Mercer Girls

by Libbie Hawker

  Dovey busied herself with her teacup to disguise her mischievous smile. Recently, indeed. As Jo stammered her way through a genteel evasion of the two ladies’ questions, Dovey noted the growing flicker of speculation in her friend’s eye. The league might not exist yet, but Dovey could see clearly that it was only a matter of time.

  Poor Jo was flushed and quivery; Dovey thought it best to spare her friend from further squirming. And, if truth be told, she yearned to needle Sophronia—not too hard, just enough to see some color rise to her pale cheeks.

  “Miss Anthony,” Dovey said, leaning across the table eagerly, “I read that you were evicted from Walla Walla!”

  Abigail Duniway gave a loud but not unpleasant laugh. “That mess! Land sakes! You ought to tell them the story, Susan. I think they’d like to hear it.”

  Susan gave another of her warm, friendly smiles. “Well, all right. I suppose it can do no harm.

  “Some weeks ago—oh, it must have been September fifth—Abigail and I traveled by boat from Portland to Umatilla. Umatilla is such a small, out-of-the-way place—all cattle range and apple trees. It’s not the sort of town in which one expects to meet an old acquaintance from the schoolyard. Yet that is precisely what I found.”

  “Susan isn’t from Portland, you know,” Abigail added. “She hails all the way from New York State.”

  Susan nodded. “So you see, it was something of a shock to meet a man I’d known as a child, far on the other side of the continent.

  “He called out to me—he recognized me, even though it had been decades since we’d seen one another last. I could tell he was drunk, the poor man. He sat on the step of a general store with a bottle in his hand. The thing was already half drained, and it wasn’t yet evening. He’d given himself over entirely to liquor.

  “Well, what could I do? One cannot turn one’s back on the wretched. I sat down beside him, right there on the stoop, and discussed with him the turn his life had taken. It broke my heart to hear he hadn’t spoken to his mother in many years. I remembered her well from my girlhood days. I knew she must be sick with worry for her son—mothers never cease caring for their children, even when they grow up and make their own way in the world.

  “I sought his permission to write to his mother on his behalf—to tell her that her son was alive, at least, if not exactly well.

  “He said he would only allow me to write back home if I’d seal the deal with a drink! Well—I was taken aback, I assure you. I am not for liquor or wine, not in the least—”

  Sophronia, forgetting her manners, blurted out, “You’re not?”

  “Goodness, no,” Susan said smoothly. “Temperance is, I believe, one of the keys to a healthy society. But I couldn’t leave this old chum of mine to languish in the dust. For his own sake, I agreed to the drink: one sip only, which I took from his own bottle of angelica liquor.”

  “You should have heard Susan cough and sputter, all the way to that night’s speaking engagement,” Abigail said.

  “But that very same night, I wrote the man’s mother. I thought no more of it, until two weeks later, when Abigail and I went up to Walla Walla.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished,” Abigail said with an air of grim foreshadowing.

  “When we arrived in Walla Walla, we found a contingent of women waiting to chase our stagecoach back out of town, shaking their fists and shouting temperance slogans! Wouldn’t you know it, the mother of my schoolyard friend had ended up in Walla Walla, and had received my letter there. She’d struck up a correspondence with her son, and he straightaway related to her the story of how he and I had shared a drink, toasting to old times and family! The woman was ready to spit nails at me, and was convinced that the suffragists only sought the vote so that we might flood the streets of every good city and town with liquor.”

  Abigail laughed uproariously. “Isn’t that just the way of the world!”

  Sophronia blushed, and Dovey caught her eye. “Not quite the simmering kettle of sin you expected her to be, is she?” she whispered.

  Susan and Abigail shared more stories of their speaking tours while the Wild Wood churned on toward the Territory’s capital. At last, the port of Olympia made itself known through the dispersing gray fog of the October noon.

  Susan rose with ready grace from her chair. “My friends, it’s almost time to set my hands and my heart to work. But work is always better when shared. How would you like to accompany Abigail and me in Olympia?”

  “Accompany you?” Jo asked rather shakily. “Where?”

