"Well, good-night everybody, and, Mrs Clay, don't forget to apply for your right in time, or you won't be able to vote," she said in parting.
"No fear," responded grandma. "I've not been counted among mad people an' criminals, an' done out of me simple rights till this time of life without appreciatin' 'em w'en I've got 'em at last."
Next day, true to intention, the old dame and Carry went up town for their "voting papers," and to repeat the former's words, "was downright insulted, so to speak."
The civil servant whose duty it was to give rights to those electors who were not already in possession of such, was carrying affairs with a high hand, and had the brazen effrontery to tell Grandma Clay that it was a disgrace to see a woman of her years "running after a vote," as he elegantly expressed it; and he also suggested to Carry that it would suit her better to be at home doing her housework, and to put the cap on his gross misconduct, he persuaded them that they had left it too late to obtain the coveted document, the first outward and visible proof that men considered their women complete rational beings.
Carry had retorted that it would suit him better to do the work he was paid for than to exhibit his ignorance in meddling with the private affairs of others, and that if he could discharge his duties as well as she did her housework, he wouldn't make an ass of himself by showing his fangs about women having the vote in the way he did.
The two electresses thus bluffed came down the street and told their grievance to Mr Oscar Lawyer, for the nonce head of the Opposition League, and at ordinary seasons a father of his people, to whom all the town made in times of necessity,—whether it was an old beldame requiring assistance from the Benevolent Society or a lad seeking a situation and requiring a testimonial of character.
With Mr Oscar Lawyer they also ran upon Mr Pornsch; and it was discovered that the churlish clerk's statement was utterly false, and made because he was on the side of Henderson and these two women were not. There was more talk than there is space for here, but the upshot of it was the clerk was routed, and grandma and Carry came home triumphantly, each in possession of one of the magic sheets of blue paper, which they spread out on the table for us all to see.
"Well, well!" said grandma, "I seen the convicts flogged in days w'en this was nothink but a colony to ship them to, and I drove coaches w'en the line was only as far out of Sydney as here; and to think I should have lived to see the last of the convicts gone, coaches nearly become a novelty of the past, us callin' ourselves a nation, an' here a paper in me hand to show I can vote a man into this parliament and the other that the king's son hisself come out to open. I'm glad to see us lived that we can have our say in the laws now same as the men, and not have to swaller anythink they liked to put upon us to soot theirselves," and the old dame, with a splendid light in her eye, rubbed the creases out of the paper and spread it out again.
"Pooh, it's the same as we've had all along. You didn't think a elector's right was anythink to be grinnin' at w'en the men had it. I never seen you gapin' at mine; you'd think it was somethink wonderful now when you've got one of your own," said Uncle Jake, coming in.
"Well, I never! Jake Sorrel! Of course we don't think much of other people's things! What is the good of another woman's baby or husband or frying-pan, that is, if it was equally a thing you couldn't borrer? And if you was blind, what pleasure would you get out of some one else seein' the blue sky, or warnin' that there was a snake there to be trod on, an' that's what it's been like with the elector's rights."