Though Waters Roar (45 page)

When it looked as though my father was about to give in, I decided to speak up. “May I go, too?”

They answered simultaneously. “No!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” my father added.

“You’re only thirteen,” my mother said. “You can’t miss school, Harriet.”

I begged and pleaded to be allowed to come, but to no avail. I even threatened to leave home and travel down to Washington on my own, but Mother knew it was an empty threat. I didn’t have money for a train ticket, and it was a very long walk from central Pennsylvania to Pennsylvania Avenue. I burned with envy when my mother and Grandma Bebe left without me.

The train they took to Washington was very crowded, with barely an empty seat. Lucy hated being crushed together with a carful of rude, smelly strangers, even if it was for a worthy cause. It turned out that the overflowing train was just the beginning of Lucy’s ordeal. Once she and Bebe reached Washington, they could barely move through the train station, much less find a cab to drive them to where the parade started. Grandma Bebe linked arms with her to prevent them from becoming separated and said, “Let’s walk, Lucy. I’m sure it isn’t that far.”

They started toward Pennsylvania Avenue, following groups of excited, sign-toting women. The closer they got to the starting place, the more crowded the streets became.

“Isn’t this intoxicating?” Bebe asked. “There’s something about being part of a group, united for one cause, that’s so energizing!

It’s like we’re tiny drops of water in a powerful stream, all flowing in the same direction toward the same goal. I feel like shouting!”

Lucy had never shouted in her life and couldn’t have shouted now even if she had wanted to. She couldn’t seem to draw a breath as strangers pressed in on her from all sides. The march seemed like a disorganized mess to her, with chattering women milling around, drums rattling, and uniformed musicians warming up on their instruments. The parade floats sat mired in the muddy grass, looking as though they weren’t going anywhere.

“Who’s in charge?” Lucy asked. “When are we going to get started? Where are we supposed to go?” She had been too excited to sleep well the last few nights and had risen early to catch the train. Now she felt close to tears. She could no longer see how being part of this swarming, chaotic throng was going to help her win the right to vote.

“According to the instructions I received,” Bebe told her, “we’re supposed to march with our state delegation. Let’s walk this way and look for their banner, shall we? I see New York State’s sign . . . and there’s Virginia’s over there . . .”

“Oh, look, Mother . . .” Lucy pulled Bebe to a halt to watch a cluster of professional women lining up, grouped by their occupations. She saw nurses in white uniforms and stiff caps, women doctors with white coats, and college women in their academic gowns. “I feel so inadequate compared to them,” she murmured.

“I’m only a housewife.” She felt close to tears again, but Bebe pulled her forward.

“You mustn’t think that way, dear. You know what an important job motherhood is. Come on, I think I see our Pennsylvania banner over there.”

They found a place to stand among their state delegation, and someone handed Lucy a picket sign to carry. Her legs were already weary from so much walking and standing, and she hadn’t even begun marching yet. The streets were so crowded! Lucy was about to lay down her picket sign and pull a folding fan from her bag to cool her flushed face when she saw that the first few groups were starting to line up in an orderly fashion. She caught a glimpse of a woman wearing a white cape and riding on a white horse, preparing to lead the march down Pennsylvania Avenue. The parade finally began to move. The colorful floats eased off the grass and onto the pavement. The marching bands fell into their ranks and began to play. The music cheered her.

“I would have loved to meet some of the pioneers of the women’s movement,” Bebe said. “According to the printed program, they are among the first ones marching today. It seems fitting, doesn’t it? They led the way for women, and now they are leading the way in the parade.”

“There are so many people here!” Lucy said, feeling faint again. “How many do you suppose are marching?”

“I think they expected around five thousand women from all across the country. The politicians will have to take notice of us from now on. They can no longer justify excluding us.”

The crowd moved and swarmed around Lucy like a living thing as more and more groups started marching down the parade route. She couldn’t breathe. She needed to sit down somewhere. She was searching around frantically for a place to sit when the signal came that her state delegation was next. Lucy and her mother lined up like soldiers and marched out onto Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Isn’t this marvelous?” Bebe asked.

