om the
ever-widening circle of friends she won for her cause. Now she was
literally swamped with hospitality.[384] She rejoiced that such great
numbers of everyday people were able to enjoy the beauty of the fair
grounds and the many interesting exhibits, and when a group of
clergymen urged Sunday closing, she took issue with them, declaring
that Sunday was the only day on which many were free to attend. Asked
by a disapproving clergyman if she would like to have a son of hers
attend Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show on Sunday, she promptly and
bluntly replied, "Of course I would, and I think he would learn far
more there than from the sermons in some churches!"[385]

Hearing of this, Buffalo Bill offered her a box at his popular Wild
West Show, and she appeared the next day with twelve of her "girls."
Dashing into the arena on his spirited horse while the band played and
the spotlight flashed on him, Buffalo Bill rode directly up to Susan's
box, reined his horse, and swept off his big western hat to salute
her. Quick to respond, she rose and bowed, and beaming with pleasure,
waved her handkerchief at him while the immense audience applauded and
cheered.

She returned home early in November 1893, with happy memories of the
World's Fair and to good news from Colorado. "Telegram ... from
Denver--said woman suffrage carried by 5000 majority," she recorded in
her diary.[386] This laconic comment in no way expressed the joy in
her heart.

Her diaries, written hurriedly in small fine script, year after year,
in black-covered notebooks about three inches by six, were a brief
terse record of her work and her travels. Only occasionally a line of
philosophizing shone out from the mass of routine detail, or an
illuminating comment on a friend or a difficult situation, but she
never failed to record a family anniversary, a birthday, or a death.

The Colorado victory, referred to so casually in her diary, was
actually of great importance to her and her cause, for it carried
forward the trend initiated by the admission of Wyoming as a woman
suffrage state in 1890. Colorado also proved to her that her "girls"
could take over her work. So busy had she been winning good will for
the cause at the World's Fair that she had left Colorado in the
capable hands of the women of the state and of young efficient Carrie
Chapman Catt, to whom she now turned over the supervision of all state
campaigns.

Encouragement also came from another part