by Sydney Avey
Once off the train, conversation dissipated in the din and clatter around them. Amanda weaved through the crowd, Opal on her hip. Mabel and Johnny tripped along after her, and Nellie straggled behind, lost in thought. Why had she let her mother drag her into such an unprofitable conversation? I’m unfit as a wife, and a mother. It wasn’t that she wanted to earn a paycheck. Any money she brought in would do nothing to ease the tension between her and John. No: what she wanted was to use her mind to higher purposes than converting measurements in recipes. John had no use for a wife with a mind of her own. But her mother was right. She had made her bed.
Nellie raised her head just as her little brood turned the corner into the train station waiting room. She scurried to catch up, got past the older children, and reached out to tug at Amanda’s sleeve.
“Look over here.” She pointed out the Harvey House, known for excellent service and delicious meals. Panoramic windows glistened, drawing attention to the Harvey Girls bustling about inside, bibbed white aprons gleaming against their black dresses. “Let’s treat ourselves before we shop.”
Amanda handed Opal over to Nellie and reached for the hands of her other two grandchildren. “Let’s do that.”
R
Whatever discomfort the Scott family of five suffered on the long trip west would dim in the light of Nellie’s memories. Where did John get the money to pay for a room at lake-front Leland Hotel in Chicago? Surely such a luxury could not have been covered by the money they made selling the farm equipment and household furnishings, but she decided not question him about expenses.
Thoughts about her parents’ decision not to sell the land in case Frank or she and John ever wished to return vanished as soon as they pulled into Grand Central Station. More people milled about under the arched ceilings of the train shed than she had ever seen in one place. And the spectacular view from their hotel window? The prospect of reaching the fairgrounds by boat? Those benefits were well worth the five dollars they had to pay for one small room.
Since Opal was free, two dollars got them into the fair, and another dollar and fifty cents bought John and the two older children a twenty-minute ride on the Ferris wheel. While baby Opal struggled for freedom in Nellie’s arms, Mabel and Johnny took their seats in fancy twisted-wire chairs. John stood next to them in the glass-paneled car.
Soundless but for a soft clink of chain, the monstrous wheel began to turn. Nellie had glimpsed the children’s wide eyes and huge grins before the mammoth car rose so high in the air she could no longer make out faces. Brave, adventurous children. They would love California, she was sure.
The family spent hours at the exhibits. John called Nellie’s attention to the household appliance displays that included a prototype of an electric dishwasher.
“Lookee here, Nellie Belle. This machine will make your job easier. We’ll have to get us one of those.”
“Hmm,” was all she had to say. Other women gathered around the exhibit, oohing and aahing over Josephine Cochrane’s invention. The wealthy matron, the story went, tired of having her expensive china slip through her servants’ soapy hands and break. So she built the first automatic dishwasher, an engineering marvel. Good and well if kitchen maid is your job, but I would rather be Mrs. Cochrane. I want to be out in the world using my mind, not stuck in the kitchen operating a dishwasher.
They moved on to the Midway Plaisance, where they listened to gypsy music and ate Hungarian sausage at the Orpheum. Consumer goods vied with cultural exhibits for the crowd’s attention. They feasted their eyes and spent their imaginations and the contents of John’s money clip on as many experiences as they could cram into a day.
John and the two older children loved the gewgaws and gadgets. Nellie and Opal preferred the music and dancing. Both older children received a commemorative coin as a souvenir and a few cents to purchase a new invention called a picture postcard. Nellie bought Opal a toy tambourine with ribbons and set the toddler down on a grassy hill to exercise her legs. Toward the end of the second day, John passed around a box of Cracker Jacks. Then, hot, tired, and sticky-fingered, they trooped back to the train and began the long journey west.
