les her chin, draws her mouth
into a facial command, tucks up her skirts, moves the furniture out of
the living-room, dashes twelve gallons of hot suds over the floor, leaps
into it with an old stiff broom, and begins to sweep. At such a moment
the most timid, man-fearing woman becomes august. Her nature undergoes a
swift change. She is no longer herself, she belongs once more to the
matriarchal age when she carried man like a sack on her back and dumped
him where she pleased, when she pleased. The most tyrannical husband
immediately abrogates his authority when he sees the symptoms of this
frenzy developing in her. He takes to his heels and remains away until
she puts things in order and returns to her senses. This is the proof of
a queer ineradicable cowardice in every man, that the bravest and
hardiest of them who does not shrink from marching barefooted through
winter snows to meet the enemy in overwhelming numbers will fly before
the face of one woman who has made up her mind to wet his feet with
scouring water if he does not get out of the way.

Before nine o'clock in the morning the domestic entrails of Jordan
County were out of doors, piled in the sun, hanging upon the
clotheslines, flapping in the wind. The swish of wet brooms could be
heard in every house, mingled with the sharp voices of scolding women.
The air was filled with clouds of dust, the sound of sticks in muffled
strokes upon rugs and carpets like the drums of an invading army. These
were answered by the strumming of other sticks similarly employed in
other farmyards.

It was a fact, five hundred men had been rendered homeless for that day
at least. Nevertheless, they were holding out. An hour later only one
ballot had been cast at the polls in Possum Trot. The crowd thickened
outside the courthouse door. Men eyed each other quizzically, morosely,
some even avoided each other's questioning glances.

"Where's Jake Terry?" some one asked helplessly.

"Who, Terry?" answered Bill Long. "He was the first man here after the
polls opened. Said if it was the last ballot he'd ever cast he'd vote
against woman suffrage, went and put it in first for an example to the
rest of us!"

"Susan Walton ain't got a mortgage on his sawmill, or he wouldn't be so
gol dern frisky about votin' ag'in her!" growled Deal.

"What we going to do about this business, anyhow?" demanded one
nervously.

"We could get drunk," suggested another. "There's nothing that takes the