Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

(Escaping from a truly dreadful  family situation and under an assumed name, the proper — and yet adventurous young Bostonian lady Sophia Brewer — has landed a job as a Harvey Girl. The year is 1886, and she has landed up in Newton, Kansa, to be trained in the Harvey method. The Newton Harvey house is a refuge for Sophia – and yet, can she do the kind of work which would be seen by kin and friends back in Boston as demeaning?)

Chapter 10 – Chance Met in Newton

Morning – if not precisely dawn – arrived far too early, in Sophia’s groggy estimation. The first harbinger sounded at first like a storm of blows upon the panels of the door to the room in which she and Laura had slept. She swam up out of as deep a state of sleep as she ever had had under the effect of Dr. Cotton’s disgusting potions, and the storm resolved into a polite tapping, and Jenny Maitland’s voice.

“Miss Teague, Miss Nyland? Wake up – there’s a train due into Newton in half an hour – and we must be ready. We’ll have our breakfast in the interval between that and the next, but you must be downstairs and inspection-ready in twenty minutes. Miss Teague…”

“I’m awake,” Sophia found her voice. From the other bed, she could hear Laura grumbling – probably strong oaths, from the level and passion of her voice. “So is Miss Nyland. We’ll be ready directly.”

There was some little starlight seeping into their room through the thin muslin curtains over the window which they had left open for fresh air. The moon was a small mother-of-pearl circle, just hovering over the buildings opposite – it shed just enough pale light to allow Sophia to light the gas fixture, as Laura heaved the bedclothes aside.

“Time to see to the cows,” she said, with remarkable cheer, and Sophia giggled.

“Not cows, Laura,” she replied, searching in her as-yet-unpacked carpet-bag for her cleanest shift. “But hungry travelers on the railway.”

“They wish to be fed, and will eat of what is put in front of them,” Laura replied. “Men … cows. Little difference that I can see.”

“Except that men don’t expect to be milked, as well.” Sophia said, and was disconcerted by Laura’s knowing chuckle.

“They want their service, just as the bull does,” Laura replied, inscrutably. She had found her stockings, and rolled them up around her pale shins as she sat on the bed. Sophia did not know what to say to that. She and Laura dressed in relative silence; combing out their long hair before the single mirror, and pinning it into plain and serviceable buns.

“We look like nuns,” Laura remarked, looking over Sophia’s shoulder as they stood in front of the small square of mirror over the wash-stand. Sophia regarded herself, and Laura – pale rounded faces reflected in the watery glass; Elsie collar buttoned high and close, plain black dress and narrow sleeves, with the white bibbed apron … it did appear positively nun-like. All that they lacked was a coif and a black veil. “I think that may be the idea,” Sophia replied. She had been considering this, ever since Jenny Maitland had outlined the code of appearance and dress, on the previous night. “You know how ordinary people think of a single woman who must work for a living, away from her family and friends … or at least, I know of how they are seen in respectable Boston society – most usually of the servant class and sometimes no better than they ought to be. It’s very hard, Laura, for a woman alone, without friends or family, to have any kind of respectable life … so Mr. Harvey and his strict rules are a defense, a protection, even – against vicious gossip. Like Caesar’s wife – we must be above suspicion.”

“You are likely right about this,” Laura made a brief moue of distaste. “Still – how very dull for us!”

“We may not flirt with customers, and we must not cultivate particular friendships among our fellow employees within the house … but Miss Maitland said that there was nothing in Mr. Harvey’s rules for us forbidding such attachments to gentlemen employed on the railroad. The telegraphists and engineers and such; they are reputed to be daring and clever young men, skilled and prepared to move up in the world. I might like to be courted by an intelligent and ambitious young man of no particular family background … if, that is – I would like to be courted at all…”

Sophia set down the comb with which she had been taming the last rebellious curls of her hair, bidding them forcefully to go along into the modest bun at the back of her head. “The main thing for me, Laura – I think I should like to work in something associated with the railroad – so new and exciting! You have no idea how boring my life in Boston was … there was not a person I knew, or met, save my great-aunt who had never had a thought or said a word that their farthest ancestors had not already said. I suppose that I have never felt quite so …alive. As if I were a new woman.”

“Me, I am tired of chickens and cows and slaving over a wash-tub,” Laura gave one last look at herself in the mirror. Sophia thought that Laura looked like some magnificent ancient Nordic goddess come to life. “Now – we go be new woman, ya?”

“Modern women,” Sophia echoed. They turned off the gaslight as they left their room. Out in the corridor there were already a bevy of girls in black dresses and white aprons, chirping excitedly or yawning. Sophia and Laura followed them down the staircase, through the kitchen – already a hub-bub of activity, redolent with the odor of baking bread and ham, of bacon and apple pies, muffins and sausages and clamorous with the voices of men shouting at each other in several languages besides English, and clanging iron pans on the tops of stoves – a clamor which diminished slightly at the first appearance of the girls in black and white. The girls went around the edge of the kitchen, into that hallway which led to the larders, the ice-room, the locked liquor store, the manager’s office, the telegraphist’s office, and the parlor set aside for the waitresses. This was a comfortable room, if set about with chairs, settees and tables of rather plain and unadorned make, all around the walls.  The parlor was brilliantly and mercilessly lit, the gas-lamps turned up to their highest extent so that it was nearly as bright as daylight. The girls made a circle, as if for a country-dance; Sophia and Laura followed suit – oh, yes, Jenny Maitland had told them the night before that she would inspect them – all of them and in a most stringent manner before they went on duty today.

Now the senior waitress went around the inside of the circle; each woman holding out her hands, first palm-up and then down for inspection. Jenny looked severely at their hands, their aprons and their hair, each in turn. Just as she began this process, a young man appeared in the doorway of the parlor, a piece of paper in his hand.

“Just come over the telegraph from Florence, Miss Maitland,” he said, with the air of someone bearing an important message. “Thirty-five for the lunchroom, twenty-four for the dining room.”

