It was the first city election in which the women of
Jazztown would take part, and all were duly enthused over the latest compliment
to the intelligence feminine which their men had accorded them. Young maids and
old, fair and otherwise, ladies who wore their own hair exclusively and those
bought a part of their tresses at the little shop around the corner—in fact,
from the blushing damsel who modestly admitted to just 21 summers, to the
ancient withered crone who had finally ceased to misrepresent her age, all of
the ladies of Jazztown were highly elated, whether or not they admitted it,
over the prospect of casting their vote for the first time.
The men of Jazztown were divided upon the weighty question
of votes for women. From the first doubtful days when a few of the more
aggressive clubwomen of the city had enlisted themselves in the new cause, on
through the years of picketing, hunger strikes and other disturbing suffragette
activities, while, slowly but surely the issue gained strength by the addition
of more and more supporters, until even a new discerning politicians had lined
themselves up with it, the male populace of Jazztown had been split on the
question, with the majority, as indicated by the talk on the street corners,
distinctly against it. When suffrage advocates finally brought the issue to the
polls, the general opinion was that it would fail miserably, abjectly, utterly.
Therefore, upon the day after election, a distinctly audible male gasp of
astonishment went up from the roof trees of Jazztown when everybody learned
that the suffrage forces had won.
Nobody could say how the suffragettes did it, but it was
done, and now the fair women of Jazztown were actually going to vote for a major,
a chief of police, and a host of other city officers. And nobody under heaven
could tell how the ladies were going to vote!
For years Jazztown had seen one political party in
undisputed control, with a voting ratio of two to one over the other. Having twice
the strength of the opposition, elections had long been little more than a
formality, this party electing whomsoever its moguls chose to nominate. But
this year, the majority party was divided—and all on account of a woman, who,
defeated by a hair’s breadth in the nominating convention, had jumped the party
and formed a new and apparently powerful organization under the name of the
People’s Alliance, which threatened to sweep everything before it. The woman
was Mrs. Letts-Attem, and the only thing against her record was that she
compelled her husband to smoke hjis corncob pipe in the woodhouse. Mrs.
Letts-Attem was the nominee of her party for the mayorality, and she was a
hustler. Furthermore, she was exceedingly good to look upon.
Henry Sumspeed was the candidate for mayor offered by the
old majority party. He was a strikingly handsome devil of a man with no morals
to speak of, and it was even darkly rumored that he occasionally played
penny-ante with the boys when his wife was out of town. To illustrate the
depths of iniquity of which he was capable, during the campaign preceding
election day his enemies proved, beyond a doubt, that once in his younger days
Sumspeed has actually helped eat a
stolen watermelon—accessory to a crime, as it were. The prospective mayor was a
business man of ability, the owner and manager of a growing business.
With what they believed almost incredible shrewdness, the
majority party unearthed and brought forth a candidate for mayor against whom
absolutely nothing could be said. Percival P. Patootie’s purified personality
permeated people with whom prudishness was popular. The history of his whole
past life shown with the dazzling and unsullied glamour of a freshly
whitewashed barn. There wasn’t a speck upon it. He always did the righteous
thing, in a super-righteous way, and he hadn’t missed a Sunday school class
from the Sunday following the day he learned how to travel the dark pathways of
this world on his two delicate feet. Percival was an adept at needlework and
crocheting, and the greatest triumph of his stainless career to date had been
the invention of a brand new variety of drop stitch. His middle name was
Purity, and he had a well-known brand of soap beat by 56-100 of one per cent
when it came to absolute freedom from imperfections. Surely, such a major would
cause Jazztown’s civic life to gleam with purity even as the driven snow.
Unfortunately, perhaps, Percival was not particularly impressive in personal
appearance, due principally to the fact that his chin dwindled away to
nothingness in the vicinity of his collar.
The other candidates for civic emoluments were grouped
around these three. In a way of speaking, the smaller fry were strap hangers
whose chance to ride in the trolley car of state depended upon the success of
one or another of the candidates for mayor. And the whole thing depended on the
way the women of Jazztown cast their votes. How the deuce would they vote?
Would they follow the lead of their husbands, fathers, brothers or fiancees,
and thus virtually neutralize the effect of their balloting by the resulting
division? Wellington Spruggs declared they would.
“I’m boss of my house,” said Spruggs one night to a group of
admiring fellow townsmen gathered in a corner drug store, “and I’m going home
now and tell my wife exactly how she must vote.” The bunch followed Spruggs
home and listened from the sidewalk while he laid down the law to Mrs. Spruggs.
Later, they carried him to the Jazztown hospital on a stretcher, where three
doctors worked until midnight removing splinters of broken crockery from his
anatomy.
In a desperate effort to grasp votes from each other, the
three contesting parties added reform plank after reform plan to their
platforms. Mrs. Letts-Attem, speaking to the Dairymen’s Association, in an
impassioned burst of eloquence declared that her party was irrevocably pledged
to enact a law requiring all householders to contribute annually toward a fund
to provide kneepads for knock-kneed cows. Not to be outdone, Henry Sumspeed’s
political organization announced through the city press that, if elected, the
Sumspeed party would rid the city of the book-agent evil. Percival P. Patootie,
with wonderful political astuteness, announced to the public on an engraved and
delicately scented circular that, if honored by election, he would give the
ladies of the city free daily lessons in the latest crocheting kinks.
Election day came. Men and women went to the polls, duly
cast their ballots, and went home. The day ended, the votes were counted, and
the new mayor of Jazztown was heralded far and wide. Was it the stunning Mrs.
Letts-Attem, with her inspired oratory and her classy frocks, or was it the
devilishly charming Henry Sumspeed, with his business acumen and his way with
women? No, gentle reader, it was Percival Purity Patootie, with all his
pussy-footed prudishness, who won the day. And why? Because the ladies of
Jazztown were just dying to learn the very latest wrinkles in twentieth century
crocheting. Percival’s circular had done the work.
Strangers who visit Jazztown nowadays notice with surprise
that along about four o’clock in the afternoon the men sitting on the benches
of the public square gradually begin to sidle off down the surrounding streets,
while their places are taken by ladies, more and more ladies, ladies with real
complexions, and ladies with real handmade complexions, until a great concourse
of ladies fills the spacious square, nay, overflows it, and the volume of their
endless chatter rises skyward in a babel of sound utterly defying description.
In the center of the multitude from a point of vantage, one may see a slender
figure in men’s clothes, minus a chin, whose fingers are deftly moving in the
intricate processes which in time will produce a wonderfully crocheted baby
sacque of the very latest mode. Dear reader, perhaps you have guessed that it
is none other than Percival Purity Patootie, Mayor of Jazztown, in his daily
crocheting demonstration!
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