IX
THE REVOLT OF TILDY MEARS
Every seat in the primitive town hall was occupied, and a somberfrieze of Dakota plainsmen and their sad-faced wives decorated therough, unpainted sides of the building. On boxes in the narrow aisles,between long rows of pine boards on which were seated the earlyarrivals, late-comers squatted discontentedly, among them a dozenwomen carrying fretful babies, to whom from time to time theyaddressed a comforting murmur as they swung them, cradle-fashion, intheir tired arms.
The exercises of the evening had not yet begun, but almost every eyein the big, silent, patient assemblage was fixed on a woman, short andstout, with snow-white hair and a young and vivid face, who had justtaken her place on the platform, escorted by a self-conscious officialof the little town. Every one in that gathering had heard of Dr. AnnaHarland; few had yet heard her speak, but all knew what sherepresented: "new-fangled notions about women"--women's rights, womansuffrage, feminism, unsettling ideas which threatened to disturb thepeace of minds accustomed to run in well-worn grooves. Many of themen and women in her audience had driven twenty, thirty, or fortymiles across the plains to hear her, but there was no unanimity in theexpressions with which they studied her now as she sat before them. Inthe men's regard were curiosity, prejudice, good-humored tolerance, ora blend of all three. The women's faces held a different meaning:pride, affectionate interest, admiration tinged with hope; and hereand there a hint of something deeper, a wireless message that passedfrom soul to soul.
At a melodeon on the left of the platform a pale local belle, who hadvolunteered her services, awaited the signal to play the openingchords of the song that was to precede the speaker's address. Inbrackets high on the rough walls a few kerosene lamps vaguelyillumined the scene, while from the open night outside came the voicesof cowboys noisily greeting late arrivals and urging them to "go on inan' git a change of heart!"
The musician received her signal--a nod from the chairman of theevening--and the next moment the voices of a relieved and relaxedaudience were heartily swelling the familiar strains of "The BattleHymn of the Republic." As the men and women before her sang on, Dr.Harland watched them, the gaze of the brilliant dark eyes under herstraight black brows keen and intent. Even yet she had not decidedwhat she meant to say to these people. Something in the music,something in the atmosphere, would surely give her a cue, she felt,before she began to speak.
Sitting near her on the platform, I studied both her and her audience.The Far West and its people were new to me; so was this great leaderof the woman's cause. But it behooved me to know her and to know herwell, for I had accompanied her on this Western campaign for the solepurpose of writing a series of articles on her life and work, to bepublished in the magazine of which I had recently been appointedassistant editor. During our long railroad journeys and drives overhills and plains she had talked to me of the past. Now, I knew, I wasto see her again perform the miracle at which I had not yet ceased tomarvel--the transformation of hundreds of indifferent or merelycasually interested persons into a mass of shouting enthusiasts, readyto enlist under her yellow banner and follow wherever she led.
To-night, as she rose and for a moment stood silent before heraudience, I could see her, as usual, gathering them up, drawing themto her by sheer force of magnetism, before she spoke a word.
"My friends," she began, in the beautiful voice whose vibratingcontralto notes reached every person in the great hall, "last Monday,at Medora, I was asked by a missionary who is going to India to send amessage to the women of that land. I said to him, 'Tell them the worldwas made for women, too.' To-night I am here to give you the samemessage. The world is women's, too. The West is women's, too. You havehelped to make it, you splendid, pioneer women, who have borne withyour husbands the heat and burden of the long working-days. You haveheld down your claims through the endless months of Western winters,while your men were away; you have toiled with them in the fields; youhave endured with them the tragedies of cyclones, of droughts, ofsickness, of starvation. If woman's work is in the home alone, as ouropponents say it is, you have been most unwomanly. For you haveremained in the home only long enough to bear your children, to carefor them, to feed them and your husbands. The rest of the time youhave done a man's work in the West. The toil has been yours as well asman's; the reward of such toil should be shared by you. The West isyours, too. Now it holds work for you even greater than that you havedone in the past, and I am here to beg you to begin that work."
