Glimmers of Change Page 9

Janie pushed through the crowd to reach the telegraph office, relieved when the operator handed her the envelope she had been waiting for. A bright smile broke out on her face when she read the contents. Turning, she made her way back through the crowd and hurried toward the train station. She just had time to make it.

  The air had warmed up some, but it was still below freezing. After the subzero temperatures during the last two weeks, however, it felt almost balmy.

  As Janie strode toward the station, she felt a moment of jealousy. Last night she dreamed of Richmond — the rolling hills, the church spires penetrating the sky, the rumbling rapids of the James River. Then her dream shifted to the plantation. When she finally awakened, she laid there for long minutes thinking of how much she would love to go riding with Carrie, help at the clinic, talk to the children in the school, and sit by the fire for long chats with Rose, Moses, and Robert.

  She had been in Philadelphia for six weeks now. In spite of how much she loved school and her housemates, she was dreadfully homesick. She had struggled with loneliness when she first moved to Richmond during the war, but at least she had been in her beloved South. In spite of the fact that everyone accepted her in Philadelphia — even so soon after the war — she couldn’t help feeling like a stranger in a foreign land. When she was young, Janie always imagined living in a big city like Philadelphia would be so exciting. She had not expected to feel confined and trapped.

  Even during the years of the war in Richmond she could stand on the bluffs where Chimborazo Hospital was situated, staring out into the distance over the James River with the wind blowing in her face. It helped her endure the crowded conditions of a city under siege. In Philadelphia, she couldn’t escape the rumbling trolley cars, endless brick buildings, and the throngs of people always hurrying to get somewhere.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!” Janie muttered, shaking her head as she crossed a busy intersection just a block from the train station. She was in school, living a dream she wouldn’t have thought possible even two month ago. She had so much to be thankful for, she should be dancing in the streets, not wallowing in self-pity. Scolding herself, she glanced at her watch and pressed forward faster.

  “Janie!”

  Janie smiled broadly when she saw Amber’s wildly waving arm. She rushed forward to scoop the little girl into a big hug and then caught Carl close. “I’m going to miss both of you so much,” she said. She loved every minute of their being in the house for the last week. Having them there, keeping them busy when she wasn’t in class, helped her deal with her own grief.

  “We gonna miss you too, Miss Janie,” Carl said. His face was a mixture of excitement, uncertainty, and grief when he stepped back. “You sure you can’t come with us?”

  Janie smiled. “That sounds wonderful, Carl, but my place is here in Philadelphia for now.”

  Carl frowned now. “I guess I’m glad you gonna be here, Miss Janie. I think Susie and Sadie Lou would be real lonely here if you wasn’t staying.”

  Janie caught Opal’s eyes over Carl’s head. The funeral had been two days earlier. Every minute of it was agonizing. Having to bury four young people at the same time was more than Janie could comprehend. The cold wind did nothing more than intensify the numbness as the four coffins holding Susie, Sadie Lou, Zeke, and Sadie were lowered into the ground.

  There was a large crowd of restaurant patrons in attendance, their faces somber and full of compassion, but no one who knew Opal and Eddie well enough to give them the comfort they sorely needed. Janie did all she could, but she knew that in spite of her reservations about them moving back to the South, they all needed to be with family and friends.

  “I promise to visit them,” Janie assured Carl, pulling him close in another hug before turning to Eddie and handing him the envelope she had gripped tightly all the way from the telegraph office. “This is for you.”

  Eddie stared at her and then at the envelope. “What is it?” His eyes seemed to have lost all life since the fire. He moved through the days doing everything that was needed for them to leave, but the determination that had carried him through losing Fannie, his years in prison, and then starting a restaurant from scratch, had fled before the searing grief that consumed him from the moment of the explosion.

  “Read it,” she urged gently.

  Eddie began to open it slowly, moving almost as if in a trance. The funeral had sucked everything from him. He’d hardly spoken since the four pine boxes were lowered.

  Opal reached for the envelope and opened it quickly. She had carried the entire family since the tragedy. Her eyes were shadowed with the same searing grief, but caring for her family seemed to pull strength from her that even she didn’t know she had. Janie had watched with growing admiration as her strength grew with each passing day.

  Opal scanned the brief telegram and then gazed up at Janie with stunned eyes. “You the reason for this?” she asked huskily.

  Janie shrugged. “You have a lot of people who love your family. All I did was let them know there was a need.”

  Opal stared into her eyes, gratitude erasing the grief for a moment.

  She turned to Eddie. “You have a job waiting for you,” she told him, not waiting to see if her husband would respond. “Miss Janie sent a telegram to Mr. Cromwell telling him what happened. She told him we were coming back. He says you have a job in the factory if you want it.”

  Opal glanced at Janie. “I got a letter from a friend saying the new factory gonna be paying real good wages. That true?”

  “Yes,” Janie assured her. “Blacks and whites are being paid the same thing.”

  A spark appeared in Eddie’s eyes. “We gonna get the same kind of pay as white men?” he murmured, doubt warring with hope.

  Janie nodded. “Thomas and Abby believe people should be paid the same for the same work,” she said simply. “Jeremy is managing the factory. He’s making sure everyone is treated fairly.”

