The Hope Chest

by Karen Schwabach

  This was the vote that mattered.

  “Anderson.”

  “Aye!”

  “He was ours from the start,” Miss Dexter murmured. “And he never wavered. Bless him.”

  “Bell.”

  “Aye.”

  “Bond.”

  “They bought him,” Miss Dexter said through the fingers in her mouth. “Bought him like a … like a …”

  “Pig in a poke,” Violet suggested. She was far too nervous to care whether it sounded right—or was even true.

  “Forty-eight to forty-eight,” Miss Dexter said again. “We have forty-eight, and they—”

  “Shh!” the man in front of them hissed.

  “Burn.”

  “Aye.”

  “Canale.”

  “What?” said Miss Dexter. She dropped Violet's arm in surprise. A murmur was sweeping through the gallery. “Burn? Harry T. Burn voted for ratification? But Burn is theirs. Burn is an Anti.”

  “He's ours now,” the man in front of them barked. “Burn is ours! Burn changed his mind. If we can just keep Turner …” Violet nodded silently. Her voice wouldn't work. The clerk called off the men's names and they voted—aye, nay. There were no more surprises.… But would Turner vote aye?

  “God, let us keep Turner,” Miss Dexter breathed.

  “Turner,” the clerk called.

  Silence fell for a moment that seemed to last much longer than it did. For some reason, Violet could hear Mrs. Catt's voice in her head, saying, Seventy-two years, do you hear me? Seventy-two years!

  “AYE!”

  “YES!” Miss Dexter fairly leapt into the air. Violet didn't realize until she felt her own feet hit the floor that she had done the same. All around them the air was full of hats and yellow roses being flung triumphantly upward. The women around Violet were screaming, crying, laughing, and dancing. The man in front of her turned around, seized Violet's and Chloe's hands, and began to dance an Irish jig.

  Violet freed herself from the dance and climbed onto the wide windowsill. Down on the floor of the chamber, the legislators were dancing and cheering—at least, some of them were. Among the red rose wearers, only Turner and Burn were dancing. You had to say this for them, when they changed sides, they did it with enthusiasm. From above, showers of yellow rose petals fell on the legislators as people in the gallery made confetti out of their boutonnieres. The women who had been pushed to the sides of the chamber had come surging out and were leaping, singing, tap dancing. Violet saw a woman run up to Mr. Hanover, throw her arms around him, and kiss him on the cheek. Violet laughed delightedly. Everything seemed funny and wonderful.

  Yes, she thought, yes, it was something to be here on this day.

  It was sometime long after that, after the whole crowd had gone dancing and yelling down the stairs and out onto Capitol Hill together, that Violet remembered to ask Chloe, “What about Mr. Martin?”

  “Shh. He's not Mr. Martin anymore. We've changed his name to Hanover, in honor of our friend from Memphis.”

  “But you got him out? On bail?”

  “Not exactly,” said Chloe. “But we did get him out. He and Myrtle … Oh, my goodness. No.”

  Chloe had her hand to her mouth and was staring up at the capitol building.

  There was a man standing on the narrow stone ledge that surrounded the capitol, three stories above the pavement. His back and hands were pressed against the wall of the building.

  “I hope he isn't going to jump!” said Chloe.

  Violet noticed blond hair and a red rose. “I think it's Mr. Burn,” she said. “How did he get out there?”

  “Out the window, I suppose. Oh no, he's trying to walk along the ledge.”

  They watched helplessly as Mr. Burn edged his way along the narrow ledge. He looked very high up.

  “Why doesn't he get down and crawl?” Violet asked.

  “The ledge probably isn't wide enough,” said Chloe. “Poor man, he must be running for his life. From the Antis.”

  They watched in anguish as Mr. Burn worked his way gingerly along the ledge in the hot sunlight. Nobody else seemed to have noticed him. Violet was wondering whether they should call for help, and if so, what kind of help. Then a window creaked open and a woman leaned out. Violet and Chloe watched as she spoke to Mr. Burn, then helped him inside.

  “That's the library,” said Chloe. “That's got him clear of the House chamber, anyway.”

  They started down Capitol Hill. “Myrtle and I got Theo out yesterday evening,” said Chloe. “I'm sorry I didn't come tell you last night—but I didn't want to blow your cover.”