To Lucy, it was anything but marvelous. The gawking spectators who lined the parade route were mostly men, in town for the next day’s presidential inauguration. They stared at her as she marched past, making her feel naked and exposed. It was one thing to dress up for a ball or to be on display for her husband’s important clients. It was quite another thing to parade down a public street with a picket sign, deliberately drawing attention to herself. It went against everything that Grandmother Garner had taught her. Proper young ladies did not allow themselves to be publicly conspicuous.

In spite of Lucy’s self-consciousness, everything went well for the first few blocks. Then she sensed a change in the mood when one of the spectators shouted, “Go back to your kitchens, where you belong!” The other men rewarded him with cheers and laughter, and soon more men began to jeer and shout. The farther the women walked, the worse the taunting became. Lucy was shocked to hear cursing and foul language and filthy jokes. She forced herself not to cry.

“Ignore them, Lucy,” Bebe told her. “It’s to their shame, not ours.”

Lucy knew that her mother had sometimes endured public humiliation while holding vigils in front of saloons, but Lucy had never been treated this way in her life. Women were supposed to be revered and respected, not made to be the butt of jokes.

Soon the men were no longer content to stand alongside the curb and shout rude comments. Hundreds of them surged into the street to try to halt the parade. When the men had managed to squeeze the procession down to a single file, Lucy dropped her sign on the ground and gripped her mother’s arm, terrified that they would become separated.

“Keep moving forward, ladies,” Bebe shouted to encourage everyone. “We can’t let these brutes stop us.” Lucy held on tightly. She saw several policemen up ahead and breathed a sigh of relief, certain they would restore order. Instead, the policemen joined in the mockery, laughing at the crudest, most ribald jokes Lucy had ever heard. Bebe shouted above the noise, “Pay no attention to them, ladies. Keep marching.”

The women’s perseverance seemed to anger the men. Lucy saw rough hands reaching out toward her, grabbing and shoving and groping. Someone stuck his foot in her path and she stumbled forward, nearly tripping. She lost her grip on her mother’s arm, and when she turned to find her, Lucy saw another woman trip and fall flat on the pavement. A second woman tripped over the first one, then others tumbled down on top of them. She heard Bebe shouting, “Stop! Help them up! They’re being trampled!”

In spite of her tiny stature, Bebe managed to steer the parade around the fallen women, then she quickly took charge, helping the uninjured ones to their feet. But the women on the very bottom of the pile hadn’t fared so well. Several of them sat on the pavement moaning, bruised and bleeding. One woman cradled a broken arm, another a rapidly swelling ankle. The first woman to fall wasn’t moving at all.

“Somebody call an ambulance,” Bebe shouted. “People are injured over here.” Lucy stood above her mother, wringing her hands. “Go on without me, dear,” Bebe told her. “I’m going to stay here until the ambulance comes.”

“No. I don’t want to get separated.” Lucy backed away a few steps and watched as Bebe and a few other women tried to administer first aid. She felt faint and wished she had brought her smelling salts. The parade that continued to stream past them seemed absurd to her now. What good were decorated floats and marching bands when women sat huddled on the street, mocked and weeping and bleeding?

“Where is the ambulance?” Bebe asked again and again. When it finally arrived, the driver was as enraged as the women were.

“I would have been here sooner, but they wouldn’t let me through! I had to fight my way through all the spectators just to get here. I’m sorry, but I had to park about a block away.”

“Come on,” Bebe said, “I’ll help you get these people to the ambulance.” Lucy followed her mother and the others, feeling nauseous. The taunting continued, even though it was obvious that the women were injured. Lucy battled tears. Women were supposed to be placed on a pedestal, admired as gentle creatures, the weaker sex. She wanted nothing more to do with this march. All she wanted to do was to go home and crawl into her bed and weep.

Lucy never did reach the end of the parade route at the Treasury Building. She read about the inspiring pageant that she had missed in the newspaper the next day. One hundred women and children had presented an allegorical tableau on the steps of the building, dressed in flowing robes and colorful scarves to portray Justice, Charity, Liberty, Peace, and Hope. Trumpets had sounded and a dove of peace had been released. The
New York
Times
called it “One of the most impressively beautiful spectacles ever staged in this country.” Meanwhile, Woodrow Wilson, the newly elected president, had arrived at the railway station expecting to see a huge crowd and had found only a handful of people. Everyone else was watching the suffrage parade.

