n honorable part.... If, then, a majority of them really
desire to vote, we, if we lived in Kansas, should vote to give them
the opportunity. Upon a full and fair trial, we believe they would
conclude that the right of suffrage for women was, on the whole,
rather a plague than a profit, and vote to resign it into the hands of
their husbands and fathers...."[201]

These halfhearted appeals were too late, for the political machine in
Kansas had already done its work; and Susan, turning her back on such
fair-weather friends, cultivated the Democrats even more sedulously.
When the Democrat who had promised to accompany George Francis Train
on a speaking tour failed him, she took his place. When Train demurred
at the strenuous task ahead, she announced she would undertake it
alone. Always the gallant gentleman, he accompanied her, and continued
with her through the long hard weeks of travel in mail and lumber
wagons over rough roads, through mud and rain, to the remotest
settlements, far from the railroads. Because it was a necessity,
traveling alone with a gentleman whom she hardly knew troubled her not
at all, unconventional though it was.

She took charge of the meetings, opening them herself with a short
sincere plea for both the woman and Negro suffrage amendments, and
then she introduced George Francis Train, who, no matter how late they
arrived or how tiring the day, had changed his wrinkled gray traveling
suit for his resplendent platform costume. The expectant crowd never
failed to respond with a gasp of surprise, and immediately the fun
began as Train with his wit and his mimicry entertained them, calling
for their support of woman suffrage and advocating as well some of his
own pet ideas, such as freeing Ireland from British oppression, paying
our national debt in greenbacks, establishing an eight-hour day in
industry, and even nominating himself for President.

Amused by his dramatics and often amazed at his conceit, Susan found
neither as objectionable as the outright falsehood circulated by
opponents of woman suffrage. As the days went by with their continued
hardships and increasing fatigue, she marveled at his unfailing
courteousness, his pluck, and good cheer, while he in turn admired her
courage, her endurance, and her zeal for her cause, and between them a
bond of respect and loyalty was built up which could not be destroyed
by the pressures of later years.

During the long hours on the road, he entert