A Hope Undaunted

by Julie Lessman

  The woman gaped, palm to her chest and dark eyes wide with shock. “Goodness, Miss Betty, I never even heard you come in!”

  “Apparently,” Betty said with a one-sided smile. She peeked at the letter in Vera’s typewriter. “So, Miss Lillian has you beating the bushes for more donations, does she?”

  Vera pushed a shock of black hair away from her eyes. “Yeah, well, it seems the budget has fallen short again this year, and Mr. Carmichael is none too happy. Which, of course, puts poor Miss Lillian in a dither. Apparently she feels that – and I quote – ‘those blasted Feds are cooling off the market.’ Swears the higher interest rates and stricter terms for borrowing will be the death of us yet.” Vera blew a strand of bangs from her eyes. “Of course, it’s all Greek to me, but she’s convinced the skyrocketing market has investors skittish. You know, afraid the bubble’s going to burst, so they’re tightening the purse strings.”

  “But Margaret gave you the donor list for the BCAS, didn’t she?” Betty asked with a squint of her brows.

  “Yes, but Carmichael’s on the warpath over there too, placing the same demands on Margaret as he is on Miss Lillian. Believe me, I’ve spent hours looking behind every bush and under every rock for more possible donors, but to no avail.” Her brows quirked up as she gave Betty a skewed smile. “It seems these days, donors are as scarce as Carmichael’s good moods.”

  “I can get you a list of new donors,” Katie said with a step forward. She extended her hand to Vera, who shook it with confusion in her eyes. “Nice to meet you, Vera – I’m Katie O’Connor, Betty’s summer volunteer.”

  “A new list of donors? St. Peter’s gate, how?” Vera’s voice conveyed true respect.

  Sympathy edged Katie’s smile. “My father is the editor for the Boston Herald, and he just happens to be the co-chair for this year’s auction for the Fogg Museum.”

  The awe on Vera’s face made Katie grin.

  “Well, mercy me, I do believe the heavens just opened up and fell into my lap, Miss O’Connor.” Vera shook Katie’s hand with all the enthusiasm of a thirsty soul jerking a rusty water pump. “Do you really think you can get me a list?”

  “If anybody can, Vera, it’s Katie. And when you’re done typing it up, it might be a good idea to send a copy to Margaret too, and then you two can share the credit for recruiting more donors. I don’t want Carmichael chewing her ear off, either.”

  Vera tugged a handkerchief from her sleeve and mopped her brow. “Will do, Miss Betty, and bless you, Miss O’Connor – you just saved me weeks of work.”

  “It’s the least I can do for another working girl, Vera. And call me Katie, please. We’re all on the same team, you know.”

  “Amen to that,” Betty said with a flick of her scarf. “Vera, here are the files for next month’s placements, all ready to go. Is Miss Lillian in her office? Katie’s here to fill in today for Emily, but I want to introduce her to Lillian first.”

  “No, she’s in the kitchen with Virginia and Alli because Mrs. Okes is running late.”

  Betty headed for a set of wooden doors with windowpanes foggy with grime. “As if that woman doesn’t have enough to do,” she muttered, “now she has to cook too?”

  “You know Miss Lillian,” Vera called from behind. “Nice to meet you, Katie.”

  Betty gave Vera a backhanded wave. “Yeah, I know Miss Lillian. Thanks, Vera.”

  “I’ll get that list to you within a couple of days,” Katie called as Betty tugged her through the door. It slammed behind them, and Katie found herself racing to catch up while Betty marched down the glossy wooden hall, high heels clunking like a small army. Sunlight streamed in through a tall window at the far end where the sound of children’s laughter lilted in the air.

  “Miss Betty!” A flock of little girls bombarded Betty as she passed an open door, squeals and hugs and high-pitched voices clamoring for her attention. She hefted a brown-eyed moppet with blond ringlets high in the air and gave her a noisy kiss. “Ruthy! Looks like somebody’s eating their spinach – you’ve gotten so big! Popeye would be proud.”

  Ruthy giggled, pink cheeks aglow with Betty’s praise. “Gabe gives me all her vegetables,” she announced with pride, “and now I’m almost as tall as her!”

  “Are not!” Gabriella Dawn Smith folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. “You’re only five, and a puny five at that.”

  Betty gave her the eye. “Better watch it, Gabe, or Ruthy will pass you up if you don’t eat your vegetables.” She nodded in Katie’s direction. “You want to end up like her?”

