by Kirby Larson
I put my hands on my hips. “I’ll have you know I am the queen bee of quilters!” That might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but thanks to Perilee’s instruction, I could piece and stitch with the best of them. Hot tears pricked my eyes, however, to think of the last quilt I’d made: Mattie’s Magic. I quickly shook away those tears and held out my hand for the parcel in Ruby’s. “Let’s see what we’ve got to work with.”
While we went through the packages, Ruby fretted about my new job at the Chronicle.
“I know you’ll be running the newsroom in no time,” she said. Her expression was so confident and sincere, I almost believed her. “But I hate thinking of you going to work at that time of night.” She reached for her pocketbook and brought out a five-dollar bill. “Use this for cab fare, please, and let me know when you need more.” I couldn’t take the money, of course, but what a jewel she was to offer it.
By the time all the parcels were open, it looked like a gingham cyclone had swept through the room. We played with laying this fabric against that until my stomach reminded me that breakfast had been long, long ago.
I reached for another cookie and pulled my hand back when I realized it was the last. “It’s bad luck to take the old maid,” I observed.
Ruby sat back. “Oh, you’re probably famished!”
I was, but it seemed poor manners to say so. Especially when it was clear she’d had no time to prepare a meal, not with all our fussing over Pearl’s quilt.
“I should have told you straight off that there’d been a change of plans.” She smoothed a ruffle on the apricot dress. “Mr. Wilkes invited me out to supper. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, no. Of course not.” I glanced at the mantel clock. “You probably need to get ready.” I stood up.
“I’ll cook for you next week,” she promised, fingering a gold chain at her neck.
“Oh, that reminds me.” I picked up a bit of paper that had fallen under the settee. “Is your locket repaired yet?”
She blinked. “Locket?”
I pointed to my own neck. “The one with Pearl’s photograph? I’d love to see what she looks like.”
“Oh, that locket.” She smiled. “No, it wasn’t ready. The jeweler was behind.” She shrugged. “The holiday and all that. I’m sorry about supper, Hattie.”
“Don’t give it a thought. But next time, I would love to see your photo albums. Say.” I looked at the jumble of dry goods lying about. “Why don’t I take some of this and begin cutting out pieces? Pearl will be here before we know it. We’d best get busy on this quilt!”
Monday at eight, I began to get ready for work. As I performed my toilette, I realized that the plus side of keeping night hours was that I had the bathroom all to myself.
I gave my new dress a pat but reached for my second-best shirtwaist and wool skirt, which I’d shortened the night before to a more fashionable six inches from the floor.
Raymond was dozing at the front desk as I tiptoed through the lobby. The cool evening air brushed me with memories of evenings on the prairie enjoying a well-earned rest after a full day.
My footsteps echoed in the quiet streets. I passed a yawning shopkeeper carrying his street-side displays back into his shop, a policeman, and assorted delivery boys. I saw only one or two other women, in sturdy oxfords like my own, no doubt on their way to jobs similar to mine.
The tube lights over the entrance to the Chronicle Building flickered and fluttered like fireflies on a summer night. I rapped on the great glass door. As Miss Tight Corset had promised, the night watchman was there to let me in. Even though I was fairly certain Ned was long gone at this hour, I peered around as I entered. The coast was clear.
The night watchman directed me to the cleaning supply room. There I met some of my coworkers. One was a solid woman with tight curls and tight lips. She gathered her bucket and duster and mop with much thumping and bumping.
“That’s Bernice,” a girl about my age explained. “And I’m Emmaline McLeary, but they call me Spot.”
Her freckled face gave every explanation I might need as to why she was called such. I told her my name. “Welcome,” she said. “Up or down?”
Before I could confess that I didn’t understand her question, Bernice spoke up. “New girls work down. Them’s the rules.”
Spot turned to me. “Do you mind, then, Hattie?”
“Oh, you want me to clean downstairs. Sure, I can do that.” This was perfect. I’d soon make my way to the morgue sans Ned’s help!
