on, we will let them know upon what conditions only this
store will charge regulation prices for goods. We may offer to sell out
to them. The mercantile life does not appeal to me. This store is not a
financial venture. It is a political guide to the polls of the county!"

"Well, you must hurry the issue, Susan. Twenty thousand dollars will not
last six months the way you are spending it. That suffragist motor car
we bought last week cost twenty-two hundred dollars!" he warned.

"If we win at all we shall do it in less than six months," answered the
valiant old termagant.

Meanwhile all was confusion in the stores on the avenue. Drays piled
high with boxes and barrels were drawn up before the doors of the League
store. A perfect thunder of industry went on within, while the ladies of
the town crowded the street from one end of the block to the other. They
talked, they inspected, they matched samples as fast as the laces and
dress goods were placed upon the shelves and counters. They compared
prices; they were excited, elated beyond measure. On the square trade
was not exactly languishing yet, but it stood with hands raised in dumb
astonishment. Business men had not been informed of the projected store.
They did not conceive of such outrageous competition until the thing was
actually ready to open its doors. Even then they were not prepared for
the cut in prices. Acres continued to sell fifteen pounds of sugar for a
dollar a week after the Cooeperative Store began to sell twenty pounds
for the same price. Percale that could be bought for ten cents a yard on
the avenue, sold on the square for fifteen cents.

"They can't keep it up!" Acres predicted. "Just shows how unfit women
are for business."

"But a damphule ought to know that ham can't be sold for twelve and a
half cents per pound!" cried Thad Bailey furiously.

They had both failed to get the usual spring loan from the National
Bank, due entirely to the fact that at the first directors' meeting, the
new director had demanded to know exactly how much they owed already,
and she refused to sanction the advance of another dollar to any
merchant in Jordantown.

"Gentlemen, I have reason to know that these men will not be able to pay
the interest upon the loans this bank has already made to them. We
cannot afford to risk another advance," she explained.

Fortunately, the two victims had absented themselves from this meeting.
But no argument or appeal from the othe