One Thousand White Women

by Jim Fergus

  I must tell you that in spite of Father’s insistence to the contrary, the true beauty of the prairie lies not in the perfect symmetry of farmlands, but where the farmlands end and the real prairie begins—a sea of natural grass like a living, breathing thing undulating all the way to the horizon. Today I saw prairie chickens, flocks of what must have been hundreds, thousands, flushing away in clouds from the tracks as we passed. I could only imagine the sound of their wings over the roar of the train. How extraordinary to see them on the wing like this after the year I spent laboring in that wretched factory where we processed the birds and where I thought I could never bear to look at another chicken as long as I lived. I know that you and the rest of the family could not understand my decision to take such menial work or to live out of wedlock with a man so far beneath my station in life, and that this has always been spoken of among you as the first outward manifestation of my insanity. But, don’t you see, Hortense, it was precisely our cloistered upbringing under Mother and Father’s roof that spurred me to seek contact with a larger world. I’d have suffocated, died of sheer boredom, if I stayed any longer in that dark and dreary house, and although the work I took in the factory was indeed loathsome, I will never regret having done it. I learned so much from the men and women with whom I toiled; I learned how the rest of the world—families less fortunate than ours, which, of course constitutes the vast majority of people—lives. This is something you can never know, dear sister, and which you will always be poorer in soul for having missed.

  Not that I recommend to you a job in the chicken factory! Good God, I shall never get over the stink of it, my hands even now when I hold them up to my face seem to reek of chicken blood, feathers, and innards … I think that I shall never eat poultry again as long as I live! But I must say my interest in the birds is somewhat renewed in seeing the wild creatures flying up before the train like sparks from the wheels. They are so beautiful, fanning off against the setting sun, their tangents helping to break the long straight tedium of this journey. I have tried to interest my friend Martha, who sits beside me, in this spectacle of wings, but she is very soundly asleep, her head jostling gently against the train window.

  But here has occurred an amusing encounter: As I was watching the birds flush from the tracks, a tall, angular, very pale woman with short-cropped sandy hair under an English tweed cap came hurrying down the aisle of our car, stooping to look out each window at the birds and then moving on to the next seat. She wears a man’s knickerbocker suit of Irish thornproof, in which, with her short hair and cap it might be easy to mistake her for a member of the opposite sex. Her mannish outfit includes a waistcoat, stockings, and heavy walking brogues, and she carries an artist’s sketch pad.

  “Excuse me, please, won’t you?” the woman asked of each occupant of each seat in front of which she leaned in order to improve her view out the window. She spoke with a distinct British accent. “Do please excuse me. Oh, my goodness!” she exclaimed, her eyebrows raised in an expression of delighted surprise. “Extraordinary! Magnificent! Glorious!”

  By the time the Englishwoman reached the unoccupied seat beside me the prairie chickens had set their wings and sailed off over the horizon and she flopped down in the seat all gangly arms and legs. “Greater prairie chicken,” she said. “That is to say, Tympanuchus cupido, actually a member of the grouse family, commonly referred to as the prairie chicken. The first I’ve ever seen in the wilds, although, of course, I’ve seen specimens. And of course I have studied extensively the species’ eastern cousin, the heath hen, during my travels about New England. Named after the Greek tympananon, ‘kettledrum,’ and ‘echein,’ to have a drum, aluding both to the enlarged esophagus on the sides of the throat, which in the male becomes inflated during courtship, as well as to the booming sound which the males utter in their aroused state. And further named after the ‘blind bow boy,’ son of Venus—not, however with any illusion to erotic concerns, I should hasten to add, but because the long, erectile, stiff feathers are raised like small rounded wings over the head of the male in his courtship display, and have therefore been likened to Cupid’s wings.”

  Now the woman suddenly turned as if noticing me for the first time, and with the same look of perpetual surprise still etched in her milk-pale English countenance—eyebrows raised and a delighted smile at her lips as if the world itself were not only wonderful, but absolutely startling. I liked her immediately. “Do please excuse me for prattling on, won’t you? Helen Elizabeth Flight, here,” she said, thrusting her hand forward with manly forthrightness. “Perhaps you’re familiar with my work? My book Birds of Britain is currently in its third printing—letterpress provided by my dear companion and collaborator, Mrs. Ann Hall of Sunderland. Unfortunately, Mrs. Hall was too ill to accompany me when I embarked on my tour of America to gather specimens and make sketches for our next opus, Birds of America—not to be confused, of course, with Monsieur Audubon’s series of the same name. An interesting artist, Mr. Audubon, if rather too fanciful for my tastes. I’ve always found his birds to be rendered with such … caprice! Clearly he threw biological accuracy to the wind. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I could see that this question was intended to be somewhat more than rhetorical, but just as I was attempting to form an answer, Miss Flight asked: “And you are?” still looking at me with her eyebrows raised in astonished anticipation, as if my identity were not only a matter of the utmost urgency but also promised a great surprise.

  “May Dodd,” I answered.

