"'I want to ash you a delicate question—where ish the ladies? I 'aven't sheen a woman in four hours'""'I want to ash you a delicate question—where ish the ladies? I 'aven't sheen a woman in four hours'"
"Mabel, me boy," whispered the old man, swaying gently as he attempted to fix his eyes upon the other's face, "I want to ash you a delicate question: where ish the ladies? I haven't sheen a woman in four hours, Mabel! Think of that and in a town full of the pretties' women in thish state. What does it mean? Thash what I want to ash you. I'm famished, I'm thirshty, for the shight of a pretty face!"
"That's so," said Acres; "what does it mean? Hadn't thought of it before, but——"
"Oh, my God! what would thish world be without the ladies, Mabel! If we wish 'em like thish in four hours, how could we live wishout 'em forever! We could not, shur!" He began to weep, a poor old man of the past, standing in the twilight of the village street, looking up and down like a lost child crying for its mother. Then he moved on, refusing "Mabel's" arm.
Men began to close their offices and shops; windowsashes banged; keys rattled in locks. More men appeared upon the streets. They lighted cigars, loitered, not quite ready yet to go home. When a man knows his wife and daughters are at home, he feels safe. He is in no hurry to be there himself. This was the hour when every man in Jordantown was accustomed to know that. If any one had asked a single one of them the question, "Where's your wife?" he would have answered, "At home, of course!" It was only the Colonel, half seas over, who had his doubts, but the Colonel was notoriously psychic where women were concerned.
At this very moment a queer thing happened: a stream of women poured into the square and took their way down both sides of it, almost treading upon the toes of the men as they passed. And they were walking leisurely.
These were undoubtedly the same women who had passed at four o'clock on their way to the Civic League and Cemetery Association. Every man in the streets recognized them. Yet they were not the same. They did not return salutations. For the first time the men were ignored, not exactly snubbed, but literally not seen by the women in Jordantown.And each man was alone, there were not enough of them together to talk about it; they could only feel and wonder, as they stood staring in amazement at those fluttering white and black and blue and pink figures disappearing around corners and down the avenues.
The sense of femininity is only a sense of weakness. And what we call masculinity is only the sense of strength, which may belong to women as well as to men under the same conditions. The men on the square had just witnessed a miracle, never seen before in this world—the rise of egotism in the feminine portion of the community, which caused every one of them to enter that zone of man on an equal footing with men in consciousness. And naturally the men did not understand that. They were so dazed that they could not even discuss it with one another. What they had experienced was too subtle to put into words. Not a man of them looked any other man in the face as they followed those women home. But every one of them was asking himself some question: "What's my wife doing out so late?" "Why didn't Selah Adams speak to me?" "What in hell's that old cat, Susan Walton, up to now, wadingby me as if she owned the town?" "Oh, it's nothing! they were embarrassed at being out so late!" "But why then did they walk so infernally like Odd Fellows coming home from the lodge at midnight?"
"I'll know presently!" said Magnis Carter, as he flirted around the corner into the avenue. "I'll ask Carrie!"
And, as good as his word, he did.
"Carrie, what's the Civic League and Cemetery Association mean by keeping such late hours?" he asked as he sat down to dinner.
"There is no such organization here any more, Magnis."
"Isn't? What's become of it? You women get mad and tear up your Magna Charter?"
"No, we've changed it, going to get out another charter."
"So, you've changed it? Going to be an Odd Fellows lodge now?" he laughed.
"Something like that," she answered coolly.
"Can't afford it, my dear; to be an Odd Fellow costs like thunder!"
"We have plenty of funds," was the astonishing reply.
"Speak as if you'd inherited the Mosely Estate."
Silence on the part of Carrie, who sat at the other end of the table like a Dominique hen brooding strange eggs.
"Hear anything about the will?"
When there was no answer to this question, Carter looked up at his wife.
"I say did you hear anything about Sarah Mosely's will?"
