The Secrets of Mary Bowser by Lois Leveen

more than a few things I could say perfectly well when no one was around to hear. Phillipa caught me one afternoon on the way out of class, saying how she hoped I liked the view from the back row, seeing as it seemed I’d be there permanently. That set me seething and simmering. The next time I stood to recite, I said each word perfectly just to show her I could. After I finished, Miss Douglass beamed and Phillipa scowled. The smile and the frown, they urged me on, and I made sure to recite loud, clear, and steady after that.
    Once I got over my nervousness, I discovered what a joy it was to be in school, even if I lagged behind in most subjects. Like when you think you’re not all that hungry but you sit down to a real fine meal and suddenly you realize you were ravenous after all. Though Phillipa called me Polly, saying I was no more than a poll-parrot repeating back what I read or heard, I was too eager to pay her much mind. I asked Miss Douglass for extra assignments to take home so I could catch up with the girls my age, and our teacher nodded her prim approval. That was as much fanfare as she ever seemed to offer, and I relished it.
    Even more than that, I relished Hattie’s friendship. Right from my first week in Philadelphia, Bet set up an allowance for me on account with her cousin’s husband, who was an attorney. She made it clear he was to give me pin money aplenty, even after she finished visiting with her relations and returned to Richmond. It was generous of her, I suppose, but it was Hattie who gave what to me was real riches: companionship. Hattie walked me home from school each day and was waiting at the curb to accompany me back the next morning. Later, when Miss Douglass taught us about Lewis and Clark and how Sacajawea—a colored woman, she reminded us proudly, though not African—had guided them and interpreted for them, it made me think back to those first few months when Hattie was the Sacajawea of my Philadelphia life.
    We’d promenade through the city, and she’d point out this or I’d ask after that, the two of us making up all manner of stories for what we saw and laughing over any nonsense that came into our heads.
    “Miss Hattie Jones, prig, whatever is a humidor?” I’d ask, pointing at the sign on a tobacconist’s shop.
    “Well, Miss Mary Van Lew of Gaskill Street, the better sort of colored Philadelphia worry that this heat will frizz their hair and make them look quite negro. This good gentleman secures them in his humidor until such time as the weather cools.”
    “Why, I believe I see Phillipa’s parasol in his umbrella stand.”
    It sure was humid. Summertime in Richmond, Lilly was out at dawn on laundry days, stirring the Van Lews’ clothes and linens in vats of boiling water before the day grew to its hottest. In Philadelphia, the air felt just as steamy as if you were standing over a row of laundry pots at mid-day. Heat radiated off the brick buildings and cobblestone streets, which stayed warm to the touch even after sundown.
    “Hattie, I don’t think I can make it so far as Head House Square today,” I said during one sweltering recess. “It’s too hot for pepper pot anyway.”
    She smiled slyly. “Then let’s get some ice cream instead.”
    The only ice cream I ever had was what Zinnie snuck off from what she made up for the Van Lews. And given how wild her Daisy was for ice cream, there was never much left to slip to me. I fairly skipped as Hattie steered me down Arch Street.
    We stopped before a low building midway along the third block. It was built right up against the stores on either side, no way to get around to the back. “Where’s our door?” I asked.
    “That’s it, silly. Right in front of your nose.”
    “We go in that way?”
    “We go in, we sit down, we eat our ice cream. Ain’t they got ice cream in Virginia? What’s all that Dolley Madisoning about down there, and no ice cream parlors?”
    I explained that in Richmond, negroes calling at