"Go it, Miss Dolly! You've got 'em on the run!" Farmer Timmons cried. "Swat 'em good an' hard! They started it!"
"That's the way men conduct their elections," Dolly went on, smilingly. "But the women of the present day wouldn't stand it. They would change it right away. They wouldn't continue giving the men an excuse two or three times a year to engage in all that carnage and debauchery for no rational reason. Do you know the sort of election the women will hold, Warren, if they ever get a chance?"
"I'm afraid I don't," Wilks answered, dryly. "It would be hard to imagine."
"Well, I'll tell you," Dolly said to the audience. "They will do away with all that foolishness I've been talking about. That day at Ridgeville a dozen carriages were hired at a big expense to bring voters to the polls. Hundreds of dollars were spent on whisky, doctors' bills, lawyers' fees, and fines at court. But sensible women will wipe all that out. On election day in the future a trustworthy man will ride from house to house on a horse or mule with the ballot-box in his lap. It will be brought to the farmhouse door. The busy wife will leave her churning, or sweeping, or sewing for a minute. She will scribble her name on a ticket and drop it in the slit while she asks the man how his family is. She may offer him a cup of hot coffee or a snack to eat. She will go to the back door and call her husband or sons in from the field to do their voting, and then the polls of that election will be closed as far as she is concerned."
"Good, good, fine, fine!" Timmons shouted. "That's the racket!"
"But," Dolly went on, sweeping the faces of the masculine row beside her and turning to the audience, "this stalwart bunch of Nature's noblemen here on the platform will tell you that women haven't got sense enough to vote. That's it, Mrs. Timmons, they think at the bottom of their hearts that women have skulls as thick as a pine board. They don't know this: they don't know that some of the most advanced thinkers in the world are now claiming that intuition is the greatest faculty given to the human race and that woman has the biggest share of it. Oh no, women oughtn't to be allowed to take part in any important public issue! Away back in France, some centuries ago, a simple, uneducated country-girl, seventeen years of age—Joan of Arc—noticed that the men of the period were not properly managing the military affairs of her country, and she took the matter under consideration. She stepped in among great generals and diplomats and convinced them that she knew more about what to do than all the men in the realm. The King listened to her, gave her power to act, and she rode at the head of thousands of soldiers to victory first and a fiery death later. Now, Warren Wilks will tell you that a woman of that sort ought never be allowed to do a thing but rock a cradle, scrub a floor, or look pretty, according to her husband's disposition or pocket-book.
"Then, after all, did you all know—while you are talking so much about the harm of a woman voting—that if it hadn't been for a woman there wouldn't have been a single vote cast in all these United States? In fact, you wouldn't be sitting here now but for that woman. Away back (as I was teaching my history class the other day) Columbus tramped all over the then civilized land trying to get aid to make his trial voyage, and nobody would listen to him. He was taunted and jeered at everywhere he went. Men every bit as sensible as we have to-day said he was plumb crazy. He was out of heart and ready to give up as he rode away from the court of Spain on a mule, when Isabella called him back and furnished the money out of her own pocket to buy and man his ships. Folks, that is the kind of brain Warren Wilks and his crowd will tell you ought to be kept at the cook-stove and the wash-tub. Oh, women will be given the vote in time, don't you bother!" Dolly said, with renewed conviction. "We can't have progress without change. I never thought about it myself before, but it is as plain as the nose on your face. It has to come because it is simple justice. A law which is unfair to one single person is not a perfect law, and many a woman has found herself in a position where only her vote would save her from disaster. Women are purer by nature than men, and they will purify politics. That's all I'm going to say to-night. Now, I'm not managing this debate, but it is getting late and I want everybody that feels like it to vote on my side. Stand up now. All in favor, rise to your feet. That's right, Mrs. Timmons—I knew you would wake up. Now, everybody! That's the way!" Dolly was waving her hands like an earnest evangelist, while Wilks, with a look of astonishment, was struggling to his feet to offer some sort of protest.
"Don't pay attention to him!" Dolly cried. "Vote now and be done with it!"
The house was in a turmoil of amused excitement. Timmons stood by his wife's side waving his hat and slapping his thigh.
"Stand up, boys—every man-jack of you!" he yelled. "Them fellers got this thing up agin that gal. Give it to 'em good an' sound."