  “I blew my own cover,” said Violet, and explained how.

  “Good for you!” said Chloe. “Anyway, I've been up all night with Mrs. Catt and some other women, making phone calls to the two presidential candidates, Mr. Cox and Mr. Harding, and also to the White House to get them to call the Tennessee Anti legislators in their parties.”

  “You called the White House?” said Violet, impressed.

  “No, Mrs. Catt did that. She and Woodrow Wilson have known each other for years. The president actually wired Seth Walker and asked him to change his mind— again—but Seth Walker said he couldn't go against his ‘honest convictions.’ Hmph. Even though they're not the same honest convictions he had a week ago.”

  In spite of having been up all night, Chloe was much more cheerful and less tired than she had been all week. Violet knew just how she felt. The world was a brighter and more hopeful place than it had been an hour ago.

  “I think those phone calls helped,” said Violet as they wandered through the capitol gardens toward the street. “They got Turner to change his vote.”

  “And that was all it took, Turner and Burn.” Chloe shook her head, smiling. “To give twenty-seven million American women the vote. Isn't democracy amazing?”

  “How did you get Mr. Mart—”

  “Hanover,” Chloe corrected.

  “Mr. Hanover out?” This was confusing. “Did you, um, bail him out?” Violet wasn't sure how you got people out of jail, but she knew bail was involved somehow.

  “Not exactly,” said Chloe. “He and Myrtle are both at the municipal autocamp now. Come on. We'll take a streetcar.”

  “Why, where's the Hope Chest?” said Violet.

  “I sold it,” said Chloe, smiling.

  “Sold it?” Violet couldn't imagine Chloe selling the Hope Chest. “Sold the Hope Chest? But you said the Hope Chest was your freedom!”

  “But I was wrong,” said Chloe, waving to a streetcar that was jangling toward them. “Freedom is freedom. The Hope Chest is just a car.”

  The streetcar stopped and they climbed on. Chloe dropped two nickels in the fare box.

  “What did you sell it for?” Violet asked.

  “For getting Theo out of jail,” said Chloe. “The Hope Chest belongs to a graduate student at Fisk University now.”

  She looked happy about it.

  Freedom

  THEY TOOK THE STREETCAR OUT TO THE autocamp. The seats were all full and they had to stand. They didn't care. It seemed like nothing in the world could ever make them unhappy again.

  The city had built the campground to accommodate the new sport of autocamping, which had become so popular these last few years. Motorists could pitch their tents in the camps for free and stay as long as they wanted. Everyone was traveling all over America—at least, everyone who could afford an automobile and some gasoline— and people said it was just like the old covered-wagon days, only faster. But not much faster, because the roads were so bad.

  Chloe and Violet walked to a tent at the back that had been turned around so that its door faced away from the rest of the campground—to keep Mr. Martin better hidden, Violet guessed. But Mr. Martin was kneeling on the ground outside the tent, tending a fire. Myrtle stood beside him, clutching his shoulder possessively.

  “There you are!” He jumped up and hugged Chloe, then reddened and stepped back. “I heard already. We won!”
>
  “Theo, what have you done to your face?” Chloe demanded.

  Violet thought his face looked rather bruised and battered, and he had a black eye. He had also been given a terrible haircut, it looked like with a pocketknife. But Mr. Martin touched his scar. “I'm not wearing that stuff.”

  “You washed it off!” Chloe accused. “Theo, you have to wear it. And stop washing it off. I paid fifty cents for the bottle.” Chloe ducked into the tent and emerged a minute later holding a small glass bottle.

  “I am not wearing Lady Janis Liquid Face Powder,” Mr. Martin said firmly.

  “You have to wear it,” said Myrtle. “Miss Chloe sold her car to get you out of jail. So paint your scar and stay out of jail.” She took the bottle from Chloe and handed it to Mr. Martin.

  “You sold your car?” said Mr. Martin. Chloe nodded. “You shouldn't have done that.”

  “To get you out of twenty years in Fort Leavenworth? Sure, I should have.”

