The Hope Chest — Chapter 1 - The Stolen Letters

The Stolen Letters

“G IVE THOSE TO ME AT ONCE, YOUNG LADY !”

Violet dropped the bundle of letters and looked up at her mother's angry face. She felt guilty, but only for a second. “They're mine,” she said. “They're my letters, from my sister—they're addressed to me!”

Mother made a grab for the bundle and the two of them struggled, each gripping the letters with one st. Mother used her other hand to try to pull Violet away from the desk by her pigtails, and Violet used her other hand to wrench her pigtails free. It was very unladylike— not at all graceful.

“How dare you?” Mother cried. “Going through my desk drawers —Violet Mayhew, I thought I brought you up better than that!”

“You hid them!” Violet screamed, managing to jerk her hair and a few of the letters free. She lurched against Mother's desk, knocking over a vase of asters and a dreadful old hair wreath in a wooden frame. She retreated to the bedroom doorway. “I bet Chloe's been writing me for the whole time since you threw her out, and you let me think she'd forgotten all about me!”

“Violet, you know perfectly well your father and I always do what's best for you.” Mother had decided to be calm and rm, but there were tears in the corners of her eyes.

Violet didn't care. She was too mad to care. “You hid Chloe's letters from me for three whole years. You stole them from me!”

Violet retreated out the door. Heavy footsteps thudded up the stairs behind her. Violet turned around and saw Father. It was his newspaper-reading time, and Violet and Mother had disturbed it.

“What in the name of Sam Hill is going on here?” Father demanded.

“I'm sorry, Arthur,” said Mother. “Violet has stolen some letters from my desk drawer.”

Violet backed up against the hall mirror. Father towered. He was broad and massive, like the bank where he worked. He had left his jacket downstairs, but he still looked imposing in a black broadcloth vest and trousers and a spotless white shirt with a high starched collar. He glared down at Violet through his gold-rimmed spectacles.

“Why aren't you downstairs reading to your brother?” he demanded.

Violet had no good answer. She had sat with Stephen but hadn't bothered to read to him since she'd nished all her Oz books.

Instead, she'd written a letter to her cousin and had been looking through Mother's desk for a stamp when she found the letters.

“Give those back to your mother at once, young lady,” said Father.

“They're addressed to me,” Violet said. “From Chloe.” She shifted toward the hall corner, toward the dog's-leg turn that led to the back stairway. Standing up to Father was a lot scarier than standing up to Mother, partly because he so seldom spoke to her. “I won't,” she said.

“Then give them to me.” Father held out his hand. “At once, young lady, or you are going to be in so much trouble it will make your head swim.”

“I don't care,” said Violet. She didn't. She was madder than she'd ever been in her life. They told her to be seen and not heard and to

speak only when spoken to. They sent her sister away and stuck her with a brother who wouldn't even talk. Then they hid her own letters from her and called it stealing when she found them. It was wretched that just because a person happened to be eleven years old, that person didn't have any say in things at all—not even about getting to read her own letters.

Father moved toward Violet, a huge, threatening tower of authority. Mother seemed to disappear from Violet's eld of vision.

Father always had a way of making Mother disappear.

Violet darted around the corner and clattered down the curving back staircase and out through the kitchen, where Eleanor, the cook, was making boiled custard. She slammed the screen door and ran all the way to the banks of the Susquehanna River.

She had only grabbed a few letters, from the middle of the stack.

The postmark on the rst envelope was from 1918, two years ago.

She sat down at her favorite spot, under an old elm tree that grew on the riverbank, and began to read.

New York City

Saturday, November 9, 1918 Dear Violet, Well, I voted! It was nothing like Father warned me. There were no gangs of hoodlums standing at the top of the steps to throw down voters from the opposition party. I did not lose my femininity. I didn't have to drag my skirts through the mud and muck of national politics— my skirts are eight inches from the ground, and the muck of national politics turned out not to be that deep this year. There were thousands of women voting, and yet New York did not have a Bolshevist revolution. (Not yet, anyway. It's only been a few days.) Did the false armistice happen in Susquehanna too? Thursday the newsboys were out on the streets hollering that the War was over. I was treating inuenza patients on the fth oor of a tenement house, and everybody dashed down the stairs and out into the street, cheering and throwing their hats in the air. But then it turned out not to be true, of course.

