Finding Dorothy

by Elizabeth Letts

  * * *

  —

  AS THE WEEKS PASSED, Maud began to settle into her new life. When she walked across campus, such a wide swath of the world was in view—august brick and stone buildings crowned the top of a large hill. In the distance, she could see the rooftops of the buildings in the village of Ithaca spread out below them, the multihued autumn trees, the wide dish of the valley. The campus’s broad green lawns were crisscrossed by pathways crowded with students. But as Maud hurried from building to building with her books tucked under her arm, she could not miss how much easier things were for the young male students. They controlled all of the school’s institutions—the newspapers and social clubs, the sporting activities and academic groups. They clustered noisily outside the buildings, calling out to the girls as they passed. After nightfall, the girls rarely ventured outside, but they could hear the young men carousing freely across the campus’s dark expanses.

  The days grew shorter and colder, the sky was brilliant blue, and the red, yellow, and gold leaves brightened the campus quadrangle. Maud had not made much progress in behaving like an aspidistra. She introduced topics of conversation when young men were present. She never mentioned the weather, and she thought nothing of interrupting her male classmates in class discussions, which always caused the line of female heads (the coeds always sat in the front row) to turn and pivot toward her as if she were a squirrel and they were a line of eager hunting dogs. She had not yet had the opportunity to speak again to Teddy Swain, although she sometimes imagined that he was looking at her, and she always felt a blush form at the base of her neck as she quickly glanced away. She noticed that groups of boys sometimes stared and whispered behind their hands when she passed, but Maud tried not to let that bother her.

  But one day, Maud tarried too long in the library and did not notice that it was time to leave for her botany class. She rushed pell-mell across the campus, pushed through the classroom door, and winced as it banged shut behind her. Maud could feel her bun pulling loose, and when she reached up to smooth her hair, her Latin book slipped out of her grasp and landed with a loud thwack, skidding along the polished floor in front of her.

  To her horror, Maud spotted Teddy Swain, the corner of his lip bent up in a smirk, and she watched as if in slow motion as he began to slowly clap, until soon all the boys in the class were clapping, and hoots and whistles soon filled the air.

  Maud saw Josie surreptitiously lean over and pick up the errant textbook and tuck it in her lap, and Maud ducked her head and aimed toward her seat like an eagle streaking down toward its prey, muttering to herself, “Potted plant, potted plant.” But then she caught the eye of Teddy Swain, whose fingers were tucked in the sides of his mouth as he wolf-whistled, and she felt rage bubbling up inside her. Didn’t the men often come in late, in twos and threes, laughing and talking as they did? Had anyone ever whistled or applauded or jeered at them? And yet the coeds were always bent on getting to all their classes early so that they could take their seats up front and avoid the spectacle of walking down the aisle with a hundred young men’s eyes trained upon them.

  Maud stopped dead in her tracks. She threw her shoulders back and rose to her full height. She stopped directly in front of Teddy Swain.

  “Have you got something stuck in your teeth?” she asked him. “As I see you have your fingers in your mouth.”

  Teddy Swain appeared startled at the unexpected confrontation. He pulled his fingers from the corners of his lips and dropped his hands into his lap.

  “And as for the rest of you…” Maud’s voice rang out across the length and breadth of the hall, and the room suddenly went silent.

  Maud never had a chance to decide what it was that she was going to threaten, as into the silence, the botany professor, a shrunken man with wisps of white hair that clung to his collar, injected a small cough, then a slightly bigger one, before he said, “I believe that we are turning to the phylum of the fern species today.”

  Maud took this chance to skid across the front of the room and plop into the seat Josie had saved for her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “That was dreadful. Why can I not learn to arrive at class on time?”

  “Boys are horrid,” Josie said. “Or most, anyway, or whenever they’re in a group.”

  Maud pulled out her pencil and notebook and tried to concentrate on the professor’s dry voice as he discussed the species of fern native to the Cayuga region, but all she could hear were the jeers and whistles and applause that had greeted her entrance. She did not want to learn about ferns; she wanted to be a fern, with no purpose greater than waving a bit in the wind. Was this truly the equality that Mother had searched for so dearly?

  From that day on, Teddy Swain would fall silent and look away whenever she happened to pass him on campus, and when he dined at Sage College, he appeared to take great care to sit on the far side of the room. One evening, not long after the incident in the classroom, she caught sight of him across the crowded dining room, engaged in animated conversation with Clara Richards, a raven-haired sophomore who was as pretty as she was reserved. Her head was tipped up, and she was listening intently to whatever Teddy was saying to her, as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world. Maud felt a slight twinge—not quite regret, but almost. Would things have worked out differently if she could have learned the manner the other girls seemed to master so effortlessly? Would she be seated with Teddy Swain, raptly looking into his handsome face as he lectured her about weighty matters? Maud sat up straighter and resolutely shifted her gaze away from him. In truth, though she longed to fit in, she felt more compelled to be true to herself. If she were to have any hope at love, she’d have to find a man who could love her as she was, even though there seemed little likelihood that such a man existed.

