by Lynn Austin
“Goodness’ sakes, you’re soaking wet, Mrs. Garner. Let me draw you a hot bath and take care of your wet clothes.”
“That would be wonderful, thank you. Your name is Herta, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
It shamed Bebe to realize that she had kept all of the servants at a distance, just as Horatio and her mother-in-law did, as if she were better than these simple, hardworking people. That was going to change. From now on Bebe was going to stop trying to fit in with the Garners’ socialite friends and be herself—a simple farm girl.
“And, Herta, kindly tell the driver—his name is Peter, isn’t it?”
The girl nodded. “Please ask Peter to have the carriage ready for me at six o’clock tonight.”
Millie White and two dozen other women stood waiting for Bebe outside Ozzie’s Tavern when Bebe arrived. They looked desperate but determined, and she felt an instant kinship with them. She should have done this a year ago.
“My husband is a drunkard, too,” she told them as they gathered in front of the saloon door. “We’re going to pray and ask God to help us close down this place. And we’re going to come back here every night if we have to, until it does close.”
“It won’t help,” one of the women said. “Our men will just find another saloon.”
“Then we’ll do the same thing until that one closes. I’ve been reading in the newspaper how women in other cities have done this very thing—and it works. Dozens of saloons have been forced to close their doors. The organization is called the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. I’ll write to them and ask for advice. We’ll start a chapter here in town. We’ll have more power and influence if we join together with other women.”
“What do we have to do?” someone asked.
“Well, besides praying, one of the Union’s methods is to write down the names of all the men who are patronizing the saloon and list them in the newspaper. The men should be ashamed of what they’re doing, spending your rent money on alcohol and taking food out of your children’s mouths. We’ll bring their actions out into the open and make people aware of how drunkenness affects families like yours.”
“I say let’s try it,” Millie said. “It can’t hurt none.”
“Good. Shall we bow our heads?” Bebe closed her eyes as she prepared to pray aloud. She had never done anything like this before, always praying silently in church or in the privacy of her room. “Heavenly Father . . .” she began. Her throat closed with emotion.
Desperation had forced her to turn to God, and she suddenly felt closer to Him than she ever had before. He was here, right beside her. This was the task that He wanted her to accomplish. And although nothing in her life was as it should be, God was still with her and she was going to be fine. She drew a deep breath and started again, pouring all of her passion and sorrow, all of her guilt and grief into her prayer. She didn’t stop until the saloon door opened a few minutes later and the owner began to shout.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing out here? You’re blocking my door! Get away from here!” He waved his arms as if shooing a flock of chickens.
“This is a public walkway,” Bebe told him. “We have every right to stand here.”
“You’re going to interfere with my business. Go home where you belong!” He looked down the street past the women and scowled. Bebe turned in that direction and saw a group of workmen approaching from the brick factory where their shift must have just ended.
“Let’s pray, ladies.” Bebe closed her eyes again, ignoring the owner’s angry shouts as she beseeched the Almighty to turn the workers’ steps away from the saloon and toward their homes. The women joined in with cries of “Yes, Lord!” and “Hear us!”
When Bebe opened her eyes to peek again, the workers had halted at the corner as if afraid to wade through the mob of women.
“Come on, come on, gentlemen,” the owner called out. “We’re open for business. Don’t let these crazy women get in your way.”
Bebe raised her voice to outshout him. “Ladies! Do you know the hymn ‘Give to the Winds Thy Fears’? Come on, sing it with me: ‘Give to the winds thy fears, hope and be undismayed; God hears thy sighs, and counts thy tears, God shall lift up thy head.’ ” Bebe sang with all her might even though only a few of the women joined her and none of them seemed to know all the words. “ ‘Through waves and clouds and storms, He gently clears the way. Wait thou His time, so shall the night soon end in joyous day.’ ”
The workmen held a huddled conference on the street corner, then slouched away. The women cheered, drowning out the bar owner’s angry rant.
Three months later, Ozzie’s Tavern closed its doors for good. Bebe, Millie, and the other women now began gathering in front of Logan’s Saloon—Horatio’s favorite place—to pray and sing. Bebe had made the rounds to all of the local churches, giving speeches to their ladies’ groups about temperance and asking them to join her crusade. Hundreds of women had signed The Pledge, vowing to abstain from alcohol. Her local chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union had grown to nearly three hundred members.
On a Friday night well into their crusade, Bebe’s women forced Logan’s Saloon to close its doors for lack of patronage. Horatio was the last man to stagger out that final night, gripping a half- empty bottle. The bartender cursed at the women as he hung up a Closed sign and locked the door. Bebe had the carriage waiting for her husband at the curb, and Peter, the driver, helped him climb in beside her.
“Let’s go home, Horatio,” she said.
“Are you happy now?” he asked as they rode up the hill in the quiet night.
“Yes. I am.” She nestled close beside him and took his hand in hers, lifting it to her lips and kissing it. She didn’t feel love for him yet, but God willing it would soon begin to grow.
“Horatio?” She waited until he met her gaze. “I love you.”