“Thank you, Mr. Boatwright,” Jenny said over her shoulder, “We’ll be ready.” The young man vanished like a mechanical Jack-in-the-box.   “You have a spot on your cuffs,” she said to the girl standing next to Laura. “Run upstairs and change – quick now.” Another girl had a crumpled apron – she also made a swift departure for upstairs, both of them returning, out of breath within a few minutes. Now all of her attention was on Laura and Sophia.  It appeared to Sophia that they both received a particularly exacting examination – for Jenny made them turn around, and to lift the hems of skirt and apron to show that they had on black shoes and stockings, and that their hair was tied with the plain white ribbon. Was this what it might be like to join the Army, she wondered – and found the supposition rather amusing.

“Miss Nyland, Miss Teague? You will start out in the lunchroom – it is sometimes a bit rowdier than the dining room, but the menu and the arrangements are somewhat simpler.”

“And the boys don’t tip like they do in there, either,” remarked one of the girls who had returned at that last minute. She had a gap between her teeth and wildly curly hair, even curlier than Sophia’s, but still firmly contained in a disciplined bun tied with a white ribbon. “But it’s a start. You follow after me, Miss Teague for the first round – watch what I do. I’m Selina Bennett – this’s my sister Frances. New girls always start in the lunchroom. Do you know the cup code yet?”

“Not well enough to be quick about it,” Sophia replied honestly, and Selina Bennett laughed, frank and honest. She and her sister both wore small round pewter brooches on their pinafores, each with an inset numeral 3.

“You’ll learn quick enough – it’s all very tidy and orderly; a systematical method for every motion, a place for everything, and everything in its proper place, just so. It’s like doing counted stitch needlework,” Selena added, as somewhere outside on the station platform, a whistle shrilled over the metallic shriek and clanging of a train coming into the station and applying the steam brakes.   To that symphony of noise was added the ringing notes of a gong.

“Here they come, girls,” Jenny Maitland swiped an invisible soot-fleck from her white apron. “The first train of the day – to work, now.”

Chapter 9 – The Harvey Way

            Her feet were feather-light, as Sophia sped down the stairway to the street, the load from her shoulders similarly light. Exuberant with joy and relief, she felt as if she should dance along the sidewalk, sing and shout. She was not tired, she was not a desperate and near to penniless fugitive. She had a pass for travel without charge on the next train … to Newton, which Mr. Benjamin had explained – with some amusement – was some six or seven hours journey farther west. She had just missed the most recent train west, and had some hours wait for the next. Her feet slowed … yes; there was one thing she ought to do, now that she was truly in the west. If she was a woman inclined to making careless, symbolic gestures, she might have dropped the gold Armitage engagement ring into the Missouri River, but the Brewers – and also the Teagues – were not given to indulge in such wastefulness.

The Union Depot in Kansas City seemed to be at the core of a district very like old North Town in Boston, which was a pity in Sophia’s eyes, for it was a magnificent building. It took her no little time, or distance from the ornamented red-brick façade and towers, to find a pawnbroker and get a hundred dollars for the gold, diamond, and pearl ring. She might have bargained for better, in accordance with the advice of Mendelson the Jew, but in truth she cared little enough, now that she was assured of employment by Harvey contract, and truly in the west … although so far, it did seem to be too much on the respectable side to be considered wild. She walked away from the pawnbroker’s establishment, feeling an odd sense of being unburdened. The last significant physical link to her old life was cut and she was free … or mostly free. She swung the carpet-bag as if it were a light thing. The railroad pass and the vouchers in her reticule crackled; the stiff paper they were written on a talisman and an assurance.

She found the proper platform for the next train, after assuring herself of the correct time. It was early yet, only mid-morning. There was only one other passenger waiting, a Junoesque young woman about her own age, in a plain dark traveling dress and jacket. She was a striking figure, with white-blond braids pinned in a coronet around her head, underneath the brim of her hat.   She also had a small trunk at her feet. Sophia wondered if she were also traveling to Newton – just as the young woman glanced in her direction and said,

“’ello – are you also for Newton? The train does not leave for another hour and a half. So Mr. Harvey told me.” The young woman had a faint, but pleasing accent; foreign-born, but fluent enough in English. Sophia rapidly made connections, from overheard mention.

“Are you Miss Nyland – Yes, I am also bound for Newton … to work in Mr. Harvey’s establishment. I am Sophie Teague– from Boston. I am an orphan, with no living family.”

“Oh!” the woman replied, instant sympathy in her face, and wide blue eyes. “How sad for you, Sophie! I am Laura Nyland, from Minnesota … and I have six brothers and five sisters, all older. My old papa; he cried when I said I would answer Mr. Harvey’s newspaper thing. But he gave me his blessing … I did not want to work on the farm any longer. You have not worked on a farm, Sophia? A very fine farm, but … oh, the muck! And the milking of cows, the laundry and the cooking … eh! To work in a fine restaurant! I like! And save for a dowry! I want to be married, some day – but to have a dowry. My papa could not afford a dowry for any past my third sister Kristin. My brothers, they find their own way – so why not I?”

“Indeed,” Sophia agreed, and settled onto the bench beside Laura Nyland. In the space of time spent waiting for the train and in spite of the considerable differences between them, she and Laura became fast friends, not least because Laura possessed a sharp eye and an even sharper wit … and a robust confidence in expressing it, which convulsed Sophia with laughter many times while they waited for the train, and during the hours to Newton. Laura had also been presented with a selection of sheets of paper, all printed in different typefaces, and not a few written out by hand.

“They want everything to be just so,” Laura pronounced, as they read them together, the fair head and the sandy-haired one bent together, as the midday train to Newton and points farther west rolled through Kansas. “There is a rule for everything.”

“But it is logical,” Sophia agreed. “This … it is nothing more than setting a proper table for a formal dinner party … haven’t you ever done such a thing, Laura?”

“On the farm!” Laura hooted with laughter. “With my brothers and the hired men hungry from a day of work? As if the forks and knives would even rest on the table next to the plate! And what is this … about cups and saucers?”

“A signaling code,” Sophia had already gone to the next page. “For what the guest has ordered to drink, so that it may be provided within seconds.”

“It is required to be efficient,” Laura nodded. “For the train stops for half an hour exactly for water and coal. In that time, they must order their meal, it must be served promptly and they must eat …”

“Did they say anything about where we shall live?” Sophia asked, regretting that she had either not pressed Mr. Benjamin for this intelligence, or if he had provided it, she did not recall.

