Something Worth Doing

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “Is everything all right at the millinery?”

  “Yes, fine. Why do you ask?”

  Her sons came in stomping their rubber boots of the rain. “Pa’s at the farm. Did he know you were coming in on the steamer today?” Willis asked.

  She felt like she’d been riding in a hot air balloon and someone had turned off the fire, bringing it crashing to the ground.

  Abagail telegrammed her brief article to the Portland Oregonian, adding a final sentence she hadn’t written while on board ship.

  Mrs. A. S. Duniway of Albany arrived in this city yesterday morning to ascertain what interest can be raised here in behalf of the removal of the Pioneer newspaper from San Francisco to that city.

  She hesitated before writing the next announcement, but she’d already made the decision weeks ago. Ben could read it in the paper as well as the next person.

  In anticipation of success, she will remove shortly to this city. We have little doubt that she will find encouragement enough, unless she entrusts the canvassing business to some blockhead of a man. When women go for their own rights, they generally get them.

  She considered the reference to some “blockhead of a man.” I should leave that out. But she didn’t.

  “I thought you should come home,” Ben said when she challenged him after supper. “The children need you. I need you. You were gone over a month.”

  “But it was eight hundred dollars, Ben. We could have used that money.”

  “We’re doing fine.”

  “No, we aren’t. We live hand to mouth, week to week. That money would have given us a breather, and we could have made gains on the newspaper fund.”

  “But no breather for you. You’d have worn yourself to a frazzle traveling around California on a stage. Not to mention your lecturing, in public. Who knows what sort of danger you’d be in.”

  “It was not your call to make, Ben Duniway.”

  “I guess you could have ignored me.”

  She glared at him. “And risk the public humiliation of your telling people not of my wonderful welcome in California but of a wife who defies her husband’s orders?”

  “That was your choice.” He cleared his throat. “Did you bring back something special for Clara Belle? She’s hopeful.”

  “Did you expect me to forget?” I almost did. “A silk scarf and a summer bonnet, so when she wears it in June, she’ll know I was thinking of her in the off season as well as at Christmas, that I have her interests at heart even when she’s not in front of me.” She felt defensive and irritated and angry about the limitations life placed on women and Ben’s restriction on hers. She took in a deep breath. “I’m back. At least the California Pioneer thinks I might make a go of expanding their paper to Portland. I’ll never have one of my own.” She lifted her carpetbag to the bed.

  “Not that it’s worthy of publication,” Ben said, “but I thought you might want to know that I saw your brother Harvey this week.”

  “My wealthy, lucky, highly educated brother? Where did you run into him?” She had her back to Ben, had opened the wooden handles on her paisley bag, pulled out soiled clothes she’d need to launder. At least she had Ben’s machine to make it easier.

  “At the customhouse in Portland. Where I asked for a job. And got it.”

  Abigail twirled to face him. “You took a job? In Portland? But how—”

  “How else will I get you to consider staying closer to home? I decided to follow up on my instincts of some time ago, about working in Portland and giving us a steady income so you could get the paper going. I know it’s what you want. And I want to support you in it. And in life, Jenny.” His face turned a shade of pink over his sparse beard. “It’ll pay thirteen hundred a year.”

  “Oh my goodness, Ben.” She sat down, the dirty laundry in her hands. “That’s . . . but you’ll have to give up the horse training, the thing you love? And will your back pain allow you? And we’ll have to move to Portland.”

  “Yes, but I can work a few animals on the weekends if I’m up to it. And yes, Harvey knows I might have some difficulties, but he’s prepared for that. We’ll find a place to live close to where I’ll work. You probably already have a house picked out, if I know you. A ‘wish’ house with room for a printing press.” He chuckled as she nodded. “I couldn’t let you take a position that would take you traveling around California when you’ll be needed here to set up your own new venture. Our new venture. Duniway Publishing Company.”