Still no reply.
"Then you did hear something? What was it?" His manner had become suddenly serious.
"You'll know soon enough, Magnis."
"Can't you tell me?"
"No, I cannot!"
"Secrets from your husband?"
"I never resent your keeping your affairs from me, why should you object to my keeping mine from you?" she answered coolly.
"Good Lord, Carrie, you look at me as if you'd filed papers for divorce! And when did the Mosely will become one of your affairs, I'd like to know?"
She declined to tell him that. She poked her foot about under the table with the absent-minded starea woman always has when she is trying to find the electric bell with her extremities. She found it and pressed all the current on, so that the maid came with an injured put-upon air to clear the table.
Carter continued to regard his wife as if she had become a phenomenon, and as if he was entirely ignorant of the laws which had exalted her into the unknown. When the servant disappeared with the tray of indignantly rattling dishes he began again.
"Look here, Carrie, if there's any news about the disposition of that woman's estate, I ought to have it for theSignal. We go to press to-morrow."
"You'll get all the news you are entitled to have in time to publish this week, Magnis, and through the proper channels."
Three doors farther down the avenue Selah Adams sat upon the front veranda, looking like the vestal virgin of the moon.
She had taken the precaution to enter the house through the back door when she returned with the other women. The Colonel was fuming in the library. She could hear him through the open door as she fled noiselessly up the staircase.
"Not a light in the house, by Jove! First timein forty years I've come home to a darkened house. No candle in the window to guide an old man's wandering feet, nobody to greet me, no slippers—no nothing!" he moaned.
And Selah, leaning over the banisters above, could hear him stumbling over the chairs. She knew what that meant. The Colonel regarded all chairs as his mortal enemies when he was in a certain condition. She heard the crash of the big Morris chair as it struck the wall, and feet attacking it furiously. Then the Colonel lumbered out into the hall.
"Hey, there! Tom! Becky! Where's everybody? By Gad! if somebody don't come, I'll—I'll——"
"What is it, father?" came Selah's voice, tinkling like ice in a glass.
"Selah! whatsh thish mean?" he roared.
"What does what mean, father?"
"No light! I've just been asshaulted in my own house!" he shouted.
"Assaulted?" she giggled, turning the switch.
The hall below was instantly flooded with light. She beheld the Colonel leaning against the newel post, looking up but not seeing her. He was liftingfirst one foot and then the other and feeling them tenderly with his hands.
"Yesh! thas what I shaid! That Morris chair met me at the door and barked every shin I've got. Get out of here!" he roared at the two servants who had entered from the kitchen. "Selah, where've you been?"
"I'm up here, father. I didn't know it was so late. I'll be down in a minute."
To lie is not the nature of women, but it is often their necessity.
"Bring the arnica with you, me dear— I'm a wounded man! But I'm glad you were at home. I've been nervous 'bout you all day; there's something wrong in this town!"
All that had happened an hour ago. The Colonel was now peacefully snoring with both feet bandaged and elevated upon pillows; and Selah was waiting upon the veranda. She was evidently waiting. When a young and beautiful woman is not waiting for a lover, she does not look so calmly, sweetly indifferent. She is restless. She rises and looks at the moon. Now the moon was looking at Selah, embroideringher white dress with the fairy shadows of leaves, covering her face with a soft splendour, glistening like a crown of light upon her dark hair. That was the difference.
Footsteps sounded upon the gravel. The figure of a man, tall, slender, regnant, was swinging up the walk. Selah did not move. She was that fairest thing in a darkened world, the presence achieved when a woman combines herself with silence, stillness, and moonlight.
The man sprang lightly up the steps.
"Hush!" she whispered, "don't ring the bell!"
"Selah!" he exclaimed, advancing to her. "What a vision you are!"
"Don't speak so loud," she whispered, motioning him to a seat beside her.
