The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [4]
“American women listen to their husbands,” my father said in Norwegian. “Or they should.” He rose from the table, shoved the chair against it, and stomped out.
I wanted my father to forbid her to go so I wouldn’t have to leave either. I didn’t dare defy her; I never had. We always did what she wanted. I was stuck.
“He’ll come around,” my mother said more to herself than to me. “He’ll see the wisdom of this. It’ll work. When we succeed, then, well, he’ll be grateful I did this for him, for the whole family.”
“Maybe he will,” I said. “But don’t expect me to ever be.”
TWO
The Plan
Two days later, on April 26, we stood in city hall “to receive the blessing of the mayor of Spokane,” Mama said.
“Mayor Belt,” I said, curtsying to the rotund man standing before us in his walnut-paneled office.
“My daughter Clara,” my mother said after she’d introduced herself. She wore a small hat with a single feather that topped off a dress with wide sleeves, a high neck, and a velvet throat ribbon. She had sewed everything herself. She had made my dress as well, and we looked like fine ladies worthy of a meeting with the mayor of Spokane even though I didn’t feel we were. “She’ll be making the trek with me. I can’t thank you enough for your support.”
“And how do you feel about this extraordinary if not dangerous journey, Miss Estby?”
I hesitated.
“Well, answer him, Clara.”
I wanted to say I felt awful. I wanted to say: My life is coming to an end with this ridiculous scheme. My father is upset. My brothers and sisters will be when they find out, especially Ida, who will be left to cook and clean and tend the youngsters we’re abandoning. I think the whole thing is foolish, without any real certainty we can survive the trip let alone receive the elusive money at the end of it that my mother puts such hope in. I can think of dozens of things that could go wrong. I don’t want to be separated from my family for so long or from my own budding life to satisfy my mother’s plan to rescue the farm. There must be another way.
That’s what I wanted to say.
“We’re very grateful for your support,” I said instead.
“Hmm. Not exactly an answer,” Mayor Belt said. “But then, young ladies aren’t expected to be articulate.” My face burned and my mother frowned. “You should thank my wife for this,” he said then, holding an envelope marked For Mrs. H. Estby. “She’s found the … romance in this entire thing. Two women, walking their way across the country to prove their stamina.”
“And promote the new reform dress,” my mother added.
“Yes, indeed.” He looked at our ankles, well covered with our long skirts, and I imagined him visualizing risqué hemlines raised above the tops of our shoes, the leggings we’d have to wear, waistlines without corsets. I scratched the back of my leg with my foot and he looked away.
“Until a woman is in charge of her ankles, she’ll never be in charge of her brain,” my mother said in her cheeriest voice.
He smiled. “I suspect easterners don’t understand the strength of the western woman,” the mayor said. “Why, my mother walked the trail carrying me, worked side by side with my father to clear fields, helped build a house and barn, planted fields, handled mules. She once outran a wheat fire started by dry lightning. Remarkable woman. She grabbed my hand and—”
“Did what was necessary for her family,” my mother interrupted. Everyone knew of the mayor’s tendency to go on and on telling stories. “Is that the letter of introduction?” He still held the envelope.
“Yes. Indeed.” He withheld it from her. “How did they happen to pick you, Mrs. Estby?”
I wondered that myself. It amazed me that I often found out important details affecting my life by listening to my mother talk to someone else. “On behalf of the sponsors who are in the fashion field, the newspaper asked for essays, statements of why I thought I could make the walk and why I must succeed to save our family’s farm. I was chosen for this from many entries, I was told.”
She told them of the