  Mr. Martin silently sat down on a log and let Chloe dab Lady Janis Liquid Face Powder over his scar, his bruises, and his black eye. Myrtle and Violet watched with interest. The stuff was a little bit lighter than Mr. Martin's face but darker than the scar. Once Chloe put on several coats, you couldn't see the scar if you looked at him from a distance. Or you probably wouldn't if you didn't already know the scar was there, Violet thought. And on a darker day, maybe.

  “Now we'll celebrate!” Mr. Martin said. “You ladies are about to taste the finest of Hungarian dishes: rakott krumpli and zigeunerspeck. Nothing else is good enough to celebrate the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. At least, nothing that is legal in these abstemious times.”

  He reached into the tent and brought out a paper sack, from which he began pulling out potatoes, onions, eggs, a cut of bacon, and a paper twist of spices.

  “Theo, you went grocery shopping?” Chloe said in dismay. “Anyone could have seen you.”

  “I only went to the camp store,” said Mr. Martin with a shrug. He pulled out his pocketknife, which Myrtle had returned to him, and began peeling potatoes.

  “You're hopeless,” said Chloe, sitting down beside him and taking a knife from her handbag. “We have to get you out of the country quickly.”

  Although it was still sunny, a shadow seemed to have fallen over the campsite. They all drew closer to the fire as if for warmth, although it was a hot day. There was silence for a moment.

  “I was thinking about Argentina,” said Mr. Martin dismally, slicing into a potato. “They say it's very nice there.”

  “Do you speak Spanish?” Violet asked.

  “No,” said Theo. He set a naked potato on the toe of his boot and sliced it in half. “I've been meaning to learn.”

  “What about Alaska?” said Chloe.

  Mr. Martin looked at her in surprise. “Why would I go to Alaska?”

  “Because Alaska gave women the vote as its very first territorial act,” said Chloe. “And because it is a territory, not a state, and they hardly have any laws there. And it's about five thousand miles away from Attorney General Palmer and his friend J. Edgar Hoover and their agents. And there are plenty of people there who have found it convenient to change their names.”

  “You seem to know a lot about Alaska,” said Mr. Martin with a depressed-looking smile.

  “She's wanted to go there all her life,” Violet put in. She remembered the picture Chloe had drawn for her of an Eskimo driving a dogsled.

  Mr. Martin picked up another potato and studied it thoughtfully. He looked at Chloe quickly and then back at the potato. “Do you want to go there, you know, I mean …” He stopped, at a loss for words, and stared at the potato.

  “Do you want to go there with him, Miss Chloe?” Myrtle finished firmly. “Say yes.”

  “Excuse me,” said Violet, jumping up. “I have to use the …” She stumbled blindly away from the campsite. She didn't have to use anything. She wandered between an autotent set up against the side of a Pan touring car and a red-and-white-striped tent that smelled strongly of mildew. She accidentally walked into the midst of a family sitting on the ground eating liverwurst sandwiches and pickles.

  She knew it was dumb of her, but she'd just assumed Chloe would be going back to New York. She had gone on thinking that Chloe would let Violet live with her, even though Chloe had changed the subject every time she'd brought it up. She hadn't thought that Chloe— independent Chloe, who had spent her hope chest money on a car and called it her freedom—would ever get married. Well, lots of people said they never wanted to get married and then they went and got married just the same.

  But they didn't go to Alaska when they did it.

  Violet wandered over to the bathroom. It had real toilets and running water. She wandered on and found a kitchen house, with real stoves in it. All this for free, Violet thought. They shouldn't have wasted their money in the hotel. But she supposed it had been the National Woman's Party's money.

  Chloe, Violet realized, had just come to the end of a long battle. Violet had cared about women winning the vote for the last week or so—ever since she met the woman waiting for her son's coffin in Chattanooga. And these last few days it had meant a great deal to her. But she hadn't fought for it like Chloe had. That Chloe would want to move on to something else now was normal, she supposed. That Mr. Martin should be the something else she wanted to move on to was … well, probably also normal. Only to be expected, really.

  Mother and Father would be absolutely furious. Violet smiled. That was some consolation. Furious wasn't even the word for it. They had wanted Chloe to marry a Mr. R., not a one-eyed, seven-fingered Bolshevik who was on the run from the law and kept changing his name.

