The ship’s captain led a religious service each Sunday. Ruby attended, hoping for solace, but found none.
Twice, in the distance, she saw the sails of ships travelling eastward in the direction of England. Otherwise, her ship was alone on the vast ocean waters.
One of the women in steerage gave birth to a child. She lay down on her back and was attended to by two other women, one of them a midwife by trade and the other a mother with five children of her own.
Two men lifted a blanket to protect the woman’s privacy.
There were periodic cries of pain.
“Push . . . Breathe . . . Push . . . Breathe . . .”
Then the cry of an infant.
Towels were doused in boiling water. The woman and her child were washed. The umbilical cord was tied with string and severed with a knife. The blanket that had shielded the woman from view was lowered to reveal an infant wrapped in a towel, lying on its mother’s stomach.
“You have a son,” the father was told.
By the end of the day, the infant was feeding at his mother’s breast. Two days later, the mother was up and about.
There was a death. A old man travelling in steerage with his daughter and her three young children died. One of the seamen built a coffin from crude wood planks. The ship’s captain conducted a brief funeral service. Then the coffin was filled with sand. Holes were drilled in its sides, so that it would sink when thrown into the sea.
That night, there was a storm. The evening was tranquil at first, but angry clouds were gathering. The wind picked up.
The steerage passengers were instructed to lie in their bunks and hold tight to ropes tied to the wall. The entrance to the hold and all ventilation openings were closed to prevent flooding. Rain fell heavily soon after. Many of the passengers were made sick by the rolling of the sea. They vomited, and the stench of the unventilated air in the hold grew stronger.
After the storm, more than before, the passengers wished for the journey to end.
“When will we be in America?” Ruby asked one of the seamen.
“Another five days, most likely. We are going along as sensibly as any ship can.”
Several days later, a general excitement began to prevail on board. Predictions as to the precise day and even the precise hour at which the ship would reach Boston were freely made. Gamblers among the passengers placed bets on when land would be sighted. There was more crowding on deck and looking out at the horizon than there had been before.
Each morning, there was a packing up of things, which required unpacking each night. Those who had letters of introduction to deliver in America or friends to meet or any settled plans for doing anything discussed their prospects again and again.
Ruby had no idea what she would do when she arrived in Boston. She could have formed an elephant as easily as an intelligent plan for her arrival in America.
Then, on a bright sunny morning, the horizon changed. Land stretched out on either side. One great sensation pervaded the entire ship. The soil of America lay before them.
White wooden houses and wharfs appeared . . . There were noises, shouts . . . Piers crowded with uplifted faces . . . Men and boys running . . . A straining of cables . . . Disembarking . . . On dry land, terra firma.
Ruby Spriggs was in America.
CHAPTER 9
Ruby’s ship arrived in Boston in the early afternoon. She disembarked with the other passengers, thankful to be on solid
ground. At sea, she had made a compact with herself to not think about what lay ahead until she was in America. Now she was there.
“I must look forward, not to the past,” she told herself. She resolved to deal with whatever the future might bring. But she could have fallen from another planet for all she knew of Boston.
The tramp of footsteps and rattle of wheels sounded on the cobblestone streets. Ruby made her way along the crowded wharf with her carry bags in hand. Her clothes, had they been on someone with fewer graces, might have looked a bit shabby.
A boy offered to carry her bags for a small price and take her to an inn where rooms were cheap. They walked a short distance along a street bounded on one side by quays and on the other by a row of storage houses. Before long, they came to an inn with a faded wooden sign beside the door.
A little money will go a long way if sparingly spent. Ruby paid for two nights, hoping that she would find a more permanent residence soon and, more important, a job.
The first order of business in her room was to write a letter to Marie. Pen in hand, she began:
Dearest Marie,
I hope that you will be happy to hear from me. But you will not be half so happy to hear from me as I am to write to you. Your life is as it was before. You miss nothing unless it is me. I miss you very much. Everything in my life is different now.
I have just arrived in America. My health is good despite the rigors of the ocean crossing. I am in Boston, but cannot say with certainty how long I will be here. On the voyage over, many of the passengers spoke of New York. I will write to you again when I am settled.
Please do not think differently of me because of my leaving. It would break my heart should you believe me to be less grateful and loving in any way than I was during all the years that you were so good and kind to me. Remember me as the little girl who you and Antonio protected with so much tenderness and whose cold hands you warmed at your fire.
I think of you both every day with love.
With devotion,
Ruby
The proprietor of the inn told Ruby that mail was shipped from Boston to England pursuant to a contract between the United States government and the Collins Steamship Company. Ruby brought the letter to the steamship office, where it was weighed and stamped “Paid 24 cts.” It would be put on a ship to Liverpool before being rerouted by the British postal authorities to London. Delivery would take two to three weeks.
