Something Worth Doing Page 15

  “Is that . . . ?” Abigail turned to Shirley, holding the photograph.

  Shirley looked at the picture in its cast-iron frame. “It’s a sad story. My husband brought her here to San Francisco when he divorced me after only a year. I don’t know how I chose so poorly.” She sighed. “He told the court he could care for her better, and I’ve rarely been allowed to even see her. If he knew I was involved with women’s advocacy, he’d cut off even those few visits.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Shame has a way of silencing people.”

  “But why should you be ashamed? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I never should have married him. My parents warned me against him. I didn’t listen. They worry over my women’s meetings too, but I have to put my heartache somewhere, make a difference for my daughter’s future life. The friend I told you about from Roseburg, she’s divorced with a child too and has endured rebuke because of it. Fortunately her parents supported her decision, as well they should have. They married her off when she was fourteen, and the man was abusive. He’s moved to San Francisco. She’s hoping to gain custody of their son.”

  “There must be a few men who share our hopes. Ben does. I’m so grateful for that.” Abigail pulled the pins from her hat, removed it. She realized how much Ben’s support meant to her, his goodness and how despite letter-writing attacks on her, he never suggested she was anything more than a dutiful wife and mother. She wondered if she’d have the strength to pursue her frank letters, push to be accepted in places that barred women, if she didn’t have the confidence that Ben offered.

  “There’s the Pioneer.” Shirley pointed to a newspaper lying on her table. “Sit and read while I fix us tea.” She heated water while Abigail scanned the single sheet. “Have you officially organized your group? Tried to vote or anything like Susan B. Anthony did back east?”

  “We’re starting to gather. It’s so much easier with pals. The hardest is getting the word out so women know they aren’t alone.”

  “That it is.” She turned to the backside of the Pioneer, read the masthead. “It has a woman editor.”

  “Yes. One of the first on the West Coast.”

  “A woman editor.” She thought of Harvey and his editorial against free secondary education, leaving the masses without hope of advancing themselves unless they had money. He’d influence voters with his opinions that were now able to go out across the West—if not back east. “It would take quite a bit to finance a newspaper. I’ve done some figuring. That’s why moneymen are the ones who do it.”

  “The Pioneer has backers, I’m sure. You could meet with her on your next trip.”

  “I’d like that.”

  She might be able to submit some of her essays and articles to the Pioneer and gain a wider audience.

  “Along with taking back fabric, I think you’ve given me something else to return with,” she said as Shirley filled the teapot with steaming water. “A newspaper, one that speaks for women’s needs and desires and encourages women and girls. That’s what Oregon needs.”

  Yes, she would write for newspapers that advocated a better life for women and children, her children and Maggie’s and all girls. Perhaps operate a publishing company. It would be her new method to achieve that most important goal of freedom for women. It could give Harvey’s Oregonian a run for his money. But first she had to plan it out, figure out the financing, and get Ben behind it. Because it would mean a move. They’d have to live in Portland, the fastest-growing city in the region. And of course, where Harvey presided. She’d take her silent hunt right into the king’s forest.

  There was no move to Portland and no newspaper either. Life got in the way. Harvey’s wife gave birth to a baby boy, but the family soon grieved when the child failed to thrive and died before reaching two months. Abigail sent a condolence letter, her words as tender as any she had exchanged with Harvey. No room for anything but compassion.

  “Stay a little,” Ben told her one February morning in 1866. Ben had been down—to use a term for horses foundering—from his having twisted strangely while lifting a leather collar over a pinto’s neck. He’d done it a hundred times without issue, but this time he’d been brought home by a neighbor who had heard his shout while passing by where Ben rented land to work his teams. “Rest,” the doctor had told them. This day, she’d picked up Ben’s noontime food tray and what was left of the ham sandwich and the crusts of bread Chen had freshly made. Ben didn’t like the crusts.

  “You’re always so busy.” Ben patted the bed. “Come. Sit.”

