Part 59

"That would only be the same as men having the vote and thinking they know how to represent us," she said.

But though she couldn't vote she worked hard for her side, and with a big rosette of pink and blue decorating her dimpling bosom, and streamers of the same flying from her whip and her pony's headstall, she was out all day driving voters to the booth, where for the first time in that town women produced an electoral right. The Federal election had been conducted without them.

In the forenoon Larry Witcom drove Carry to vote in state--otherwise a brand-new sulky he had recently purchased; and such is human nature that we were all sufficiently malicious to be secretly pleased that poor old Uncle Jake could not vote at all, because he had only an obsolete red elector's right, and he should have procured an up-to-date blue one.

It was a genial sunshiny day, and the lucerne and rape fields and the Chinese gardens on either hand were beautifully green, as grandma noticed when during the afternoon she and I drove in the old sulky to cast our vote.

"Poor Jake! I'm sorry he can't vote, though he ain't goin' for my man," she remarked. "But don't it seem like a judgment on him for bein' so narked about the women bein' set free? That's always the way in life. If you are spiteful about anythink it always comes back on yourself."

The street opposite the court-house--for the time converted into a polling-booth--was thronged like a show-day with an orderly crowd of citizens of both sexes. The voting had become so congested that vehicle loads of voters were being conveyed over to Kangaroo, and each contingent set out amid the cheers of small boys, who were most ardent politicians.

Laughing and banter were exchanged between people of all ages and classes, one as important as the other for the time being.

As we crowded round the door, a jovial-looking man with a twinkle in his eyes, as he was unceremoniously shoved against a pillar, announced that women should not have been allowed the vote, for its disastrous results were already evident in this crush; while the equally pleasant-faced policeman, who, as soon as intimation came from within that there was a vacancy, wheeled us in like so many bales of wool, replied--

"Women jolly well have as much right to vote as men, and more, because they can do it without getting drunk or breaking their heads."

Many displayed colours and some did not. There was the truculent woman who voted as she thought fit, and who loudly advertised this fact; the man who voted for Henderson because he lived in the district; and the woman who supported Leslie Walker because he was rich and would be able to subscribe liberally to all local institutions. A shallow-pated Miss favoured Walker because his colours were the prettier; and an addle-pated old man balanced this by voting for Henderson because he "shouted," and Walker was temperance. There was a silly little flaxen-haired woman who also supported the Opposition to spite her husband,--a Henderson man, and the prototype of Mr Pornsch,--because, being over-grogful, he had made tracks for the polling-booth alone, leaving his wife to go as best she could. Alas! there was a poor little woman at home who could not vote at all because she had succumbed to the gentlemanliness of Leslie Walker, and her husband being against him had tyrannously taken her right from her; and there was also the woman who would not vote at all, because she considered men were superior to women, and boisterously proclaimed this to all who would listen, in hopes of currying favour with the men; but fortunately this, in the case of the best men, is becoming an obsolete bid for popularity. There was the woman who voted for the man her father named, and those electors of each sex who voted to the best of their discernment great or small. Quite a crop of Uncle Jakes were disfranchised through their rights being back numbers, and the nobodies who imagined themselves something altogether too lofty to consider anything so mundane as law-making at all, were also rather numerous. Ada Grosvenor's bright happy face shone like a star amid her companions, and she discharged this duty honestly and thoughtfully as she did all others, recognising it as the practical way of working for the brave, bright ideals guiding her life.

Among the electresses were all the same types of vote as cast by men, except that those sold for a glass of beer were not so frequent; and as civilisation climbs higher, universal suffrage, and the better methods of administration to which it will give birth, will be exercised for the adjustment of the great human question now so trivially divided into squabbles of sex and class.

The bright Australian sun shone with genial approval on all, and in the air was a hint of the scent of the jonquils and violets, so early in that temperate region. Grandma Clay must not be forgotten, for in her immaculate silk-cloth dress and cape, her bonnet of the best material, and her "lastings," with her spectacles in one hand and her properly-prized electoral right in the other, and her irreproachable respectability oozing from her every action, she could not be overlooked. As she neared the door the gentlemen and younger ladies crowding there politely stood back and cancelled their turn in her favour; and Mrs Martha Clay, a flush on her cheeks, a flash in her eyes, and with her splendidly active, upright figure carried valiantly, at the age of seventy-five, disappeared within the polling-booth to cast her first vote for the State Parliament.