  Gabe squinted up at Katie, smile twitching and a gleam of trouble in her eyes. “Shoot, no. She’s a twerp, but I shore don’t want to be no Amazon like you. At least being a runt is better than going around with your head in the clouds.”

  “Gee, thanks, Gabe,” Katie said with a tweak of the girl’s braid. “I feel so loved.”

  Betty grinned. “Girls, this is my summer volunteer, Katie O’Connor. She used to be friends with Luke when she was about your age.”

  That got their attention. Five little girls suddenly focused on Katie with new respect.

  “Hey, you didn’t tell me you used to be friends with Luke. Were you his girlfriend?” Gabe asked with a suspicious fold of her arms.

  “Uh, nobody was his girlfriend back then,” Katie said with a crook of a smile. “I was ten and he was fourteen, and he barely came to my chest. Not to mention he was obnoxious.” The smile died on Katie’s lips as she studied the faces of the little girls before her. She may as well have been on trial for heresy – five sets of eyes condemned her on the spot. “Uh, but now Luke and I are good friends and I think he’s the bee’s knees.”

  The girls giggled and Betty leaned close. “Nice footwork.” She put Ruthy down and ruffled her hair, shooting a peek into the classroom. “Where’s Miss Trudy?”

  “In the bathroom,” a freckle-faced girl said with a giggle. “Gabe made her laugh, and she snorted coffee all over her blouse.”

  Betty and Katie exchanged grins. “Well, go on, then,” Betty said, shooing the girls back into the room. “I’ll stop by after my meeting with Miss Lillian, okay?”

  The girls’ chatter faded as Katie followed Betty down the hall to the last door on the right. With great ceremony, Betty flung the door open to reveal an enormous kitchen with massive windows lining the side wall, sashes open wide to the sounds and smells of the city outside. Autos rumbled by while pedestrians bustled to and fro, infusing the airy kitchen with a hum of activity that matched that of the women preparing lunch for the day. The room appeared clean, although the black and white linoleum was long since yellowed with age. A bank of white cast-iron sinks shared a wall with several black gas stoves where deep pots bubbled with steam. Two young girls chatted and peeled vegetables at the sink while a tiny, elderly woman with dyed black hair stood before a huge wooden chopping block. Barely five foot tall, the frail-looking dynamo slapped and pummeled bread dough with a ferocity that indicated she was anything but frail. The mouthwatering aroma of stew drifted in the air, winning out over the hint of fresh asphalt being poured across the street by a crew of grimy workers. Katie’s mouth began to water as she followed Betty into the room.

  “Now why do I suspect Carmichael’s on your mind right about now, Miss Lillian?” Betty strolled over to the woman and gave her shoulders a quick squeeze.

  Miss Lillian stabbed the dough with renewed fervor as she gave Betty a crooked smile that transformed her delicate face into that of a weathered imp with twinkling blue eyes. “Mind your tongue, Miss Galetti. We only speak of Mr. Carmichael in the most reverent of tones.”

  Betty snitched an oatmeal cookie from a plate on a nearby table and tossed it to Katie, then filched another with a devious grin. “‘Speak,’ yes, but our thoughts? Mmm . . . good thing they can’t ‘speak’ our mind.”

  A hoarse chuckle tripped from Miss Lillian’s lips as she gave the dough a final deadly thrust. “Amen to that,” she said with a swipe of her brow. Sh
e lifted a silver watch pinned to the lapel of her white blouse. “You’re early for our meeting. I have cobbler to make.”

  A pretty brunette turned at the sink to give Miss Lillian a patient smile. “We can handle it, Miss Lillian, at least until Mrs. Okes gets here. Why don’t you go to your meeting?”

  The ball of fire ignored the soft-spoken girl to heft a crate of peaches off the counter. She plopped them on the worn wooden table with a tight press of her lips and then foraged for a stainless steel bowl from a white cupboard. “My meeting can wait, Virginia, but I’m afraid that hoard of hungry ruffians cannot.” She scrounged in a drawer for a knife and marched back to the table while skinning a peach with a scowl on her face.

  “Now I know you’re thinking of Carmichael, Lil, because we both know the man’s a real peach.” Betty dug in the drawer for a knife of her own, then handed one to Katie with a grin.