  “Oh, Ben.” It wasn’t the name of the newspaper she’d had in mind. But no matter. She stood and he held her, kissed her, and she felt the warmth of his tender hands at the back of her head. He was making a huge sacrifice for her . . . for them. She had to make this paper a success. She had to use it to advance the cause of suffrage. “It’ll be a wonderful thing for women, move us closer to getting the vote, I just know it. And we’ll do it together, won’t we?”

  “Like a matched team of circus horses.”

  “It’ll be a circus all right.”

  “I’ll let you have the lead.”

  “And I’ll take it. A newspaper—well, I’ll be learning something new every day. But I want to call the paper the New Northwest because that’s what we’ll be advancing, the Duniway Publishing Company will be advancing it.”

  “Name the paper what you like,” Ben said. “I signed the incorporation papers. Your task is to find us a place to live and to sell the businesses here to raise the rest of the capital we’ll need. I had to get you to come home to do all that. And I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “You are the surprising man,” she said.

  His arms squeezed her a little tighter. “You’re taking me along on the ride of our lives, I suspect.” His throat caught, and when she stepped back to look into his eyes, she saw tears in them. “But we’re doing it together. It’s all I ever wanted.”

  What is that little verse someone had written in Willis’s schoolbook?

  The things nearby, not the things afar

  Not what we seem but what we are

  These are the things that make or break

  that give the heart its joy or ache.

  She was entering a new era. She’d bring Ben along if he would come. How unkind of me, after all he’s done. She and Ben together were beginning something special. It had been his support in the first place that told her that getting women the vote was the only thing that would change women’s lives for the better. She’d remind him of that. The newspaper would be the vehicle. They’d still be a matched team if she had anything to say about it. And I usually do.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Getting Ducks in Order

  1871

  _______

  She loved the smell of the ink that prickled the nose hairs and its viscosity, the consistency of Johnny cake batter. Willis spread the ink across the wooden tubes, preparing the presses. Abigail admired the tiny type raised in the wood that eleven-year-old Hubert’s little fingers set into the box where the ink would highlight and transfer to the paper. He was an excellent speller and didn’t seem fazed by the typeface being backward so it would print correctly on the stock. She loved the feel of the paper—she used good quality so people would be willing to pay money in expectation of getting something worthy that was easy to read. Even the crispness of the paper cuts, it all appealed to her. The rumble of the presses, rattling the chandelier on the first floor while the presses rolled the newspaper out on the second.

  She’d rented a house on First and Washington with room for the family downstairs (along with a millinery that Clara would manage). She’d hired a foreman to help them learn the printing business, borrowed $3000 from Jacob Mayer to be paid back over time. He didn’t charge her interest and she never sent him a bill for his ads.

  On May 5, 1871, Abigail and Ben together turned the handle for the first edition. Like magic, the words appeared on paper, her words, the first newspaper a sort of memoir of how “we” had come to write a paper, how “we” began
scribbling while as a farmer’s wife, and about the business failures (she wrote that her novel had been a failure) and the successes (teaching, boarding, and dressmaking—and hopefully, newspapering). She editorialized that it was women’s lack of political and consequent “pecuniary and moral responsibility” that resulted in the public being opposed to “strong-minded women,” as she had once been herself. But now, she saw—and hoped her readers would see—that society kept “half the population overtaxed and underpaid, struggling, while another group of women acted frivolous, were idle and expensive.” Both conditions, she contended, were “wrong,” and the goal of the paper was “to elevate women, that thereby herself and son and brother man may be benefited and the world made better, purer, and happier, is the aim of this publication.”

  It was a lofty goal, she knew that. And they’d risked all they had and went into debt for this cause. But it was what her heart had told her, what that beam of light had illuminated about her life’s mission being not only to be a good wife and mother but to advance women’s God-given gifts and talents in addition to household roles. Abigail had managed so far to keep her dignity and the love of her family while being willing to be mocked and chastised for stepping out. If she could do it, she hoped other women and men would see how each would benefit by the advancing of women. Or at least not standing in a woman’s way.

