Secrets on 26th Street by Elizabeth McDavid Jones

Sunday.
    â€œBea got oranges, Susie!” Lucy said. She had chocolate ice cream smeared all over her mouth. “And see the pretty balloon she bought me?” She beamed. Lucy had never had a balloon, though she begged for one every time they went to the park.
    Helen held out a small bag to Susan. “We brought you some candy, Susie. Horehound. Bea said it would help your stomach.”
    â€œWe didn’t suppose you would feel like ice cream,” Bea added.
    Susan thanked Bea and forced a smile. That missing photograph was nagging at her. Yesterday Bea had made a point of turning it away from Susan’s view, and today it was gone. A small thing, maybe, but peculiar. And all these peculiar things about Bea were beginning to trouble Susan quite a lot.
    Susan started unloading the shopping bag. There were oranges and bananas, a tin of cookies—Bea called them “biscuits”—four big pickles wrapped in paper, a slab of cheese—
    Then Susan’s eye fell on the newspaper Bea had placed on the table. SUFFRAGISTS JAILED! the headline shouted. Susan quickly scanned the article, her thoughts pulled back to yesterday’s riot. According to the newspaper, the suffragists were being blamed for the violence, and the mayor had sworn to make examples of the women who were arrested. He promised that they would receive heavy fines and jail sentences. Susan shook her head. With Tammany Hall against them, how could the suffragists hope to succeed in New York City?
    â€œYou’ll come, too, won’t you, Susie?”
    Susan pried her thoughts from the suffragists and looked down into Lucy’s hopeful face. “Come where, sweetie?”
    â€œOur picnic on the roof. Bea says we’ll have cheese sandwiches and oranges.”
    â€œYeah, sure, I’ll come.” Outings to the park and picnics on the roof—Susan wondered whether Bea was trying to keep them so busy they wouldn’t have time to worry about Mum. It was only a stray thought, but it planted itself in Susan’s head, and it stayed there the rest of the day.

C HAPTER 9
    A T ELEGRAM AND A L ETTER

    Mum still wasn’t home by Sunday evening, and Susan’s uneasiness turned to fear. Tomorrow would be Monday—a workday. If Mum didn’t show up at the office tomorrow, she’d be fired. Something had happened, Susan was sure, something that was keeping Mum away.
    Susan tried to voice her concern to Bea, but Bea insisted there was nothing to worry about. “Perhaps your mother made arrangements with Mr. Riley in case she had to stay longer.”
    Susan knew there was no such thing as “arrangements” for workers in Chelsea. If you displeased your boss, you lost your job, and everyone understood that’s how it was. Everyone except Bea, it seemed.
    Susan was too worried now to be satisfied with Bea’s guesses about what might have happened. She wanted to know something for sure. “Can’t you send a telegram to Aunt Blanche? I just want to know that Mum is safe.”
    Bea touched Susan’s arm. “You have my assurance, love. Isn’t that enough?”
    Susan fixed her eyes on a crack in the linoleum. She couldn’t look at Bea because she knew her answer was no. Bea’s assurances were no longer enough. Susan’s heart beat faster as she realized what that meant. She couldn’t rely on Bea anymore. She would have to take action herself to find Mum. First thing tomorrow she would wire Aunt Blanche.
    After dropping Helen off at school, Susan went to the Western Union office on 30th Street and plunked down a quarter from her barbershop money to send the telegram. All morning she hung around 30th Street waiting for an answer. She wandered over to the docks and watched the longshoremen unloading ships, but after a while, that made her heart ache for Dad. Which, in turn, made her worry more about Mum.
    By three o’clock, she still had no answer, and she decided