If the fair opened Nellie’s eyes to the change new inventions might bring into their lives, crossing the Continental Divide opened her heart. No entertainment invented could surpass the thrill when the train wended its way through Homestake Pass in the Rocky Mountains and crossed the Great Divide. Granite peaks rose in the distance. Legions of junipers, pines, and aspens stood in attendance. Water danced the tarantella in rushing rivers. The panorama before her eyes cracked open a small hard seed in her soul that sprouted and opened to the sky. From this moment, I will not be put in my place. Not if it means giving up seeing and learning and trying new things.
Nellie’s reunion with Jessie at the Great Northern Depot in Spokane brought her to tears, not so much because of the distance that had separated them for so long as the happy look of self-possession she saw on her little sister’s face.
In the elegant clock-towered train station, Nellie set Opal down on her feet, and Jessie allowed her two-year-old daughter to slide down from her perch on her mother’s hip. The little girls stared at each other. Jessie put a hand of encouragement at her daughter’s back and pushed her gently forward.
“Opal, this is your cousin, Nellie Marguerite.”
Nellie smiled down at Opal’s inquiring eyes. “My namesake.” She kissed her sister’s cheek and laughed. “I hope these two will get along better than we did when we were girls.”
John corralled the older children and offered to find lunch for them so Nellie and Jessie could visit before the family had to board the train again. Jessie produced some snacks for the toddlers, and the sisters settled themselves on a bench.
Jessie took Nellie’s hand. “Oh, how I wish you were moving to Spokane so our children could grow up together.”
“I wish so too.” Nellie shook her head slowly.
“Spokane has come back from the fire. It will come back from the panic. There will be work in the mines and the lumber camps.” Jessie squeezed Nellie’s hand. “What has Los Angeles got that we don’t have here in Spokane?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say.” Nellie looked out the window to the comings and goings alongside the river. Then she faced her sister and blurted out her concern. “John’s brothers are going to be living on top of us. We have had such a good time on this trip, but my concerns will be of no consequence once he has his brothers around him.”
Jessie’s face fell. “Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t know either. I knew Samuel was there. I didn’t know about the others until it was too late. No matter, I will find a way.” Just then, little Nellie pushed herself up to her feet and began a determined, if shaky, run for the door. Opal scrambled to her feet and followed. Like two inebriates, the little girls weaved through groups of travelers until they were apprehended. They giggled at the game and tried to pull away. When they could not secure release, they engaged in a howling duet that turned heads.
A scowling John came striding through the crowd with his charges in line behind him; their smeared faces showed evidence that they had found a place that served their new favorite food, hamburgers with mustard and ketchup. “Good heavens, Nellie. Can’t you keep these girls under control?”
Jessie shot Nellie a look of sympathy. On the tracks outside, the train engines hissed and sighed. It was time to go.
6 - Loosening the Reins
6
Loosening the Reins
Los Angeles, 1894
The house Samuel had arranged for the family to rent turned out to be a tiny cabin in an orange grove at the end of a long dirt road. The grove had once been part of a large ranch whose orchards had been purchased and parceled into lots to be sold. The citrus industry was slowly moving to the Central Valley, leaving a grid of irrigation systems that would turn the scenic floodplain into subdivisions of small farms and sprawling neighborhood
s.
Nellie sat on the front porch steps, her children gathered around her. She looked out across the road dotted with yucca, and up into the empty hills. In the dirt yard, the men stood in a tight gathering, smoking cigarettes and belching comfortably after a meal of chili con carne.
Samuel stretched out his hand and pointed to a two story house with a barn in the distance. He swept his arm around in the direction of a smaller house, whose entrance off the road was marked by palm trees. “In time, this will all fill in with houses.”
His brother Charlie pushed his hat back and wiped his forehead. “The American Dream; every house sitting in the middle of a garden with an orange tree in the backyard.”
Brother Jimmy looked over to where the children played jacks on the porch step and trained his eyes on the back of Johnny’s head. When the boy looked up, his uncle waved him over. Johnny dropped his handful of jacks and slipped into the circle between his uncle and his father. Jimmy tousled the boy’s unkempt hair and added his piece to the conversation. “Have you ever tasted an avocado? They grow ‘em down by San Diego. Man, they are tasty. The Mexicans, they smash ’em up with lime juice, onions and tomatoes, salt, other stuff I don’t know—muy bueno.” He kissed his fingertips.
