by Lynn Austin
“Quite sure.”
I watched the police load all of the liquor into my car. I felt exhausted. I hadn’t slept very well last night on that squeaky iron bunk, and I just wanted to get this over with and go home.
“I still have reservations about this,” Tommy said as I slid behind the steering wheel. “I don’t like putting you in danger.”
“You didn’t put me in danger. I did it to myself with my misguided notion of becoming a heroine. Besides, you’ll be watching out for me tonight, right?”
“Every step of the way.”
“And listen, Tommy. Please wait until I drive away so the bad guys won’t think Lyle tipped you off. And please let him and Bertha keep the money. They really need it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Thanks. Okay, then,” I said with a sigh, “let’s get going. I have a Sunday school lesson to prepare, remember?”
I put the car in gear and drove away, careful not to speed this time. My nerves felt jitterier than they had last night—but that might have been from all the coffee. The address Lyle had given me was on the other side of town and belonged to a run-down warehouse next to the brickyard. I could see the dark void of the river behind it and Garner Park in the distance. Tommy and his agent friends would be disappointed if this turned out to be just a storage facility and not a gin joint, after all. Presumably he had followed me, even though I hadn’t seen his car’s headlights.
I pulled around to the back of the building as Lyle had instructed me to do. The windows were all boarded up, but I did see a door. I parked as close to it as I could and got out of the car. I knew that I should have been nervous or excited or something, but I wasn’t. I felt wide awake from all the coffee, but otherwise numb. I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. A middle-aged woman wearing a lot of lipstick and rouge opened it a moment later. I was relieved to hear lively music and laughter coming from inside. It was a gin joint. Tommy would be pleased.
“I have a delivery from Lyle,” I told her.
“Just a moment.”
She closed the door, and as I stood waiting in the shadowy alley, I suddenly realized why Tommy had been worried about my safety. These people could tie me up and toss me into the river and keep both the liquor and the money. Who would ever know? I hoped he was watching out for me.
The door opened again, and three burly men came out. I backed up a few steps, but they were interested in my cargo, not me. The woman held the door open for them, counting the bottles as they carried the crates inside. When they finished, she pulled a fat wad of bills from her pocket and paid me.
That was it. The end of my adventure. The police didn’t swoop in with guns blazing, as I half expected them to do. The alley was quiet except for a train whistle in the distance. Tommy and I hadn’t discussed what I should do afterward, so I got back into Grandma’s car and drove to her house. She was in her nightgown and robe.
“Where in the world have you been?” she asked when she saw me. “You look like someone dragged you through a mud puddle.”
“You would never believe it.”
“You joined the circus and they shot you out of a cannon?”
“No . . . I spent last night and all day today in jail.”
“Oh, dear. Well, you’d better sit down and tell me all about it.” I followed her into her dining room, then halted in shock when I saw her table. It was bare! I was looking at a shiny wooden tabletop for the first time in my life. There wasn’t a paper or leaflet in sight—only my grandmother’s Bible lying open on top of it.
“Grandma! What happened?”
“I cleaned my table off,” she said with a flip of her hand. “And it was about time, too, don’t you think? But sit down, dear, and tell me why you were in jail.”
I drew a breath as if I were about to leap off Grandma’s swing into the river. My words all came out at once. “I’m only out on bail and I’m still in a whole lot of trouble, but Tommy said he would testify in court that my story was true and he thinks the judge might be lenient with me because I cooperated with the police and helped them arrest the really bad guys.”
I had just thrown a great deal of information at her, but when I paused to take another breath, she had only one question for me. She smiled when she asked it. “Who’s Tommy?”
“Huh? . . . Oh, you wouldn’t believe that, either.”
“Try me.”
“He’s Tommy O’Reilly, the police superintendent’s son. Remember the bully whose shins I used to kick all the time? Well, he grew up to be a policeman, and he’s the one who arrested me last night.”
“For kicking him in the shins?”
I shook my head. I felt close to tears because I was afraid to tell her the truth. “I was only trying to help a friend, Grandma. I wanted to do something brave and noble and heroic like you and Mother and Great-Grandma Hannah did. I even prayed for help the way Hannah did, and asked God to blind Tommy’s eyes, but it didn’t do any good. He saw what I had in my car, and he arrested me.”
“I’m guessing you weren’t hiding slaves.”
“No,” I mumbled. “Alcohol.”
“I see.”
“I don’t understand why God didn’t answer my prayer like He did for Hannah. She broke the law, too, by helping slaves escape.”
