The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [18]
“Well, that’s an improvement in your disposition.”
Mama washed her face in the fresh water pitcher and used the gold-framed mirror to set her hat straight and brush mud from her skirt and light jacket. The stains beneath her arms barely showed on the damp wool. “Come along,” she said. “I’ll brush your skirt off in back and you brush mine. Get the hem good.”
“I can’t stand up,” I said.
“Yes, you can.”
I brushed off my own skirt, and then we left the room and climbed up to the second floor. “He was a senator first,” Mama said. “I think he and the mayor are friends.”
She acted … excited. As bedraggled as we looked, her eyes sparkled as though she was about to enter as the belle of the ball. Was it rubbing shoulders with a governor that intrigued her? Was it reaching this first big goal, collecting the first signature, that gave her energy? I didn’t have a drop of her enthusiasm in my blood; was I even her daughter?
A door that reached to a fourteen-foot ceiling took up the wide hall. Gold eagles flew over the opening. The doorknob looked gold. Through the glass window that lined one side, a chandelier of great proportion glittered from the high ceiling inside. I gazed up at it.
“Is this mining country?” I said swirling around. “There’s so much gold.”
“Gold and silver. Don’t look so awed, Clara. We have every right to be here. It’s a public building. It belongs to the people.”
“The people of Idaho.”
“All of us,” she said. “This is America.”
She pulled open the heavy door, and I met the eyes of a woman older than Mama, looking out through thick glasses. “May I help you?”
Mama stepped up and handed her a portrait. “We’re the two women walking from Spokane to New York City,” she said. “You may have heard of us? We were written up in the New York World.”
“Did you say walking to New York City? There’s a train that goes there,” she said. “It would be much faster. Well, after the waters recede.”
“I know. But this walk isn’t about speed; it’s about endurance,” Mama said. “We’re walking for a contract of ten thousand dollars.”
I cringed. Every time she mentioned the money I felt like I’d stepped in dung, and it stuck on my feet.
“Goodness! That’s a tidy sum.”
“It is,” Mama agreed. “But we have to receive signatures of dignitaries, especially the governor’s, if we are in a capital city. Here’s a letter of introduction from Spokane’s Mayor Belt.”
The woman took the letter, looked back at Mama over her glasses. “I’ll ask His Honor if he’s free,” she said. She lowered her voice then and added, “He’s usually available to meet with pretty women, even if they can’t vote.”
“One day we will,” Mama said as the woman left us.
Pretty women? Does the woman have poor eyesight? We look like swimming cats.
The governor stepped out then and bowed at the waist. He handed the letter back to Mama. “Am I to understand from Miss Simmons here that you fine gentlewomen are walking to New York City? Whatever could you want there that can’t be had in Idaho?”
“The completion of a wager,” Mama said. “And I’ll be showing your signature along with those of other dignitaries when we reach our destination.” Mama took the signature book from her bag. The governor signed with a flourish. His dark beard framed a pleasant enough face, and he smiled when he said, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Recommend a portrait studio, if you will,” Mama said. “And perhaps someone who might be in need of a washerwoman or ironer for the day, perhaps a servant for a fine event. My daughter has served in the finest homes of Spokane.”
He scratched at his chin. “I doubt there’s much partying planned with this river situation. Miss Simmons here can recommend a portrait studio.”
“And a place to sleep tonight?” I said, elbowing my mother. “Someplace warm. And dry.”
“Clara. The governor is much too busy to worry about where we globe trekkers might sleep.” My mother batted her eyelashes. Is she flirting?