“Above the restaurant,” Laura answered. “All the ladies live in rooms … two sharing. This is provided, as are all of our meals. But they are very strict with us. We must be home before a curfew at 11:00 every night, and if a gentleman wishes to pay court, he must ask permission, first. As if we were living with our very watchful papa and mama – but on one day a week, we are free to do what we wish. Is very good, Sophie – much better than the farm. And seventeen dollars a month! My papa paid the hired men only two dollars a month; my brother Sven is a carpenter in town, and he earns twenty dollars a month, when there is building in the summer. We will be earning almost as much as a man with a skilled trade, more than a woman teaching school! Think on that, Sophie!”

“We will have to earn it first,” Sophia warned, somberly. “And prove our worth in the first month.”

“Pooh! It is only work! I am not afraid of work!” Laura exclaimed; her confidence in herself was an infectious tonic. “Kansas now … the western territory – I do not know of this place, Sophie. Do you?”

Silently, they looked out of the train window, at the endless waves of grassland stretching as far as the eye could see; a sea of grass, with a faultlessly blue sky arching over it, an endless dome, unmarred by a single cloud. They had long left the river behind, and it seemed a long way between those small towns with names which suggested high civic hopes  – Osage City, Emphoria, Strong City … each a tiny island in the ocean of grasslands.

“It used to be called the Great American Desert, in the books of geography in my grandfather’s house,” Sophia said at last. “There was nothing but herds of buffalo, and wild Indians, and it was perilous beyond belief to venture into it, even on the established trail … but now it is becoming settled. The soil is very rich, they say.”

“No trees to clear away!” Laura giggled. For the first time since Lucius Armitage had fumbled with his hat and his calling card in the parlor of the Brewer house, all those weeks ago, Sophia felt a return to her usual good spirits. She was in the west, which was sufficiently far enough away from Boston, on the verge of an adventure, and had a place and purpose to go.

They reached Newton as dusk fell, sweeping down on the prairie like the wings of a vast dark bird. Stars had begun to spangle the night sky, as cold, pale and distant as the lanterns which lit the platform and the station were warm, golden and close. Sophia and Laura stepped down from the train.

“Where are we supposed to go?” Sophia asked. “Was there someone we should speak to? I suppose that we can ask for them.”

The other passengers alighting at Newton seemed to be making in a group toward the nearest doorway; a double door with large glass panes in the center of each. The doors allowed hints of the activity within to spill out onto the platform, and Laura sniffed appreciatively.

“Good food cooking!” she exclaimed. “This must be Mr. Harvey’s place.”

“I suppose we should go inside,” Sophia ventured, but before they could follow after the other passengers, a young woman emerged from between the doors – a young woman clad in a black dress with a narrow white collar and a starched white bibbed apron.

“Miss Teague and Miss Brewer?” she asked, with a smile. “Welcome to the Newton Harvey House – I am Miss Maitland – Jenny for short. Mr. Benjamin sent me a telegram this morning, telling me to expect you. You must be tired … and hungry, too. Come inside – but this will be the last time you will ever sit down when a train stops here.” Jenny Maitland added with a twinkle in her eye. “May as well eat first, and have some notion of what to expect – then I will show you upstairs when the rush is over.”

Sophia gasped involuntarily, on beholding the dining room; never in the world would she have expected such splendor in such a place as this – out beyond the frontier of the Missouri River; spotless white table linen, silverware that shone as splendidly as if it had just come from the hands of the silversmith, monogrammed china, all lade out with superhuman precision on each table. The room was presided over by a pair of enormous silver urns on a table of their own – a table also dressed with a faultlessly white cloth. Jenny showed them to a table in the farthest corner, saying,

“What would like to drink?”

“Milk for me,” replied Laura, and Sophia ventured,

“Tea – orange pekoe, if you …”

“Of course,” Jenny twinkled at them again, arranging one cup off the saucer, and the other – with the handle pointed in a specific direction. “You both look so hungry – let me bring you that which we have done the best with, today … and take your time in savoring it, for at least you do not have to get onto the train again in twenty-eight minutes.”

She swirled away, her skirts and apron rustling, to be replaced in seconds with another girl in a black dress and starched pinafore apron, bearing a tray laden with carafes. Milk for Laura, orange pekoe tea for Sophia, appeared as if by magic from the carafes – the girl grinned at them both and whispered,

“I’m Emily Adams – you must be the new girls!” She also swirled away, a black-and-white clad sprite in constant motion, before either of them could reply.

“It’s … marvelous,” Sophia ventured. “It’s like a dance – like a ballet. Look at them, Laura!”

The lamp-lit dining room presented a picture of constant purposeful motion – the dozen or so women in nun-like black dresses and white pinafores moving between the tables. Not a minute or two had passed since the passengers had come from the station platform;  now the women in black and white danced between the tables bearing plates – of soup, and salads, then bread and savory entrees, emerging from a farther door.

For once, Laura seemed to have lost some of her previous easy assurance.

“Oh, Sophie … do you suppose we will ever learn this?”

“We’d better do so,” Sophia pointed out. “If we want to earn that generous living, and you your dowry. Besides – they all have. Every one of these girls had to learn the system, and so can we.”

(Proper but desperate young Boston belle, Sophia Brewer is escaping from a number of demons, including her brutal and sociopathic brother, Richard. In her journey, she has been met with unexpected kindness, on her way to Kansas City to possible employment as a Harvey Girl.)

Chapter 8 – Away Into the West

            If Heaven were not as blissfully comfortable as a soft berth made up with crisp white sheets, Sophia thought as she slid between those sheets, then she would prefer spending eternity in a Pullman berth, rather than the glorious hereafter. She ached with weariness in every limb that did not ache already with barely-healed bruises, and to lie down in comfort was such bliss that she nearly wept with gratitude all over again. The noise of the train clattering over the rails, the sound of the engine was muffled to a considerable degree, and the motion rocked her gently, as in a cradle. Other passengers in the Pullman car had already retired, a few still awake, moving in the corridor between heavy curtains drawn for the night, but the small noise of their footsteps, conversation or snoring did not perturb Sophia in the least, or disturb her own slumber, which she fell into almost the moment she rested her head on the pillow. If at some moments she wakened during the night – startled awake by the motion of the train stopping, or starting again, she returned to sleep almost at once.

