The Co-Citizens Part 21

"The time has pa.s.sed, men, when we are to be deceived by that foolish fallacy by which you have so long even deceived yourselves: that women win by their gentle influence over you. They don't! If they influence you at all it is for your good, not theirs. We are in the position to use the same lever that you have always had--power--and we shall use it.

If you defeat us, you must destroy yourselves, your credit, and your reputation.

"You have been boasting at the impossibility of our even getting this issue as far as the polls. You have been challenging us to tell you how that can be done. That's what we are here for this afternoon: to tell you, and to leave you perfectly free to act as your judgment directs."

The audience moved, drew its breath, crossed and uncrossed its knees, spat its tobacco quids upon the floor, and craned its neck to see her better, to hear more distinctly what she had to say. Every man in Jordan County had been waiting for this news for three months.

"How did you get stock low in this county fifteen years ago?" she asked, and waited.

"Please, Marm, we voted on it!" whimpered the same waggish voice.

"But before you voted, you got up a pet.i.tion signed by three fourths of the voting register of the county, didn't you? And then you submitted the pet.i.tion to the Ordinary of the county, who by the laws of this state advertised the election to be held not sooner than thirty days.

And you got prohibition the same way! Twenty, fifteen years ago this was the only way to close saloons and grogshops that were open at every crossroad and on the streets of every town and village. We have a state-wide temperance law now as the result of local option laws that were enforced first until public sentiment against liquor was sufficiently strong to control state legislation."

She paused, opened one palm, and brought her other fist down upon it with a smack that could be heard to the back of the hall, as she exclaimed:

"That, gentlemen, is the way we shall win suffrage for women in this state. We shall get it first by _local option_ in this county! Other counties will follow your ill.u.s.trious example and get it the same way, until the boundaries of these counties shall touch, and the experiment is no longer an experiment but an a.s.sured success!"

The women cheered. They made as much noise as they could, they waved their handkerchiefs, and emitted little feminine chirrups. But the men sat silent, staring in amazement at the little fat old lady who was smiling at them like a gratified mother.

"Now I have told you, and all you have to do at present is to sign that pet.i.tion," she went on very pleasantly. "We have already secured to-day and yesterday the names of many of the leading citizens of Jordantown.

And you will find just outside the doors of this hall two gentlemen whom you all know very well, Mr. Stark Coleman and Mr. Martin Acres. Each of them has a copy of the pet.i.tion to be signed, and enough extra sheets of paper for every man here to sign his name.

"Now," she concluded, "we will close this meeting by singing the national hymn, not only because this day commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but because, for all years to come, we shall look back upon this day as the one upon which the men of this county signed the pet.i.tion which calls for liberty, rights, and justice for women!"

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 ba.s.s 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 the ecstatic 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 pet.i.tion. 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. If _they_ favoured the thing, far be it from the others to oppose it--at least not the pet.i.tion.

"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 pet.i.tion 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 pushing the pet.i.tion. 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 the _Signal_, 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 a.s.sumed 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 pet.i.tion 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 inspired the 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 circ.u.mstance, 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 moment the 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 m.u.f.fled strokes upon rugs and 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.