Liz and Nellie

by Shonna Slayton

  “I’m a reader of Cosmo, and I want to read about romance.”

  Molly was incorrigible.

  “At least find someone to compare to Mr. Wetmore so you can judge whether you’ll give a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ when he finally bends his knee.”

  When I left home, I smiled and shook hands and received best wishes and kisses and hugs and last minute directions. To all, I appeared an excited traveler, but I hid how deep my worries plumbed. About how important it was to make all my connections and follow the myriad of instructions as best I could. For if I make a mistake – Oh! Will I get back on track, or will I find myself lost and abandoned on the far side of the world?

  With great force of character, I push these thoughts out of my mind before they overwhelm and make me quit before reaching California. Like Molly said, it’s best to look at the adventure full on and with positive outlook.

  At least my new hat, a fashionable glazed black sailor’s, is distinctly becoming, and my new black dress fits me very well. I could not have planned it better but for bewildered Mr. Wetmore to have slipped me a big bunch of pink roses at the last minute, which complemented my traveling ensemble nicely. He is a dear man, and I suppose we shall discover which truism is correct: absence makes the heart grow fonder…or out of sight, out of mind!

  If only I had had time to think about the trip ahead of time, I may not feel so lost right now, descending the train with my large Gladstone bag filled to bursting and a shawl strap slung on my shoulder. Nellie Bly is the more efficient packer, I will concede, as evidenced by a good-sized steamer trunk that will have to be carried for me, but I will be the most comfortable.

  Not knowing what occasions I will be dressing for, I have packed as much variety as possible: two cloth gowns, half a dozen light bodices, and an evening silk. I wish I could have packed more of my winter and summer wardrobes, but the decision was made and I have what I have.

  Wisely, I took the precaution of carrying plenty of pins and hairpins. I have had previous experience with their vicious ways and know that in critical moments they tend to play hide-and-seek. The only sure preventive is to have geologic layers of them all through the trunk, so that a shaft might be hastily sunk through one's belongings at any moment with a serene certainty of striking rich deposits of both necessities of female existence.

  “Excuse me, Miss Bisland,” says the conductor. “Can I help you any?”

  I glance up and down the station and find no one who looks like they are looking for me. “Yes, sir. Is there another location where I can meet my party?” They are supposed to assist me making my connection onto the next train. The emptiness of the station works its way down into my toes. Hopefully this is not a sign of future missed meetings and bungled up appointments. What a beginning!

  “Well now, this is usually where people meet up, but I can escort you around the station until we find who you are looking for.”

  We wander until the poor conductor, endlessly checking his pocket watch, must return to his main duties. He leaves me at the near-empty lunch hall where I sit all alone on a high stool at the counter and eat. Finally, I slide away into the night, feeling very homesick, very cross, and haunted by the bittersweet suspicions of the happy results of a tea-and-ham dinner.

  I make it onto the correct train and, after much futile wrestling in the small space of my sleeping car, manage to change into my nightgown. Immediately, I am out for the night, only vaguely annoyed at the coffin-like smell of the compartment.

  NORMALLY I ENJOY a leisurely morning, but when I pull up my curtains the next morning, I am delighted to see the sun about to rise. It strikes me that this daily occurrence parallels God’s original command of “Let there be light!” and it happens every day without me. It is balm to my soul, and I am renewed and confident that I can continue on this journey with or without humanly help or companionship.

  “Good morning,” I crow later as I find an empty seat across the aisle from a gray-haired couple. They are darling and likely number one hundred or more years between them.

  “Good morning, dear,” says the woman. “Where are you traveling to today?”

  I smile as I say, “Around the world.”

  The two laugh as if I were joking.

  “Really, I am,” I explain. “You have heard of Nellie Bly, the stunt reporter?”

  “Are you she?” asks the fellow eagerly.

  I shake my head vigorously. “No, but I am in a race against her. She left yesterday morning going east by ship, and I left last night going west by train.”

  He makes a clucking sound. “She’s got a head start on you, then.”

