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!"