Jo shuddered to picture the scene—the weeping child, the mother screaming in her grief, the harsh light of a red lamp flashing over the father’s shocked, angry face. She swallowed hard, and read another column:
OUR CHAMPIONS
Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton are making an immense sensation in San Francisco. We have just received a number of letters from San Francisco—too late for publication in this issue—in which the appearance and success of these eminent champions of the right are agreeably and graphically portrayed. The CALL and ALTA speak in glowing terms of these ladies. We are impatient for the day to come when we can announce the exact time of their advent in Oregon. Ho, for progression!
“Who are they?” Jo wondered aloud.
Bill peeked over her shoulder and noted the direction of her gaze. “Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton? The suffragists, of course. You must have heard of them before now, darling. Every paper in the territory has something to say about the suffragists—little of what they say is good, I’m afraid.”
Jo shrugged. “I suppose I have heard the names, now that I think on it, but I’ve paid so little attention to the papers of late. I’ve been wrapped up in my students’ ABCs and haven’t looked very far beyond their slates.”
“Well, as it happens, they’re the very ladies who made such a stir in Portland. At least, Miss Anthony did, and her friend, Mrs. Duniway. You would like Mrs. Duniway, Jo. I had the privilege of hearing her speak, and she is a firecracker if ever I saw one. A teacher like you—or she was, until she founded the very paper you’re holding.”
“A woman running a newspaper?”
“There are all sorts of wonders in Oregon these days. The hullabaloo Miss Anthony raised when she finally made her anticipated appearance was not the least.” Bill’s stomach gave a tremendous rumble. “I rounded up as many issues of the New Northwest as I could lay my hands on. I knew you’d be keen on their stories. I’ve got them here in my bag; I’ll trade you for a bowl of that stew.”
All through the following day, as Jo held sway at the head of her cozy schoolroom, she found her thoughts returning to the New Northwest. Her spine tingled over the details of its stories of outrage and injustice, and its brazen, fearless tone sent waves of inspiration coursing through her mind. She mused almost constantly on the subjects of Susan B. Anthony and Abigail Duniway, the audacious lady editor of the New Northwest. She imagined every aspect of their persons, from their voices—certainly mellifluous—to the countenance of each lady. They must be splendid and bold, Jo decided, shining in the finest silks, tall and strong and yet so flawlessly feminine. By the end of the school day, the famed suffragists had taken the shape of goddesses in her mind, beings of stunning power who could reach out and shape the world to their whims.
She dismissed the children and stood for a moment on the schoolhouse steps, watching them bound like yearling deer down the lane. Then she locked the door and headed for her isolated house, itching all the while to put her hands on the stacks of paper Bill had left behind—all those fascinating issues of the New Northwest, laced with the tales of the suffragists and ringing with the battle cries of women.
The vote, she thought, awed and dazed, considering the subject with the same superstitious caution with which one examines fate or the will of God. Did she dare even to ponder it—what suffrage would mean to her personally? The vista of possibilities opened so wide before her that she stepped back giddily from its precipitous edge. Don’t be a fool, she told herself. The day might never come when you will obtain your own divorce. It’s too much to wish for; you’ll be disappointed. Yet a voice deep inside her heart said that it was certainly not too much to wish for: that the particular freedom she craved, and a hundred others she had not yet thought to desire, would be hers for the asking—hers to demand—if she could only secure that ephemeral power.
Day after day, when Jo’s work was through, she opened the New Northwest to reread its many passages, just as she had once done with the New York Times, in the days when she had pored over every word of Asa Mercer’s rebuttal to his accusers. The accounts of the suffragists—not only in Oregon, but in San Francisco, and elsewhere, too, in the great cities of the eastern states—took on the sheen of gold, and Jo read every column of every issue like a beggar counting up some unbelievable windfall of coins.
Jo read the papers so many times that when she found a small notice in the most recent issue, corralled in a fancy, scrollwork box, she sat still for several moments, blinking in surprise and holding her breath. How was it possible that she had missed this notice on all her previous perusals?
PROGRESS MARCHES NORTH
Our fair editor, Mrs. Duniway, will accompany OUR CHAMPION, Miss Anthony, to Washington Territory this September, there to impress upon the lawmaking men of the region the vital importance of woman to the legal process and sphere. “Clinging vines” will soon twine most avidly around Olympia and Seattle. Let us hope the “strong oaks” of Washington Territory can withstand the invasion.
Jo leaned back in her cane chair. An air of both sobriety and excitement descended on her, all in the same moment. The seed of an idea was sprouting in her mind—no, not an idea; an obsession. She knew she ought to resist the pull of the New Northwest, ought to shrug off the compulsion it instilled in her to burst upon Seattle waving a banner of strength for her fellow women to follow. If she were sensible, she told herself, she would stay hidden away on this quiet island, where progress never marched, but where anonymity shielded her.
But she had heard the clarion of the New Northwest. Its courageous call had stirred in her a deep, imperative duty. The cause for which these bold, tireless women fought was a worthy one—and would benefit Jo all the faster, if she could aid its progress.
