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The Desired Woman by Will N. (William Nathaniel) Harben
page 87 of 390 (22%)
excuse two or three times a year to engage in all that carnage and
debauchery for no rational reason. Do you know the sort of election
the women will hold, Warren, if they ever get a chance?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Wilks answered, dryly. "It would be hard to
imagine."

"Well, I'll tell you," Dolly said to the audience. "They will do away
with all that foolishness I've been talking about. That day at
Ridgeville a dozen carriages were hired at a big expense to bring
voters to the polls. Hundreds of dollars were spent on whisky,
doctors' bills, lawyers' fees, and fines at court. But sensible women
will wipe all that out. On election day in the future a trustworthy
man will ride from house to house on a horse or mule with the ballot-
box in his lap. It will be brought to the farmhouse door. The busy
wife will leave her churning, or sweeping, or sewing for a minute. She
will scribble her name on a ticket and drop it in the slit while she
asks the man how his family is. She may offer him a cup of hot coffee
or a snack to eat. She will go to the back door and call her husband
or sons in from the field to do their voting, and then the polls of
that election will be closed as far as she is concerned."

"Good, good, fine, fine!" Timmons shouted. "That's the racket!"

"But," Dolly went on, sweeping the faces of the masculine row beside
her and turning to the audience, "this stalwart bunch of Nature's
noblemen here on the platform will tell you that women haven't got
sense enough to vote. That's it, Mrs. Timmons, they think at the
bottom of their hearts that women have skulls as thick as a pine
board. They don't know this: they don't know that some of the most
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