Everyone says the War can't last much longer now. A lot of the countries in Europe have given women the vote now, you know. Some of them have only given

it to women whose sons were killed in the War. That makes me really angry—as if women are only as good as men if their sons die. But the United States doesn't even

have that.

At least women can vote in New York State now. That makes sixteen states, plus the territory of Alaska. Ah, Alaska! Speaking of soldiers, how is Stephen doing? I hope you aren't reading the war news to him. I know Father always says that that's

what he'll want to hear, but somehow that doesn't seem very likely to me.

Write if you can. The address is on the envelope.

Your loving sister,

Chloe

Violet smiled because the letter sounded so much like Chloe. And Alaska—Chloe had always wanted to go to Alaska. She'd taken out every book the library had about Alaska, and she'd drawn Violet a picture of an Eskimo driving a dogsled. Violet had asked for an igloo

too, but Chloe had said that Alaskan Eskimos didn't live in igloos.

Violet looked at the envelope. The address was somewhere in New York City—Henry Street.

The next letter gave her a jolt.

November 20, 1918

Dear Violet,

I can't tell you how sorry I am about Flossie. You know Father wouldn't let me in to see you, don't you? I drove up as soon as I heard about it from Cousin Helen and was in Susquehanna the next morning (had to stop in Scranton overnight after

the Hope Chest blew a tire—its second on the trip—and it was too dark to see to change it). Mother wanted to let me in, I think, but Father said no, and all I could think of was you all alone upstairs in our old bedroom with your thoughts.

I wish I could call, but even if I had enough money for long distance, Father

would just hang up. Write to me, all right? I want to know how you're doing. And wear your face mask every time you go out so you don't get the u.

Love,

Chloe

Violet felt a sharp twist in her stomach. Reading the letter made it feel as if her best friend, Flossie, had just died yesterday instead of almost two years ago. It had happened right near where she was sitting now, on the banks of the Susquehanna—she and Flossie were playing Nellie Bly. Nellie Bly was a newspaper reporter who reported the War from the trenches on the western front, and Flossie wanted to grow up to be just like her. So that day they were playing that Flossie was Nellie Bly and Violet was a captured German soldier. Only suddenly Flossie had complained of a backache, and then she had gotten a nosebleed, and Violet had said, “Your ear's bleeding, Flossie.” And by the time she'd helped Flossie home, Flossie was bleeding out of both ears and her nose and couldn't talk.

That was the inuenza—like getting run over by a steam train.

Not just snies, but blood pouring out of your nose and ears.

People didn't understand how the disease could hit that hard, could kill so many people, when it was only the u. Except that after 1918, it would never be “only the u” again.

Violet clenched the letter in her hand and was furious at Mother and Father. In those awful bleak days after Flossie died, it would have meant a lot to have Chloe sitting at the foot of her bed again, talking to her and telling her stories. She couldn't believe Mother and Father had sent Chloe away when Violet needed her, just because Chloe was a New Woman who wanted to vote and have a

job of her own. She was still Chloe.

Violet read the next letter.

December 1, 1918

Dear Violet, How are you?

The inuenza is really bad here. I treated eighty— ve patients in the tenements behind Hester Street yesterday. I start at the bottom of one building and work my way up, calling on patients, and then when I get to the roof, I step across onto the next building and work my way down. Don't worry, there's no space in between the

buildings! I called on one family where the mother, father, and six children were all sick in one little room and all huddled into one bed. None of them spoke any English.

So far I haven't gotten the u (touch wood) because I'm careful to wear my mask all the time. Are you wearing yours? They also gave all of us public health nurses an inoculation at the Henry Street Settlement House, but we think that it's a placebo—a fake shot, to make us think we're protected.

The other night I had a funny accident. I was coming home in the dark after seeing 107 patients, and I crashed right into a young man carrying a shovel. We both went sprawling into the gutter, which was not exactly clean.… I guess there are still more horses than motorcars in New York! It turned out the poor fellow had been digging graves, which is a pretty big job these days.… Anyway, he was very polite and forgiving and walked me home.

Please write and let me know how you're doing. I think about you all the time.

