The preacher was lively and personal, telling details about Mattie’s life. Sadie enjoyed being carried away by the music and the prayers, and feeling the outpouring of love in the room.

  After the worship, a gray-haired Colored man rushed up to Momma.

  “Lisbeth!” he exclaimed, a huge grin on his face and his arms open wide.

  Momma smiled back at him. “Samuel, it is so good to see you.” She leaned in for a surprisingly long embrace.

  Sadie studied her mother. She cared deeply for this person Sadie didn’t really know.

  “You remember Nora?” Samuel asked Momma.

  Momma said, “Of course.” The two women hugged briefly.

  Samuel explained to the younger generation circled around them: “You remember the stories of the little White girl on the plantation? The one that taught me to read and saved me from her brother?”

  His children and grandchildren nodded. Sadie was stunned, and nauseated, by his casual mention of needing to be saved from her uncle Jack.

  “This is that girl—Lisbeth Wainwright!” Then he corrected, “She’s Mrs. Johnson to you.”

  Momma shook her head. “That was a lifetime ago. Two lifetimes ago. Maybe more than that.”

  “You are well?” Nora asked.

  Momma nodded. They exchanged news about their lives, Momma telling personal details about coping with Poppa’s death, ailments, and more. It was at once strange and sweet. Sadie saw a familiarity Momma did not have with friends in Oakland, even after so many years of living there.

  She imagined what Heinrich would make of this scene, she and Momma surrounded by Colored people. For Sadie it was self-consciously unusual but also fascinating. She was grateful for this opportunity to learn more about her mother and this lovely family she was so devoted to. In the weeks they had been here, Sadie had grown so very fond of Naomi and Jordan.

  Heinrich would likely disapprove because it was not right to make peers out of people who were “socially inferior,” a term that made sense to Heinrich but not to Sadie. These were educated people: lawyers, teachers, nurses. She was going to miss them and hoped they would maintain their relationships once they were in Oakland.

  Sadie and Momma finished washing the last dirty plate in the small but functional kitchen. The social hall was nearly empty; it was time to leave. Sadie stepped toward Jordan and Naomi for their goodbyes, but Momma turned the other way, back into the empty sanctuary.

  Sadie found her in a corner with tears streaming down her face. Momma shook her head.

  “I am silly,” she said through a tight voice, “but I will most likely never see Samuel again.”

  “I didn’t realize you were so fond of him,” Sadie said.

  Momma bit her lip and barely whispered, “Me neither.”

  Sadie rubbed Momma’s back and breathed slowly, like she would with a child who’d fallen and skinned their knees.

  “I saw him every day of my childhood, out my window.” Her voice broke. She swallowed.

  Sadie remembered the window from her only visit to Fair Oaks when she was a little girl. It overlooked the quarters where Samuel lived. Ironically the one time she was there, she had looked out and seen Miss Jordan and Mattie.

  Momma continued her remembrance. “Samuel resented me because I had Mattie standing by me each day. And I was jealous of him because he had her greatest devotion. It was such a perversion of family.” Momma shook her head.

  Sadie listened with rapt attention. Momma so rarely shared anything emotional about her life, especially her childhood.

  Momma looked at Sadie, her eyes red and moist. “I love you. I do not say it often, but never doubt it.”

  Sadie’s heart swelled. “I love you too, Momma. I’m sorry this is causing you such sorrow.”

  “This pain is the cost for real love . . . and it is well worth the price,” Momma said with certainty.

  She took a deep breath. She wiped her blue eyes and pale skin. She held up a hand, signaling Sadie to give her a moment. Sadie kissed her momma’s cheek and stepped away. She waited patiently for Momma’s signal that she was ready to say her goodbyes.

  Momma and Samuel shared a long, sweet hug. No words passed between them. Sadie watched, full of empathy for her momma, who did not want to make a scene.

