fellow, we are going to govern New South Wales--not South
Africa."
"Yes; but when we sent contingents out to fight for the Empire in the
Transvaal, do you think it fair that white men should be passed over
in favour of Chows in the South African labour market?"
This question being ignored another was interjected.
"Are you in favour of the newspapers running New South Wales?"
"Certainly not!"
This being a satisfactory answer, the old favourite question, "Are you
in favour of black gins wearing white stockings?" was put; and the
candidate having assured us that, provided they could manage the
laundry bill, he certainly was in favour of these ladies wearing any
hosiery they preferred; and the loud guffaw which greeted this
information having subsided, he continued--
"Now, don't vote for _me_ or for _Henderson_,--vote for the best
measures for the country. (Henderson was driving the personal ticket
of having lived among them,--hence this warning.) I think it an
unparalleled impertinence for a man to ask an intelligent body of
electors to vote for _him_--"
"When there's a swell bloke like you in the field."
"Pip! pip! Hooray! Cock-a-doodle-do!" came the chorus. The "Pip! pip!"
was a new sound to them, having been introduced to represent the noise
made by the propulsion of a motor-car, in which set the candidate
shone.
"Are you in favour of gas and water running up the one pipe?" inquired
another, when the din had once more fallen to comparative silence.
"Don't you think that ladies ought to wear big boots now that they've
got the vote?"
All such important questions having been put, the chairman called for
three cheers for Mr Walker.
"Three cheers for Henderson," yelled the rabble at the back, which
were given deafeningly, and the candidate, with the lively tact which
bade fair to develop into his most prominent characteristic, joined in
the cheers for his opponent, till some one had the grace to call
"Three cheers for Mr Walker now"; and in the most delightfully
uproarious, holiday-spirited clamour thus ended the last meeting but
one before the election.
This was fixed for the 6th of August, and, notwithstanding there being
several other towns in the electorate equally as important as Noonoon,
on polling eve both candidates were to make their final speech there
at the same hour.
During the week intervening, Leslie Walker's "Ladies' Committee" were
very busy in the construction of dainty rosettes of pink and blue
ribbon to be worn by his followers; and not to be outdone, Henderson's
committee of "mere men" armed themselves with little squares of
hatband ribbon of red, white, and blue--the Ministerial colours.
These were not such dainty badges as the rosettes, but they served the
purpose equally well; and the sterner sex, in our present stage of
evolution ever to be trusted to make up in downright usefulness what
they lack in mere prettiness, had attached a safety-pin to each piece
of ribbon for its masculinely substantial affixing.
II.
Polling eve arrived, and the Ministerialists having secured the hall,
the Oppositionists had perforce to hold an open-air meeting. We
attended the hall first, intending to move on to the street
entertainment later, and Dawn was attacked by an old dame in the
opposing camp because she was displaying Walker's colours.
"If I liked him I'd go an' stand in the street an' listen to him, not
take up the room of them as has a hall hired for 'em by the _best_
man, who has lived among us, and not some city lah-de-dah married to a
hussy off the stage, an' who had women who might be any character
goin' round speakin' for him," she tiraded, and turning to me
aggressively demanded--
"Where are _your_ colours?"
"Could you supply me with some?" I replied; and only too pleased, she
squalled to an urchin who was distributing the squares plus a
safety-pin. I was such a well-poised "rail-sitter" that I was entitled
to wear both colours; and as this one was being ostentatiously
fastened to the lapel of my over-jacket, I remembered the injunction
to live at peace with all.
A brass band played the people in, and a trio of youngsters unfurled
red, white, and blue parachutes,--alias gamps, alias ginghams, alias
umberellers,--which were a popular feature of the "turn."
The committee appeared on the platform one by one, each received with
noisy approval, and one facetiously wearing a rosette the size of a
large cabbage was tendered a particularly deafening ovation.
After these crept Henderson, who, though not a particularly inspiring
individual, was wildly and vociferously cheered for everything and
nothing, and after listening awhile to his catch cries,--which
differed from those of Walker only in the irritatingly halting and
unimpressive way they were delivered,--we rose and scrambled our way
out, jeered by the old dame as we went, and our departure was further
commented upon from the platform by the speaker himself, in the
words--
"Getting too hot for some of the ladies," which, if correct, could not
by any means have been attributed to the winter air or the dull and
weakly maudlin speech he was trying to deliver.
Walker spoke from a balcony crowded by devotees--mostly women--to an
audience in the street, which was further enlivened by the fighting of
the numerous dogs I have previously mentioned as addicted to holding
municipal meetings. Their loud differences of opinion occasionally
drowned the speakers, and the main street being also the public
thoroughfare,--in fact, no less a place than the great Western
Road,--there was no by-law or political etiquette to prevent the
Ministerial band from strolling that way at intervals; so, much to the
delight of all who were out for fun and the annoyance of those who
were sensibly interested in the practical welfare of their country,
and who imagined that the policy of this party would materially better
matters, the cut-and-dried denouncement of the Ministry was at times
drowned by the strains of "Molly Riley," "He's a Jolly Good Fellow,"
and "See the Conquering Hero Comes!"
The followers of Walker contended that Henderson was the worst of
scorpions to thus come to Noonoon on the last night; but considering
that he had only addressed Noonoon once to Walker's thrice, as an
impartial wiggle-waggle I could not help seeing that the
Ministerialists had most cause for complaint.