  She watched Clara Belle speaking to a customer purchasing a reticule at the millinery. Such a gorgeous daughter, so charming and without a vitriolic bone in her body. How had Abigail raised such a gentle soul when she was such a torrent? It’s Ben’s influence. Thank goodness for Ben.

  “When you’ve finished, come join us,” Abigail told her daughter. “The first press run is finished, and I want you to be there when we lift them up and get them on the streets. I’ve had six months of selling subscriptions ahead of time, and today they’ll be delivered.” Even southern Oregon would be getting papers, as Bethenia Owens, her millinery friend from Roseburg, had been promoting the paper, readying people for this grand adventure.

  “Coming, Momma.” Clara Belle locked the outside millinery door to join the family upstairs.

  They had to wait until the ink dried. Meanwhile, using turpentine to remove stains from their fingers, the boys gathered up the pages, Ben spoke a prayer over the venture, and Abigail felt tears form in her eyes as she watched her family head out their Portland door to sell the New Northwest on the street. Even nine-year-old Wilkie could charm a dime from a grumpy man looking for someone to blame for his bad day. He held the hand of his older brother to cross the street and join the business of the Duniway Publishing Company.

  Abigail found invigoration in this newspapering thing, and yes, she told herself, in the assurance of Ben’s steady income that surprisingly took strain from her days. It was all in the family sphere, not unlike farming had been, but with less physical pain. Ben’s sacrifice and job had made the difference in her constant chasing away the demons of foreclosure and debtor’s prison. Ben had been right. Something always did come along in the end . . . she just had to trust that if she was on the right path, doing what needed to be done, they’d be all right. How ironic that it was Harvey who turned out to be a part of that answer to a prayer.

  A Journal for the People

  Devoted to the Interests of Humanity

  Independent in Politics and Religion

  Alive to all Live Issues and Thoroughly

  Radical in Opposing and Exposing the

  Wrongs of the Masses.

  Abigail capitalized every other word, used language like “Live Issues.” Kate had said it was a bit flamboyant, but it was also her style. It was the masthead, at least for now, reminding people of what the New Northwest was about. She showed it to Ben. “I want people to see it as a different kind of newspaper, because it is. I sent Susan B. Anthony a copy and she’s pleased. And Ben, I boldly asked her to come west to do a speaking tour.” They’d been in production for three months.

  “Abigail—”

  “Now, I would only arrange the performances, introduce her, collect the donations, et cetera. We’ll split the income after expenses. I wouldn’t be speaking beyond that.” When Ben had called her back from California, she had assumed it was to speak of his new job, but she hadn’t actually asked if he would have approved her speaking. Maybe I don’t want to know. “I’d try to book us at the Oregon State Fair. We could all camp out together. That’s very suitable. Families back east are camping all the time. The fashion industry has even introduced clothing that keeps women proper, of course, but a little freer to hike and take in the sunshine.”

  “You two women are not going to camp out across Oregon.”

  “No, no. I just meant at the fair. We’ll stay in respectable hotels or at the homes of like-minded women on the tour. Think of the good copy such an adventure would offer my readers and encourage women starved for entertainment in the rural areas. I think she’s quite a remarkable woman. I can pluck her thoughts about newspapering as we ride in the stage or walk a few miles.”

  Ben sighed. “I’ve come this far. I guess it’s not much farther to have both a newspapering wife and a public-speaking one. I’ll be busy at the customhouse, so you’ll have to tend the home fires. I like a good campout now and then.” He stretched his back, winced. “Besides, working inside a building all day long, I’ll need some nights out in a tent for my sanity.”

  “At least you aren’t suggesting that I’m the one challenging your sanity.”

  “I was being diplomatic.” Ben grinned. “Something I need to be in the customhouse.”