  * * *

  —

  ONE FRIDAY EVENING NEAR the midterm, Maud’s sleep was interrupted by the sound of pebbles rattling against their third-floor window. Josie didn’t stir, so Maud crept out of bed and across the room. She shoved the sash until the heavy window pushed open, and a handful of pebbles flew in and skittered across the floor. Maud leaned her head outside, hoping to see who was below.

  Confused, she beheld a group of women gathered below her window. Who were these people, and what did they want? But a second later, she heard the rich tenor of Teddy Swain, slurred with drink, soon joined by his compatriots. This was no group of women—it was eight boys dressed up in women’s clothing, and they were dead drunk and singing at the top of their lungs.

  “There is a gay maiden at Sage,

  Who flies into a terrible rage

  If one says in a crowd,

  In a tone a bit loud,

  ‘Matilda, may I ask your age?’ ”

  “Oh!” Maud exclaimed, loud enough to wake Josie, who now joined her at the window.

  “Close the window!” Josie whispered frantically. “You should never have opened it.”

  “They were throwing stones,” Maud said.

  “You never open when they throw stones,” Josie said, grabbing the window and slamming it shut. “It just encourages them.”

  But Maud could still hear their loud, drunken voices through the closed window, and she knew that all the other girls were likely awake and could hear it, too. And she had not missed the point: they had used her mother’s Christian name instead of hers. If Maud had thought that she was striking out on her own here, she had been foolish—the colossus of Matilda had come along with her. She had never really stood a chance at all.

  It wasn’t enough to push open the doors. You had to change minds. How could girls truly make their mark if their role models were houseplants, if their fashions scarcely allowed them to breathe? If any expression of opinion on any subject was considered by young men to be a threat? And even more so, how could they escape the basic fact that no matter how horrid the boys were, the young
women still wanted to please them—because what choice had they, really? Where could they go besides back to their own homes, where they would rest under the heavy thumbs of their own mothers, or into the home of a man—with the hopes that this man would be indulgent, like Papa, and not oppressive or cruel, like so many others?

  Maud was beginning to understand that she would never be like the other girls. Here at Cornell, she would always fight with her own nature just to fit in, and she would always be seen not just as herself, but also as her mother’s daughter. Matilda Gage, the controversial advocate for the rights of women. In some ways, living here was more constraining than life at home, where, she had come to realize, she had been indulged in her eccentricities. The heady sense of newfound freedom she had felt on first arriving here had started to ebb away. The beautiful campus of Cornell, which had seemed so open, so vast, started to close in on her, and Maud began to understand that finding her own way here would be more elusive than she ever would have guessed.

  CHAPTER

  5

  ITHACA, NEW YORK

  1880

  The weather turned suddenly sharp as the trees around campus faded from brilliant red and orange to a wan straw color. The young men’s voices grew loud with talk of upcoming revelries as their secret fraternities geared up for Hallowe’en, a night of drunken rituals that were never talked about in front of the young ladies. But it was widely known that the women of Cornell would do best to stay indoors and learn of the men’s exploits only through the dormitory windows.

  For their part, the girls could not help but think about magic prognostications—apple peelings, egg yolks, and lighted candles held in front of mirrors—for All Hallows’ Eve was the night on which, according to common superstition, their future husbands’ names might be revealed.

  Now that the girls were settled into their routines and felt fully comfortable around one another, they had begun to go about Sage in loose tea gowns, without their corsets. The same girls who maintained a strict air of composure while conducting their scholarly life on campus could be lively and gay inside the confines of the henhouse.

  The day before Hallowe’en, several girls gathered in Maud and Josie’s room, and the talk soon turned to boys. Everyone, of course, was talking about their future husbands, but no one wanted to be the first to suggest that they try any of the rituals for themselves.

  “I think I would simply faint if I looked into a mirror with a candle and saw an image appear over my shoulder. I would collapse so quickly from fright that I wouldn’t ever be sensible enough to know what I saw.” This from Josie Baum. Everyone knew she was sweet on her beau, Charlie Thorp.

  “It would be dreadfully wicked to do such a thing,” Jessie Mary said. She was a strict Presbyterian.

  “I can promise you,” Maud said, “that if I looked in the mirror, I know exactly what I would see.”

  “Oh, Maud, do tell!” Her friends leaned in with interest. Up until now, Maud had never breathed a word about having a beau. Josie thought that Maud had seemed interested in Teddy Swain before their disastrous encounter in the botany class, and Maud had never mentioned anyone in particular since.

  “I would light a candle and look in the mirror, and over my shoulder”—Maud spread her hands wide, lowered her voice, and widened her eyes—“an image would appear…”

  “Tell! Tell!” Josie said. “Who would appear in the mirror?”

  “And there over my shoulder,” Maud continued, “I would see a ghostly image, first faint, then bolder, and then, finally, crystal clear.” She paused for effect, holding her two friends spellbound.

  “Tell us!” Josie cried.

