An operator ushered us into a paneled elevator and shut the doors. I could hardly breathe as I watched the floor indicator edge toward twelve. We lurched as the elevator halted, then jerked as he pulsed the lever through the last five inches to line up with the floor. Then he opened the grill and outer doors and offered a white-gloved hand to escort Ma across the threshold.
The men in the newsroom seemed more interested in swapping jokes, spitting tobacco, and imbibing who knew what from various bottles littering the desks than finding out who had just walked through their doors, but I was still riled up about how Miss Waterson had treated us and wanted someone to listen. I pried the satchel out of Ma's hands and let it drop with a thunk on the nearest desk. No one paid any attention. I clapped my hands like a schoolmistress calling a rowdy class to order. "Who wants a good story?" I called.
One reporter broke away from his cronies and strolled toward us. "What's the scoop?"
"My mother and I have just walked from Spokane, Washington, to New York City, and as soon as we got here we were robbed, and then the woman who promised us ten thousand dollars if we made it here refused us the money with the excuse that we were thirteen hours late!"
"So you're those women walkers," he said. "Didn't we run your picture when you just started out?" He ushered us into a glass-walled office out of the fray. "Nobody here thought you'd make it."
A year ago I wouldn't have believed we could do it, either.
He leaned out of the office. "Hey, somebody get Fineman!" he called.
"I'm Bill Lankowski," he said, turning back to us as we collapsed into chairs. He borrowed a notebook from the desk he had appropriated, propped himself against a wall, and scribbled frantically as I started to tell him everything that had happened in the last eight months since the World printed the first article about us.
I'd half dragged Ma from Miss Waterson's office to the newsroom, but Mr. Lankowski's attention began to infuse her with her old energy. She broke in to explain how she hoped our feat would demonstrate the resourcefulness and strength of women, and how passionately she supported women's suffrage.
He was more interested in the sixteen pairs of boots we'd each worn out, and whether I'd ever had to use my gun. Seeing that he wanted adventure and not politics, we recounted the time we had escaped jail in La Grande; how a penknife and scrap of rope had saved Ma's life in a flash flood; how we'd survived a blizzard in the Blues and the lava fields in Idaho; and how we'd camped with Indians and sipped tea with President-Elect McKinley and his wife.
We had done the walking, all eight million steps. But we hadn't done it unaided. I couldn't even remember the faces of everyone who had taken us in for a night, fed us, let us wash, left water by the tracks for us.
Ma was just relating how Miss Waterson had refused to pay us the ten thousand dollars, and how a ruffian had stolen her satchel when her voice faltered. Then, as if someone wound her spring again, she regained momentum. "Mr. Lankowski, my daughter and I haven't eaten in days and we walked fifty miles in a blizzard after being given bad directions. If we don't get something to eat and a place to stay tonight, we're going to expire right here." She slumped in her chair and sighed. How many times had I cringed as Ma shamelessly finagled our next bed or meal? This time I was grateful. Mr. Lankowski fetched two cups of water and gathered morsels from the plates and bowls of snacks scattered around the outer workroom.
Popcorn, pretzels, pickles, and peanuts were a bad combination. After a few bites I pushed my plate away and watched the sketch artist, Mr. Fineman, arrange his sketchpad, ink, and pens on the desk. After conferring with Mr. Lankowski, he asked us to stand and look in the same direction while I held out my gun.
"I don't want millions of people to see me as a desperado," I said.
"How about extending one arm, then, as if pointing something out to your mother?" he said.
A few minutes later, Mr. Fineman put down his pen. "Got it," he said.
I dropped my arm and stepped over to his sketchpad to see if his portrait flattered me. "You can't do that," I sputtered, jabbing a finger at the daggers and pistols he'd put in both Ma's hands and mine.
Before I could complain about how he had turned a penknife into pirate daggers and one small pistol into two six-guns, Mr. Fineman gathered his supplies and scuttled off to have his sketch engraved for tomorrow's paper.