  “Ah, May Dodd! Quite,” she said. “And a smart little picture of a girl you are, too. I suspected from your fair complexion that you might be of English descent.”

  “Scottish actually,” I said, “but I’m thoroughly American, myself. I was born and raised in Chicago,” I added somewhat wistfully.

  “And don’t tell me that a lovely creature like you has signed up to live with the savages?” asked Miss Flight.

  “Why yes I have,” I said. “And you?”

  “I’m afraid that I’ve run a trifle short of research funds,” explained Miss Flight with a small grimace of distaste for the subject. “My patrons were unwilling to advance me any more money for my American sojourn, and this seemed like quite the perfect opportunity for me to study the birdlife of the western prairies at no additional expense. A frightfully exciting adventure, don’t you agree?”

  “Yes,” I said, with a laugh, “frightfully!”

  “Although I must tell you a little secret,” she said, looking around us to see that we were not overheard. “I am unable to have children myself. I’m quite sterile! The result of a childhood infection.” Her eyebrows shot up with delight. “I lied to the examiner in order to be accepted into the program !

  “Now you will excuse me, Miss Dodd, won’t you?” said Miss Flight, suddenly all business again. “That is to say, I must quickly make some sketches and record my impressions of the magnificent greater prairie chicken while the experience is still fresh in mind. I hope, when the train next stops, to be able to descend and shoot a few as specimens. I’ve brought with me my scattergun, especially manufactured for this journey by Featherstone, Elder & Story of Newcastle upon Tyne. Perhaps you are interested in firearms? If so, I’d love to show it to you. My patrons, before they ran into financial difficulties and left me stranded on this vast continent, had the gun especially built for me, specifically for my travels in America. I’m rather proud of it. But do excuse me, won’t you? I’m so terribly pleased to have met you. Wonderful that you’re along! We must speak at greater length. I have a feeling that you and I are going to be spiffing good friends. You have the most extraordinarily blue eyes, you know, the color of an Eastern bluebird. I shall use them as a model to mix my palette when I paint that species if you don’t terribly mind. And I’m fascinated to learn more of your opinion on Monsieur Audubon’s work.” And with that the daffy Englishwoman took her leave!

  While we are on the subject, and since Martha is proving at present
to be exceedingly dull company, let me describe to you, dear sister, some of my other fellow travelers, who provide the only other diversion on this long, straight, monotonous iron road through country that while beautiful in its vast and empty reaches, can hardly be described as scenic. I’ve barely had time yet to acquaint myself with all of the women, but our common purpose and destination seems to have fostered a certain easy familiarity among us—personal histories and intimacies are exchanged without the usual period of tedious social posturing or shyness. These women—hardly more than girls really—are all either from the Chicago area or other parts of the Middle West, and come from all circumstances. Some appear to be escaping poverty or failed romances, or, as in my case, unpleasant “living arrangements.” Hah! While there is only one other girl from my asylum, there are several in our group from other such public facilities around the city. Some are considerably more eccentric even than I. But then it was my observation in the asylum that nearly every resident there took solace in the fact that they could point to someone else who was madder than they. One, named Ada Ware, dresses only in black, wears a widow’s veil, and has perpetual dark circles of grief beneath her eyes. I have yet to see her smile or make any expression whatsoever. “Black Ada” the others call her.

  You will, perhaps, remember Martha, whom you met on the sole occasion when you visited me in the asylum. She is a sweet thing, barely two years younger than I, though she seems younger, and homely as a stick. I am forever indebted to her, for it was Martha who was so invaluable in helping me to obtain my liberty.

  As mentioned, one other girl from my own institution survived the selection process—while a number of others declined to accept Mr. Benton’s offer. It seemed remarkable to me at the time that they would give up the opportunity for freedom from that ghastly place, simply because they were squeamish about conjugal relations with savages. Perhaps I will live to regret saying this, but how could it be any worse than incarceration in that dank hellhole for the rest of one’s life?

  This young girl’s name is Sara Johnstone. She’s a pretty, timid little creature, barely beyond the age of puberty. The poor thing evidently lacks the power of speech—by this I do not mean that she is simply the quiet sort—I mean that she seems unable, or at least unwilling, to utter a word. She and I had, perforce, very little contact at the hospital, and therefore hardly any opportunity to get to know one another. I have a suspicion that this will all change now, for she seems to have attached herself to me and Martha. She sits facing us on the train, and frequently leans forward with tears in her eyes to grasp my hand and squeeze it fiercely. I know nothing of her past or the reason why she was originally confined in the institution. She has no family and according to Martha had evidently been there long before I arrived—ever since she was a young child. Nor do I know who supported her there—as we both know that wretched place was not for charity cases. Martha has intimated that Dr. Kaiser himself, the director of the hospital, volunteered the poor girl for the program as a way of being rid of her—what Father might recognize as a cost-cutting measure—for according to Martha, the girl was treated very much like a “poor relation” in the hospital. Furthermore, though we are hardly free to discuss the matter with the poor thing sitting directly in front of us, Martha has suggested that the child may, in fact, have had some familial connection with the Good Doctor—possibly, we have speculated, she is the product of his own romantic liaison with a former patient? Although one must wonder what kind of man would send his own daughter away to live among savages … Whatever the child’s situation, I find it troubling that she was accepted into this program. She is such a frail little thing, terrified of the world, and so obviously ill prepared for what must certainly prove to be an arduous duty. Indeed, how could she be prepared for any experience in the real world, having grown up behind brick walls and iron-barred windows? I am certain that, like Martha, the girl is without experience in carnal matters, unless the repulsive night monster Franz visited her, too, in the dark … which I pray for her sake that he did not. In any case, I intend to watch over the child, to protect her from harm if it is within my power to do so. Oddly, her very youth and fearfulness seem to give me strength and courage.

