The Co-Citizens Part 16

"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 n.o.ble giving droop which only women show who have reached the sublimity of nurturing many children at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They were all moving palmetto fans with the serene air of fat, ugly old G.o.ddesses who had pa.s.sed 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 d.a.m.n 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 embarra.s.sment; 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 ma.s.s meeting in Jordantown the first Sat.u.r.day in July.

Selah informed the Leagues of this as she made this tour from one community to another. The purpose of the great ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.s meeting, its effects upon the men. Would they understand the gravity of refusing to cooperate 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 n.o.ble 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 b.u.t.tons!" he answered as he pa.s.sed 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 G.o.ddess 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--G.o.ddess-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.