shoulders and a broom in her hands. The sun
rose clear, but there was a hint of frost in the air and the east wind
was blowing. Ironweeds and goldenrods upon the hills bent low before it.
The cotton fields looked dishevelled with white locks flying. The
cornstalks, stripped long since of fodder, stood with down-hanging ears
like rows of soldiers at attention with knapsacks upon their lean backs.
It was as if, overnight, Nature had suddenly got in a hurry to shift her
scenes and change the season.

Whether it was the brushing, brisk, windy character of the day, or the
mood of the women owing to other circumstances, no one will ever know,
but it is already a matter of history that upon this day every woman
belonging to the Women's Co-Citizens' League had a fit of housecleaning.
They cooked breakfasts for their respective families in a frenzy,
scolding shrilly. They boxed the ears of their little boys, drove their
little girls to the churning without mercy, clattered the breakfast
dishes furiously, and in various ways indicated to their lords and
masters that the day belonged to them, to them exclusively, and that no
man could hope to remain in peace within range of their mops and brooms
till every vestige of summer dust and dirt was removed, every feather
bed sunned till it swelled tick tight, every quilt aired, every rug
beaten, every floor scoured, and they themselves relaxed, exhausted,
purified, and satisfied at the end of the day.

I say only their Maker could have told what inspired the women of
Jordan County to undertake these arduous labours upon this particular
day. Women have instincts to which the east wind appeals strongly. It
excites their neuralgic energies. On the other hand, it was a curious
circumstance, discovered afterward by an exchange of confidence between
the desperate male victims, that this cleaning rage was carried on
almost exclusively by the members of the Women's Co-Citizens' League in
each of the voting districts of the county.

When a mere society woman desires for any reason to avenge herself upon
the man nearest to her in the relations of life, or to bring him to
terms, she may engage in a discreet flirtation with some other man. She
knows how to exile him from his home with a reception or a bridge party.
But when a good faithful wife makes up her virtuous mind to humble her
man and declare her own supremacy, she pins an ugly rag tight over her
head to keep the dust out of her hair, doub