Mr. Lankowski shrugged apologetically. "Guns and daggers sell newspapers," he said. "Here, I'll make it up to you." He beckoned us to follow, selected a key from a hook, and led us down the back stairwell to the eleventh floor. "I'm sure Mr. Pulitzer wouldn't want the subjects of my story to sleep in the snow," he said, looking over his shoulder.
He opened one of the doors in a long hallway and led us into a combination apartment and office. "It's one of the rooms we camp out in when we're working late on assignment, but even Scrooge wouldn't expect us all to work late over Christmas. I'll tell the caretaker you'll be here a couple days."
After demonstrating the lights and gas ring for tea, he gave us leave to use paper and stamps from the desk and eat any food we found in the cupboard. Just as he opened the door to leave, he turned. "Most important," he said, blushing slightly and pointing down the hall. "Convenience and bathing tub on the left. It's the door with no room number." The door almost closed, then popped open again. "And Merry Christmas!"
The door closed with a click and we were alone in New York City.
CHAPTER 31
LETTERS
WITHOUT the distractions of Miss Waterson and the newsroom, I was acutely aware of my throbbing ankle. I could feel every heartbeat in it, and I should have taken a chair and put my feet up, but I was too restless to sit. I limped around the room, poking into every drawer and cupboard like a curious cat. The dresser held a clean set of men's underdrawers, laundered shirt, and fresh collar. The cupboard by the sink had tinned soup, tea, soda crackers, half a loaf of hard bread that had not yet turned green, and a few dishes. A typing machine perched on the desk; the drawer below had paper, envelopes, stamps, a ruler, and paper clips.
Eleven floors above the street and all its sounds, the apartment seemed unnaturally quiet.
Then my anger at Miss Waterson erupted again, and I hurled my hat toward the bed. "I thought Miss Waterson was a friend of one of your suffrage society women! No friend would treat us the way Miss Waterson did."
Ma swallowed and crossed her fists protectively against her chest. "Miss Waterson wasn't—exactly—a friend of one of my Spokane friends. One woman in my group did suggest getting a publisher to sponsor the walk, though. So I wrote with my plan to a few publishers, and Miss Waterson took me up on it."
"A few?"
"A dozen or so. Maybe more." Ma averted her eyes.
I thought of all the stamps and paper Ma had gone through this spring. "How many more?" I raised my eyebrows and waited for the real number.
Ma sighed a put-upon sigh. "All the publishers listed in the New York City telephone directory."
I looked to the ceiling for divinely inspired forbearance. "You risked our lives on a bet with the only person in New York City willing to take you up on it? Miss Waterson had nothing to lose. If we won, she'd just admit she didn't have the money. If we lost—which she was sure we would—she'd still have publicity for the book you two would write and you'd both get rich."
I scooped up Miss Waterson's money from my pocket and flung it on the bed. "There's no helping fools and idiots!" I counted myself among that number. All we had to show for seven months and eighteen days on the road was ten dollars—part of it in nickels and dimes—and my five-dollar check from Street and Smith. In April I had had thirty-seven dollars and forty-eight cents in my college fund. That left us twenty-two dollars and forty-eight cents behind where we started.
While Ma wilted down on the bed, I plopped down on the straight chair by the desk. Easing my boot over my swollen ankle, I set off throbbing I could feel from my toenails to my eyeballs. Still sitting, I struggled out of m
y overcoat, heavy with melted snow, and draped it behind me, over the back of my chair. I knew Ma sometimes believed in her fancies so hard that they became true—for her. At least until times like now, when her fancies collided with reality. Why hadn't I questioned her more about Miss Waterson and how the bet came about before we left? Maybe I had wanted to believe her fancies, too.
Perhaps there was good news in the mail. I fished our letters out of my inside coat pocket and hobbled over to the bed to place Pa's letter, along with those from my brothers and sisters, on Ma's lap. I poked at the money on the bed. Maybe some other publisher in New York would pay us enough for our story to get us back home and save the farm.