“Prayer isn’t a magic trick, Harriet. When my mother prayed, it was to a Savior she knew and loved and talked to all the time.”
I propped my elbows on the table and rested my head in my hands. “I’m so sorry, Grandma. I know you must be so disappointed in me. I know how hard you fought for this law and how much you hate alcohol, and the only reason I did it was because a friend was in trouble and she has two small children who were going to suffer, and besides, I wasn’t going to drink any of it or make any money for myself, but even so, I wouldn’t blame you if you were furious with me and—”
“Harriet, Harriet . . . I’m not angry with you.” She stood next to my chair and wrapped her arms around me, resting her cheek on my hair. I hugged her tightly in return and sobbed. When I finally stopped crying, she sat down on a chair beside me.
“You’re right, I have worked hard to make certain that alcohol was banned. I’ve devoted my entire life to temperance because I saw how much pain and suffering alcohol caused. But you know what? Every day now I read in the paper about the crime spree that Prohibition has caused, and I wonder if I’ve been fighting the wrong battle all these years.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jesus’ harshest words were for the moral guardians of His day—the Pharisees. They wanted to dictate morality, too, but Jesus called them hypocrites and whitewashed tombs. It isn’t our calling as Christians to write laws that force people to live moral lives. As much as our communities might need it, and as bad as things are, imposing our morality on others isn’t the answer. It doesn’t work. People may be forced to give up alcohol, but they are still going to hell. That’s our calling—to bring people to Christ—not to force them to behave the way we want them to or to solve all their external problems.”
She reached for my hand and held it in her own. Her skin felt as soft and fragile as tissue paper. “We can make stricter laws, Harriet, but people will just figure out a way around them if their hearts are hardened. The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, but it couldn’t make people accept the Negroes. They’re still hated and treated unfairly and given only the poorest paying jobs. When the suffrage amendment passes and women are allowed to vote, there will still be many more battles to win. Men who are biased against women aren’t going to treat us equally overnight. No, there aren’t enough laws in the world to change human nature. We’ve had the Ten Commandments since Moses’ time, and people still murder and steal every day. Only God can change people.”
“But your work wasn’t in vain, Grandma, just because people are breaking the Prohibition laws.”
“That’s true. But I’ve come to realize that our short time here on earth isn’t about what we ac
complish, but about what sort of people we become. I’m at the end of my life now, but when I look back on the work I’ve done, I see that God was using it to teach me to care about someone besides myself. He’s been working compassion in your mother, too. And also in you, judging by the risk you just took for your friends. And God also uses our circumstances to teach us to rely on Him. That was the first lesson I ever learned when I helped deliver those slaves in our wagon. That’s why my mother brought me with her in the first place. She told me that we grow stronger every time our faith is tested. That’s how we learn to trust God.”
“Am I ever going to get a real task to do?” I asked. I gestured to her barren dining room table. “Look—your work is all done. Even the table is finally cleared off. And Mother’s suffrage amendment only needs one more state to approve it and it will become a law, too. What’s left for me to accomplish?”
“Harriet, God has already given you a task to do for Him.”
“He has? What is it?”
“Jesus told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”
I sighed. “Where in the world do I begin doing that job?”
Grandma smiled. “Why, you start by teaching your Sunday school class tomorrow.”
It seemed like a very paltry beginning.
I thanked Grandma for forgiving me and went home so she could go to bed. I tried to sneak into the house and go upstairs to work on my lesson, but my father must have heard me because he came out to the hallway.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
I was about to give a sarcastic reply, asking the reason for his sudden concern for my welfare, but he broke into a smile.
“I’ve been waiting all evening to tell you the good news. Look, your mother sent us a telegram.” He waved a yellow paper in the air. “It says, ‘Tennessee voted to ratify. Suffrage amendment passed!’ ”
I could see that Father was proud of my mother, happy for her. He loved her. And maybe the fact that he could celebrate Mother’s victory meant that his attitude toward women was slowly beginning to change. Grandma was right; he was a good man at heart.
“That is good news,” I said.
“Yes . . . and perhaps Lucy will stay home from now on.” He didn’t add where she belongs, but I could tell that he was thinking it. I thought about all the changes he had endured since my mother became a suffragette, and I felt sorry for him. Sympathy was a tiny step toward forgiving him.
“Thanks for waiting up to tell me the news,” I said.