My Johnny looks more like his father every day. Nellie called for her boy. “It’s time to go in now, Johnny. You have homework to finish.”
“Finished it.” Johnny did not turn around. He moved closer to his father, who put an arm around his son’s shoulder and pulled him off balance. John let go just as quickly, causing the boy to stumble. Johnny righted himself and laughed. The two of them reminded Nellie of the mule deer she had seen in the lower elevations of the San Gabriel Forest. In the spring, young bucks sparred with each other, testing their strength. She doubted that Johnny had finished his homework, but without John’s support, there wasn’t much she could do.
The sun beamed low in the grove now. Mabel had gone into the cabin to sit at the table and finish her homework. Nellie led Opal back inside, prepared her for bed, and tucked her into a small cot wedged between the wall and the double bed where Nellie and John slept. The only good thing about this arrangement was that there weren’t likely to be any more children. John was too tired anyway. Forty-three and in his prime, nevertheless long hours swinging a hammer wore him out. After work, he was more likely to replenish his spirits from a bottle of whiskey in the company of his crew or his brothers than he was to come home to Nellie.
Evenings after the children were in bed she sat on the porch step hugging her knees and looking up and down the empty road. In all this open space, how could she feel so confined? It helped when she lifted her head to trace the endless sweep of the star-studded Milky Way across the night sky. She marveled that the galaxy seemed to have no beginning and no end. Tonight was so quiet that if she ceased listening to her complaining heart, she would hear the owl begin her hunt.
Nellie strained her ears to hear the soft hoot. She was rewarded instead with the joyful yip of a lone coyote in the distance. Soon the pup would be joined by others. She felt a tightness in her groin. When was the last time I felt whooping, hollering joy? Tendrils of her hair swished across her cheeks in the night breeze, triggering a memory of the days when she raced her pony across the plains, her loose hair flying. She reached behind her head and undid the pins that fastened her hair, shook it out, let it fall. Another memory shook loose of one night back in Kansas when the children had their own bedrooms. John had been full of hope for their future. Under the covers, he reached for her and all their differences melted away. One timeless moment of slow-dancing what was usually a rushed affair. That night, a guttural sound rose in Nellie that John had never heard before, not from a lady. As close to a whoop and a holler as she supposed she would ever get. It embarrassed them both. It never happened again.
Nellie re-pinned her hair. Far off, the lone coyote set off a chorus of noisy celebrants. What did they celebrate? Freedom to roam and howl and hunt for food, she imagined.
John had promised her that once he built up some savings, they would buy a lot and he would build her a house. She dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her temples. No! No, no, no. It wasn’t the cabin that cramped. If he built her a mansion, like the Queen Annes in Lincoln Heights, she would still feel … what? Soul. Crushing. Boredom. Only sweet moments with her children kept her from despair. That, and the thought that they wouldn’t be children forever. When her job was done, she would still be young.
Nellie released the breath she had been holding. She gave herself to the vast expanse of stars overhead and the symphony of revelers satisfying their hunger in the moonlight. But for the loosening of the reins on her horse, and following the sensations John raised in her that one time, when had she ever felt free? There were times. Listening to Dvorak’s New World Symphony at the World’s Fair took her out of herself. Cresting the top of the Rockies, the sight of nature’s panorama dwarfed and enlarged her at the same time. Thrilling. Longing would kill her if she didn’t find a way to satisfy whatever primal urge compelled her to pace her cage and chew at the lock, instead of her foot.
You don’t have to chew your foot off to be free. Watch. Bide your time. Your turn will come.