“I shall always be grateful for the invention of the steam engine,” she told herself, during one of those brief wakeful moments, feeling oddly cheerful. “And to the men who built the railways and Mr. Burton, and George … and to all of them. It will be the train which made an escape from Richard possible, and to get as far away from him as I can be.”

Awakening the following morning was nearly as blissful. For the first time in weeks, she felt quite well. The avuncular porter, George, tactfully guided her those few steps towards the tiny ladies’ sitting room compartment, where she was able to wash thoroughly as was possible and change into fresh clothes – since he thoughtfully had produced her carpetbag from the baggage car. Revived and rested, she felt restored to her own self – the proper and confident Miss Brewer of Beacon Street once again. When she emerged from the sitting room, it was to find the curtains all drawn back, the upper berths tidily folded away, and the lower transformed back into the comfortable settees which they were for the day of travel. Two ladies and a small boy dressed in a rumpled Knickerbocker suit shared the seats: a Mrs. Murray, her son Bertie and her mother, Mrs. Kempton. They greeted Sophia cheerily, obviously seeing her as an agreeable companion for the remainder of the journey. Mrs. Murray was journeying out to Kansas, to join her husband at an Army post there.

“I am Sophie Teague; on my way to Kansas City,” She vouchsafed nothing more than that, always recalling Declan’s warning to not make herself memorable. To her relief, Mrs. Murray and her mother were most incurious about her reasons for traveling, and more inclined to tell her about themselves, and of Colonel Albert Murray’s letters regarding what they might find at Fort Leavenworth.

“We will – if the train runs to schedule – be in Chicago tomorrow morning,” the elder lady assured her. “And then another long day and night to Kansas … Tell me, dear, will you be traveling on from there?”

“I might,” Sophia answered. “It all depends.”

Conductor Burton beamed on her with particular satisfaction, when he passed through on his rounds in mid-morning, and inquired of there were anything he could do for them.

“Better traveling with the other ladies than by your lonesome,” he murmured to her, when she thanked him again. “You never know what might happen, and I’d never forgive myself if it happened on my train, or to you, Miss Teague.” It also occurred to her that anyone observing her with Mrs. Murray and Mrs. Kempton would think they were all of one party.

Another day – this day not weighted with fear and misery – and another night passed, as the train steamed inexorably west, every minute and mile carrying her farther and farther from Boston. She dined with Mrs. Murray and Mrs. Kempton in the railway dining car, as they insisted most emphatically that she share their table. She felt obliged to repay them by amusing little Alfred – who was only six and rather bored with the limited amusements afforded for long stretches of the journey. He reminded her of Richie; frank, fearless and affectionate. Amusing him was a pleasure rather than a duty.

“The countryside is so lovely!” exclaimed Mrs. Murray, as a long vista of lake and meadow opened before them. “A perfect picture! Mama, doesn’t it remind you of some of those panoramic paintings displayed at the Philadelphia Exposition?”

“Store it up in your memory, dear,” Mrs. Kempton advised, “I fear that Kansas will be nothing like this.”

“What is Kansas like?” Sophia’s ears pricked up. If it worked out that she would be hired by Mr. Harvey for work in his railway restaurants, then she might very well be going even farther west than Kansas.  Working in some capacity for a railway concessionaire was looking more and more appealing by the moment.

“Flat and full of dust and flies, to hear dear Albert tell it,” Mrs. Kempton replied. “Or at least – that is what he complains of in his letters.”

If true, Sophia thought; Kansas was still a long way from Boston and from a vengeful Richard, who would never – even if he suspected that she were still alive – think to search for her on the wild frontier. And the farther she was from Boston – the safer she would be.

“My dear Miss Teague, have you ever seen such a city?” Mrs. Murray exclaimed in awe, the following morning, as they passed through Chicago. Conductor Barton had assured them, on his most recent perambulation through the car that they would be arriving there very shortly. “And it was burned to the ground not … how many years ago, Mama? And look – now, how splendid the buildings! Such a marvelous hive of industry and commerce; now, if Albert’s duties only kept him here, I would be quite content … save for the smells of the stockyard!” They all coughed, as a sudden throat-closing miasma made itself known on the spring breeze. Mrs. Kempton raised a handkerchief to her nose, and continued, somewhat muffled. “Oh, dear … they say that millions of western cattle are brought here daily to the slaughterhouses of Chicago.”

“Albert wrote about seeing such droves of cattle, being brought north from Texas – so many that the hills were entirely darkened … and the drovers who brought them! As wild as their cattle … just boys, most of them, without a soldierly discipline.”

“They do seem such romantic figures,” Sophia murmured, for young Seamus Teague’s exploration of the wild west had contained many such personages contained within the pages of his dime novels.

“Those are books,” Mrs. Murray tittered. “And there are many such accounts of soldiers, too – and I can assure you – that those tales are just as exaggerated. The realities of life are often romanticized beyond all recognition.”

“I expect that I will see for myself, very soon,” Sophia ventured.

Another night, another day – the country unfolding slowly before them, like the marvelous panorama paintings that Mrs. Murray described. Only this was real rather than the painted simulacrum; meadows blowing with spring wildflowers, the trees adorned with fresh green. The land seemed somehow flatter than what she had been familiar with for so long – as if some giant had pulled the wrinkles out of a counterpane so that it all lay smooth. On the third day since leaving Boston, the train rumbled across a very long iron bridge. The river lay, smooth as silk and seemingly as wide as an ocean.

“That is the Missouri River down there,” Mrs. Kempton said, “We can now say that we are in the west. We’ll be arriving very soon now.  Dear Miss Teague; are you being met by friends? You have been such a boon companion; I do not like to think of you, alone and adrift, so far away from home.”

“I have an appointment,” Sophia assured her. “It was for such that I came to Kansas City – an offer of employment.”

