“Howard is boodle! You have delayed the vote twenty-five years. You have sold out your sex! For shame!”
Mrs. Hansen's head dropped. (Mama had been reading Ben Hur, and she knew how to use what she had read.) “Go wallow in butlers… but when they write of those who set women free, your name will not lead all the rest!”
Howard was back with a tray full of tea tools. Mrs. Hansen sniffed. “This is my new tea things.”
Mama seized the opening. “You have sold us out for thirty pieces of tea silver. Come, Stevie.”
“Modom is not staying for tea?” said Howard.
“And don't call me Madame!” said Mama, not knowing she was inventing a famous vaudeville line.
And that was how Mama failed to win votes for women and how reform failed in our town. The ward heelers and loafers and grafters won that election, and Mama retired from politics pure… even if defeated… and Silver Dollar Hansen bought a Stanley Steamer, and Howard the butler (in linen shroud and goggles) used to drive it groaning along the street, and Mrs. Hansen, proud in her betrayal, would sit by Silver Dollar's side ignoring the people ignoring her.
But that night, as I was sitting in the glow of the parlor stove's pink belly reading Treasure Island, Mama said two things that changed our lives. “Henry, I wish you would give up high linen collars… now that the dreadful Hansen butler wears them to do the marketing…”
And Papa did and lost a lot of his starch. People say that was his downfall… that from the day he gave up the high collars he wasn't so impressive while asking for bank loans, and his real estate schemes failed to blow up as big in his hands and as often as usual.
“And Henry,” said Mama, “I think we ought to buy a Model T.” With these words a new era began for us. It had taken us a decade or so to turn with the century… but we were turning. And years later, when Mama cast her first vote… I remember her standing there, the ballot in her small fist… she turned to Papa and said. “To think, Henry, a butler delayed this great event for twenty years.” History books please copy…
Pinterest
