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of his eyes, and the one woman in the world for him. And I couldnā€™t think his heart had changed so sudden. But knowinā€™ as I did the elastic nature of manly affection, I felt dubersome.

This other girl, Maud Vincent, always said to her men friends, it wuz onwomanly to try to vote. She wuz one of the girls who always gloried in beinā€™ a runninā€™ vine when there wuz any masculine trees round to lean on and twine about. One who always jined in with all the idees they promulgated, from neckties to the tariff, who declared cigar smoke wuz so agreeable and welcome; it did really make her deathly sick, but she would choke herself cheerfully and willinā€™ly if by so chokinā€™ she could gain manly favor and admiration.

She said she didnā€™t believe in helpinā€™ poor girls, they wuz well enough off as it wuz, she wuz sure they didnā€™t feel hunger and cold as rich girls did, their skin wuz thicker and their stomachs different and stronger, and constant labor didnā€™t harm them, and working girls didnā€™t need recreation as rich girls did, and womanā€™s suffrage wouldnā€™t help them any; in her opinion it would harm them, and anyway the poor wuz on-grateful.

She had the usual arguments on the tip of her tongue, for old Miss Vincent, the aunt she lived with, wuz a ardent She Aunty and very prominent in the public meetinā€™s the She Auntys have to try to compel the Suffragists not to have public meetinā€™s. They talk a good deal in public how onwomanly and immodest it is for wimmen to talk in public. And she wuz one of the foremost ones in tryinā€™ to git up a school to teach wimmen civics, to prove that they mustnā€™t ever have anything to do with civics.

Yes, old Miss Vincent wuz a real active, ardent She Aunty, and Maud Genevieve takes after her. Royal Gray, his handsome attractive personality, and his millions, had long been the goal of Maudā€™s ambition. And how ardently did she hail the coolness growing between him and Polly, the little rift in the lute, and how zealously did she labor to make it larger.

Polly and Royal had had many an argument on the subject, that is, he would begin by makinā€™ fun of the Suffragists and their militant doinā€™s, which if heā€™d thought onā€™t wuz sunthinā€™ like what his old revolutionary forbears went through for the same reasons, beinā€™ taxed without representation, and beinā€™ burdened and punished by the law they had no voice in making, only the Suffragettes are not nearly so severe with their opposers, they havenā€™t drawed any blood yet. Why, them old Patriots we revere so, would consider their efforts for freedom exceedingly gentle and tame compared to their own bloody battles.

And Royal would make light of the efforts of college girls to help workinā€™ girls, and the encouragement and aid theyā€™d gin ā€™em when they wuz strikinā€™ for less death-dealinā€™ hours of labor, and livinā€™ wages, and so forth. I donā€™t see how such a really noble young man as Royal ever come to argy that way, but spoze it wuz the dead hand of some rough onreasonable old ancestor reachinā€™ up out of the shadows of the past and pushinā€™ him on in the wrong direction.

So when he begun to ridicule what Pollyā€™s heart wuz sot on, when she felt that he wuz fightinā€™ agin right and justice, before they knowed it both pairs of bright eyes would git to flashinā€™ out angry sparks, and hash words would be said on both sides. That old long-buried Tory ancestor of hisen egginā€™ him on, so I spoze, and Pollyā€™s generous sperit rebellinā€™ aginst the injustice and selfishness, and mebby some warlike ancestor of hern pushinā€™ her on to say hash things. ā€™Tennyrate he had grown less attentive to her, and wuz bestowinā€™ his time and attentions elsewhere.

And when she told him she wuz goinā€™ to ride in the automobile parade of the suffragists, but really ridinā€™ she felt towards truth and justice to half the citizens of the U.S., he wuz mad as a wet hen, a male wet hen, and wuz bound she shouldnā€™t go.

Some men, and mebby it is love that makes ā€™em feel so (they say it is), and mebby it is selfishness (though they wonā€™t own up to it), but they want the women they love to belong to them alone, want to rule absolutely over their hearts, their souls, their bodies, and all their thoughts and aims, desires, and fancies. They donā€™t really say they want ā€™em to wear veils, and be shet in behind lattice-windowed harems, but I believe they would enjoy it.

They want to be foot loose and heart loose themselves, but always after Ulysses is tired of world wandering, he wants to come back and open the barred doors of home with his own private latch-key, and find Penelope knitting stockings for him with her veil on, waitinā€™ for him.

That sperit is I spoze inherited from the days when our ancestor, the Cave man, would knock down the woman he fancied, with a club, and carry her off into his cave and keep her there shet up. But little by little men are forgettinā€™ their ancestral traits, and men and wimmen are gradually cominā€™ out of their dark caverns into the sunshine (for women too have inherited queer traits and disagreeable ones, but that is another story).

Well, as I said, Royal wuz mad and told Polly that he guessed that the day of the Parade he would take Maud Vincent out in the country in his motor, to gather May-flowers. Polly told him she hoped they would have a good time, and then, after he had gone, drivinā€™ his car lickety-split, harem skarum, owinā€™ to his madness I spoze, Polly went upstairs and cried, for I hearn her, her room wuz next to ourn.

And I deeply respected her for her principles, for he had asked her first to go May-flowering with him the day of the Suffrage meeting. But she refused, havinā€™ in her mind, I spoze, the girls that couldnā€™t hunt flowers, but had to handle weeds and thistles with bare hands (metaforically) and wanted to help them and all workinā€™ wimmen to happier and more prosperous lives.