Love, Chloe

That letter started stupid tears in Violet's eyes again, and she dashed them away with the sleeve of her middy blouse. She thought about Chloe all the time too. So that was what Chloe was doing— being a public health nurse. During the huge scene after Chloe bought the Hope Chest, Chloe had shouted something about wanting to do something meaningful with her life. Mother had cried and asked her what wasn't meaningful about marrying an upand- coming man like Mr. Russell (or was it Mr. Rice?) and having beautiful babies?

Violet, listening on the stairs, had known just what Chloe meant.

At school Violet's class was knitting squares to make blankets for French war orphans. Miss Smedley read to the class—Ivanhoe was what she was reading to them just then—for half an hour each day while they knitted. And although Miss Smedley tried to make a game of it by keeping score of who knitted more squares—the boys or the girls—to Violet, knitting those squares seemed like the most important thing she had ever done in her life. She felt as though she was part of something huge, something vital, something that

involved the whole world. Or at least much more of the world than she had ever seen.

Mr. Rice (or was it Mr. Russell?) had no very high opinion of women working, or voting, or doing anything interesting. Both Mr.

R.'s worked for Father at the bank, and they still came to Sunday dinner every week, even though Chloe was no longer around for either of them to marry. Last Sunday they'd tried to outdo each other making jokes about women voting.

“Can you imagine if women were actually allowed to vote?” Mr.

Russell had asked. “Elections would have to go on for days, with all those women standing in the voting booths, not being able to make up their minds.”

“Not only that, but they'd be standing up on their little tippy toes, trying to peer into the other booths to see who the other women were voting for,” said Mr. Rice.

Violet couldn't imagine why Mother and Father had thought Chloe would marry either one of them. She eagerly unfolded the next letter.

December 20, 1918 Dear Violet, Merry Christmas! I've been thinking about you a lot. I wish I could come see you for Christmas, but Father would just slam the door in my face again— so it would be a waste of gasoline, at more than twenty cents a gallon. (Did I tell you the Hope Chest gets twenty—ve miles to the gallon, though? It's great!) The inuenza seems to be spreading a little less this week—touch wood. I hope you are still well. A friend of mine was very bad with it, but he's better now, and I think he will live. It was scary, though.

The federal government has started deporting foreign—born radicals to Russia.

Can you imagine? A lot of them didn't even come from Russia. Some of them have lived in this country nearly all their lives. But I guess that's what happens when you have a war. People start hating immigrants. I think there are people who just need someone to hate. I just hope they don't deport all of them. Some of them are such dear people.

I hope you can come to New York City one day. You never saw a place so alive, with so many dierent ideas being talked about in so many dierent languages.

New York City is a college education in itself. Still, I hope that you, at least, will nd a way to go to college, and I mean a whole four years of it.

Love, Chloe

Violet put the letter down and looked out at the muddy waters of the Susquehanna slipping by. Chloe made what their mother had always called “the wrong sort of people” sound really interesting, which Violet had always suspected they might be. She made them sound downright uplifting. Wasn't it just like their parents to want to keep Violet away from anything interesting! Chloe was wrong about Violet nding a way to go to college, though. Violet didn't want to go to college—school was boring, and the sooner she was out of it the better. Besides, Father was against college for girls.

The next thing in the pile wasn't a letter but a slender tin-framed snapshot. Stephen and Chloe, when they were teenagers, sat stiy in their Sunday best and held Violet, who wore a white dress with enormous skirts that covered both their laps. She had been a plain baby, Violet thought, just like she was a plain girl—with straight brown hair that had never curled and never would and a snub nose and ordinary brown eyes. Mother must have stuck the picture into the pile of letters, but why? So that she would remember what Chloe looked like? Or was she trying to hide Chloe so she could forget her?

January 15, 1919 Dear Violet, Happy New Year! I would have written sooner, but there have been some bad relapses in u cases, as well as some other things that have been keeping me very busy. I hope you are thinking about what I said about college— I know it seems far away when you are in fourth grade. College arms you to ght the great battles. I learned that from Miss Lillian Wald; she's the founder of the Henry Street Settlement House, where I'm doing my nurse training. She invented public health

nursing, you know. She says the inuenza has been a baptism by re for all of her

trainees. I hope I never see anything worse.