The cause would not only benefit her. She would work for the sake of her female students, too—the girls in pigtails who bent over their slates, for whom the world was already fixing the rigid restrictions of their lives—for her students’ mothers, who toiled at hot, never-changing hearths to keep their children whole and fed. She would work for all women who wished to be free—freedom, that desperate need, the grace and mercy Clifford never would grant to Jo of his own accord.
Once she held the power of the vote, Jo could seize freedom for herself. She knew her hands were strong enough to claim that golden prize, to clutch it tight once it was within her grasp, and never let it go.
Jo laid aside the New Northwest and went out into her yard. Through the swaying pines, south of the island, she could just make out the blue expanse of the Puget Sound, and the tiny brightness of ships moving on the water. All of them came and went from the port of Seattle.
Clifford followed me to San Francisco, Jo reminded herself, succumbing to a shiver. He knew I was involved with the Mercer party. I told him as much in my letters. He isn’t so dull that he can’t piece the rest together. He knows to search for me in Seattle. He may be there already, hunting me, waiting for his chance to spring like a predator—as patient as a cougar in the crags.
That hunter in the shadows was a risk Jo had to hazard if she was to claim her freedom—her fate.
She dusted her hands together, as if clearing away the last crumbs of her doubt. Jo took one last, lingering glance toward Seattle. Then she went back inside to pack her bags.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
STRONG CONVICTIONS
Sophronia hesitated only a moment as she rounded the corner of James and Second. She could already hear the clamor of the prostitutes gathered on the brightly painted porch of the brand-new cathouse a block away. Their high, harsh voices lifted into the noonday sky like a flock of crows taking to raucous flight. Were they calling to their customers, Sophronia wondered, or did they shout and carry on merely for the pleasure of hearing their own vexatious voices?
Fallen women, Sophronia mused darkly as she pressed on toward the cathouse. Shakes—Jezebels. They were the commonest creatures in all of Seattle, except for the men who prowled around their cribs and
fancy houses.
Sophronia had dedicated the past seven years of her life to reforming the “seamstresses,” as the whores liked to call themselves with a wink and an indecent chuckle. The women knew nothing of needle and thread, but they knew the way out of their dresses well, though. Those years had been one long trial, an uphill task of Sisyphean proportions. As Seattle grew, attracting ever more men to work the forested hills, the lumberyards and sawmills, the population of seamstresses expanded at an alarming rate. Sophronia, having no husband or children to whom she might devote her time and energies, had thrown herself into the Women’s League and dedicated her every waking hour to the reform of the fallen, the salvation of their souls.
If one were to look only at the cathouses that had emerged like bright, poisonous toadstools all across the city, one might think Sophronia had gotten nowhere at all in those seven years of labor. But in fact she counted a few successes with justifiable pride. She had managed to open a reformatory of sorts, a home for fallen women who wished to leave their sinful occupations behind and take up, with time and education, as ladies worthy of respect. On occasion, Sophronia felt the dozen or so women she had guided out of sin were but a drop in the bucket of Seattle’s reckless hedonism. But one woman reformed was one fewer walking the streets, one fewer haunting the cribs—and one woman who would no longer aspire to severing the bonds of love between two good, respectable individuals.
If only that detestable Haypenny would turn up at Sophronia’s home for fallen women! She would show that beastly sop the meaning of reform.
Sophronia drew nearer the bawdy house. A few of its women lounged against the porch rails, calling to passing men, though the hour was still far too early for most regular customers. The choking odor of the women’s cigarettes hung thickly in the humid air. Sophronia tried to wave the cloud of smoke away discreetly, but even that slight motion caught the prostitutes’ attention, like cats twitching after insects in the grass.
“Here comes Sophie, prancing down the street on her high horse,” one of the women jeered.
Sophronia studiously ignored the jibe.
“Your hem looks long,” another girl called. “Have you come for … alterations?” She stuck her cigarette between her lips, grabbed her own backside with both hands, and swiveled in a suggestive manner. Sophronia’s mouth tightened with distaste. “I’m the best seamstress in the whole town, and my rate’s half for pretty women!”
The other girls roared with laughter.
If Sophronia had learned one thing from her past seven years of labor, it was this: one should never rise to a prostitute’s taunts. She glided by, head up, and did not acknowledge their mockery.
Then one of the prostitutes cried, “Miss Priss! Look sharp!”
Something bright and flashing spun in the air, hanging in a high arc above the porch before it plunged down toward Sophronia. By instinct, she reached up her hands to catch the object before it could strike her on the shoulder. It was a silver dollar. Sophronia looked up at the women uneasily.
“A donation for the Women’s League,” said the girl who’d tossed the coin.
The others snickered, and one of them, wide-eyed, hid her mouth behind her hand. But Sophronia nodded a gracious thanks and placed the coin in her collection purse, then hurried away. As she departed, she heard the women’s laughter swell. There was a sharp note of nastiness in the sound that made Sophronia uneasy, but she could only ponder helplessly over the event. Why would a fallen woman donate to the League? The seamstresses always opposed any efforts to moralize them—most strenuously.
