The Hope Chest (10 page)

“I don't know either. I was born in Alabama a long time before freedom came. When I was no bigger than you, I was sold away from my mother into Georgia, and I never saw her again.”

Myrtle kept her eyes cast down and listened respectfully. She had met old people who had been slaves before. None of them had been as old as Mrs. Merganser, though.

“My first baby was sold away from me when he was one year old. The second as well. Then my master died and left me to his brother in his will, along with some cows and a horse.” Myrtle heard the sarcasm in the old woman's voice. “But my husband he left to another brother. So I lost him too. Do you want an apple?”

Myrtle felt derailed by the sudden change of subject. “Yes, ma'am.”

Mrs. Merganser dug an apple out of her handbag, polished it against her skirt, and gave it to Myrtle. Myrtle was struck by how bright and smooth the apple looked against Mrs. Merganser's wrinkled old skin.

Myrtle savored the first bite of apple, crushing it between her teeth and letting the cider run over her tongue. Mrs. Merganser went on.

“After freedom, I searched for my first two children, but I never found them. I didn't look for my first husband, because by that time I was married again.”

Mrs. Merganser looked at Myrtle sharply, as though daring her to say anything.

Myrtle said, “Yes, ma'am.”

“Nowadays they'd call that bigamy.” She shook her finger at Myrtle. “You can't marry another husband unless you divorce the first one or he dies. But back then it didn't matter. Colored folk marrying didn't matter any more than dogs or cattle marrying, in the eyes of the law.”

Myrtle wiped apple juice from her chin with her sleeve. Mrs. Merganser shook her head disapprovingly and handed her a handkerchief.

“I had eight children before freedom and four after,” she went on. “And only three are alive today, not counting the two I don't know about.”

Myrtle tried to think of something comforting to say and came up with, “Pretty soon, though, ma'am, they're going to let women vote.”

Mrs. Merganser shook her head in disbelief. “You think they're going to let us vote? Even if they do pass this amendment and let white women vote, you think they're going to let colored women vote? You haven't been listening to a word I've said, child.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Myrtle contradicted.

“You don't know much, child. I've just been telling you how I was sold and willed and bartered about like so much livestock, and you've got it into your head that white folks are going to let
me
vote?”

Myrtle said nothing. To say “yes, ma'am” again would, she felt, be pushing her luck.

“I guess you don't know,” said Mrs. Merganser, “that these white people talked about amending this amendment of theirs. They talked about fixing it to say that white women could vote and colored women couldn't. They said that would make it easier to get the amendment passed. And I'll tell you something.”

“Ma'am?”

“These white people were right. If they could've fixed that amendment to leave out colored women, it would've passed a long time ago.”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Myrtle. She didn't know if what Mrs. Merganser said about the amendment was true. She hadn't paid very close attention to the news stories about it. But she did know one thing. “I'm going to vote, ma'am, when I grow up.”

Mrs. Merganser huffed derisively. “We're sitting here in this Jim Crow car because white people don't want to have to look at us when they ride on a train. And you think these same white people are going to let you pick their president for them.”

Myrtle looked at the floorboards. Put that way, it did sound foolish.

“And if you live in Washington, D.C.,” Mrs. Merganser added, “you can't vote anyway, man, woman, or child; white or colored.”

“Then I won't live in Washington,” said Myrtle.

“I think you must be the most stubborn child ever born,” said Mrs. Merganser.

“Yes, ma'am,” said Myrtle, glad they'd gotten that straight.

Mr. Martin's Escape

T
HE TRAIN
C
LIMBED STEEPLY UP INTO WHAT
Miss Dexter said (when she started speaking again) were the Blue Ridge Mountains. But darkness had fallen, and the only thing Violet could see out the window was the reflection of the inside of the train car, two long rows of passengers, mostly women, on red mohair-covered seats, surrounded by their handbags, hatboxes, picnic baskets, valises, and traveling pillows.

“I hope you understand I'm not a
racialist
, Violet,” Miss Dexter was saying as she unpacked fried chicken, biscuits, and apples from a picnic basket. “Mr. Martin doesn't seem to understand this. He doesn't seem to realize that with everything we women have worked so hard for in the balance, we can't be distracted by every little battle that comes our way.”

Mr. Martin had gone to look for something for them to drink.

“Can I take some of this to Myrtle?” Violet asked, indicating the meal Miss Dexter was serving out. A few days ago she would have considered it the very height of bad breeding to ask her hostess for more food. But she was starting to realize that being well brought up had its disadvantages. It kept you from asking for the things you needed.

“Yes, of course,” said Miss Dexter. “I certainly don't intend to
starve
the child,” she added, wrapping some food up in a napkin. “Separation of the races doesn't necessarily mean inequality, Violet, it just …”

In honor of her newfound rudeness, Violet walked away without waiting to hear the end of this.

Violet worked her way toward the back of the train. There was no point in asking directions, she thought, on a train. She found the colored car all the way at the back. Clutching the napkin in her fist, she opened the last door and walked back through the aisle of colored passengers. She found Myrtle sitting next to an elderly woman.

“I brought you some dinner,” said Violet. She held out the napkin.

“Thanks,” said Myrtle. “Mrs. Merganser, this is my friend Violet.”

Mrs. Merganser looked at Violet and nodded a greeting. Then she closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep. Violet supposed she must be too old to stay awake.

“Can I sit down?” she asked. She felt uncomfortable being the only white person in the colored car, but she was tired of Miss Dexter and in no hurry to get back to her. And there was something she wanted to ask Myrtle about anyway.

“Sure.” Myrtle made a space between herself and the window, and Violet squeezed into it. The rattan seats in the colored car were even more uncomfortable than the mohair-covered iron springs. Why didn't they make train seats out of something more comfortable?

