Part 35

"I am, o' course."

"And who's going to be street commissioner, truant officer, chief of the fire depart--"

"You are, Eva,--but I'm going to look after everything, mind you. All you got to do is to see that I git somethin' to eat whenever I need it, an' a bed to sleep in at night, an' I'll--"

"A bed to sleep in, you ninny!" she cried. "You're going to sleep in the same bed you've been sleeping in for forty years. What are you talking about? Ain't you going to sleep with me if I appoint you deputy marshal?"

"Certainly," Anderson made haste to assure her. "Unofficially, o' course," he went on, with profound regard for the ethics involved.

"Well, I'll think it over," she said wearily. "Don't bother me now, you two; can't you see I'm making apple butter?"

"I hope you will consent to run, Mrs. Crow," put in the wily Mr. Squires, "if only for the sake of showing Minnie Stitzenberg that it won't do her any good to be saying things about--well, about anybody in particular." He concluded very lamely.

"Has that woman been saying things about me?" demanded Mrs. Crow.

"I ought to have sense enough to keep my mouth shut," said Harry, scowling darkly. Catching the astonished look on Anderson's face, he hastily suggested that they "beat it."

Out in the front yard Anderson halted him. "Has Minnie been saying anything about my wife, Harry Squires?"

Harry first looked over his shoulder and then winked. "Not that I know of," he said, chuckling. "But I guess it's safe to go ahead and print the ticket with Mrs. Crow's name on it."

Never in all its sedentary existence had Tinkletown experienced a livelier campaign.

"If you vote for Minnie Stitzenberg, I'll never speak to you again," was the common argument of the Crowites, and "Don't you ever try to look me in the face again if you vote for that old Mrs. Crow," was the slogan of the opposition.

Mrs. Crow conducted her own campaign.

Anderson discovered to his great dismay that his meals were not only irregular in the matter of time, but frequently did not materialize at all. His wife and daughters neglected him completely. On three separate occasions after waiting until nearly eight o'clock for his supper, he strolled disconsolately over to the equally abandoned home of Alf Reesling.

"I'm a mighty poor cook," confessed Alf on the first occasion, a hungry, harassed look in his eyes. "But anything's better'n starvin', ain't it?"

"It shore is," said Anderson with feeling.

"I ain't seen a petticoat around my house since half-past nine this mornin'," lamented Alf, upsetting a pan of milk while trying to get a plate of cold ham out of the icebox. "It's terrible."

"Lemme take your knife, Alf. I'll peel the pertatoes--if you'll tell me where they are."

"I don't know where anything is," said Alf, leaning dejectedly against the kitchen sink.

"Well," said Anderson, "let's look."

"If the election was a week further off, I'd give up an' go to drinkin' again," said Alf on another occasion. "I'd sooner drink myself to death than starve. Starvation is a terrible end, Anderson. Worse than hangin', they say."

"Only four days more," sighed Anderson, clipping off a hunk of bologna. "My wife says if I'll hold out till after election, she won't never leave the kitchen ag'in long as she lives."

"That's what mine says. Sherman was only half right. War may be hell for men, but, by gosh, women are hell for war. An' that's what it is--war, Anderson, war to the hilt. Every woman in town's got her knife out an', my God, how they're slashin' each other! There won't be a whole woman left."

"Well, I'd be satisfied with half a one," mused Anderson, a faraway look in his eyes.

The day before the election, Mrs. Crow played her trump card. She had treasured an open boast made years before by the disappointed old maid who now opposed her. Minnie, before attaining years of discretion and still smarting under the failures of youth, had spitefully announced that she was a spinster from choice. With great scorn she had stated, while sitting on Mrs. Crow's porch, that she would die an old maid a hundred times over sooner than marry any one in Tinkletown. And, she added, the best proof that she meant what she said was the fact that nearly every man in town had asked her to marry him before he asked any one else!

The news spread like wildfire the instant Mrs. Crow released it. Mrs. Crow's veracity was not a thing to be questioned.

When the returns were all in, Mrs. Crow was found to have received 573 votes (women included), out of a total of 601 cast. Miss Stitzenberg held the German vote solid, including seven from her own sex who could afford to disregard the slander because they had been safely married in Germany long before coming to Tinkletown.