Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work
Hopkins.
Mr. Hopkins had therefore become so enraged that, against the advice of
his friends, he issued a circular sneering at "Women in Politics." The
newspapers having been subsidized by the opposition so early in the
game, Mr. Hopkins had driven to employ the circular method of
communicating with the voters. Scarcely a day passed now that his corps
of distributors did not leave some of his literature at every dwelling
in the district.
His tirade against the girls was neither convincing nor in good taste.
He asked the voters if they were willing to submit to "petticoat
government," and permit a "lot of boarding-school girls, with more
boldness than modesty" to dictate the policies of the community. "These
frizzle-headed females," continued the circular, "are trying to make
your wives and daughters as rebellious and unreasonable as they are
themselves; but no man of sense will permit a woman to influence his
vote. It is a disgrace to this district that Mr. Forbes allows his
girlish campaign to be run by a lot of misses who should be at home
darning stockings; or, if they were not able to do that, practicing
their music-lessons."
"Good!" exclaimed shrewd Miss Patsy, when she read this circular. "If
I'm not much mistaken, Mr. Hopkins has thrown a boomerang. Every woman
who attended the fкte is now linked with us as an ally, and every one of
them will resent this foolish circular."
"I'm sorry," said Kenneth, "that you girls should be forced to endure
this. I feared something like it when you insisted on taking a hand in
the game."
But they laughed at him and at Mr. Hopkins, and declared they were not
at all offended.
"One cannot touch pitch without being defiled," said Mr. Watson,
gravely, "and politics, as Mr. Hopkins knows it, is little more than
pitch."
"I cannot see that there is anything my girls have done to forfeit
respect and admiration," asserted Uncle John, stoutly. "To accuse them
of boldness or immodesty is absurd. They have merely gone to work in a
business-like manner and used their wits and common-sense in educating
the voters.
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There was once an honest journeyman tailor, by name Labakan, who learned his trade with an excellent master in Alexandria. It could not be said that Labakan was unhandy with the needle; on the contrary, he could make excellent work: moreover, one would have done him injustice to have called him lazy. Nevertheless, his companions knew not what to make of him, for he would often sew for hours together so rapidly that the needle would glow in his hand, and the thread smoke, and that none could equal him.
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