"That's all right, Mr. Briggs—You can't make me sit down, Mr. Chairman, you nor any of you politicians—You're a fine man to talk about schools, Mr. Briggs. No, I won't stop. You know a lot about children, don't you, coming up here with tobacco juice all over your shirt front; and why don't you pay some taxes before you get up here and tell how to run a town? All right, Chairman, I'm done."
But so was Briggs. We couldn't help laughing at him. Editor Simpson, who runs the Argus, stepped into the breach and regretted greatly that so disgraceful an attack had been made upon a well-beloved citizen by a woman. No man would dare make such an attack, he opined. Then Emma got up again. The chairman called her to order, but he might as well have rapped down the rising tide.
"I know mighty well no man 'ud dare say what I did, Lafe Simpson," she shouted. "'Nd you're the biggest coward of 'em all. If you thought you'd have to lose the school printing, you'd vote for the devil for president of the school board."
Of course it was perfectly disgraceful, but what could we do? Emma was a woman. We couldn't throw her out. We couldn't even get her to listen to parliamentary rules. And the worst of it was, she was telling the truth. That was something no one presumes to tell in local elections. To do it breaks the first commandment of politics; but what do the women, bless 'em, care for our commandments?
The president of the school board at that time was Sanford Jones. He was a large party who panned out about ninety-five per cent. solemnity and the rest water on the brain. At this point in the proceedings he judged it best to rise and turn the subject by telling us why woman should stay at home. He got about two hundred words into circulation before Emma got up. Her scandalized women friends tried to pull her down, and Pelty Amthorne yelled "whoa," but she was in politics to stay.
"You look mighty fine standing up there, Mr. Jones," she shouted, "and tellin' us women to go back home where we belong. But I just want to tell this here crowd to-night that if you wasn't tighter than the bark on a tree, your wife wouldn't have to do her own washing.
"That's why you want her to home. So you can save money."
After that a gloom fell over the meeting, and as no one else seemed to care to speak, people began adjourning on all sides of Emma. After every one else had gone she adjourned. There was no further attempt to hold a caucus that year, and even now when any school faction desires to get together and discuss things, it carefully conceals the news from Miss Madigan.
That was just one of the many little surprises woman has handed to us in Homeburg politics. Since they've gotten interested in school affairs, it beats all how much influence they've got. Take Sadie Askinson for instance. Her husband wanted to run for member of the school board, and Sadie didn't want him to, because he was away from home enough nights anyway, goodness knows. Sim was stubborn, and said the night before election that he was going down and have some ballots printed, anyway, and run. But he didn't, because that night Sadie cut every button off of every garment he had and threw them down into the well. When the kindergarten business came up about ten years ago, old Colonel Ackley hung out against it on the board. Said he wasn't going to stand for wasting the people's money on such foolishness. But he did, because the Young Ladies' Vigilance Society came and wept upon his shoulder. It was organized for that purpose, and after the seventh young lady had soaked up Ackley's coat, he said he'd either vote for kindergarten or leave town, and he didn't care much which.
Mrs. Wert Payley, who really runs our school system and once marred her proud record by defeating a good school superintendent because he didn't give her daughter good marks, says the English suffragettes are poor sticks and don't know how to demand the ballot. "If the Homeburg women were ready to go after any more ballot than we have now," says she, "would we fool away time getting arrested? Not much! We'd turn our attention to the men. Every Homeburg woman would take care of her husband and argue with him. Maybe all the men in town would find 'Votes for Women' in place of their dinners on the table one night, and sewed on to their coats the next morning. Maybe they would get corn-meal mush for thirty days, and maybe, if any he politician presumed to get obnoxious, he would be dealt with on the public street by a committee. I know Homeburg, I think, and before Calvin Briggs would stand for the guying he would receive after half a dozen women had gone down on their knees to him and grabbed him around the legs so he couldn't get away, he'd go out of politics. Suffragettes? Bah! What do they know about it? I'd just like to know how long our men-folks in Homeburg would hold out if we women were to get sick some fine morning and remain hopeless invalids until we got the ballot. Why, if Wert Payley presumed to deny me the ballot, I wouldn't think of parading about it. I'd just have the girl starch his underwear for about two months, and if that didn't fetch him, I'd start cleaning house and quit in the middle. The men will give you anything, if you ask them the right way."