The twenty-five women at the back of the stage came forward and gathered about her.
"My Country 'tis of thee,Sweet land of liberty——"
they sang, their voices rising high and keen, unaccompanied by a single bass note. The women in the audience joined in. Colonel Adams, who had slept peacefully since his own masterly effort to protect the ladies, started now, sat up, saw theecstatic faces of these women, arose, stumbled off the stage. He was satisfied. The dear creatures were singing! Nothing more becoming to women than song! Meanwhile, the men filed out bustling, and whispering, with Acres and Coleman heading the petition. That put a different face on the situation. One was the president of the bank and the other was the leading merchant of the county. Iftheyfavoured the thing, far be it from the others to oppose it—at least not the petition.
"Signing this here thing ain't votin' for women. We don't have to go to the polls on election day!"
This whisper went the rounds as they stood in line, looking curious, grinning suspiciously at Coleman and Acres, who had in fact stationed themselves on either side of the door, at little writing stands upon which the petition lay spread, with an ever-increasing list of names beneath as one man after another "put his fist to it," chaffing one another with grievous comments as they did so. And most of them secretly determined that this was the last they would have to do with the iniquitous thing.
But they were sadly mistaken. From opposing suffrage, many of the leading men were now pushingthe petition. Coleman, Acres, and Bob Sasnett toured the county in their automobiles to secure signatures. They literally took the movement out of the hands of the Co-Citizens in their efforts to hasten the election. There was a tremendous spreading of the news of events going forward in Jordan County. The press of the state published extracts from theSignal, with numerous comments, later with serious prophecies of the future effects of this experiment so gallantly undertaken by the men of Jordan County. Reporters were sent down for interviews, which they got from Coleman and Acres, who calmly assumed the glory and responsibility of bringing about the coming election. For the first time in their lives they figured in the headlines of city newspapers, with their pictures on the front page. Susan Walton laughed at their vanity till her fat stomach shook like jelly.
Bob Sasnett figured as the first candidate in Jordan County who would run for office on the crinoline ticket. "Mr. Sasnett is extremely optimistic. He feels sure that he will be elected by an overwhelming majority of the crinoline vote. He is a very handsome young man," was the comment beneath his picture in a great morning daily.
The necessary number of signatures to the petition having been secured at last, the election was duly advertised for the 16th of September.
The women were hopeful, but they were by no means sure of success. The Foundation did not hold mortgages on all the farms by any means, neither were all the farmers implicated in the Prim papers. The large majority of them was still composed of free men of blameless characters, and with reputations for stubbornness that were alarming. Still, public sentiment was undoubtedly overwhelming in favour of suffrage now, and the county women held frequent secret League meetings at which they discussed plans, the great question being to get their husbands to the polls at all.
The 16th of September dawned upon Jordan County like an irritable old woman with a shawl over her shoulders and a broom in her hands. The sun rose clear, but there was a hint of frost in the air and the east wind was blowing. Ironweeds and goldenrods upon the hills bent low before it. The cotton fields looked dishevelled with white locks flying. The cornstalks, stripped long since of fodder,stood with down-hanging ears like rows of soldiers at attention with knapsacks upon their lean backs. It was as if, overnight, Nature had suddenly got in a hurry to shift her scenes and change the season.
Whether it was the brushing, brisk, windy character of the day, or the mood of the women owing to other circumstances, no one will ever know, but it is already a matter of history that upon this day every woman belonging to the Women's Co-Citizens' League had a fit of housecleaning. They cooked breakfasts for their respective families in a frenzy, scolding shrilly. They boxed the ears of their little boys, drove their little girls to the churning without mercy, clattered the breakfast dishes furiously, and in various ways indicated to their lords and masters that the day belonged to them, to them exclusively, and that no man could hope to remain in peace within range of their mops and brooms till every vestige of summer dust and dirt was removed, every feather bed sunned till it swelled tick tight, every quilt aired, every rug beaten, every floor scoured, and they themselves relaxed, exhausted, purified, and satisfied at the end of the day.
I say only their Maker could have told what inspiredthe women of Jordan County to undertake these arduous labours upon this particular day. Women have instincts to which the east wind appeals strongly. It excites their neuralgic energies. On the other hand, it was a curious circumstance, discovered afterward by an exchange of confidence between the desperate male victims, that this cleaning rage was carried on almost exclusively by the members of the Women's Co-Citizens' League in each of the voting districts of the county.