I had letters from Charles Doré and Erick Iverson, but I didn't want to know what either of them had to say. Mr. Doré was just probably writing to tell me when he was going to marry Miss Ernestine. Erick would be writing to say he'd been smitten by sister Ida's cherry pies and decided to marry her if he couldn't have me. Uff da! I tossed both letters on the bed. I wasn't going to be like a woman trapped in a Jane Austen novel, preoccupied only with who was going to marry whom.
By now, Ma had crawled under the blankets and propped herself up against the headboard and pillows so she could stare out the window. Blue bruiselike circles had blossomed under her eyes again. I crawled in with her and stretched one arm around her shoulders. As the foot trod we were nearly four thousand miles from home, and Christmas was the day after tomorrow.
As I leaned my head against hers, I was reminded of the night we'd spent on the ledge above the flood, wrapped around each other. We had survived the flood, and we would survive New York City. For a night or two, we had a bed, blankets, and food. Compared to what else we'd been through this year, this room was luxury.
As I squeezed Ma's shoulder, she roused herself. "I'm sorry, Clara." Her voice was as raspy as it had been after three days in the lava fields. "After all this we'll go home empty-handed. We'll still lose the farm ... Were we wrong to go?"
In my usual mugwumping way, I had a thousand reasons to say yes but at least a reason or two to say no. My stomach cramped. I needed food to settle my stomach. "Let's eat. Then we'll talk." I slid out of bed and opened the tin of soup, found a pan, and lit the gas ring. While the soup heated, I limped over to the desk and slid the typewriter over to make room for bowls, spoons, and a plate of crackers. I propped the letters up on the paper carriage on the typewriter. For Ma's sake, I hoped at least some of it was good news.
As I dished up soup, its steam made my eyes water. We ate slowly and silently.
Ma put her spoon down gently, aligning it carefully in a ninety-degree angle with the edge of the desk. She looked out the window. "How can I face Pa without the money?"
Even in profile I could tell Ma was showing her age. Although her face was so gaunt that her cheekbones stuck out like crab apples, the line of her throat was beginning to sag. And when had the hair at her temples gone gray?
"Pa will just be happy to see you home safely, Ma." I pulled Pa's letter from the stack and held it toward her.
Her open hand hesitated for a heartbeat above the letter before closing on it. She read aloud:
December 17, 1896
Dear Mrs. Estby,
I hope you are sitting down when you read this because I have taken a drastic step. I took no news as bad news, and assumed you missed your deadline. I sold all our farm equipment and our plow horse to Erick Iverson. He paid me more than I expected, enough to make partial payments on both the mortgage and the taxes. The bank and the county treasurer have said they'll give us another year before auctioning off the farm.
I can hear you saying, "How will we grow wheat without the equipment?" Well, we won't. We've lost money on the wheat the last three years anyway. We'll just plant a little hay the old-fashioned way, by hand, work our kitchen garden and orchard, and keep the milk cow, pigs, and chickens to feed the family.
If we're meant to keep the farm, Providence will provide. If we're not, we'd have to sell the equipment anyway, and now we have a head start on it.
We all miss you.
Your husband,
Ole Estby
Ma dropped the letter, mouth open, but wordless.
I snatched up the letter and used my skirt to wipe off a splash of soup from one corner. I reread the letter. The farm was still ours, at least for another year. My hand was shaking as I put the letter back down on Ma's side of the desk. Ma and I had walked nearly four thousand miles and were going home broke. Pa walked across the road to sell some farm equipment and had saved the farm. At least for now. I fumbled in my pocket for Pa's wise owl and perched it on the windowsill.
I supposed I should see what Erick had to say. I tapped his letter on the table, nerving myself to open it. I slipped a table knife under the flap, but the knife was dull and my hands were still shaking. The envelope ripped down the front.
November 26, 1896
Dear Clara,
Don't worry. I didn't take you at your word when you wrote to say that you were refusing my proposal. Your walk across the country has clearly drained all your reasoning capacity to fuel your feet. I don't blame you—you were just going out of loyalty to your folks.
