are surprised at what a short
time you have been away from home. You put the potatoes on when you
left home, and now you are back in time to strain them.

In spite of the testimony of many reputable women that they have been
able to vote and get the dinner on one and the same day, there still
exists a strong belief that the whole household machinery goes out of
order when a woman goes to vote. No person denies a woman the right to
go to church, and yet the church service takes a great deal more time
than voting. People even concede to women the right to go shopping, or
visiting a friend, or an occasional concert. But the wife and mother,
with her God-given, sacred trust of molding the young life of our land,
must never dream of going round the corner to vote. "Who will mind the
baby?" cried one of our public men, in great agony of spirit, "when the
mother goes to vote?"

One woman replied that she thought she could get the person that minded
it when she went to pay her taxes--which seemed to be a fairly
reasonable proposition. Yet the hardy plant of prejudice flourishes,
and the funny pictures still bring a laugh.

Father comes home, tired, weary, footsore, toe-nails ingrowing, caused
by undarned stockings, and finds the fire out, house cold and empty,
save for his half-dozen children, all crying.

"Where is your mother?" the poor man asks in broken tones. For a
moment the sobs are hushed while little Ellie replies: "Out voting!"

Father bursts into tears.

Of course, people tell us, it is not the mere act of voting which
demoralizes women--if they would only vote and be done with it; but
women are creatures of habit, and habits once formed are hard to break;
and although the polls are only open every three or four years, if
women once get into the way of going to them, they will hang around
there all the rest of the time. It is in woman's impressionable nature
that the real danger lies.

Another shoot of this hardy shrub of prejudice is that women are too
good to mingle in everyday life--they are too sweet and too frail--that
women are angels. If women are angels we should try to get them into
public life as soon as possible, for there is a great shortage of
angels there just at present, if all we hear is true.

Then there is the pedestal theory--that women are away up on a
pedestal, and down below, looking up at them with deep adoration, are
men, their willing slaves. Sitting up on a pedestal does