Down the Rabbit Hole

by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

  Watch out, I wanted to scream. The first man was lumbering toward Peter, carrying a chair. He threw the chair. As Peter ducked, the man with the club smashed the wood against Peter’s head.

  For a second, Peter stood, dazed. Then he folded to the floor. The larger man caught Peter and pinned Peter’s arms behind his back. While he held Peter, the other two men battered him, piling blow after blow into his face and then his stomach.

  Finally, the man released Peter. Peter collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  “Think he got the message?” said the man who had clubbed Peter.

  My heart pounded as they looked around the office. They lit into Peter’s things, tossing books and papers to the floor. In one sweep, they tipped the desks and smashed the wooden chairs. They overturned the bookshelves. One of them threw a paperweight through the glass on the door, shattering it.

  Gideon whimpered.

  “What was that?” said one of the men, looking around.

  I let the mother cat squeeze through the closet opening. She scurried into the outer room. “A cat,” said the second man, stooping to pet her. “Let it be. I like cats.”

  Then their boots crunched against the shattered glass and the door slammed behind them.

  “We have to help Peter,” whispered Gideon, but I shushed him. I waited as they clattered noisily down the stairs, laughing and joking like schoolboys.

  I waited until their booming voices no longer echoed up the stairwell.

  I waited until their hooting and hollering drifted up through the open window and grew thin in the distance.

  Then and only then did I rush to Peter, unconscious beside his desk, praying I wasn’t too late.

  Tears! They poured down my face as I eased Peter onto his back and saw the blood running down his head and from his nose. I pressed my head to his chest. He was still breathing.

  “I need water,” I said to Gideon. “Something to wash his cuts.”

  Gideon rummaged through the bottom drawer of a turned-over filing cabinet and found a bottle of whiskey.

  “That’ll do,” I said to Gideon.

  I reached to tear a piece of my petticoat, but Gideon handed me his perfectly folded white handkerchief.

  I doused the handkerchief and dabbed the whiskey on Peter’s bloodied temple and washed the cut by his left eye. The eye was swollen shut and the skin around it was turning deep purple.

  Peter moaned. His good eye fluttered open. He struggled to sit up. “Ouch,” he said.

  I helped Peter to a sitting position, his back against the desk. “Did I win? What’s the other guy look like?”

  “You lost,” said Gideon.

  “Are you certain?”

  “I’m certain,” said Gideon.

  “I was worried about that,” said Peter.

  Gideon and I helped Peter to his feet. Peter clutched the side of the desk to steady himself. “Look at this mess.”

  “I’ll sweep,” said Gideon, jumping up. “That’s my job.”

  “Not now,” said Peter. “Tomorrow.”

  With Peter leaning on Gideon and me, we stumbled our way down the stairs and into the street toward home. It was obvious that every step hurt.

  “Peter!” cried Gwen. “What happened? Who did this to you?”

  “You should see the other guy,” said Peter.

  “You lost,” Gideon reminded him.

  We helped Peter upstairs and into bed. I pulled off his boots and then got the scissors and cut his hair to better see the wound where the board hit him. He has a gash over his right ear and a potato-sized lump.

  With her good hand, Gwen soaked a cloth and wrung it out and washed his wounds until the water ran clear. I bandaged his head with clean, white cloths.

  Gwen has pulled a chair close to the bed and won’t leave his side. Peter is sleeping now, but I’m worried because one of my classmates had a brother who died from a cracked skull when he fell from his horse.

  Saturday, September 30, 1871

  Peter slept through the night and into the late morning. At noontime, I brought tea and toast to Gwen, telling her she must eat something.

  Blood had seeped through the bandage and onto her good feather pillow, but Peter didn’t have a fever, and so I said a prayer of thanks for that, and then I said, “Money can buy another pillow, but money can’t buy another Peter.”