“Lunch at two,” Bernice grunted. “In there.” She jabbed with her chin at a dreary room to my right.
“Is there a place to leave my things?”
Another grunt and jab from Bernice.
“Here, let me show you.” Spot led me into the little lunchroom, with its row of cubbies. “That locker’s free. Go ahead.”
I put my things in the open locker, closed it, turned the key in the lock, and pinned the key to my shirtwaist.
“Percy—he’s the night guard—puts coffee on for us at midnight. Long as you get your work done, we don’t count the coffee breaks.” Spot locked up her pocketbook and hat, handed me a smock embroidered with San Francisco Chronicle across the bodice, and dressed herself in matching garb.
I had never thought I would be grateful for my time at Mrs. Brown’s boardinghouse, but that was the state in which I found myself as I whipped through the offices on the lower floor. I shared a cup of coffee and conversation with Spot and Bernice during my break but decided I would forgo my wee-hours “lunch” for a respite of a different sort.
When two a.m. rolled around, I found myself in front of a massive wooden door with a faded hand-painted sign that read MORGUE. My emblazoned smock would serve as permission enough, should anyone stop me. But at this hour, it was highly unlikely. Still, I brought my feather duster with me, just in case.
It took both hands to open that door, especially since those hands were trembling. Entering such a dark place, at such a dark hour, was enough to wobble anybody’s knees! As I pulled at the handle, a dank and musty perfume wiggled its way out of the opening. I stepped inside, bracing the door with my body as it closed so that it wouldn’t slam.
I felt like Alice after she’d fallen down the rabbit hole. To think that all of this was the result of two brothers starting a newspaper with a twenty-dollar loan, way back in 1865. Who was I to dare to pull down one of those weighty, oversized leather-clad volumes and peruse the old issues bound inside? I ran my fingers across a row of bindings, summoning the courage to begin. Sadly, the oldest volumes had been destroyed in the great earthquake and fire of 1906. I shivered a little, to think of this big city in shambles and smoke that April day. Back in Iowa, we worried about tornadoes, not earthquakes. I hoped I never had to experience one. Odd, wasn’t it, that both the great earthquake and our great president’s assassination had happened in the month of April. And didn’t the War Between the States begin and end in that same month? All events years apart, of course, but still. Peculiar coincidence.
Enough woolgathering. There was work to be done. A mystery to solve. I reached for a volume labeled 1915. Ruby had regaled me with the story of her first meeting with Uncle Chester. “It was springtime,” she’d said with a starry look in her eyes. “At the International Exposition. I was touring it with friends. A ruffian stole my pocketbook and Chester chased him down and got it back.” She had sighed. “In the end, the only thing stolen that day was my heart.”
When she told me that story, I wondered how he could have left if she felt that way about him. I pondered this question for only a moment before my own guilt about Charlie pinched me. Perhaps it was a family trait, to leave the one you loved.
What a sappy train of thought. I sat at the library table, opened the volume, and thumbed through the pages until my eyes watered from the strain. Nothing jumped out at me. And my lunch break was up. Reluctantly I slid the volume back, making a mental note of which issue to start with when I returned. Be
cause until I found what I was looking for—whatever that was!—I would keep coming back
Two hours later, I had finished cleaning my section and made my way to the break room, glad for the chance to sit down. Bernice wasn’t much for anything aside from the occasional grunt, but Spot made up for her lack of conversation. Spot told me about each of her four sisters. “Mabs works at a cigar factory, the twins help Da at the shop, but Tinny, she’s the one. A nurse! Registered.” Spot shook her head. “She got my share of the family brains and then some, Tinny did.” Spot gave herself short shrift. She had brains; a person couldn’t spin out stories the way she did without them.
When quitting time rolled around, two thoughts occupied my mind on the walk home: a hot bath and Spot’s sisters. All of them working instead of staying at home, a highly unlikely scenario before the war. That was something to think about, wasn’t it? To write about? I envisioned a headline, “Women at Work,” and articles about different shopgirls and telephone operators and nurses and, yes, even cleaning ladies, throughout the city. That would have a San Francisco hook, wouldn’t it?
