“Let’s have it,” says Mrs. Goodwillie.
“D-draw lots for ’em,” says Mark. “I’ll fix three boxes, one for each denomination, and put into ’em a slip of p-paper for each lady. Then you draw. One slip will say ‘Votes’ on it—and that one wins in each box. The votes belong to the three ladies d-drawin’ the winnin’ slips, and they can do as they please with ’em.”
“Never,” says Mrs. Goodwillie. “That’s gamblin’!”
“Beg pardon, ma’am,” says Mark, “b-but ’tain’t. Characters in the Bible drew lots. B-besides,” says he, “there was Lot’s wife. How came she by her n-name, d’you s’pose, if d-drawin’ lots wasn’t customary? Eh?”
For a minute the ladies quarreled about it, but it did look like the most sensible way to go at it, and they agreed. We fixed up the boxes, and the drawing started. Every woman grabbed her slip and ran off with it like a hen that finds a worm. Then Miss Snoover yelled, “I got it!” She was a Methodist. But right on top of her yell came another “I got it!” and this one belonged to Mrs. Peterkin—and she was a Methodist, too. Somehow two winning slips had got into the Methodist box! The Baptist box came out all right with Mrs. Jenks a winner; but there wasn’t any winning slip at all in the Congregational box! It was a pretty situation, but Mark didn’t appear flustered a bit—he just looked solemn and interested, and when nobody was looking he winked at me sly. For some reason or other he’d gone and fixed those boxes like that on purpose!
Well, mister! Maybe there wasn’t a squabble! Miss Snoover and Mrs. Peterkin gripped their slips and glared at each other and screeched that the votes were theirs and they’d drawn fair and square and nobody’d ever get them away. All the other Methodist ladies joined in because they saw a chance for another drawing, when maybe they’d win. The women that won wouldn’t consent to another drawing, and the ones that lost insisted there should be one—and there we were.
In the mean time the Congregationalists had drawn all over and Mrs. Johnson won. That disposed of them.
I just kept my mouth shut and waited to see what Mark would do. He didn’t do anything but look sort of satisfied with the world—why, I couldn’t see. I wished I was a mile away, because you couldn’t tell how mad these women were going to get, nor what they’d do when they got there.
“Why not d-divide ’em equal between the winners?” Mark says.
“Never,” yelled Mrs. Goodwillie. “We’ll draw all over again!”