THIRTY-TWO
No Worry in the World

1893–96

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Abigail adjusted her hat. At least the fashion now allowed for the brim to be flattened at the back so a woman could lean against the stagecoach leather without worrying about smashing the brim or removing her hat to hold in her lap—if alone in the carriage. Dusty as it was, the trip was the balm she needed. She’d been spending summers at the lodge, looking after Ben. At least helping the boys look after him. Clyde was home from Cornell for the summer, and Ralph helped as well, so she was free to take the call. She lowered the canvas window to prevent the dust from rolling in. She’d be in Boise by evening, geared up, as they said about harnessed horses, to work.

Come at once. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union is spoiling everything. They’ve arranged for a hearing before the convention, in advance of ours, asking for a clause in the new Constitution to prohibit liquor traffic. They won’t get it, of course, but they will prohibit us from getting a Woman’s Suffrage plank, if you don’t come.

Eighty miles she’d traveled by train after nearly two hundred miles by stage. She’d been in remote Blackfoot when the letter reached her. Still, she’d arrived on time.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here.” The head of the local suffrage association met her. They hoped they could insert women’s right to vote into the proposed statehood constitution.

“It’s the prohibitionists that’ll kill us,” Abigail said. She felt a kinship with those women fighting the opposition to suffrage, making the cause her own no matter what state or territory she might be in. “And the women who support temperance, they’ll be our death too if we let them.”

Abigail brushed dust from her skirt, grateful once again that hoops had gone out of style. Her added weight wasn’t complemented by the new hourglass jackets over skirts, but seeing her reflection in the full-length mirror as she entered the hotel made her decide she looked “formidable.” Just what a woman needed these days to take on the politicians. “I’m beginning to think that the hops growers are the ones promoting temperance and prohibition, in the background of course. They know the very idea that women will vote to take away the average man’s access to liquor will keep them from voting yes with their pens.”

“You never tire,” her colleague said. She set Abigail’s dusty carpetbag on the floor in front of the desk at the Boise hotel. “I thought you might like the quiet time in your room before tomorrow’s speech at the legislature. Otherwise I’d be so pleased to have you stay at my home.”

“Very thoughtful,” Abigail told the younger woman, though she wondered if her reputation for late-night talks of a woman’s plight—and sometimes a bit too much of her own—might have influenced where she stayed. She actually would have liked the give-and-take of civic conversation. It fed her, got her dander up so she was fiery in her presentations. Her sons tired of her constant talk of suffrage, and Ben . . . well, Ben didn’t talk much at all anymore, occasionally of simple things: how the dog loved to jump into the stock tank on hot days, or the smell of sagebrush wafted by a gentle breeze. He was aware of what was right in front of him, the present moment, but carried little interest in politics or even how well the boys were doing or how well Earl, Clara Belle’s son and their only grandson, had taken to ranching.

At least that was one good thing that had happened from their land purchase—Earl had found an interest. The boy was also the one to write long letters to her when she was in Portland and had become a stable caretaker to Ben. She found him to be a better letter-writer than talker when she was with him, though.

The invitation came on behalf of women getting the vote. She could promote her cause and add a side dish of comradery she now missed inside her own home.

“I’ll see you in the morning. Thank you for welcoming me.”

“This is the great Abigail Scott Duniway,” the woman told the hotel agent. “We’ve reserved the best room for her.”

Outwardly, Abigail brushed away the compliment, but she took it inside, let it fill her up.

The presentation went so well that Abigail found herself beaming as she boarded the stage to return home, savoring her own words. The July heat brought out her fan, and she wasn’t looking forward to the journey, but she could bask in the accolades of how creatively she’d organized her presentation. She had pointed out—the legislators having just heard from a temperance promoter—that they were witness to how women were able to hold different views and weren’t all of one mix. The observation served her argument that this was what the framers wanted when they created this American idea, that moving toward freedom and the vote for all would simply bring out stronger discourse, more rational ideas for discussion from all citizens.

They’d applauded politely as they had for the temperance folk. But she’d felt hopeful that they’d include a separate plank in their state constitution. She’d travel back to support it if needed. It was what she did.

