When she awoke, it was dark, and she sat bolt upright. Her dream had been so terrifyingly real. With fear she looked about her cell, but it was the same stench-ridden room with the same dirty window. The same cot and sink.

She recalled vividly what she had dreamed. She had been chased by a dozen uniformed officers, all brandishing clubs. Up one corridor and down another she had dashed, frantically trying to find a way to elude them. But every time she reached a cell, the barred doors clanged shut against her. Breathlessly, she had run until she came to the end of a long, narrow passage. Then suddenly the floor had opened out from under her, and she had fallen, fallen into a deep pit. The taunting jeers of the police were followed by a large sheet of iron pulled over the opening. The space was no larger than the closet she had locked herself into years ago, except this area had a dirt floor and dirt walls. It was a terrible nightmare. No wonder she had awakened with such a start. She dared not go back to sleep.

She lay awake until the first streakings of dawn.

Monday morning and she was still in prison. School started at eight-thirty. It was too late. Too late!

"Laura Mitchell!" the matron called gruffly. "You’re wanted at the front desk!"

Stunned, Laura stared at the raw-boned woman who opened the door and pointed to the end of the corridor. Was she to be set free?

When she reported to the desk, the police captain handed her her clothes, indicated a small room where she was to dress, and told her she was discharged.

"Am I free to go?" she asked incredulously, hugging her clothes next to her.

"What do you think I said?" The captain waved her away. "Get dressed and get ready to leave."

"Wh-what time is it?" she stammered.

"Eight o’clock. Miss Zacks will be here at eight-thirty. You’re to wait here for her," he said shortly.

"School starts at eight-thirty," she whispered.

Uncaring, the captain had returned to his paperwork.

She wheeled around and rushed into the dressing room, banging the door shut behind her. She was going to school. Jerking off her prison dress and flinging it in a heap, she grabbed her blouse and plunged her arms into the sleeves, nimbly buttoning up the front. Then she fairly jumped into her skirt. Eight o’clock! How could she ever make it to her first-period class when Jefferson High was clear across town? Did her mother know she was to be released? Why wasn’t she here? For once, though, she didn’t care. She needed someone with a car, and General Long’s limousine came to mind. If only Shawn were here to drive her!

The captain, his nose still buried in his books, looked up when she cleared her throat impatiently.

"Well?" he growled.

"Sir," she blurted out, "I can’t wait for Miss Zacks. I need to get to school!"

Raising his bushy gray brows, he eyed her in surprise. "You’re going to school like that? Your hair’s undone and you’ve buttoned your blouse the wrong way!"

"I don’t care, I’ve got to leave here at once!" Her words tripped over one another.

The captain hunched up his shoulders, and then let them drop. "It’s okay with me. If you’re gone when Miss Zacks gets here, then it’s too bad for Miss Zacks!" He handed her a pen. "Here, sign these release papers."

With trembling fingers she scrawled her name across the bottom line. "There!" she exclaimed, flinging the pen down. "What time is it?"

"Eight-fifteen," he retorted, guffawing. "I’ve never seen anyone quite so wild to get to school."

"Is there a trolley line near here?" she asked desperately, tucking several loosened strands from the braid behind her ear.

He indicated with his thumb. "Over on Calvert Street, one block south of here." His eyes sparkled, but his mouth was sober. "You’ll make it if you run."

"Thanks," she called, turning on her heels and racing for the door. "Tell Miss Zacks I’ll see her later at Headquarters."

Out the door she flew, taking the steps two at a time.

A car chugged to a shuddering halt, brakes squealing. "Hey, lady. Want a lift?"

Joe! There he sat, bouncing in the cab of the Menottis' delivery truck. She had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

"Joe," she said between breaths as she clambered up beside him. "I’ve got to get to school by eight-thirty. You don’t know how happy I am to see you!"

"I think I do," he shouted above the revving engine. Then, shifting gears, they sped down the street.

"Will we make it?" she questioned desperately, still not believing her good fortune that she had been set free and that Joe had come to meet her.

"If old Betsy doesn’t conk out on us, we’ll make it. Hang onto the side strap, for you’re in for a ride." He glanced at her. "Do you think Mr. Blair will let you into his class?"

"He’d better! If I’m not late there’s nothing he can do about my arrest. After all, what happens over the weekend is no concern of his." She shivered a little, thinking of her three-night ordeal. "How did you know I was to be released this morning?"