  “One of us should be,” Abigail said, and kissed him. “Lord knows I’m a lost cause when it comes to that. Perhaps our travel from here to Victoria, British Columbia, and east to Idaho will give me lessons in discretion.”

  Ben smiled. “We can hope.”

  “Hubert, put that straw over there, against that tent side. Ben, do we have the carpet ready to roll out? Oh, isn’t this grand!” Abigail fluttered about the tent at the Oregon State Fair. It was October, one of the most glorious months in the Willamette Valley, with harvested fields golden next to maples and oaks flashing their reds and greens, flirting with pure blue skies. The evenings were cool, the days hot but dry.

  The family—most of it, along with sister Sarah Maria and her husband and of course the guest of honor, Susan B. Anthony—would spend the week at the fair. It was the end of the grand tour the women had made to Washington, Idaho, British Columbia, and throughout Oregon. Aunt Susan, as Abigail referred to her, had been a warrior in the wilds. For the first half of the tour, Clara Belle joined them to sing and, if a piano was present, to play music as people gathered. Then Abigail gave the introduction, which amounted to a speech of her own. She couldn’t help herself. She loved the audience responses to her presentations, often saying, “I never imagined when I first declaimed to my father’s grazing mules that, one day, I’d be asked to speak to legislators, which Miss Anthony and I did last week.” Then she’d add: “Not such a very different audience, regardless of whether those mules in the pasture were looking toward me or away.” There’d be a pause and then the crowd would laugh. Jokes at legislators’ expense seemed to go over well with the masses, Abigail decided.

  At the fair, they’d be competing with men hawking games that gents could play to earn trinkets for their mates. Musicians and ventriloquists along with banjo-playing farmers would perform on an outdoor stage next to them. People would wander by, heading to the tent restaurant that the Aurora Colony men and women operated, to the delight of the Duniways and others who could purchase food right on site and not have to pack for a week.

  Best of all, the Duniway family enjoyed the company of the famous suffragist.

  Susan B. Anthony was a tall woman, slender, who had deliberate movements, including settling down onto the straw bed in the fair-tent like a stork slowly clucking over her eggs. Abigail, on the other hand, would just plop, which she did, wincing as she sat next to
her famous friend. “Clara Belle, dear, are you going to sing for us as the opening tonight? We should have a big crowd.”

  “Yes, Momma. In fact, I think I’ll find a quiet place to practice. It is getting stuffy in here.”

  Abigail hesitated. “Be careful out there. There are scoundrels.”

  “I’ll come with you. See if I can find James.” Sarah Maria’s husband was a law officer on duty looking for pickpockets and inebriates. “He can protect two damsels if we get in distress.”

  “Sing your way out into the world, now.” Ben started up—a routine he’d taught his children from the time they were little. Ben sang and Maria grabbed Clara Belle’s hand and pulled her toward the opening, voices brimming with good cheer. The younger boys were all that were left of the children, and Ben said he’d take them to the restaurant if the women needed some privacy to prepare for their presentation that evening.

  “Won’t you remember this western trip for the rest of your life?” Abigail nudged Aunt Susan. Abigail poked her with her elbow as the girls left.

  “It’s my first and I suspect my last camping experience. We’re stuffed in here like herrings.”

  “I know. Isn’t it cozy? No need to shout to express thoughts or share a story.”

  “I confess, I prefer your Chemeketa House and the Oregon Supreme Court as audiences, though you Duniways I suspect are better to sleep with.”

  Abigail laughed with her. She’d grown quite fond of the eastern suffragist and her ability to adapt to the primitive conditions she’d been exposed to. They’d been heckled out of hotels with their ideas. They’d been asked to leave a home where they’d been invited when the woman’s husband chastised his wife in front of them for failing to seek approval before extending the invitation. Out they went. Churches were often closed to them—pool halls and saloons, open, mostly to mock any presentations they made outside them. But in Pendleton, in a light rain, they had hesitated.