THE CHRONICLES OF A RURAL PARISH.
VI.—Preparing for the Poll.
When I do a thing, I like to do it properly, for even my worst enemies, who call me a fool, admit that I'm a thorough fool. I have accordingly lost no time in getting to work at my electoral campaign. I commenced at a great disadvantage. The other seven candidates were electioneering for a week before the Parish Meeting, and the result was that they all polled three times as many votes as I did. That has happened once. I don't intend that it shall happen more than once.
"Vote for Winkins—a good All-round Man."
The first move I made was to cover my house with placards. I noticed that in a recent election Mr. Athelston Riley had pursued these tactics with great success, so I plastered the whole of the walls with "Winkins for Mudford"—"Vote for Winkins,"—but thereby hangs a tale. I gave my instructions to the local printer, and told him where they were to be posted, directing him to do it in the twilight, so that the whole effect might dawn once and for ever upon an astonished village in the morning. He did it, but unfortunately he didn't keep a proof-reader. I noticed next day, before I went out, that all the school-children looked up at the house and giggled. I thought it was merely the inappreciativeness of the youthful mind. There I was wrong. It was the fact that the children knew how to spell that caused the mischief. My house was covered with appeals to "Wote for Vinkins!" It did not take long to get new bills printed, but I am not disposed to deny I was a trifle disconcerted by this false start.
I am now hard at work canvassing. My wife flatly declines to help, and I'm afraid to suggest the girls should take the field in support of their father. I tried to secure the services of the vicar's two daughters, but he only wrote rather a stiff note to say that he thought they would have quite enough to do in advocating his claims. I am not always at one with the clergy, but for once I agree with him. I have succeeded, however, in getting Miss Phill Burtt to help me. Her full name is, of course, Phyllis; but it's always called and spelt "Phill"—I could never understand why. She's a most delightful girl, and is worth, at least, a hundred votes to me. As I explained once before, she has an extraordinary habit of calling all the villagers "idiots"—of course, I mean to her friends (such as myself), not to the villagers themselves. I asked her one day why, if she thought them idiots, she was kind enough to take the trouble to canvass them. "Well, you see," she said with a charming smile that was all her own; "I'm asking them to vote for you." At the time I thought this was a pretty saying, prettily said. I even told it with some amount of pride to my wife just to show her that there were people who did not sympathise with her haughty indifference. Curiously enough my wife only laughed consumedly. When she had recovered, I asked her why she laughed. "Do you really mean to say, Timothy," was her reply, "that you don't see what she meant?"
"Well, though it may seem idiotic...." I said, and was going to add, "I don't," but before I said that, I did see what she (Phyllis, of course, I mean) might have meant. Yet I hope she didn't. Miss Burtt has only one drawback as a canvasser. She is so ridiculously scrupulous, I came across an old woman the other day who was quite deaf to my appeals. Whilst I reasoned with her, I found out how kind Phyllis was to her. "Miss Phill, she's really good to us poor people. I'd vote for her if she was standing." I left, having produced no impression. A day or two after I met Miss Phill Burtt, and asked her to go and canvass the old woman; I felt sure she could secure her vote. Will it be believed that she wouldn't? She said it would be really undue influence if she did. How strange that even the nicest of women are so strangely unpractical at times! Another woman she refused to see because she never called upon her at ordinary times. Still, with all her faults, Miss Burtt is a tower of strength, and as I see her daily going about, canvass book in hand, my hopes rise higher and higher.