The address went on. In the dim light of the ill-smelling lamps Icould see the audience leaning forward, intent, fascinated. Even amongthe men easy tolerance was giving place to eager response; on rowafter row of the rough benches the spectators were already clay in thehands of the speaker, to be molded, for the moment at least, into theform she chose to give them. My eyes momentarily touched, thenfastened intently on a face in the third row on the left. It was theface of a woman--a little, middle-aged woman of the primitive Westerntype--her graying hair combed straight back from a high, narrowforehead, her thin lips slightly parted, the flat chest under hergingham dress rising and falling with emotion. But my interest washeld by her eyes--brown eyes, blazing eyes, almost the eyes of afanatic. Unswervingly they rested on the speaker's face, while thestrained attention, the parted lips, the attitude of the woman'squivering little body betrayed almost uncontrollable excitement. Atthat instant I should not have been surprised to see her spring to herfeet and shout, "_Alleluia!_"
A moment later I realized that Dr. Harland had seen her, too; that shewas, indeed, intensely conscious of her, and was directing many of herbest points to this absorbed listener. Here was the perfect type shewas describing to her audience--the true woman pioneer, who not onlyworked and prayed, but who read and thought and aspired. The men andwomen under the flickering lights were by this time as responsive tothe speaker's words as a child to its mother's voice. They laughed,they wept, they nodded, they sighed. When the usual collection wastaken up they showed true Western generosity, and when the lecture wasover they crowded forward to shake hands with the woman leader, and toexhaust their limited vocabulary in shy tributes to her eloquence. Faron the outskirts of the wide circle that had formed around her I sawthe little woman with the blazing eyes, vainly endeavoring to forceher way toward us through the crowd. Dr. Harland observed her at thesame time and motioned to me.
"Will you ask her to wait, Miss Iverson?" she asked. "I would like totalk to her before she slips away." And she added, with hercharacteristic twinkle, "That woman would make a perfect 'Exhibit A'for my lecture."
I skirted the throng and touched the arm of the little woman just asshe had given up hope of reaching the speaker, and was moving towardthe door. She started and stared at me, almost as if the touch of myfingers had awakened her from a dream.
"Dr. Harland asks if you will wait a few moments till the othersleave," I told her. "She is anxious to meet you."
The brown-eyed woman drew in a deep breath.
"Tha's whut I want," she exclaimed, ecstatically, "but it looked likeI couldn't git near her."
We sat down on an empty bench half-way down the hall, and watched thehuman stream flow toward and engulf the lecturer. "Ain't she jestwonderful?" breathed my companion. "She knows us women better 'n weknow ourselves. She knows all we done an' how we feel about it. I feltlike she was tellin' them people all my secrets, but I didn't mind."She hesitated, then added dreamily, "It's high time men was told whuttheir women are thinkin' an' can't say fer themselves."
In the excited group around the speaker a baby, held high in itsmother's arms to avoid being injured in the crush, shrieked out asudden protest. My new acquaintance regarded it with sympathetic eyes.
"I've raised six of 'em," she told me. "My oldest is a girl nineteen.My youngest is a boy of twelve. My big girl she's lookin' after thehouse an' the fam'ly while I'm gone. I druv sixty miles 'cross theplains to hear Dr. Harland. It took me two days, an' it's jest aboutwore out my horse--but this is worth it. I ain't had
sech a nightsence I was a girl."
She looked at me, her brown eyes lighting up again with their queer,excited fires.
"My Jim he 'most fell dead when I told him I was comin'," she went on."But I says to him, 'I ain't been away from this place one minute intwenty years,' I says. 'Now I guess you folks can git 'long without mefer a few days. For, Jim,' I says, 'ef I don't git away, ef I don't gosomewhere an' have some change, somethin's goin' to snap, an' I guessit'll be me!'"
"You mean," I exclaimed, in surprise, "that you've never left yourranch in twenty years?"
She nodded.
"Not once," she corroborated. "Not fer a minute. You know whut thesummers are--work, work from daylight to dark; an' in the winters Ihad t' hol' down the claim while Jim he went to the city an' worked.Sometimes he'd only git home once or twice the hull winter. Then whenwe begin to git on, seemed like 'twas harder than ever. Jim he keptaddin' more land an' more stock to whut we had, an' there was morehands to be waited on, an' the babies come pretty fast. Lately Jimhe's gone to Chicago every year to sell his cattle, but I ain't binable to git away till now."
During her eager talk--a talk that gushed forth like a long-repressedstream finding a sudden outlet--she had been leaning toward me withher arm on the back of the bench and her shining eyes on mine. Now, asif remembering her "company manners," she sat back stiffly, folded herwork-roughened hands primly in her lap, and sighed with supremecontent.
