There was to be a mass meeting in Jordantown the first Saturday in July. Selah informed the Leagues of this as she made this tour from one community to another. The purpose of the great mass meeting was fully explained, and plans were laid for getting as many people to attend as possible.
At last, as the shades of evening fell, the women filed out of the schoolhouse, strange, exasperatingly potential figures to the Odd Fellow husbands who had waited impatiently outside for them. Molly Deal climbed silently into the red-and-green spring wagon beside her equally silent husband. Selah waved her hand prettily from the car as she passed up the road in the direction of Jordantown. She was fairly contented with the progress made in the County Leagues. She had worked indefatigably for nearly three months, organizing, teaching, and inspiring the proper spirit of life and hope, as she called it, in the women.
But the test was yet to come. All depended upon the success of the mass meeting, its effects upon the men. Would they understand the gravity of refusing to coöperate with the women? She refused to contemplate the disasters, the bitter suspense and disappointment if they did hold out. It seemed strange that not a single man had guessed the method the suffragists would adopt to win. She was excited, elated, hopeful, and at the same time she was sad. She thought of her father, so bereaved by her conduct. Her eyes filled with tears at the vision of him mournfully silent in the evenings, too much cast down to even reproach her with her perfidy. Then she began to laugh as a certain thought came to her. He had ceased to show his diminished head on the streets of Jordantown. He had been sober for two months, spending all of his time attending to his farm. He was like a good soldier, who in the face of a decisive battle indulges in no weakness, keeps his wits about him. She was sure he was camping in the spirit beneath her walls, waiting for the citadel to fall. They practised the fine honour of noble enemies. He never asked her any question about what was going forward in the suffrage ranks. He even broke his own eggs at breakfast with the proud air of a man who neither asks nor gives quarter.
"Father," she would say at the breakfast table, "let me break your eggs!"
"No, Selah, I'm an old man, I've come upon evil days in my own house, but I am still able to attend to my simple wants. Pray don't let me detain you"—seeing that she wore her hat, and that the abominable car would be purring at the curb.
"Very well, then, I'll be off, but expect me back before night," she would say, kissing him on the forehead.
"No, I do not expect you home before night. I never do. It would not surprise me if you didn't get in before midnight. I'm prepared for anything now!" he would answer without looking up.
Nevertheless, she made it a rule always to get back from her engagements before he came in.
"Is that you, father?" she would call down the staircase.
"Yes, just came in, but I didn't expect to find you here," he would answer accusingly.