They saw her point and were hard hit. When "Votes for
Women" gets to coming down Providence Road the farmers will hitch up a
wagon and take mother and the children with a well-packed lunch basket
to meet it half way. This is a prophecy!
Then, after Jane sat down, I don't believe such a speechifying ever was
before as resounded out over the river, even in the time of Old Hickory.
Everybody had something to say and got to his feet to say it well, even
if some of them did brandish a turkey wing or a Iamb rib to emphasize
their points.
And the women were the funniest things I ever beheld, as we were treated
to one maiden speech after another, issuing from the lips of plump
matrons anywhere from thirty to sixty. They had never done it before,
but liked it after they had tried.
Mother Mayberry from Providence, who is the grand old woman of the whole
valley, having established her claim to the title thirty years ago by
taking up her dead doctor husband's practice and "riding saddlebags to
suffering ever since," as she puts it, broke the feminine ice by rising
from her seat by the side of one of the entranced Magnates,--who had
been so delighted with her and her philosophies that he could hardly do
his dinner justice,--and addressing the rally in her wonderful old voice
with her white curls flying and her cheeks as pink as a girl's.
"Children," she said, after everybody had clapped and clapped so she
couldn't get a start for several minutes, "The Harpeth Valley women have
been a-marching along behind the men for many a day, because their
strong shoulders had to break undergrowth for both, but now husbands and
fathers and sons have got their feet up on the bluff of Paradise Ridge,
and it does look like they will be a-reaching down their hands to help
us up, in the break of a new day, to stand by their side; and I, for
one, say mount!--I'm ready!"
A perfect war of applause answered her, and Dickie's father got up to go
down the whole length of the table to shake hands with her, but had to
wait until she came out of the embrace of Nell's fluffy arms, and got a
hand free from the Magnate on one side and Aunt Augusta on the other.
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