“Oh?” It seemed to Sophia that Mrs. Murray’s attitude towards her had chilled a degree or two, and she hastened to reply, feeling a sense of regret. She had been in her proper company for two days and two nights, and now it appeared that she was about to fall from it once more. “I had been as a housekeeper and governess to a distant relation; a situation which did not please me. My cousin’s wife took liberties with my situation, presuming on family loyalties which she would not have dared ask of a hired employee. I thought that I might seek a paid position in a similar capacity. At least – such would be more honest in the exchange of work for pay, rather than no pay and a tenuous social position as an object of charity. ”

“Quite right, my dear,” Mrs. Kempton assured her – most unexpectedly. “Being the object of charity is never comfortable for a young woman of spirit. It would have been seen as scandalous, when I was a girl – but times have changed, and I am assured that it is often quite respectable to expect a wage. Women have talents – interests and abilities outside of marriage – that condition which most assume is all that we have the capability for. I have often thought that a woman ought to have more … choices in the world, and thereby turn to our most natural role as wife and mother with a most willing heart.  Have you read the writings of Mrs. Elizabeth Stanton – she is a most particularly outspoken champion of the natural rights of women…”

“Oh, Mama…” Mrs. Murray exclaimed, with a touch of exasperated embarrassment.

“I know of Mrs. Stanton,” Sophia answered, with a feeling of having come all unexpected upon a spring of fresh water in a barren land. “She was a particular friend of my great-aunt Minnie – who also lectured unceasingly on the cause of abolition …”

“It has never ceased to amaze me,” Mrs. Kempton swept over her daughter’s rebuke with a magnificent display of indifference, which reminded Sophia most piercingly of Great-aunt Minnie, “How the full rights of citizens could be invested upon Negro males of suitable years, and yet be withheld from those females of every color and station, who campaigned tirelessly for those same rights. It is as if – the labor of females of every station is only regarded as worthy when it is expended in the cause of every other than our own. To the advantage of men … naturally.”

“Mama!” Mrs. Murray protested once again, but there was no time for further discussion, for the train was slowing as it approached the station; here the reverse of departing from Boston, in a tangle of shining steel rails which reminded Sophia of strands of hair, all arranged by the strokes of a comb. The came the metallic shriek of the engine wheels sliding against the rails as the brakes took hold, steam escaping everywhere.

There was a tall man in Army blue waiting on the platform; small Bertie shouted,

“Papa!” as he ran ahead of his mother and grandmother. In a moment, Sophia stood by herself, with her carpetbag in her hand, watching the joyous reunion with wistful eyes. She turned, hearing a respectful cough at her side, to see George, the porter.

“I never get tired of watching folk,” he confessed. “Happy, or sad, eager to travel on, grateful to be home … is there anyone meeting you today, Miss Teague?”

“No,” Sophia replied. “But I do have an appointment, at the office of Mr. Fred Harvey. Can you direct me to it?”

“Mr. Harvey? I don’t know that Mr. Fred Harvey is in town at this moment – he been feeling poorly of late – but Mr. Benjamin most certainly is. The office is in the Annex – I’ll have one of the newsboys show you.” George shook his head, sadly. “This Union Depot is the largest train station outside of New York, they tell me … and one of the most confusing. They call it the Insane Asylum … here, did I say something wrong?” he added, for Sophia had flinched. “They call it that, for the grand muddle that it is – towers on towers and domes on domes, and ornament stuck on every which way. But it’s in the West Bottoms – right handy for freight, but not such a genteel neighborhood, especially not after dark.”

“It is enormous,” Sophie recovered sufficiently to admire the station itself. “And very modern, I think.” What was even more entrancing to her was the sheer purposeful energy of the place, like a kind of lightening which never stopped; constant motion, the near to incessant noise of trains, of barrows of luggage shouldered past by large sweating men in rough clothing, while the newsboys shouted their wares. Steam whistles, the rumble of wheels, half-heard conversations

“It’s the busiest station on this stretch of the river.” George’s uniformed chest appeared to expand with pride. “They say that if you sat in the main hall watching long enough, you’d see anyone of renown in this whole United States. Here now, Miss Teague – if you go out this door, and go along to the telegraph office, you’ll see the sign for the Harvey offices. Are you interviewing to work in one of Mr. Harvey’s places?”

“I am …” Sophia nodded, and to her vague surprise, George looked as though he approved. “I hope …”

“Oh, you’ll be taken on, Miss Teague,” he assured her. “I seen a lot of those Harvey girls at work, and even more who come to interview with Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Harvey. You be just the kind they hire … proper ladies, but willing to work. You’ll do fine. It’s a good job – bed and board, passes to travel for free on the railway – and fine folk to work for, if a mite persnickety. But so’s working for Mr. Pullman. You work for them – well, that’s something to take pride in; you know you are somebody!”

“Thank you, George,” Sophia shifted her carpetbag to her other hand. “For your encouragement and not least for what you have done for me on this journey. I think that I can see where the telegraph office is.”

“You take care now, Miss Teague,” And a broad and merry grin split his face. “See you out on the railway sometime, you hear?”

(Another half chapter of the work in progress. Sophia Brewer has escaped from her sociopathic brother, who has coldly contrived to drive her — if not insane — then to confinement in the local asylum. She is being helped by the family of Agnes Teague, the Brewer household maid of all work … and the Teagues have a plan.)