What a girl she must have been in those far-off teens when she had handled a team of five in Cobb & Co.'s lumbering coaches, when her curls, blowing in the rain and wind, had been bronze, when with a feather-weight bound she could spring from the high box-seat to the ground! Lucky Jim Clay, to have held such vigorous love and splendid personality all his own. All his own to this late day, for the old dame returning said to me, "This is a great day to me, and I only wish that Jim Clay had lived to see me vote;" and there was a pathetic quiver in the old voice inexpressibly sweet to the ear of one believing in true love.

After Grandma Clay there was myself--a widely different type of voter. In one way it did not matter whether I voted or not. Neither candidate had a clear-cut policy to rescue public affairs from their chaotic state. The electors themselves had no definite idea what they required, but this was in no way alarming--all the materials for national prosperity were at hand, presently matters would evolve, and the demand for able statesmen would be filled when the demand grew clearly defined.

Which man would do most for women and children was also immaterial; the mere fact of women no longer being redressless creatures, but invested with rights of full citizenship, was even at that early stage having its effect. Politicians were trimming their sails to catch the great female vote by announcing their readiness to make issues of questions relative to the peculiar welfare of the big bulk of the human race represented by women and children. Inspired by women's newly-granted power of electing a real representative of their demands, would-be M.P.'s were hastening in one session to insert in their platform planks which much-vaunted "womanly influence" had been unable to get there during generations of masculine chivalry and feminine disenfranchisement.

Let the women vote!

As Grandma Clay expressed it, "It ain't what things actually are, it's all they stand for." For this reason I meant to exercise my right.

A sovereign in itself may not be much, but to a starving man within reach of shops see what it means in twenty shillings' worth of food. Similarly the right to vote in a self-governed country meant many a mile in the upward evolution of mankind.

Countless brave women and good men had sacrificed all that for which the human heart hankers, that women should be raised to this estate, and what a coward and insolent ignoramus would I be to lightly consider what had been so dearly bought and hard fought! And so thinking I presented my right, received my ballot-paper, and though not bothering to meddle with either candidate's name, I folded it correctly, and for the sake of all that stood behind and ahead of the right to perform this simple action, dropped it in the ballot-box.

It closed at six o'clock, and then came a lull till the first returns should have time to come in. The candidates were not in Noonoon but Townend, where the head polling-booth was situated, though nothing could have exceeded the excitement in Noonoon.

Grandma said she would wait quietly at home till next day to hear the result, but at nine o'clock the strains of a band, the glow of the town-lights like a red jewel through the night, and the sound of distant cheering proved too enticing to us two left alone in the house, so we locked it up, put the pony in the sulky, and sallied forth into the winter night, which in this genial climate was pleasant in an over-jacket added to one's ordinary indoor attire.

We had the road to ourselves, for the strings of vehicles from which it was seldom free were all ahead of us.

The candidates had tiny globes of electric light representing their colours hung across the street from their respective committee rooms, and the proprietor of 'The Noonoon Advertiser' had a splendid placard erected on his office balcony and well lighted by electricity, on which the names of members were pasted as they were elected, and in view of this had gathered one of the most good-humoured crowds imaginable. Irrespective of party, the hoisting of each name was wildly cheered by the embryo electors who, being at that time of life when to yell is a joy, took the opportunity of doing so in full.

Leaving grandma in charge of the vehicle I got out to reconnoitre, and slipped in among the crowd desiring to be unobserved, but that was impossible; a good-tempered man invariably discovered me behind him, and insisted upon putting me forward where there was a better view of the numbers and names.

"Let the women have a show. This is their first election and it ought to be their night," and similarly good-natured remarks in conjunction with a little "chyacking" from either party as the numbers fluctuated, were to be heard on all sides.

Where were all the insults and ignominy that opponents of women franchise had been fearfully anticipating for women if they should consent to lower themselves by going to the polling-booth? If one excepted the discomfort that non-smokers have to suffer in any crowd owing to the indulgence of this selfish, disgusting, and absolutely idiotic vice, it was one of the best-mannered crowds I have been among.

I espied Larry and Carry carefully among the shades of the trees on the outskirts of the gathering, and even in the teeth of a political crisis not so thoroughly "up-to-date" that they could forego a revival of the old, old story that will outlive voting and many other customs of many other times.

Among the crowd of mercurial and lustily cheering boys was my friend Andrew, and a little farther on, lo! the knight himself. A motor cap was jammed on his warm curls, and a football guernsey displayed the proportions of his broad chest as his Chesterfield fell open, while with a gaiety and freedom he lacked when addressing girls he exchanged comments with some other young fellows, evidently fellow-motorists.