Lucy also learned that more than one hundred women had to be shuttled to the hospital by ambulance before the day ended. The chief of police had finally called the secretary of war, requesting that the cavalry be sent from Fort Myer to help control the crowd. They arrived too late to do Lucy’s dignity any good. After the last patient had been helped to a hospital, Bebe finally noticed Lucy sitting forlornly on the curb.

“My poor dear,” she said, stroking her windblown hair from her face. “Where would you like to go? Shall we find the other marchers and see the end of the parade?”

“I want to go home.”

They walked the eight blocks to the train station. Lucy paid for two extra fares so they could have a compartment all to themselves. The tears she had bravely held back all day could finally flow.

“I feel dirty and tattered and heckled and scorned. I’ve worked so hard for the suffrage movement, but it hasn’t done one bit of good. Those men will never accept us as equals.”

“Why are you doing all of this, Lucy? Why did you want to go to the march today?”

“Because I vowed to change and to become a better person. Alice is married now, and Harriet doesn’t need me, and . . . and I just felt so empty and worthless. I could barely get out of bed in the morning.”

“Oh, Lucy, only God can fill the emptiness you feel. Why didn’t you turn to Him?”

“Because I couldn’t! I needed to make it up to Him first, for the way I’ve lived all these years and for all of the shallow choices I’ve made. I felt so guilty for the way I treated Daniel. He died a hero, just like Daddy and his own father had, while I’ve done nothing worthwhile all of these years.”

“Listen,” Bebe said as she pushed her own handkerchief into Lucy’s hand. “Harriet told me what Daniel’s pastor said at the funeral, and it sounds to me that Daniel’s faith was what motivated him. He didn’t just pull up his socks one morning and resolve to be a better person. God changed him from the inside out.”

“I tried to change and do something meaningful for God, but I’m just so tired of it all. I didn’t feel like I was part of the parade today—I hated it!”

“I think you may have gotten everything turned around, dear. You’re supposed to work
with
God, not
for
Him. Let Him change you first, and then He’ll give you the strength and motivation you need for each task.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do now?”

“You need to stop all this work and go away by yourself for a while. Start talking to God. Let Him fill the emptiness in your life. Then, once you get to know Him, He’ll tell you what He wants you to accomplish next.”

Lucy couldn’t seem to stop crying. “I’m so sorry for disappointing you. I’m sorry I can’t do all of the things you do.”

“Oh, Lucy,” Bebe said, pulling her into her arms. “I don’t expect you to fight the same battles that I do. We’re two different people, just as my mother and I were two different people. God arranged the events in my life to give me a different task than the one He gave to Hannah, and He has a different plan for you, too. Once you put God in the center of your life, I know He’s going to use you. And He’s going to use you just the way you are right now.”

“But how can He? I’m so shallow and empty-headed and . . .

and all I’ve ever cared about is socializing.”

“Do you honestly believe that women should have the right to vote?”

“Yes, but I hated marching and picketing and being heckled today. I would rather die than make a public spectacle of myself again. If God tells me that I have to do that all over again—”

“God has never told anyone to grab a picket sign and march for woman suffrage. What He does tell us to do is to feed the hungry and help the oppressed and share His love with others. Women of faith could change the world if we were given half a chance.

But what we’ve discovered is that we won’t get that chance until we’re treated as equals. The fight for suffrage is simply a means to a greater end.”

Lucy blew her nose, then leaned her head against Bebe’s shoulder. She wondered how her mother had grown so wise.

“God never asks you to be someone you’re not, Lucy. He asks you to use the talents you already have. You are in a perfect position to use your club friendships and the social connections you have to butter up our legislators and convince them to support suffrage. Have tea with politicians’ wives, get them to support our cause, too, so they’ll pressure their husbands. Hold dinners and other events to raise funds for candidates who do endorse suffrage. Your natural charm and social skills will get you through doors that are closed to me. And these are things that you love to do and are skilled at doing.”