The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [17]
“Hopefully the Union article preceded us,” Mama said. “We’ll need new shoes here. I should have realized how badly the cinder packing the ties would cut the leather soles.”
“Maybe a few other things we should have thought about too,” I snarled. My ankle ached from walking awkwardly outside the tracks on the rough and uneven ground. It made walking slow and messy. “We’re far from averaging twenty-nine miles a day.”
“Clara, look on the bright side. A woman gave us dried cherries. Such a luxury. We had a day we made forty miles. Or more.”
“And I cut my foot on those empty bottles tossed out.”
“You have to pick up your feet, that’s all.”
No sympathy came from her. It was all work. Do. Persist.
Conductors on the trains emptied their wash water and human refuse right onto the tracks, and if we weren’t careful, we stepped in it, our long skirts picking up the mess as well as the stench. My mother, always so clean and tidy. Papa should see her now, I thought. Mrs. Stapleton would have fainted.
“Pretty flowers,” Mama said.
“If they weren’t so wet.”
“The Norwegian Feminist Society recently adopted the sunflower as their special flower because it follows the sun, claims light and air, and reaches for more.”
I rolled my eyes. “That can’t be so.”
“It is. I learned of it before we left. My suffragette friends certainly know that’s what a sunflower stands for.”
“So anytime we see a sunflower we can stop and perhaps be invited in by a kindred spirit to spend the night? In a bed perhaps? That would be pleasant.”
“Sarcasm does not become you,” Mama said. “I’m not saying that sunflowers are so … significant. Even though their faces are wet and gray, they turn toward the west, as though they know the sun will set there and dry them out.”
“What sun?” I said.
My mother sighed. “Let’s stop first at the statehouse. We’ll find the governor and get his signature. We’ll take that to the newspaper, and that’ll help us find work.”
“And what if he won’t sign it?” I said. “Look at us.”
“Don’t put trouble in your wheelbarrow. It’s heavy enough as it is.”
“My feet hurt. I’m cold and tired and wet. I’d like to rest tonight in a real bed.”
“You’ve been irritable all day. Are you starting your monthlies?”
“Mother. Please.”
“Nothing wrong with a woman discussing her feminine needs. I know you have rags with you because I put them in your grip, but I hope you’ll be able to work.”
“I’ll do what I must. Right, Mother?” I didn’t like myself as a grumpy woman, but I wasn’t having any luck letting go of blaming my mother for how miserable I felt.
Once in Boise City, I noticed streetcar tracks. “Can we ride to the capitol?”
“No. The streetcars are not free, so we can’t take them. We have to walk. Those are the conditions. They may have spies watching to see that we don’t cheat.”
“No one is going to come all this way to watch us. And certainly not in the middle of a flood.”
“The cars won’t run with the high water, and if a reporter saw us riding even on the back of a farmer’s wagon, the contract could be invalidated.”
“Fandem!” I said.
“Don’t bring up the devil, Clara. His ears are too good, and if you invite him, who knows what can happen?”
“I’m so … tired, Mama.” I couldn’t think of a deeper, bigger, more expansive word than tired. I was an elephant weighted with stones. My fingers ached; my hair hurt. I could barely feel my feet.
“Oh, look. There’s the capitol. We’ve walked down the right street. Isn’t that fortunate?”
I rolled my eyes at her enthusiasm.
Once inside the building, our feet clicked on the marble floors, and Mama asked directions to the ladies’ powder room. I sank onto a settee with