  “If I sat down now, I’d fall asleep in seconds.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  “It would. I have to finish the order, among other things. Just rest as the doctor said. Or read.” She heard the edge to her voice and the twinge of resentment that seeped in when he did foolish things that he knew could result in a recurrence of his back strain, forcing days in bed, leaving her to wonder if this was the incident that would seal his life as an invalid. Their lives, with him once again barely able to walk. “What I wouldn’t give to have the time to reread The Woman in White or dig into my shelf of books I have only read once.”

  “You work too hard.” He winced as he moved over to make room for her. “Put the tray down. Lie beside me. Let me hold you. You do so much.”

  She sighed and rested her head on the pillow, facing him. He stroked her arm. In seconds she was asleep.

  “Jenny? Jenny.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “Only fifteen minutes. I knew you’d never nap beside me again if I let you sleep until you awoke on your own.”

  “That would have been tonight at 10:00 p.m.” She yawned. “I would have harangued you when I saw the wasted time if you’d let me sleep on. There’s too much to do. I’ve got three dresses to finish.”

  “You can slow down a bit. Wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “Don’t, Ben. I don’t want to argue with you now about my pace or schedule.”

  “Me neither.” He kissed her nose, started to kiss her lips but stopped. His voice lightened. “Go on. Tend to business. Maybe I’ll get you tomorrow for another catnap if you see I can let you go, even when I’d rather keep you here.” He flashed that smile at her, the one that had won her heart those years before.

  “I hope that by tomorrow you’ll feel able to get up again.”

  “I’m sure of it. But if not, watching my wife slumber is one of the rare pleasures to come from this . . . spine with a life of its own.” He touched her elbow as though to help her sit. “Would you put my name on tomorrow’s dance card?”

  “Sleep card, more like it.” She sat up, straightened her hair combs as he rubbed her back.

  “Off with you,” he said.

  Maybe I should stay. The snooze had refreshed her, and he had awakened her and was letting her go, when she could tell he wanted the comfort of her presence. Maybe more. And would it be so bad to let your husband love you? “‘The things nearby, not the things afar,’” she quoted.

  “What’s that?”

  “Just thinking. I hope you’ve no need to rest tomorrow, but if you do, I’ll see if you want to have an old tired woman take a lie-down beside you.”

  “It’s a deal, though you’re far from a tired old woman.”

  In March of 1866 Abigail discovered she was pregnant. There was joy, yes, but angst too. She was thirty-two years old, had already given birth to four children, with only one arriving without much trouble. Months abed followed the delivery and to have both her and Ben foundering wouldn’t do.

  Ben was delighted. “You’ll have to stay at home more.”

  “This is the last one now. It has to be.” She’d have to read more about timing births. There were ways to do that.

  “Whatever you say.” He grinned.

  “I imagine you can hardly wait to let your horse friends know.”

  “I’m back in the saddle,” Ben joked while Abigail blushed.

 
It was probably the mood swings caused by the pregnancy, but she found herself annoyed by the children more, by Ben—even though he was up and only occasionally using his cane as the summer progressed. Even Mrs. Jackson, her partner, irritated her with her constant fluttering over the books, “questioning her judgment,” rather than merely inquiring over an entry she had made. Mrs. Jackson didn’t think they should branch out into dry goods, such as the wreaths Abigail had brought back from San Francisco. Such items were seasonal and no competition for the Jackson store, so Abigail didn’t see the problem. Nothing irked her more than having someone question her competence or judgment. Mrs. Jackson also made noises that Abigail should pull back her letter-writing to the newspaper. But Abigail believed that in this time of government turmoil—a new president, the war ended—people were most likely to consider change. People, being men who had all the power over the vote. Mrs. Jackson had made noises about Abigail being a tad too strident in her letters before.

  “It’s time,” she told Ben.

  “But she’s a huge help to you.”

