Though Waters Roar (12 page)
“It’s clear that women like us, united for a heavenly cause, can accomplish great things. Let the men shoot it out on the battlefield or argue politics; women fight best on their knees.
“Our United States Constitution has now been amended to grant Negro slaves their freedom, which is what we’ve been praying for. Soon another amendment will grant civil rights to those former slaves, but only to the men. That means that half of the population of America—its women—are still denied the basic rights of our Constitution. Ladies, this simply isn’t fair. Shouldn’t the women who worked so hard on behalf of the slaves be accorded the same civil rights that they now will enjoy?”
Bebe glanced around at the others as Mrs. Mott paused and noticed that the ladies had stopped knitting. Everyone gazed intently at her, waiting to hear more.
“We were the force who, through our prayers and hard work, won freedom for them. We are all educated, literate women, while the vast majority of Negroes are illiterate. Yet those uneducated men will now be allowed to vote while we will be denied. Is it fair, I ask, that those of us who’ve worked so hard to see the Negroes raised to a position of equality—and Negro men have been so raised—is it fair that the very women who’ve helped raise them are still considered inferior?”
Bebe could barely sit still. She wanted to leap up and shout, “No! It isn’t fair!” Mrs. Mott’s cheeks flushed with passion as she continued.
“If I were to go around this circle and ask each of you to describe the sacrifices you’ve made for the cause of abolition and for the recent war, I believe I would hear tales of great courage and devotion. Many of you risked your own freedom to help slaves escape on the Underground Railroad. Others supported the cause with your time and donations. And you continued your volunteer work during the war, sending packages to our soldiers, and supplying the army hospitals with nurses and food and bandages. You took over your families’ farms and businesses when the men marched off to fight, and sat at the bedsides of wounded loved ones when they needed you. Some of you paid the ultimate price, losing a loved one on the battlefield for the cause of freedom.
“In light of all these sacrifices and accomplishments, don’t we deserve to be counted as full citizens? After everything that we have done during the war, haven’t we proven our equality?”
Once again Bebe longed to shout,
“Yes!”
She had worked just as hard as her brothers had, so why should she be treated differently? Lucretia Mott’s speech made sense to her, and she wanted to send up a cheer. The other townswomen sat so quietly that it was impossible to tell what they were thinking. Mrs. Webster, the minister’s wife, glanced around at the ladies, and seemed surprised that no one had responded. She turned to Mrs. Harrison, who was seated alongside her.
“Tell me, Grace. Don’t you work just as hard in the store as your husband does? I’ve seen you waiting on customers and making change and ordering goods—then you have to go home and cook dinner and clean house. And all you other women, didn’t you take over a great deal of the work when your sons and husbands were away?”
“I did,” Bebe said—but she didn’t say it nearly as loudly or forcefully as she would have liked to. Mrs. Webster smiled at her.
“Yes, Beatrice. You took over for all four of your brothers and helped raise the food that fed the armies.”
Mrs. Morgan, the doctor’s wife, lifted her hand for a chance to speak. “But if the government does grant us equality with men, might we also be required to take up arms and fight in the event of another war? I, for one, am grateful that I didn’t have to fight in the recent conflict. I wouldn’t care at all for equality if that were to be the case.”
Bebe pictured the rows and rows of wounded men she’d seen in the hospital and had to agree with Mrs. Morgan on this point. She turned back to Mrs. Mott in confusion.
“It’s true that women currently aren’t required to fight,” Mrs. Mott quickly replied. “Thank goodness for that. Our gentler, more tender natures don’t equip us for the rigors of battle. Our soldiers displayed outstanding courage during the recent war—but who was responsible for shaping those young men’s characters so that they developed the necessary courage to fight? Their mothers, of course—women like all of us. Is the task of molding and nurturing the next generation of leaders any lesser of a role, deserving lesser rights? Of course not. If we are the ones who help mold our future leaders, why shouldn’t we be granted the right to help choose those leaders?”