Walk Away and Never Look Back

Of course, the nightmare came that night – the horrific dream where Richard struck her and she cowered under the blows, relieving the feeling of suffocation under the weight of something heavy pressing her down, down, down, until she couldn’t breathe, the pain of that weight forcing her legs apart, a new stabbing and intimate pain that spun away as the opium took her down even further…
“Miss Sophia,” a tremulous voice breathed in her ear, and there was a hand on her shoulder, which she batted away until she realized it was only Agnes, and that she lay on a pallet on the floor of the tenement room where the Teagues lived. “Miss Sophia … y’r crying out… is it the nightmare again? O’ course it is. Wake up no – ye are safe with us, and soon to be far away, where he can no’ harm ye again…”
“I know,” Sophia gulped, still half-paralyzed by the ragged shadows of the dream. Her heart pounded so hard, she feared it would burst in her chest, and her shift seemed to be drenched in her own clammy sweat. “I am awake, Agnes. I am sorry that I have disturbed your own rest…”
“No,” Agnes demurred, “I sleep light, Miss Sophia – and easily. Dinna regret … an’ I am accustomed to being around folk with night terrors. Da an’ Declan, they both awake shouting, still. Go back to sleep, Miss Sophia.” Agnes’s voice sounded ever more musical, with the Irish lilt to it. “I can sing a lully-bye to ye, as Ma once did, if ye think that it would help.”
“Do not threaten me, Agnes,” Sophia was recovered enough to be humorous. “I have heard you try to sing – you cannot carry a tune in a bucket.”
“I know,” And at her side in the darkness, Agnes giggled. “I canno sing – it will be a cross to bear when I take the veil…”
“Agnes!” Sophia was diverted from contemplating her own miseries. “You are thinking of becoming a nun?”
“Aye,” Agnes replied, in tranquil confidence. “’Tis a thing I have felt a calling for … oh, the last year or so. Da an’ the boys, they think it a girlish thing, an’ a matter for teasing. But I take no mind. It will be so, an’ I will be guided. Just so are you guided, Miss Sophia – I have a sense of such things, y’see. But a bad dream as you had just now – there was something that Mrs. Garrett said to me. You cried out Mr. Richard’s name, crying no, no! just now, and it reminded me of what she said.”
“What did she say, Agnes?” Sophia now felt cold, the sweat-damp shift clammy against her skin. “And when?”
“When you had been carried upstairs, the evening of the day when Mr. Richard locked you in the strong-room.” Agnes ventured. “Mrs. Garrett and I – we came running from the back o’ the house. Miss Vining an’ Miss Phelps, they were there, too. When Mr. Richard went for Dr. Cotton, Miss Vining and Mrs. Garrett and I took off your clothing … soaked in blood, they were. Oh, Miss Sophia…” and Agnes’ arm tightened around Sophia in a comforting embrace. “I thought it so fortunate that you were not aware. Miss Phelps went quite faint, she were that distressed, but Miss Vining, she were very brave, an’ sent for Miss Phelps to bring hot water and cloths… bruised from head to toe ye were. We took off your dress an’ underthings … an’ that was when Mrs. Garrett said, straight out – that it looked as if you had been …” and Agnes’ voice dropped, hushed with embarrassment, “Interfered with … bruises, y’see. An’ bloody matter on your under-drawers an’ Miss Vining, she turned white an’ then red, an’ said that Mrs. Garrett should shut her mouth before speaking such vileness. Mrs. Garrett, she said straight out, she may ha’ been born at night, but it wasn’t last night, neither, an’ there were no man in the house save Mr. Richard. That were when Miss Vining said that such an evil-speaking woman ought to be sacked, an’ Mrs. Garrett said that she wouldn’t stay a minute longer in a house where such goings on were countenanced. That were when Mrs. Garrett gave her notice.” After a long moment, Agnes said, “I were not certain of what they meant, Miss Sophia. But when I asked Miss Vining later, she were angry. So I said nothing more. Was that the right thing, Miss Sophia?”
“Yes,” Sophia answered; sunk in misery and doubt, for she could not truly remember anything past a certain moment in that dreadful evening. But … something awful had happened to her, which her mind quailed from contemplating, even acknowledging. “I truly cannot recall anything, after my brother forced the syrup of opium down my throat. My brother beat me savagely, all but murdered me. That is enough for me to know, Agnes. I had always assumed that he loved and wished the best for me … just as your brothers do for you. It is a hard burden to bear – knowing that his actions demonstrated otherwise. You are fortunate in your family, Agnes – if not in those worldly and material things. I shall try to go to sleep now.”
“You do that, Miss Sophia,” Agnes embraced her again, which Sophia found comfort in; but why were her true friends now revealed as the humble and down-trodden, when everyone else had turned away? How very complicated her life had become; perhaps it was a good thing to go away from Boston and start on it again, free from familial connections and interference.

Still, she could not sleep, for the tumult in her mind and heart: So much to consider and worry over – would she journey safely to Chicago? What refuge would she find there? If this slightly mysterious Mr. Harvey would not hire her, what would she do then? At her shoulder, Agnes breathed slow and regular, deep in slumber. At last, Sophia slithered out from under the blankets on the pallet, and from Agnes’s light embrace. The girl obviously slept sounder than she had said, or else she was tired. There was a faint light in the room, on the other side of the makeshift curtain which sheltered the pallet. By that light, Sophia rose, changed her shift for a clean one and resumed the dress that she had worn that day – and which she would wear when Declan came for her – and that, by the distant sound of the bells from the old North Church – would not be very much longer. She wrapped the coarse countrywoman’s woolen shawl around her, for the night was still chill, from the wind blowing off the harbor, and the windows of the Teague tenement apartment leaked all the way around. She may as well sit by the fire which warmed the small place. She stepped around the edge of the curtain, and saw that Tim Teague had installed himself in his armchair – or perhaps he had never abandoned it, after allowing it to Sophia for a short while.
“Ye canna sleep, I see,” he said, as she stepped around the curtain. He was awake, his old eyes gleaming in the slight firelight. What an odd conversation; she may as well indulge him, for he was kindly and his daughter was comforting, and after all – he remembered her father.
“No, I cannot,” She replied, settling on the little three-legged stool which Agnes had sat upon the night before. The fire had had burned down very low – there was very little warmth in it at all. “I am setting out on a long journey, Mr. Teague, and there are things which I cannot stop thinking of …”
“Tim … call me Old Tim,” he answered readily, grinning as she answered,
“I cannot be so familiar, Mr. Teague. You are very much my senior in age, and it is just not proper … even if you were a servant. My mother was always very particular about courtesy and respect.”
“So was your father, if I remember,” Tim Teague acknowledged. “He had such a way with him to all.”
“I did not know him, and you did,” Sophia asked, on impulse and felt suddenly shy. “He was killed about the time that I was born, so I never knew him at all. All I know is what my mother and Great-aunt Minnie said of him … and they knew him only as family. Not as a man – a soldier – would.”
“The Major,” Tim Teague settled with a reminiscent sigh deeper into his battered armchair. Sophia hugged her knees to her chest, like a small child and listened hungry for every word.
“He was not what you would think of when you think of a hero,” Tim Teague began. “No’ at first. He was a quiet man, soft-spoken … sometimes I think he held his sword in leading a charge as if he were surprised to find such a thing in his hand. He did not give orders as if he were giving orders. He spoke as if asking a favor, but such was his manner an’ intent that … men obeyed on th’ instant. He were never familiar, as if he were seeking to ingratiate wi’ us, but always courteous … an’ he had a notion always of when someone told him a lie. Which was a recommendation if you came up before him on charges.”
“He had trained early in law,” Sophia said, and Tim Teague grinned again, obviously relishing the memory.
“An’ that was my good fortune, I tell ye, Miss Sophia. It was some small matter … th’ provost-sergeant – an evil man! – he told a lie about me. An’ so I were brought up before the Major. He, bless the man, saw how it were a lie wi’ a shrewd question ‘r two, an’ I had my liberty at once. He was always,” and Tim Teague’s eyes were remote, as if looking into the far distance beyond the tiny room in an upper-floor tenement in North Town, back to a world of blue uniforms, banners floating above and before them, and grey clouds of rebel gun powder smoke over a hard-held position, “an officer we could trust, y’ see. He were a good ‘un …”
Sophia rested her chin on her knees, and listened intent, as old Tim recalled her father in memory, a well that she could only dip into this once. She thought that she had a better picture of him than she had ever gleaned from her mother, whose memories of Richard Brewer were hazed by a veil of bridal silk.
After a time, Tim Teague’s reminiscences went wandering – as Great-Aunt Minnie’s were also wont to do; Sophia listened, lulled by the musical bent of his speech – why was it that it sounded to her almost like poetry? He talked of how he had departed starving Ireland as a young man, the misery of an immigrant ship – how he had finished up in Boston, working as a laborer on the docks, how he had met and married the mother of his children. That was before the war came, and he had enlisted … Sophia wondered if she had at least dozed a little, for she wakened with a bit of a start. Tim Teague was patting her shoulder, under the woolen shawl.
“Close the door and walk away. Walk away, niver looking back. Do ye no good, cailín daor. There’s nothing good for you, remaining. Na deamhain – demons will haunt ye anyway, so don’t give them a chance to get their claws into you any deeper. Faugh a Ballagh! – That was our battle shout. ‘Clear the Way!’ for the 28th … We marched in the Grand Review, ye know. But for me, there were a stone in m’ heart an’ demons haunting m’ soul for a’ that I had seen. The Major was no’ with us. He should ha’ been, but f’r a damn dirty sniper at Petersburg …”
There came a quiet tap on the door to the room in which they sat, and a mumble of a voice whose words Sophia could not quite catch. Tim Teague lifted his head, alert as an elderly hound. “Ah … ‘tis Mendelson. Ye had best ready yourself, cailín daor. Declan will be by wi’ the wagon, any moment now. Remember what I said – close the door, an’ walk away, niver look back.”