"I didn't, darling. I'd as lief shout before an altar as lift my voice in this chapel of the moon," he answered, taking her hand and lifting it to his lips.
"Father is not well. He's just dozed off!" she exclaimed.
"If I know anything about such dozing, it would take an earthquake to rouse him now!" he answered, laughing.
Selah sighed and withdrew her hand.
"If you do that, dear, I shall seize more!" he whispered, leaning forward and slipping his arm around her waist.
"Don't, Mr. Sasnett!" she said so coolly that he drew back and stared at her.
"'Mr. Sasnett,' and when did I cease to be Bob, pray? I've been Bob for a good many years to you, Selah. What's the matter? Have you seen me flirting with another girl? You have not! Have you heard of my calling on Mike Prim? You have not! Has some one told you of the last murder I committed? Certainly not! I haven't killed a man yet. Shall not do so until he becomes my rival in your heart. Now what is it? Why am I 'Mr. Sasnett' upon this beautiful moonlight night when of all times I should be most tenderly Bob?"
"I can't explain," she answered.
"What is the matter with everybody in this town, especially the women? It hasn't been an hour since mother came home and saidshecouldn't explain when I asked her why she was so upset."
"She was upset then?" asked the girl curiously.
"Most awfully! She got out of the car like aflying squadron of rage, eyes blazing, face pale. And when I asked her what the trouble was she said I'd know soon enough. Now what did she mean?"
"You'll know soon enough," repeated Selah, smiling.
"Good heavens! What's the game, Selah?"
"We've drawn trumps at last," answered Selah.
"We! Who are we? Certainly not mother! As she dashed—really dashed, you know, and at her age!—upstairs to her room she informed me that she had resigned from the presidency of the Civic League and Cemetery Association, and that never again would she be mixed up with women who had so far forgotten their dignity and womanhood. Then she banged the door."
"She did take it rather hard. I imagine your mother is a very old-fashioned woman."
"Well, she's quite the lady, if that's what you mean, and something of an autocrat. Did you depose her from the presidency this afternoon?"
"No, we dissolved the organization. There is no Civic League and Cemetery Association now!"
"Then we'll all have weeds on our graves—anduntidy streets!" he murmured between a snigger and a sob.
"Was that all your mother said?" asked Selah.
"Not quite. The fact is that's why I came over to-night. She's got her neck feathers up at you, too, it seems. I asked her through the door if we were to come by and pick you up for the drive we had planned, and she——" he hesitated.
"Well?"
"She said, 'Don't mention Selah Adams to me, Robert,' just like that, as if she'd seen you leading a riot or addressing a mob!"
"Yes, I know. You are a dramatist, Bob, better than you suspect!" answered Selah.
"Thanks for the 'Bob,' anyway. Now let's forget it. Mother will come around all right. She really loves you. She's only ruffled over some of your cat-scratching politics in the league. Now be a good girl and kiss me, dear!" he pleaded.
"I can't, Bob."
"You mean you won't; well, I can and will," he exclaimed, placing his palms upon either side of her face and drawing her to him.
"You mustnot!" she objected, evading him.
"Why? Aren't we engaged?"
"We were engaged," she answered with a sob.
"Who's broken it? Not I?"
"You will, when you know! Besides, I wish to be released from—from——"
"Say it! You'd as well to say it as to wish it!" he exclaimed with sudden passion.
"I don't want to say it, but I must give you your liberty, dear."
"Well, I'll not have it so long as you call me 'dear' in that tone!" he cried.
"But I want mine!" she said, looking at him gravely.
"Don't you love me, Selah?"
"Love is not everything. There are—other things more important than love. Every man knows that!"
"No woman ought to know it! Besides, love is everything. It's the face of every flower. It's the leaves on the trees. It's the breath of heaven. It's the blush on your cheek, the blood in your veins and mine, dear."
"No, liberty is more than love. And liberty is the enemy of love," she answered.
