Though Waters Roar (31 page)

All of her mistakes were of her own making. She couldn’t blame God. Whether she had married Horatio for the right reasons or not, she had vowed to be his wife until death parted them. She knew that her life was never going to get any better than it was right now unless she asked God to change her, first. She had walked into this dead end on her own. Bebe lifted her face to the sky again.
Help me, God. Please show me what to do.

She heard another crash as more freight cars collided. She turned toward the tracks and saw that the train had begun to move again. She watched it slowly lumber away, and when the track was clear she started walking back the way she had come.

Bebe already knew what God wanted her to do. It wasn’t a mystery. She needed to help Horatio get sober so he could return to his job. She needed to pray and ask God to forgive her and restore her love for Horatio. She recalled Horatio’s words on the day she had fetched him from the saloon:
“You used to look at me
as though I had just hung the moon in the sky. . . . Why don’t you look at
me that way anymore?”

Hannah had been right; love was the most powerful force in the world. But Bebe had allowed its strong grip to pull her in the wrong direction, pulling her toward Neal MacLeod and away from Horatio. Now she had to redirect that force. She had to look at Horatio with love again, to do the loving thing for him whether she felt like it or not. She had to work for his good, encourage him, pray for him.

And if he continued to drink?

Bebe choked back a sob. Regardless of the outcome, she had to turn away from Neal MacLeod and go home to her husband and daughter.

She trudged up the street the way she had come and found herself back at the tannery a few minutes later. Two figures, a woman and a young boy, stood outside the door, huddled beneath the overhanging roof. They looked nearly as drenched as Bebe was. As she drew closer, she saw that the woman held an infant bundled in her arms. Then a third child, a little girl Lucy’s age, peeked from behind the woman’s skirts.

“Mrs. Garner!” the woman called.

Bebe halted, startled to hear her name.

“You’re Mrs. Garner, aren’t you?” the woman asked.

“Yes. . . . How do you know my name?”

“I’m Millie White. You helped me once before when I was sick with cholera. Please, Mrs. Garner, I need your help again.”

Bebe stared. She was in no position to help Millie or anyone else after making such a mess of her own life. “What . . . what do you want me to do?” she finally asked.

“My husband works at your tannery and today is payday. Please, I’m begging you to give the money to me this week, not him. He’ll only drink it away in the saloon. My children need to eat. I need to pay the rent. Can’t you please give the money to me?”

Bebe looked at Millie White and saw herself. She easily could have ended up in Millie’s situation. Her husband was also a drunkard, and if Bebe hadn’t come to the tannery a year ago and taken over for him, she might have lost everything. Her own daughter would be the child who was hungry.

Bebe rested her hand on Millie’s shoulder. “I don’t know the answer to your question, Millie, but if you’ll come inside with me, I’ll find out.” She would have to talk to Neal MacLeod. She would have to face him again, even if it broke her heart. She opened the door and motioned for Millie and her family to follow her inside.

The children cringed at the noise and huddled around their mother. Bebe led the way to Neal’s desk on the main floor. He had all of his drawers open and a wooden crate at his feet, and she realized that he was emptying his desk, packing his things. He glanced up long enough to see her approaching, then looked away. His eyes were red, as if he had been weeping.

Bebe cleared the knot from her throat and quickly explained Millie White’s request. “Can we do that, Neal?” she asked. “Can we give Mrs. White her husband’s pay?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I would like to help her out, but her husband earned his pay. By law, we have to give it to him.”

“Let me work, then,” Millie begged. “Give me a job here instead of him.”

“But who will take care of your children?” Bebe asked.

Millie pushed her son forward. “Hire my son, then. He can run errands for you or sweep the floor. He’s a good boy; he does what he’s told.”

The boy couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. Bebe hated the idea of a child laboring in her tannery. It was bad enough that most children did piecework in their tenements at night. But Neal looked at the boy and nodded. “I think I can find something for him.”

Bebe imagined her own daughter being forced to work and shuddered. Horatio might be a drunkard, but he owned the tannery and had the means to support his family. Women like Millie had nothing.