  Gwen wiped her eyes and sniffled. Something passed over her, as if something had dawned on her for the first time. “Pringle, I know you come from a family of means,” she said. “I can see it in your hands and in the way you carry yourself and the way you look at things and in the things you assume. I’ve never asked you outright about your family. What did your father do for a living?”

  How could I tell Gwen that Father belonged to the very sort of men that Peter railed against? How could I tell her that Father would have despised Peter’s newspaper and the work that Peter did? That he would have called Peter un-American and an anarchist?

  I didn’t have to. At that very moment, Lucy came flying into the bedroom with a picture she had drawn for her father. While Gwen and I were doctoring, Lucy had gotten into my inkpot. Blue fingerprints dotted her face, her arms, and her dress like huge freckles. “Look at our family,” she said.

  Her drawing had seven circles with stick arms and legs and four stick fingers and no toes. “That one’s you, Pringle,” she said, pointing to a skinny oval.

  “It’s perfect,” I said, choking back a sob. I kissed her dear, sweet face and each blue freckle.

  Later

  A massive fire broke out at the Burlington Warehouse on 16th Street and the corner of State. Flames blasted out of the roof and heavy smoke blanketed the South Side. Every fireman in Chicago was called to the scene.

  Gideon and Adam begged to see the fire. I said, “Fine, let’s go,” but they said fires were for boys, not girls, and refused to walk with me.

  The street was filled with thousands of gawkers. The fire marshal rushed from engine to engine, sweat pouring down his face, urging his men to soldier on.

  Someone pointed to a third-floor window. The crowd yelled, “Jump! Jump!” There, a man stood, half in, half out.

  Oh, my heart! I never witnessed anything more tragic. Should a person pray that such a man jump to probable death or not jump and face certain death? Why do we glue our eyes to such tragedy? Are we hoping such a man will jump or not jump?

  A cry went up from the crowd as the man fell backward into the smoke. I prayed for a merciful end so that he wouldn’t suffer.

  The building seemed to swell, and then with a roar, its north wall collapsed, sending a tremor beneath my feet. A cloud of dust and smoke mushroomed upward and rolled over all of us.

  Sunday, October 1, 1871

  The firemen are still hosing down the ashes from yesterday’s fire. It was the city’s worst fire in years. The huge warehouse was constructed entirely out of pine, with only a brick façade, and it was stocked full of everything flammable from syrups to whiskeys, all in wooden barrels. It’s estimated the fire caused over $600,000 worth of damage. The firemen also found the remains of the man who had stood at the window. So sad.

  Monday, October 2, 1871

  Two nights in a row I have been troubled by a nightmare. It’s the same dream. A great monster is chasing me, and I am running down dark streets and alleys, looking for a way out. I thrash myself awake and lie there, afraid to shut my eyes.

  Peter stayed in bed all day Saturday and Sunday, but when I came home from market, he was sitting in the parlor. He is still pale and his head aches so much that his eyes are bright with pain. I helped Gwen peel away the bandage to wash his wound. It’s healing and shows no sign of infection, although it still looks tender.

  Gwen lathered Peter’s face and shaved him. Now he doesn’t scare S
allie and she’ll sit in his lap again. She points to his bandage and says, “Ouchy?” and then she toddles over to the sugar bowl and fishes out two lumps, one for her father’s ouchy head and one for herself.

  Tuesday, October 3, 1871

  Last night, I heard Gwen and Peter talking, and even though I knew I shouldn’t listen, I rested my ear against the bedroom wall.

  Peter tried to downplay the attack. “Those men can’t see that they’re pawns. They are hired to break the very unions that could help them. The industrialists know what they’re doing: If they pit worker against worker, immigrant against immigrant, they’ll never have to worry about paying higher wages or an eight-hour day or safer working conditions.”

  “Pawns or not, those men are criminals,” said Gwen. “They attacked you and destroyed your property. You must tell the police.”

  “And what would the police do?” said Peter. “Those men are long gone. Some might say I had it coming.” As soon as he said that, he laughed, and after he laughed, he said, “Ouch.”