  “Over my shoulder would appear—MY MOTHER!” Maud cried. “Saying, ‘Maud Gage, I did not send you to get a degree in holy matrimony. I sent you to study for a diploma. You will most certainly not be married by Hallowe’en next. Now, get back to your studies!’ ”

  With that, the girls collapsed in laughter.

  Maud flipped over onto her stomach and stared at everyone.

  “I have an idea,” Maud said. “We should form our own secret society—females only.” From the corner next to her wardrobe, she grabbed a broom, brandishing it high above her head. “In hoc signo vinces!” Maud cried. “In this sign, we conquer, and in this room, we all have a vote! Who votes that we revive the all-secret, all-female Cornell Women’s Society of the Broom?”

  Maud kept the broom held aloft as she looked around the room, meeting the eye of each of her friends. All of them knew the story of the super-secret all-female society. It had long been rumored that in 1872, when the first sixteen women enrolled at Cornell, the men had refused to enter into any social intercourse with these new coeds, shunning them in classes, ignoring them as they walked across campus, and banning them from ever entering in the all-male fraternities that controlled the campus’s social life. To fight back against this slight, this intrepid group of young women had formed their own clandestine organization—naming it the Society of the Broom and taking as their motto In hoc signo vinces: “In this sign, we conquer.” Of course, the men did not fail to notice the symbolism behind their choice—the broom, witches, the dark arts of women. No one discussed it publicly, but in private, the campus was scandalized that the women were being so radical.

  If the group had indeed once existed, as rumored, it had long since been disbanded, but the legend of the Broom Society continued.

  The relations between the sexes, while not exactly warm, had since thawed enough that the rumored society was no longer necessary, and the girls had become more interested in joining one of the nascent sorority organizations that were already being founded in other universities, particularly in the West. But the significance of their predecessors’ secret society was lost upon none of them.

  “Let’s reconvene the Society of the Broom,” Maud said. “We can hold a séance.”

  “Oh, Maud!” Jessie Mary breathed. “Are you a medium?”

  “Of course not,” Maud said. “But tomorrow is Hallowe’en, so why not try it?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Josie said.

  “It won’t be a real séance,” Maud insisted. “We’re just doing it as a lark. The boys have all kinds of fun in their secret fraternities—this will be our secret ritual. We won’t breathe a word about it.”

  “Sorcery…” Jessie Mary murmured, as if bewitched by the mere sound of the word.

  “We all know that witchcraft and sorcery are nothing more than superstition,” Maud said decisively, lowering the broom. “But I say we have a right to a little bit of fun while the boys are outside making mischief.”

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT NIGHT, a few minutes before midnight, nine intrepid girls were crowded into Maud and Josie’s room. Maud had placed a small table in the center of the room, and she told the girls, who were pressed shoulder to shoulder, to each place both hands on the table.

  “I will act as the medium,” she announced. “Because I’m not afraid of the supernatural, and I don’t believe in it, so if anything happens, we’ll know that it’s true.”

  The girls all nodded their assent. No one but Maud would be bold enough to try to act as a medium.

  The night of Hallowe’en was frigid and still. Sharp pinpoints of starlight shone through the window. The gas lamps were extinguished, and the girls’ faces were shadowed, but their white dressing gowns glowed in the dark.

  “Silence,” Maud said in a firm voice. “No laughing, no giggling, no talking. We must all be perfectly still.” Maud struck a match and lit a wax candle, placing it in the center of the table. The girls stared solemnly at the flame.

  Matilda had always maintained an interest in the occult and spiritualist practices. But Maud herself knew little about any of it except what she had picked up from her mother. She thought this was all just playacting, though s
he knew from the attitude of the other girls that many of them were inclined to believe.

  “On this All Hallows’ Eve,” Maud intoned. Josie giggled. Maud nudged her under the table. “We summon the spirits….If you hear us, please give us a sign.”

  The room was quiet, but filled with the muffled sounds of young bodies trying to stay still: the shuffling of feet, cleared throats, loud breathing. The silence went on and on until Maud sensed that their concentration was just about to break.

  Without giving any outward sign, she pushed up on the table, very slightly, until the side she was holding levitated just above the ground.

  The change in the room was electric. The table seemed to move even higher now, as if several of the girls were buoying it into the air. Their faces were shadowed, so she couldn’t read their expressions, but she decided to continue to play along.

  “We have received a sign!” Maud said in her most dramatic voice, channeling Susan B. Anthony as she whipped up a lyceum crowd.

  Maud heard Jessie Mary’s audible gasp and felt her startle beside her, which only made the table shake more.

  “Can you answer some of our questions?” Maud asked, in the same portentous tones.

  This time, Jessie Mary didn’t move, so Maud surreptitiously rocked the table herself.

  The girls sat perfectly motionless, their attention rapt. Maud was enjoying herself. “Who has a question for the spirits?” she intoned, her voice grand.

  The air of expectancy in the room was palpable.

  Josie coughed, and a half-strangled word died on her lips.

  “Josie? Do you have a question? Be bold! Speak up!”

  “Well…I…”

  “Spirits, Miss Josie Baum would like to ask a question. Do you agree to accept her question?”

  Maud waited to see what would happen, but nothing did.