He looked away as tears filled his eyes. He still gripped the half-empty bottle and she took hold of it, as well. “May I have this, please?” She waited until she felt his grip loosen, then pulled it gently from his hand and dropped it over the side of the carriage. She heard glass shattering on the cobblestone street behind them.
Bebe wondered what Horatio would have done if liquor hadn’t been readily available. Might he have found a better way to cope and saved all of them a great deal of grief? She knew in that moment that she wouldn’t stop her temperance crusade until every last saloon had closed its doors and alcohol was banned everywhere. With God on her side, how could she lose?
She helped Horatio up the stairs to their bedroom when they reached home, then helped him undress. His clothing stank of cigar smoke.
“You’ll be happy to know that the country’s financial crisis is much improved, Horatio. The tannery is earning a profit again. You got overwhelmed, I know, but when you go back to work, you’ll see the improvement.”
He sat on the bed and kicked off one of his shoes. It fell to the floor with a thud. “Thanks to Neal MacLeod, I suppose?”
Bebe wasn’t sure what would anger him more: knowing that Neal had saved the business or that she had helped him. She decided to tell him the truth. “Mr. MacLeod and I worked together until things turned around.”
“You worked with him?” He kicked his other shoe across the room. “I suppose he found great satisfaction in that. He has stolen everything else from me—my father, my job . . . What’s left to steal except my wife?”
Bebe cringed, aware of how close to the truth Horatio’s words were. “It isn’t like that at all,” she told him. “You’re my husband, not Mr. MacLeod. You’re the man I vowed to spend my life with. And I’ve kept my vows. But you also made vows to me, Horatio. You vowed to honor and protect and cherish me. You can’t do those things when you’re drunk.”
“I’ve tried to stop and I can’t!”
She helped Horatio put on his pajama top and buttoned it for him. “No one can get through life’s trials alone. We all need God’s h
elp.”
“God wants nothing to do with me, and I want nothing to do with Him!”
His words shocked Bebe, but she tried not to show it. She had to keep coaxing him to talk, to unload all of the reasons he had started drinking in the first place. Maybe then he would be able to stop.
“What makes you think that God doesn’t care about you, Horatio?”
“Because God never answers my prayers. He never answers anyone’s prayers. Why doesn’t He right all the wrongs here on earth? Put a stop to war and killing? All my friends . . . all my friends . . .” He paused, passing his hand over his face. “I prayed for courage, and He didn’t give me any. I was scared all the time during that war.”
“But Franklin and your other friends will tell you that they were terrified, too. There’s no shame in being afraid.”
“Neal MacLeod won a Medal of Honor, did you know that? My father made sure that I knew all about it—and he called me a coward. God is supposed to be our Father, isn’t He? Well, if He’s anything like my father, then I want nothing to do with Him!”
“Oh, Horatio . . . listen—”
“My father turned away from his family, did you know that?”
“Yes, I know, but—”
“He didn’t love my mother and me anymore, so he left us and started another family. Then he sent me out to die on a battlefield to be rid of me. How could a loving father do that? How could he force his son go to war? He wanted me to die!”
The anguish in Horatio’s voice made Bebe ache for him. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly. “I don’t know, Horatio . . . but I know that God isn’t like your father at all. God loves you.”
“Then why does He stand aside and watch us hurt and betray each other?”
“I don’t know the answers to your questions, Horatio. But I promise that we’ll try to find them together. . . .”
Grandma and I arrived back in Roseton that rainy afternoon just as she finished telling her story. “So you see, Harriet, there is a time to fix your own flat tires, and a time to recognize that all of your efforts to help yourself are only making matters worse. You’ll only end up soaked and muddy and trapped in an even deeper rut. That’s when you need to know enough to turn around. That’s when you need to call on the Lord for help. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I suppose so.”
“Listen, I’m sorry that we didn’t get to the meeting. I know you’re disappointed, but—”
“I was going to take The Pledge today. I made up my mind, and I was going to surprise you.”
She looked at me in dismay, not pride. “You’re just a child, Harriet. You’re much too young to understand what you’re promising.”
“I’m not too young, I’m twelve! And I know that I’ll be promising never to touch a single drop of alcohol all my life and to do my best to stop other people from drinking it, too. I want to get my own pledge book to carry, so I can get other people to sign it, like you do.”
“You also would have to promise to banish alcohol from your sideboard and your kitchen, and that’s not something you can promise yet. And you would be pledging not to court a man who drinks or to marry one—”
“That’s easy. I’m never getting married.”
“You see, Harriet? You’re much too young to be making such rash decisions. Let’s wait a few years to see if you change your mind about drinking alcohol—and about getting married, too.”
She parked the car in the garage and went into the house, leaving me sitting there, mystified. Grandma was working so hard to get other people to take The Pledge. Why wouldn’t she let me sign it? I didn’t understand my grandmother at all. She was turning out to be a woman of great contradictions.
CHAPTER
19
In June of 1912, my sister Alice married banker Gordon P. Shaw. It was the society event of the year in Roseton, and people considered it a social triumph to be invited. I considered it a triumph when I successfully avoided wearing a hat, a corset, and any article of clothing with frills or ruffles. I watched all the other women’s heads wobbling beneath the weight of their voluminous hair and enormous hats, and I ran my fingers through my short, bobbed hair and gloated.