  By the time she got back to the campsite, Chloe and Mr. Martin were standing side by side with their arms around each other, and Chloe's spare arm was around Myrtle.

  “I've always wanted to go to Alaska too,” Myrtle was saying.

  Violet decided to ignore all this. “There's a kitchen over there, with stoves,” she said. “You don't need to use the campfire.”

  “But we have to have a campfire or we're not really camping!” Mr. Martin said enthusiastically. He disentangled himself from Chloe long enough to flip the bacon in the frying pan resting in the flames. “In Alaska we'll cook like this all the time! No stoves in Alaska.”

  “It's very cold there,” Violet reminded him. “Most of the year it's all snow and ice.”

  “And dogsleds!” Chloe said. “And mountains!” She patted Myrtle on the head. “We'll have to wrap Myrtle up in a caribou parka to keep her warm.”

  Violet burned with jealousy.

  She knew that she had a home to go back to—she didn't want to go back to it, but she could—and Myrtle didn't. She knew that Mr. Martin had to leave the country or go to jail. But it wasn't fair. She had brought all of them together, found Chloe for Mr. Martin. And for Myrtle. And Myrtle and Mr. Martin for Chloe. That the three of them should all go off to Alaska and leave her was completely unfair.

  “I want to go to Alaska too,” Violet said.

  The three of them looked at her. Their faces were all sad, as if they all knew she wasn't going to Alaska.

  “Let's eat,” said Mr. Martin.

  They ate off tin plates, which, like the tent, Chloe had because she'd done a lot of autocamping during her travels from state to state over the last year. Violet had to admit that the stuff Mr. Martin had cooked was good, whatever it was called. It certainly didn't look like any of the things he'd put into it.

  “How did you two meet each other?” Myrtle asked.

  Chloe looked at Mr. Martin adoringly. “He hit me on the head with a shovel,” she said.

  “I did not!” Mr. Martin dropped his fork and tried to look annoyed but ruined it by looking adoring at the same time. “You walked into me. I was just carrying a shovel at the time.”

  “Why were you carrying a shovel?” Myrtle asked.

  Mr. Martin and Chloe both looked suddenly solemn.


  “I know,” said Violet. “It was during the Influenza. She was coming home from seeing influenza patients, and he was coming home from … from digging graves for them.”

  Suddenly Violet felt that she couldn't wait to be grown up and allowed to work, all day and into the night if she wanted, on something that mattered. Not taking care of sick people, necessarily, and definitely not digging graves, but some important work that needed doing. She wanted to feel again the way she'd felt this last week in Nashville: that what she was doing was going to make a difference to somebody. The way she'd felt when her class knitted blankets for French orphans.

  She thought about what Chloe had said, that college armed you to fight the great battles. She thought she knew what battle she needed to be armed for. She wanted to fight against the laws that put Myrtle in a separate train car and kept her out of hotels and away from drugstore lunch counters. Remembering the flat expressions on the faces of the desk clerks and the conductor, she realized that was a battle that could last a lifetime.

  And she knew, just as well as Chloe and Myrtle and Mr. Martin knew, that she wasn't going to Alaska.

  A week later Violet sat alone on a fence in front of the autocamp. She was waiting for some of the National Woman's Party ladies from New York, who had driven a big Packard motorcar to Tennessee. Violet was going to ride back with them, autocamping the whole way. Auto-camping was America's most popular new sport, but Mother and Father had always said that it was unsuitable for ladies and that one met entirely the Wrong Sort of People while autocamping. Violet hoped this was true. She expected she might like the Wrong Sort of People just fine. It would be an exciting trip, and Violet would be in charge of taking notes on the condition of the roads, which the ladies could then report to their automobile club and to the newspapers back home. The only bad thing about the trip was that there was a serious risk Violet might get back to Susquehanna in time to start school.

  Mr. Martin/Hanover/Arpadfi and Chloe had gotten married under the name of Hanover, which Violet was a little worried about because she wasn't sure it counted. They had gotten a justice of the peace in another county to marry them, a county where Mr. Martin had not been in jail and wouldn't be recognized. Getting married seemed to be the one occasion in Tennessee when it was all right to have white and colored people in a room at the same time, and nobody tried to chase Myrtle out.