“I think Mr. Martin might be on the run from the police,” she said to Myrtle.

“Did you only just now figure that out?” said Myrtle.

“Well, when did you figure it out?” Violet asked, annoyed.

“First time I saw him, back in New York. When he jumped a mile when we came into the room.”

Violet wasn't sure if Myrtle was telling the truth or was just trying to show how smart she was. Anyway, Violet had more pressing concerns. “But don't you think he might be a little bit
smitten
with my sister?”

“Yes.” Myrtle frowned.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Doesn't your sister know how to send a fella to the rightabout if he gets too fresh?”

“I guess so,” said Violet. One way or another, Chloe had certainly sent the Mr. R.'s to the rightabout.

“Then I wouldn't worry about it,” said Myrtle.

“But what about him being on the run from the police—we think?”

Myrtle did that shrug thing with her eyes. Apparently she didn't consider being on the run from the police a major character flaw.

“Well, he could be dangerous,” said Violet. “He could hurt us.”

“He hasn't hurt us yet, has he?” said Myrtle. Violet must have conveyed by her expression that this wasn't a satisfactory answer, because Myrtle added, “There are lots of ways to get in trouble with the law without hurting anybody, you know.”

Violet did not know this. “Anyway, I think maybe she already sent him to the rightabout, and now he wants to try to get her to change her mind.”

Myrtle nodded. She must have come to the same conclusion. “Maybe she'll want to change her mind.”

“I don't think so,” said Violet. “She doesn't want a— a gentleman friend. She sent these fellas back home in Susquehanna to the rightabout, and they were much better-looking than Mr. Martin.”

“Looks aren't everything,” said Myrtle sagely.

Violet was starting to get a prickly, uncomfortable feeling in the back of her neck. She turned around quickly. From the studied way that everyone was looking somewhere else, she was sure they had all been staring at her a second ago. “Am I not supposed to be in here?” said Violet.

“I don't know,” said Myrtle. “Probably not.”

Violet got up. Being out of place was unpleasant; it made your stomach hurt. She might as well go back and get her own dinner. “I'll see you later,” she said. She turned to say goodbye to Mrs. Merganser, but the old woman was sound asleep. She must be too old even to talk anyway, Violet thought.

Just as she got back to the suffragists' car, the door at the other end of it snapped open and two men strode in. The men were dressed in black suits with starched collars that seemed to hold their chins up uncomfortably high. They marched down the car and stopped in the aisle next to Miss Dexter.

“Excuse me, ma'am,” said one of the men. “Is there a man occupying this seat?” He pointed to the place Mr. Martin had just vacated.

“Yes,” said Miss Dexter, looking surprised. “He's just gone to get drinks.”

“Aha,” said the man who had spoken, and the two men looked at each other and nodded.

Then they just stood there. As Violet came up to them, she could see this made Miss Dexter nervous. They made Violet nervous too. They had an official, police-like air about them.

“May I ask who you are?” Miss Dexter said.

“I'm sorry, ma'am, we're not at liberty to say,” said the man who had spoken first. Then the train lurched around a bend and both men fell sprawling down the aisle, their arms and legs tangled together.

They picked themselves up with great dignity, as if they had meant to fall down. They made their way back up the aisle to Miss Dexter, gripping the edges of the seats tightly.

Violet didn't know who these men were, but she and Myrtle both thought Mr. Martin was running from the police. Mother and Father would probably have thought Mr. Martin was beyond the pale. But Myrtle liked him. Maybe he hadn't even really done whatever it was the police were after him for. Maybe there'd been some kind of mistake.

Violet made up her mind. Even if there hadn't been a mistake, she wasn't going to let the police catch Mr. Martin. She liked him. He talked to her like she was a person, and he'd stuck up for Myrtle too. Whatever else he might have done … Well, she just hoped it wasn't anything too horrible.

Violet tried to slip past the two men, heading the way Mr. Martin had gone to look for drinks. One of the men stepped in front of her, blocking her way.

“I'm just going to use the saloon,” Violet said, with the most innocent look she could muster. The bathrooms on trains were called “saloons,” for no reason Violet could imagine.

The man stepped aside and let Violet pass. Violet tried to walk calmly to the end of the car, gripping the backs of the seats as the train's movement threw her from one side of the aisle to the other. She opened the door with difficulty and walked nervously through the narrow
vestibule. The four doors at its front, back, and sides rattled loudly.

She opened the door to the next car and managed to squeeze through it before it slammed on her.

A conductor stepped in front of her—not the conductor from Washington, but a different one. “Whoa, there, missy,” he said. “You don't need to be running around between train cars like that. It's dangerous. Where's your seat?”

“There,” said Violet, nodding to the car ahead. One thing her eleven years of life had taught her was that most males considered women and girls to be simultaneously mysterious and not very bright. So it wasn't very hard to lie to them.

The conductor looked over his shoulder. “Well, then how did you manage—”

“Excuse me,” said Violet, and pushed past him.

She found Mr. Martin in a vestibule after she'd passed through four more cars. He came out one door as she was coming out the other. He had a brown bottle of root beer in each hand and one sticking out of each of his trousers pockets.

“Mr. Martin, stop,” she said, holding up a hand toward him. She was out of breath from the effort of walking in the rocking train and pushing through the heavy doors.

Mr. Martin stopped and stood looking down at her quizzically. The train was chugging slowly up a steep grade. The jointed floor of the vestibule heaved and
creaked under their feet, and they both braced their legs to keep from falling.

“There are some men back there,” Violet said. “Looking for you. They're wearing tight collars, and they won't say their names.”