Hayward stared at her and shook his head. “Charlotte, you’ll be going against the law.”
“Hay, I know more about who to vote for than most. Women are citizens of this country just like you. They work hard and make decisions sound as a man’s.”
“There’s a lot of folks who don’t agree.”
“There’s a lot of men who don’t agree,” said Charlotte.
Hayward grinned at her.
“I ain’t one of them,” he said. “I just don’t understand what you’ll be provin’ if no one knows you’re a woman.”
“I guess I’m proving that here I am, a member of this county that most folks respect. Most of them ask me who I’m voting for! And the only reason I can walk in and vote is because they think I’m a man. Sooner or later, they’ll all know I was a woman and my point will be made.”
“So, someday you’re gonna let people know you’re a lady?” he asked.
“Maybe. But whether I let them know or not, I’ll be wearin’ these same clothes and tendin’ my horses and runnin’ this ranch, same as always.”
He considered what she said and shook his head. “You know your mind, Charlotte, and that’s fine by me. You know how I feel about you.”
“I know.”
He gave her a big hug and acted like he was never going to let go. Then he got on his horse and rode down the lane, past the corral. Charlotte stood on the porch and watched him ride away. He stopped halfway down the road and waved his hat.
Charlotte waved back.
He put his hat back on and cupped his hands around his mouth.
“I’ll be back,” he hollered.
“I know,” Charlotte whispered to herself.
* * *
It was sprinkling when Charlotte rode into town that November afternoon, but a little rain couldn’t stop her. She hoped it wouldn’t stop other folks from getting out and doing what they had to do, either. Luckily, by the time she got to town, the sun had come out. She hitched the mustang and walked down the street and nodded to the people walking by. A big sign in the window of the hotel said POLLS. Some of the ladies in town went about their errands and didn’t seem to give a second thought to the long line of men in front of the hotel. Others gathered out front, in twos and threes, waiting for their menfolk, and acted like there was nothing special going on inside. Charlotte wondered if they really didn’t care. Or if they were going about playing their roles like she was playing hers.
One man came up and clapped her on the back.
“Glad to see ya, Charley,” he said.
Another man said, “Pretty excitin’ day, ain’t it, Charley?”
Charlotte didn’t say much. She shook hands all around and got in line with the men. She listened to them banter and joke around her.
“Heard Wyoming’s gonna give women the right to vote. I thought I’d heard everything.”
“What’s this country comin’ to?”
“What do you think, Charley?”
Charlotte said, “I don’t think it hurts nothin’. Guess they know their minds as well as us.”
“Don’t hurt nothin’! Them women fightin’ for this is just plain crazy, stirrin’ up trouble all over. They’ll be the ruination of this country. I told my wife that she wouldn’t ever be votin’ as long as she’s married to me, no matter what the law says. What does she know about politics?”
Several other men added their opinions.
The line inched up the hotel steps.
A little boy ran up, found his father in line, and tugged on his hand.
“Papa, Papa! The Tayor boy said Sarah and I can’t play ball ’cause I’m little and she’s a girl. And she’s fightin’ him in the street and he’s twice as big as her. Hurry, Papa!”
The father shook his head. “We told her and told her about fightin’. When’s that girl gonna learn?”
The men chuckled, and the father and the little boy left.
The line moved closer to the desk.
Charlotte got to the front and signed the book.
The registrar handed her the ballot. She studied the names. Horatio Seymour or Ulysses S. Grant, the conservative Democrat or the much talked-about Republican. She had listened to the talk and heard people’s debates. She had heard good things and bad things about both men but she knew her own mind and what she thought was right.
“You know who you’re votin’ for, Charley?” asked the man next to her.
“Yes, I do,” said Charlotte.
“Old Jake couldn’t make it today because he’s ailin’. Felt real bad about not comin’, but I told him one vote won’t make no difference.”
Charlotte nodded to the man. Would her one vote make a difference? Why was she doing this? Someday when people found out, would they just think that she had been crazy, too? Or would they wonder that she had a good reason?
Yes, she told herself. She had a good reason.
This was something she could do for that woman who stood up in front of all those laughing men and passed out handbills on the saloon steps. Something for those women out front who were pretending they didn’t mind that they couldn’t vote. For Vern, who hadn’t been allowed to speak up and should have been able to. And for that little girl outside who was already standing up for herself.
She smiled. And for me, she thought. Because I’m as qualified as the next man.
She marked her choice for president of the United States.
She turned in her ballot, then faced the crowd of men still waiting in line. She tipped her hat.
“Gentlemen,” she said, “may the best man win.”
Then she walked out of the hotel, got on her horse, and rode home.
EBENEEZER ARRIVED IN THE SPRING, just before the foal. He surveyed the property and grumbled about all the things that should be done. The pasture fence needed mending and the chickens needed a new coop. Margaret needed help selling the eggs in town. Charlotte was tickled because she figured all his belly-aching meant he’d come to stay.
