The Hope Chest

by Karen Schwabach

  “I'm Violet, Miss Mayhew's sister,” Violet said, introducing herself belatedly.

  “And yet you seem to be on the other side,” said Mr. Burn cheerfully.

  “Oh, well … yes …” Violet had forgotten about the stupid red rose she was wearing.

  “Your sister seems to have run into an old friend,” said Mr. Burn with a sour smile.

  Violet looked over at Chloe. She and Mr. Martin were standing with one arm around each other and the other hand clasped, in a waltz position, but they were no longer dancing. They were just standing there, staring at each other. No, not staring, Violet thought. Gazing. Nothing in Violet's dancing school experience had suggested that this was at all acceptable ballroom behavior. But Chloe and Mr. Martin looked as if they had forgotten that there was anyone else in the room.

  “It's just someone she knew from New York,” Violet said, then instantly bit her tongue. Mr. Martin was a fugitive, and giving any information about him was dangerous, even just the information that he lived in New York.

  “Knew pretty well, I'd say,” said Mr. Burn, and Violet was relieved that he sounded amused now instead of sour. Mr. Burn seemed like a nice man, really, Violet thought, except for being an Anti.

  The waltz was coming to an end, and Violet could sense that Mr. Burn was already looking around for an older lady than Violet to dance with. And if there was one thing there was no shortage of in this ballroom, it was ladies. Violet looked around desperately. The sidelines seemed to bristle with red roses. Ah, there was a yellow rose—Miss Pollitzer! And she was nearly as pretty as Chloe, Violet thought. Behind Mr. Burn's back she gestured desperately to Miss Pollitzer, who fortunately came over to rescue Mr. Burn just as the dance ended. Miss Pollitzer was a member of the National Woman's Party, like Chloe and Alice Paul, and she knew about Violet being a spy.

  “May I have the honor of this dance, Mr. Burn?” Violet heard Miss Pollitzer say.

  “Delighted, I'm sure, Miss Pollitzer,” said Mr. Burn, beaming. There was no question that Mr. Burn was enjoying the Susan B. Anthony Amendment very much.

  Violet looked around for Chloe and Mr. Martin but couldn't see them anywhere. Well, that wouldn't do. She needed to tell Chloe about Mr. Garlick's kidnapping plan right away.

  She wondered if there was anybody else she could tell. The problem was that except for Miss Pollitzer, everyone else thought she was an Anti. Mrs. Anne Dallas Dudley, the lady who'd been talking to Miss Pollitzer, was an important Nashville Suff, but if Violet spoke to her, Mrs. Dudley would assume Violet was just part of an Anti trap.

  She walked over to the elevator and pushed the button. Then she lost patience and headed down the stairs.

  Mr. Martin had gotten away again. He had told Myrtle to stay at home, but Myrtle, who was sick of Dead Horse Alley and of Mrs. Ready's hints that Myrtle ought to be in some sort of institute instead of traveling around with a suspicious-looking white man, followed him. They went back down Sixth Avenue toward Capitol Hill, then around the hill and along Union Street toward the Hermitage. It was Saturday night and the streets were crowded. There were white people everywhere, some with yellow or red roses and some without. Some were driving in open automobiles, stopping in the middle of the street to talk to passersby and holding up traffic. Horns honked. The music of a player piano came from an open doorway, a song that had been popular as long as Myrtle could remember:

  I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,

  I brought him up to be my pride and joy.

  Who dares to place a musket on his shoul-oul-der

  To shoot some other mother's darling boy?

  Myrtle would have liked to sing along, but she had to keep silent because she was busy turning invisible. She wove through the crowds, and no one saw her.

  Then Mr. Martin went into the Hermitage. Colored people weren't allowed inside, and it was much more difficult to be invisible in places you weren't allowed to be. There was a doorman with a double row of gold buttons on his coat. Myrtle retreated. There was another entrance around the side. There was a doorman here too, but a group of suffragists with yellow ribbons on their hats went in, and Myrtle slipped silently in with them.

  The desk clerk at the Hermitage was much too harassed to see Myrtle. The lobby was full of white people all talking loudly. Myrtle slid in among them, concentrating as hard as she could on being invisible. They were busy talking to each other and talking about each other. Myrtle could feel their gazes slide around her. She was doing a good job.