I reached the Cortez and tugged open the lobby door. But would anyone read such a series? Anyone besides me? “Quit grasping at straws,” I scolded myself, not realizing I’d said the words aloud.
“Did you say something, Miss Hattie?” Raymond asked, stashing his bottle under the desk.
I shook my head. “Just mumbling. Any mail?”
“One skinny letter,” he said. He held it out to me. It was skinny, all right, but that one letter was worth dozens. It was from Charlie! I read it three times right away, and then again while heating soup on the hot plate.
Dear Hattie,
I had supper again last night with Perilee and Karl. They are good folks, and I can see why they have come to feel like family to you. Perilee said I should write you to tell you my news though I am sure you are too busy with your new life to worry much about what I am up to. Mr. Boeing liked my idea about moving the fuel tanks on his new fighter planes. So I am in charge of making that happen.
Well, I won’t take up much more of your time.
Charlie
The letter was short, to be sure, and there was a bit of a cranky tone to it, but I deserved that. It was such a relief to hear from him. I took it as an invitation to write back, to write a real letter, though I’d hold off on telling him about my new job. He might not understand.
That was an odd thought. Ever since we’d met, I could count on Charlie to understand me, even when I didn’t myself. I cherished my new friends, but something in me longed for old friends, for friends who knew how I’d gotten the scar on my left knee (shinnying down the Hawley elm tree) or that I had a sweet tooth for lemon drops or that, until Mr. Whiskers had pussyfooted into my life, I had been afraid of the dark.
Truth be told, it wasn’t old friends I missed. It was one old friend.
And whose fault is that, Miss Hattie Brooks? I asked myself.
Setting aside that painful thought, I stitched a bit on Pearl’s quilt before crawling under my own for some much-needed sleep.
Surprises and Cigars
July 14, 1919
Dear Perilee,
Oh, that little dickens, Lottie, already taking her first steps. She’s probably itching to keep up with her big brother and sister! I look forward to seeing those photographs of your new house by Green Lake when you can send them. Chase must be in heaven with a fishing hole only blocks away. What a funny story about that old cat stealing one of his fish. Smart cat!
While I don’t know when I will make the trip north to see you all, you will be pleased to know about the empty cold cream jar on my dresser, set aside for pennies and dimes for train fare.
You asked about Ruby. She is overjoyed that she’ll soon be reunited with Pearl. I cannot wait to meet my little “cousin.” I best finish now if I want to get this out in today’s mail.
Your friend,
Hattie
I shook the cold cream jar for the comfort of it. Not much of a jingle yet, but every little bit would get me closer to a trip north and a place at Perilee’s old oak kitchen table, sipping coffee and eating strudel. I’d jostle Lottie on my lap, read stories to Fern, and maybe even go fishing with Chase. The anticipation of such sweet moments would help keep my pocketbook clasped tight against any nonessentials.
It wasn’t all to the bad that I didn’t have enough saved up. A trip to Seattle would put me in Charlie’s territory. He would not understand my staying in San Francisco to scrub toilets.
Speaking of which, it was time to head to work. It’d only taken a week to get into the rhythm of starting my “day” when most folks were headed to bed and ending it about the time the roosters began to crow back on the homestead. No matter the job, working for a morning newspaper required odd hours. Most reporters, like Ned, showed up at noon, though with Miss D’Lacorte, it was more like one o’clock. They’d work through till nine or ten on a regular basis and sometimes later, their hours dictated by the news itself. The only folks with set start and end times were the night editors and copy readers—they worked six p.m. to two a.m.—and the custodial staff, like Spot, Bernice, and me. The night editor at the Chronicle was a man people called Boss Keats; no one seemed to know his real first name. With a nickname like that, you’d think he’d be crustier than a day-old loaf, but he was as gentlemanly as they come. Always asked after my health, if our paths crossed. And took a sincere interest in the answer.