  Eddie absorbed her words. “And I got a job waiting for me?” he asked, disbelief filling his voice.

  “That’s right. But you ain’t the only one. I got me a job too,” Opal said, her eyes still glued to the few sentences on the telegram, excitement popping in her voice. “We both got jobs, Eddie. We can start whenever we want.”

  Eddie sagged with relief and then seemed to stand taller. “We got a chance to start over,” he finally said, his voice stronger than it had been for days. The shadow remained in his eyes, but for the first time there was a spark of hope when he turned to Janie. “Thank you, Miss Janie,” he said simply, letting the expression in his eyes convey the message in his heart.

  “You’re so welcome,” Janie whispered, giving him a warm hug.

  Opal eyed her keenly. “You gonna be okay, Miss Janie?”

  Janie started to respond casually, but then looked Opal squarely in the eyes. “I’ll miss all of you,” she said honestly.

  “We the only ties you got to home,” Opal said perceptively.

  Janie nodded, suddenly realizing just how difficult it would be to see them go. “Who else is going to make me sweet potato casserole?” she asked, forcing herself to speak lightly. “Or Opal’s apple pie?”

  “I left four pies in your cellar,” Opal revealed with a smile. “They’ll hold you for a little while.”

  Janie blinked back tears. “Thank you.” If possible, the revelation made saying goodbye even harder.

  Opal stepped forward and grasped her hands. “You’re gonna be just fine, Miss Janie. You got more courage than most people ever think of having.”

  Janie stared at her. “Me?”

  “You,” Opal said firmly. “Lots of women would have shriveled up and died after what Clifford did to you. You came up here to start a new life. And not just any old life — you decided to become a doctor. That done nothing but open you up to more abuse from people. You gonna have lots of people telling you you’re wrong. You gonna have lots of people trying to throw up obstacles to stop you.”

  “Let them t
ry,” Janie growled, thinking of the man who spat on the sidewalk in front of her when she turned into the school that morning. She had been appalled, but refused to acknowledge his presence.

  Opal chuckled. “Exactly. You got the courage to live the life you want for yourself. You gonna have days when you’re so lonely you’ll wish you could just leave and come home,” she predicted, “but you won’t.”

  Janie stared into her eyes, wishing she could be as sure.

  “You won’t come home,” Opal continued, “because your dream is bigger than you are. No dream is ever easy. Miss Carrie taught me that.” She took a deep breath. “I ain’t lost my dream of owning a restaurant. The fire took this one, but me and Eddie gonna work until we can have another one. This ain’t the way I would have wanted things to happen, but I don’t reckon I can tell God how to do his work. We done learned a lot of lessons, and I reckon we gonna learn a lot more. I know them children would want us to have another one.”

  Janie nodded slowly, realizing that the challenges she had faced were nothing compared to what Eddie and Opal suffered. “You’re right,” she said softly. “Aunt Abby told me it takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.”

  It was Opal’s turn to absorb the words. She squeezed Janie’s hands a little more tightly. “I reckon she knows what she’s talking about. You’re meant to be a doctor. I’m meant to be a cook. As long as we keep our eyes on what we are meant to be, I figure we’ll get there.”

  “Speaking of Aunt Abby,” Janie said, “I got a letter from her before I got to the telegraph office. I almost forgot. She wanted me to tell you that she is heartbroken over the children, but not to waste one moment feeling bad about the restaurant. She had it insured.”

  Opal eyed her sharply. “Insured?”

  “Yes. Fire has always been a hazard in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin formed the first fire insurance company back in 1752. Aunt Abby has a policy on every building she owns. She understands your need to come home, but the building that housed the restaurant will be rebuilt,” Janie said encouragingly.

  Opal bowed her head and then looked up with shining eyes. “I be real glad about that. Miss Abby been real good to us — giving us the money to get started, and letting us have that building for free for a while. I hated to think of being the cause of her losing more.” Relief was thick in her voice.

  “I be real glad about that too,” Eddie added, his voice stronger than Janie had heard it since the fire.

  A shrill whistle blast caused all of them to jump.

  Eddie peered at his watch. “This be our train,” he said somberly. “I reckon it’s time for us to go.”

  Janie and Opal held each other in a long hug before they finally stepped back.

  “Thomas will have a wagon there for you when the train arrives,” Janie said. “The driver will take you to your brother’s place.”

  “Thank you for everything, Miss Janie,” Opal whispered, not trying to hold back the tears. “You come see us when you get back to Richmond. I’ll have a sweet potato casserole waiting for you.”

  “I will,” Janie promised. “And you give Carrie and all of them a big hug for me when you get to the plantation.”

  There was nothing else to be said. Janie watched as the family climbed on the train, their grief-shadowed faces filled with determination. They turned to wave one final time before the passenger car swallowed them.

  Jeremy watched from his office above the floor of the factory as workers streamed in. He turned to Thomas and Abby with a broad smile. “We did it,” he said excitedly. The solid brick walls rose high above the operations, large windows letting in life and allowing for air circulation.

