He stood up, bowed like he was going to speak a piece, and read it off to us. Folks may think Zadok is a little peculiar, but I want to tell you that every inch of room in his big head is stuffed full of brains. A half-witted cat could see the sense in those business rules of his.
CHAPTER VIII
It seems the ministers didn’t hear how they were nominated in the beauty contest till Sunday afternoon—at any rate, none of them said anything about it. But Sunday afternoon they met and palavered and made up their minds it wasn’t dignified and that sort of thing for preachers to get mixed up in such an affair. So that night they got up in their pulpits and said so. I was a Baptist and heard Rev. Jenkins McCormick state his views. I gathered he didn’t withdraw because he thought ministers wasn’t handsomer than other men, or because he didn’t view himself as being as handsome as any other minister, but because, to his way of thinking, beauty and Baptists hadn’t ought to run together.
Rev. Whipit, of the Congregationalists, and Rev. Hannis, of the Methodists, got off their views on the subject. The result was that there were a few hundred votes that would have to be changed. And there was where the trouble started.
The first thing Monday morning about a dozen women came down to the Bazar to ask what they should do about it.
“Well,” says Mark Tidd, “th-there’s the votes. So long as the parsons won’t have ’em, somebody else’ll have to. You can vote ’em for anybody you w-w-want to.”
Then there was a racket. The Methodists got off in a group and the Congregationalists huddled together and the Baptists sheered off where they could talk it over. And they talked! My goodness! You could have heard the clatter on the other side of the river. Every married woman insisted on having the votes of her church cast for her husband, and the four old maids that were scattered through the three denominations were all for Mr. Pilkins, the school principal—him being an old bachelor. At last the noise got so bad and the women got so mad Mark made up his mind he’d have to do something about it—and he wanted to do something that would help out the Bazar while he was at it. He got up on the counter, and that was quite a job, considering how much of him there was to get up.
“L-ladies,” he yelled, “the m-meetin’ is called to order.”
Well, sir, they stopped off short to see what was going on, just like hens in the yard will stop fussing if you step out with a pan of feed in your hand.
“I got a p-plan to propose,” says Mark.