Walking back to the inn, Ruby saw a young man in the distance and thought for a moment that it might be Edwin. She chastised herself that such foolishness must stop.
She passed a market where the food was invitingly arranged, and bought the first fresh fruit and fresh vegetables that she had seen in weeks. In her room, she spread them out on the bed and tried to envision the life that lay before her.
“With one night’s unbroken sleep, I will feel better.”
A long journey at sea is the best softener of a hard bed. Ruby slept soundly on her first night in Boston. The following morning, she was out and about early. The bright sun made even the dingy old storage houses brighten up a bit. Men took down the shutters on shop windows to reveal the wares inside.
Ruby stopped first at an immigrant hiring office that one of the passengers on the ship had told her about. There were notices on the wall for all kinds of employers wanting all sorts of servants, and all sorts of servants wanting all kinds of employers. A lady of modest means wanted to board and lodge with a quiet cheerful family. And here was a family describing itself in those very words that wanted exactly such a lady to live with them. But when Ruby inquired of the man in charge how meetings might be arranged, she was told that the payment of a dollar was required first. Something in the man’s eyes suggested that, were the payment made, it would be an investment without return.
Walking about the city, Ruby saw a sign offering employment in a stable. But she knew more about unicorns than of horses.
She wondered if she might get a job as a teacher.
Then she came to a marketplace with a shoemaker, a tailor, other small merchant shops. And a bakery. She went inside the bakery and told the proprietor that she was from a family of bakers. He had no position to offer. But he liked her manner and knew of another baker who had an opening. By day’s end, Ruby had a job.
“But I must have a place that I can call home,” she told her new employer.
The baker knew an old man and woman who lived in a small house nearby with a room to let on the top floor.
The o
ld man led Ruby up crooked stairs to a narrow room with a tiny window. The ceiling sloped and, at the foot of the bed, was no more than three feet high. There was a chair with horsehair sticking out of the cushion, a little looking glass nailed to the wall, and a washing table.
They agreed on a price.
When Ruby awoke the following morning, she did not recognize her surroundings.
Ruby liked the customers who came to the bakery, and they liked her. The children who accompanied their parents were particularly disposed to attach themselves to her.
In her free time, she walked about Boston. When the weather was warm, people sat in doorways, strolled in the streets, and enjoyed the serenity of Boston’s green places. Ruby asked questions of those she met about America’s literature, its system of education, and issues of the day. She was pleased when, on occasion, the conversation turned to Dickens, although that rekindled a longing for home.
At night, Ruby sat sometimes at the open window in her room and stared at the stars. She thought of the loved ones she had left behind in London, and tears came to her eyes. She tried at times to concentrate on the room to take her mind off her loneliness. On the cracks in the ceiling, the flaws in the window glass making ripples and dimples, on the washing table having only three legs. It was to no avail.
She thought often of Edwin. And dreamed of him. It is hard to abandon cherished hopes. When she awoke from her dreams, Edwin was gone. But the sadness she felt upon waking was no worse than her sorrow before sleeping.
“Are dreams and memory not the same?” Ruby asked herself. “Both occurring wholly in the mind.”
Edwin, Marie, Octavius Joy, all of us, were far away. There was a wide ocean to be crossed if she was to see us again. Ruby knew that, even if she chose to return to England, it would be a long time before she could accumulate the money necessary for the passage home.
By late June, Ruby had been in America for a month, and the calendar heralded the start of summer. The song of birds filled the air. The public gardens were filled with flowers.
Ruby was walking near the waterfront on one such day, reflecting on her time in Boston. A troupe of acrobats had set up on a pier. There were three pretty women, three handsome men, and six children. One of the men balanced another on the top of a pole. All of the performers danced upon rolling casks, stood upon bottles, and twirled flaming sticks. Every ten minutes, the children were sent into the crowd that had gathered round the performers to ask for money.
A woman, not with the troupe, stood across the street, offering handbills to passers-by. Ruby took one from her:
—TOWN MEETING—
Lucretia Mott
WILL SPEAK TONIGHT AT FANEUIL HALL “WOMEN MUST BE GIVEN OPPORTUNITIES EQUAL TO THOSE GIVEN TO MEN.”
SEVEN O’CLOCK—ADMISSION IS FREE.
Ruby had become aware during her time in Boston that there was a growing movement within the United States to abolish the enslavement of coloured people in the country’s southern and western regions. The handbill spoke of equality of a different kind. She decided to attend.
Faneuil Hall was a large redbrick building near the waterfront. The ground floor served as a market. There was a large assembly room with a balcony on the second floor.
Ruby arrived shortly before seven o’clock. The hall was filled to near capacity with an equal number of men and women. The evening was hot. The windows were open.
At seven o’clock, a woman between fifty and sixty years of age walked onto the stage. Often, women in America were not allowed to speak at public gatherings. The fact that she was speaking at all was noteworthy.