  One side of the building dedicated to producing fabric held machinery powered by steam engines fed by the mountains of coal housed behind the building. The other half of the building, where the clothing would be made, had long tables full of sewing machines.

  Abby returned his smile, but her eyes were serious as she watched the new employees arrive. “Now the real work begins.”

  Jeremy wanted to refute her statement by saying nothing could be harder than the months of building a factory from the burned out rubble, but he knew she was right. He turned back to look at the flow of workers, both white and black, entering the factory. Already, there seemed to be a line down the middle of the cavernous building full of machines. One side for the whites, the other side for the blacks.

  From a business perspective, he knew things looked promising. They had already received many orders for clothing, and Abby’s investment insured they had the most technically advanced machinery available from the North. It would take time to train the new employees, but within a month things should be running smoothly.

  Nine months after the end of the war, Richmond was struggling to return to its former dominance. Before the destruction and devastation of the war, Virginia’s capital had represented the most advanced economic development in the South. By the 1850s, canal and rail connections with the rest of the South created new markets for all of Richmond’s iron, flour, and tobacco industries that processed regional materials and resources. Determined to maintain its prominence, business leaders embarked on a frenzied campaign of internal improvements to promote industry.

  It worked.

  Between 1850 and 1860, Richmond’s factory force grew by 581 percent. Richmond became the terminus of the South’s major railroad network, its leading port, and an industrial pacesetter. It also became the home of a solid group of bourgeoisie who firmly believed whites were superior to blacks — that it was meant to be that way, and that it would always stay that way.

  The Civil War changed things for all time. Richmond was destroyed and slavery abolished. Like it or not, a new day had dawned that demanded everything be done differently.

  Thomas stared down at the divided group shuffling their feet and looking around. “They’ve never worked together,” he murmured.

  Jeremy took a deep breath. They had talked about this for hours. Before the war, few blacks and whites had worked together. Most slaves and freedmen were employed in tobacco factories or in domestic service. Most whites worked in skilled trades not practiced by blacks. On rare occasions, they would have a black helper.

  The whites didn’t work with the blacks, and they also didn’t mingle with them outside the workplace. Their worlds were completely separate. All that was about to change.

  Jeremy watched as the last workers filed into the building. “Looks like it’s time,” he said brightly. He flashed a confident grin at Thomas and Abby that he hoped hid his nervousness, walked down the stairs, and climbed up to the small platform in the middle of the room.

  The tension in the room reached out to him from every face. Anger and fear swirled to the rafters as one hundred sets of eyes settled on him. “Good morning, everyone,” he called.

  Chapter Six

  Jeremy waited a moment until the silence in the room was complete. He kept both his face and his stance casual and relaxed. He wasn’t going to reveal just how momentous this occasion was, nor the fact that he was well aware they were breaking all precedents and making history with the opening of the factory. “Welcome to Cromwell Clothing Factory,” he said warmly. “We believe we have hired one hundred very qualified people to work here.”

  Jeremy was aware of the suspicious looks coming from both sides of the room. While everyone looked suspicious, the looks coming from the white side were full of anger and derision, while the veiled looks from the black side contained more confusion and fear. Jeremy understood. Since the war ended and President Johnson’s policies gained momentum, racism had increased in Richmond.

  He decided to hit it straight on. “We realize Cromwell Factory is breaking the mold on how things happen,” he began. “In the past, whites and blacks didn’t work together.” He held up a hand and directed a hard look at a small group of whites who began to mutter among themselves. They quieted, but their angry looks didn’t dissipate.

/>   “Things have changed,” he said flatly. “There is one objective here at Cromwell Clothing Factory. That objective is to create the finest quality garments possible, while making the highest profit possible. We believe that will be done by hiring the best workers and treating them all with the same respect and consideration.” He paused and then spoke slowly so that his words were heard clearly. “With that in mind, I’m going to erase the need for rumor by telling you straight out that every worker at our factory will be paid the same. Race doesn’t matter. Gender doesn’t matter. Only your ability to do your job with excellence will matter. Every person will be paid the same.”

  Jeremy waited a long moment for everyone to absorb his words. They had been careful to communicate this during the hiring, but he was quite sure the words were not believed. The whites were simply not able to comprehend that blacks they considered inferior would receive equal pay. The blacks were not able to comprehend that they would be compensated based on their ability, not on the color of their skin. Now, with all of them standing together, Jeremy was once more making sure they understood things clearly.

  He ignored the restless movements and shuffling of feet. “Your ability to do your job with excellence will depend not just on the task you are trained to do, but also on how you get along with fellow employees. When you are outside the doors of this factory, I can’t keep you from seeing yourself as different races. But when you walk inside the doors of this factory, part of your job description will be the requirement to treat every other employee with respect and consideration. You may never become friends, but you will work together.”

  He could see outrage growing on many of the faces — blacks included. While the whites may consider them inferior, the end of the war and emancipation had changed black attitudes. They resented white people who had owned slaves. Before the end of the war, more than half of the male heads of household owned slaves. This was double the amount that owned homes. Whites of all economic levels had kept blacks from entering skilled trades. Resentment ran high in the black community.