  Naomi gave Sadie a kind and full hug. Malcolm put out a hand when she opened her arms, polite, but not warm. Sadie felt she knew him well after staying in his room for many weeks, but his visits home had been brief, and she understood that he did not return the sentiment. Miss Jordan patted her cheek after they embraced. It was tender and sweet, reminding Sadie of being her student.

  “Goodbye, Miss Jordan. My faaavorite teacher,” Sadie said. They both laughed. She imagined how different it would feel to be saying a forever goodbye. She suddenly understood her mother’s sadness better and was glad that Miss Jordan would be moving to Oakland so they would see one another again.

  Momma stood in front of Jordan, tears glistening in both women’s eyes.

  “Thank you,” Momma said. “I’m so very grateful that I could be here to honor Mattie.”

  “You . . .” Jordan’s voice broke. “I’m glad you were here with us.”

  They embraced.

  “Please call on us soon after you get into Oakland,” Momma said. “We want to help you settle in.”

  Jordan replied, “Thank you. We’ll be there as soon as we get packed up; there’s nothing keeping us here now.”

  Sadie and Momma walked away from Mattie’s funeral. Feeling the poignancy of this moment, the young woman looped her arm through her mother’s, a small comfort for a great loss, but there was nothing she could do to take away her mother’s pain. As Momma said, it was the cost of loving.

  The next day they arrived at the station at the appointed time, but there was no train at the assigned platform. Momma pointed. A train idled down the track. Perhaps that was the one that would take them home. Sadie found an agent.

  “Is our train to Oakland delayed?” she asked the young man.

  He nodded. “You could say so.” He gave a cryptic response without looking at her.

  Heat rose in Sadie’s cheeks. She longed to be on that train without delay. This man was indifferent to her needs.

  “Where should we wait for it?” she asked, striving to keep her emotions out of her voice.

  “I’d go home if I were you,” he replied.

  “That is what I’m here for—to get home.” She spoke more harshly than she liked, but his rude dismissal of her concern was galling.

  He sighed and looked at her. “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “This morning the members of the American Railway Union stopped handling any trains that have Pullman sleeper cars attached to them.” He looked her up and down. “You were gonna ride in a Pullman?”

  Sadie nodded.

  “Try to get a second-class ticket,” he said. “If I know anything about Eugene Debs, that train is not going to have a Pullman on it—when and if it heads to Oakland.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sadie said, tears pressing against her eyes.

  “Eugene Debs, the head of the Railway Union?” the man said.

  Sadie nodded; she’d heard of him. Since the Pullman Strike had started, his name was in the paper nearly every day.

  “He’s decided none of his workers are touching any cars on any trains that have a Pullman attached to it. The workers are rising up for better pay.” He shrugged. “You understand better pay, don’ you?”

  Sadie nodded and wiped at her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the man said, finally sounding sympathetic. “I don’t have any more information. This was just sprung on us a few hours ago. Check at the ticket counter. They can assist you.”

  Her tears had brought out his kindness but didn’t get her a path home.

  Momma took her hand, and they got in the long line at the counter. It seemed that everyone who expected to be on the westward train wanted to make a new arrangement. After an hour, they were at the counter.

  “Tickets.” The little man reached out his hand. He looked them over.

  “We would like to get to Oakland as soon as possible,” Momma declared.

  “I suggest that you purchase a second-class ticket from Naperville to Oakland for tomorrow. That train is running today, but you can’t get there in time to catch it,” he said.

  “How far is Naperville?”

  “Twenty-eight miles,” he replied. “You’ll have to hire a carriage.”

  “You are certain we can get to Oakland from there tomorrow?” Sadie asked.

  “No, ma’am,” he replied. “We do not know how this situation will play out.”

  Sadie swallowed hard and pointed down the track. “Is there any chance that train is going out later this morning or afternoon?”

  “I can’t say for certain, ma’am,” he said. “But I do not believe it will be going anywhere today.”