  Gwen said, “Where does it hurt?” and he said, “My stomach. It hurts to laugh.”

  “Serves you right,” said Gwen. “This is no laughing matter.”

  Peter didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he said, “If you want me to shutter up my newspaper and stop my union work, I’ll talk to Robert Lincoln tomorrow. I’ll ask if his practice has need for another lawyer.”

  “Right now, I hate your work,” said Gwen. “Most of all, I hate that it’s so necessary. Someone needs to speak out and fight for the Isaiahs of the world.”

  Then Gwen said, “Besides, I don’t like Robert. You know he thinks his mother’s insane. Poor Mrs. Lincoln. She’s lost a husband and three sons. She needs to find her way out of her grief. Can’t Robert see that? I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you or one of our children.”

  Then Peter said something I didn’t hear and Gwen murmured something else and then they both murmured something and I knew she was no longer angry with Peter.

  Wednesday, October 4, 1871

  Where Gwen Finds Hope

  Gwen wanted Peter to stay home and recuperate one more day, but he said no, that he had an editorial to write and a newspaper to publish. “I need to get to the office before Mr. Wallace so that I can find the key to the toilet.” He winked at Gideon, who said, “I’m not telling. Nosiree,” and he buttoned his lip.

  Gwen didn’t want Peter to walk alone, and so I excused Gideon from his morning lessons. After Peter and Gideon left, I asked Gwen about Isaiah and why Peter had to fight for him. “You heard us talking?” she said, and I grew embarrassed and said, “The walls are very thin.”

  Gwen stared into her teacup, and I said, “You have a habit of looking for answers in your tea leaves.”

  “Where there’s tea, there’s hope,” she said. “That’s what my mother used to say.”

  She set the teacup down. “Isaiah was my younger brother. He died in the Avondale mine disaster two years ago.”

  My heart turned over, hearing that. I wanted to go to her, to throw my arms around her. But I didn’t. Something stopped me and kept me at arm’s length.

  “The law required mines to have a second entrance,” said Gwen. “But the law didn’t apply to the mines in Luzerne County. Do you know why?”

  I saw a flash of something familiar in her eyes. I didn’t know what it was. I tried to put my finger on it but couldn’t.

  “Because a state senator blocked the law. He was protecting his wealthy friends, the colliery owners,” said Gwen. “He was saving his friends the expense and trouble of a second entrance. A second entrance reduced their profit.”

  She went on to say that Isaiah didn’t want to work in the mines the rest of his life, that he wanted to go to school, that he wanted to be somebody, and that Isaiah’s death was hardest on Cager, because they were twins.

  In the parlor, Sallie began to cry. “Even a rabbit hole has two entrances,” said Gwen as she pushed away from the table. She went to the baby.

  I wanted to tell Gwen that Father was kind and gentle and a man of high principles. But all I could think was this: Father and his friends had used their power and influence to block the mine safety law in Luzerne County.

  Thursday, October 5, 1871

  When I wasn’t looking, Lucy made herself a butter-and-jam sandwich and got sticky strawberry jam all over the table and chairs, and each time I think I’ve wiped up all the sticky spots, I find another. Lucy is an ornery and impossibly headstrong child.

  Friday, October 6, 1871

  For days now, the sky has been as bright as brass with no sign of rain. The city is bone dry. My eyes are gritty. With each breath, I’m gulping dust. Not an hour passes that I don’t hear the tolling of the courthouse bell and the clanging of a fire truck, and it’s all I can do to keep Adam and Gideon from chasing the trucks.

  Saturday, October 7, 1871

  A hot wind has been blowing steadily all day, and more stifling heat is predicted. The weather and last week’s warehouse fire and Cager take up all the conversation. It’s Cager this, and Cager that. The way Gwen talks about her brother, you’d think Prince Albert was coming to visit.

  I sweep the floor and wipe off the furniture and turn around to find another layer of fine dust thick enough to write my name in. It is too hot to cook, but I spent the better part of today making a steak-and-potato pie.

