Breakthroughs Read Online Free Page A

falling asleep. Not long after she did, she woke up to the distant pounding of antiaircraft guns and the roar of aeroplane engines right overhead. No bombs fell nearby, so those engines probably belonged to U.S. pursuit aeroplanes, not Confederate raiders.
    When morning came, she discovered the kitchen was stocked with everything she might want. After coffee and eggs, she found a shirtwaist and black wool skirt that weren’t impossibly wrinkled, put them on along with a floral hat, threw on the coat she’d worn the night before, and went downstairs. Hank was already on duty. “I’ll see that everything is pressed for you, ma’am,” he promised when she inquired. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it. You look like you’re going out. Enjoy yourself. I vote Socialist, too, you know. I hope you keep coming back to Philadelphia for years and years.”
    She nodded her thanks, more than a little dazed. She’d never had so much attention lavished on her. No one in her family had ever had time to lavish so much attention on her. Out she went, to see what Philadelphia was like.
    It struck her as being a more serious, more disciplined place than New York City. Big, forthright, foursquare government buildings—some of them showing bomb damage, others being repaired—dominated downtown. They were all fairly new, having gone up since the Second Mexican War. Not only had the government grown greatly since then, but Philadelphia had taken on more and more of the role of capital. Washington, though remaining in law the center of government, was hideously vulnerable to Confederate guns—and had, in fact, been occupied by the CSA since the earliest days of the fighting.
    Liberty Hall was another pile of brick and granite, rather less impressive than the Broad Street station. It looked more like the home of an insurance firm than that of a great democracy. Down in Washington, the Capitol was splendid…or had been, till Confederate cannon damaged it.
    Liberty Hall stood near one of the many buildings through which the War Department sprawled. Men in uniform were everywhere on the street, far more common than in New York. New York at most accepted the war—reluctantly, sometimes angrily. Philadelphia embraced it. Seeing that sobered Flora. She wondered how parochial her opposition would seem.
    She stayed out all day. When she got back, she found her clothes unpacked, pressed as promised, and set neatly in closets and drawers. Nothing was missing—she checked. Seven cents in change lay on the nightstand. It must have been in one of her trunks.
    She dressed in her best tailored suit, a black and white plaid, for her first trip to the House. Despite her businesslike appearance, a functionary in semimilitary uniform tried to keep her out of the House chamber, saying, “The stairs to the visitors’ gallery are on your right, ma’am.”
    “I am Congresswoman Flora Hamburger,” she said in a wintry voice, and had the satisfaction of seeing him turn pale. Another uniformed aide took her down to her desk.
    She looked around the immense chamber, which was filling rapidly. The only other woman in the House was a Democrat, an elderly widow from outside of Pittsburgh whose husband had held the district for decades till he died a few days before the war broke out. Flora didn’t expect to have much in common with her. She didn’t expect to have much in common with the plump, prosperous men who were the majority here, either, though she did wave back when Hosea Blackford waved to her.
    Then she was on her feet with her right hand raised in a different fashion. “I, Flora Hamburger, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of Representative of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
    When she sat down again, her face bore an enormous smile. She belonged here. It was official. “Now to set this place to rights,” she