When a mere society woman desires for any reason to avenge herself upon the man nearest to her in the relations of life, or to bring him to terms, she may engage in a discreet flirtation with some other man. She knows how to exile him from his home with a reception or a bridge party. But when a good faithful wife makes up her virtuous mind to humble her man and declare her own supremacy, she pins an ugly rag tight over her head to keep the dust out of her hair, doubles her chin, draws her mouth into a facial command, tucks up her skirts, moves the furniture out of the living-room, dashes twelve gallons of hot suds over the floor, leaps into it with an old stiff broom, and begins to sweep. At such a momentthe most timid, man-fearing woman becomes august. Her nature undergoes a swift change. She is no longer herself, she belongs once more to the matriarchal age when she carried man like a sack on her back and dumped him where she pleased, when she pleased. The most tyrannical husband immediately abrogates his authority when he sees the symptoms of this frenzy developing in her. He takes to his heels and remains away until she puts things in order and returns to her senses. This is the proof of a queer ineradicable cowardice in every man, that the bravest and hardiest of them who does not shrink from marching barefooted through winter snows to meet the enemy in overwhelming numbers will fly before the face of one woman who has made up her mind to wet his feet with scouring water if he does not get out of the way.
Before nine o'clock in the morning the domestic entrails of Jordan County were out of doors, piled in the sun, hanging upon the clotheslines, flapping in the wind. The swish of wet brooms could be heard in every house, mingled with the sharp voices of scolding women. The air was filled with clouds of dust, the sound of sticks in muffled strokes upon rugsand carpets like the drums of an invading army. These were answered by the strumming of other sticks similarly employed in other farmyards.
It was a fact, five hundred men had been rendered homeless for that day at least. Nevertheless, they were holding out. An hour later only one ballot had been cast at the polls in Possum Trot. The crowd thickened outside the courthouse door. Men eyed each other quizzically, morosely, some even avoided each other's questioning glances.
"Where's Jake Terry?" some one asked helplessly.
"Who, Terry?" answered Bill Long. "He was the first man here after the polls opened. Said if it was the last ballot he'd ever cast he'd vote against woman suffrage, went and put it in first for an example to the rest of us!"
"Susan Walton ain't got a mortgage on his sawmill, or he wouldn't be so gol dern frisky about votin' ag'in her!" growled Deal.
"What we going to do about this business, anyhow?" demanded one nervously.
"We could get drunk," suggested another. "There's nothing that takes the starch out of women and shows 'em their place quicker than that."
"But we can't stay drunk. We got to go home some time or other and have it out with 'em after we are sober and penitent," put in still another victim philosophically.
At this moment Tim Cates rode into the edge of the crowd, his mouth stretched in a broad grin, and his goatee working like a white peg in his chin.
"Boys," he shouted, rolling out of his saddle, "you'd as well give it up and take your medicine. I met a man coming from the Sugar Valley just now, and he 'lowed that out of a hundred and fifty votes down there this morning there wan't but three cast ag'in suffrage for women, and one of them was challenged. Susan Walton's got a man stationed at every precinct, with a list of the names of the men in that district that ain't registered nor paid their poll tax, ready to drop 'em if they try to vote!"
"Tim, step up to the store and telephone to Dry Pond and Calico Valley and see how the election is going."
Cates stepped briskly. He was one of these meddlesome persons who would sell his birthright to gratify his curiosity. Presently he returned, cupped his hands over his mouth, and trumpeted the news.
"Dry Pond, forty-two ballots cast, forty-two for suffrage, nary one anti!" This joke was greeted with a groan.
"Calico Valley, seventy-four ballots cast, sixty-eight for suffrage, six anti-suffrage! Fellow at Dry Pond says the women are beating their feather beds for miles around, and the men air scared to death. He says——"
A tall, well-dressed man, past fifty years of age, joined the group. This was John Fairfield, the only gentleman farmer in the community, and one of the few men whose wife was not implicated in the Woman's Movement. She was an invalid, nearly blind. Fairfield had been the understudy of Prim in controlling the political affairs of the community. He was very popular.
"Mr. Fairfield, how are you going to vote?" some one yelled.
"Yes, tell us what you're going to do!"
"A speech. Give us a speech!" came from a dozen husky throats.
"'We air po' wanderin' sheep to-day, away on the mountains wild and bar'!' Put yo' crook around our necks, John, an' lead us home with our tails behind us,so as our Bo Peeps'll know us when we come an' gladden us with their soft black eyes! Ain't that the way the poetry runs?" snickered a drunken wag, dropping on the post-office steps and gazing up with a befuddled air at Fairfield, who had removed his hat and ascended the steps.