  This is how Mrs. Goodfellow says to make pastry for a meat pie:

  Sift one pound of flour into a pan. Cut into it three quarters of a pound of beef suet until the flour and suet are crumbly.

  Once the suet has been worked in, add salt to taste. Moisten the mixture with cold water. Then flour the pasteboard and roll out the pastry, adding thick slices of suet and a dusting of flour between each rolling.

  If you can read, you can cook. That’s what Gwen says.

  Well, I can parse a sentence, recite Latin declensions like nobody’s business, discuss paintings and sculpture and Kant’s essay on “The Beautiful and the Sublime,” and converse in German and French, but I cannot roll out a decent pastry.

  But knowing these things does not mean you can cook. I made such a mess I wanted to cry! After all that work, half the dough stuck to the pasteboard and the other half stuck to the rolling pin. It turned me into a hot, sticky mess, with flour on my face and clothes and my hair and on the floor.

  The pastry looked like three layers of wood shingles on a shanty. But Gwen said I did an admirable job. We filled two pies with layers of thinly sliced potatoes and onions and diced steak, and a third with tart baking apples, brown sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  That got me to thinking. I rolled out the scraps of pastry, sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar, and dotted them with butter, just as Mrs. Robson used to do. I rolled them and shaped them into crescents and baked them.

  As the pies baked, Lucy and Sallie played nicely on the floor. Somewhere in the distance, bells pealed and fire pumpers raced toward yet another fire.

  Just as I pulled the last steak-and-potato pie from the oven, Peter and Gideon walked in. “I heard the fire trucks and worried Pringle was baking and set the house on fire,” said Peter.

  Gwen protested. “Peter! That’s not nice.”

  I shook the rolling pin at him, and he held up his hands in mock surrender. “I apologize.”

  I fetched the cinnamon rolls. Lucy pitched a temper tantrum because she didn’t want a roll, she wanted a square, which made no sense at all. It didn’t matter. When Lucy is overtired or over­excited, she gets a notion in her head and there’s no talking her out of it. She pushed her chair away from the table, slid to the floor, and wailed and rolled around.

  “I bet two gross,” said Gideon, because 288 is his new favorite number.

  Gwen said, “Twenty-five seconds,” because she’s in a g
ood mood and thinking on the bright side.

  Adam said, “Fifty-eight.”

  Peter said, “Seventy-two. She hasn’t kicked the floor yet.”

  Just then, Lucy kicked the floor. The tantrum lasted eighty-eight seconds.

  I pulled Lucy into my lap. We all sat around the table eating the cinnamon rolls, and Peter said, “Mmm, delicious.” I felt as full of happiness as a person can feel.

  Later

  It’s well past ten o’clock and impossible to sleep in this heat and so I’ve taken this diary to the parlor.

  A mill has caught fire and the blaze has spread to a nearby lumberyard. The fire is across the river, so there is no need for alarm, but I can see the eerie red glow and hear the tolling of the courthouse bell and the clatter and clanging of the steam pumpers and hose carts. The poor exhausted firemen! How can they battle blaze after blaze?

  Outside, a steady stream of people who have nothing better to do for entertainment are passing along our street, heading across the river to watch the fire, shouting and talking and singing as they go. Someone shouted that this blaze promises to be larger than the warehouse fire last week, and I think he sounded too hopeful. Shame on him.

  Sunday, October 8, 1871

  A terrible, pungent, smoky smell hangs heavily in the air. The sky is hazy and as stuffy and warm as ever.

  This morning, I had a terrible time trying to catch Lucy and hold her still so that I could scrub her face and dress her and tie her hair out of her eyes so that she wouldn’t look like a ragamuffin on the Sabbath. Perhaps I wouldn’t be so cranky if I wasn’t so tired. Perhaps I wouldn’t be so cranky if there wasn’t so much work to do. But Cager arrives tomorrow and Gwen wants everything perfect.