  “To the Capitol building, of course—into the legislature meeting. Judge Daniel Bigelow, a friend to our cause, has secured for us a chance to address the legislature while their session is in progress.”

  “We’ll break new ground,” Abigail added. “Today will be the first day women have addressed lawmakers in session, in all the history of the United States. Or its territories.”

  “Oh!” Jo gasped. “I … I couldn’t possibly …”

  Susan laid her hand on Jo’s shoulder. “You possibly could. I do hope you’ll come along with us, Miss Carey. We are stronger together.”

  Jo seemed so knocked for the stars that she could only gape mutely at Miss Anthony. But Dovey pushed back her chair and stood at once. “We will come with you, Miss Anthony, and gladly. Won’t we, girls?”

  Jo stood shakily, nodding but still dumbstruck—and after a moment’s hesitation, Sophronia also rose from her seat. Dovey took both their hands, and a current of warmth and excitement seemed to travel between them. She looked toward Olympia eagerly as the ship made its way to the pier.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  WORTH THE REWARD

  Jo stared out the window of the carriage as it crossed the streets of Olympia, making its way steadily from the pier, up the long, shallow slope of a knoll toward the Territorial Capitol. She could see the structure clearly at the crest of the knoll—a tall, boxy, stern-looking construction, two stories high and far broader than any barn. Its peaked roof was crowned by an elegant dome surrounded by a widow’s walk; Jo could just make out a small shadow moving under the dome’s white, open arches. A moment later, the brassy call of a bell rang across the city.

  “They’ve called the session,” Abigail said. But she remained comfortably settled in the carriage seat, without the least sign of haste.

  Josephine felt as if she were rolling through a dream—unsettling and almost eerie yet strangely thrilling. With each beat of her heart, her resolve shifted. First she knew she would not—could not possibly stand before the legislature, even with Susan B. Anthony and Abigail Duniway at her side. And then, with a rush of fierce longing, she knew she couldn’t do anything but enter that chamber and speak with all the passion that burned in her soul—fight for the rights of the women and girls she loved.

  She was so preoccupied that she noticed little of the city of Olympia. Its cobblestone streets and boardwalk promenades, its shops and warehouses and wagons rolling loud over the paving, even its dense, briny odor—all these were so like Seattle that Jo paid them no heed. Only the Capitol seemed real to her. There, Jo felt instinctively, in that vast, austere chamber, her fate awaited. She was cognizant only of her divided mind, and of Dovey and Sophronia sitting in the carriage beside her. And, of course, of Susan’s presence, grounding and solid as the foundation of a well-built home.

  All too soon, the carriage arrived at the crest of the hill. Josephine climbed down on numb legs and stood gazing up at the high roof of the Capitol. Its siding was as gray as the Puget Sound, its windows dark with heavy draperies. It appeared altogether forbidding. What went on inside was meant to be a mystery—to women, at least.

  “Here we are,” Abigail said cheerfully. “Let’s go in.”

  Jo shared cautious glances with her friends, but they followed Abigail and Susan up the staircase to the building’s broad porch. A man in a brown wool suit stood at the door, his hands clasped behind his back like a guard at attention. As Susan approached
confidently, the man stepped toward her, barring her way with his body. “Legislative meeting in progress, ladies,” he said politely. “I’m afraid I cannot allow you in.”

  “That is exactly why we must go in,” Susan said. “We have been granted a hearing before the legislature. Speak with Judge Bigelow; he will confirm that I am expected.”

  “You’re Susan B. Anthony, then.” The man’s face lit with a smile.

  “And this is my colleague, Abigail Duniway, of the New Northwest in Oregon Territory. These ladies beside me are the leaders of Seattle’s league of suffragists.”

  The man tipped his hat and bowed enthusiastically. “I’m in favor of all you do. The way I see it, it’s only fair that women share in our government. A good woman is just as sensible as any man—more sensible than most!”

  Jo couldn’t help gasping in surprise. Abigail leaned in and said quietly, “We’ve found very encouraging support from men in every city, state, and territory we’ve visited. Has your league not encountered the same in Seattle?”

