Breakthroughs Read Online Free

squeaks.
    “Don’t make it out to be something bigger than it is,” Blackford answered. “I’m not just taking you home: I’m taking myself home, too. And believe me, the Socialist Party needs every representative and senator it can lay its hands on. If you have a strong voice, you will be able to make yourself heard, I promise you.”
    “Yes, but how much good will it do?” Flora could not hide her bitterness. “The Democrats have such a majority, they can do as they please.”
    Blackford shrugged. “We do what we can. Lincoln didn’t quote the Scripture that says, ‘As your Father in heaven is perfect, be ye also perfect,’ because he wanted people to truly be perfect. He wanted them to do their best.”
    “Yes,” Flora said, and no more. Blackford’s comment went over less well than he’d no doubt intended. For one thing, the Scripture Lincoln had quoted was not Flora’s. And, for another, while Lincoln had made the Socialist Party in the USA strong by bringing in his wing of the Republicans after the fiasco of the Second Mexican War, Socialism in New York City stayed closer to its Marxist roots than was true in most of the country.
    Blackford said, “I met Lincoln once—more than thirty-five years ago, it was.”
    “Did you?” Now Flora put more interest in her voice. Whether or not she agreed with all of Lincoln’s positions, without him the Socialists likely would have remained a splinter group instead of overtaking the Republicans as the chief opposition to the Democratic Party.
    He nodded. “It changed my life. I’d been mining in Montana, with no better luck than most. I was taking the train back to Dakota to farm with my kin, and I happened to have the seat next to his. We talked for hours, till I came to my stop and got off. He opened my eyes, Miss Hamburger. Without him, I never would have thought to read law or go into politics. I’d still be trying to coax wheat out of the ground out West.”
    “He inspired a lot of people,” Flora said. After losing the War of Secession and having to yield independence to the Confederate States, he’d inspired a lot of people to hate him, too.
    The Ford stuttered to a stop in front of a four-story brick building. Hosea Blackford pointed west. “Liberty Hall is just a couple of blocks over that way. It’s an easy walk, unless the weather is very bad. They’ll swear you in day after tomorrow, and the new Congress will get down to business.”
    A doorman came over to the motorcar. He nodded to Blackford, then spoke to Flora: “You must be Congresswoman Hamburger. Very pleased to meet you, ma’am. I’m Hank. Whatever you need, you let me know. Right now, I expect you’ll want your bags taken up to your flat. Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll handle it.”
    And he did, with efficiency and dispatch. She remembered to tip him, and must have gauged the amount about right, for he touched a forefinger to the patent-leather brim of his cap in salute before he vanished. Flora was amazed she remembered anything. The flat was astonishing beyond her wildest flights of fancy. All for herself, she had twice the room her entire family enjoyed—or sometimes did not enjoy—on the Lower East Side.
    Congressman Blackford stood in the doorway. Careful of convention, he did not go into her flat. He said, “I’m straight across the hall, in 3C. If Hank can’t help you with something, maybe I can. Good night.”
    “Good night,” Flora said vaguely. She kept staring at all the space she was somehow supposed to occupy by herself. She had thought the Congressional salary of $7,500 a year—far, far more than her entire family made—the most luxurious part of the position. Now she wasn’t so sure.
    Opening the trunk in which she’d packed her nightgowns, she put on a long wool flannel one and went to bed. Tomorrow, she told herself, she would explore Philadelphia. The day after tomorrow, she would go to work. For all her good intentions, she was a long time