"But we can't stay drunk. We got to go home some time or other and have it out with 'em after we are sober and penitent," put in still another victim philosophically. At this moment Tim Cates rode into the edge of the crowd, his mouth stretched in a broad grin, and his goatee working like a white peg in his chin. "Boys," he shouted, rolling out of his saddle, "you'd as well give it up and take your medicine. I met a man coming from the Sugar Valley just now, and he 'lowed that out of a hundred and fifty votes down there this morning there wan't but three cast ag'in suffrage for women, and one of them was challenged. Susan Walton's got a man stationed at every precinct, with a list of the names of the men in that district that ain't registered nor paid their poll tax, ready to drop 'em if they try to vote!" "Tim, step up to the store and telephone to Dry Pond and Calico Valley and see how the election is going." Cates stepped briskly. He was one of these meddlesome persons who would sell his birthright to gratify his curiosity. Presently he returned, cupped his hands over his mouth, and trumpeted the news. "Dry Pond, forty-two ballots cast, forty-two for suffrage, nary one anti!" This joke was greeted with a groan. "Calico Valley, seventy-four ballots cast, sixty-eight for suffrage, six anti-suffrage! Fellow at Dry Pond says the women are beating their feather beds for miles around, and the men air scared to death. He says----" A tall, well-dressed man, past fifty years of age, joined the group. This was John Fairfield, the only gentleman farmer in the community, and one of the few men whose wife was not implicated in the Woman's Movement. She was an invalid, nearly blind. Fairfield had been the understudy of Prim in controlling the political affairs of the community. He was very popular. "Mr. Fairfield, how are you going to vote?" some one yelled. "Yes, tell us what you're going to do!" "A speech. Give us a speech!" came from a dozen husky throats. "'We air po' wanderin' sheep to-day, away on the mountains wild and bar'!' Put yo' crook around our necks, John, an' lead us home with our tails behind us, so as our Bo Peeps'll know us when we come an' gladden us with their soft black eyes! Ain't that the way the poetry runs?" snickered a drunken wag, dropping on the post-office steps and gazing up with a befuddled air at Fairfield, who had removed his hat and ascended the steps. "Gentlemen," he began, "you know me." "Yes," sobbed the wag, "we know you and we know ourselves, unfortunate creatures that we air--an' we thought we knowed the women in this county. We've dandled some of 'em on our knees. We've drawed 'em in times past to our unworthy bosoms--but now all is changed. We've lost 'em! Where, oh, where----" "Shet up, you darn fool! and let us hear what he has to say." The "darn fool" laid his head in the dust, and gave himself up wholly to his grief. "I was about to say," Fairfield began again, "that you know me----" "Yes!"