Speaking of battles, it looks as though Congress is going to take up the Susan B.

Anthony Amendment when it reconvenes. That's the amendment poor Miss

Anthony wrote back in 1878. Congress voted it down back then—to think women

could have gotten the vote forty years ago! It needs a two—thirds vote of both houses of Congress to pass, which means it's going to be a huge knock—down, drag

—out ght. And Congress has defeated it before. If they do pass it, it will go to the states for ratication. And then it will be part of our U.S. Constitution.

Part of me really wants to go to Washington to help Miss Alice Paul and the

National Woman's Party work for that amendment. But I also want to stay here

and nish my nurse's training. (Especially now that my baptism by re is over— touch wood and cross ngers!) There are other things that make me want to stay

in New York too. But a woman shouldn't let herself be ruled by those sorts of things.

Love,

Chloe

Violet couldn't gure out what the last two sentences of that letter meant. Chloe's life in New York sounded thrilling. Violet imagined

Chloe climbing up and down towering tenement buildings, risking death (by inuenza or falling o a roof) to bring help and hope to

hundreds of suering people. It sounded a lot more exciting than

marrying one of the Mr. R.'s. Violet eagerly opened the next letter.

February 18, 1919

Dear Violet,

You still haven't written back to me. I hope you're not still angry with me for leaving. You know I really couldn't do anything else. I didn't want to marry Mr.

Russell (or whoever else they found for me!) and turn into a good little helpmeet, hosting dinner parties and having babies and never again having a thought or idea

or dream of my own.

I wonder if Mother ever had a dream before she married Father? Well, it's too late for me to ask her now. Last week I drove the Hope Chest out to Long Island

with some girls from one of the worst tenements on Hester Street. None of them

had ever seen an open eld before. They couldn't believe all the space. I wish you could have been with us. The Hope Chest got two at tires, one on the way there

and one on the way back, but fortunately a friend of mine showed me how to

patch them myself. Everyone agrees that a lady motorist should know how to change a tire, but considering how often they burst, I'm glad I know how to patch

them now as well.

Some people think that us suragists (or is it we suragists?) hate men, but that's not true at all. Lots of men are really nice, like my friend who showed me

how to patch tires. There's a dierence between liking men and wanting to have them run your whole life.

Well, that's neither here nor there. I hope you are getting along all right. I

remember that when I was in eighth grade and my friend Dottie Armitage died of

consumption, I didn't want to be friends with anyone else for a long time. I thought that would be somehow disloyal to Dottie. It wasn't true, though, and I hope you

know it isn't true about Flossie either. When a friend dies, some of her always stays inside of us. Write back if you can.

Love,

Chloe

Violet felt peculiar—it was as if Chloe had read her mind. Back then, that is. She had felt just that way, when her grief started to

ease enough that she could sometimes laugh and have fun and want to be with people again. She'd felt as if she'd be betraying Flossie if

she made other friends. Violet threw the letter angrily down on the

riverbank beside her. It would have been great to read this letter back then.

The last letter was just a note.

April 15, 1919

Dear Violet,

This clipping is a poem that was in the newspaper the other day. It's called “Aftermath,” and it's by a man named Siegfried Sassoon, who was in the British

army. I wish you'd read it to Stephen.

You know there's going to be a League of Nations—everyone says we will never have a war again. I hope that's true.

Violet looked in the envelope, but there was no clipping. Either it had fallen out or Mother had taken it when she'd read the letter.

That was what made Violet snap. Mother had read all these letters. Maybe Father too, but it was Mother who she felt ought to have known better. Mother had kept Chloe's interesting news and comforting thoughts from Violet when Violet had needed them most. And there were more letters, besides these few that Violet had managed to rescue. Violet knew they wouldn't be in the desk anymore. They'd be hidden somewhere she couldn't nd them. Or even burned.

All her life, Violet had accepted that her parents made decisions, and whether Violet liked it or not, that was the way things were.

But this was too much. The letters had been written just for her, by Chloe, the only person in the family who had ever told her anything except how to behave. And she hadn't stolen them; they'd been stolen from her. It was completely unfair, and Violet wasn't going to put up with it.