Anderson Crow, Detective Part 17

"--safe place where you can't harm n.o.body. You oughtn't to be runnin'

round at large like this. Here! Leggo my arm! What the d.i.c.kens are you tryin' to--"

"Come on! I'll _show_ you!" exclaimed Alf. "I'll take you right around to the _Banner_ office an'--say, didn't you know the People's Party nominated a full ticket las' night over at Odd Fellers' Hall?"

Anderson submitted himself to be led--or rather dragged--around the corner into Sickle Street.

Several business men aroused from mid-morning la.s.situde allowed their chairs to come down with a thump upon divers mercantile porches, and fell in behind the two princ.i.p.al citizens of Tinkletown. Something terrible must have happened or Marshal Crow wouldn't be summoned in any such imperative manner as this.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Something terrible must have happened or Marshal Crow wouldn't be summoned in any such imperative manner as this_]

"What's up, Anderson?" called out Mort Fryback, the hardware dealer, wavering on one leg while he reached frantically behind him for his crutch. Mort was always looking for excitement. He hadn't had any to speak of since the day he created the greatest furor the town had experienced in years by losing one of his legs under an extremely heavy kitchen stove.

"Is there a fire?" shouted Mr. Brubaker, the druggist, half a block away.

Mr. Jones, proprietor of the _Banner_ Job Printing office, obligingly produced the "galley-proof" of the account of the People's Convention, prepared by his "city editor," Harry Squires, for the ensuing issue of the weekly. Mr. Squires himself emerged from the press-room, and sarcastically offered his condolences to Anderson Crow.

"Well, here's a pretty howdy-do, Anderson," he said, elevating his eye-shade to a position that established a green halo over a perfectly pink pate.

"Howdy-do," responded Anderson, with unaccustomed politeness. He was staring hard at the dirty strip of paper which he held to the light.

"Didn't I _tell_ you?" exclaimed Alf Reesling triumphantly. "There she is, right before your eyes."

Mr. Reesling employed the proper gender in making this a.s.sertion. "She"

was right before the eyes of every one who cared to look. Anderson slowly read off the "ticket." His voice cracked deplorably as he p.r.o.nounced the last of the six names that smote him where he had never been smitten before.

Clerk--Henry Wimpelmeyer

Justice of the Peace--William Kiser

Selectman, First District--Otto Schultz

Selectman, Second District--Conrad Blank

Selectman, Third District--Christopher Columbus Callahan

Marshal--Minnie St.i.tzenberg.

A long silence followed the last syllable in Minnie's name, broken at last by Marshal Crow, who turned upon Harry Squires and demanded:

"What do you mean, Harry Squires, by belittlin' a woman's name in your paper like this? She c'n sue for libel. You got no right to make fun of a respectable, hard-workin' woman, even though she did make a derned fool of herself gittin' up that pert.i.tion to have me removed from office."

"Well, that's what she's still trying to do," said Harry.

"What say?"

"I say she's still trying to remove you from office. She's going to get your hide, Anderson, for arresting her when she tried to make that Suffrage speech in front of the town hall last fall."

"I had a right to arrest her. She was obstructin' the public thoroughfare."

"That's all right, but she said she had as much right to block the street as you had. You made speeches all over the place."

"Yes, but I made 'em in good American English, an' she spoke half the time in German. How in thunder was I to know what she was sayin'? She might 'a' been sayin' somethin' ag'in the United States Government, fer all I knew."

"Well, anyhow, she's going to get your scalp for it, if it's in woman's power to do it."

"I'm ag'in any female citizen of this here town that subscribes to a German paper printed in New York City an' refuses to read the _Banner_,"

declared Anderson loudly--and with all the astuteness of the experienced politician. "An' what's more," pursued Anderson scornfully, "I'm ag'in that whole ticket. There's only one American on it, an' he was a Democrat up to las' Sunday. Besides, it's ag'in the law to nominate Minnie St.i.tzenberg."

"Why?" demanded Harry Squires.

"Ain't she a woman?"

"Certainly she is."

"Well, ain't _that_ ag'in the law? A woman ain't got no right to run for nothin'," said Anderson. "She ain't--"

"She ain't, eh? Didn't you walk up to the polls last fall and vote to give her the right?" demanded Harry. "Didn't every dog-goned man in this town except Bill Wynkoop vote for suffrage? Well, then, what are you kicking about? She's got as much right to run for marshal as you have, old Sport, and if what she says is true, every blessed woman in Tinkletown is going to vote for her."

Marshal Crow sat down, a queer, dazed look in his eyes.

"By gosh, I--I never thought they'd act like this," he murmured.

Every man in the group was asking the same question in the back of his startled brain: "Has _my_ wife gone an' got mixed up in this scheme of Minnie's without sayin' anything to me?" Visions of feminine supremacy filled the mental eye of a suddenly perturbed const.i.tuency. The realization flashed through every mind that if the women of Tinkletown stuck solidly together, there wasn't the ghost of a chance for the s.e.x that had been in the saddle since the world began. An unwitting, or perhaps a designing, Providence had populated Tinkletown with at least twenty more women than men!

Alf Reesling was the first to speak. He addressed the complacent Mr.

Squires:

"I know one woman that ain't goin' to vote for Minnie St.i.tzenberg," said he, somewhat fiercely.

"What are you going to do?" inquired Harry mildly. "Kill her?"

"Nothin' as triflin' as that," said Alf. "I'm goin' to tell my wife if she votes for Minnie I'll pack up and leave her."

"Minnie's sure of _one_ vote, all right," was Harry's comment.

Fully ten minutes were required to convince the marshal that Minnie St.i.tzenberg was a bona fide candidate.

Anderson finally arose, drew himself to his full height, lifted his chin, and faced the group with something truly martial in his eye.

"Feller citizens," he began solemnly, "the time has come for us men to stand together. We got to pertect our rights. We got to let the women know that they can't come between us. For the last million years we have been supportin' an' pertectin' and puttin' up with all sorts of women, an' we got to give 'em to understand that this is no time for them to git it into their heads they can support and pertect us. Everybody, includin' the women, knows there's a great war goin' on over in Europe.

Us men are fightin' that war. We're bleedin' an' dyin' an' bein'

captured by the orneriest villains outside o' h.e.l.l--as the feller says.

I'm not sayin' the women ain't doin' their part, mind you. They're doin'

n.o.ble, an' you couldn't git me to say a thing ag'in women _as_ women.

They're a derned sight better'n we are. That's jest the point. We got to _keep_ 'em better'n we are, an' what's more to the point, we don't want 'em to find out they're better'n we are. Just as soon as they git to be as overbearin' an' as incontrollable as we are, then there's goin' to be thunder to pay. I'm willin' to work, an' fight, an' die fer my wife an'