  “Instead of going to Naperville, can we exchange these tickets for tomorrow’s train from Chicago to Oakland?” Momma asked. “We are willing to travel second class.”

  “All classes are full tomorrow and the next. We have availability in three days,” he informed them.

  Momma looked at Sadie for approval. Sadie nodded.

  “We will take it,” Momma said.

  As they walked away with their new tickets, Momma spoke. “Hours in a carriage will not be good for the baby nor can we risk being stranded in the middle of Illinois. We’ll pray for a swift end to the disruption so we may return home for your confinement.” Momma squeezed her hand, not saying more about the fear pressing inside each of them.

  Sadie nodded. They joined the line at the telegraph office to inform Heinrich of the change in plans before returning to Emily and William’s home.

  In the morning, Momma, Emily, and Sadie stood side by side reading the news from the Chicago Tribune spread out on the wooden-plank table.

  MOBS HOLD TRAINS.

  —

  Pullman Boycott in an Alarming Form at Hammond.

  —

  TROOPS CALLED OUT.

  —

  Monon and Erie Trains Blocked by Spiked Rails.

  —

  WRECK ON PENNSYLVANIA

  —

  Cars Ditched and Several Passengers Reported Hurt.

  —

  United States Mails Have Been Interfered With and Serious Trouble Feared.

  TRAINS ABANDONED IN CALIFORNIA.

  Refusal of Men to Handle Pullman Cars Makes the Tie-Up Complete

  SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., June 27—Tonight it is impossible for a person to leave the State of California by rail. Not a train except those engaged in suburban travel is moving in the whole State. The Southern Pacific Company adhered to its determination not to run trains without Pullman cars and the trainmen were equally as determined not to handle the cars bearing the hated name of Pullman. Consequently the hundreds of people who expected to travel North, South, and East were forced to return to San Francisco. The trainmen went to their homes and the big Oakland mole was deserted except for the ferry-boat employees and the suburbaners.

  “I’m glad we did not get a ticket from Naperville,” Momma said.

  Sadie nodded, though no one was looking at her.

  “Willie is caught in Oakland?” Sadie asked Emily.

  “As far as we know,” Emily replied, her voice filled with fear.

  Momma patted Emily’s back. “I’m sure he is safe.”

  Emily tried to smile, but it wasn’t convincing.

  “I don’t understand why the railroads don’t run the trains without the Pullman cars,” Sadie wondered aloud.

  “Those railroad men are sticking together,” William explained from across the room. “If the Pullman laborers win their strike, then next it will be brakemen, and then the conductors, and then the engineers. They do not want labor to organize.”

  “Their demands are unreasonable?” Sadie asked.

  Anger flashed on William’s face. Sadie regretted her words, fearing she sounded as if she were challenging her generous host—a laborer.

  Emily replied, “Pullman expects them to be grateful for low wages, high rents in a company town, and sixteen-hour days. He has no regard for safety, then when workers are injured on the job, their family gets displaced from their homes because they no longer work for the company.” Emily shook her head. “I don’t believe the strike will work, but I understand the anger of the workers. Dignity and security are not too much to ask.”

  Sadie nodded and smiled, wishing to seem sympathetic to their cause. She did want laborers to have good working conditions, but also she resented them for disrupting her life. She just wanted to get home.

  “We have two more days until our trip,” Momma said. “Let’s pray for all of us that this ends before then.”

  The next day the strike was still in effect, but the story in the paper gave Sadie hope that they would be going home soon. Judge Caldwell of the United States Circuit Court told Debs and the American Railway Union to keep “hands off” the Santa Fe Railway on the grounds that they were interfering with mail trains. The general marshals of the twenty-one railroad lines that came into Chicago had hired two hundred to three hundred workers to replace the striking men. Federal marshals would give them protection to get the mail moving again. Sadie and Momma kept their trunks packed, and resolved to go to the station in the morning to be on the train home.

  Sadie rose early, ready to head out, but William shook his head.