And the foal? It came in the middle of the night. In the middle of a thunderstorm. It gave Charlotte fits and worries because it was breach, trying to come out the wrong way. She coaxed as best she knew, but when she was afraid they’d both be lost, she woke up Ebeneezer.
The two sat up all night soothing the mother horse who was as frightened by the thunder as she was by the birthing. While Ebeneezer tried to deliver the foal, Charlotte paced like an expectant father. Her mind was on the night she sat up with Freedom. And she was remembering Vern. If he were here, he’d be telling her to settle down. That Ebeneezer knew what he was doing. Vern had been right about so many things.
But Charlotte needn’t have worried. By the time the rooster crowed, a wet, folded-up bundle of legs was delivered. A filly.
The baby horse barely stood on her wobbly legs when Ebeneezer said, “There’s another one coming! Twins!”
And in a few frantic minutes, a colt stood next to his sister.
“What’re you gonna name them?” asked Ebeneezer. “You should call them Worry and Trouble for the night they gave us.” And then he laughed.
But Charlotte got quiet and serious-like. “Naming something’s important,” she said. “And a name should stand for something. A horse’s name should be fitting for a fine animal.”
She watched the foals and didn’t say anything. The mare licked the colt and the filly started nursing. And after she’d considered them for some time, Charlotte crossed her arms and nodded her head with a knowing smile. It had come to her.
“Well, you gonna keep it to yourself?” said Ebeneezer.
Charlotte was right proud to explain her reasoning behind it all. And when she was finished, Ebeneezer had to agree. They were fine names. Important names that stood for something and were fitting for fine animals.
She named the colt, Vern’s Thunder.
And she named the filly, Freedom.
THIS FICTIONAL NOVEL IS BASED ON THE true story of Charlotte Darkey Parkhurst, also known as
One-eyed Charley, Cockeyed Charley, and Six-horse Charley. Following is a synopsis of her life, derived from research.
She was born in some part of New Hampshire in 1812 and lived in an orphanage or poorhouse. She went to Worcester, Massachusetts, where she worked as a stable boy in Ebeneezer Balch’s stables and remained there until Mr. Balch moved his business to Providence, Rhode Island. There she continued to work for him at What Cheer Stables, at that time located in the rear of the Franklin House Inn. Considered an expert stage driver, she worked for Mr. Balch for a number of years. For a brief period she left for Atlanta and then returned to Providence and worked in several other stables.
About 1849, James E. Birch and Frank Stevens went to California, and a few years later, consolidated several small stage lines into the California Stage Company. They recruited Charley to work for them. Shortly after arriving in California, Charlotte lost the use of one eye from a horse kick to the face.
Still posing as a male, by the 1860s, she was a noted “whip” or “jehu” (a Biblical term referring to a charioteer) of the time. Charlotte retired from driving at a ranch near Watsonville, California.
Her name (Charles Darkey Parkhurst) is listed in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on October 17, 1868, under the official poll list, “Containing the names and Enrollment for all persons resident in the various Precincts in the County of Santa Cruz, State of California, registered up to October 4th, 1868, and entitled to vote at the Presidential Election.”
Some historians think that Charlotte first voted on November 3, 1868, at Tom Mann’s Hotel in downtown Soquel, California, where the Soquel Fire Station now stands.
After Charley’s death, it was discovered that she was a woman. Deeds and records confirm that Charlotte, disguised as Charles Parkhurst, owned property in Watsonville. Charlotte’s cabin was near the Seven Mile House, a former stagecoach stop and hotel. This way station for travelers on the Santa Cruz to Watsonville stage line was located on a road that was later named Freedom Boulevard. Charlotte also registered to vote in Santa Cruz County, fifty-two years before any woman would be allowed to vote in federal elections in the United States.
In 1955, the Pajaro Valley Historical Association marked her grave with a monument that reads:
I have tried to keep the story line close to her real life but for the purposes of the novel, I sometimes had to take creative license. For instance, in actuality, Charlotte Parkhurst was born in 1812 and would have been 55 years old when she voted. I moved the time frame of the story to the mid-1800s, and spanned fewer years of her life, in consideration for young readers.
We will never really know Charlotte’s motives for choosing to live her life the way she did. Possibly, she did what she had to do to survive during a time when there were very few opportunities for young women. I suspect that she stumbled upon the chance to become a stage driver, that she was good at it, and that it gave her personal freedoms that she would have never experienced as a girl. That freedom would have been very hard for anyone to give up once they had experienced it.
In the words of her obituary, “Who shall longer say that a woman can not labor and vote like a man?”
Text copyright © 1998 by Pam Muñoz Ryan.
Drawings copyright © 1998 by Brian Selznick.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.
SCHOLASTIC, APPLE PAPERBACKS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
This edition first printing, June 2007
Cover art © 1998 by Brian Selznick
Cover design by Marijka Kostiw
e-ISBN 978-0-545-36029-6
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
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