Chapter 22: The Second Count

Hester was feeding the hens when I found her.

She stood in her yard behind the Hall in her brown shawl, scattering corn from a tin cup, and she did not look up.

"You smell like a happy woman," she said.

"Hester."

"I'm only observing. It's a pleasant change."

"I want the Hearth to vote again."

The corn stopped falling.

She turned her thin face to me and took off her glasses, and wiped them on the shawl.

"The law doesn't say what happens if a woman refuses and then wants to be counted twice."

"Then tell me what it says."

"It says the Hearth may call a second Count at the named woman's asking. It has not been done in my lifetime."

"Then I'm asking."

"Why?"

I took a breath.

I had practiced it in the truck, and none of it came out the way I had practiced.

"Because last night a man asked me for nothing, and I said yes, and I want the chair the same way.

"I don't want to be handed it. I don't want him to have won it.

"If the women still want me, they can tell me again.

"They would know I'll say yes to the chair.

"They would know I'll say no to the king when he's wrong."

Hester put on her glasses.

She looked at me for a long time.

"Noon," she said. "Ring the bell."

I rang it myself.

By noon the Hall was full, and the yard was full.

The road was full of women in wool and flannel, with babies and walking sticks, and one with a goat.

The big room smelled of woodsmoke and wet coats.

Hester stood at the long table with the two small jars and the big one.

I stood before her in my clinic vest, with the pencil behind my ear, and every eye in the Hall was on me.

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