The Hope Chest by Karen Schwabach Page A

another street, wide and clean-swept and lined with tall brick houses with bay windows. Model Ts and some bigger, more expensive cars were parked along the street. “There's a suffrage lady who lives here,” Myrtle explained, leading Violet up a set of stone steps to a brick house. She rapped on the door with a brass knocker.
    The lady who opened the door was colored, with gray hair piled high on top of her head, and dressed in a blue brocaded dress with a high collar. There was something regal about her, Violet thought. She couldn't tell if it was the woman's bearing or her nose, which was long and had a royal tilt at the end. Probably both. The woman looked at Myrtle and Violet with a questioning eye.
    Myrtle seemed momentarily abashed but recovered. “Ma'am, are you Professor Mary Church Terrell?”
    “Yes,” said the lady. “And you are?”
    “Myrtle Davies, ma'am,” said Myrtle. “And this is Violet Mayhew, and we're looking for the woman suffrage ladies.”
    “Indeed?” said Professor Terrell, raising an eyebrow at Violet. “Which women's suffrage ladies?”
    “My sister came here from New York to work for women's suffrage,” Violet said. “I think she's working on the Susan B. Anthony Amendment; do you know—”
    “I am familiar with the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, yes,” Professor Terrell said dryly. “I think your sister is probably with Miss Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party. Their headquarters is Cameron House on the west side of Lafayette Square, near the White House. Do you know how to get there?”
    “Of course, ma'am,” said Myrtle.
    “Perhaps you'd better wash up a bit before you go,” said Professor Terrell. “Good day.”
    They walked toward the Washington Monument, passing by more blocks of tenements and corner stores and then into neighborhoods with stately stone houses with broad lawns behind cast-iron fences. Wide avenues ran into other avenues in traffic circles that they had to walk around. There was more traffic now: motorcars, some of them Model Ts like the Hope Chest and some of them elaborate open limousines, Packards and Pierce-Arrows that could hold a dozen people comfortably. Dark green electric trolleys zipped down tracks in the middle of the streets. At some of the more opulent houses, guards in uniform stood at the doors.
    “Those are foreign embassies,” Myrtle explained.
    It was getting dark when they got to Lafayette Square, a park surrounded by rather grand buildings and houses, one of which, Violet realized with a shock, was the WhiteHouse. It was set back a bit, behind a wide green lawn. People were strolling on the White House lawn.
    Violet stopped to gaze at it. She had seen pictures of the White House all her life, of course, in her schoolbooks and on postcards and on the stereoscope, but now she was standing in front of it—the place where President Woodrow Wilson lived. Where Abraham Lincoln had lived.
    “It's kind of small,” she said at last.
    Myrtle raised her eyebrows. “You think so? I wouldn't mind living there.”
    They crossed Lafayette Square to a wide three-story house that stretched between two bigger buildings that had electric signs identifying them as the Cosmos Club and the Belasco Theatre.
    It was hard to believe that it was only yesterday morning that Violet had left Susquehanna; it seemed like a week ago. She wondered if Chloe could possibly be here. The place seemed so grand and un-Chloe-like. Chloe had always talked about living in a log cabin in Alaska. Violet reached up and pulled the door knocker.
    “I'll get it, Miss Paul!” a voice said.
    The door opened, and a young woman with bobbed brown hair looked down at them in surprise. “What on earth …” She stepped back and started to close the door.
    Violet felt panic rising in her throat. Was she never going to find Chloe?
    “I'm Chloe Mayhew's sister!” she cried desperately.
    The door creaked open again. “Chloe Mayhew's sister?” the woman said.
    “Yes,” said