  Hmm. “So who are you two?” I ask, changing the subject.

  The woman looks pleased that I asked and she leans forward to confide in me. “We are on our second honeymoon. I’ve always wanted to see the winter orange blossoms in California, so we are on our way to Los Angeles.”

  The two go back to making doe-eyes at each other and I return to watching the fields outside the window. The man’s discouraging comment presses heavily in my mind. I will have to find every way possible to shave off minutes, hours, and, if I can, days.

  That night at Council Bluffs, Omaha, I catch just the kind of break I am hoping for.

  “Miss Bisland? This way, please.” A kindly fellow reaches for my bag, which I heartily hand over. He leads me across the platform toward a short train, painted all in white and with the name The Fast Mail. “Did you need to go into the station and freshen up?” he asks.

  “No, I’m fine, thank you.” What I want is to curl back up in a cozy bed – preferably my own at home, but a sleeper car will do.

  “You are in for a treat on this train,” he chatters on.

  “Why is that?”

  “This here is our new mail-train. We’re testing it out to see how fast it can go across the continent.” He smiles easily at me. “Just like you. Seems we’re all in a race these days.” He holds out his hand for me to shake. “Edward Dickson, General Manager.”

  My mood lifts immediately. In addition to the mail car, there is only one sleeper and the General Manager’s private car. We are as light and fast as a train can be.

  Before we get started, I am invited to look into the mail car, which is lit up by globe lamps strung overhead. Several clerks with green eye shades are busy at work sorting letters. Even they are in a race to finish their sacks and move on to the next. I feel it is a great conspiracy we are all caught up in, to move faster, faster, faster!

  The pace is tremendous from the start and, as we begin the climb up the Great Divide, my hopes continue to rise alongside. Already I am settling into my role as circumnavigator of the world.

  In the morning I find myself in the plains. I am the only woman aboard, and as such, content myself with watching the landscape grow more desolate and wildly drear, like the cursed site of some prehistoric Sodom sown with salt. The land is gray, covered thinly with a withered, ashen-colored plant. Settlements are few and far between.

  From time to time, we pass a dwelling, a square cabin of gray unpainted boards, always tightly closed and the dwellers always absent, somewhere on business. The only distinct proof I ever see of the human habitance of these silent, lonely homes is a tiny pair of butternut trousers fluttering on the clothesline. The minute American citizen who should have occupied these trousers is invisible and I greatly fear they are his only pair.

  But at night! The stars are huge and fierce, keen and scintillant as swords. The plains, though dull if you aren’t looking for interesting ways to describe them, allow for a night sky like nowhere else.

  Through the Bad Lands we speed, but not fast enough. Five hours away from Ogden, we are two and a half hours behind our appointed time. The General Manager takes to pacing the length of the train. Whenever he stops in our car, he fills everyone in on his race.

  “I’ve just telegraphed an engineer by the name Downing to meet us at the next stop.” He jingles the coins in his pockets as he paces. �
��If we don’t make our time, we won’t win the mail contracts.” Mr. Dickson stops and grabs the seat in front of me, squeezing so his knuckles turn white. “I don’t know what your race is worth to you, Miss Bisland, but mine is worth three quarters of a million.”

  After he storms off to the engine room, I think about what my race is worth to me. Certainly my reasons for going are different from Nellie Bly’s. She likes to be the first woman to do anything. The more daring the adventure, the better.

  But me? To do my duty as an employee. To help my magazine succeed. To have a little adventure of my own. To test myself, perhaps. Do I have what it takes to be a daring soul?

  I smile.

  I must, for here I am, though somewhat paralyzed at the thought of what will happen once I leave America.

  Presently, the train arrives at the next station and a gentleman of Irish extraction climbs into the cab and remarks with jovial determination, “Howdy, folks! I’ll get us to Ogden – or hell, on time.” He turns to me and tips his hat before he is off.

