“Oh, nonsense!” sez Lorinda. But I knowed jest how it wuz. Polly bein’ surrounded by all the good things money could give, and bein’ so tender-hearted her heart ached for other young girls, who had to spend the springtime of their lives in the hard work of earnin’ bread for themselves and dear ones, and she longed to help ’em to livin’ wages, so they could exist without the wages of sin, and too many on ’em had to choose between them black wages and starvation. She wanted to help ’em to better surroundin’s and she knowed the best weepon she could put into their hands to fight the wolves of Want and Temptation, wuz the ballot. Polly hain’t a mite like her Ma, she favors the Smiths more, her grand-ma on her pa’s side wuz a Smith and a woman of brains and principle.
Durin’ my conversation with Lorinda, I inquired about Royal Gray, for as stated, he wuz a great favorite of ourn, and I found out (and I could see it gaulded her) that when Polly united with the Suffragists he shied off some, and went to payin’ attention to another girl. Whether it wuz to make Polly jealous and bring her round to his way of thinkin’, I didn’t know, but mistrusted, for I could have took my oath that he loved Polly deeply and truly. To be sure he hadn’t confided in me, but there is a language of the eyes, when the soul speaks through ’em, and as I’d seen him look at Polly my own soul had hearn and understood that silent language and translated it, that Polly wuz the light of his eyes, and the one woman in the world for him. And I couldn’t think his heart had changed so sudden. But knowin’ as I did the elastic nature of manly affection, I felt dubersome.
This other girl, Maud Vincent, always said to her men friends, it wuz onwomanly to try to vote. She wuz one of the girls who always gloried in bein’ a runnin’ vine when there wuz any masculine trees round to lean on and twine about. One who always jined in with all the idees they promulgated, from neckties to the tariff, who declared cigar smoke wuz so agreeable and welcome; it did really make her deathly sick, but she would choke herself cheerfully and willin’ly if by so chokin’ she could gain manly favor and admiration.
She said she didn’t believe in helpin’ poor girls, they wuz well enough off as it wuz, she wuz sure they didn’t feel hunger and cold as rich girls did, their skin wuz thicker and their stomachs different and stronger, and constant labor didn’t harm them, and working girls didn’t need recreation as rich girls did, and woman’s suffrage wouldn’t help them any; in her opinion it would harm them, and anyway the poor wuz on-grateful.
She had the usual arguments on the tip of her tongue, for old Miss Vincent, the aunt she lived with, wuz a ardent She Aunty and very prominent in the public meetin’s the She Auntys have to try to compel the Suffragists not to have public meetin’s. They talk a good deal in public how onwomanly and immodest it is for wimmen to talk in public. And she wuz one of the foremost ones in tryin’ to git up a school to teach wimmen civics, to prove that they mustn’t ever have anything to do with civics.
Yes, old Miss Vincent wuz a real active, ardent She Aunty, and Maud Genevieve takes after her. Royal Gray, his handsome attractive personality, and his millions, had long been the goal of Maud’s ambition. And how ardently did she hail the coolness growing between him and Polly, the little rift in the lute, and how zealously did she labor to make it larger.
Polly and Royal had had many an argument on the subject, that is, he would begin by makin’ fun of the Suffragists and their militant doin’s, which if he’d thought on’t wuz sunthin’ like what his old revolutionary forbears went through for the same reasons, bein’ taxed without representation, and bein’ burdened and punished by the law they had no voice in making, only the Suffragettes are not nearly so severe with their opposers, they haven’t drawed any blood yet. Why, them old Patriots we revere so, would consider their efforts for freedom exceedingly gentle and tame compared to their own bloody battles.
And Royal would make light of the efforts of college girls to help workin’ girls, and the encouragement and aid they’d gin ’em when they wuz strikin’ for less death-dealin’ hours of labor, and livin’ wages, and so forth. I don’t see how such a really noble young man as Royal ever come to argy that way, but spoze it wuz the dead hand of some rough onreasonable old ancestor reachin’ up out of the shadows of the past and pushin’ him on in the wrong direction.
So when he begun to ridicule what Polly’s heart wuz sot on, when she felt that he wuz fightin’ agin right and justice, before they knowed it both pairs of bright eyes would git to flashin’ out angry sparks, and hash words would be said on both sides. That old long-buried Tory ancestor of hisen eggin’ him on, so I spoze, and Polly’s generous sperit rebellin’ aginst the injustice and selfishness, and mebby some warlike ancestor of hern pushin’ her on to say hash things. ’Tennyrate he had grown less attentive to her, and wuz bestowin’ his time and attentions elsewhere.
And when she told him she wuz goin’ to ride in the automobile parade of the suffragists, but really ridin’ she felt towards truth and justice to half the citizens of the U.S., he wuz mad as a wet hen, a male wet hen, and wuz bound she shouldn’t go.