第41章 CHAPTER IX.(2)

"I see you sluggers on each side of the door. You villain, you have tried to murder me by throwing poison in my room and now you are trying something else."

"There is a mob here after you."

"You are a liar," I answered.

"There is a committee wants to speak to you."

"You are telling lies in order to have me open my door."

He left and went down below, and for ten minutes there was a great tramping of feet and I could hear the landlord making out as if he was dispersing a crowd. I watched from my window and saw two men walking away. I certainly was thankful for a lock on my door.

Next morning when ready to leave my room, I looked up and down the passages well; then I hurried and did not feel safe, until I got on the outside. I asked a little boy if there were any Christians in Holt.

"No, but there are some in the country."

I got my breakfast at a restaurant, and I called out on the streets that I would hold a meeting in front of this hotel where I had stopped.

There was a crowd and I then told of the telegram and of how I was treated. I pointed to the landlord, who was the picture of a villain, and a coward. The two dive-keepers of Holt were at this meeting. They asked me if I intended to smash the saloons there.

"Of course, I didn't come to Holt to do anything else."

One man told me that he would shoot me if I came into his place.

"I am not afraid of your gun. Maybe it would be a good thing for a saloon-keeper to kill Carry Nation. It might be the means of causing the people to smash the dives."

The one that talked to me was white with fear and anger, but at last the color came back to his face, and soon he was in good humor; he told me he never expected to open that saloon again. In less than ten days from that time, the people of the county became so aroused, that the prosecuting attorney closed every saloon in the county, which were twelve in number.

From Holt I went to Topeka. I stopped with the United Brethren minister there, and spoke in his church. The saloons were all over Topeka. I went down town after dark, to see the condition of things.

It was soon learned that I was on the streets, and a crowd gathered.

I went to some dives and joints. I could not get in. One had his mistress stationed at the door with a broomstick. She gave me four blows before I could get away, poor creature. I met her niece after that, who told how the saloon-keeper cast her off and that she died a miserable death.

While I was there the State Temperance Union had a meeting in the First Presbyterian church. Capt. Cook, from Chetopa, got up in the meeting and said: "Here is ten dollars towards giving a medal to the bravest woman in Kansas, Carry Nation." One hundred and twenty dollars was raised.

I said: "I would prefer that the money be used to pay my lawyers, rather than be put into a medal as I did not wear gold in any way."

We held a good many meetings. I spoke in several churches and held meetings in Dr. Eva Harding's office, where we prepared to take measures to break up saloons in Topeka, where sworn officials were perjuring themselves from governor down to constable. About this time a certain woman pretended to be a friend of mine, but was a spy and a traitor. I believe she was hired by the jointists to find out our plans.

She told me she knew where every saloon in the city was and would show them to me. It was understood by a few of us that we would make a raid one morning in February, 1901, and I called on this woman to show us where the places were. We wandered around from street to street, and I soon discovered that she was keeping me away from them. One young boy said: "I'll show you a place."

I came to one dive. I lifted my hatchet to smash the door and this woman grabbed at my hatchet and so did the man. He slammed the door and left his hat in my hand. I passed on down to the "Senate" saloon and went in. This was about daylight. The bartender ran towards me with a yell, wrenched my hatchet out of my hand and shot off his pistol toward the ceiling; he then ran out of the back door, and I got another hatchet from a lady with us. I ran behind the bar, smashed the mirror and all the bottles under it; picked up the cash register, threw it down; then broke the faucets of the refrigerator, opened the door and cut the rubber tubes that conducted the beer. Of course it began to fly all over the house. I threw over the slot machine, breaking it up and I got from it a sharp piece of iron with which I opened the bungs of the beer kegs, and opened the faucets of the barrels, and then the beer flew in every direction and I was completely saturated. A policeman came in and very good-naturedly arrested me. For this I was fined $100 and put in jail. Mr. Cook was sheriff and I was treated very nicely by him and Mrs. Cook. Mrs. Cook's mother was visiting them at this time, a woman thoroughly in sympathy with my work, and I believe that the influence of this good woman was the cause of my being treated so well, for after she left things were very different.

That republican conspiracy in Topeka determined to put me in the insane asylum. One of them, Judge Magaw, swore on the witness stand that he believed me insane. His examination brought out the fact that I compelled him to turn some obscene pictures to the wall once, when I called to see him in his office.