"Miss Zacks called your mother just as she was leaving for work. Maude, in turn, called the store." He winked at her. "When Papa heard you were released, he commanded me to get you to school this morning and not to worry about the deliveries until later." He honked at a dog that ran alongside, barking at the wheels. "Papa, of course, considers you part of the family, and you couldn’t ask for a more fierce protector."

Smiling and holding a hairpin between her teeth, she tidied her hair. "I needed a fierce protector with the matron we had. She was a terror, and I’m not so sure I’d like to see Aldo tangle with her."

"He could handle her, believe me." Joe swore under his breath as he pulled on the steering wheel, veering the car to the left to avoid hitting a young boy who almost darted into the street. He pressed the rubber bulb, and when the boy heard the honking and saw the truck with its side canvas panels flapping, he stepped back quickly.

Along the sidewalk wide-eyed pedestrians watched the careening truck with disbelief.

"Faster, Joe, faster," she urged, clinging to the strap, swaying and bouncing first one way and then another as they hurtled down the avenue.

"Old Betsy can’t go much faster," Joe answered, but nonetheless he pressed his tennis shoe firmly down on the accelerator.

A second dog yapped from the safety of the sidewalk as Joe continued to honk the horn and skillfully maneuver his truck around a horse-drawn milk truck.

"It’s eight twenty-four," Joe said, pointing to the school’s towers. "We made it!"

Jolting to a screeching stop, Laura scrambled out of the front seat. "Joe, you’re a love!" She barely touched the running board as she broke into a race against the clock. She fleetingly wondered if Shawn would have made this same stupendous effort in her behalf.

She pounded up the walk, gulping in mouthfuls of air for her bursting lungs.

Hair flying, she ran down the hall and stopped at Mr. Blair’s classroom. Scarcely able to catch her breath, she threw back her shoulders and entered, just as the late bell rang.

Chapter Seventeen

Laura’s adventure in jail the week before was over, and even Mr. Blair seemed reconciled to having her in class. Although he did his best to ignore her, she nonetheless had become quite a celebrity. Students, boys and girls alike, came up to her and congratulated her on her bravery, and even Olaf Jorgenson had wanted to know more about the suffragists. She was pleased by the renewed interest in the Movement. But what she was pleased most about was the fact that she was still in school. Thanks to Opal Zacks, her lawyer.

Ever since last Monday, when she’d come dashing down the hall into school, she had been on her best behavior. She didn’t want to jeopardize her last three weeks in school. Then, being rid of Mr. Blair and beginning her senior year next September, would be a joy. Now she had the summer to look forward to with time to really work for the Movement and to sort out her feelings for Joe and Shawn.

After school on Monday she and Cassie walked to the Women’s Headquarters. Cassie was still on her four o’clock duty, and Laura had kept her usual six o’clock duty. Even though the arrests had stopped, the White House picketing continued. At first going out with her vacuum bottle of coffee had unnerved Laura. She had been apprehensive that the police would come charging down upon her again and drag her to jail, but she needn’t have worried, for all was calm. Chief Bentley had issued a statement that the White House pickets would not face arrest, but if hoodlums harassed them, it would be at their own risk.

"Isn’t it wonderful, Cassie? Woodrow Wilson is for the passage of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, and more and more senators are, too. How can we lose?"

Cassie, moving beside her in long, fluid strides, looked doubtful. "He’s coming on our side awfully late. Most of the senators have already decided on how they’re going to vote."

"It will pass the Senate, you’ll see. Women aren’t pouring into Washington for nothing. They’ll have influence on their own state senators."

While Cassie went on duty, Laura quietly drank a cup of tea in the mansion. As she squeezed the lemon slice into the steaming brew she smelled the daisies on her table and felt a buoyant radiance. The room was alive with women from every state in the union. They had massed here for the big vote on the Women’s Amendment on June twenty-seventh. And to think she was part of it! Could anything be more exciting, more exhilarating? Their amendment had already passed the House of Representatives and needed only eleven votes to pass the Senate. President Wilson had recently taken to writing letters on behalf of the bill’s passage, but there would be some legislators he wouldn’t be able to persuade. Take Senator Shields from Tennessee, for example. He would be a hard man to crack. John K. Shields was known for his antisuffrage stance and hated being "nagged," as he called it, by the women’s group from Tennessee. But with or without his vote the amendment would pass the Senate; then ratification by three-quarters of the states would be easy.