The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [5]
“It’ll bring fine fame to Spokane if you do it,” he said. “And if you don’t, well, what can one expect from a woman?” He grinned. “You really have nothing to lose and everything to gain. A perfect wager.” He handed her the envelope, and she thanked him again without looking at what he might have written.
We made our good-byes and began the walk to the portrait studio where our picture would be made and sent to the New York World, compliments of “the sponsors.”
“May I read what he wrote?” I asked.
She handed me the letter. I stumbled while opening it and she grabbed my elbow. I was forever tripping, the clumsy one in a family of light-footed souls. “Wait until we’re at the studio, Clara. You don’t want to be like me and fall and break your pelvis.”
“Mother!”
“There’s no shame in the word, Clara. If the city had kept their streets repaired, I wouldn’t have fallen and there wouldn’t have been the lawsuit.”
“Which told everyone of your … female problems.”
“Yes, but I won, and the money allowed us to buy our farm. Besides, I located a good doctor because of it and had the surgery and met a fellow suffragette in the process. It all worked out. Out of bad came good. Remember that.”
“Then maybe if we … couldn’t pay the mortgage, if we lost the farm, something good could come of that too.”
My mother stopped as though struck by lightning. Her shoulders stiffened and she looked like she might slap me, something she’d never done. “Clara. How you talk. Nothing could be worse than a foreclosure. Nothing. Give me that letter.”
She read it then. “Please, sirs, give kindly considerations to Mrs. H. Estby, who has been a resident of this city and surrounding area for nine years and is a lady of good character and reputation.”
“Why does he call you Mrs. H. Estby? Shouldn’t you use Papa’s name?”
“A woman has a name of her own, Clara.” She looked at the letter and nodded. “It’ll be enough. We have to get the signatures of dignitaries when we visit a state capital or large city, to verify that we’ve actually been there.”
I looked at her, aghast. “The sponsors won’t sign a contract, but they expect us to show that we’ve done our part? Mama.”
“We have signed a contract.” To my surprised gaze she added, “Well, I do listen to you.” She nudged me with her hip. “We have seven months to make the trek. We start out with five dollars and must earn the rest as we go. We can accept no rides but must walk the entire way. And we can accept meals and lodging from friendly supporters but not beg for it or money.”
“Beg? We might be so destitute we’d need to beg?” I could hardly swallow, the bow at my throat as tight as a noose.
She waved her hand to dismiss my worry. “I expect we’ll sleep most nights at the railroad stations, at least until our journey makes the newspapers and people are curious to meet us. They’ll discover we’re ordinary women doing something extraordinary. We might like a bed in their haymow or their attics. There’s even a provision in the contract to make time adjustments if one of us becomes ill. So you see, it’s not such a big risk.”
“And the money?”
“They’ll provide ten thousand dollars if we arrive on time and have met the conditions. Oh, Clara.” She grasped my gloved hand. “It will be the trip of a lifetime. You’ll see.”
“If we die, it’ll be the last trip of our lifetime.”
“Nonsense. Where’s that Estby spirit of accomplishment?”
She said nothing to my scowl.
The spring breeze lifted the soft curls at my face. I hoped we could wear our hats in the photograph, as I hadn’t brought my curling iron along to spruce up, and a hat turned my hair flat as a deer’s bed lying in the meadow.
My mother hummed as we walked along. “Remember the story I told you, Clara, about when I was a young student in Oslo? In religion class they told of Jonah swallowed by the whale, and then I went to science class and learned the whale has a narrow throat? Too narrow for a man. So I—”
“Challenged the religious teacher the next day,” I said. I’d heard the story numerous times.
“Yes, and he said to me, ‘Don’t you know,