But she hasn't since.
Of course you don't have these troubles. But whenever I see New York people harboring telephones in their homes which absolutely decline to be civil until you feed them five cents, I think of our Homeburg blessings and am content. Six dollars a year buys a telephone at home, and about the only families which haven't telephones are a few widows who live frugally on nothing a year, and old Mr. Stephens, who has one hundred thousand dollars loaned out on mortgages and spends half an hour picking out the biggest eggs when he buys half a dozen. There isn't a farm within ten miles which isn't connected with the town, and while the desk 'phone is a novelty with us and we still have to grind away at a handle to get Central, we can put just as much conversation into the transmitter and take just as much out of the receiver as if we were connected with a million telephones. Our Homeburg 'phones are old-fashioned; and the lines sound as if eleven million bees were holding indignation meetings on them, but they have made a big family out of three whole counties, and I guess they will take care of us all right—so long as Carrie holds out and we can keep that Sam fellow where he belongs.
XI
A HOMEBURG SCHOOL ELECTION
Where Woman is Allowed to Vote and Man Has To
Well, Jim, you've taken me to see a great many wonderful sights in this municipal monstrosity of yours, but I don't believe one of them has interested me as much as this parade. I've worn three fat men on my toes for an hour to get a chance to watch it, but it was worth the agony. Think of it—at home we are doing well to get an attendance of two thousand at a fire. Here in New York are several hundred thousand people stopping their mad grabs at limousines and country houses, and blocking up the streets to watch a few women parading in the interest of the ballot for psyche knots as well as bald heads. It's wonderful! How did the women persuade you to do it? I can't help thinking that they lost a tremendous chance for the cause. Think how much money the ladies would have made if each one had worn a sandwich board advertising some new breakfast food or velveteen tobacco! With a crowd like this reading every word, they could have charged enough to pay the expenses of a whole campaign!
It's the crowd that interested me. As far as the parade went, it wasn't so much. Half a hundred women in cloaks and staffs setting off on foot for Washington or Honolulu isn't terrifically exciting. I'd a lot rather go down the line about twenty or thirty miles and watch them come in to roost at night. There would be some inhuman interest in that. But what does all this mob mean? Have you New Yorkers gone crazy over suffrage? What! Just the novelty of the thing? Well, let me tell you then, you are goners! You may not want suffrage now, but if the women are going to choke traffic every time they spring a novelty, you're going to have to grant them suffrage just to get the chance to attend to business now and then.
Me? Of course I'm a suffragist. I'm a suffragist on twenty counts. No, thanks, I won't argue the question now, because we have to get over to the hotel for dinner in an hour or two, and there's no use starting a thing you will have to leave in the middle. I'll just tell you the last count to save time, and let it go at that. I'm a suffragist because I want the rest of mankind to have what we've had in Homeburg for the last twenty years or so. We've been through the whole thing. Whenever a man's been through anything, he naturally isn't content until he can stand by and watch some other man get his. Understand? I'm for suffrage in aged little New York. I want you to have it and have it a plenty. And I want to watch you while you're having it. It's a grand thing when you've got used to it. It will do you good, Jim, just like medicine.