"My!" she whispered, happily, "I feel like I was in a diff'rent world.It don't seem possible that only sixty miles out on the plains thatranch is right there, an' everything is goin' on without me. An' hereI be, hearin' the music, an' all the folks singin' together, an' thatwonderful woman talkin' like she did! I feel"--she hesitated for acomparison, and then went on, with the laugh of a happy girl--"I feellike I was up in a balloon an' on my way to heaven!"
I forgot the heat of the crowded hall, the smell of the smoking lamps,the shuffle of hobnailed shoes on the pine floors, the wails offretful babies. I almost felt that I, too, was floating off with thisecstatic stranger in the balloon of her imagination.
"I see," I murmured. "You're tired of drudgery. You haven't playedenough in all these years."
She swung round again until she faced me, her sallow cheeks flushed,her eager, brilliant eyes on mine.
"I ain't played none at all," she said. "I dunno what play is. An'work ain't the only thing I'm tired of. I'm tired of everything. I'mtired of everything--except this."
Her voice lingered on the last two words. Her eyes left my face for aninstant and followed the lecturer, of whose white head we obtained aglimpse from time to time as the crowd opened around her. Still gazingtoward her, but now as if unseeingly, the plainswoman went on, hervoice dropping to a lower, more confidential note.
"I'm sick of everything," she repeated. "Most of all, I'm sick of theplains and the sky--stretching on and on and on and on, like they do,as if they was no end to 'em. Sometimes when I'm alone I stand at mydoor an' look at 'em an' shake my fists an' shriek. I begun to thinkthey wasn't anything but them nowhere. It seemed 's if the little townback East where I come from was jest a place I dreamed of--it couldn'treally be. Nothin' _could_ be 'cept those plains an' the cattle an'the sky. Then, this spring--"
She turned again to face me.
"I dunno why I'm tellin' you all this," she broke off, suddenly."Guess it's because I ain't had no one to talk to confidential fer solong, an' you look like you understand."
"I do understand," I told her.
She nodded.
"Well, this spring," she went on, "I begun to hate everything, same asI hated the plains. I couldn't exactly hate my children; but it seemedto me they never did nothin' right, an' I jest had to keep tellin'myself they was mine, an' they was young an' didn't understand howthey worried me by things they done. Then the hands drove me 'mostcrazy. They was one man--why, jes' to have that man pass the door mademe feel sick, an' yet I hadn't nothin' again' him, really. An'finally, last of all, Jim--even Jim--"
Her voice broke. Sudden tears filled her eyes, quenching for themoment the sparks that burned there.
"Jim's a good man," she continued, steadily, after a moment's pause."He's a good, hard-workin' man. He's good to me in his way, an' he'sgood to the children. But of course he ain't got much time for us. Henever was a talker. He's a worker, Jim is, an' when night comes he'sso tired he falls asleep over the fire. But everything he done alwaysseemed pretty near right to me--till this spring."
Her voice flattened and died on the last three words. For a moment shesat silent, brooding, a strange puzzled look in her brown eyes. Thecrowd around Dr. Harland was thinning out, and people were leavingthe hall. We could easily have reached her now, but I sat still,afraid to dam the verbal freshet that was following so many frozenwinters.
"This spring," she went on, at last, "it jest seems like I can't bearto have even Jim around." She checked herself and touched my armtimidly, almost apologetically. "It's a terrible thing to say, ain'tit?" she almost whispered, and added slowly, "It's a terrible thing to_feel_. I can't bear to see him come into the room. I can't bear theway he eats, or the way he smokes, or the way he sets down, or the wayhe gits up, or the way he breathes. He does 'em all jest like healways has. They ain't nothin' wrong with 'em. But I can't bear 'em nomore." She beat her hands together softly, with a queer, franticgesture. Her voice took on a note of rising excitement. "I can't," shegasped. "I can't, _I can't_!"
I rose.
"Come," I said, cheerfully. "Dr. Harland is free now. I want you totalk to her. She can help you. She's a very wise woman."
A momentary flicker of something I did not recognize shone in mycompanion's eyes. Was it doubt or pity, or both?
"She ain't a married woman, is she?" she asked, quietly, as she roseand walked down the aisle by my side.
I laughed.
"No," I conceded, "she isn't, and neither am I. But you know even theBible admits that of ten virgins five were wise!"