"You speak like a—like a——" He searched hisimagination to find what she did speak like, and she finished for him:
"Like an enemy!"
"No, not quite so bad as that, but you are morbid, dear. This isn't a meeting of suffragists, this is a sacrament. You and I are alone before the altar of love. We must not deny one another this sweet bread of life!"
"You said something just then about suffragists. Do you believe in suffrage for women, for your wife, for example?"
He sat up and looked at her. He began to smile teasingly, as if she were a little girl and he a patient elder person with a beam in his eye.
"So that's it, hey? You want to be a suffragist and with the suffragists stand! Of course I believe in it. I believe in letting every woman have what she wants. Now kiss me, Selah, like the dear little suffering suff you are!"
"No, I must be sure you mean that. Men say things to women they do not believe, just to humour them, just to get——"
"A kiss, yes! I'd vote for you for coroner, Selah, for one kiss to-night!"
"Well, you won't get it, Mr. Sasnett, not until I amsure, absolutely sure, you are for us, not against us."
"Us! One at a time, Selah, I say. You wouldn't have me be for all women, would you? A man loves one woman, but he can't stand 'emen masse. He'd romp like a four-year-old in a crowd of men, but a crowd of women, a commonwealth of women! Good Lord! it would be awful. Don't ask me to kiss them all, dear!"
"You are making fun of us. I knew you were not for us," she said.
"But I'm foryou, heart and soul. When are we to be married? You promised to name the day."
"It will not be this year, if ever," she answered coolly.
"Not this year? It must be this year! I'm going to be representative from this county, and I want to take my bride to the Capitol with me."
"You don't know whether you will be elected or not, yet, Mr. Sasnett. It depends upon conditions of which you do not now dream. When is the election?"
"In November," he answered.
"Before that time there will be five thousand more voters in this county than there are now!"
"Where'll they come from?"
"They are here now."
"In your pocket, is that what you mean?"
"They may be," she answered, smiling darkly.
"You speak as if you were Mike Prim, Selah. It's scandalous!"
It was Saturday afternoon, two days since the funeral and two days since Mike Prim bent listening with such furious excitement at the keyhole of Judge Regis's office. Jordantown had become the stage upon which a mystery play was being enacted with all the farcical features of a comedy. Every man, especially, was doing exactly what he would have done and said if there had been footlights and an audience in front, only not one of them knew that this was so. Providence is the Great Dramatist, and secures perfectly natural effects by providing emergencies which call for action, and by keeping every man under the delusion that he chooses his own rôle.
The suspense concerning the disposition of the Mosely Estate was only partially balanced by theconfounded indignation of many citizens who came and went from Mike Prim's office.
"Sent for you again, too?" exclaimed Coleman when he met Acres as he descended the stairs.
"Yes, what's the matter?" asked Acres anxiously.
"You'll find out when you get up there. He's as mad as a rhinoceros horning sand in a desert."
"But what does he want?" Acres insisted.
"Wants you to double your subscription to the campaign fund. Better not go up if you can't do it. He got me for a cool hundred."
"What's he in such a hurry for? The campaign doesn't begin for months yet!"
"He says it's on, began two days ago. Says the liberty of every man in this county is at stake. Says he needs a fund of four times as much as usual to meet the situation," answered Coleman.
"What's he doing with it?"
"Can't tell you; not a cent of it is deposited in the bank."
"Well, I know he has taken in over a thousand dollars in the last two days."
"It's no time to collect now with everybody in suspense over this Mosely will," groaned Coleman.
"I'll be hanged if it doesn't look like blackmail to me!" exclaimed Acres.
"Why submit, then?" demanded Coleman with a grin.
"You know we are all in too deep with Prim. You submitted, didn't you?"
"Yes, and you will, too, when you see him. He's got conviction in his manner and compulsion in his tongue," said Coleman as Acres passed him upon the stairs.
"Mabel, my boy, can you lend me fifty dollars?"
