Secrets on 26th Street by Elizabeth McDavid Jones

aside, Bigelow, so the boy can get through.” He shoved at the fat man in front of him. When Bigelow moved, Susan saw too late the face of her customer. It was Lester Barrow!
    Susan knelt and set to work on Lester’s oxfords. She pulled the shine cloth furiously back and forth while her heart pounded. What if Lester recognized her? What would he do to a girl who made a fool of him by posing as his shoe-shine boy?
    Susan yanked her cap down almost over her eyes, but she needn’t have worried about it, for Lester was too involved in his conversation with the other men to notice her. She soon realized he wasn’t paying her any more attention than he was the flies on the wall, and she relaxed a little. She pricked up her ears, however, when she heard Bigelow mention “the suffrage problem.”
    â€œThose biddies are going to kill our system,” Bigelow was saying. “They’re already soapboxing on what they’re going to do when they get the vote, how they ain’t going to tolerate no corruption in their government. They’re going to clean up city hall, they say. Why, that’s us! We’re city hall, and we’ve got to do something before they sweep us right out of our livelihood!”
    â€œBigelow’s right,” said a tall man with a hook nose. “We were so sure that the men of New York would never give women the vote, we’ve allowed these frantic females—I won’t call ’em ladies—to pick up more and more support every year. There are states west of the Mississippi, gentlemen, where women are already voting! It’s high time we admitted it could happen here—to our ruin. We must act now, decisively , to crush their movement before it’s too late!”
    A murmur of agreement rippled through the group.
    Then Lester spoke. “Ah, my friends, is that all the faith you have in your district leader? Haven’t I steered the party in the right direction these last ten years? Have I ever once failed to move with the speed of a striking adder when the situation called for action?”
    How fitting, Susan thought, that Lester would compare himself to a snake . He was as cold-blooded as a reptile, that was for sure.
    Lester’s shoes were as shiny as they were going to get, but Susan continued to shine, hoping that Lester would say more about his plans to defeat the suffragists.
    And what snaky plans they turned out to be! Lester had already arranged, he said, for “a little ruckus” at the rally the suffragists had scheduled for Saturday. “As you know,” he chuckled, “the police force, the mayor, and half the judges in town are in Tammany’s hip pocket. Those biddies will think twice before they stir up discontent again in my town!”
    All the men laughed heartily, apparently convinced that the “suffrage problem” would soon be solved. Their laughter was scornful, and it made Susan angry. Lester and his friends were no different from those boys who threw tomatoes at the suffragist in Chelsea. Why should women wanting to vote make people act so hateful?
    Susan couldn’t get their laughter out of her head, and she was still thinking about it when she finished up at the barbershop and started home. She trudged along the noisy, fitful streets, tuning out the din of traffic and ignoring the press of pedestrians on the sidewalk. It was the same as always this time of day—people hurrying, pushing, a swirl of coats and hats and skirts, faces strained, impatient, horns honking, trolley bells ringing, traffic cops whistling traffic through intersections. Always the same.
    On 30th Street, the newsboy stood at his usual post in front of the police station, hawking the evening edition of the Times . He was crying out headlines, same as usual, but this headline caught Susan’s attention. It was about tomorrow’s suffrage rally!
    â€œRead all about it! An army of women to march on Saturday