"'Jimmy, either,' says Mis' Sturgis, confidential. 'I donno. I've thought about that a good deal. It seems as if, if we got the chance, us women might not vote brilliant at first, but we would vote with our sense. The sense that can pick out a pattern and split a receipt, an' dress the children out o' the house money. I bet there's a lot o' that kind o' sense among women that don't get used up, by a long shot.' "Mis' Timothy Toplady drew her shawl up her back, like she does. "'Well-a,' she says, 'Timothy's an awful good husband, but when I see some of the things he buys for the house, an' the way he gets took in on real estate, I often wonder if he's such a good citizen as he lets on.' "I kep' a-wondering why Letty didn't say something, and by and by I nudged her. "'Go on, speak up,' I intimated. "And, same time, I heard Elbert Sykes, on the other side, say something to her, low. 'I could tell them,' he says to her, 'that to look like you do is better than being elected!' "And Letty--what do you s'spose?--she just glanced up at him, and made a little kind of a commenting wrinkle with her nose, and looked down and kept her silence. Just like he'd set there with a little fine chain to her wrist. "We talked some more and asked some questions and heard Mis' Lacy read some, and then it was time for the men. They come in together--six or eight of them, and most of them, as it happened, members of the common council. And when Mis' Sykes had set them down on the edge of the room, and before anybody had thought of any remark to pass, Mis' Lacy she spoke up and ask' the men to join in the discussion, and called on Mis' Sykes, that hadn't said nothing yet, to start the ball a-rolling. "'_Well_,' says Mis' Sykes, with her little society pucker, 'I must say the home and bring-up my children seems far, far more womanly to me than the tobacco smoke and whiskey of public life.' "She glanced over to the men, kind of with a way of arching her neck and they all gave her a sort of a little ripple, approving. And with this Mis' Toplady kind of tossed her head up. "'Oh, well, I don't want the responsibility,' she says. 'Land, if I was a votin' woman, I should feel as if I'd got bread in the pan and cake in the oven and clothes in the bluin' water all the whole time.' "'He, he, he!' says Timothy, her lawful lord. And Silas and Jimmy Sturgis and the rest joined in, tuneful. "Then Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, she vied in, and done a small, careless laugh. "'Oh, well, me, too,' she says, 'I declare, as I get older an' wake up some mornin's I feel like life was one big breakfast to get an' me the hired girl. If I had to vote besides, I donno what I _would_ do.' "'An',' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, 'I always feel as if a politician was a disgrace to be, same as an actor, _unless_ you got to be a big one. An' can us women ever be big ones even if we want? Which I'm sure I don't want,' she says, sidling a look towards the men's row.