The weeks and weeks of fluttering preparations for Alice’s wedding, along with several last-minute emergencies, had exhausted everyone in our family. The worst crisis had been the heated argument that had erupted over whether or not liquor would be served. Grandma opposed it, of course, and wanted all types of alcohol completely banned from the event. Mother worried that a “dry” reception might offend the groom and his well-to-do family.
“Poppycock!” Grandma said. “Are they such lushes that they can’t celebrate a happy occasion without a drink? If so, perhaps Alice should think twice before marrying into that family. We already know there are lushes on our side.”
“Shh! Don’t say such things!” My mother always became horrified whenever Grandma implied that drunkenness ran in our family. “Think of the girls! Do you want to tarnish their reputations?” she whispered.
“Our family’s ‘secret’ isn’t exactly a secret, Lucy. Everyone in town knows that I’m the president of the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union—and most people know why. Besides, how will it look if my granddaughter’s wedding reception turns into a drunken brawl, especially after all my hard work preaching temperance?”
“Really, Mother. My friends are respectable people. The reception is hardly going to turn into a brawl. You always exaggerate.”
I listened to weeks of such arguments. The truth was, Daddy’s relatives also would have been offended if the liquor didn’t flow freely. They figured Daddy owed them a lavish party in exchange for the gifts they were giving Alice. My father finally announced his decision, attempting to meet both sides in the middle and avoid a rift between Grandma and Mother.
“Liquor will be served in small amounts,” he decreed as he stroked his clean-shaven chin. He looked as wise and decisive as King Solomon had when he’d ordered the baby to be chopped in half. “We will serve enough liquor for a decent toast and a festive celebration, but not enough to encourage drunkenness.”
In other words, neither side would be happy.
As I sat at the wedding reception watching the festivities, my father wore the dazed look of a man whose hard-earned money had been stolen by pirates and carted away in fat treasure chests. My mother looked flat-out exhausted. The bright rouge on her cheeks couldn’t distract from the dark circles beneath her eyes. Presiding over this lavish wedding had been the pinnacle of all her achievements, the fulfillment of all her dreams. This extravagant party for Roseton’s most important citizens had kept seamstresses busy for months, while the local jewelers had made hefty profits polishing everyone’s heirloom diamonds. The drama and pageantry of the occasion represented everything Mother loved most in life. In one glorious evening she would exercise all of the etiquette skills she had learned from Grandmother Garner—who would have reveled in the event, too, had she been alive. Best of all, the wedding united Mother to the groom’s impeccable family. What would she do for an encore?
I asked to sit beside Grandma Bebe at the wedding reception because I enjoyed her company more than anyone else’s in my family. Neither one of us fit in with this crowd. We were two social misfits who didn’t care one whit about what people thought of us. By the time I had eaten all of the food I wanted to eat, and Alice and her groom had cut the wedding cake, I was ready to go home. The dancing had begun, and I didn’t see a single gentleman in this sorry assembly of social climbers who I cared to dance with—even if I had known how to dance.
Grandma gazed at the waltzing couples in their glittering finery and sighed. “It’s on joyous occasions such as this that I miss my Horatio the most.” She smiled and yet at the same time she looked sad.
“Whatever happened to him?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t opening a Pandora’s box of bad memories. “Why doesn’t he live with you?”
“Don�
�t be obtuse. You’ve heard the story a hundred times, I’m sure you have.”
“No, I haven’t. Mother never talks about him. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Well,” Grandma said with a sigh, “it’s really quite a long story.”
“Good. The longer the better. This party is boring.”
Horatio looked wretched as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Very well, Beatrice, I give up. I’ll go up to the fishing cabin with you.”
Bebe closed her eyes in joy, wondering if she were dreaming. She had formed the local chapter of the Temperance Union more than a year and a half ago, and had fervently prayed ever since that one day she would hear Horatio say those words. She went to him, hugging him tightly. His embrace felt limp in return. His once ruddy skin had turned dull and gray, his sunken eyes looked lifeless. But Bebe believed that the man she once loved still lived inside this sad, tired body. He would be his old self again once he quit drinking.
“Thank you, Horatio. It will be wonderful to get away from here for a while, you’ll see.” She got out their satchels and began to pack. “I’ll tell Peter to get the carriage ready and—”
“No, don’t. I want to drive up there myself. Tell him we’ll take the runabout.”
Bebe hesitated, wondering if she should try to talk him out of it. It would be easier for Horatio to change his mind and return home if he didn’t have to wait for Peter to come back for them. On the other hand, he might decide not to go to the cabin at all if she argued with him. She decided to say nothing and let him drive the runabout. She had waited much too long for Horatio to get sober.
After Bebe and her temperance women had closed down Horatio’s favorite saloon, he had found another—and another. Then he’d begun drinking at home. Neal MacLeod continued to operate the tannery for them in Horatio’s absence, but Bebe was careful never to mention his name.