"Gentlemen," he began, "you know me."
"Yes," sobbed the wag, "we know you and we know ourselves, unfortunate creatures that we air—an' we thought we knowed the women in this county. We've dandled some of 'em on our knees. We've drawed 'em in times past to our unworthy bosoms—but now all is changed. We've lost 'em! Where, oh, where——"
"Shet up, you darn fool! and let us hear what he has to say."
The "darn fool" laid his head in the dust, and gave himself up wholly to his grief.
"I was about to say," Fairfield began again, "that you know me——"
"Yes!"
"Shet up!"
"—and you know I have always stood for what was right among you——"
"Always! Give me five dollars for my vote last 'lection, ginerous man!"
Fairfield lifted his voice and hastened to drown these revelations of his generosity.
"I believe in woman! She has been the 'pillow' of cloud by day and fire by night——"
"Candle in the window, John, don't forget that!"
"—that guides us through the wilderness of the world, and now she has become the bright new star of our better destinies! We must follow her——"
"Dangerous to monkey with female stars!"
"—No man ever loses his way who trusts such women as we have among us."
"Sampson, oh, Sampson, listen to that!" cried the voice at his feet.
"For thirty years I have served one woman faithfully. I owe everything I am and everything I have to this service."
Every man present had a vision of the little, frail, white-haired woman who lay in his house helpless and blind. Never before had he referred to her, but they knew his devotion. He lifted himself in their regard by this one sentence. There are moments when even the demagogue may show the halo of asaint. Fairfield, henchman of Prim, never suspected it, but this was the crowning hour of his life, the one moment when he stood without fear and without reproach like a true knight.
"My advice to every citizen present is that he vote this day for the women who have cast so many ballots for us in their prayers!" he concluded, bowing to their cheers.
Immediately after there was a rush for the polls.
In Jordantown the day passed quietly. The women were in strict seclusion. All the "prominent citizens" were working earnestly at the polls for the cause of suffrage. At last the hour arrived for counting the ballots. The town had gone overwhelmingly for suffrage for women, but the returns were slow in coming from the country precincts, and great anxiety was felt about the issues there. The rumour was current that the farmers were determined not to vote at all.
About seven o'clock some one came swiftly down the courthouse steps, and rushed across to the National Bank Building. In five minutes the square was in an uproar. Men shouted to men: "We've put 'em in! We've put the women in!"
Stark Coleman snatched up the 'phone on his desk.
"Agatha, my dear, it's glorious news! Thank God, we've won by a majority of 633! You are now a voter in Jordan County!"
He hung up the receiver and ran out to Acres's store. At the same moment Sam Briggs, who was now a diligent clerk in Judge Regis's outer office, thrust the door open and shouted:
"They're in, Judge, by a good 633 majority!"
"All right, Briggs! finish that list of election expenses. We want to publish it in theSignalto-morrow!" he said quietly, as he arose and put on his hat. "I'll go over and tell Mrs. Walton. Think I've earned that privilege, anyhow!" he added, smiling.
"You did it!" exclaimed Briggs, "you worked the whole thing and put it across!"
"No, that speech she made in July did it," he said.
"It was a jo-darter all right, that speech!" laughed Briggs to himself as he went back to his desk.
On his way to Mrs. Walton's residence, the Judge passed two men.
"Bill," one of them was saying to the other, "we can't never get rid of our wives any more, nowhere,not even when we attend a political convention. Apt as not my wife will be my alternate!"
"Apt as not, you'll be hers, you damn fool!" he retorted.
As the Judge came up on the steps Mrs. Walton appeared in the door. At the sight of him there she threw up her hands and cried:
"Don't tell me we are defeated, John Regis, I can't bear it!"
"Susan, you may now run for sheriff of this county, there are enough more women than men in it to elect you. And you've got 'em in your pocket!" he concluded, laughing as he seized her hands.
"Oh!" she sobbed, sinking down into a chair. "I thought this day would never end. Such suspense!"
"Showed the white feather, too, didn't you? I called at your office early in the afternoon and you were not there," he teased.
"I couldn't stand it. I felt that if we should be defeated, I must hear the news in my own house—in reach of my bed!" she sobbed, half laughing.
"If I was twenty years younger, Susan, I'd ask you to marry me this night by way of celebrating our victory," he said, looking down at her.