Acres beheld Colonel Adams standing in the deep shadows at the top of the stairs. He wore a yellow seersucker coat, brown linen trousers, carpet slippers, with the toes of his right foot bandaged and exposed through a slit in the red leather. He was forlornly sober, pale, with his moustache drooping like a rooster's tail in the rain.
"Fifty dollars, Colonel!" exclaimed Acres.
"I'm absolutely obliged to have it, Mabel."
"Make it fifty cents and I'll be glad to accommodate you."
"Very well, fifty cents then. Thank you, Mabel.I'll just go down with this. No use to face Mike with half a dollar. He wants fifty."
"Shearing you, too?"
"No, you can't shear a sheep that's been plucked as clean as your hand. Prim keeps me mighty cool."
"What's he want with so much money, do you know?"
The Colonel limped forward very painfully, placed one hand upon Acres's shoulder, ogled Prim's door, and whispered:
"There are only two things in this world more expensive than women and wine, Mabel: politics and piety."
"You ought to be able to economize on piety," Acres retorted.
"When you do that, you get in deeper with politics—comes to the same thing—and I've never held an office in my life!" he concluded with a groan, as he placed his good foot on the second step of the stairs and drew the other tenderly after it. When he had descended three in this manner, he beckoned to Acres.
"Say, Mabel, if Mike asks about me, tell him I'm standing on the courthouse steps, with both feetbandaged and my trousers rolled up showing my barked shins. Tell him I'm begging for the cause, and as soon as I've got fifty dollars I'll be up to see him!"
The next minute Acres was facing Prim, who sat with his hands spread upon the desk in front of him, his elbows sticking out, his hair bristling, his mouth sucked in, and his eyes spitting venom. He looked like a reptile about to spring, and Acres had much the expression of a rabbit facing the reptile, slowly being drawn to his fate.
"But a hundred dollars, Mike! I can't spare that much now. Besides, what's the hurry?" he was protesting despairingly.
"Look here, Acres, who's kept this town wide open for five years? Mike Prim! Who's profited by that? Every business man in it! Who's given Jordantown an easy reputation that draws workingmen and all kinds of men who spend liberally what they make for what they want? Mike Prim! Who's profited by the jug business in the back of Bill Saddler's livery stable? Not Prim! I get my liquor cheap, that's all. Who's borne the reputation for the dirty work in your elections while you fellows played thepart of law-abiding citizens and deacons and elders in the church? Prim! But who hired me for this job? You fellows with the ornamental virtues of society. I was to provide all the profits of vice to support your position. By God! do you think I haven't kept your letters of instruction about the Wimply campaign—that suggestion you made about counting the election returns? I've got it! And Coleman's order for liquor and funds to be used in the Dry Valley district, I've got that, too. And I have the agreement Wimply signed to keep the town open that year you fellows were masquerading on that Law and Order Committee: You all voted for Wimply! I've enough signatures here to put half of you in stripes!" he exclaimed, striking the desk with his clenched fist.
"That's all right, Mike. I just wanted to know what——"
"What I'm up to? Well, I'll tell you I aim to be the representative from this county. It'll take a damn sight of money to elect me, and I'm going to be elected."
"Of course, we understand that. But what's the hurry? Campaign doesn't begin now."
"That's all you know about it. ButIknow we are facing a crisis in this countynow. Everything I've worked for, everything you fellows have stood for secretly and mademe do—all of it may be swept from under our feet in sixty days. That's why I want money, and——"
"All right," Acres interrupted, taking out his check book, "here's mine. And it's more than I can spare."
"Not if I need more!" growled Prim, listing the check with a dozen others.
If an outlaw, armed to the teeth, had passed up and down the streets and robbed every man in Jordantown, they could not have appeared more dejected and, at the same time, alarmed. Conversation languished beneath the awnings. Men sat in their shirt sleeves, side by side, perfectly silent. You do not discuss the thorn in your side—and they all had two thorns. They were not only outraged by Prim's demands, they were suffering from the neuralgia of suspense in regard to the Mosely Estate.
