A Proper Pursuit (39 page)

Thursday, July 6, 1893

O
nly three days had passed since Silas McClure had offered to help me find my mother, but it seemed like three weeks. As my father’s deadline neared, I thought I understood how Aunt Agnes had felt on the night of the Great Fire, watching disaster creep closer and closer and being helpless to stop it. It should have been a relief to know that I had an alternative to marrying Herman Beckett, but it wasn’t. I didn’t love Nelson Kent, and the idea of marrying him for his money made me feel very shallow, even if I believed that love would grow over time.

I had to do something. It was already Thursday morning. Since my efforts to find my mother had reached a dead end, I would renew my efforts to stop Father’s wedding. I needed to learn the truth about Mr. O’Neill’s death, and that meant following the clue that Herman’s mother had given me: the Jolly Roger.

I waited until my grandmother and Aunt Matt were both gone, then I approached Aunt Birdie, who was rubbing furniture polish onto our dining room table.

“Would you like to take a little trip downtown with me?” I gently took the polishing cloth from her and handed Birdie her straw hat.

“All right. Where shall we go? To the theater?”

“Well … maybe another day. I need to visit the city administration building today.”

Nelson Kent thought that I might be able to locate the Jolly Roger by asking for information there. I had no idea where that building was, but I had graduated from charm school—it was my only natural resource—so I would spread my charm liberally until I found the place. I towed Aunt Birdie to the streetcar stop on the corner and boarded the first car that arrived. I greeted the driver in my sweetly charming voice.

“Good morning, I wonder if you could help me? Do you know where the city administration building is?”

“Not exactly, miss. But if I were you, I’d get off downtown at State or LaSalle or maybe Michigan Avenue. From there, I’m sure you can find a patrolman to help you.”

It sounded like a good plan. But Aunt Birdie and I wandered up and down LaSalle for quite a while before locating a patrolman. When we tried to follow his directions, we got lost and had to consult a second patrolman. He sent us in the wrong direction entirely. But the third patrolman was very young and obliging; he walked us right to the door of the administration building.

“Good luck to you, Miss.” He held open the door for us and tipped his hat.

By that time Aunt Birdie was so weary she seemed to be dragging a ball and chain from each ankle. I felt guilty for using her this way, but I couldn’t run around alone in the city.We wandered through the building, asking for information, and eventually found the department of records. I had learned my lesson after trying to pry information from my mother’s lawyer. I would have to use deceit if I wanted to get anywhere in the detective business.

An apathetic-looking clerk with a handlebar mustache met us at the information counter. His eyelids drooped at half-mast as if I’d awakened him from a long nap. Even my dazzling smile didn’t seem to move him.

“May I help you?” he asked wearily.

“Yes. I plan to open a restaurant—”

“Oh, how nice!” Aunt Birdie interrupted. “I didn’t even know you could cook, Violet.”

I patted her hand and continued. “I was told that I could come here to learn if another business is already in possession of the name I’ve chosen.”

His bored expression remained firmly in place. “What is the name?”

“The Jolly Roger.”

His drooping eyelids narrowed in suspicion, as if I were playing a prank. “The Jolly Roger?”

I nodded.

“That says it all, doesn’t it?” Aunt Birdie asked.

The clerk eyed the two of us as if we had recently escaped from an asylum. “One moment.”

“What a lovely surprise,” Aunt Birdie said as the clerk trudged away. “A restaurant! I had no idea you possessed culinary aspirations. And to think I knew you when.”

The man returned with a large ledger book and set it on the counter between us while he paged through the alphabetical entries. He either was paid by the hour or he was quite unfamiliar with the alphabet, because his search took a very long time.

“You’re out of luck, miss,” he finally grunted. “There’s already an establishment named the Jolly Roger.”

“Oh, dear. I’m so disappointed,” I said, masking my excitement. “How do they spell it? Perhaps if I varied the name a bit …” He turned the ledger around so I could read it. I not only saw the address on Bishop Street but the name of the proprietor as well: Lloyd O’Neill. My mouth dropped open in surprise. He was Murderous Maude’s first husband!