Sophronia turned at the corner and headed up Front Street, toward the neighborhood on the hill, which she was slated to canvass this morning. It was one of the finer collections of homes in the city, and the wives who kept house there were usually pleased to donate to the League’s cause. Sophronia allowed her thoughts to unfold pleasantly into the near future, leaving the jeers of the prostitutes and the mystery of the silver dollar behind. Still unwed at twenty-seven, Sophronia might be an old maid, but her good works with the Women’s League had admitted her at last into Seattle’s high society. Once the outcast, one of Mercer’s scandalous cargo, she was now an upstanding member of the better class—by dint of her popularity with the city’s wives, if not by virtue of actual wealth. She enjoyed making her collection rounds, sipping tea with fine ladies, engaging in genteel discussion of all the city’s news.
She had only two more blocks to go before she reached the first house on her list. But as she passed the dry goods store, a familiar face seemed to leap at her from the small crowd gathered around the shop’s display window. The jolt of recognition shook Sophronia out of her reverie of pleasant anticipation. She stopped dead on the sidewalk.
“Josephine Carey?”
Sophronia had exchanged many letters with Jo since the older woman had departed Seattle for the island town of Coupeville, but she had not set eyes on her friend for many years. Jo’s face had grown sterner over time, and like any experienced schoolmarm, she exuded a definite lack of tolerance for nonsense. But there was something more in Jo’s mannerisms that made Sophronia eye her with cautious appraisal—a hint of anxiety that glittered in her eyes and laced her movements with a tight, jerky energy. Yet despite the fact that they had been so long apart, Jo gazed at Sophronia with a familiar warmth that brought smiles to both their faces.
“Oh—Sophronia!” Jo clasped both Sophronia’s hands in her own. “I’m so pleased to see you. I’d hoped I would bump into you today. It seems luck is on my side, for once.”
“What brings you to Seattle, Jo? Are you back for good?”
“No—no, I could never leave my little school. I love it too much. But I’ve come for … oh, it’s a long story. It’s past dinnertime; have you eaten yet?”
Sophronia had not. She found it prudent to go canvassing for donations on an empty stomach, as the women she visited often plied her liberally with cookies and slices of pie.
“Come on, then,” Jo said, taking Sophronia by the arm. “I passed a little coffee shop just up the street. Let’s have something to eat, and I’ll explain everything.”
They dined on elegant sandwiches, washed down with very fine tea, and Jo shared a most fantastical tale. She spoke of an Oregon paper called the New Northwest, and the many articles she had read in its columns. Jo was so enthusiastic about the stories that she leaned over their café table like a tree about to fall, but Sophronia found the snappish tone and bold proclamations of the articles rather shocking.
“I’ve heard of these suffragists,” Sophronia said. “We’ve discussed their agenda often at meetings of the Women’s League.”
“Aren’t they grand?”
“No, Josephine!” Sophronia set her teacup down with a rattling clank. “I think they’re terribly scandalous. Encouraging women to abandon their families and homes—a woman’s true and only calling in life!”
“They’re not as bad as that, Sophronia. Why, Abigail Duniway herself is a devoted mother to six children. I think the suffragists are intriguing.”
“In the way a rumor is intriguing, perhaps.”
“We were rumors once—we Mercer girls.” Jo sipped her tea with raised brows and a triumphant flush. She had a decided air of having caught Sophronia in a very clever trap.
“That doesn’t mean I wish to become a source of scandal again. You still haven’t told me what these suffragists have to do with your visit to Seattle.”
“I’ve learned that they’re coming to Washington Territory,” Jo said, tipping forward again in her eagerness. “Susan B. Anthony and Abigail Duniway, I mean. They’re to go to Olympia this fall and speak to the legislature on behalf of all the women in the Territory.”
“Speak to the legislature! That’s disgraceful. A woman has no place in a lawmaking venue.”
Jo tilted her head and smiled. Sophronia couldn’t decide whether the expression was affectionate or chiding.
“I want to hear Anthony and Duniway s
peak,” Jo said. “I’m sure they’ll give some sort of public address in Olympia. I came into town today so that I could find out more—learn whether anybody in Seattle is planning to visit Olympia and see the suffragists speak.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Sophronia said. “What female creature in this city would care for such an excursion? There are only two types of women in Seattle, Jo: respectable wives and mothers—and the seamstresses. The latter are too busy sinning to care for the likes of Susan Anthony and Abby Duniway. And the former are too sensible and refined to go chasing after something as silly and useless as a woman’s vote.”
Jo chuckled, as if Sophronia had just made some jolly joke. “Come with me to Olympia this fall,” she said, tapping Sophronia chummily on the back of her hand. “Come along and hear Miss Anthony speak. I know you’ll like what she has to say, Sophronia.”
“I most certainly will not hear that woman speak. The vote is nothing for women to meddle with. If the Lord had wanted the fairer sex tangled up in politics, he would have made us the heads of our households, rather than men. I have no desire to go against the Lord’s will. And you shouldn’t, either, Josephine.
“Besides, I’ve read some of the articles and letters these suffragists write. They’re pushing for women to work, Jo—to earn their own keep.”
“We work already. I teach; you edit the Women’s League circulars and give piano lessons to the children of Seattle. You know there’s no sin in a woman working.”
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