Before I locked the door to my room, I double-checked to make sure the journal Miss Clare had given me was in my pocketbook. I’d decided that it was to be the receptacle for my San Francisco writings and notations. And thanks to Spot and her sisters, I’d filled quite a few pages. I’d even managed to squeeze ten words out of Bernice: “Anybody can scrub a floor. But I can make it shine.” My idea had jelled. I would write a series called Female 49ers: San Francisco Women Who Find Gold in Their Work. Not that anyone wanted it, mind you, but believing is the first rung up any dream’s ladder. I figured if I enjoyed the stories I was gathering, others would, too.
Bernice and Spot were good sorts but the sorts others seemed to ignore. In fact, in our blue smocks, we were all virtually invisible, except to Boss Keats. Even Miss Tight Corset had given me a blank stare when I’d smiled at her early one morning. I doubted that it had ever occurred to people like her or Ned or even Miss D’Lacorte that the women wearing the navy blue smocks had lives—and hopes!—of their own. That was why I kept plugging away on my stories. Plus, I was pigheaded enough to think that the newspapers could print another point of view about women in the work world. Since the war had ended, most men thought working gals should hang up their hats and tools and head back to the kitchen.
My showing an interest in Spot’s sisters had softened Bernice’s sharp ways; even so, I was not prepared for her suggestion that night.
“You take the newsroom floor,” she said as she buttoned on her smock.
“But I thought new girls start down.” I repeated her edict from my first night on the job.
“Things can change,” she said. And that was that. Spot winked at me and crossed her fingers for luck. I’d spilled my dream to them the second day we’d worked together. Perhaps they thought that my mere presence on that very floor would transform me into a reporter. I had to chuckle at that, but their belief in me put wings on my feet, and on my heart.
“Oh, no.” I froze in my tracks. “What about Ned?”
They knew about him as well, and that he was not yet aware that I was already employed at the Chronicle. I’d made Maude promise not to tell.
“I’ll go up first,” offered Spot. “If the coast is clear, I’ll give you a signal.” She hooted three times. “Like this.”
I grinned. “The perfect warning for us night owls.”
We rode the elevator together but I exited one floor ahead of her. The plan was that I’d listen in the stairwell for her all clear.
I felt like Nellie Bly on s
ecret assignment when I heard the trio of hoots. I thanked Spot as we passed on the stairs.
At midnight, I caught up with my colleagues in the break room.
“Well,” Spot asked, pouring me a cup of coffee. “Anything to report?”
I took it from her. “Only that someone must have had a sauerkraut sandwich for lunch yesterday.” I pinched my nose. “The whole newsroom reeked.”
“Bunch of slobs,” Bernice observed with a nod.
That was Spot’s cue to fill us in on Tinny’s new beau, who was as slovenly as Tinny was neat. My mind drifted a bit, as this was a topic Spot had visited before. The newsroom folks might be a bunch of slobs, but what I wouldn’t give to be one of them!
We polished off the molasses cookies Bernice had brought in to share and got back to work, with Bernice and Spot heading up and me down. They loved cleaning in the composing room, with all those great huge machines. I was delighted to work where I could more easily make my way to the morgue.
When my two a.m. lunch break rolled around, I quickly ate my bologna sandwich, then skipped down another flight and pulled open that heavy door to history. First impressions might lead one to think that a newspaper morgue was as quiet as … well, as a morgue. Not that I knew about that firsthand. But I did not think of “my” morgue as quiet. Even in the wee hours, a symphony of sounds reverberated throughout this place. First heard was the thwup as one weighty volume was slid from its shelf, followed by the satisfying thump as it was placed on the library table. Then the whisk-whisk refrain of pages being turned enhanced the concerto. One last set of sounds rounded out the music of a city’s memories: each time I delved into those huge leather books, each time I traced my finger over the yellowed columns of newsprint, each time I studied a worn and faded photograph, papery whispers spoke to me of things that had happened long ago, and in so many places it would take an entire atlas to contain them all. These stories of real people were as irresistible to me as the Italian nougats one of Maude’s suitors had brought her.