“I have become a magnet for opposition, it seems,” she told Ben. They rode side by side on the path that followed the stream running through their Lost River property. Ben’s mind was clearer after their rides, she’d noticed, though she didn’t know why. She could hear the stream. Water, too, had become a point of contention, with their neighbors disagreeing about a diversion dam they’d placed to irrigate their fields being seen as interrupting the water needs of downstream neighbors. Is there nothing in my life that doesn’t carry controversy?

The dog they’d inherited, Champ was his name, followed along behind. No one had any idea how old the mutt was, but she guessed he was ten or more. He didn’t bound about like a puppy. His long hair easily matted if she or Ben or Earl forgot to brush him. As with her, middle age had set in to Champ.

“The magnet is in the barn,” Ben said. “What did you need it for?”

“Nothing. Sorry I mentioned it.” She wished she had someone to talk over her frustrations with, someone to bounce her ideas off. Earl chattered of cattle raising. She wrote to Clyde, who responded, but he was busy at class—he had transferred to Harvard. It would be as good as or better than Harvey’s legal degree. The other boys, minus Hubert, lived at the Clay house in Portland and did not write often. Ralph was a full-fledged lawyer now, and Wilkie worked as a proofreader for the Evening Telegram. Willis stayed in the printing business too as a proofreader for Harvey’s dreaded Oregonian. Hubert and Cora had gone to New York to make their mark brokering lumber from the West. Children, scattered to the winds like maple leaves. Their lodge-in-the-wilderness ranch had simply not been enough to support them all, with wheat and cattle prices plummeting. Abigail would rather be in Portland herself, but Ben did so much better here, especially in the summer months. And right now, suffrage action was in Idaho. She hoped she’d be invited to give a rousing speech and find someone to talk politics with afterward.

“The magnet’s right where I put it,” Ben said. “I haven’t misplaced it.”

She patted his arm. “I know, Ben. It’s fine. Let’s head back to the house. Earl’s coming later.”

“Earl? Where did he go?”

“He’s working some of his own cattle now, Ben. And he’s teamed up with another rancher. We’ve had to sell our cows, remember?” Ben didn’t. What people were calling “the panic” had hit them too. She’d wanted to sell the ranch when the market was still good, but the property wasn’t even in her name! How Ben had managed that and how there was still $4000 owing stung her. The boys must have known but had not invited her into the decision when they’d expanded the boundaries, buying new property just as the economy was toppling.

“I remember now,” Ben said. “He’s a good cowboy. Did you see the way he lobbed that rope around the calf? Wouldn’t be without him for the branding.”

We won’t be branding here again.

She turned him toward the ranch house. Geraniums bloomed in large pots on either side of the porch steps. The one plant she could keep from dying, it seemed. They were cheery, and their presence lifted her spirits, though not high enough. She sighed.

“What’s the matter, Jenny? Are you sad?”

“Weary. Nothing for you to worry over.”

“I don’t have a worry in the world, Jen.” Ben took her hand, kissed the palm. “Everything always turns out all right.”

As they watched the sun set, she repeated her hoped-for words of a wonderful outcome. She hadn’t gotten everything she wanted—most importantly the woman’s vote. But oh, didn’t she have an amazing story to leave behind? Daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, milliner, businesswoman, writer, poet, newspaper owner, public speaker, activist—a new word people were using for those who sought change for worthy causes. And now rancher. And all along, friend. Ben had been right. Things had turned out all right. They had weathered great disappointments and great loss. The world was changing and women were changing with it. She’d be so grateful for that. As she thought of her ever-hopeful and adventurous life, a shiver ran up her spine.

The letter asking her to speak to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago brought a welcome change. Here was a prime opportunity to once again be on the national stage. And they would pay her and cover her expenses. It was to celebrate the quadricentennial of Columbus’s discovery of the Americas, and she would use that idea of discovery to frame her entire speech. She wrote on the porch table at the lodge, Ben rocking in the chair beside her.

