Down the Rabbit Hole

by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

  The cupola swayed. The bell gave out one last peal, and then the tower collapsed, smashing through one floor after another. Nearly six tons of brass bell landed with a thud that shook the earth. A cloud of debris rose up.

  Confusion reached a fever pitch. The roar of the fire grew louder as it gained strength. Women and children dressed in nightclothes staggered under loads on their backs. Horses reared and kicked. Dogs howled and ran in circles. Cats darted in and around legs. Wagons rushed through the streets, laden with dry goods, books, and valuable papers. Men dragged trunks frantically along the sidewalks, knocking down women and children.

  The flames seemed to pour down one street after another like molten lava. We were a river of moving legs and arms, trying desperately to keep ahead of the fire, sweeping eastward, never stopping, until we reached the shore of Lake Michigan.

  There, along the shore, we huddled together. I tried to block out the weeping, the moaning, the cries of children searching for parents and mothers calling for their children. I wouldn’t look at the blank faces, black with grime; the bleary, staring eyes; the singed hair and clothing.

  I felt as though I were sinking, getting smaller and smaller and smaller, as I folded into myself. Too numb to feel anything, I could only watch helplessly as flames and plumes of smoke continued to rise from the city, shuddering with each new explosion.

  Daylight came, and the fire continued to gobble up everything in its path, eating its way north, even as the smoke swirled and carried bits of burned material that fell on us like black rain.

  Was I hungry? I don’t remember. Did I sleep? I don’t know. All I know is that late Monday night, I realized my face was wet. Had I been crying? I couldn’t tell. Then my shoulders felt damp. I shivered and drew my arm across my face. My dress was wet, too.

  A woman shouted, “It’s raining!” and it was true. It was raining, softly at first, no more than a drizzle, but soon the heavens opened up and a steady, hard rain poured down.

  Men and women and children cheered and sobbed and thanked God for His mercy. Perhaps I should have thanked God, too. I didn’t feel grateful. I had resigned myself to dying. Now, I had to deal with the cold, hard fact that I was going to live.

  The next morning, Tuesday, the sun was a crimson ball over the lake. I couldn’t look at it. I wasn’t ready for evidence that something greater than the fire was at work.

  Late Tuesday morning, word spread that Erie trains carrying donations of food and emergency relief had arrived — and more were on the way. My first thought? If a train can enter the city, it can also leave the city. I wanted out of Chicago as quickly as possible. There was nothing here for me anymore.

  I left the lakeshore and wound my way through the burned streets. Without the courthouse, I had nothing to direct me. Every street looked alike with its smoking black heaps that had once been houses and stores and churches. The trees were bare and blistered. Their black branches pointed northeast, the direction of the fire.

  Smoke filled the air, making it hard to breathe. I told myself that I was headed for the Illinois Central Railroad, but found myself seeking out Gwen and Peter’s house. I turned onto Sherman Street. Everything was gone. The Pritchard house was nothing but a blackened pile of ash.

  What did I expect? To wake up along a riverbank, as Alice did? To find that the fire and the loss of my brother were nothing but a dream?

  I sat down where the porch had once been and closed my eyes. I never felt more alone and despondent in my life. No wonder Gideon went away in his head after the carriage accident. I wished I could go away, too, and stay there and never come back. If I knew how to make myself go away in my head, I would have. I truly would have.

  I stood, dusted off my skirt, and started toward the train station. I passed men and women and children, moving dreamlike, picking through the rubble.

  Two streets over, a small, lone figure sat beside a smoking pile of rubble, making marks in the dirt with a stick. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. It was a figure I recognized with my heart. Gideon!

  I shouted his name and ran to him. I threw my arms around him and shed a pool of tears over him.

  “What took you so long?” said Gideon.

  I had counted the streets wrong. I had been waiting on the wrong street in front of the wrong house all along.

  There is no going back in life, just forward. In five days, this train will arrive in San Francisco, where Gideon and I will begin a new life. I have many skills. I can cook. I can clean. I can take care of children. I can teach.

  Before we left Chicago, I sent a telegram to Mr. Royce, my father’s lawyer.

  Gideon and I are alive and well.

  Tell Uncle Edward I’ll return for our inheritance when I’m 21.

  Our old life would end here except for one more thing. No sooner had the train whistle shrilled and the great wheels began to roll, than Gideon’s carpetbag swelled and made a tiny sound.

  I unsnapped the carpetbag and — oh, my paws and whiskers! — a gray-striped kitten with white paws peered back at me with wide green eyes.

  “Gideon, this has to stop,” I said.

  After Pringle and Gideon arrived in San Francisco, Pringle worked as a nursemaid for a wealthy family in the Haight-Ashbury district. She spent her wages on books and continued her studies. At sixteen, Pringle took her teaching examination and was hired to teach eighth grade in a public school. Gideon attended classes and graduated from the sixth grade when he turned seventeen.