  Miss Lillian shot a quick glance at the girls at the sink, then fought the squirm of a smile. “Hush, young lady, this is a Christian environment here, and well you know it.” Pitchblack eyebrows drawn on in a crooked line lifted as she nodded at Katie. “And who’s this – reinforcements, I hope?”

  Betty hooked an arm around Katie’s shoulders and grinned. “As a matter of fact, yes. Parker sent Katie to fill in for Emily because Bobbie Sue is sick.”

  Miss Lillian squinted, forcing paper-thin crinkles to fan at the sides of her eyes. “Oh? Nothing serious, I hope?”

  “Nope, just a nasty cold, I think, but Parker told her to stay away.” Betty tossed a peach to Katie, who caught it midair. “This is Katie O’Connor, our summer volunteer. Katie, this is the heart and soul of the Boston Society for the Care of Girls, Miss Lillian Radake.”

  In her heels, Katie towered over the petite woman by at least four inches, but the glint of steel in the shrewd blue eyes garnered more respect than if Miss Lillian had been ten feet tall. Katie extended a shaky hand, her admiration for the woman before her thickening the air in her throat. “Oh goodness, Miss Lillian, I can’t tell you what an honor it is to meet you! Everyone at the BCAS speaks so highly of you and the work you do here, that I feel like I almost know you.”

  “Thank you, Katie. I wouldn’t believe everything they say, you know.” A twinkle lit her eyes. “Especially Mr. McGee – he tends toward the blarney at times.”

  “Katie plans to enter law school this fall,” Betty said. She dropped into one of the chairs at the table, eyes trained on the peach in her hand as she peeled a long, fuzzy curl. “She wants to champion women’s rights.”

  The twinkle in Miss Lillian’s eyes glinted with respect. “Well, good for you, young lady. Women have certainly made great strides this decade, but as Alice always says, ‘When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until you get to the end of the row.’”

  Awe stilled Katie’s tone to a mere hush. “Alice? Alice Paul? The founder of the National Women’s Party? You know her?”

  A hoarse chuckle rattled from the old woman’s lips. “I had the privilege of meeting Miss Paul in Seneca Falls in 1923 for the celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Woman’s Rights Convention. That’s when she introduced the Lucretia Mott Amendment, you know.”

  Katie could barely breathe. “You were there? When she introduced the Equal Rights Amendment?” She gaped at Miss Lillian, hand splayed to her chest.

  A healthy grin that may have been porcelain dentures flashed across Miss Lillian’s face. “Yes, my dear, a historical day for women everywhere, you can be sure. Alice Paul is a bright woman with a fire in her belly to help downtrodden women.” Miss Lillian patted Katie’s arm and lowered herself into the chair next to Betty. “Who, I might add, had the same fire in her eyes that I now see in yours.”

  Katie sank into the chair next to Miss Lillian’s and started peeling her peach, her eyes misty with hope. “Oh, yes, Miss Lillian, I plan to study the law, but my real dream is to advocate women’s rights in Congress like Jeannette Pickering Rankin.” Katie sighed. “Imagine . . . the first woman in the legislature! What great strides she’s made on behalf of women everywhere.”

  “Indeed,” Miss Lillian said with a nod. Her eyes flitted to the two girls chatting at the sink, and for the first time, Katie noticed the steel leg braces beneath the skirt of the shorter one. “But regrettably, I fear the strides will not keep pace with the hardships.”

  Betty’s eyes followed Miss Lillian’s, and her voice lowered to a whisper. “No luck finding Alli a position yet?”

  “No, but I’m not giving up.” A tenuous puff of air drifted from the pinched lips of the older woman. “The good Lord is not adverse to hounding, apparently, given the example of the persistent widow who badgered the unjust judge in the Bible, so I am hoping for a positive resolution. We have three months until Alli turns eighteen, to place her in a family or a position that will afford her a living.”

  “What happens if you don’t?” Katie’s voice was quiet.

  Miss Lillian sighed again. “At the age of eighteen, our young women, whether serving an apprenticeship in a family or living here as Alli does now, must move on. Some marry, others continue their associations with families they’ve apprenticed with, and many others utilize the skills they’ve learned here to earn a living and fend for themselves.” Miss Lillian focused on the fruit in her hand, but not before Katie saw a glimmer of moisture in her eyes. “But with Alli,” she whispered, “there’s not only the ravages of polio that hinder her ability to work, but . . .” A knot shifted in the old woman’s throat as her eyes lighted on the back of the girl with soft, brown curls edging her shoulders. “She was also recently diagnosed with epilepsy, which manifested itself along with a speech impediment.”