  Before Jo could make up some plausible response, the man was ushering them on. The interior of the Capitol was not as spare and gray as its exterior aspect. Its inner halls and parlors were dressed in all the luxury that could be found in a territory as remote as Washington. Great carved tables of polished oak stood below towering bookcases, and the floors were richly covered in fine, soft rugs. Several large paintings, reminders of the land governed by those who worked there, adorned the walls: ships at sea; mountainous landscapes; rolling, golden farmland. The women were guided through the building by a polite, snappily dressed young boy, a page of sorts, who led them directly to the chamber where the legislature was conferring.

  There, another man waited in attendance on a massive carved-oak door. Jo could hear masculine voices, their low, carrying tones, reaching through the solid, gleaming wood and out into the hall where she stood close beside her friends.

  Susan sought entrance into the chamber, but this door guard was not as welcoming as the first. His scowl was freezing and disdainful; he made an insulting, shooing gesture with his hands, as if the great Susan B. Anthony and her companions were nothing more than a flock of straying chickens.

  “No women in the chamber,” he growled. “Cease these indecorous shenanigans and begone!”

  “Sir,” Abigail said coolly, “we are here at the arrangement of Justice Bigelow. I am sure you do not need a mere woman to point out to you that it is most unwise to cross the will of the man who holds the keys to the local jail.”

  “Bigelow?” he said skeptically. “When did he throw in his lot with you women’s-rights harridans? Bigelow wouldn’t like to be appointed to office again, I see.”

  Susan stood her ground, unmoved by his outburst. “As Judge Bigelow is still in office, however, you would be wise to humor him. As Mrs. Duniway pointed out, a judge is not a man I’d care to disobey.”

  The man raked them all with a peevish stare. Finally he said, “Only three of you are to be admitted. Five women in the chamber will only lead to mass faintings, and loud weepings, and other such hysterics.”

  Jo looked to Dovey and Sophronia, her face falling with dismay. “Who?” she whispered.

  “You go with Susan and Abigail, Jo,” Dovey replied. “You’re the best speaker of us all. It must be you.”

  “I … I absolutely cannot do it.” Now that she stood on the cusp of that decision, Jo knew clearly which way she would fall. To step into the legislative chamber would be to court grave danger. If Judge Bigelow had arranged for such a celebrity as Susan B. Anthony to appear before this session, then no doubt word had circulated throughout the city. Reporters from the papers must be already waiting within. An event as unusual as a pack of women waltzing into the legislative chamber would be breathlessly recounted in papers from Port Townsend to San Francisco. Jo’s name and location would be exposed; it would be all the easier for Clifford to find her.

  To her surprise, Susan took her hand. Her touch was warm and soft, and she squeezed with a firmness that steeled Jo’s spine.

  Susan said, “You can do it, Josephine. You can step forward and take hold of your fate.”

  “But …” How could she explain to this remarkable woman, who surely never feared anything in her life, what this exposure would mean to her?

  “Ten years ago,” Susan said, “when I worked for the Anti-Slavery Society, we could not hold a single meeting, nor could any of us see through a speech to its final lines. Every demonstration we held erupted into violence. I remember one mob in Syracuse—the crowd was so angry over the ideals we espoused that they broke up the furniture and shattered the hall’s windows. Men were at knives, Jo—knives and guns. One drew a pistol and pointed it directly at me. I thought my heart had frozen in my chest.”

  “What did you do?” Jo whispered.

  Susan smiled. “I didn’t die, that’s for certain. I evaded the danger of that day, somehow—and I’ve seen terrible times since then, too. It’s always hardest the first time to stand up for what you know to be just and good.”

  “But it gets simpler every time,” Abigail added.

  “And the risk,” Susan continued, “is worth the reward. If we stay cowed and conquered, shut away at our hearths, silent and complacent, then women will forever be disenfranchised. But once we have proven ourselves capable, Josephine—once we have demonstrated our inherent strength, our courage—then we can never be called weak or frail again.”

  Tears burned in Jo’s eyes, and she had to swallow down the lump in her throat before she could speak. But at last she said, “Very well. I’ll go in.”

