Chapter 3

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 coöperate 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!"