IV.
ā€œSTRIVINā€™ WITH THE EMISSARYā€

But I am hitchinā€™ the horse behind the wagon and to resoom backwards. The Reunion wuz put off a week and the Suffrage Meetinā€™ wuz two days away, so I told Lorinda I didnā€™t believe I would have a better time to carry Serepta Pesterā€™s errents to Washington, D.C. Josiah said he guessed he would stay and help wait on Hiram Cagwin, and I approved onā€™t, for Lorinda wuz gittinā€™ wore out.

And then Josiah made so light of them errents I felt that he would be a drawback instead of a help, for how could I keep a calm and noble frame of mind befittinā€™ them lofty errents, and how could I carry ā€™em stiddy with a pardner by my side pokinā€™ fun at ā€™em, and at me for carryinā€™ ā€™em, jarrinā€™ my sperit with his scorfinā€™ and onbelievinā€™ talk?

And as I sot off alone in the trolley I thought of how they must have felt in old times a-carryinā€™ the Urim and Thumim. And though I hadnā€™t no idee what them wuz, yet I always felt that the carriers of ā€™em must have felt solemn and high-strung. Yes, my feelinā€™s wuz such as I felt of the heft and importance of them errents not alone to Serepta Pester, but to the hull race of wimmen that it kepā€™ my mental head rained up so high that I couldnā€™t half see and enjoy the sight of the most beautiful city in the world, and still I spoze its grandeur and glory sort oā€™ filtered down through my conscientiousness, as cloth grows white under the sunā€™s rays onbeknown to it.

Anon I left the trolley and walked some ways afoot. It wuz a lovely day, the sun shone down in golden splendor upon the splendor beneath it. Broad, beautiful clean streets, little fresh green parks, everywhere you could turn about, and big ones full of flowers and fountains, and trees and statutes.

And anon or oftener I passed noble big stun buildings, where everything is made for the nationā€™s good and profit. Money and fish and wisdom and all sorts of patented things and garden seeds and tariffs and resolutions and treaties and laws of every shape and size, good ones and queer ones and reputations and rates and rebates, etc., etc. But it would devour too much time to even name over all that is made and onmade there, even if I knowed by name the innumerable things that are flowinā€™ constant out of that great reservoir of the Nation, with its vast crowd of law-makers settinā€™ on the lid, regulatinā€™ its flow and spreadinā€™ it abroad over the country, thick and thin.

But on I went past the Capitol, the handsomest buildinā€™ on the Globe, standinā€™ in its own Eden of beauty. By the Public Library as long as from our house to Grout Hozletonā€™s, and I guess longer, and every foot onā€™t more beautifler ornamented than tongue can tell. But I didnā€™t dally tryinā€™ to pace off the size onā€™t, though it wuz enormous, for the thought of what I wuz carryinā€™ bore me on almost regardless of my matchless surroundinā€™s and the twinges of rumatiz. And anon I arrived at the White House, where my hopes and the hopes of my sect and Serepta Pester wuz sot. I will pass over my efforts to git into the Presence, merely sayinā€™ that they were arjous and extreme, and I wouldnā€™t probably have got in at all had not the Presence appeared with a hat on jest goinā€™ out for a walk, and see me as I wuz strivinā€™ with the emissary for entrance. I spoze my noble mean, made more noble fur by the magnitude of what I wuz carryinā€™, impressed him, for suffice it to say inside of five minutes the Presence wuz back in his augience room, and I wuz layinā€™ out them errents of Sereptaā€™s in front of him.

He wuz very hefty, a good-lookinā€™ smilinā€™ man, a politer demeanored gentlemanly appearner man I donā€™t want to see. But his linement which had looked so pleasant and cheerful growed gloomy and deprested as I spread them errents before him and sez in conclusion:

ā€œSerepta Pester sent these errents to you, she wanted intemperance done away with, the Whiskey Ring broke up and destroyed, she wanted you to have nothinā€™ stronger than root beer when you had company to dinner, she offerinā€™ to send you some burdock and dandeline roots and some emptins to start it with, and she wanted her rights, and wanted ā€™em all by week after next without fail.ā€

He sithed hard, and I never see a linement fall furder than hisen fell, and kepā€™ a-fallinā€™. I pitied him, I see it wuz a hard stent for him to do it in the time she had sot, and he so fleshy too. But knowinā€™ how much wuz at the stake, and how the fate of Serepta and wimmen wuz tremblinā€™ in the balances, I spread them errents out before him. And beinā€™ truthful and above board, I told him that Serepta wuz middlinā€™ disagreeable and very humbly, but she needed her rights jest as much as though she wuz a wax-doll. And I went on and told him how she and her relations had suffered from want of rights, and how dretfully she had suffered from the Ring till I declare talkinā€™ about them little children of hern, and her agony, I got about as fierce actinā€™ as Serepta herself, and entirely onbeknown to myself I talked powerful on intemperance and Rings, and such.

When I got down agin onto my feet I see he had a still more worried and anxious look on his good-natured face, and he sez: ā€œThe laws of the United States are such that I canā€™t do them errands, I canā€™t interfere.ā€

ā€œThen,ā€ sez I, ā€œwhy donā€™t you make the United States do right?ā€

He said sunthinā€™ about the might of the majority, and the powerful corporations and rings, and that sot me off agin. And I talked very powerful and allegored about allowinā€™ a ring to be put round the United States and let a lot of whiskey dealers and corporations lead her round, a pitiful sight for men and angels. Sez I, ā€œHow duz it look before the nations to see Columbia led round half-tipsy by a Ring?ā€

He seemed to think it looked bad, I knew by his looks.

Sez I, ā€œIntemperance is bad for Serepta and bad for the Nation.ā€

He murmured sunthinā€™ about the revenue the liquor trade brought the Govermunt.

But I sez, ā€œEvery

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