Election Day
Election day dawned bright and clear and all Roma was up early, actively interested for once in the outcome of the day's work. The polling places were lively at seven o'clock and from that hour they grew more and more crowded, as men and women of all parties swarmed to deposit their ballots according to the Australian system. Never before in the history of the town had so many voters been out on the day of a municipal election.
The women had opened coffee-rooms for the day close by all the important voting booths, and wives and daughters of the most prominent men in town served the steaming beverage by turns throughout the election hours free to all who might come. Moreover, they saw to it that no voter who mustered under the City Reform Club banner, was neglected. It would be too much to assume that the liquor stands were outdone, but at least the "Progressive Workers" were the means of sending many men home sober that day, and of rescuing a few of the tempted ones.
The leaders of the different parties were here, there and everywhere, looking after the interests of their respective candidates, talking, persuading, urging or buying the dilatory or vacillating vote. And the women found, early in the day, that in order to compete with the opposition, they must stay close to the polls.
"What shall we do? How divide our forces?" they asked.
Bailey Armstrong had just dropped into the coffee-room in the principal ward.
"Well, something, and at once," he said. "Sam Watts is everywhere, guiding his committees and buying up votes. Morgan and Jack Allingham, too, are getting down to business."
"Then Mr. Allingham is able to be out?" inquired Gertrude, at Bailey's side.
"He is out, able or unable," returned Bailey. "And they are leaving no stone unturned to get votes. I guess you'll have to come and turn a few cobblestones yourself—"
"Yes, Gertrude," said Mrs. Bateman, "you'll have to. I'll go the rounds with you."
"Mrs. Stillman and I will go over to ward seven," said Mrs. Jewett. "Mrs. Mason and Mrs. Turner to ward three, and Mrs. Wentworth and Grace Tolman to ward two. And we'll get out some others. You couldn't go, could you, Miss Snow?"
"I am writing up the woman's part of today's battle," returned Mary Snow. "I shall go to every ward, and will help what I can,—but I cannot neglect my paper. The Atlas is going to give us all the space we can fill tonight."
"The Atlas has been good to us all through," said Gertrude. "We have one paper—and a decent one—we can depend upon."
It was arranged that the women should divide themselves into committees of two at each voting booth, these couples to shift every hour or two, so that Gertrude Van Deusen might be seen at every booth.
"One would think I had been on view long enough so that every man, woman and child should be familiar with my features by this time," she laughed, remembering her constant appearance on the platform during the campaign. "Yet they are saying in some of the lower wards, that the voters have never laid eyes on me. Well, they shall have the chance."
Had it not been that the love of battle and of conquest had been born and bred in the old Senator's daughter, Gertrude would have sickened already of politics and politicians and the mass of feeble humanity that was like clay in the hands of the potter. For in spite of the real interest of the more intelligent citizens, there were the usual hangers-on and heelers,—men who had no civic sense, no idea of public duty, no moral stamina; men who sold their votes openly and as a matter of course.
"What'll you women give me?" asked one of these derelicts of Mrs. Bateman. "Burke's crowd has given me two dollars. If you'll make it three, I'll vote for your candidate."
"We are not buying votes, sir," replied the Judge's wife. "We have no respect for a man who will sell his vote. But we will give you, in return for yours, the satisfaction of feeling that you are a man among men; that you are doing the right and honorable thing, and that you are helping to establish an honest government here in Roma. Isn't your manhood worth more than two or even three dollars to you?"
"Well," returned the man after a speechless moment, "I'll be dinged if it isn't! I am going to vote for you, anyhow." Which he proceeded to do, although in somewhat maudlin fashion.
At ward three, Miss Van Deusen came face to face with John Allingham. It was an awkward moment for both. Gertrude flushed, but she carried her head high, and said "Good morning," with so much cordiality that Allingham felt more awkward than ever.