“Ben, I’ve come up with a doozy of a speech.” The dog thumped his tail on the boards at the sound of her voice. Ben said nothing so she spoke to Champ. “I’m going to invite them to think what exploration would have looked like if Columbus had landed on the West Coast instead of the East. We’d have an entirely different country. We’d all have pioneering spirits pushing us east, creating not only geographic explorations but economic, social, moral, and intellectual discoveries with a different cast. I’ll show them that men and women would have been seen as equal, discovering ‘with’ each other. Don’t you think that sounds like a good approach?”

Champ lifted his head, his tongue hanging out, responding to the enthusiasm in her voice.

“The dog gets it.” She spoke to Ben’s silence.

Her speech was innovative, and she could encourage the idea that there were new opportunities in the West. Women could homestead and become property owners. There were new possibilities in this rugged mountain landscape, just as there’d been for her. The energy of her having thought of such an inventive approach kept her mind spinning with new metaphors and imagery that she thought the largely eastern audience would find compelling. This was the fervor she’d been missing. Even when she’d written The Coming Century—Journal of Progress and Reform and gotten it published through ’91 and ’92, she hadn’t felt the zest and zeal of knowing she’d be speaking to a large crowd with an inventive presentation. Spoken words had power too. They could help people look at things in different ways, and that was worthy work, even if how people chose to act because of those words weren’t her ways.

She took Ben back to Portland and headed east for the speech. It was a marvel of a time for her, despite her need of the cane and her female parts causing pain.

“Such a wonderful speech, Mrs. Duniway.” “Thank you for coming so far and at such a physical cost to you.”

Abigail soaked in the praise, even though she knew accolades shouldn’t fall on her but for the cause. Still, she wrote to Shirley and her sisters about the excitement of the exposition. “Maybe Oregon will do something like it for the 100th anniversary of the exploration of Lewis and Clark in 1905.” Of course, Harvey had been selected to chair that event. Maybe by then they’d be successful with the vote and he’d have to recognize the reality of women’s suffrage whether he liked it or not. There was a new campaign set for 1900. She would be involved. She’d already designed the banner.

She had lost the Ben she’d known and loved years before. The boys said the same thing, that the Pa they’d adored and tended wasn’t the man they said their final goodbyes to in October of ’96.

Ben had witnessed the three weddings of ’94 when Clyde, Willis, and Wilke all found their life mates and married. And while he likely didn’t realize it, Idaho passed women’s suffrage in a statewide election with every county except Custer—the one they lived in—voting yes. It was good Ben didn’t know about that. Abigail was sure it was over that water argument they’d waged with neighbors.

They’d sold the ranch, not getting nearly enough for it, but back in Portland, she and Ben had found a quiet life. She wrote her novels. More than nineteen, the last one in two parts, completed before Ben’s death. She noted that she’d been most productive during the years she had the newspaper, as though having a dozen brands in the flames gave her impetus and order. She wasn’t writing articles much, except copies of her speeches. The buyer of the New Northwest had gone under less than two years after the purchase. She learned later that it was a friend of Harvey’s who had bought it, and she wondered if perhaps he deliberately ran it into the ground. But her sons assured her that without major investors like the Oregonian attracted, a newspaper’s success depended on a commitment like hers that carried the charge ever forward as she had. The boys had withdrawn their shares of the business and moved on to new lives, first the ranch in Idaho and then later, when it was sold, on to legal work, university presidencies, and becoming the state’s printer. It was as it should have been.

But she missed Ben. Missed his calm and wisdom and shared understandings, especially about Mr. Bunter, who continued until his own death the following year, still a bachelor, complaining about strong-minded women.

Most importantly, Ben was now in a place where he truly didn’t have a worry in the world. Her worries were pecuniary ones. She badgered the boys into setting up a trust they paid into, giving her a small monthly income. Not enough to hobnob with the women’s club members in Portland, though she had founded that club, but someone had paid her dues. She thought it might have been her daughters-in-law. She liked the work they were doing for Portland’s beautification, but she yearned for the fight for the vote. For all the confidence she exuded when on the stage or in the fight, it was Ben’s assurance she was doing something worthwhile that had sustained her. She had resented him at times during the marriage—the notes he’d signed, leaving her off the ranch title, his need for care when they had so little funds and she needed care herself—but when he told her not to worry and to do what she knew well, she’d carried on. It was what women did.