I went upstairs to my room and opened my Sunday school book to tomorrow’s lesson—and I laughed out loud at God’s timing. The lesson was on one of Jesus’ most famous parables. Two men decided to build houses, one on a rock, the other on sand. The storms came and the floodwaters rose—just like the great flood that had taken Grandpa Horatio’s life. The foolish man’s house, which must have been built in a place like The Flats, was demolished by the floodwaters. But the wise man’s house, built high on a ridge like the Garners’ home, was able to withstand the deluge.
This was the lesson that Grandma Bebe had been trying to teach me all along. It wasn’t enough to build my life on doing good deeds and heroic things such as helping Bertha and Lyle. I needed to get to know Jesus first, and obey His commands.
And I knew very well that one of those commands was to forgive my father the way God had forgiven me. I closed my eyes and prayed—a real prayer this time.
I had just finished dressing for Sunday school the next morning when I heard a knock on our front door. I sprinted down the stairs and opened it to find Tommy O’Reilly on my doorstep. I was surprisingly happy to see him. And judging by the grin on his face, he was happy to see me, too.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve come with leg irons to haul me back to jail?”
“Not at all. I’m supposed to be watching you so you don’t flee to Canada, remember?”
“Well, you’re just in time to help me repair my still. I’m turning grain alcohol into gin down in the basement.”
“Very funny.”
“How did it go last night?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe.
“The federal agents were quite impressed. The warehouse you led us to was a speakeasy, and we found a lot of valuable evidence inside. We uncovered a large rum-running operation, involving people in several communities. Yes, I would say it went very well.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Tommy had an incredible smile.
“Now, if you’re really intent on watching my every move,” I told him, “I’m on my way to church to teach my Sunday school class.”
Tommy hesitated, ducking his head as a shy grin spread across his face. “Listen, Harriet. May I come with you as a friend and not as your jailer? I would really like to be . . . um . . . friends.”
Now it was my turn to hesitate. I knew I had foresworn love and marriage and all the rest, but Tommy O’Reilly had changed a lot in the past few years. And my attitude toward him had changed, as well.
“I would like to be friends, too,” I finally said.
I could almost hear the roar of a waterfall in the distance and Grandma Bebe laughing as she said, “We shall see, Harriet, my dear.We shall see.”
Discusion Questions
1. Throughout the novel, Harriet is trying to answer the question, “How did I end up here in jail?” What insights does she gain from recalling Great-Grandma Hannah’s story? Grandma Bebe’s story? Her mother Lucy’s story? How does she ultimately answer the question?
2. What strengths did each of the four women—Hannah, Bebe, Lucy, and Harriet—possess? What were each woman’s weaknesses?
3. Which woman did you identify with the most? Why?
4. Hannah tells Bebe, “ ‘Smooth seas don’t produce skillful sailors.’ . . . God uses the turbulent times in our lives to prepare us for His purposes—if we’ll let Him.” What were some of the rough waters in each woman’s life that led them closer to God?
5. After the episode with the bounty hunters, Hannah tells Bebe, “Someday . . . God is going to give you a task to do in your own time and place. Then you’ll have to put your faith in Him as you follow your conscience.” What tasks did each woman feel God was giving her to do? How did the circumstances in her life lead her to this task?
6. Near the end of the book, Grandma Bebe tells Harriet, “Our short time here on earth isn’t about what we accomplish, but about what sort of people we become.” What are your thoughts regarding her comments? What other insights did Bebe share with Harriet regarding each Christian’s task?
7. Grandma Bebe is born on the same day, month, and year that the first Women’s Rights Convention was held. The story ends with the news that the suffrage amendment has passed. How did each woman’s “cause” contribute to its passage: Hannah and the Anti-Slavery Society? Bebe and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union? Lucy and her women’s club? Harriet’s job and the need for workers during World War I?
8. What was your reaction when Harriet’s father “fired” her from her job in the department store? How would you have reacted in that situation? As a young woman living in 1919, what recourse did she have to fight his decision? What other instances of discrimination against women did you see in the story?
9. What was the prevailing attitude toward women and their roles in each generation throughout the book? Did you see a change in any of these attitudes? If so, what caused it?
10. What qualities did each woman see in the man she married: Hannah and Henry? Bebe and Horatio? Lucy and John? What qualities do you think Harriet and Tommy are beginning to see in each other? Do you think Bebe should have married Neal MacLeod? Should Lucy have married Daniel Carver? Why or why not?
11. What do you think the next chapter in Harriet’s life will be?
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