  “Trying to be diplomatic is not my forte, as you well know. It takes more energy to hold my tongue than to live with a little business uncertainty.”

  She arranged to buy her partner out, settling the split on good terms, as she didn’t want bad feelings to filter onto the customers Mrs. Jackson had brought to the millinery.

  The newspaper idea would have to wait, as would the organizing of women, until after Abigail gave birth that November.

  “Another voter in the cradle.” Abigail smiled at Clyde, whose delivery had gone surprisingly well. He was a sweet baby who curled into her arms and gazed at her with eyes that seemed to bore right through her. As with Clara who was her first, Clyde was to be special—as their last child.

  “No more babies,” she told Ben.

  “Of course,” he’d agreed. Why wouldn’t he? He doesn’t have to bear the morning sickness.

  And like her, he loved his children, whose personalities blossomed. Willis, a boy who could declaim on any number of subjects from the Constitution to the life cycle of a butterfly and who enjoyed his lessons, always finishing first. Hubert was her outdoor child, his father’s helper in the garden—except when he joined Ben in his woodshop—and who knew the name of every tree and plant on their street. Wilke loved to play games like Tiddlywinks, garnering stacks of colored winks, always urging a little competition especially with his older brother. It was a popular game. She interrupted the boys when they teased Clara Belle as she practiced scales, or pulled on cousin Annie’s pigtails just because they could. The girls held a special place in her heart, and it pleased her that neither of them had blisters or backaches from the heavy work of farming or even laundry.

  The work of family life had been spread out, and if it wasn’t for Ben’s intermittent bouts of increased pain and decreased ability to hold his own for weeks at a time, life would have gone on without major worries. Money in the teapot brought her closer to that newspaper. And she almost believed everything would turn out all right.

  TWENTY

  Tend and Befriend

  1868

  _______

  Abigail hated missing her annual trip to San Francisco in November to review spring fashions. She wired money to Shirley, who made the purchases, and Abigail paid her a commission for her work. Shirley used the money for legal fees, she told Abigail, still seeking more time with her daughter. Shirley told her one of her attorneys, Eloi Vasquez, had taken an interest in her case—and her. “He’s of Spanish descent with cocoa skin and dark eyes and I think I’m falling in love,” Shirley had written. “Perhaps that verse about all things coming together for good was speaking to me all the time.”

  “Maybe that’s so for me too,” Abigail had written back.

  Travel stimulated Abigail’s thinking. She was challenged by dealing with new people, had no fear of disagreeing with those who saw the world differently. Their perspectives gave her ideas for her novel. She liked seeing how another state intervened in the suffrage fight. But alas, mothering kept her close to home, working in the millinery and being a seamstress. She didn’t see much stimulation in that work.

  Then a mother brought her fifteen-year-old daughter in for a fitting of a dress. The girl had a waist the size of an embroidery hoop, with skin as white as a baby’s first tooth. Listless was the word Abigail used to describe her as she pinned the dress the mother had sewed. The woman hadn’t been satisfied with her own efforts and so had hired Abigail to make alterations. The child’s corset trussed her already ample breasts and tiny middle into an abnormally curvy shape.

  “Do you like the way the dress fits you?” Abigail asked the girl, who had shrugged her shoulders.

  “What does it matter if she likes it or not,” the mother said. “Fix the gap between her small midriff and her bodice. The dress needs to make her look . . . inviting.”

  “What is she inviting?” Abigail loosened the pins and let out the material so the bodice wasn’t pushing upward in such a stark fashion.

  “She’s of marriage age. What else?”

  “Yes, she is. But many girls are waiting.” Abigail kept her voice light, as though she gossiped about the latest news rather than promoting an obvious contrast to the mother’s view. “Girls are going to school and finding interests, in addition to traditional roles.” She fussed at the sleeves but returned to loosening the waistline. We have to do something about the corset. “Some of the latest fashions from San Francisco—where I’ve been going on buying trips—are designed to have a little fuller waistline. Just as we are all free from the war, our bodies are seeking freedoms too. Our corsets might be squeezing the life from us women. There’d be less fainting or need for smelling salts if we could take deeper breaths.” She smiled, engaging the mother while she let out the dress seams.

