To this Papa would add salt, saffron, and pepper to taste, a clove of garlic, half a cup of olive oil, and two-thirds of a pint of Gramp's dry white Sherry (if we still had any left). Papa and I would brood over this cooking pot for fifteen minutes more, and then prepare the toast to serve it on.
If we had company, as we usually did… mostly Mama's sister Fran… Mama would always say she didn't see how she could tend to her public work and cook at the same time, and so would they forgive her if the food wasn't very good. Which was untrue…
After lunch Mama went back to attacking Mr. Hansen.
“We shall see how women change the political picture.”
“You will see,” said Papa.
Mama smiled and stood up in her button shoes. “I am no fool, Mr. L. I know how you men play politics as well as Mark Hanna. I shall offer Hansen a chance to support us… I am calling on Mr. Hansen at the Silver Dollar…”
Papa seemed to have choked on something, and we heard him gasp as Hatty came running with a glass of water.
Hansen's Silver Dollar was a low, wide saloon built of heavy pine, varnished, and gay with likker signs. In one window stood three tired palms peppered with fly love… and a huge painting of Custer's Last Stand, detailed down to the last scalp and bullet. It was the pride of the Silver Dollar, that painting… one of the prides… for inside over the bar was Reba, the breathing nude.
Mama went up the steps of the Silver Dollar, and I followed. She swung past the swinging doors like an old elbow-bender, and we went across to the bar. Mama sniffed her small nose sideways, and looked up at Reba.
In those days Reba was called a nude. She wore silks and pillows and drapes, and actually had as much on as a high school co-ed of today… but her stomach was bare, and behind the painting was a clockwork pusher, which, when set off, made Reba breathe… the regular falling and rising of the chest was amazing.
Mr. Hansen himself stood behind the bar, and he nodded to Mama. “Good morning, Mrs. Longstreet… what can I do for you? Some Oporto Sherry?”
“I do not drink, or chew tobacco,” said Mama.
Mr. Hansen was impressed, Mr. Hansen was a dirty crook and a very smart politico. He was the town boss, and, of course, he had a heart of gold and the paving contracts, because the town, like all America, was just then coming out of its Mud Age and paving itself clean.
“Mr. Hansen,” said Mama, hunting the brass rail with one small, dainty foot, “I have come to you to offer you five thousand votes…”
Mr. Hansen fingered his tiger pin, and then handed me the biggest pretzel in town. “Shall we go to my office?”
Mama nodded and took my hand, and the barflies bowed out of our way, and watched Mama walk across the saloon. Mama was a daring dresser for those days… big plaids and very puffy sleeves. Some low-life started to whistle Oh You Kid… but the barkeep pointed a battered, beer-soaked thumb at him, and the hoodlum shut up.
Mr. Hansen's office was tastefully decorated in old musical comedy posters and pictures of washerwomen in tights and high bosoms. There was a long-dead stand of flowers with a faded ribbon reading: SO WE WON AGAIN.
Mr. Hansen put aside an unlit, but well-eaten cigar, brushed the Brewers' Bimonthly off a chair, and asked Mama to sit down.
Mama did, and I began to make away with my pretzel. Mama said, “I have organized the women of this town. I am holding a great meeting tonight. We want the vote and mean to have it. We want a bill asking for women's rights introduced in Congress.”
“You got rights, now… all ladies got rights.”
“Not to vote. Now you listen to me, Hansen. I control five thousand women… they control twenty thousand husbands, brothers, fathers and sons… They control this town with real votes.”
Mr. Hansen laughed the way the wolf must have laughed at Red Riding Hood. “Nobody votes the way a da… the way a lady asks her family. Now I'm a family man… and I vote free like any American.”
Mama stood up. “Mrs. Hansen is our chairman tonight.”
Mr. Hansen turned as green as his good cigars. Mama was no fool. She always went armed and ready to let anyone have it. Mrs. Hansen weighed 200 pounds and was very red and loud (but she had discovered culture and discarded all the rubber plants in brass pots from her house on Mama's advice).
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