  “Seizures?”

  Unbidden tears sprang to Katie’s eyes at the quiver of Miss Lillian’s chin, which now elevated as she reached for another peach. “Yes, from the age of sixteen. Alli has struggled with slow speech and a terrible stutter ever since, especially when she gets nervous. That, along with the stigma of epilepsy, has made it difficult to place her, I’m afraid, whether in an apprenticeship like most of the older girls . . . or in a job. People think she’s slow, but as anyone here will tell you, Alli’s speech and mobility may be impaired, but the size of her intellect is not . . . nor her heart. She’s excellent at numbers.”

  Katie blinked to diffuse the tears in her eyes while her hand stilled on the peach. “What will happen to her?” she whispered. “She won’t be alone, will she? Or out on the streets?”

  “Oh, no, no, we won’t let that happen.” Miss Lillian swiped the side of her eye with the sleeve of her blouse and managed a smile. “If the board won’t allow Alli to stay on here, we’ll simply find a home for her elsewhere, even if it’s with an old, crabby woman like me.”

  The pretty brunette named Virginia turned and wiped her hands on a towel. “Miss Lillian, I need to run downstairs for more vegetables, but Alli said she’d finish the cobbler, if you like.” Virginia smiled and disappeared through a door at the back of the kitchen while Alli hobbled toward their table.

  “Miss Lillian, please . . . may I do the peaches?”

  Katie’s heart squeezed in her chest. The handicapped girl looked all of fourteen and as petite and delicate as Miss Lillian herself. There was nothing particularly eyecatching about her, eyes and hair a nondescript brown and a tiny pug nose that seemed out of place in her narrow face. But there was something strong in her gentle manner despite a frail frame as wispy as a butterfly’s wing and a voice as soft as a whisper. She wasn’t pretty . . . until she smiled. Katie’s breath caught as the girl’s face took on the glow of an angel. Hope seemed to shine forth like a beam from heaven, transforming not only the homely girl before them, but all those graced by her presence. “I j-just l-love p-peaches,” she said with a lilt in her tone, eyes lighting on Katie with a sweetness that caused Katie’s throat to ache. “D-don’t you?”

  Katie nodded, overcome with such a rush of emotion that she found it
difficult to speak. She extended a shaky hand. “I most certainly do, Alli. My name is Katie, and I’ll be working with you and Virginia today.”

  The brown eyes blinked, and then if possible, outshone her beautiful smile. She took Katie’s hand and shook it slowly, the slightest hint of mischief lighting on her lips. She attempted a wink, which came off comical due to the faint pull of a palsy on the right side of her face. She leaned in close. “Hi ya, K-Katie. Who knows? After Miss B-Betty and Miss Lillian leave for their m-meeting, m-maybe some of the p-peaches won’t make it into the b-bowl.”

  Miss Lillian chuckled and rose to her feet. “A small price to pay for cobbler that melts in your mouth. Do you know how to bake, Katie?”

  “Cookies, yes. Cobbler? Uh, no. But I’m willing to learn.”

  “Good.” Miss Lillian rose to her feet with a small grunt and swiveled her neck, obviously working out some kinks. “Alli can teach you. She’s a wonder with cobbler.” She patted Alli’s cheek with a weathered hand that lingered in a tender caress. “As long as she doesn’t eat all the peaches, that is. Nice to meet you, Katie. Come, Miss Galetti . . . I believe we have placements to discuss.”

  Betty turned and wriggled her brows as she followed Miss Lillian to the door. “Hey, Alli, after you teach her to make cobbler, can ya teach her to be sweet and gentle like you?”

  Katie grinned. “Sweet and gentle, eh? Wouldn’t that throw our Mr. Priss for a curve?”

  “Not just Mr. Priss,” Betty said with a chuckle, giving a jaunty wave as she left.

  Katie rubbed her hands together. “Okay, Alli, I’m hungry. Let’s start peeling.”

  A grin as bright as the summer sun transformed the mousy girl into a radiant being, prompting another threat of tears in Katie’s eyes. “P-peaches are my favorite,” Alli said with an innocent smile that made her almost beautiful. “How ’b-bout you?”