Her face, somber now, showed no reflection of my amusement. She seemedto be considering our claims to wisdom, turning over in her mind thepossibility of help from either of us, and experiencing a depressingdoubt.
"Well, you're women, anyway," she murmured, at last, a pathetic noteof uncertainty lingering in her voice.
"Will you tell me your name?" I asked, "so that I may introduce youproperly to Dr. Harland?"
"Tildy Mears," she answered, promptly; then added, with stiffformality, "Mrs. James Mears of the X. X. M. Ranch."
We were already facing Dr. Harland, and I presented Mrs. Mears withoutfurther delay. The leader met her with the brilliant smile, the closehand-clasp, the warm, human sympathy which rarely failed to thrill theman or woman she was greeting. Under their influence Mrs. Mearsexpanded like a thirsty plant in a gentle shower. Within five minutesthe two women were friends.
"You're at the hotel, of course," Dr. Harland asked, when she heard ofthe sixty-mile drive across the country. "Then you must have supperwith Miss Iverson and me. We always want something after these longevenings, and I will have it sent up to our sitting-room, so that wecan have a comfortable talk."
Half an hour later we were grouped around the table in the littleroom, and over the cold meat, canned peaches, lemonade, and biscuitswhich formed our collation Tildy Mears retold her story, addinginnumerable details and intimate touches under the stimulus of thedoctor's interest. At the end of it Dr. Harland sat for a long momentin silent thought. Then, from the briskness with which she began tospeak, I knew that she had found some solution of the human problembefore us.
"Mrs. Mears," she said, abruptly, and without any comment on theother's recital, "I wish you would travel around with us for afortnight. We're going to remain in this part of the state, and youwould find our meetings extremely interesting. On the other hand, youcould give me a great deal of help and information, and, though Icannot offer you a salary, I will gladly pay your expenses."
This was a plan very characteristic of Dr.
Harland, to whom half-waymeasures of any kind made no appeal. I looked at Tildy Mears. For aninstant, under the surprise of the leader's unexpected words, she hadsat still, stunned; in the next, her eyes had flashed to us one oftheir ecstatic messages, as if she had grasped all the other woman'sproposition held of change, of interest, of growth. Then abruptly thelight faded, went out.
"I'd love to," she said, dully, "I'd jest _love_ to! But of course itain't possible. Why, I got to start home to-morrer. Jim," she gulped,bringing out the name with an obvious effort, "Jim expecks me backSat'day night."
"Listen to me, Mrs. Mears"--Dr. Harland leaned forward, her compellingeyes deep in those of the Western woman--"I'm going to speak to youvery frankly--as if we were old friends; as if we were sisters, as,indeed, we are."
Tildy Mears nodded. Her eyes, dull and tired now, looked trustfullyback at the other woman.
"I feel like we are," she agreed. And she added, "You kin say anythingyou've a mind to."
"Then I want to say this."
I had never seen Dr. Harland more interested, more impressive. Intowhat she was saying to the forlorn little creature before her shethrew all she had of persuasiveness, of magnetism, and of power.
"If you don't have a change," she continued, "and a very radicalchange, you will surely have a bad nervous breakdown. That is what Iwant to save you from. I cannot imagine anything that would do it moreeffectively than to campaign with us for a time, and have the wholecurrent of your thoughts turned in a new direction. Why, don't youunderstand"--her deep voice was full of feeling; for the moment atleast she was more interested in one human soul than in hundreds ofhuman votes--"it isn't that you have ceased to care for your home andyour family. It's only that your tortured nerves are crying outagainst the horrible monotony of your life. Give them the change theyare demanding and everything else will come right. Go back and putthem through the old strain, and--well, I'm afraid everything will gowrong."
As if something in the other's words had galvanized her into suddenaction Mrs. Mears sprang to her feet. Like a wild thing she circledthe room, beating her hands together.
"I can't go back!" she cried. "I can't go back! Whut'll I do? Oh,whut'll I do?"
"Do what I am advising you to do."
Dr. Harland's quiet voice steadied the hysterical woman. Under itscalming influence I could see her pull herself together.
"Write Mr. Mears that you are coming with us, and give him our advanceroute, so that he will know exactly where you are all the time. Ifyour daughter can manage your home for five days she can manage it fortwo weeks. And your little jaunt need not cost your husband onepenny."
