THE IMPERIAL ENGINEER (36 page)

Wood River Times

~~~

Lulu chose not to tell Tony of her encounter with Mrs. Axminster. Chances were,
nothing would come of it.

Or am I deceiving myself?
The thought niggled at her for the next few
days, as she gradually adjusted to life as a homemaker. With Mr. Eagleton out of town, the
extra tasks kept Tony busy well into the evening. Saturday night he went over to the
Eagleton ranch after supper, and was gone until well after nine o'clock. "Why didn't you
send Ru Nan over?" she asked him when he came in.

"He helped me, or I'd be there yet. It's turning cold again, and I wanted to get the
mares into the barn. No telling what the morning will bring."

"I smelled snow when I went out a little while ago."

"Uh-huh." His disbelieving smile made her want to throw her pillow at him. He
never had been convinced such a thing was possible.

"Would you like to make a small wager we'll have snow before morning?"

"I wouldn't bet either way," he said, his words muffled as he pulled his shirt over
his head. "Tomorrow I'm going to sleep in. See if I don't."

"Will you go to church with me?"

"I suppose so. Didn't you say we were supposed to take some woman out to
Teller's with us?"

"Miss Petersham. She's a schoolteacher," Lulu said. She made no pretense of
looking away as he removed his britches and his Union suit. Were she to live to be a
hundred, she would never tire of seeing him thus, all golden in the lamplight. "I believe
you will like her. In some ways she reminds me of Regina--outwardly conventional,
inwardly independent and impatient with silly society rules."

His only reply was a groan as he crawled into bed and pulled her toward him. "It's
been a long week. G'night." He kissed her lightly, then settling her head against his
shoulder, he relaxed and seemed to slip immediately into slumber.

Lulu couldn't decide if she was insulted or not. Watching him undress had brought
a warmth to her belly, an insistent warmth that would have to cool of its own accord.
Without any example to judge by, she had no idea whether his lack of interest was normal
or not.

I wish Mamma were here. There is so much I don't know.

The morning dawned cold and cloudy, with several inches of fresh snow on the
ground. Tony ignored Lulu's
I told you so
smirk when they stepped outside. Her
uncanny ability to predict snow had nothing to do with smell, he was sure.

After church, they went by the telephone exchange, where he was reassured by a
report of an uneventful night. When they arrived at Miss Petersham's small house, Lulu left
him in the buggy while she went to knock. The door opened just as she stepped on the
porch and she disappeared inside. In a few moments, she reappeared, followed by a tall,
spare woman in dark brown. As they approached the buggy, Tony saw he was being
subjected to a thorough examination.

"Well then, Mr. Dewitt," she said once she was settled in her seat, "are you sure
this vehicle can navigate the road to Gimlet?"

So she had already made up her mind to dislike him, had she? "I'm afraid it must,
Miss Petersham. There were no sleighs available at the livery stable when I asked
yesterday."

"Tony is a very careful driver," Lulu said. "If anyone can get us there, he
can."

He wanted to tell her she didn't need to defend him, but was touched that she had.
Fortunately there were no new drifts, and so all he had to contend with was the frozen,
rutted character of the road, something he'd become used to in the past month. He drove
carefully while, beside him, the women conversed in tones too low for him to follow. He
did gather that they were talking of events in the suffrage crusade, because he heard Lulu
say, "Miss Anthony is a dynamic speaker, but too often the hecklers' cries drown out her
words. When I..."

Teller must have been watching for them, because he came out onto the front
porch as they drove up the drive. Tony had met him a couple of times, but had never had a
real conversation with the man. He'd been curious what sort of fellow he was, letting his
wife be so involved in the women's suffrage movement. Teller had not joined the
Anti-Chinese League, which spoke well for his intelligence, in Tony's opinion.

"Let's let the ladies catch up on their gossip before we go in," Teller said, as he
started to follow Lulu into the house.

Tony looked at him curiously. Although the porch was roofed and faced south, it
was a cold day for standing around outdoors. "Sure." He looked around at the painted
fences, the well-tended yard, the big barn. "Nice place you've got here."

