Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction (26 page)

“Your
sister
?” another woman cried, entering in our circle. Her baggy calico dress and coat looked many years old. Her face didn’t look any younger, with pale pocked skin and raccoon shadows around her eyes. “Isn’t she the one who wrote that nonsense in the paper about equality with men? Work here lady; I’ll show you equality!”

Pearl rolled her eyes at Thomas as if to say,
thanks for letting the cat out of the bag
. She folded her arms across her chest. “Sister, now that everyone knows who you are, perhaps you won’t mind explaining what you mean by equality. Before protective labor laws, we were
equal
to work twelve-hour days but not free to refuse it. And take Ethel here.” She jerked her thumb toward the baggy coat, “She’ll lose her job if they find she’s pregnant. How can pregnant women have equality with men? Besides, we don’t compete with men. We get leftovers. No man wants these under-paid, unskilled jobs.”

Pearl’s eyebrows were completely covered by hair flattened down by the cap. I wondered why she spoke good English only when dressed like a man.

“That’s right, Miss … ?” Our attention turned to one of the ladies seated behind the table.

“Miss Wright,” I said, self-consciously folding my right hand over my left. There was no need as that little wedding band from Jere was long gone.

“Miss Wright, more than one hundred organizations, clubs and unions agree with United Textile Workers that protective law is needed; not for all women, but for all mothers. We oppose the constitutional amendment sponsored by the Woman’s Party because it’s too dangerously sweeping and all-inclusive. More harm than good will come of it.” Because of the tent leaks above her, water dripped unnoticed from the wide brim of her felt hat.

I took a deep breath to prepare myself. I had entered a debate unknowingly and unwillingly but had no recourse. I would lose all
credibility if I walked out now. Thomas understandably remained quiet in such a hen house.

“You and I agree that much improvement is needed to further the position of women,” I said. “Suffrage is only half the battle. But as long as women are subject to restrictions that do not apply to men, women will only get the jobs men don’t want. Under protective legislation, employers are liable to a heavy fine or imprisonment if he keeps a woman five minutes over the nine-hour days. Men have no such restrictions so don’t you think men are more likely to be hired? Here in New York alone, thousands of women in restaurants, candy stores, and railroads have been thrown out of work in the name of protecting their health and their morals. If an employer has the choice between a woman who can legally only work nine hours a day – and only during the day - and a man who can work twelve-hour days on any shift, naturally the employer will chose the more flexible of the two. Women’s labor laws can actually work against her and give more opportunity for the men. Is this protection or a handicap? Is it protecting women, or protecting men from the competition of women? Is it any wonder men support protective legislation? After all, most of the protective legislation was passed before women had the vote. Equal grounds would give the defenseless a weapon to make them strong. Preaching protection only makes her appear weaker.”

They were closing in around me and I began to perspire in this cool September air. I hadn’t felt this uneasy since being arrested for disturbing the peace during the Syracuse march for suffrage. Policemen closed in like this but I feared these women more; they had righteous anger.

I stepped back, swallowed, and continued, raising my voice to try to cover my tremor.

“Hundreds of state statutes take away the rights of women. In some, the earnings of the wife belong to the husband. In forty states, the husband owns his wife’s work in the home, which means if the wife is injured, the husband can collect for damages for the loss of her services. The woman is put in the same class with children, so she
becomes of as little value as a thirteen-year-old child. The amendment asks for equal rights throughout the United States. Don’t you want control of your own earnings?”

“Earnings?” came a cry from behind me, the thin woman’s rancid breath reaching me before she did. “What earnings? We get paid half of what these here men do. You suffragists promised us everything; a new heaven and a new earth. To listen to you, all women are going to have their own offices in the White House. Well looky around, miss – this ain’t heaven and the earth ain’t nothing but dirt that these men throw in your face if you don’t do what they tell you!”

Pearl stepped in front of her as if to hide her. “Look, sis, when
you
sweep the floor boards, you leave the dirt between the cracks.” Pearl’s thumb pointed toward herself. “We’re that dirt and we’re forgotten about. First, we start here and look after our own. We’ve got to work from the bottom up.” Her eyes suddenly squinted in resentment. “But you don’t hear me do you? You don’t know –”

As if the sky was falling, the tent abruptly collapsed on one side, women squealing and protecting their heads with their hands, all scurrying toward what once was the entrance. Men’s voices were heard outside, barking orders to pull out the poles on the other side. Lifting the tent canvas, we scrambled out to see two heavily built chaps working around us like we were nothing more than escaped ants. I followed Thomas over to a suited man standing to the side, obviously in charge of his devilkin.

Thomas extended his hand to the man and said calmly, “I’m the editor of Annan News, Mr. Griffith, and this will make a helluva story.”

The man, well-fed and full of himself, sputtered in surprise. “I’m very well aware of who you are, Mr. Pickering. I had no idea you were in the midst of that group of – of traitors and whiners! I’m the owner of this factory, sir, and these so-called union representatives refused to leave private property.”

Thomas took out a small pad and pencil from the inside of his jacket and began writing. “So you are opposed to union representation? Women having a voice?”

“If you think I’m going to listen to seventy-five yacking clacking broads with cat claws at each other’s backs, think again! Loyalty is what I command in this business. If you want a story, write about my productivity. That’s why I’m a successful businessman just as you are. Now let’s shake hands so that I can go off and do my business, and you can do yours.”

Mr. Griffith extended his hand but Thomas seemed too engrossed in his notepad to notice. Thomas finally tapped his pad and looked up. “Your success would allow an increase in women’s wages then, would it not? My sources tell me they make one third of the men’s wages here.”