"I brought twenty dollars with me," quavered Tildy Mears.
"Keep it," advised the temporarily reckless leader of the woman'scause. "When we reach Bismarck you can buy yourself a new dress andget some little presents to take home to the children."
Tildy Mears stopped her reckless pacing of the room and stood for amoment very still, her eyes fixed on a worn spot in the rug at herfeet.
"I reckon I will," she then said, slowly. "Sence you ask me, I jestreckon I'll stay."
The next evening, during her remarks to the gathering she was thenaddressing, Dr. Harland abruptly checked herself.
"But there is some one here who knows more about that than I do," shesaid, casually, referring to a point she was covering. "Mrs. Mears,who is on the platform with me to-night, is one of you. She knows fromtwenty years of actual experience what I am learning from study andobservation. She can tell you better than I can how many buckets ofwater a plainsman's wife carries into an unpiped ranch during the day.Will you tell us, Mrs. Mears?"
She asked a few questions, and hesitatingly, stammeringly at first,the panic-stricken plainswoman answered her. Then a woman in theaudience spoke up timidly to compare notes, and in five minutes moreDr. Harland was sitting quietly in the background while Tildy Mears,her brown eyes blazing with interest and excitement, talked to herfellow plainswomen about the problems she and they were meetingtogether.
Seeing the success of Dr. Harland's experiment, I felt an increasedrespect for that remarkable woman. She had known that this wouldhappen; she had realized, as I had not, that Tildy Mears could talk toothers as simply and as pregnantly as to us, and that her human appealto her sister workers would be far greater than any even Anna Harlandherself could make. One night she described a stampede in words thatmade a slow chill run the length of my spine. Half an hour later shewas discussing "hired hands," with a shrewd philosophy and a quainthumor that drew good-natured guffaws from "hired hands" themselves aswell as from their employers in the audience.
Within the next few days Tildy Mears became a strong feature of ourcampaign. Evening after evening, in primitive Dakota towns, herself-consciousness now wholly gone, she supplemented Dr. Harland'slectures by a talk to her sister women, so simple, so homely, socrudely eloquent that its message reached every heart. During the daysshe studied the suffrage question, reading and rereading the books wehad brought with us, and asking as many questions as an eager andprecocious child. Openly and unabashedly Dr. Harland gloried in her.
"Why, she's a born orator," she told me one day, almost breathlessly."She's a feminine Lincoln. There's no limit to her possibilities. I'dlike to take her East. I'd like to educate her--train her. Then shecould come back here and go through the West like a whirlwind."
The iridescent bubble was floating so beautifully that it seemed apity to prick it; but I did, with a callous reminder.
"How about her home?" I suggested--"and her children? and herhusband?"
Dr. Harland frowned and bit her lip.
"Humph!" she muttered, her voice taking on the flat notes ofdisappointment and chagrin. "Humph! I'd forgotten them."
For a moment she stood reflecting, readjusting her plans to a scalewhich embraced the husband, the home, and the children of herprotegee. Then her brow cleared, her irresistible twinkle broke overher face; she smiled like a mischievous child.
"I had forgotten them," she repeated. "Maybe"--this with irrepressiblehopefulness--"maybe Tildy will, too!"
That Tildy did nothing of the kind was proved to us all too soon. Sixdays had passed, and the growing fame of Mrs. Mears as a suffragespeaker was attracting the attention of editors in the towns wevisited. It reached its climax at a mass-meeting in Sedalia, where foran hour the little woman talked to an audience of several hundred,making all Dr. Harland's favorite points in her own simpler, homelierwords, while the famous leader of the cause beamed on her proudly fromthe side of the stage. After the doctor's speech the two women held aninformal reception, which the Mayor graced, and to which the Board ofAldermen also lent the light of their presence. These high dignitariesgave most of their attention to our leader; she could answer anyquestion they wished to ask, as well as many others they wereextremely careful not to bring up. But the women in the audience, thebabies, the growing boys and girls--all these turned to Tildy Mears.From the closing words of her speech until she disappeared within thehotel she was followed by an admiring throng. As I caught the finalflash of her brown eyes before her bedroom engulfed her it seemed tome that she looked pale and tired. She had explained that she wantedno supper, but before I went to bed, hearing her still moving aroundher room, I rapped at her door.