  In 1878, when Pringle turned twenty-one, she returned to Scranton. Her uncle Edward had passed away the year before, and Aunt Adeline was stunned when Pringle showed up. Adeline was even more stunned when Pringle booted her out of the house. Pringle promptly sold the house to a doctor, the colliery to the railroad, and withdrew her inheritance from the bank. She installed a large monument to mark her parents’ graves.

  Pringle returned to San Francisco, and with her inheritance, she opened a private school, Miss Rose’s School for Girls. She located Mrs. Goodwin and Mrs. Robson and hired them to work at the school. The school curriculum emphasized the classics but included practical skills such as cooking, sewing, and housekeeping.

  Gideon worked as a custodian and grounds-keeper at Miss Rose’s School for Girls. He never quit his one bad habit of bringing home stray pets. His menagerie included a parrot that he rescued from a tree, four dogs, ten cats, a goat that followed him like a dog, and a pet rabbit that soon turned into twenty-one rabbits and Pringle said, “Gideon, this must stop.” At summer break, Gideon gave each pupil a rabbit to take home. In 1880, Gideon caught pneumonia and died in his sleep. He was nineteen.

  In 1892, a new girl enrolled in Miss Rose’s School for Girls. It was Merricat’s daughter. The two favorite friends were reunited and continued their close friendship for the rest of their lives. Pringle never married.

  Pringle’s cousin, Ellen, never lost her love of theater. At sixteen, she ran away with the magician in a vaudeville act. Her mother never spoke to Ellen again. Today, Adeline’s statue The Foundling would have been worth more than $1,000.

  Pringle never saw the Pritchards again. She wrote to the Scranton police department, reporting Cager’s involvement in her parents’ death, but neither Cager nor his accomplices were found. Cager is presumed to have died during the Chicago fire.

  Pringle never ate licorice again, but her favorite book remained Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. One day, over afternoon tea, Pringle read her diary aloud to Merricat, who was amazed at Pringle’s courage. “There ought to be a book written about you, that there ought,” Merricat said, which is almost nearly what Alice said.

  “That there ought,” said Pringle.

  Pringle’s diary became a bestselling novel, published in 1905. While touring England in April 1906, Pringle was devastated to learn about the terrible earthquake that struck San Francisco and destroy
ed her school. Fortunately, her school wasn’t in session, and so no students’ lives were lost. Pringle bought a cottage in England’s Lake District and lived out her life there, writing children’s books and painting and reading.

  Pringle Rose, her brother Gideon, their family and friends, and other characters in this book are products of my imagination, but the details of their lives and the anthracite coal miners’ strike of 1871 and the Great Chicago Fire are as true as true can be.

  Diary Keeping

  In the nineteenth century, girls from middle- and upper-class families were encouraged to keep diaries. Many girls like Pringle were given a diary as a special birthday present from their mothers, who believed diary keeping would encourage self-discipline, nurture good character, and help their daughters grow into respectable young women.

  For some girls, diary keeping was a social activity. At boarding schools, girls wrote expressively in their diaries and in each other’s. (Sharing a diary was a sign of a special friendship.) At home, mothers and daughters often read aloud from their diaries. Some mothers wrote helpful notes in the margins and offered suggestions. For other girls, diary-keeping was a private activity that allowed them to take risks and explore their feelings.

  Boarding Schools

  In the United States, girls attended private boarding schools as early as 1742, when a sixteen-year-old countess named Benigna von Zinzendorf founded Moravian Seminary for Girls in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

  By 1871, the number of private schools for girls was on the rise. Most boarding schools did not think a girl’s academic education needed to equal a boy’s. These schools emphasized traditional values, preparing girls for their future roles as wives and mothers and in service to others.

  But some more progressive schools offered a rich and varied curriculum, including subjects such as Latin, French, German, spelling, reading, arithmetic, trigonometry, history, and geography, as well as chemistry, physiology, botany, geology, astronomy, and daily exercise.

  Labor Unrest in America

  As the Industrial Revolution transformed America, men, women, and children labored long hours — usually ten to sixteen hours per day, six days a week, for low wages — in mills, factories, mines, and other industries. The workers had no vacation or sick days. They had no paid holidays. They suffered dangerous and unsafe working conditions.

  Many workers immigrated to the United States from other countries. Some of these workers came from countries where workers had already begun to organize and were fighting for an eight-hour workday and other concessions from their employers. In England, women and children had won a ten-hour workday.

  By 1871, American workers were forming unions in order to fight for higher wages and better working conditions. Workers had learned that when they united, or unionized, and acted as a group, they stood a better chance of making their employers agree to their demands.

  In the beginning, employers tried to prevent unions from forming, and even attempted to destroy unions. They refused to “recognize,” or to deal with them. If workers went out on strike, the employers hired other workers, known as strikebreakers or scabs.