  There was a quiet area with some potted ferns and cut-velvet sofas. It looked like a good place for Mr. Martin to be hiding. A man and a woman were sitting on one of the sofas talking, but they weren't Miss Chloe and Mr. Martin.

  “I've just come from the train station, Mr. Hanover,” the woman was saying. “We had to let some of the legislators leave town. After all, it's the weekend. But we're afraid that those that won't accept a bribe to change their vote might accept a bribe to just go home and stay there.”

  A tall, bony man with tufts of gray hair in his ears came over to them. “Joe! Evening, Miss White.” He nodded vaguely at the lady. “Joe, I gotta tell you, you know that leak in my barn roof?”

  Mr. Hanover looked wary and put a hand over his stomach, as though it hurt. “You have a leak in your barn roof?”

  “Yeah. Well, them Antis offered me three hundred dollars to vote against ratification. You know I'm with the Suffs, Joe, I been with the Suffs since way back, but three hundred dollars … and with that leak in the roof …” He trailed off and looked at Joe hopefully.

  “Three hundred dollars?” Mr. Hanover sounded outraged. “That's all they offered you? Everyone else who votes with the Antis is getting a thousand.”

  “A thousand?” The legislator stared. “A thousand, and they offered me a measly three hundred for my vote? Those lousy no-good Antis—what do they take me for? Forget them!”

  The man stalked off, and Miss White and Mr. Hanover laughed. Myrtle would have liked to laugh too, but you couldn't do that when you were invisible. Mr. Hanover suddenly grabbed his stomach again and winced.

  “Can't wait to tell Mrs. Catt about that,” he said. “That was funny.”

  Myrtle edged carefully out into the lobby again. Mr. Martin was nowhere to be seen. He would be looking for Miss Chloe, of course. Myrtle was afraid that if she didn't manage things right, Miss Chloe was going to be Mr. Martin's downfall.

  Myrtle slid along invisibly to a room that she could tell from the sounds and from the gravy smells must be the dining room. She couldn't go inside, since she didn't trust her invisibility walking right past that white-suited white headwaiter. She peered in the door as best she could. She didn't see Mr. Martin.

  She slid back into the lobby. She climbed up the stone staircase to the balcony.

  She had gone up there to get a better view, but the balcony was full of people wearing red roses. One woman looked directly at Myrtle. Thinking fast, Myrtle whipped out her handkerchief, dropped to her knees, and began dusting the balcony railing. At the Girls' Training Institute, they had always been sticklers for dusting railings and that sort of detail. At least that's what Myrtle remembered from the few classes she'd bothered to attend. Anyway, it worked. As soon as she started dusting, she became invisible again.

  Down below, Myrtle saw Mr. Martin crossing the lobby with Miss Chloe on his arm. They went up a little staircase to a veranda at the front of the lobby. Myrtle hurriedly pocketed her handkerchief and went back downstairs to follow them.

  The veranda was made of stone, with a vaulted stone ceiling. It stretched the length of the hotel along Sixth Avenue. Down below, Myrtle could hear automobiles and a few horses passing and the voices of people in the street. There was nobody on the veranda but Mr. Martin and Miss Chloe and a very old white lady wearing an enormous hat. The old lady was approaching Miss Chloe. Myrtle moved toward them cautiously.

  Just then Violet came onto the veranda and ruined everything by saying, “Hi, Myrtle!”r />
  Everyone turned to look at Myrtle.

  “Hi,” said Myrtle, very annoyed.

  “What is this?” the old lady demanded.

  “Mrs. Catt, this is my friend Theo Martin,” said Miss Chloe, looking tired. “And my sister, Violet, and her little friend Myrtle.”

  “Your sister seems to be an Anti,” said Mrs. Catt.

  “I'm not an Anti, Mrs. Catt,” said Violet, covering her red rose with her hand. “I'm just wearing this. In fact, I wanted to tell Chloe—”

  “Preposterous!” said Mrs. Catt. “Just wearing the anti-suffrage rose? Do you have any idea how many women have lived their whole lives—yes, and died too!—for your right to vote? And you're just wearing an anti-suffrage rose?”

  Mr. Martin looked at the old lady with interest. “You must be Carrie Chapman Catt. I would be honored to shake your hand.”

  He grabbed her hand and shook it, which Myrtle thought was brave of him, considering the way Mrs. Catt was glaring at him.