The extended hand dropped and Mr. Griffith’s fake smile dropped to a frown. “There’s no point in discussing this any further. It’s unfortunate that you have become hen-pecked. You and that loudmouthed broad that tagged behind you can get the hell out of here. My men are capable of carrying you out, if you like.” He walked away waving his arms. “Back to work, girls!” he barked at top volume. I dared not guess whether his bark was worse than his bite. I touched Thomas’ arm and shook my head as a way of saying it’s not worth pursuing him.

I watched my sister’s backside disappear into the dark doorway making me think of a shark swallowing her whole. That was my first inkling of guilt; somehow I felt I had let her down. Somehow I felt too, that this was Thomas’ intention.

The next time I saw Pearl, we were on our way to vote in the federal election.

I don’t know what I was expecting. A glow in the sky, women flying while singing Halleluiah, tingling sensations,
something
.

“That’s the beauty of this kind of day, Miss Bess,” said Lizzie. “It will feel like any other day to the men-folk too, but we’re just going to sneak up on them, cast our woman vote, and the Democrats won’t know what hit them!”

To show her my celebratory mood, I gave her a rare day off to walk to the colored section of town to cast her vote.

I pinched Mama and Pearl, too, as the three of us walked downtown to vote for the next President of the United States. We played the game of the men and dared not divulge our candidate choices; although I would have bet my cherished autographed copy of
The Woman’s Bible
that we would vote Republican, just as the majority of this town was known to do.

“Oh, Bess, I feel different indeed,” Mama said, her eyes shining. “I woke up this morning remembering how town folks ridiculed the Ladies Legion and there were only five of us in the beginning. But Jesus fed five thousand with five loaves of bread. So five is a powerful beginning and look how we grew and what happened!”

She suddenly snorted loudly, giving me cause to frown. “Of course Robert insisted that I vote on his behalf and not on my own. God forgive me but I was forced to remind him of his last two Presidential choices. William Taft was so obese he got stuck in the White House bathing tub. Robert had installed a tub only a few years earlier and as soon as he heard this, became convinced that tubs could be hazardous. I was tempted to chain our lovely claw foot to the floor in case he had the notion to drag it outside and shoot it. President Wilson has faired worse and we all know his illness is so that his wife runs the White House. Ironic, ladies, when you think about it. Women were not permitted to have a vote on who runs the country, but a woman nonetheless ends this term in doing just that. Imagine what we can do now that we have the vote!”

“Today is a doozy alright,” Pearl said lackadaisically. She was gawking at the male driver and female passenger of an open Model-T as it bumped and swayed through the puddles and pits beside us. Recognition and hurt registered on her face but she said nothing. She shrugged it off. “I don’t know what you expected, sister. You’ve been a mouthpiece since I can remember, yelling that the sky is falling unless women get the vote. The sky should be clear now. As Harding said in his campaign, ‘Return to Normalcy’.”

Her acquaintance with Harding’s slogan was a revelation to me. I wondered why she practiced being shallow, when in fact her own ‘normalcy’ was quite the contrary.

I supposed she was right, although the noise level at the City Hall was up a notch or two to where we felt the vibration of a different day. Women sat at tables taking voter registrations from excitable women who filled out the form as if applying for the President’s position themselves. It pleased me to see so many women come out to vote. I counted two men in the long line, leading me to cynically think that such a womanly gathering diminished the man’s reasons to be here.

I completed my own form quietly amidst the cackles and clucking, checked the box on the voting slip for William G. Harding, and slipped this into the slot of the glass box on the center table. In doing so, a camera’s pop made me jump and I recognized the photographer and the newspaper reporter with him, pen and pad in hand.

“Miss Bess Wright,” he called loudly. “How does it feel as a suffragist to finally cast a vote like a man?”

Thomas had sent them, I was sure of it.

The high-ceiling and large pillars along the sides of the hall created echoes and his challenge traveled and quieted others.

“I
man
aged,” I said with a smile. “I believe it is
man
datory that all wo
man
do so. It is no longer a man’s right to vote but also a woman’s. The Nineteenth Amendment states: ‘The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex’.”

My mind flooded with the many roadblocks and excuses given over the years, many times over. I knew them by heart. I opened my arms to include women standing around me. “And what about the other women here? Did you leave your husbands abandoned and dirty, your children crying, your homes in shambles, to come here and vote?”

“No!” some shouted.

“Did your ballot create divorce, take the place of head of household, or cancel out your husband’s vote? Or worse yet, did you only vote as your husband told you to, thereby wasting votes?”

“No!”

“Have you lost your feminine ways? Do you feel corrupted by politics? Do any of you feel like a man, now that you have the audacity to think like one?”

“We can think for ourselves!” called out a familiar voice. Mama blushed when I tracked the voice to her.

“Do you believe we went against God and Government?”

“Certainly not!” another yelled.

“Then all those who resisted us for these many years were liars, and we’re here to prove it!” I decided then to use my own slogan from years past. “We’re not only here to prove they’re wrong, but to
improve
our right!”

Applause sounded throughout the hall and as Mama came to my side and cast her ballot, another picture was taken. I forgave her past transgression with Jere long enough to feel secretly thrilled that she could find a sitter for Papa and get away to be here. I also secretly wished I could be a fly on the wall when Papa saw Mama’s picture in the paper.

It was an exciting moment and yet, as I walked away, somehow the whole event was anti-climatic to me. Voting was a personal choice, a human right, a small contribution to democracy, and yet women had to fight hard for such a minor freedom, to be treated as a person. To earn the simple right of checking the box next to a male politician’s name. Bittersweet, indeed. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.