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“I see; I see,” said Mrs. Spoopendyke. “It’s as plain as day now. But suppose they all carry their own States, won’t it be funny?”
“He, he, he,” giggled Mr. Spoopendyke, with horrible grimaces. “It’ll be the funniest thing ever known. If they do that, you just dramatize it. It’ll beat nine circuses in a row. How’s each going to carry his own State? Think he’s going to turn it up on one end and roll it like a hoop?”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Spoopendyke, reflecting. “I don’t exactly understand how they do it, but they ought to know what they are going to do before they accept the convention. I read” —
“Who cares a dod-gasted cent what ye read?” pealed forth Mr. Spoopendyke. “You don’t know enough about politics to stuff a chicken. Who said anything about any measly convention? Git into bed, will ye? You got an idea that you put candidates in a pot like turnips and poke ’em with a fork, and the one that’s done first is elected. Oh! you’re right; you’ve got the sense of it. With your statesmanship, all you want is four amendments and a motion to adjourn to be an Act of Congress.” And Mr. Spoopendyke cast his clothing into a corner, flopped into bed, and pulled the clothes over his ears.
“I don’t care,” mused Mrs. Spoopendyke, as she turned out the gas and then began puttering around to see if everything was all right; “I know now that if Mr. English carries Mr. Garfield’s State, and Mr. Garfield carries Mr. English’s state, it will go hard with Hancock and Arthur, and Mr. Arthur is such a handsome man.” And Mrs. Spoopendyke sidled into bed, planted her cold feet in the pit of Mr. Spoopendyke’s stomach, and went to sleep dreaming that that worthy was running for the office of notary-public, and had carried every State in the Union, including “Governor’s Ireland.”
ex Stanley Huntley, “Women in Politics,” in Mr. and Mrs. Spoopendyke (New York, 1881) : 120-125 (125)
U Chicago copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
same (via hathitrust) : link
1 November 2025