Bebe glanced at Neal again and longed to feel his arms around her—just one more time. Tears stung her eyes as she remembered the starchy scent of his shirt and the sound of his heartbeat. She looked down at the little boy instead, and suddenly knew that this family was an answer to her prayer. She swallowed her tears and said, “Listen, Millie. If the only way we can keep our husbands out of the saloons is to close them down, then that’s what we’ll have to do.”

“How can we do that?”

“Can you gather together a group of women who are in the same situation that you’re in?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said bitterly. “That won’t be hard at all.”

“Do you know which saloon your husband usually goes to on payday?”

“Ozzie’s Tavern down on Sixth Street.”

“I want you and the other women to meet me there tonight at six o’clock.”

“Meet you . . . ?” She started shaking her head. “You shouldn’t go down there, Mrs. Garner, believe me. The tavern is down in The Flats, and—”

“I’m not afraid. I’ve been to The Flats before. We have to stop the men from getting drunk on their way home, right after they get paid. Will you meet me there?”

Millie nodded and caressed her daughter’s damp hair. “Yeah. I’ll be there, Mrs. Garner. And I’ll gather the other women, too. Thank you.”

Bebe waited until Millie left before turning to Neal again. She couldn’t meet his gaze. She drew a painful breath as she looked out over the floor of the tannery that had become so familiar to her this past year. “I think my work here is finished, Neal. The tannery is yours to run, alone, until Horatio returns. I don’t know when that will be, but I’ve been reading in the newspaper about a new temperance organization, and I think I’ll start a chapter here in town. I’m not going to quit until every saloon is forced to close its doors and my husband—” She paused as her voice broke. She covered her mouth with her hand until she could finish. “. . . and my husband is sober again. Until then, our family would appreciate it if you would kindly manage the business for him.”

“Yes . . . of course . . . but listen, Beatrice. I-I’m sorry—”

“So am I, Neal. So am I.”

She turned and hurried away from him. She felt as though her heart had been slashed in two. She strode out of the building and back out into the rain, walking all the way home to her mansion on the hill. She went inside through the servants’ entrance in the rear of the house and climbed the back stairs to her room, too ashamed to go through the front door, too ashamed to face her mother-in-law. One of the servants met Bebe on the stairs.

“Goodness’ sakes, you’re soaking wet, Mrs. Garner. Let me draw you a hot bath and take care of your wet clothes.”

“That would be wonderful, thank you. Your name is Herta, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It shamed Bebe to realize that she had kept all of the servants at a distance, just as Horatio and her mother-in-law did, as if she were better than these simple, hardworking people. That was going to change. From now on Bebe was going to stop trying to fit in with the Garners’ socialite friends and be herself—a simple farm girl.

“And, Herta, kindly tell the driver—his name is Peter, isn’t it?”

The girl nodded. “Please ask Peter to have the carriage ready for me at six o’clock tonight.”

Millie White and two dozen other women stood waiting for Bebe outside Ozzie’s Tavern when Bebe arrived. They looked desperate but determined, and she felt an instant kinship with them. She should have done this a year ago.

“My husband is a drunkard, too,” she told them as they gathered in front of the saloon door. “We’re going to pray and ask God to help us close down this place. And we’re going to come back here every night if we have to, until it does close.”

“It won’t help,” one of the women said. “Our men will just find another saloon.”

“Then we’ll do the same thing until that one closes. I’ve been reading in the newspaper how women in other cities have done this very thing—and it works. Dozens of saloons have been forced to close their doors. The organization is called the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. I’ll write to them and ask for advice. We’ll start a chapter here in town. We’ll have more power and influence if we join together with other women.”

“What do we have to do?” someone asked.

“Well, besides praying, one of the Union’s methods is to write down the names of all the men who are patronizing the saloon and list them in the newspaper. The men should be ashamed of what they’re doing, spending your rent money on alcohol and taking food out of your children’s mouths. We’ll bring their actions out into the open and make people aware of how drunkenness affects families like yours.”

“I say let’s try it,” Millie said. “It can’t hurt none.”