  The door gave a soft groan as it swung open. Jo stared ahead, gazing coolly at the chamber’s far wood-paneled wall as if she could see beyond it to the glittering Sound outside. She kept her eyes on the wall so she would not see the faces of the men who stared at her—some with expectation, some in frank, offended shock. They were anonymous blurs in her peripheral vision, alike in their shape and color, and as long as Jo did not look directly at any man, she could ignore the creeping sensation that each man wore Clifford’s hard, leering face.

  She moved down the chamber’s broad, blue-carpeted aisle side by side with Susan and Abigail, as if she had always been their fellow. Two galleries of staring men fanned out to either side, and Jo could hear more men muttering in a balcony high above the floor.

  A few men coughed and sputtered in annoyance, as if their work had been interrupted by a trio of untrained children. Jo broke her resolve and glanced around. Throughout the two wide galleries, men turned to one another with confused expressions, gesturing urgently toward the women. The muttering voices rose to a clamor, until one man, seated at a huge, bunting-draped desk at the far end of the room, rapped a gavel against a marble disc. Silence fell—silence but for the emphatic scratching of pens on paper, somewhere in the balcony above.

  The reporters, Jo thought grimly.

  The man at the desk gestured; Susan and Abigail stepped confidently toward him, Jo hurrying to keep up.

  “Susan B. Anthony, Abigail Scott Duniway, and—er—their associate,” the man at the desk pronounced, “to speak on the issue of women’s suffrage—the bill introduced by Judge Bigelow.”

  A tumult of objection erupted from the galleries, but soon shouts rose to quiet them. Jo did her best not to tremble as Susan turned to address the chamber.

  “Honored gentlemen,” she began, “today marks not only my first appearance before a legislature, but the first time in American history that a woman has been allowed to speak before lawmakers in session.”

  A thrill raced up Jo’s spine. Abigail had mentioned Territorial history, which was intimidating enough. But now Jo found herself standing hip deep in American history, too! She breathed deeply, struggling to keep the flush of fear and excitement from her face as she listened to Susan’s speech.

  Her words were both eloquent and logical, although Jo—to her shame, as an educator—understood precious little of the
intricacies. Susan cited fine points of the Constitution with as much aplomb as any legislator might; she held forth at length on the subject of taxation without representation—that bugaboo of all patriotic Americans—and pointed out the crass injustice of collecting taxes from the female population when Woman was without her vote. Jo had already found deep admiration for Susan Anthony in the columns of the New Northwest. But as she listened to the woman speak so confidently, with such surety of victory—as she, Jo, actually stood there beside Miss Anthony, before the eyes of the legislature!—that admiration turned to awe.

  Abigail addressed the chamber next, and her friendly cheer fell away, replaced by a cool, no-nonsense tone that made even Jo quake a little in her boots. She employed not only the strength and confidence Jo had always found evident in the columns of her newspaper, but she also used words themselves as deftly as any craftsman, painting in the minds of her listeners beautiful vistas of hope and carving ramparts of certitude.

  At last, though, Abigail concluded her rousing support of Bigelow’s bill, and both she and Susan turned to look at Jo.

  “Josephine Carey,” Susan announced, “leader of Seattle’s suffragist league, now wishes to address the legislature.”

  Jo’s tongue went, all in an instant, as numb as a deadened limb. She opened her mouth and drew a ragged breath; which, in the expectant silence of the chamber, echoed faintly from the paneled walls.

  “Our strength,” Susan whispered, so softly Jo almost could have imagined the words, “our courage.”

  But soft though they sounded, still Susan’s words rang in Jo’s heart. She planted her feet firmly on the blue aisle runner, bunched her fists in her skirt, and lifted her chin to face all the eyes of the room.

  “Gentlemen, I am not an experienced speaker, not a woman of accomplishments like Miss Anthony and Mrs. Duniway. I am a schoolmistress; I live a simple life and work hard on my own to keep my living.

  “I am not the only woman in the Seattle league who works hard. We all strive with our backs and our hearts—not only for what is just and good but simply to put food on our tables. No one I know works harder than my good friend, a young woman of twenty-three years. Her name is Dovey Mason, and I have known her since she was a girl of sixteen, when we traveled together from Massachusetts to Seattle.”