"We like it. Are you deliberately trying to get run out of town?"

"Huh? I mean, I beg your pardon?"

"Hiring those Chinamen was like waving a red flag at a bull, far as the League's
concerned. Axminster collared me yesterday, said he was going to recommend the League
boycott you and Eagleton." He pulled a pipe from one coat pocket, a tobacco sack from the
other. "Don't fool yourself into believing who your kin are will make any difference.
Axminster and his sort are so full of their own self-importance they can't imagine anyone
having the influence to stop them in their efforts to 'civilize the West.'" His tone told what
he thought of that notion.

While Tony stared at him, speechless, he loaded his pipe.

"Caught you short, did I?" Teller chuckled. "I make a point of investigating
anyone my wife gets involved with. I don't want her name tarnished by association. When I
found out who Miss King's folks were, the name Dewitt came up." He struck a match and
held it over his pipe. "What the hell are you doing working for Eagleton, with that family
behind you?"

"I...ah...We're all expected to make our own way." He wondered, with a sinking
heart, if Teller had turned up anything about the Sagacity Creek disaster in his
investigations. "Silas...my father...he'd be disappointed if I used his name to find
work."

"Wise man," Teller said. He puffed for a bit, then said, "I don't reckon you'd
consider letting those Chinamen go and hiring some of the white people the fellow in
Omaha claims he can supply as servants?"

Tony let his shoulders slump. "Lulu would kill me," he said. "She's outraged at the
League for what they're doing and convinced they're violating the Celestials' rights. She's
also determined to show them they can't tell her who she can hire." With a shake of his
head, he went on, "I think she'd fight the Devil himself if she thought he was
discriminating against someone because she was a woman, or colored."

"Yeah, Imajean's got strong opinions about universal suffrage and equal rights,
too. I've been able to get away with keeping the Chinamen I employ because I've been
around a while. Even Axminster knows he oughtn't push me too far." He tapped the pipe
against a porch support and stuck it back into his pocket. "Let's go in. They've had enough
time to catch up on the gossip."

Tony followed him, wondering how much of Teller's resistance to the League was
due to personal conviction and how much to his wanting to please his wife. The question,
once lodged in his mind, wouldn't go away. Instead, it sat there and generated others.
About men and women and marriage.

* * * *

The afternoon passed quickly, and all too soon it was time to begin the hour-long
drive back to town. Miss Petersham questioned Tony throughout the journey, surprising
Lulu with the depth of her knowledge about the technical aspects of telephony. She
certainly had a better grasp of Tony's work than Lulu did.

When they arrived at the older woman's home, she climbed from the buggy before
Tony could help her down. Holding out her hand to be shaken, she said, "I like you, Mr.
Dewitt. You don't talk down to me, and you give me credit for having a brain. You both
chose well. Congratulations." With that, she turned abruptly and went up her walk. Lulu
saw Tony was staring after her, a bemused expression on his face.

"It's awfully cold," she said, when he didn't move for upwards of a minute.

"What? Oh, sorry."

Once in the buggy, he said, "I like her, too. And Mrs. Teller." He was silent as he
guided the buggy around a corner. "I wasn't looking forward to this afternoon, you know. I
figured Miss Petersham would be a dried-up old maid, Mrs. Teller is one of those strident
women I used to see marching for women's rights in Boston."

"Be sure you don't take fervor and enthusiasm for stridency. I've never been
strident in my life, but I've certainly advocated loudly." Thinking back to some of the
marches she'd participated in, she remembered wishing more than once that women's
voices were lower-pitched. When strained by too much shouting, they did take on a shrill
tone. The same men who might admire a soprano voice raised in song could very likely
find that same voice raised in protest to grate on the hearing.

"I wasn't talking about you." He pulled up in front of the telephone exchange. "I
want to check things before we go home."

A shiver went up her spine as he stepped down from the buggy. In reaction she
said, "May I come in?" Even wrapped in her old quilt, she'd freeze if she had to sit out here
for long.