  The grade at this part of the road has a descent of ninety-three feet in a mile, and the track corkscrews through gorges and canyons with but small margin between us and destruction. To these considerations Mr. Downing is cheerfully indifferent, and pulling out the throttle, he lets the engine have her head at the rate of sixty-five miles an hour. Red sparks fly off the back wheels.

  The train rocks like a ship at sea, and sleepers hold to their berths in terror, the more nervous actually succumbing to mal de mar. The plunge of the engine that now and then whimpers in the darkness is felt through the whole train, as one feels the fierce play of the loins of a runaway horse.

  “Do you play whist?” Mr. Dickson asks me, discreetly averting his eyes from my clenched fists.

  “I do,” I say, forcing myself to breathe, and then join him and several others at a table. There will be no sleeping tonight, and I hope a game of cards will take my mind off my eminent death. As I recall, Phileas Fogg was known to play the game unceasingly on his trip around the world. Perhaps it was to keep his mind off these frightening fits of travel.

  Not far into our game, one of the train officers joins us and stands fidgeting at the General Manager’s elbow.

  “Yes, what is it?” Mr. Dickson asks, not looking up from his hand.

  “I don’t like the sound of the engine, sir. I think we should slow ‘er down before she blows.” He whispers loud enough for everyone to hear. “Or we’ll jump the tracks.”

  I am in full agreement with the officer and listen closely for Mr. Dickson’s response.

  Undisturbed, he takes the odd trick with the thirteenth trump. He looks over his shoulder at a passenger who appears to be quite afraid and says, “It is episodes such as this in American life that make us a nation of youthful gray-heads. Don’t worry. Downing knows what he’s doing.”

  “But Antelope Gap is coming up. The reverse loop?”

  Looks are exchanged, and then we feel the wheels lift off the tracks on one side of the car. There is nothing to be done but hold on and pray. We land back on the tracks, and before another breath can be taken, we’re wheels up on the other side.

  When righted with a shudder, Mr. Dickson sends word to Downing to slow down. That word is ignored. He takes one look at me and goes to pull the brake. The train slows, but not by much.

  To our enormous relief, we arrive in Ogden on time.

  Mr. Downing dismounts with alacrity from his cab, saying “Ah! These night rides are prone to give a man a cold.” Patting his belly, he saunters off to a pub with a swinging Venetian door, and we never see him again.

  The ride takes on a seemingly leisurely pace after that. My heart no longer resides in my throat and the others seem visibly relieved as well. We take to looking out our windows for signs of life and point them out to help each other recover from our thrill ride. There are frequent jack rabbits, the occasional coyote, and now and then an arrangement of tepees.

  Indians crowd about the train at every stop. The women who are carrying children allow us to view their babies in exchange for small current coin.

  “May I look?” I ask a pretty mother who takes my coin and turns her papoose to me. It is a portable wooden cradle, the original Baby Bunting. The contented baby is asleep, nestled in a cozy bundle of rabbit skins – presumably those for which “papa went a-hunting” if the Mother Goose rhyme were to be believed. A sister, about six years old, clings to her mother’s leg and stares at me with big, dark eyes set into her smooth skin and framed by Vandyked locks. Old women squat in the dust, huddled in blankets and fair ignore us all.

  The night before reaching San Francisco, we find our first trees again at a little wayside eating station where a long row of poplars stands up stiffly in the dusk near our path. I’ve never been so happy as to step off that train and drink in the soft and spring-like air, pleasant with a smell as of white clover. Could this really be November? It is like the first breath from a promised land after long wandering in a country of wilderness and drought.

  At fifteen minutes past nine, the nose of the ferry-boat from Oakland touches the San Francisco wharf. We have crossed the continent in four days and twenty hours – thanks to Mr. Downing – and the distance between New York and the Western metropolis is reduced by a whole day. A great achievement. There are crowds of reporters waiting in the soft rain to interview everybody: General Manager, engineer, conductor – even me.