Chapter 7 – Walk Away and Never Look Back

 (From one of the current works in progress – Previous chapter here  This will be an adventure about a proper young lady who winds up going west under … well, interesting circumstances.)

“Lock the door after us, Phelpsie,” Sophia gasped. “And if Richard comes here tonight, you don’t know where I am. You haven’t seen us at all. Tell Aunt Minnie that I am well only when she is better … goodbye, Phelpsie – don’t open the door for anyone tonight!”

“I won’t,” Phelpsie gabbled, distraught, and Sophia thought that Phelpsie – aghast at the thought of having to face an angry Richard alone – for a moment was about to beg them all to stay. But the door opened in Declan’s strong hand and closed with a thud after them, and with some distant sense of relief, Sophia heard the sound of the lock falling to. Dark had fallen entirely now, save for only a pale pink smear in the western sky.

            “Where are we going?” Sophie struggled for breath and against her own weariness; Declan went ahead, a strong wide-shouldered man, her carpetbag in one hand, his stout watchman’s cudgel swinging in the other, as they hurried up Beacon Hill in the direction of the golden dome of the state house, still gleaming faintly in the last light of day. Agnes had her arm around Sophia’s waist – and unexpectedly strong arm from her short lifetime of hard work. Sophia was grateful for the support, and that they were heading in the opposite direction of the Brewer house and unlikely to encounter Richard in the tangle of narrow old streets in the waterfront district.

            “To our home,” Agnes replied. “See … Declan an’ I, we’ve an idea to help you escape for good…”

“If you have the mettle for it, see,” Declan threw over his shoulder as he hurried ahead. “But ‘t would mean leaving Boston, so it would, Miss Brewer.”

“I’d go out to the frontier and beyond, among all the wild Indians,” Sophia answered, without thinking. “As far as it would take that I’d never have to fear my brother again?”

“Out west?” Declan grinned over his shoulder. “Among the wild Indians and gunslingers? Our Seamus can’t get enough of those tales, but you might have your chance, Miss Brewer, with pluck and luck.”

“What do you mean?” Sophia gasped; she felt as if she were being swept along by an irresistible tide. Now they had left the lights of Beacon Street, plunging into the depths of the old North Town, which had been abandoned by people of quality decades since, and left to the poor, the recent immigrants from Ireland and elsewhere. The streets were narrow, the ancient brick buildings shouldering close against each other, the smells – of privy, waterfront, and cooking almost nauseating in intensity.

“Carry this, no’,” Declan passed the carpetbag to his sister. With the faint scritch of a Lucifer against the nearest wall, Declan had lightened a lantern. “’tis safe enough now for a light – his bully lordship will no’ be looking for us here, Miss Sophia.” Declan Teague sounded most particularly satisfied about that.

“I cannot help but fear that there might be others in these streets,” Sophia had recovered something of her composure, after several twists and turns, each one into a street darker and narrower than the last. “Posing even more of a danger than my brother to us all…”

Declan Teague let out a rich chuckle, “Aye, so you might think, Miss Sophia. But this is where we live, and among folk who know us and protect their own kin an’ kind. You are safer here, amongst us than you have been for a while among your kin. I am thinking. Here – this is the place, above the shop of old Mendelson the Jew. Mind the steps, then …” He held up the lantern courteously; yes, there was a narrow alley between one tall brick tenement and the next, an alley which led to a door – one which might once have been fine, when it was the house of a merchant-prince of the last century. Declan had a key for that door, and Sophia mentally blessed him for the lantern, for the hallway inside was Stygian-dark, the flight of stairs to the next floor and the one above that even darker. At the top of that flight there was another short hall, with a doorway on either side. Declan turned and made a short and awkward half-bow before the door on the right-hand side. “Our home, our fire an’ our salt, Miss Sophia. Ye are welcome, indade. I mus’ be at my place of employment. Aignéis – for that is her right name here – she will explain to you the solution which I ha’ mentioned. Sorry – I am already late. There is one thing, Miss Sophia; gi’ me your hat and mantle.”