When no one else challenged her, Mrs. Mott continued. “We need a plan, ladies. Winning civil rights for women is the next logical step. In the past, we used prayer, petitions, and pamphlets for the cause of abolition—now we will use those same methods to accomplish this new goal. Those of you who disagree”—she smiled pleasantly at Mrs. Morgan—“are of course free to engage in other work. But if you believe, as I do, that ‘there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female,’ as the Scriptures say, ‘for ye are all one in Christ Jesus,’ then let’s get to work tonight.”
Bebe needed no further convincing. She already had proven her equality with her brothers. She would join the cause. She would give it her all.
As I said before, Grandma Bebe never did tell a story in a straight line like the chapters in a book. Following the thread of her sagas was like chasing a startled rabbit through the woods—you never knew when it was going to turn and head in a new direction. I hated to interrupt her, but we were more than halfway home from the picnic that Decoration Day, and if she veered off the path of Horatio’s story, I was afraid she would never find her way back to it. Grandma had wandered in a new direction with Lucretia Mott, and while I’m sure her story would be very interesting, I was losing patience with this new rabbit trail.
“Um . . . Grandma Bebe?” I said when she paused for a moment. “Could you go back to the story of—?”
I never finished my sentence. We heard a
bang!
that was as loud and explosive as a gunshot, and it scared the thoughts right out of my head.
Grandma hit the brakes and gripped the steering wheel with both hands to control the car’s sudden swerving. “Hang on tight, Harriet! We’ve had a blowout!”
I’ve watched my father struggle to wrestle his car into submission after a blown tire, and I was pretty amazed that my tiny grandmother could manage to control her behemoth of a car. I was also glad that I hadn’t been driving at the time. The sound the ruined tire made as it slapped against the roadbed was like a dozen maidservants beating carpets on a clothesline. The car came to a halt at last on the side of the road, enveloped in a great cloud of dust.
“Well!” Grandma said with a sigh. “Don’t you hate when that happens?”
We climbed out of the car and walked around it to look at the rear tire. There must have been a pond nearby, because I could hear frogs
thrump-thrump
ing in the distance. I looked around for a farmhouse, but the only light I saw came from the moon high above us. We seemed to be on a desolate stretch of road, surrounded by forested hills. I hoped there weren’t any hungry bears in those woods.
“Now what?” I asked. “I suppose we’ll have to wait for another car to come by and rescue us?” I shivered and folded my arms tightly against my chest. The air in that mountain hollow felt as damp as the inside of a cave.
“Nonsense!” Grandma replied. “Only women in fairy tales wait to be rescued.” She twisted the handle on the trunk, and it opened with a squeak. She had to raise her voice to be heard above the clamor that she made as she rooted through the shadowy bin. “No, Harriet, I made up my mind when I bought this car that if I was responsible for driving it, then I should be responsible for fixing it when something went wrong. Here, hold these . . .” She handed me a car jack and a tire pump, then disappeared into the trunk again. She emerged a moment later, waving a rubber inner tube in the air like a deflated black snake. “Always carry a spare, dear.”
I watched in awe as Grandma crouched down and wedged the jack under the car frame as expertly as my father did. Her driving gloves were getting greasy and the front of her duster was smudged with dirt, but she didn’t care one whit. I wanted to be just like her.
“Let me do that, Grandma,” I said as I knelt beside her. “I want to learn how.” She taught me to change an automobile tire that day, step by step, and I wished the boys from school could have been there to watch me work. They thought all girls were helpless and empty-headed like my sister, Alice. I would have loved to show them how wrong they were. Grandma was right—why wait to be rescued when I was perfectly capable of rescuing myself? Her example inspired me—and it was one of the reasons why I had refused to call anyone on the telephone to come and rescue me from jail. I had thought of Grandma’s words as my cell door slammed shut:
“Only women in fairy tales wait to be rescued.”
After Grandma Bebe and I fixed the tire that damp May evening and started down the road toward home again, I was eager for her to continue the story of my great-uncle Franklin and grandpa Horatio.
“So how did you end up marrying Horatio Garner, Grandma? If you went home to the farm and he went back to Roseton again, how—?”
“Patience, Harriet, patience. I’m getting to that part . . .”
