“I heard they were on the way out the last few years—down from four million to a few hundred thousand left in the Deep South.”
“The South and the Appalachian Mountains. Wherever people are poor and oppressed, the Klansmen look for someone to bully. That’s what’s happening around here, and I just don’t want that person to be you.”
“You think I’m a target?” I’m in shock. “I thought I was keeping a low profile, way out in the country . . .”
“Be real, Patience. You are not low profile. Everyone knows who you are. Times are hard. Men are looking for ways to take out their frustration, and you’re involved with a group of uppity Negroes . . . There’s been talk. You live with a Negro woman . . . For God’s sake, you walk around with her arm in arm. I’d watch it, if I were you.”
“Like who? Who’s uppity? Thomas and Bitsy?”
“Thomas and Bitsy . . . and the Reverend Miller and all those folks at his church. Mrs. Potts is accepted because of her skills. She’s delivered a lot of babies, black and white, in Union County, but people say the pastor preaches equality and white people don’t like it.”
“Well,” I go on. “I’m not responsible for what people say in the pulpit or anywhere else. Anyway, I agree with the preacher.”
Becky and I have never before discussed politics, and she has no idea how important the issue of equality is to me. “Some people may think Negroes are inferior, but you and I know it isn’t true,” I lecture. “The Proudfoots and the Millers are as smart and able as any of us, maybe more. Anyway, if we want to see the world change, we have to change it, and I’ll put my arm through Bitsy’s whenever I want!”
“Let’s just let it drop,” my friend mutters and puts her cup in the sink. “I wish I hadn’t brought it up. I was only trying—” The phone on her kitchen wall rings three times. “Hello,” she answers. “Okay, I’ll inform her.” You can tell by the way she’s going to inform me that she’s mad. “That was Bitsy. She’s over at Mr. Hester’s, and he’s going to give you a ride home.”
“Becky, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get into an argument. I just have a hard time believing that in 1930 the Klan could be a problem. West Virginia fought with the North in the Civil War, for heaven’s sake . . . this isn’t Mississippi or Georgia. Anyway, why shouldn’t all people be proud and free regardless of color?”
Becky shakes her head and sits down, staring out the window at the daffodils along the walk. She doesn’t even give me a good-bye hug. I lean over her chair and give her a half hug anyway.
“You’re too innocent, Patience. You need to face reality. Not everyone is as nice as you.”
Nice as me! If she only knew.
The ride home with the vet and Bitsy is a quiet one. We each rest in our own thoughts as we chug along in the Model T. I keep wondering what Becky means by “uppity.” I’m shocked at her attitude, an educated woman. Though maybe I shouldn’t be. Someone like me, who lives in my own little world, I don’t really know how the MacIntoshes, the Hudsons, and the Blums think.
It was at the Westinghouse walkout in 1916 that I first saw black and white workers, men and women too, demonstrating together. Before that, the employers used to pit us against one another. If whites struck for better working conditions or shorter hours, blacks were used as strikebreakers. If men in the all-male AFL struck for higher wages, the bosses would hire more women. But at the Westinghouse munitions plant, six thousand workers, including three hundred women and a few dozen Negroes, walked out together.
In the second row of the all-female Dish Pan Drum Corps, just in front of the band, Nora and I linked arms, proud and happy, with the Rosenberg sisters and Daisy, our colored suffragette friend, singing at the top of our lungs, “Solidarity forever! Solidarity forever! Solidarity forever! For the union makes us strong.” The five of us were thrown into the slammer that day when the coppers said to disband, but we were out in seventy-two hours. Daisy Lampkin got out in a day. Her husband was a rich restaurateur.
Despite my intention not to let Becky’s warning about the KKK bother me, my stomach grows cold and I wonder what she isn’t saying. I would like to go back and ask her. Who’s talking about me, anyway? What are they saying?
Threat
Mr. Hester comes only once a week now to check on Star. Most of the time he goes straight to the barn, doesn’t stop at the house, but yesterday he had good news.
“Star’s really healing well,” he told me as he washed his hands at our kitchen sink. “Her hooves can bear more weight. You still taking her down to the creek three times a day? You could try riding her if you want to.”
“She seems to like the creek,” I reply. “Likes to stand in the water, and I enjoy my time there too. It feels like I’m doing a chore while I lie on my back and look at the clouds.” I pour him a cup of sassafras tea and pull out a chair. “The sound of the water soothes me, reminds me of my childhood on the banks of the Des Plaines River.”
The vet nods as if he understands but returns quickly to the horse, where he’s no doubt more comfortable. “Just start riding her in the pasture, and eventually take her down to the Hope.”
“I’ve never been on a horse before. If Bitsy has, we’ll do it tonight . . . but can I pose a question?” The vet shrugs, alert to the change in my voice.
“This is awkward, but have you heard any rumors about the Ku Klux Klan in Union County?” Hester blows across his cup, doesn’t say anything at first, just takes a sip of the tea, so I go on. “I feel funny asking . . . I don’t know why, it’s just that Bitsy and I never talk about anything to do with race. In some ways I don’t know her world at all. We live as if it doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t to me, but Rebecca Myers, the health nurse in town, told me last week that they’re reorganizing the Klan in West Virginia. Is there anything to it?” Hester stares out the window and shrugs.
“Maybe. I was invited to a Rotary Club meeting at the Oneida Inn last month. Went with Dresher, Star’s previous owner. He’s a big supporter of my practice, and he thought I should make local contacts, but I don’t think I’ll go again.
“There was a lot of bitter talk about the folks at Hazel Patch, how they’re forming an agricultural collective, buying things in bulk from the Farmers Co-op in Torrington, even arranging to have feed for their cattle shipped down the Mon River on the steamboat from Pittsburgh. The locals don’t like it, especially the merchants.” He shrugs.