Of course the men here at home wouldn't do anything against their own women folks, but quite a few outsiders are coming in, and if they could work in the dark, they might start a whisper, 'Anything to win!'" Mary thought that over, and somehow the sun didn't shine so brightly for the next few minutes.

Ma'm Maynard's old saying arose to her mind: "I tell you, Miss Mary, it has halways been so and it halways will: Everything that lives has its own natural enemy--and a woman's natural enemy: eet is man!" "No, sir, I don't believe it!" Mary told herself.

"And I never shall believe it, either!" The next afternoon Judge Cutler brought her an editorial entitled, "We Shall See." "The women of New Bethel (it read) are trying an experiment which, carried to its logical conclusion, may change industrial history.
"Perhaps industrial history needs a change.

It has many dark pages where none but man has written.
"If woman is the equal of man, industrially speaking, she is bound to find her natural level.

If she is not the equal of man, the New Bethel experiment will help to mark her limitations.
"Whatever the outcome, the question needs an answer and those who claim that she is unfitted for this new field should be the most willing to let her prove it.
"By granting them the suffrage, we have given our women equal rights.
Unless for demonstrated incapacity, upon what grounds shall we now deny them equal opportunities?
"The New Bethel experiment should be worked out without hard feeling or rancour on either side.
"Can a woman do a man's work?
"Let us watch and we shall see." Mary read it twice.
"I like that," she said.