"Wouldn't you like a sandwich?" I asked, when she had opened it. "Anda glass of lemonade?"
She hesitated. Then, seeing that I had brought these modestrefreshments on a tray, she stepped back and allowed me to pass in.There was an unusual self-consciousness in her manner, an unusualbareness in the effect of the room. The nails on the wall had beenstripped of her garments. On the floor lay an open suit-case closelypacked.
"Why!" I gasped. "Why are you packing? We're going to stay here overto-morrow, you know."
For an instant she stood silent before me, looking like a child caughtin some act of disobedience by a relentless parent. Then her head wentup.
"Yes," she said, quietly. "I'm packed. I'm goin' home!"
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"Going home!" I repeated, stupidly. It seemed to me that all I coulddo was to echo her words. "When?" I finally brought out.
"To-morrer mornin'." She spoke almost defiantly. "I wanted to goto-night," she added, "but there wasn't no train. I got to go back an'start from Dickinson, where I left my horse."
"But why?" I persisted. "_Why?_ I thought you were going to be with usanother week at least?"
"Well"--she drew out the word consideringly. Then, on a suddenresolve, she gave her explanation. "They was a man in the fourth rowto-night that looked like Jim."
"Yes?" I said, and waited. "Was he Mr. Mears?" I asked, at last.
"No."
She knelt, and closed and locked the suit-case.
"He looked like Jim," she repeated, as if that ended the discussion.
For an instant the situation was too complicated for me. Then, in aflash of understanding, I remembered that only the week before I hadbeen made suddenly homesick for New York by one fleeting glimpse of aman whose profile was like that of Godfrey Morris. Without anotherword I sought Dr. Harland and broke the news to her in two pregnantsentences.
"Mrs. Mears is going home to-morrow morning. She saw a man at themeeting to-night who looked like her husband."
Dr. Harland, who was preparing for bed, laid down the hair-brush shewas using, slipped a wrapper over her nightgown, and started for Mrs.Mears's room. I followed. Characteristically, our leader disdainedpreliminaries.
"But, my dear woman," she exclaimed, "you can't leave us in the lurchlike this. You're announced to speak in Sweetbriar and Mendan andBismarck within the coming week."
"He looked jest like Jim," murmured Tildy Mears, in simple but fullrebuttal. She was standing with her back to the door, and she did notturn as we entered. Her eyes were set toward the north, where her homewas, and her children and Jim. Her manner dismissed Sweetbriar,Mendan, and Bismarck as if they were the flowers of last year.Suddenly she wheeled, crossed the room, and caught Dr. Harland by theshoulders.
"Woman," she cried, "I'm homesick. Can't ye understand that, even efyou ain't got a home an' a husband ye been neglectin' fer days, like Ihave? I'm homesick." Patiently she brought out her refrain again. "Theman looked jest like Jim," she ended.
She turned away, and with feverish haste put her case on a chair, andher jacket and hat on the case, topping the collection with an oldpair of driving-gloves. The completeness of this preparation seemed togive her some satisfaction. She continued with more animation.
"I'm startin' early," she explained. "I told the hotel man soon's Icome in to have me called at five o'clock. So I'll say good-by now.An' thank ye both fer all yer kindness," she ended, primly.
Dr. Harland laughed. Then, impulsively, she took both the woman'stoil-hardened hands in hers.
"Good-by, then, and God bless you," she said. "My cure has worked.I'll comfort myself with that knowledge."
For a moment the eyes of Tildy Mears fell.
"You ben mighty good," she said. "You both ben good. Don't think Iain't grateful." She hesitated, then went on in halting explanation."'S long's you ain't married," she said, "an' ain't got nothin' elseto do, it's fine to travel round an' talk to folks. But someway senceI see that man to-night, settin' there lookin' like Jim, I realizethings is different with us married women."
She drew her small figure erect, her voice taking on an odd suggestionof its ringing platform note.
"Talkin' is one thing," she said, tersely, "livin' is another thing.P'rhaps you ain't never thought of that. But I see the truth now, an'I see it clear."
Her peroration filled the little room, and like a swelling organ tonerolled through the open door and down the stairs, where it reached thefar recesses of the hall below. Her lean right arm shot upward in herone characteristic gesture, as if she called on high Heaven itself tobear witness to the wisdom of her words in this, her last officialutterance.
"Woman's place," ended Tildy Mears, "is in the home!"