  “You're a Bolshevik, aren't you?” said Mrs. Catt. She turned to Miss Chloe. “We do not need this, Miss Mayhew!” Mrs. Catt said. “We do not need anarchists and— and Negroes!”

  “I'm not an anarchist,” said Mr. Martin. “I'm a socialist.”

  “I don't know about you, Mrs. Catt,” said Miss Chloe coldly. “But I'm fighting for the right to vote for Negroes too.”

  Myrtle felt a sudden rush of affection for Miss Chloe.

  “Fine,” Mrs. Catt said. “But that doesn't mean you have to parade your little colored friend around now and scare these old Confederates in the legislature out of voting for suffrage. Do you know what a legislator from Mississippi told me?”

  There was silence.

  “He told me,” Mrs. Catt went on, “that the reason he was opposed to woman suffrage was that the white men in Mississippi beat up any Negro man who tries to vote and that he didn't really like the idea of having to beat up a woman. ‘Not even a black one,’ he said.”

  Myrtle stared at Mrs. Catt. She couldn't tell if Mrs. Catt thought this was a bad thing, or a good thing, or just a thing that was.

  “So keep your little colored friends and Bolsheviks hidden, please, until after the vote. Do you know how long we've fought to reach this moment? Seventy-two years!” Mrs. Catt said. “Seventy-two years, do you hear me? And now, at the scene of the final battle, you play games, you wear the enemy's colors, you treat the culmination of our years of sacrifice as if it were nothing more than a game of, a game of …”

  She seemed at a loss to say what kind of game it was, and Myrtle wasn't about to suggest one. Mrs. Catt was a frightening old lady.

  “Chloe, I really need to tell you something,” said Violet. “I beg your pardon,” she added as an afterthought. Myrtle had noticed that Violet's well-bred manners had been steadily deteriorating ever since they'd met. Personally, Myrtle thought this was a great improvement in Violet. What Myrtle knew about white people with well-bred manners was that they required servants to wait on them, and Myrtle was against that.

  Violet looked at Mrs. Catt as if trying to decide whether she could be trusted and then apparently decided she could, on what grounds Myrtle couldn't imagine. Violet hurriedly gabbled out something about a plot to kidnap one of the Suff legislators, although she wasn't sure which one.

  “Mr. Hanover,” said Mrs. Catt promptly. “Our floor leader in the House. He needs a bodyguard. I've been saying that all along. I'll have Mrs. Dudley talk to Governor Roberts about it immediately.”

  “Is he really a foreign Bolshevik?” said Violet, interested.

  “No, he's a lawyer from Memphis,” said Mrs. Catt. “But I believe he came from Poland as a child.”

  “Who was this fella you said you heard talking about it?” said Miss Chloe.

  “Someone named Mr. Garlick,” said Violet. “I hadn't seen him before tonight.”

  “A mystery man,” said Mrs. Catt grimly. “We've run into the mystery men in every single state. They always show up when the legislature is debating the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. Nobody ever knows where they come from.”

  A hotel bellhop came out on the veranda. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said, then his eyes rested on Myrtle. “I beg your pardon, but we don't allow colored people in the hotel.”

  “Come along, Myrtle,” said Mr. Martin. “Excuse us, ladies.”

  “I'll go talk to Mrs. Dudley now about that bodyguard,” said Chloe.

  “After you do that, let's all go out for ice cream,” Mr. Martin suggested.

  “In the alley,” Myrtle muttered as she followed Violet and him off the veranda.

  Politics and Gunplay

  IN VIOLET'S OPINION, SUNDAY WAS AN ALMOST normal day. They packed a picnic lunch of sliced chicken sandwiches, pickles, and Chero-Cola and rode in the Hope Chest out to a quiet field beside a river where there was nobody around to worry about what any of them looked like. They didn't wear any roses either. Violet and Myrtle rode in the wooden truck bed on the back of the Hope Chest. It was a bumpy, dusty ride, but Violet didn't care because she was wearing her horrible plaid dress and she was hoping to ruin it.

  She did, too. Chloe insisted that the first thing you had to learn about cars was how to take care of them, so she brought out a grease gun and an oilcan and showed Myrtle and Violet how to lubricate the spindle bolt and the steering ball socket and the universal joint and about a hundred other things Violet couldn't remember the names of. While the three of them climbed over and under the Hope Chest, getting gloriously dirty, Mr. Martin sat under a tree and read the Sunday paper.