“My name is Lucretia Mott,” the woman began. “I was born in Nantucket, not far from here. My husband and I have four daughters and a son and live in Philadelphia. I am speaking tonight to both the women and the men in the audience.”
Her voice was firm and carried through the hall.
“It is fitting that we meet in this place. Faneuil Hall has been called ‘The Cradle of Liberty.’ Samuel Adams spoke here against a tea tax imposed on the colonies by the British and in support of independence from England. Daniel Webster eulogized Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in this hall. I am here to speak with you regarding a similar matter of justice. There is nothing of greater importance to the well-being of this country than the true and proper position of women.
“Women have been denied status equal to men for ages. We are denied the right to vote and cannot hold elected office in any state. We must follow the laws that are made, but we have no say in the making or administration of them. We contribute our share in taxes to support the government, but have no voice in their levying. This is taxation without representation.”
“In England also,” Ruby thought. “Unless, of course, one is the Queen.”
“We are denied a full education,” the speaker continued. “The colleges are closed against us. Custom and the law reserve almost all avenues to wealth, including nearly all profitable employment, to men. When women are permitted to work, we receive only scanty remuneration.”
The oration continued for almost an hour, delivered with a resolute bearing.
“Too often in marriage, there is an assumed superiority on the part of the husband and an assumed inferiority with a promise of obedience on the part of the wife. This custom, handed down from dark feudal times, is inconsistent with the spirit of enlightenment.
“Once married, a woman is all but dead in the eyes of the law. The law degrades the wife to the level of a slave. In the eyes of the law, marriage makes the husband and wife one person, and that person is the husband. The very being and legal existence of a woman are suspended during marriage and incorporated into that of her husband. There is no foundation in reason for this subjugation. Were women truly the abject things that the law considers us to be, we would not be worthy of the companionship of a man.”
There was a murmur of assent from the audience, more from the women than the men.
“We cannot hold property in our own name. A man may file for divorce, but his wife may not. In cases of divorce, guardianship of the children is given to the man without regard to who is the more suitable parent.”
A large man stood up in the audience. He was negligently dressed and squarely built. His face was a crooked piece of workmanship that bespoke of obstinacy and dull intelligence. His stomach looked to have been filled many times with ale, including, judging by his carriage, a copious amount of ale that evening.
“Know your place,” the man shouted. “If you were less ugly, your husband would not send you out alone into the night like this.”
Heads turned.
Lucretia Mott resumed speaking with no loss of composure.
“Sometimes, the effort to discuss the just place of women in society is met with scorn and ridicule. We expect such a response from those who are ignorant. From the intelligent and refined, we expect that gross insults and vulgar epithets shall not be applied. Free discussion of this subject, as with all subjects, should never be feared. Nor will it be, except by those who prefer darkness to light. Only those who know that they are in the wrong fear discussion.”
The heckler sat, silent now but unhappy.
“Often, a husband and wife begin life together,” Lucretia Mott continued. “By equal industry and united effort, they accumulate modest wealth and a home. If the wife dies, the household remains undisturbed. The husband’s shop or farm is not broken up. But if the husband dies, his wife receives only a portion of their joint wealth, and she is dispossessed of that which she earned equally with him. The sons come into possession of the property and speak of having to keep their mother. In reality, it is the mother who is keeping them. Why in the name of a gracious God should such things be?”
At the close of Lucretia Mott’s remarks, the meeting was opened up for questions. Most of those who spoke were men.
“You advocate equality for women,” a well-dressed man said. “But would not the course that you suggest detract from the
respect that men show for the beauty of women and concern for their weaker physical condition?”
“Nature has made us different from men,” Lucretia Mott answered. “That is clear in our configuration and our physical strength. We are satisfied with nature. But we deny that the Creator intended the present position of woman to be the limit of our usefulness. Women will not attain the proper place in the Creator’s plan until the civil, religious, and social disadvantages that impede our progress are removed.”
The questioner pressed his point with emphasis on the homage paid to women.
“That no longer satisfies us,” Lucretia Mott responded. “The flattering appeals to feminine delicacy, which too long satisfied us, are giving way to greater recognition of our rights and responsibilities in life. Women should cultivate all of the graces of our sex. But we should not be playthings, content with the demeaning flattery too often addressed to us.”
Another questioner rose to his feet.
“It is clear in the Declaration of Independence. All men—not all men and women, men—are created equal.”
Lucretia Mott countered.
“The same document eloquently provides that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
There was another attack, this one more angry.
“You would destroy God’s plan. It is in the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy. ‘Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. Suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.’”
“In the beginning,” Lucretia Mott answered, “God created men and women, and gave dominion to both over the lower animals but not to one over the other. The laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai for the governance of men and women were equal. Those who read the Scriptures and decide for themselves rather than accept the distorted application of the Bible, given to them by narrow-minded clerics, do not find the distinction that you speak of.”
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