"I was about to ask. No telling how long I might be here." Fresh snow crunched
under their feet as they walked the few steps to the door. "It's colder," Lulu observed, as
her breath formed a cloud before her.
No wonder I'm shivering.

"A lot. If we have to stay any time at all, I'll take the horse to the livery stable."
He held the door for her. "There's probably coffee."

Sam, the reporter who worked the Sunday shift, greeted them. "Not much traffic
today," he said when Tony asked how busy he'd been. "I've had plenty of time to get some
writing done."

"Good. Any problems?"

"Not a one. Slowest Sunday since I--"

A bell interrupted him. As Lulu watched, curious, he determined who the caller
wished to speak to, rang that person to ask him if he would accept the call, and connected
the two subscribers.

"How do you keep them all straight?" she wondered aloud.

"These cards," he said tapping one, attached just above two small holes in the face
of the switchboard. It was small, about half the size of the usual calling card, and bore a
name she didn't recognize. "Otherwise I'd never find anyone."

"So that's what Ton--Mr. Dewitt meant when he said the vandals the other day had
removed all the name tags. Do you expect that after a while you'll know which of those
sets of holes belong to whom?"

Tony interrupted. "Actually, I'd bet Sam already knows some of them, like Mr.
Walters, who calls his sister down in Bellevue every Sunday afternoon. And Jack knows
even more. He could probably connect half the calls without ever looking at a name."

"So what they did was more time-consuming than destructive?"

"Sorting out the wires they cut was more than time consuming. It was damned
expensive," Tony said. "Patrolling the lines is, too." He motioned her to the door. "Let's get
home. It's nearly dark."

Sam waved them off. "He seems a good man," Lulu commented.

"He is. Jack is too. Eph I'm still not sure of."

"Perhaps you should hire women to be operators. I should think they'd be well
suited to that sort of work."

"We've talked about it, but it wouldn't work on Sunday or at night, when there's no
one in the newspaper office. Too dangerous."

She turned to stare at him. "Dangerous? Working in a locked building with
equipment that poses no risk of fire or dismemberment?"

"Anybody could break in."

"Anybody could break in anywhere, Tony. If a woman isn't safe in the
switchboard room, why would she be more safe in her own house? Good heavens, that's
like saying a woman shouldn't bear children because it isn't safe. Do you know how many
women still die from complications of childbirth?" Even as she said the words, another
shiver found its way down her spine.

I am not frightened. I'm a healthy, active woman. Nothing will go
wrong.

"Bearing children is a woman's natural role. But that's beside the point. We
decided not to hire women, and that's all there is to it." He clicked his tongue to the horse,
which made no difference at all in the animal's speed.

They traveled the last mile in silence. Lulu regretted starting another argument,
mild though it had been. Somehow she seemed to take exception to something he said at
least once a day. Perhaps she was argumentative.
But I am not contentious. I don't seek
topics to argue about.

There was no light in the barn, where Ru Nan and Mr. Lee had made a small
room for themselves. "They must not be back yet," Lulu said, as Tony fumbled in the dark
for the lantern that usually hung right inside the main door. During the time they'd been in
the telephone exchange, the dreary day had turned to twilight. Even if the gibbous moon
was up, it was hidden behind the heavy clouds.

"I sure wish they'd put the lantern back where it belongs." He emerged,
empty-handed. "I'll have to get the one from the back porch."

"No, you stay here and start unhitching. I'll get it." She climbed nimbly down,
wondering how much longer she would find it so easy. Already her balance seemed to be
changing.

Holding her skirt so it wouldn't pick up the light, fluffy snow that had fallen since
Tony had shoveled the path this morning, she hurried to the back steps. The screen door
opening into the porch stood half open. The door didn't fit its frame well, and had to be
slammed hard to make it stay shut. She must not have given it enough of a push this
morning when she'd dashed back inside for the two magazine articles she'd wanted to share
with Imajean and Miss Petersham.

The nail where the lantern hung was empty. "Now why...?" She took a step inside
and something crunched under her foot. Hastily she lifted it. Her swinging skirt brushed
something that rolled, with a metallic sound.