  Other people opposed unions, too. In the eyes of the public, the employers were important men who invested their money, created jobs, and made the growth of the industry — and therefore the country — possible. The public worried that higher wages would mean higher prices. Furthermore, most employers were native-born Americans, whereas workers tended to be new or recent immigrants. For these reasons, many native-born Americans sided with employers, not the strikers.

  In 1868, anthracite coal miners formed the Workmen’s Benevolent Association (WBA). In early January 1871, anthracite coal miners went out on strike for the third time in three years over the issue of wage cuts.

  After the striking workers rioted in Scranton on April 7, 1871, the Pennsylvania governor sent in the militia. Despite martial law, the riots continued, especially as some men quit the strike and returned to work. A shooting incident killed two striking workers.

  On May 22, the striking men agreed to a compromise: They would return to work and their grievances would be decided by arbitration.

  During arbitration, an arbiter acts as a judge, listening to both sides and then deciding the verdict. After influential men depicted the striking workers as criminals, the arbiter favored the employers. As a result, the striking men lost their fight. The mine workers were given wage cuts. Employers were forbidden to hire only union men, which undermined the union’s power. This judgment made mine workers more determined than ever.

  Over the next five years, several more bitter strikes took place as the miners continued their fight for an eight-hour workday, higher wages, better working conditions, and recognition of their union.

  Workers Unite

  As labor unions continued to grow throughout the United States, employers continued to oppose unions. (By 1900, Chicago became one of the most heavily unionized cities in America — and a center of anti-unionism.)

  Employers fired workers who belonged to unions or who were sympathetic to unions. They recruited strikebreakers, or men who crossed the picket line to replace the striking workers. They created or exacerbated tension between ethnic groups in order to divide workers. They vilified unions and depicted unionized workers as criminals, calling them anarchists and Communists.

  Employers turned to lawmakers for help in enacting laws against unions. They also hired thugs to attack union leaders and union sympathizers. They formed private, armed militias and created their own police force, such as the Coal and Iron Police in Scranton and the Pinkertons in Chicago.

  After many bitter battles, unions won recognition and won many gains for workers, including higher wages, shorter workdays, and safer working conditions.

  In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) established a national minimum wage and time-and-a-half overtime wages in certain jobs. The FLSA also established child labor laws that restricted the employment of children.

  Property Laws and the Status of Women

  In the early part of the nineteenth century, women did not have the right to make a contract, which restricted a woman’s right to buy or own property. She could not keep the money she earned. She could not vote, run for office, or serve on a jury.

  If a woman inherited property or money, everything she owned became her husband’s — and remained her husband’s, even if they divorced. Her husband controlled all the property. Children were also considered the father’s property.

  In 1848, New York passed the Married Women’s Property Law. A few weeks later Pennsylvania followed suit, and over the coming years, other states would, too. This law gave women the right to retain the property they brought into marriage. The law also protected women from creditors seizing their property to pay their husband’s debts.

  Some husbands found a way to get around the law. In some cases, wealthy or propertied women were committed to asylums against their will because their husbands wanted to keep the wife’s property. Although some women may have suffered mental illness, others found themselves committed when their husband wanted a divorce, or when the women didn’t behave the way society expected a wife, mother, or daughter to act. For example, one woman was committed when she got a job without her husband’s permission. Another woman was committed because she held strong opinions that differed from her family’s views.

  Children with Disabilities

  Although it’s never stated in the story, Gideon Rose is a child with Down syndrome. His character was inspired by a man named Sal Angello, whom I knew for many years and to whom this book is dedicated.

  Although the characteristics of Down syndrome were identified in 1866, it took nearly one hundred years for a French physician to discover that the syndrome was the result of a chromosomal abnormality. His research led him to the fact that people with Down syndrome have 47 chromosomes, whereas
people without the syndrome have 46. A few years later, it was discovered that chromosome number 21 contained an extra partial or complete chromosome in people with Down syndrome.

  No one knows what causes the presence of an extra chromosome 21. The extra chromosome can come from the mother or the father, but most likely the mother. It is not hereditary. At this time, there is no way to predict whether a parent carries the extra chromosome.

  Babies with Down syndrome are born into all kinds of families, regardless of race, religious background, or economic situation. Thanks to modern medicine, increased awareness, and family and community support, people with Down syndrome live full, rich lives as family members and contributors to their communities.

  American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)

  The nineteenth century is also marked by a concern for the rights of animals. Henry Bergh founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in New York City in 1866. The ASPCA is the oldest and first animal welfare organization in the United States. By 1888, thirty-seven out of thirty-eight states in the Union had enacted anticruelty laws.

  Ironically, the United States enacted laws to protect animals from cruelty before it had laws to protect children. In 1874, when Henry Bergh learned that a nine-year-old orphan girl was routinely beaten and neglected at her foster home, he consulted his attorney. The attorney argued that laws to protect animals should not be greater than laws to protect children and won the right to remove the child from the foster home. Later, Bergh and his attorney created a charitable society devoted to child protection, the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. It was the first such organization in the world.