  “There’s no point in you going,” he said. “I just got back from the station. They sent me home. Everything is still locked up tight.”

  The back of Sadie’s eyeballs burned. “What about the replacement men?”

  “I hear they had a train ready to head out, but the strikers blocked the tracks, uncoupled the Pullman car, and waved the train on.”

  “We are traveling second class, so that will not affect us,” Momma said.

  William shook his head. “Like I said before, the railroad men are sticking together. The owners aren’t letting any trains out unless they have the Pullman cars. The workers will not let any train run with a Pullman sleeper car.”

  “But the government is forcing the owners to keep trains going to keep the mail moving,” Sadie stated, passion in her voice.

  William shook his head. He looked at Sadie as if she were a child.

  Sadie asked, “Isn’t that what the article said yesterday? The judge’s orders.”

  “The government supports the owners, not the laborers,” he explained. “The judges are not going to go against George Pullman.”

  “But the mail?” Sadie insisted, perhaps sounding naïve.

  Emily shrugged. “Soon enough federal marshals will fire upon the strikers. The workers won’t be able to stand against the government for long, but for now you are not leaving.”

  Fire upon? Sadie could not believe the federal government would harm its own citizens.

  Momma frowned and asked, “Would you like us to find another place to stay? We so appreciate your hospitality, and you did not anticipate it would be so long.”

  Emily smiled and squeezed Momma’s hand. “Do not even think of it. You are welcome to stay here as long as you need a home in Chicago.”

  “Thank you.” Momma and Aunt Emily exchanged smiles.

  “She’s right,” Uncle William said. “You are welcome here. And . . . you don’t got a lot of choice. Do you know how many folks are stuck in Chicago right now? The hotels are making a fortune.” He continued, “I’ll be out of your hair soon. Tonight I’m heading to New Orleans. That train is still running. They want extra men on hand in case it gets ugly, so they are doubling us up.”

  Sadie pored through the newspapers, paying attention as she never had before, her emotions tossed around like a boat in a storm. One day the strike was growing, the workers quitting in solidarity with those who had been fired for not servicing Pullman cars. The next day the federal marshals forced the hand of strikers in Hammond, Indiana. Rather than face bullets, Eugene Debs showed compassion and common sense by directing the men to return to work.

  The following day, federal judges invoked the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Interstate Commerce Act and forbade Eugene Debs from communicating with the strikers, almost as if they were hoping for violence to erupt.

  On and on it went, day after day: news of mobs, federal troops firing on strikers, court orders, and stranded passengers. Sadie no longer sent telegrams to Heinrich telling him of their plans. She’d already spent too large a sum sending him false information.

  Three weeks into the strike, Momma interrupted her as she read about the situation in Oakland. “Let’s start making clothes for that little one,” Momma said.

  “No,” Sadie responded without thought. “It’s too soon.”

  “I have to keep busy,” Momma said. “Or I will go stir-crazy. You too, I believe.”

  “All right,” Sadie agreed reluctantly.

  Momma smiled. “Let’s get fabric this afternoon. We can start with gowns.”

  CHAPTER 9

  JORDAN

  Chicago

  August 1894

  Naomi interrupted Jordan’s sorting. They’d been organizing and cleaning for days, getting ready for their move. They planned to leave just as the heat of summer was peaking in mid-August, assuming the strike was over by then.

  Fortunately, Samuel and his family had returned home before the railroads to Cincinnati were tied up. However, Malcolm had been trapped in Chicago, without work or pay, since the funeral. The financial pressure built each day of the strike, but there was nothing to be done. Malcolm did not have enough seniority to be given other routes, and he couldn’t find any work in town.

  Jordan reminded herself to enjoy this time with him; they hadn’t had this many nights under the same roof in years. But she feared that the strike, which made no demands that would benefit her Colored son, would only ruin them.

  Naomi called across the room, “Mama, are you certain you wish to pack this?”