To give you something happy to think on, I write to tell you I have finished our bed and table and laid the foundation for our house. It is a goodly twenty by twenty, and we can add to it as our family grows. I suppose I should have waited until you returned to get your opinion on where the sink should go and all, but now that harvest is over I had to find something to keep busy while I waited for you to come home.
My brothers have warned me that too much time under the influence of your mother would corrupt your modest, obliging nature. I am convinced, however, that once you are safely home you will be restored to your own sweet self.
With love,
Erick Iverson
P.S. Happy birthday! Don't worry about the farm. I've talked to my pa and we have a plan to help.
Now what? I looked to Ma for advice, but she was smiling as she read her letters from Olaf, Ida, Bertha, Arthur, and Johnny. I didn't want to spoil her mood by dithering about whether I owed Erick anything for helping save the farm and wailing about having wasted over half a year on a foolhardy walk.
Was the half-year entirely wasted, though? Since I thought better with a pencil in my hand, I got out my journal.
Across the top of one of the last blank pages I wrote: Coals for the walk.
Under goals, I wrote: 1. Save the farm.
At least Ma had tried. Her plan hadn't worked, but it might have, if someone other than Miss Waterson had taken her up on her wager. We still had a story to sell to someone else. I tapped my pencil against my two front teeth.
"You know, Ma, maybe we didn't do so bad." I turned my journal around so she could read it. "Money from selling some of the farm equipment gives us another year. That's long enough for you to write your book."
"Who wants to read about losers?"
"We walked nearly coast to coast. That counts for something." Ma did not look convinced, but I went on.
"What else did you say you wanted this walk to do? Prove..." I paused to let Ma finish the statement.
Ma sighed. "Prove the endurance of women."
I wrote it down: 2. Prove the endurance of women.
"Remember that New York World article that ended 'if they survive the experiment'? Well, we did survive. And I'll bet more than one woman reading about us was inspired to try something she wasn't bold enough to try before."
I didn't wait for Ma to give me the next reason, but wrote down: 3. VOTES for women.
"Idaho passed its referendum giving women the vote just a few months after we passed through."
"I don't think we can take credit for that, Clara."
"No. But maybe we changed a few votes. If every woman who is passionate about equal suffrage wins just a few votes, and a few votes more, eventually we will win."
Next I wrote down: 4. Money for college.
"Tea with McKinley, camping out with Indians, seeing the whole country nearly coast to coast on foot ... think of the scholarship application letter I can write now! I'll probably have colleges fighting over me. That is, if you can spare me," I said.
Ma pulled her chair forward with a scrape. "You've done your duty to your family. Go to college. I'll feel guilty if you don't."
Only one unresolved issue. "Ma, Erick didn't believe me when I said I refused his proposal, and that's why he helped save the farm. Don't I owe him something?"
Ma looked at me like I was too stupid to be any child of hers. "You don't owe him your life, Clara. You told him no and he chose not to believe you. Besides, Erick got a good deal on that farm equipment. Your Pa always kept his tools in like-new condition, and Erick probably gave him less than fifty cents on the dollar for them."
"I've been thinking," she said. "Since you're the published writer in the family, why don't you write the book about the walk? You can have the notes I sent home. It's the least I can do after dragging you across the country."
"I'll put your name on it, too."
"I'd be proud. But your name should come first."
Again, Ma looked out at the snow drifting across the window. This time it wasn't an empty stare. As she narrowed her eyes, I could tell she was thinking hard on something. She turned back with a grin. "I've got it—the title should be Spokane to New York City, One Step at a Time"
"Our home is Mica Creek. It should be Mica Creek to New York City!'
"No one's heard of Mica Creek, and you could say our trip started when we left the office of the Spokane Chronicle." Ma's pallor was slowly being replaced by spots of color.
We had plenty of time to argue about a title. I'd let Ma think she'd won—for now. I changed the subject. "Where should we start the book? Should I leave out the boring beginning with all the rain?" I asked.
The Year We Were Famous Page 16