  Ah, and here come the Kelly sisters of Chicago’s Irish town, Margaret and Susan, swaggering down the aisle—redheaded, freckle-faced identical twin lassies, thick as thieves, which in their case is somewhat more than an idle expression. They take everything in these two; their shrewd pale green eyes miss nothing; I clutch my purse to breast for safekeeping.

  One of them, I cannot yet tell them apart, slips into the seat beside me. “’Ave ya got some tobacco on ye, May?” she asks in a conspiratorial tone, as if we are the very best of friends though I hardly know the girl. “I’d be loookin’ to roll me a smoke.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t smoke,” I answer.

  “Aye,’twas easier to get a smoke in prison, than it is on this damn train,” she says. “Isn’t that so, Meggie?”

  “It’s sartain, Susie,” Meggie answers.

  “Do you mind my asking why you girls were in prison?” I ask. I tilt my notebook toward them. “I’m writing a letter to my sister.”

  “Why, we don’t mind at-tall, dear,” says Meggie, who leans on the seat in front of me. “Prostitution and Grand Theft—ten-year sentences in the Illinois State Penitentiary.” She says this with real bravado in her voice as if it is a thing of which to be very proud, and as I write she leans down closer to make sure that I record the details correctly. “Aye, don’t forget the Grand Theft,” she repeats, pointing her finger at my notebook.

  “Right, Meggie,” adds Susan, nodding her head with satisfaction. “And we’d not have been apprehended, either, if it weren’t for the fact that the gentleman we turned over in Lincoln Park’ appened to be a municipal jeewdge. Aye, the old reprobate tried to solicit us for sexual favors. ‘Twins!’ he said. ‘Two halves of a bun around my sausage’ he desired to make of us. Ah ya beggar!—we gave him two halves of a brick on either side of his damn head, we did! In two shakes of a lamb’s tail we had his pocket watch and his wallet in our possession—thinking in our ignorance what great good fortune that he was carrying sech a large soom of cash. No doubt His Jeewdgeship’s weekly bribe revenue.”

  “It’s sartain, Susie, and that would’ve been the end of it,” chimes in Margaret, “if it weren’t for that damn cash. The jeewdge went directly to his great good pal the Commissioner of Police and a manhoont the likes of which Chicago has never before seen was launched to bring the infamous Kelly twins to juicetice!”

  “’Tis the God’s own truth, Meggie,” says Susan, shaking her head. “You probably read about us in the newspaper, Missy,” she says to me. “We were quite famous for a time, me and Meggie. After a short trial, which the public advocate charged with our defense spent nappin’—the old bugger—we were sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary. Aye, ten years just for defendin’ our honor against a lecherous old jeewdge, with a pocket full of bribe money, if you can believe that, Missy.”

  “And your parents?” I ask. “Where are they?”

  “Oh, we ‘ave no idea, darlin’,” says Margaret. “We were foundlings, you see. Wee babies left on the steps of the church. Isn’t that so, Susie? Grew up in the city’s Irish orphanage, but we didn’t really care for the place. Aye, we been living by our wits ever since we roon away from there when we were just ten years old.”

  Now Margaret stands straight again and scans the other passengers with a certain predatory interest. Her gaze comes to rest on the woman sitting across the aisle from us—a woman named Daisy Lovelace; I have only spoken to her briefly, but I know that she is a Southerner and has the distinct look of ruined gentry about her. She holds an ancient dirty white French poodle on her lap. The dog’s hair is stained red around its butt and muzzle, and around its rheumy, leaking eyes.

  “Wouldn’t ’appen to ’ave a bit of tobacco, on ye, Missy, would ya now?” Margaret asks her.

 
“Ah’m afraid naught”, says the woman in a slow drawl, and in not a particularly friendly tone.

  “Loovely little dog, you’ve got there,” says Margaret, sliding into the seat beside the Southerner. “What’s its name, if you don’t mind me askin’?” The twin’s insinuating manner is transparent; it is clear that she is not interested in the woman’s dog.

  Ignoring her, the Lovelace woman sets her dog down on the floor between their feet. “You go on now an’ make teetee, Feeern Loueeese,” she coos to it in an accent as thick as cane molasses, “Go wan now sweethaart. You make teetee for Momma.” And the wretched little creature totters stiffly up the aisle sniffling and snorting, finally squatting to pee by a vacant seat.