  “She does faint often. I assumed it was her weak nature—which makes her less appealing to the opposite sex, of course, and means I must do everything I can to affect that.”

  “Let’s loosen those stays, shall we?” Abigail raised the girl’s arms and did the deed before the mother could protest. “Doesn’t that feel better?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it does.” The girl’s eyes sparkled. She inhaled and let a long breath escape. She’s relieved.

  “After she’s done her religious duty and married and had children, she can think about taking deeper breaths.”

  “The frock will fit better if it’s looser,” Abigail said. “And give her room to eat a bit more. Robust is invitational too.” Healthy is the finest aphrodisiac of all. “My own Clara Belle has found less corset and more carrots give her energy, and she can sing better too.”

  “Really?” It was the first time the mother seemed intrigued by Abigail’s words.

  “Are you a singer?” Abigail asked the girl.

  “She’s a lead in the church choir. The young music director has shown an interest in her voice.”

  “You see? Let her natural talent loose and who knows what joys the Lord might bring into her life.”

  The mother harrumphed but gave Abigail the go-ahead to loosen the whalebone stays a bit more. The dress fit much better and made the girl look less like a wicker mannequin and more like a young woman.

  “You’re a fine seamstress,” Abigail told the mother. “This was an easy fix. We have to pay more attention to our God-created forms and not let fashion force us into . . . unintended shapes. I’ll finish this up and you can return for a final fitting next week. Will that work?”

  “I hope we haven’t ruined her invitational design,” her mother said.

  “Ah, enticements come in many forms. Natural being the best of all.”

  The girl smiled and her cheeks held color for the first time since she’d arrived.

  That day Abigail realized she could affect a girl’s future right at home. The satisfaction surprised her. Perhaps those words in the intimacy of a fitting room were part of a “still hunt.” She’d make sure Clara
Belle knew that her own corset fittings had influenced another young girl’s future. Sway could happen any place where one paid attention, one conversion at a time.

  “We have to have a specific plan for the newspaper,” Abigail decided.

  The entire family sat around the table. Ben ground coffee beans as Abigail urged how they might all get involved in starting a newspaper. Clara’s musical talents were advanced enough that she began giving music lessons for actual pay rather than trading for beef or pork. The boys could contribute to the Duniway finances by shooting sparrows to sell to the local butcher—the ones the Duniways didn’t eat themselves. Ben, back working with the horses, taking only small doses of laudanum that kept the pain from spiking, also helped.

  Abigail speculated on a piece of property near the dock after a day she’d taken a brisk walk and saw the potential there. The property wasn’t yet for sale but should have been. She located the owner, made an offer, and it was the Duniways’—who sold it two weeks later at double the price when a steamship operator decided it was the perfect site for his expansion. Just as I thought. She’d figured that out before he had.

  Ben had put his name to the purchase and the sale as required. But he resisted her suggestion that they speculate on Portland property. “It’ll never be as big a place as Albany,” he’d said.

  But off and on he bought land that she told him would be good investments in towns throughout the state. She put a portion each week of millinery income into the teapot for her newspaper.

  She used old Argus issues to cut out dress patterns she’d seen in Godey’s Lady’s Book. She could spy a dress photograph and remake the design. She hadn’t thought of it as unusual, but her sisters all brought ads to her to reproduce the patterns. She did that while she spoke with Ben. “Harvey’s buying Portland property and selling like we did here in Albany. At a profit.” She considered asking Harvey to make a purchase or two for her, but he’d never agree to such a thing without Ben’s approval. “We’ll rue the day we let land on Front Street slip by us. I could be a very rich woman if not for hesitation of the male sex.”