I was so shocked that I took Aunt Birdie’s arm and left the office without thanking the clerk. I wanted to hail a cab and go to the Jolly Roger right away, but I had no idea where Bishop Street was or how to get there. What if it was in a disreputable part of town?

I was looking all around for the helpful young patrolman when Aunt Birdie said, “Can we go home, dear? I must make lunch for Florence, and besides, my bunions are killing me.”

“My grandmother is coming home for lunch? I thought she was going to be gone all day.”

“No, she and Matt said they both would be home by lunchtime.”

“Then I guess we’d better go.” I didn’t want my grandmother to know that I had been out searching for my mother.

I felt as though I had the ball and chain on my ankle as I dragged Aunt Birdie home. Once again I was bitterly disappointed, but at least I had made some progress in my search. I not only knew where the Jolly Roger was located, but I’d discovered a connection to Murderous Maude.

We arrived home the same time as my Aunt Matt. “Where have you two been?” she asked.

I answered before Aunt Birdie could. “I had an errand to run, and I thought Aunt Birdie could use some fresh air. Exercise is good for women, you know.”

“Well, I came home to see if you wanted to accompany me this afternoon. We’re marching on a factory in the garment district.”

Marching on a factory? I had no idea what she was talking about and no desire at all to find out. But Aunt Matt knew her way around the city pretty well. She probably could tell me where Bishop Street was and therefore the Jolly Roger. At the very least, I could ask her about my mysterious Uncle Philip.

“I would love to go with you. How does one march on a factory?”

“Let’s have lunch first, and I’ll explain on the way there.”

“We should let Violet prepare lunch,” Aunt Birdie said. “She’s opening a restaurant.” Fortunately for me, Birdie’s sisters were in the habit of ignoring most of the things she said.

“By the way, Aunt Matt,” I said as we sat in the kitchen, “I never thanked you for supporting my decision to wear bloomers the other day.”

“You’re welcome. You looked ridiculous in them, but it was the principle that mattered.”

“Oh. Well, thanks anyway.”

Having heard the word “march,” I chose the largest, widestbrimmed hat that I owned, hoping to hide beneath it. As usual, Aunt Matt’s thundering lecture began as soon as we boarded the crowded streetcar.

“This has been a landmark year for legislation that protects women and children,” she began. “Our lawmakers down in Springfield just passed the Illinois Factory Act. It bans labor for all children under the age of fourteen and regulates work for children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. The law also forbids garment-making in the tenements. Work must be done in a factory with certain safety guidelines in place. And the law states that women and minors can’t be made to work more than eight hours a day. In other words, factory owners will no longer be allowed to exploit women and children in order to boost their profits.”

“That sounds like a very good law.”

“It is indeed. Some of us have lobbied very hard to get it passed. Unfortunately, there are factory owners who simply ignore it. We’ve been gathering the names and locations of the most offensive places so that we can stage demonstrations and read them the law.”

“That sounds … confrontational.”

“It is.”

I suddenly felt very reckless and brave. My father might force me to move back to Lockport and settle down next week, but at least I would have an adventurous story to tell my children at bedtime.

Aunt Matt and I rode a very long way and changed streetcars three times before meeting up with the other women who were marching with us. Quite a mob of us showed up. The neighborhood near the river where we gathered stank of fish. It was every bit as ugly and unpleasant as the area near the settlement house, but since none of the other women covered their noses, I decided not to cover mine. I hoped that the women we’d come to rescue appreciated our sacrifice.

No one carried signs this time, so I had nothing to hide behind except my floppy hat. I decided that it didn’t matter. I felt proud to be making a difference in the world. We lined up in the middle of the street a few blocks from the factory and began to march toward it. Several women had brought pots and pans, which they banged together as we chanted, “Unfair to women and children! Unfair to women and children!”

People came out of saloons and tenements to see what was going on. Pedestrians turned to watch. Little children skipped alongside of us. As we neared the river, dockworkers stopped loading their ships to stare. One group of men pointed and laughed and called us unrepeatable names.