"It's about time for theSignalto be out," said Coleman, looking at his watch.
"Never is anything in it when it does come——My God! What was that?"
The air was rent, torn to mere tatters of air, by a long blood-curdling yell, a yell which seemed to catch its breath with battle fierceness, and then come again.
The two men rushed to the door of the bank. They beheld a scene of the wildest confusion. The square, which a moment before had been sunken in apathy, was now filled with terrific excitement. Men were running from every direction toward the post office, stumbling over yelping dogs, shouting, waving their arms as they ran.
In front of the post office, in the yellow flare of the setting sun, Acres and Coleman beheld a scene which contained all the elements of dignity, rage, pathos, and comedy.
Judge Regis stood with his silk hat perfectly level upon his head, his cane tucked under his arm, and he was looking over the spread sheet of the JordantownSignalvery much as if he stared at an enemy over the top of an impregnable fortification.
In front of him Colonel Marshall Adams pranced like an old bird kicking his wings. His hat and coat lay upon the pavement. His face was a red map of rage. He held a copy of theSignalbetween the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, and at arm'slength, as if closer contact with it meant unbearable pollution. And as he trod his measure, his right fist shot out at regular intervals, each time nearer and nearer the Judge's nose, and with each motion the Colonel sent forth that ear-splitting yell which had not been heard in Jordantown since a Confederate regiment charged a Federal division there in 1864.
Bob Sasnett was the first to reach the scene. He seized the Colonel around the waist from behind, dragging him back so that his red slippers turned up on the heels and showed the soles.
"Look at him, gentlemen! That man has committed a crime!" the Colonel shouted to the gathering crowd as he shook an accusing finger at Regis.
"A crime?" came an incredulous voice.
Regis, calmly folding his paper, looked over the head of his accuser and addressed Sasnett.
"Thank you, Sasnett, for saving his dignity. He was a brave soldier. We must never forget that," he said, lifting his hat impersonally to courage as he made his way out of the ring of staring faces.
"Let me go, Bob!" screamed the Colonel, struggling. "Did you hear him?Wasa brave soldier. By Gad, what am I now? And this from a man whowould destroy the sanctity of fair womanhood, and then barricades himself behind a newspaper when I demand shatisfaction."
"What's the old boy talking about?" demanded Briggs, stretching his neck to get a view of the Colonel.
"If you don't believe what I shay, though I dare any man to doubt my word, read that!" he cried, flinging the paper from him.
TheSignalfell flat and smooth upon the pavement; there was the scraping of many feet as the crowd pushed forward, a mere instant of silence as they read:
then a furious rush for the post office, where every subscriber to theSignalhastily snatched his copy.
The Colonel, bereft of Sasnett's support, slid gently to a sitting posture against the lamp post, his legs wide apart, his red slippers half off. Tears filled his eyes. He wagged his head and sobbed:
"Selah! Selah! Sharper than a sherpent'stooth——" He could not recall the rest, he merely felt it. He was a poor old man, alone, forsaken, he knew that.
No one noticed him. One after another the men filed out, each with theSignalwide open, and with his eyes fastened upon a certain column.
They scattered beneath the various awnings, singly or in groups. Not one addressed his neighbour. Each remained concealed behind the wide enveloping sheets which literally tittered in their trembling hands.
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 theSignalwas 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 wasable to fill the few inside columns of theSignal. 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:
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 theSignalobituary 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, butthe 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.
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, butthe 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.
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 theSignalwas now owned by the Co-Citizens' Foundation. He could not trust himself even in the presence of these powerful women. The very formof 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. Placethem 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 iseasy 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 heldall 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 shadowbehind 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 canforcethis 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 theSignal. 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 tolive, 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 workingup 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 appointmentwith 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.