mmand.

Selah paused, nodded to a young girl, and murmured, "Close the door,
Mary," very much in the same preoccupied tone she might have used if she
had said, "Mary, shoo the chickens out!" It was a splendid triumph for
Selah.

The next moment a roar of laughter went up in the street beyond the
closed door. A red spot flamed upon Molly Deal's cheeks, but her fan
went on swinging gently to and fro. Her eyes were still fixed upon
Selah's smiling face.

The meeting was important. The day and even the hour was fixed when the
women would announce the plans by which they were determined to obtain
suffrage in Jordan County. So far the men had not received a hint as to
what these plans were. The whole movement seemed senseless and hopeless,
merely causing furious antagonism and outrageous embarrassment; for Mrs.
Walton's perversities as director of the bank had been felt far and wide
in the country districts, where farmers were not only unable to secure
loans, but many who had mortgaged their land to the Mosely Estate now
found themselves facing the possibility of foreclosure.

There was to be a mass meeting in Jordantown the first Saturday in July.
Selah informed the Leagues of this as she made this tour from one
community to another. The purpose of the great mass meeting was fully
explained, and plans were laid for getting as many people to attend as
possible.

At last, as the shades of evening fell, the women filed out of the
schoolhouse, strange, exasperatingly potential figures to the Odd Fellow
husbands who had waited impatiently outside for them. Molly Deal climbed
silently into the red-and-green spring wagon beside her equally silent
husband. Selah waved her hand prettily from the car as she passed up the
road in the direction of Jordantown. She was fairly contented with the
progress made in the County Leagues. She had worked indefatigably for
nearly three months, organizing, teaching, and inspiring the proper
spirit of life and hope, as she called it, in the women.

But the test was yet to come. All depended upon the success of the mass
meeting, its effects upon the men. Would they understand the gravity of
refusing to cooeperate with the women? She refused to contemplate the
disasters, the bitter suspense and disappointment if they did hold out.
It seemed strange that not a single man had guessed the method the
suffragists would adopt to win. She was excited, elated, hopeful, and at
the same time she was sad.