“Get out of the road!” an ice vendor yelled. “My ice is melting!” He and several other deliverymen grew irate because our march blocked the street. It was such fun. I wished Ruth Schultz were with me.

“If all of these factories are breaking the law,” I asked Aunt Matt, “shouldn’t the police be raiding them instead of us?”

“Of course they should. But the police have been known to take a bribe to look the other way instead of enforcing the law. Or else they plead ignorance. In the end, it’s usually up to women like us to protect other women and children.”

The door to the low-slung brick factory stood open on this sweltering July day, and we poured inside as if storming a castle. The interior was so dark and dingy that I could hardly see where I was going at first. The dusty, lint-filled air made me sneeze. I heard the clatter of hundreds of sewing machines before I saw them—row after row of them, stretching into the dim workshop, with a woman bent over each one, sewing as if in a race against time.

As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I realized that most of the seamstresses were teenaged girls, younger than I was. Each had a towering pile of clothing pieces by her side, waiting to be stitched. Small children scurried around between the rows, carrying more bundles of cloth. The workers glanced up when we entered, then quickly resumed sewing. A man I assumed to be the factory manager hurried over to us.

“Hey, now, see here! What’s going on? You’re trespassing on private property!” The woman who had led our march launched into a heated debate with him, enumerating the details of the new Illinois Factory Act.

Meanwhile, the other women in our group quickly fanned out in every direction, weaving up and down the rows, informing the workers of their rights. I followed my Aunt Matt.

“A new law has been passed, and this factory is violating it,” she announced in her commanding voice. “You no longer have to work more than eight hours a day. You have the right to refuse to work longer. The owner must provide safe working conditions.” And so on.

Three men, who I assumed were foremen, started running up and down the aisles trying to round up the marauding marchers like so many stray cats.

“You’re trespassing! Get off our property.”

“Go ahead and summon the police,” Aunt Matt told one of them. “They’ll arrest you for being in violation of the Illinois Factory Act.”

It turned into quite a circus. In fact, it would have been comical if it hadn’t been so exhilarating. Through it all, the teenaged girls kept right on sewing as if their lives depended on it. Maybe they did.

Eventually, everyone grew tired of the chase. Aunt Matt and I marched from the factory with the other women, cheering in victory. Sweat rolled down Matt’s stern, flushed face as I fell into step beside her. Then I remembered my grandmother’s friend Irina.

“Um … Aunt Matt? What about all the women with little children who work at home? How will they make a living from now on if it’s against the law to work in the tenements?”

“Those women are being taken advantage of at the moment, and they don’t even know it.” We were parading back down the street in triumph, and Aunt Matt and I had to shout in order to be heard above the sound of cheering and banging pots. “The point of the law is to make factory owners hire those women to work decent hours for a fair wage in a safe environment, instead of paying them mere pennies for hours and hours of labor at home. Children shouldn’t be working at all. If women ran the world, all of the children would be in school where they belong. Education is the only way that the working poor will ever get ahead in this world. If factories paid their mothers a fair wage, indigent children could attend school.”

“When I visited the tenements with my grandmother, it seemed like there were thousands of children—most of them working. And the women seemed little better than slaves.”

“I know. And it’s very difficult to change the status quo, especially if you’re a woman. Without the right to vote, women in our society are powerless. They are forced to work for slave wages in poor working conditions, or else get married and have too many children. The prettier women can make money in bawdy houses, I suppose. Mind you, I don’t condemn women who make that choice. But I would like to give them a better alternative.”

“Thank you for taking me today,” I said when we reached our first streetcar stop. “I found it very invigorating to do something worthwhile.”

“We’ll be marching to other factories in the coming weeks if you want to join me again.”

“I’d love to—but I’ll only be in Chicago for another week, remember? My father is taking me home. And I don’t want to go.”

We sat on the streetcar in companionable silence, heading toward home again. The more I thought about returning to Lockport without finding my mother, the more anxious I became.