  “Miss Bisland!” calls a young man. “Ted, editor from the Examiner,” he says by way of introduction, “and my colleague Annie Laurie. What do you think of rainy San Francisco?” He holds his hand palm up to catch the drops.

  I smile at the pair of young reporters who look about my age. He is tall and too thin and eager. She is average height and chubby. Regarding the town through New York eyes, I answer, “Your buildings are shorter than those we have in New York. Only three or four stories, it looks like. But they all appear new and fresh.”

  “On account of the earthquakes and our relatively young city” he explains. “But we haven’t had one in a while, so they’ve started to build taller.” He points to a few of the more recent buildings that have begun to climb, Babel-like, into the dripping skies. Looking between Miss Laurie and myself, he says, “I’ll leave you two to talk while I get my other interviews. Don’t you go anywhere, Miss Bisland.” He joins the crowd around Mr. Dickson.

  “Have you felt an earthquake?” I ask Miss Laurie, expecting the earth to shift at any moment.

  The girl shakes her head. “I’ve only been here six months,” she says, “like most of us.” She arches her arm toward the other reporters. “This is still a new town, new people arriving every day.”

  “Yes, indeed.” The place seems charged with a disrespectful sort of youth.

  “Are you looking forward to your trip?” the girl asks.

  “Now that I’ve had some time to sleep on it, yes I am,” I answer truthfully. “Though I do wish I’d have more time to spend during my stops. I’m especially interested in seeing Japan and China.”

  “What about Nellie Bly? Do you think you’ll see her along the way?”

  Oh, I hope not! But I can see Miss Laurie’s eyes appear to light at the name of Bly. Another young stunt reporter in the making. “I doubt it. We’ll likely cross paths and not even know it, like Longfellow’s Gabriel and Evangeline.”

  Once the interviews with Mr. Dickson are over, we make our way through the oozing mud to the station where I am to learn about my ship. Mr. Dickson has taken hold of my bag like it’s his own and leads the way for myself and Miss Laurie while Ted from the Examiner trails along like the young pup that he is.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Bisland, but your ship does not leave for two days,” says the young man behind the counter. “Your magazine has put you up in a hotel near here. I hope you enjoy your stay.” He slides a telegram to me.

  Secretly, I am relieved. I shall get a chance to take in the city after all.

  Mr. Dickson
sees me safely inside the Palace Hotel before saying goodbye. He assures me that the hotel, built in 1875, is the largest in the country with over eight hundred guest rooms. “Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch?” He glances at Ted.

  Ted from the Examiner steps into the General Manager’s shoes in taking over my itinerary. “A group of us is going out to the Cliff House for luncheon tomorrow. Some newspaper men and some from the mail train. You must join me – I mean us.” He grins.

  “Thank you, Mr. er…Ted. I would very much like that.” After I nod my consent, he is off, leaving me with cheery Miss Laurie, who has a few more questions.

  “Have you been a reporter long?” I ask the young thing as we walk through the lobby and into a square enclosure laid with a vast marble-floored court. The arcade is adorned with palms and ferns and heavy tables where several men are tipped back in their chairs reading their papers and smoking.

  Her smile wavers. “I don’t mind telling you, since you’re a reporter too. But this will be my first big story. You know, one not about flowers or tea settings.”

  Oh, dear. I better have something worth saying for her. But now that I am back on my own two feet, the madness of the adventure is setting in again and threatening to undo me completely. I hope I don’t give her too much of a story.

  5

  In Which Nellie Bly Finds Her Sea Legs And Gathers Stories Of The Other Passengers

  OPENING MY EYES, I found the stewardess and a lady passenger in my cabin and the Captain standing at the door.

  “We were afraid that you were dead,” the Captain said when he saw that I was awake.

  “I always sleep late in the morning,” I said apologetically.

  “In the morning!” the Captain exclaimed with a laugh, which was echoed by the others. “It’s half past four in the evening.”

  I blinked. Even that was late for me.

  “But never mind,” he added consolingly. “As long as you slept well, it will do you good. Now get up and see if you can’t eat a big dinner.”