Dawn pinned the badge I had acquired to the coat-tail of a local bank
manager who, though on her side, had lately distinguished himself by a
public denouncement of "Women's Rights," so savagely virulent and
idiotically tyrannous in principle as to suggest that his household
contained representatives of the "shrieking sisterhood," who had been
one too many for him. The boys who saw the joke enjoyed it very much
indeed, as he strolled along with the self-importance befitting so
prominent a citizen.
The beautiful voice of the candidate rose and fell, occasionally
halting till the usual cheers or guffaws died away, and the meeting
ended in the customary way. What good to the country was likely to
accrue from it? On the other hand--what harm?
To be abroad in the open air with comfort at that time of the year,
and at that hour of the night, illustrated the beautiful climate of
that latitude if nothing more, and every one was harmlessly
entertained, for good-humour characterised the whole affair.
Tea, coffee, and cheese abounded for all comers at the committee rooms of
Leslie Walker--the candidate supported by the temperance societies; and on
behalf of Olliver Henderson there was an "open night" at Jimmeny's "pub.,"
with the result--as published by the Oppositionists--that boys of fourteen
and sixteen were lying drunk in the gutters.
The next day, however, was the culmination of the whole thing.
Dawn almost wept that she was not of age to vote, and as I was so
comfortably indifferent as to which man won, I offered to cast my vote
for the one she favoured, but she declined.
"That would only be the same as men having the vote and thinking they
know how to represent us," she said.
But though she couldn't vote she worked hard for her side, and with a
big rosette of pink and blue decorating her dimpling bosom, and
streamers of the same flying from her whip and her pony's headstall,
she was out all day driving voters to the booth, where for the first
time in that town women produced an electoral right. The Federal
election had been conducted without them.
In the forenoon Larry Witcom drove Carry to vote in state--otherwise a
brand-new sulky he had recently purchased; and such is human nature
that we were all sufficiently malicious to be secretly pleased that
poor old Uncle Jake could not vote at all, because he had only an
obsolete red elector's right, and he should have procured an
up-to-date blue one.
It was a genial sunshiny day, and the lucerne and rape fields and the
Chinese gardens on either hand were beautifully green, as grandma
noticed when during the afternoon she and I drove in the old sulky to
cast our vote.
"Poor Jake! I'm sorry he can't vote, though he ain't goin' for my
man," she remarked. "But don't it seem like a judgment on him for
bein' so narked about the women bein' set free? That's always the way
in life. If you are spiteful about anythink it always comes back on
yourself."
The street opposite the court-house--for the time converted into a
polling-booth--was thronged like a show-day with an orderly crowd of
citizens of both sexes. The voting had become so congested that
vehicle loads of voters were being conveyed over to Kangaroo, and each
contingent set out amid the cheers of small boys, who were most ardent
politicians.
Laughing and banter were exchanged between people of all ages and
classes, one as important as the other for the time being.
As we crowded round the door, a jovial-looking man with a twinkle in
his eyes, as he was unceremoniously shoved against a pillar, announced
that women should not have been allowed the vote, for its disastrous
results were already evident in this crush; while the equally
pleasant-faced policeman, who, as soon as intimation came from within
that there was a vacancy, wheeled us in like so many bales of wool,
replied--
"Women jolly well have as much right to vote as men, and more, because
they can do it without getting drunk or breaking their heads."
Many displayed colours and some did not. There was the truculent woman
who voted as she thought fit, and who loudly advertised this fact; the
man who voted for Henderson because he lived in the district; and the
woman who supported Leslie Walker because he was rich and would be
able to subscribe liberally to all local institutions. A shallow-pated
Miss favoured Walker because his colours were the prettier; and an
addle-pated old man balanced this by voting for Henderson because he
"shouted,"[1] and Walker was temperance. There was a silly little
flaxen-haired woman who also supported the Opposition to spite her
husband,--a Henderson man, and the prototype of Mr Pornsch,--because,
being over-grogful, he had made tracks for the polling-booth alone,
leaving his wife to go as best she could. Alas! there was a poor
little woman at home who could not vote at all because she had
succumbed to the gentlemanliness of Leslie Walker, and her husband
being against him had tyrannously taken her right from her; and there
was also the woman who _would_ not vote at all, because she considered
men were superior to women, and boisterously proclaimed this to all
who would listen, in hopes of currying favour with the men; but
fortunately this, in the case of the best men, is becoming an obsolete
bid for popularity. There was the woman who voted for the man her
father named, and those electors of each sex who voted to the best of
their discernment great or small. Quite a crop of Uncle Jakes were
disfranchised through their rights being back numbers, and the
nobodies who imagined themselves something altogether too lofty to
consider anything so mundane as law-making at all, were also rather
numerous. Ada Grosvenor's bright happy face shone like a star amid her
companions, and she discharged this duty honestly and thoughtfully as
she did all others, recognising it as the practical way of working for
the brave, bright ideals guiding her life.
[Footnote 1: To treat to free drinks.]
Among the electresses were all the same types of vote as cast by men,
except that those sold for a glass of beer were not so frequent; and
as civilisation climbs higher, universal suffrage, and the better
methods of administration to which it will give birth, will be
exercised for the adjustment of the great human question now so
trivially divided into squabbles of sex and class.