er be legislated against, could she hold her own industrially on
equal terms with man? Or, putting it as briefly as possible, "Could she
make good?"

Some of these articles worried Mary at first, and some made her smile,
and after reading others she wanted to run away and hide. Judge Cutler
made a collection of them, and whenever he came to a good one, he showed
it to Mary.

"I wish they would leave us alone," she said one day.

"I don't," said the judge seriously. "I'm glad they have turned the
spotlight on."

"Why?"

"Because with so much publicity, there's very little chance of rough
work. Of course the men here at home wouldn't do anything against their
own women folks, but quite a few outsiders are coming in, and if they
could work in the dark, they might start a whisper, 'Anything to win!'"

Mary thought that over, and somehow the sun didn't shine so brightly for
the next few minutes. Ma'm Maynard's old saying arose to her mind:

"I tell you, Miss Mary, it has halways been so and it halways will:
Everything that lives has its own natural enemy--and a woman's natural
enemy: eet is man!"

"No, sir, I don't believe it!" Mary told herself. "And I never shall
believe it, either!"

The next afternoon Judge Cutler brought her an editorial entitled, "We
Shall See."

"The women of New Bethel (it read) are trying an experiment which,
carried to its logical conclusion, may change industrial history.

"Perhaps industrial history needs a change. It has many dark pages where
none but man has written.

"If woman is the equal of man, industrially speaking, she is bound to
find her natural level. If she is not the equal of man, the New Bethel
experiment will help to mark her limitations.

"Whatever the outcome, the question needs an answer and those who claim
that she is unfitted for this new field should be the most willing to let
her prove it.

"By granting them the suffrage, we have given our women equal rights.
Unless for demonstrated incapacity, upon what grounds shall we now deny
them equal opportunities?

"The New Bethel experiment should be worked out without hard feeling or
rancour on either side.

"Can a woman do a man's work?

"Let us watch and we shall see."

Mary read it twice.

"I like that," she said. "I wish everybody in town could see that."

"Just what I thought," said the judge. "What do you say if we have it
printed in big type, and pasted on the bill-boards?"

They had it done.