Bebe couldn’t wait to tell her mother all about the Anti-Slavery meeting as they prepared breakfast the next morning. “You should have come last night, Mama. Lucretia Mott came all the way from Philadelphia, and she told us that—”
“Not now, Beatrice . . . please . . . and mind what you’re doing— you’re letting the bacon burn.”
Bebe slid the cast iron skillet to a cooler place on the stovetop, then turned the crisping pieces with a fork. The fat sizzled, stinging her bare arms like wasps. She knew better than to raise the subject of equality for women after her father and brothers trooped in from the barn, but when the men had eaten their fill and she and Hannah were alone, Bebe brought up the subject again as they washed the breakfast dishes.
“It was such an interesting meeting last night, Mama. Mrs. Mott said that we proved our equality with all the work we did during the war. She said we’re entitled to the same rights as men, seeing as we were created equal.”
Hannah put away the stack of plates she had dried and closed the cupboard door. “But I don’t agree that men and women are equal, Beatrice. God created us to be different, with different skills and qualities that complement one another. Women don’t have the muscular strength to be blacksmiths and men don’t have the tenderness required to nurture a baby. To say that we are equal is foolishness.”
Bebe looked up from her scrubbing, genuinely surprised that her mother disagreed. “But didn’t we work just as hard as men while they were away?”
“Those were special circumstances. I don’t think you’d want to do men’s work for the rest of your life, would you?”
“No . . . but Mrs. Mott said that women are considered inferior to men, and we’re not inferior, Mama. So it isn’t fair that—”
“It’s not a question of who is superior; it’s a question of who is the head of the household. Someone has to assume leadership in the home, and God decreed that it should be the husband. This isn’t something for you or me or Lucretia Mott to decide. We can’t change what’s written in the Bible. ”
Bebe felt confused. Everything had seemed so clear to her at the meeting last night, but she didn’t know how to explain it to her mother the way Mrs. Mott had. Bebe finished scrubbing the last pot and handed it to Hannah to dry. “I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.”
“Listen, Beatrice. The roles God has given us as wives and mothers are of the utmost importance. The standard He set for us is found in the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs. We are to be a helpmeet to our husband so that he can accomplish his God-given work. And we are to raise obedient, moral, God-fearing children.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what Mrs. Mott said last night. And she said our work is just as important as what men do—maybe even more important.”
Hannah smiled and spread her palms. “Then what more could you possibly want?”
Again, Bebe felt confused. “Well . . . Mrs. Mott said that women deserve the same civil rights as men, including the right to vote.”
“Why would you want to vote, Beatrice?”
“I-I don’t know . . . That’s why I need to go to the next meeting, so I can learn more about it. She said that women like us helped win freedom for the slaves, and that equality for everyone should be our next goal. That’s what I want to do, Mama. I want to help accomplish something important.”
“The most important thing that any of us can do is to serve God and build Christ’s kingdom. My religious convictions were what led me to help all those slaves escape. I was simply doing the work that God gave me to do.”
Bebe huffed in frustration. She wished she could explain it better. Her mother just didn’t understand. “Well . . . well, maybe this is the work God is giving me to do. That’s why I want to go to another meeting.”
Hannah hung the dish towel near the stove to dry and rested her hands on Bebe’s shoulders. “If you would determine in your heart to put that same amount of time and effort into Bible study and prayer, you would find the purpose and contentment that you’re seeking.”
“Yes, but . . . can I still go to the meeting?”
“That’s up to your father, Beatrice.”
When Bebe’s father learned what the meetings were about, he forbade her to attend any more of them. She voiced her frustration to Hannah, who responded by reciting Bible verses such as “godliness with contentment is great gain.” Bebe resigned herself to living a boring life on a boring farm outside a boring town—but she was not very happy about it, let alone content.
She found it especially hard to be content whenever she shopped in the general store and heard the other women discussing the meetings. Mrs. Harrison never failed to invite Bebe to come back. She invited her once again after Bebe drove into town on a beautiful Indian summer day to buy vinegar and salt and the other supplies that she and Hannah needed to make pickles and sauerkraut.