The Gilded Years Read Online Free PDF

and a very effective dress guard. I’ll have Father send me another, then we can ride to the farm. Do you have a bicycling costume?”
    She looked at Anita’s blank face.
    “Of course you don’t. Why would you if you don’t have a bicycle? I daresay it’s almost as fun as an automobile. I did that this summer, too.”
    “Really? You were in a horseless carriage?” Anita whispered. Hearing that, Gratia leaned over to listen, too, asLottie was the only person either of them knew who had even ridden in an automobile.
    “Oh, yes, one day they’ll be everywhere. That’s obvious. My father loves modern contraptions, so we took the train up to Michigan to view one. They’re very impressive, but I’m quite convinced they’ll explode past a certain speed and then there goes your new motoring outfit, and perhaps your head. For now, it’s all about bicycling, ladies. I’ll bring several more to school. The ones from Orient or Keating, in New York, are only one hundred dollars. We have to go on many rides before the cold settles in, because after that it’s just skating. But it doesn’t feel like that’s going to be anytime soon, does it? It’s absolutely sweltering in here. I swear old President Taylor has the building heated already. He’ll fry us into working.”
    “Lottie Taylor,” said Medora, stopping her speech.
    “I’m sorry, Medora,” said Lottie, pursing her lips. “I did so want to make a good impression during our first meeting, but there is just so much to say on the subject of debate. It impassions me. I couldn’t hold my tongue.”
    “I’m happy you’re so enthused about joining us this year,” said Medora. “Since you’re clearly the most passionate person in the room, why don’t you and Anita Hemmings share the first debate? You can have something prepared by Friday, can’t you?”
    Lottie glanced at Anita apologetically. “Of course, Friday, though Anita does have an awful lot of singing to do between now and then. The school’s most talented soprano. We don’t want to put too much on her dance card at once.”
    “I’m sure Anita can handle it all,” said Medora, looking haughtily her way.
    “It’s no trouble, Medora,” she replied. In truth, Anita rather shied from debate. The prospect of taking part in theyear’s first debate terrified her, but it was much in vogue on campus, so she had debated for all three years, even if it meant heart palpitations and locked knees when she stood behind the podium.
    “What topic would you like us to fight like savages over?” asked Lottie.
    “Plessy versus Ferguson,” said Medora, returning Lottie’s smile.
    “Delightful,” said Lottie. “I’ll take Plessy, and Anita can argue Ferguson.” Anita nodded, then turned toward the wall of wide glass windows that overlooked the walkway to the Lodge, letting the sun create spots in her vision.
    Plessy v Ferguson: the Supreme Court case over separation versus equality between races. Anita remembered the man’s face. Plessy. Homer Plessy. A shoemaker from New Orleans. Pale-skinned, yet Negro. Guilty, but only because he admitted his crime. And made an example of, forever.
    With Plessy’s image burning in her mind, Anita’s anxiety began to mount. At Vassar and well before, she had always acted with deliberate decorum—reining in her words, declining to speak out, repressing herself. But could she now? She tried to blink away the image of the man’s face, but it stayed with her, a line drawing that had been printed again and again in the Boston Daily Globe . Anita had survived lengthy discussions of the trial in class, endless talks about justice since the Civil War, but no one had forced her onstage to speak alone on the matter. No one had compelled her to take one side instead of another.
    She could not protest. So she sat, nodded again, and went through the motions she had perfected through so many years of practice. And inside her thin shirtwaist, her heartbeat took off like a