The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [40]
“We have to, Mama. It’s the right thing to do now. It’s what the family needs.”
Those were the words that cut through to her.
“Ja, ja. You’re right,” she said. “You’re right.” She wiped at her eyes. “We’ll go now.” The task would help her set aside her grief for the moment. “We’ll tell the newspapers. They’ll cover the story maybe, put pressure on the charities commissioner or on the sponsors. Yes, that’s what we’ll do.”
“Let’s ask for help, Mama. And accept it.”
“He would send us to the almshouses, Commissioner Brute would,” Mama told the reporters. We’d met with the commissioner but had no success. Neither my mother’s desperation nor charm moved him. “He must be a Swede,” Mama said. “They’re so stubborn and unimaginative.” I hoped the reporter wouldn’t quote that. “I told him we had no time to be housed and fed at the almshouse,” she continued. “We’d be taking food from poor immigrants. We have jobs; we can pay a loan back, but we need it now. We need money for the tickets home. I am good for a loan. I can pay back the commissioner,” she insisted. “Or anyone. But he sent us to the Bureau of Charities on Schermerhorn Street. They cannot help us either. I tell them of all our past trials, all we’ve endured, and that I am a woman good for her word.”
“May I include some of those past trials in the story?” the reporter from the Sun asked her.
“Yes, yes. Say anything. Let them know I will repay. I must go home; my daughter and I must go back. Diphtheria entered my house.”
Diphtheria could even now be slithering through the barn boards, seeping its way into the throats of my brothers and sisters, choking out more lives. Something sharp forced down the child’s throat could break the membrane that cut off air. I wondered if Papa had thought of that. Of course he would have! They all knew what to do. There’d been that terrible epidemic in Minnesota. Mama’s cleanliness, exceptional housekeeping, keeping food in good condition—those were things that kept diphtheria at bay.
But we weren’t there to do that this time.
At the New-York Tribune office, I told the story. I sounded firm but not desperate, though I’d never felt more powerless in my life. The night before, Mama hadn’t slept at all. She’d scrubbed the floor instead, scraping with the rough brush over and over. I fell asleep to the grating sounds of grief.
When it was published, the Sun article spoke of our “intelligence and perseverance” and suggested that we would be good for a loan.
But no one contacted the paper to offer one.
Especially not the sponsors.
EIGHTEEN
The Right Thing to Do
My teeth chattered less from the cold than from the shock of the past three days. We stood in the entry room of the offices of Chauncey Depew, president of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. He’d contacted us, inviting us to come. Mama looked gaunt and wild-eyed at the same time. She’d spilled all our family details of loss and accident and deaths to reporters, so the world now knew of our journey from poor to destitute. There’d be no happy ending even if the sponsors came through, what with dear Bertha gone forever. Since the letter, I never knew what state I’d find Mama in: one moment scurrying about, raving about sponsors or her failure to be there for her family; the next moment sobbing and still as a cemetery on a hot summer’s day.
Could there be anything more pitiful than to be paupers in the offices of a railroad magnate? Wealth shone elegantly in the brass ashtrays on the shiny wood tables that graced the reception room and reflected large pots of ferns. Chandeliers flickered golden light on us as we waited, sunken into the posh leather seats. Glass cases with slender brass labels announced “President Abraham Lincoln’s coffee cup” and “General Ulysses S. Grant’s ivory toothpick.” People collected and touted the strangest things when they had little to do with their money. I used to love such opulence, but now it made me angry. Here we sat, prepared to beg to get us home to our desperate