R
It was the approaching turn of the century that turned up the heat on Nellie’s plans. They had not argued. Nothing had changed. John continued to work long days at various construction sites and wile away his evenings telling stories at the local tavern or swapping tales with his brothers around the dinner table at one of their homes. Weekends, he took Johnny fishing. He spoke politely to Nellie and did not ask her any questions about how she filled her time.
For her part, Nellie kept a clean house and a full larder. The meals she prepared for her children were nutritious but unimaginative. She mended their clothing, corrected their homework, and dreamed about the day she could slip away, conscience free.
John had made it clear that he would not allow her to work for a salary, but nothing prevented her from volunteering to teach poor young women the Graham method of shorthand so they could get jobs.
Nellie smiled to herself as she recalled the day she pulled a copy of Andrew Graham’s shorthand primer from a moldy box of books. Easterners had sent religious and educational books earmarked for the children of families whose fortunes had withered when locust stripped the wheat stalks bare. While her brothers fought over a copy of The Youth’s Companion, she secreted away the tattered manual full of odd squiggles.
That winter, she assigned herself exercises from the book. She sweet-talked her brothers into reading aloud from The Old Farmer’s Almanac so she could practice transcribing from speech. By her thirteenth birthday, she was proficient enough to accompany her mother to her historical society meetings in Topeka to record the speaker’s comments so Amanda could write them up for the local town newspaper.
Back then Nellie did not consider her wizardry with a pencil much more than a parlor trick to amuse her mother’s friends. Now the world was opening up to young women with secretarial skills who were unencumbered. Approaching her late thirties with Opal still in grade school, Nellie could not count herself young or unencumbered, but her experience teaching night school opened her eyes. She earned the praise of her students and the night school administration for her diligence and quick mind. She gave no hint that she had never employed her skills in the workforce. As the young women warmed to her wit and encouragement, the hope that simmered low in her heart flared. Seeking no advice, saying no prayers, she set Monday, January 1, 1900, as the day she would board a train for the Northwest and begin a new life.
7 - The Sheriff’s Report
7
The Sheriff’s Report
Silver Beach, Oregon, 1908
Had it been only eight years since she made good on her promise to herself? It felt like a lifetime. Nellie’s discoveries had surprised her. Boredom was an element of any life’s work. Just when her children became interesting to her, they lef
t. She missed them every day. And John was doing surprisingly well for himself.
This day the train headed to Portland, where she would connect with transport over to Silver Beach. There, the very attractive Sheriff McFarland waited for her. He had some explaining to do. A fish and game expert on the government payroll had gone missing, and the governor’s office was not satisfied with the reports.
Nellie reviewed the scanty information she been given and jotted down a list of questions she intended to ask the sheriff. The bump and rumble of the train wheels on the tracks made working difficult, so she stuffed her papers back into her legal briefcase and reached for a small bag that held her few personal items; mirror, comb, lipstick, address book, pencil stub, and keys. And John’s letter. She smoothed the paper over her knees and stared at the familiar script. Small, neat, looping letters marched across the page in perfect formation. Try as she might, her handwriting would never approach that of her former husband.
John had met a woman with a young daughter. In his letter, he did not mention that Leota was twenty-five years his junior. That she had to hear from Opal, who heard it from Johnny.
The old coot, John was just like his father, Jobe. At least John had let some time go by before setting a snare for a young woman. That wasn’t fair. Jobe was likely looking for a nursemaid after Rebecca died. John still looked robust, handsome and cocky as ever. Most likely the young woman had set her cap for a working man who could provide for her and her child.
Nellie searched her heart for pangs of jealousy and satisfied herself that she felt none. Well, she might have a few reservations about the child. That another young girl would likely receive the attention Opal had missed from her father put Nellie out of sorts. And whose fault is that? The nagging voice of reason piped up. She silenced the self-accusation. No need to dredge up old reproaches.
The thrill she felt when she matched wits with her professional colleagues more than compensated for her occasional misgiving about her status as a divorced woman. Tiring though it was to be always on guard for the sake of her reputation, she was not as lonely now as she had been in her marriage.