  Then Chloe showed them how to start the thing. Violet doubted she'd ever be able to start a car by herself. It seemed to require two people: one to turn the crank at the front (which was tricky, because if the car backfired, the crank could break your arm, said Chloe) and one to work the throttle and the spark, two levers on the steering wheel. And you had to really listen, said Chloe. Violet didn't know what Chloe was really listening for, because when the thing started, it sounded like a barrel of tin cans being eaten by a steam engine.

  To drive the car, you had to use your feet to work the reverse pedal and the highand low-speed clutch and your hand to work the throttle. It was too much to think of all at once, and Violet was glad that they had this whole big open field so that she didn't have to worry too much about steering. Instead, she concentrated on using the foot pedals and hand levers to keep the car running as it jolted and jumped over the hummocky field.

  When it was Myrtle's turn to drive, Violet went to sit with Mr. Martin and look at the newspaper. Mr. Martin had prudently moved a little farther into the trees, out of the way of the Hope Chest.

  “Is the whole Sunday paper about nothing but baseball?” Violet asked, flipping through the pages.

  “Pretty much. Isn't it grand?”

  “Why is there nothing in here about what's going on with the amendment?” Violet asked.

  “They're probably trying to pretend it isn't happening,” said Mr. Martin. “Good heavens, I can't believe the Yankees lost to the Tigers. They should never have taken on Babe Ruth.”

  Violet noticed a story at the top of the page. “They caught him!”

  Mr. Martin started. “Caught who?” he said warily.

  “ ‘Veteran hobo at twelve is in hands of police,’” Violet read aloud. “Hobie. The fella who helped us get to Washington.”

  “Poor lad,” said Mr. Martin. “But he'll be off on his travels again soon, I'm sure.”

  Violet read the article. The reporter seemed very amused by the whole story and recounted that Hobie claimed he'd be off again in no time.

  “Looks like the White Sox are getting stomped,” Mr. Martin observed. “They deserve it after last year.”

  Violet looked up at Myrtle and Chloe bumping over the field in the Hope Chest (Myrtle, who was shorter than Violet, seemed to be having considerable difficulty seeing over the hood while working both the hand and foot controls) and then at Mr. Martin reading basebal
l scores. They all had something hanging over them, Violet thought. Myrtle had nowhere to go except back to the Girls' Training Institute. Poor Mr. Martin seemed to have nowhere to go but jail. And what about Chloe? Violet wasn't sure if Chloe saw anything after the Tennessee vote at all.

  Later she and Myrtle took off their shoes and stockings and waded in a creek at the bottom of the field. The water was pleasantly cool on their feet, and little minnows came up and nibbled on their legs as they stood in the current. Violet told Myrtle about Hobie being caught and sent home to his stepmother.

  “He'll take off again,” said Myrtle. “Probably already has.”

  “Do you ever think about what you're going to do with the rest of your life, Myrtle?” said Violet.

  “Yes,” said Myrtle.

  “Well, what?” said Violet.

  “I don't know. But it's going to be important,” said Myrtle.

  They walked farther downstream and tried to catch some frogs. When Violet finally did catch one, she held it for a moment, enjoying the cool feel of its soft clammy skin in her hands, and then it pushed off with its mighty hind legs and plopped into the water. Violet asked Myrtle if it wasn't time they headed back, and Myrtle said it wasn't, so they walked even farther downstream and talked about the things they'd seen and done and heard in Nashville.

  Violet wanted to know more about where Myrtle and Mr. Martin were staying, but Myrtle was curiously reluctant to talk about it.

  “It's called Dead Horse Alley,” said Myrtle. “We're staying with a lady in her house.”

  “Is it like the alleys in Washington?” said Violet, remembering the tumbledown shacks and heaps of trash and rats.

  “Sort of different,” said Myrtle with a shrug. “Look, there's some kind of animal hole over here.”

  So they went over to the bank and looked at a burrow under the roots of a willow tree and tried to decide what might live there. Myrtle was fun to explore with, Violet thought, a lot more fun than the Antis. But the world seemed to have been set up so that Myrtle and Violet would always be on different sides of an invisible line.