Aunt Janes Nieces at Work | Page 3

"Well, what's to be done?" demanded Louise, for the second time.
"We don't vote in Ken's district," remarked the Major, "or there would
be six votes to his credit, and that would beat my own record by four!"
"Ken is so impressionable that I'm afraid this defeat will ruin his life,"
said Beth, softly. "I wish we could get him away. Couldn't we get him
to withdraw?"
"He might be suddenly called to Europe," suggested Louise. "That
would take him away from the place and give him a change of scene."
Patsy shook her head.
"Kenneth isn't a coward," she said. "He won't run away. He must accept
his defeat like a man, and some time try again. Eh, Uncle John?"
Uncle John turned around and regarded his three nieces critically.
"What makes you think he will be defeated?" he asked.
"He says so himself," answered Patsy.
"He writes me he can see no hope, for the people are all against him,"
added Louise.
"Pah!" said Uncle John, contemptuously. "What else does the idiot
say?"
"That he's lonely and discouraged, and had to pour out his heart to

some one or go wild," said Patsy, the tears of sympathy filling her eyes.
"And you girls propose to sit down and allow all this?" inquired their
uncle sternly.
"We?" answered Louise, lifting her brows and making a pretty gesture.
"What can we do?"
"Go to work!" said Uncle John.
"How?" asked Patsy, eagerly.
"Politics is a game," declared Mr. Merrick. "It's never won until the last
card is played. And success doesn't lie so much in the cards as the way
you play 'em. Here are three girls with plenty of shrewdness and energy.
Why don't you take a hand in the game and win it?"
"Oh, Uncle John!"
The proposition was certainly disconcerting at first.
"Yes, yes!" laughed the Major, derisively. "Put on some blue stockings,
read the history of woman's suffrage, cultivate a liking for depraved
eggs, and then face Kenneth's enraged constituents!"
"I shouldn't mind, daddy, if it would help Kenneth any," declared Patsy,
stoutly.
"Go on, Uncle John," said Beth, encouragingly.
"Women in politics," observed their uncle, "have often been a
tremendous power. You won't need to humiliate yourselves, my dears.
All you'll need to do is to exercise your wits and work earnestly for the
cause. There are a hundred ways to do that."
"Mention a few," proposed the Major.
"I will when I get to Elmhurst and look over the ground," answered
Uncle John.

"You're going on, then?"
"Yes."
"I'll go with you," said Patsy promptly.
"So will I," said Beth. "Kenneth needs moral encouragement and
support as much as anything else, just now."
"He's imagining all sorts of horrors and making himself miserable,"
said Louise. "Let's all go, Uncle, and try to cheer him up."
By this time Uncle John was smiling genially.
"Why, I was sure of you, my dears, from the first," he said. "The
Major's an old croaker, but he'd go, too, if it were not necessary for him
to stay in New York and attend to business. But we mustn't lose any
time, if we're going to direct the politics of the Eighth District Election
the eighth of November."
"I can go any time, and so can Beth," said Louise.
"All I need is the blue stockings," laughed Patsy.
"It won't be play. This means work," said Uncle John seriously.
"Well, I believe we're capable of a certain amount of work," replied
Beth. "Aren't we, girls?"
"We are!"
"All right," said Mr. Merrick. "I'll go and look up the next train. Go
home, Louise, and pack up. I'll telephone you."
"That bad man 'd better look out," chuckled the Major. "He doesn't
suspect that an army of invasion is coming."
"Daddy," cried Patsy, "you hush up. We mean business."

"If you win," said the Major, "I'll run for alderman on a petticoat
platform, and hire your services."
CHAPTER II
THE ARTIST
To most people the great rambling mansion at Elmhurst, with its ample
grounds and profusion of flowers and shrubbery, would afford endless
delight. But Kenneth Forbes, the youthful proprietor, was at times
dreadfully bored by the loneliness of it all, though no one could better
have appreciated the beauties of his fine estate.
The town, an insignificant village, was five miles distant, and
surrounding the mansion were many broad acres which rather isolated
it from its neighbors. Moreover, Elmhurst was the one important estate
in the county, and the simple, hard-working farmers in its vicinity
considered, justly enough, that the owner was wholly out of their class.
This was not the owner's fault, and Kenneth had brooded upon the
matter until he had come to regard it as a distinct misfortune. For it
isolated him and deprived him of any social intercourse