struck me that we women need a vote
about as much as we need a pair of scissors, a bread board or a wash
boiler, cook stove and bank book. We need it along with the other
things to keep our children properly clothed, fed, housed and educated."

The blacksmith shop was closed. George Hoskins' wife was pretty sick.
So the crowd that was usually seated about the forge was crowded into
Billy Evans' office.

It was a big crowd but it wasn't feeling any jollier because of its
size. Each man there had had a word or two with his wife that morning.
Not a few wives had begun to discuss the Jim Tumley incident seriously
the minute they got home and got the children to bed the night before.
Every man in Billy's office felt more or less uncomfortable and talked
in nervous, disconnected snatches.

Said one:

"Well--I drove in to town this morning so's not to have words with
Rose--and just to escape the whole dumbed subject--but if--I'd known
that everybody I met and talked to and set down with--was a-going to
talk about the same dumbed thing I'd a-stayed to home."

"The whole trouble," argued another, "is just women's imagination,
that's all. I never saw a woman that had a living father, brother,
beau, husband, brother-in-law, father-in-law, cousin or boy baby in
arms that she wasn't worrying all the time night and day that drink'd
get him. It's just their way of being foolish, that's all. And as for
all this talk about the terrible danger and it being a menace to the
future generation, that's all slop and slush."

Billy was irritable this morning for the first time in months. It must
be remembered that Billy's wife was red-headed and a highly efficient
soul. She had very frankly and plainly told Billy what she thought of
a town that was run in so slack a fashion that it couldn't protect one
of its own lovable citizens. She had never spoken so sharply in all
their days together and Billy felt that he had lost his bride forever.
And he had.

"Well--boys, I'll tell you," sighed Billy. "The old woman gave me
hell, I tell you--as if--great gosh, it was all my fault. The women
are partly right and we all know it. That's why they talk up so and
why we have to take it. I've about come to the conclusion that as long
as the women are partly right and we are partly wrong I'm going to quit
it, as far as I myself am concerned. But don't think for one minute
that I fancy that I have a right to vote this town dry for any oth