“I cannot think why it is necessary for me to give up my clothing,” Sophia protested, although at her side, Agnes whispered,

“Do what he says, Miss … we have worked out a means of laying a false trail.”

Declan opened the door saying only, “Aignéis, she will explain, with Seamus in chorus. Y’r hat now, and be quick about it. I’ll be back in t’ morning.”

“Do as he says,” Agnes whispered at her side, “The mantle, too … oh, dinna fuss, Miss Sophia – I will explain, sure an’ I will. Ye will be safe indade – for we hae planned it all out f’ ye, an’ ye’ will ne’re fear your brother again. Do ye no’ trust us?” Agnes sounded so doleful that Sophia was moved instantly to reassurance.

“I have, all this time – and now I trust to whatever scheme you have concocted … especially since I have no better choice in the matter.” She pulled the pins out of her hat, holding them briefly in her mouth as she handed her hat to Agnes’ brother, then shrugged out of her mantle.

“Good,” Declan grinned again. He leaned down, not so very far, and kissed his sister on the forehead, as he deftly bundled up hat and garment into a small bundle under his arm. “No fear, Aignéis – I’ll be back at sunrise. You an’ Seamus explain it to her, then.”

He was gone down the stairs with his comforting cudgel and lantern, even as Agnes opened the door into a dim apartment which must once have been a generously appointed room, when it was a single chamber and not sliced up into a parlor, kitchen, and sleeping quarters for a family, even one as small as that of a widower with four grown children. There was a tiny iron stove set into the hearth of a stopped-up fireplace, a stove which obviously served as a cook-fire and to warm the premises. A single kerosene lamp provided illumination, to a cot where a boy a few years older than Richie sat cross-legged, reading from a book, which to Sophia’s eyes – in the dim light – looked like some kind of Wild West blood-and-thunder tome.

A pile of ragged clothes and blankets was piled up in the single tattered armchair, drawn close to the fire, and as the door opened and closed, the ragged pile bestirred itself, and an aging and cracked voice inquired, “Aignéis – cailín daor – is that you?”

“’Tis, Da – and I have brought Major Brewer’s daughter with me,” Agnes replied.

“To this house?” the cracked voice broke with astonishment, and the pile of old clothing convulsed. “Aignéis, why did ye do that? ‘Tis not a fitting place for her ladyship …”

“I’m not a ladyship,” Sophia protested, and Agnes answered in placating tones,

“No, Da – but she has no other place to go for this night … and wicked man that he is, Master Richard has brought the doctor at this very hour, to carry her away to the asylum … an’ she is no madder than Siobhan or I.”

The clothes and blankets heaved and reshaped themselves, becoming in the faint light, the figure of a man, bent with age and with one arm so crippled and shortened as to be strapped immobile in a sling on his chest, saying with the courtesy of a lord. “Ye are welcome to share our salt and the shelter of our roof, Miss Brewer – ‘tis little enough, but it is our honor.” So this was Declan and Agnes’ father, Sophia realized: she had often heard of him, in Agnes’ daily conversation – that he had been a soldier in her father’s regiment, and how he had been crippled for life in an accident on the docks when Agnes was little more than a baby. Now he took her hand in his good one, and inclined his head in rough courtesy.

“I thank you for it, Mr. Teague,” Sophia swayed, suddenly faint with exhaustion. “And I am more grateful for your hospitality than I can …” The wave of dizziness threatened to overwhelm her, and Mr. Teague chided his daughter.

“Call me Tim Teague, now, will ye? Settle her in my chair now, Aignéis … the poor lady is no’ well, no’ well at all. Sit there, Miss Sophia – rest ye now …”

So grateful for the consideration that she nearly wept, she sank into old Tim Teague’s chair – the only padded and comfortable chair in the room, if so shabby and broken that even thrifty Great-Aunt Minnie would have relegated it to a bonfire. Tim Teague hovered at her side, patting her hand in a way meant to be comforting, until Agnes brought another simple straight chair from the corner of the room for her father. Agnes herself settled onto a low three-legged stool at Sophie’s knee, and young Seamus set aside his book – thriftily dimming the lamp-wick by which he was reading it.

“Is it true that your brother was feeding you opium and trying to drive you mad so that he could steal your money?” he asked with intense interest.

“Seamus, be hushed!” his sister cried, in an agony of embarrassment, adding as an aside. “Forgive him, Miss Sophia – but ‘tis true that I have talked of your situation… amongst the family, mind – only with Da an’ Declan at the first. Siobhan an’ I – we have always talked about folk we were in service to. It’s an amusement, y’see. It’s one of the only ones we have, a good gossip; sometimes like a play, or the old stories.

“No, Agnes – do not chide him,” Sophia answered, around a lump of grief in her throat. Grief for the lost life she once had, grief for the illusion of the fond and protective brother, grief for herself, lost and forlorn, taking refuge in a boarding house in old North Town. “It is true, every word that your brother and sister have said. And now I have nowhere to go and no friends to turn to, aside from yourselves – is that not as dramatic as one of your books, Seamus?”

“Oh, aye,” Seamus breathed, while Agnes cleared her throat – she sounded at least as tentative and uncertain as her young brother.

“But, Miss Sophia – we have a way for ye to escape, for good an’ all – if, as Declan said – ye have the mettle.”

“She does, indade,” Old Tim Teague assured them all, patting Sophia’s hand again. “She is th’ daughter of Major Brewer o’ the 28^th Massachusetts! Never was an officer cooler under fire! Nay, he were not of my company, but all knew of him. The hotter the fire again’ us, the cooler he were, striding up and down along our line, w’ lead shot fallin’ like hail from a summer storm! An’ he would say a few words to every man – humorous-like, as if on a stroll through the Common, as if he had all the time in the world, an’ no other worries than a drink in the next tavern …”

“Yes, Da,” Agnes interjected. “But we came away in such a hurry that Declan had no time to explain. She does no’ know the plan.”

“There is a plan?” Sophia still felt rather faint, considering this unexpected chance. Likely any plan was Declan – or perhaps Seamus’ notion. Agnes was as guileless as a small child. To credit her with a stratagem of any complexity was to think that Richie could suddenly emerge as a captain of industry.

(To Be Continued …)