"If I was twenty years younger there'd be no such victory to celebrate, John," she replied, "so you wouldn't have asked me!"
"You should see Coleman and Acres. They are taking all the credit of the election, strutting like fighting cocks on the square!"
"Let them have it. I'd rather the world should think the men gave us the ballot willingly, and that it should never be known that we beat them out of it," she said, heaving a sigh of relief.
A young man and a young woman were seated behind the vine on the veranda three doors down the avenue. His arm was about her waist, her head upon his shoulder. The moon was doing what she could to cover them with the mottled shadows of leaves.
"Could you manage it in two weeks, dear? I want you for my wife before I begin my own campaign! We'd make a honeymoon of it then, canvassing it together!" he pleaded softly.
"I'll marry you, Bob, but not for such a honeymoon as that! Oh, I'm sick and tired of politics. I never want to hear the word again. I'll just barely vote for you, that's all!" she sighed.
"Upon my word," he laughed, drawing her closer and kissing her. "I thought you'd be keen for the canvass."
"'Bob, I'll make a confession to you. It's been horrid, from first to last. When we are married I want to sit at home and darn your socks—you do wear holes in them, don't you?'""'Bob, I'll make a confession to you. It's been horrid, from first to last. When we are married I want to sit at home and darn your socks—you do wear holes in them, don't you?'"
"Bob!" she said, sitting up and looking at him solemnly, "I'll make a confession to you, now it's over and we have won; it's been horrid, from first to last. When we are married I want to sit at home and darn your socks—you do wear holes in them, don't you?" She laughed hysterically. "I believe it would relieve some outraged instinct in me if I could iron your shirts! Isn't it awful! Icraveto do just the woman things—to serve you and father. I feel as if nothing else will ever naturalize me again as a woman!"
After an ineffable pause, during which her lover had laid a laughing tribute upon her lips and brow, she added:
"Poor father, I wonder where he is?"
"Saw him going down the avenue as I came up, with an enormous bunch of flowers in his hand," Bob told her.
"Poor father" was, in fact, approaching Mrs. Sasnett at that moment, who was seated in mournful but resplendent grandeur upon a rustic bench beneath the trees in her yard.
She was indignant at the day's doings. She had been indignant for months, but she thanked God that she was still a lady, and she was determined to remain one, to which end she had contributed that day enough to make up for the deficit in the women's missionary collections of her church. And she had dressed herself in purple and fine linen by way of making out that she was a lady and nothing but a lady.
"Colonel Adams!" she exclaimed softly, as the Colonel approached.
"Madam, the sight of you is grateful after what I've been through this day!" he said, kissing her hand, and depositing the flowers upon the ground at her feet.
"Oh! Colonel, no one can have had more sympathy with you than I have felt during these trying months," she sighed.
"I have felt it," he returned, parting his coat tails and seating himself beside her.
"No one could have sympathized with you so keenly in your sorrow," she murmured.
"I divined as much. I have suffered!"
"I know!" she breathed.
"My one pleasure has been the offering I have placed upon your doorstep each evening," he sighed.
"So the flowers were from you, then?" she said, gazing at the bouquet so significantly laid now at her feet.
"I trusted your woman's intuition to know that," he answered, with a shade of offended dignity.
"I suspected, of course, but how could I know? You never confessed."
"Who else in this shameless town would have the sense, the feeling, to approach a lady with flowers—they give 'em the ballot instead!"
"Don't speak of it!" she implored, lifting her hand tragically as if to ward off a blow.
"But Imustspeak of it, Lula," he exclaimed, seizing the despairing hand. "As much as I hate to mention a matter so indelicate, I must, because it concerns us." They looked at each other like two old doves.
"How should it matter to us?" she asked sadly.
"Because if we do not unite against this awful situation, we—well, we are lost!"
She sighed, as if she saw no hope anywhere in the moonlight.
"Will you marry me, Lula?"
"Oh! Colonel Adams——"
"Under ordinary circumstances I'd never dare hope for such a boon. I'm unworthy of you. No man can be—but consider what will happen if you refuse?"
"What will happen?" she exclaimed.
"You must pass the remainder of your days, the sweetest, most beautiful years of a woman's life, in intimate daily contact with a suffragist, with a young woman who votes like a man!"
"God help me! What do you mean?" she cried in genuine alarm.
"Bob's going to marry Selah! that's what I mean. You'll have to live with them. And if you don't marry me, I'll have to live with them!"