All night he had slept but fitfully, and in his wakeful hours had regretted with self-denunciation, that his name was to be voted upon that day. In his waking dreams he had thought once of withdrawing his candidacy, even at the polls. When he slept, he was riding once more, through the beautiful night—not alone, locked into the cab—but with Gertrude Van Deusen beside him, talking in her sweet musical voice, of things far removed from Roma and its dirty politics. The mobile face, the starry eyes, the delicate perfume that enwrapped her, lingered with him, and when he waked, it was difficult to cast the memory aside and to gather his wits for the fight which he must make against her that day, for an office he did not want;—but on the other hand, more than ever did he want her not to have it. That beautiful and gracious young woman he told himself, endowed with rare graces of mind and soul,—she must not be allowed to soil herself with the political machinery at City Hall. She had been misguided, led into this candidacy by those other women, strong-minded suffragists. Was it not his duty to get out and work for her defeat?
And so he arose and dressed, and although hotly opposed by his women-folk, who thought he should stay in bed and be carefully nursed for a week, he went forth, his face adorned with surgeon's plaster and his heart full of mixed motives, to the fray.
"You are none the worse for your ride?" he said to her. "You are sure you were not hurt?"
"No, not a bit," laughed Gertrude. "There isn't even the odor of liniment about me. But you,—your hurts must pain you? You were badly used up last night. Ought you to be out?" And then she blushed, remembering he was out to defeat her.
"Oh, I am well again," he returned, "only these bits of plaster make me out worse than I am. As soon as this election is over I'm going to find out who was at the bottom of that devilish plot."
"You'll never find out," said Bailey Armstrong, coming up at that moment. "It was some of Burke's dirty work, but they've covered their tracks mighty well. I've been making inquiries this morning. There isn't an electric cab in this city."
"Then they came over from Bonborough—or Plattsville," said Allingham. "There are plenty of them there."
"Yes, many," returned Armstrong. "But we shall never learn the truth. The trick was done so well that the perpetrators know how to cover their tracks."
But a bevy of voters coming in, the conversation ended and Gertrude did not see her opponent again that day.
At six o'clock that evening, she lay on the couch in her own room, weary with the day's experiences. For all she had considered herself well posted in political methods, this day had been a revelation to her.
"Well, Jessica," she told her cousin, "I suppose we shall know before we go to bed how I stand. But at this moment, after all I've seen today and realizing the state our city affairs are in, I will own to you in confidence that I hope—honestly and earnestly,—that I am defeated. John Allingham may have the mayor's chair and welcome. I've seen enough of it already, and I tell you I am sick at heart."
"And what if it is Barnaby Burke who comes off victorious?" asked her cousin.
"Well, I am not sufficiently discouraged to be willing to have that happen," said Gertrude. "Still—between you and me,—I don't 'want the job,' as I heard one man express it today. But, even if I lose the election, it will always be a comfort to me to remember how the working-people came out for me,—as well as to know just who, among my father's old friends, can be reckoned as mine. And now, I want a little nap before dinner."
Down at the headquarters of the City Reform Club Judge Bateman and his colleagues awaited the result of the count. With them were many of the "Progressive Workers," eager for news. The Union Club, the hotels and Burke's headquarters were crowded, while John Allingham and his trusted lieutenants were gathered at the Municipal League rooms. Returns came in slowly and the crowds on the street clamored for news faster than the bulletins could be given out.
At ten o'clock John Allingham was obliged to retreat and go home, physically worn out. The accident of the previous evening, combined with the excitement of the day, had proved too much for him. He was already in bed when the final returns reached him by telephone. Then he shut and locked his door, refusing to speak to another soul that night,—not even to his mother when she came up to see if he had taken the doctor's medicine.
Gertrude Van Deusen, too, remained in her room alone. Face to face with the decisive moment of victory or defeat, she could not see anyone. She was too tired to care much whether she had won or lost, although she recalled now, as a hopeful augury, that she had never yet been defeated for any office for which she had run in the various women's societies to which she belonged.
"Let John Allingham have the place, if he can get it," she was saying to herself for the fiftieth time, as the mantel clock chimed out the half-past ten. "I am swept under by a queer psychological wave of repulsion. I hope I shall lose."
But she was aroused just then by the sound of women's voices on the stairs,—laughing and chattering,—and she felt the note of triumph ringing through her brain as they came up to her door.
"Hurrah for Roma's Woman Mayor!" cried the first one to enter. "Here's to Her Honor the Mayor."
At the same moment John Allingham and Barnaby Burke were saying to themselves with a choice of words befitting their habitual language:
"Defeated! and by a Woman!"
And Burke added:
"I wonder now, just what happened in that cab last night. That was a mistake."