“Good. Shall we bow our heads?” Bebe closed her eyes as she prepared to pray aloud. She had never done anything like this before, always praying silently in church or in the privacy of her room. “Heavenly Father . . .” she began. Her throat closed with emotion.

Desperation had forced her to turn to God, and she suddenly felt closer to Him than she ever had before. He was here, right beside her. This was the task that He wanted her to accomplish. And although nothing in her life was as it should be, God was still with her and she was going to be fine. She drew a deep breath and started again, pouring all of her passion and sorrow, all of her guilt and grief into her prayer. She didn’t stop until the saloon door opened a few minutes later and the owner began to shout.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing out here? You’re blocking my door! Get away from here!” He waved his arms as if shooing a flock of chickens.

“This is a public walkway,” Bebe told him. “We have every right to stand here.”

“You’re going to interfere with my business. Go home where you belong!” He looked down the street past the women and scowled. Bebe turned in that direction and saw a group of workmen approaching from the brick factory where their shift must have just ended.

“Let’s pray, ladies.” Bebe closed her eyes again, ignoring the owner’s angry shouts as she beseeched the Almighty to turn the workers’ steps away from the saloon and toward their homes. The women joined in with cries of “Yes, Lord!” and “Hear us!”

When Bebe opened her eyes to peek again, the workers had halted at the corner as if afraid to wade through the mob of women.

“Come on, come on, gentlemen,” the owner called out. “We’re open for business. Don’t let these crazy women get in your way.”

Bebe raised her voice to outshout him. “Ladies! Do you know the hymn ‘Give to the Winds Thy Fears’? Come on, sing it with me: ‘Give to the winds thy fears, hope and be undismayed; God hears thy sighs, and counts thy tears, God shall lift up thy head.’ ” Bebe sang with all her might even though only a few of the women joined her and none of them seemed to know all the words. “ ‘Through waves and clouds and storms, He gently clears the way. Wait thou His time, so shall the night soon end in joyous day.’ ”

The workmen held a huddled conference on the street corner, then slouched away. The women cheered, drowning out the bar owner’s angry rant.

Three months later, Ozzie’s Tavern closed its doors for good. Bebe, Millie, and the other women now began gathering in front of Logan’s Saloon—Horatio’s favorite place—to pray and sing. Bebe had made the rounds to all of the local churches, giving speeches to their ladies’ groups about temperance and asking them to join her crusade. Hundreds of women had signed The Pledge, vowing to abstain from alcohol. Her local chapter of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union had grown to nearly three hundred members.

On a Friday night well into their crusade, Bebe’s women forced Logan’s Saloon to close its doors for lack of patronage. Horatio was the last man to stagger out that final night, gripping a half- empty bottle. The bartender cursed at the women as he hung up a
Closed
sign and locked the door. Bebe had the carriage waiting for her husband at the curb, and Peter, the driver, helped him climb in beside her.

“Let’s go home, Horatio,” she said.

“Are you happy now?” he asked as they rode up the hill in the quiet night.

“Yes. I am.” She nestled close beside him and took his hand in hers, lifting it to her lips and kissing it. She didn’t feel love for him yet, but God willing it would soon begin to grow.

“Horatio?” She waited until he met her gaze. “I love you.”

He looked away as tears filled his eyes. He still gripped the half-empty bottle and she took hold of it, as well. “May I have this, please?” She waited until she felt his grip loosen, then pulled it gently from his hand and dropped it over the side of the carriage. She heard glass shattering on the cobblestone street behind them.

Bebe wondered what Horatio would have done if liquor hadn’t been readily available. Might he have found a better way to cope and saved all of them a great deal of grief? She knew in that moment that she wouldn’t stop her temperance crusade until every last saloon had closed its doors and alcohol was banned everywhere. With God on her side, how could she lose?

She helped Horatio up the stairs to their bedroom when they reached home, then helped him undress. His clothing stank of cigar smoke.

“You’ll be happy to know that the country’s financial crisis is much improved, Horatio. The tannery is earning a profit again. You got overwhelmed, I know, but when you go back to work, you’ll see the improvement.”