Disappointed, yet with a full feeling of contentment, I sighed, then turned myself and walked back to Blue Star. Like I said, my feet were nearly frozen by then and I was ready to ride back down the mountain.
As I returned, I was in for a real surprise.
I had unsaddled Blue Star and tended to him and was just starting toward the house when Tad came running out to meet me.
“Corrie, Corrie,” he called, “you’ve got a visitor.”
My heart skipped at least three beats, and I caught my breath. I felt my face go pale.
“It can’t be . . . it’s . . . it’s not—” I stuttered as I broke into a run.
“No, it’s not Christopher. How could it be? You just got a letter from him yesterday.”
“Who is it then?” I said, gasping for breath and trying to calm myself down.
But by then we were already on our way through the door and inside the house.
There, seated in the family room talking with Pa and Almeda, was the editor of the Alta in person!
“Mr. Kemble!”
“Hello, Corrie,” he said, rising and walking over to shake my hand.
I couldn’t get over my shock. I’d never seen Mr. Kemble anywhere but in his office at the paper in San Francisco. What in the world was he doing in Miracle Springs . . . and in our own family room?
“Mr. Kemble’s just been telling us what a fine writer he thinks you are,” said Almeda.
“One of the best on his paper,” added Pa.
I looked at Almeda, then at Pa, then again at Mr. Kemble, but I still couldn’t find any words to say.
“But . . . but what are you doing here?” I said finally.
Mr. Kemble laughed.
“Well, young lady,” he said, “I came out here to talk to you.”
“Just to see me?”
“That’s right. When you didn’t reply to my letter, I thought I’d better get myself up to Miracle Springs to see you in person. Do you mind discussing some business with me now . . . today?”
“No . . . no, of course not,” I replied, moving toward a chair. Mr. Kemble returned to his seat as well.
“Would you like to speak with Corrie in private?” asked Almeda. “Drummond and I would be happy to—”
“Oh no, Mrs. Hollister, please stay. I’m certain the business proposition I have to discuss with your daughter will be something you will want to discuss as a family—that is, if Corrie has no objection.
I shook my head. “Anything you have to say to me I would be glad for Pa and Almeda to hear.”
“Then may I bring you another cup of coffee, Mr. Kemble?” said Almeda, moving toward the kitchen.
“Thank you, yes.”
“Drummond?”
Pa handed her his cup.
“Corrie, anything for you?”
“I think I’ll make some tea,” I said, excusing myself as politely as I could and joining Almeda in the kitchen.
Chapter 12
Mr. Kemble’s Offer
Once we were all seated again with our cups of coffee and tea, Mr. Kemble started right in.
“As I told you in my letter, Corrie,” he began, “since you are back in California, I hope that I will be able to persuade you to join the staff of the Alta in a more permanent fashion than has been our arrangement in the past.”
Now that I had had a few minutes to get used to the editor’s presence in our home, my brain was again working clearly.
“As I recall,” I said, “you took the liberty of calling me ‘the Alta’s own Corrie Belle Hollister’ when you printed my story about Gettysburg.”
“Well, I . . . er,” he said, clearing his throat, “I simply thought that our readers would appreciate knowing our connection.”
“And now you would like to make it more official?”
“Yes, that’s it exactly.”
“At more than two dollars an article?” I said with a smile.
He nodded, though without seeming to see the humor of my statement.
“I only wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to be like those first articles I wrote for you,” I added, “where I did all the work and you gave me next to nothing for it.”
I have to admit I enjoyed needling him a bit. Now that I wasn’t quite so feverish in my desire to write, and now that I had traveled in the East and seen so much, and especially now that I had enough confidence to know I could write decently, I wasn’t so nervous in talking to him. “You weren’t all that generous to aspiring young writers back then, you know,” I added with a half-grin.
Mr. Kemble squirmed slightly in his chair. He wasn’t enjoying this nearly as much as I was!
I saw Almeda looking at me funny. I think she thought I was being rather hard on poor Mr. Kemble. I would explain it all to her later.
“You, uh . . . you must admit, Miss, uh, Miss Hollister,” he said nervously, “that you were young and inexperienced, and you were—”
He stopped abruptly, reconsidering what he had been about to say.
“And I was . . . a girl?” I added. “Is that what you were going to say?”
“You must understand, Miss . . . er, Corrie, that things are different for men and women. A woman simply is not paid the same as a man. I’m certain your stepmother—”
He glanced quickly over toward Almeda, then back again.
“—I’m certain she would agree.”
“Even for the same work?” I said. “You once told me yourself, Mr. Kemble, that my writing was as good as some of your men reporters?”
“That is just the way it is, Miss Hollister. I don’t see what you can expect me to do to change it.”
“In the East, they valued my writing just for what it was.”
“As do I, Miss Hollister, I assure you. I would not have come all this distance if I did not think you were a very gifted writer. That is why I want you on the Alta staff.”
“But . . . at compensation less than what a man’s would be?” I said. “Is that why, in your letter, you hinted that my writing was only of interest to your female readers?”
Again Mr. Kemble squirmed.
“I’m sorry if I offended you by anything I said,” he returned. “I think we will be able to arrive at a mutually beneficial financial agreement.”
“I was not offended,” I said, smiling now. “I only wanted to be absolutely clear about what you meant.” I think I’d been hard enough on him for one day. I saw Almeda and Pa exchange glances and they each smiled slightly.
Mr. Kemble looked at me, puzzled by the change of my expression. But never one to let an opportunity slip by, he quickly sent the conversation off in a new direction.
“I took the liberty of drawing up a contract,” he said, pulling some folded papers out of his coat. “If you’re agreeable to it, this will make you an official Alta writer with a base salary each month, plus an additional payment for every article of yours the paper publishes.”
At first I could hardly believe my ears. He was offering to make me a salaried staff writer! It was more than I could have dreamed of a few years ago.
“Sounds like the man’s serious, Corrie Belle,” said Pa, speaking now for the first time. “That’s a right generous sort of proposition.”
“What are the stipulations?” asked Almeda, whose business experiences with men like Franklin Royce kept her eyes open to the strings that were always attached to such agreements.
“No stipulations,” he said.
“May I see the contract?”
He handed it to Almeda. She scanned over the first page quickly. “It says here this is an ‘exclusive contract for three years,’” she said after a moment.
“Yes, I felt three years to be a reasonable duration.”
“My question regards the exclusivity,” rejoined Almeda.
“What exactly does that mean?” I asked.
“By signing an exclusive contract,” replied Mr. Kemble, “you would agree to write only for the Alta. You would be on our staff. That is why you wou
ld be given a monthly salary. It’s all very standard.”
“Standard, perhaps,” remarked Almeda, “but restrictive on Corrie.”
“What do you mean, Almeda?” I asked.
“You would not be free to take your articles to other papers, even if they might pay more for them. You would have to publish everything with the Alta.”
“That is true, Mrs. Hollister,” said Mr. Kemble. “However, you must keep in mind that the monthly salary will more than compensate Corrie for the difference.”
“Perhaps. But it still places control of Corrie’s writing in your hands, not hers.”
“Some control, but not absolute control. As her editor, I would look out for her best interests. It is not my objective to be restrictive.”
“What about articles of mine you might not want to publish?” I asked. “Would I be able to take them elsewhere?”
“Certainly. If we did not feel them suitable for the Alta, I would have no objection to your placing them elsewhere.”
As he explained it, the offer did sound almost too good to be true.
“Of course,” Mr. Kemble went on, clearing his throat, “if you think this is not a fair proposal, you are free to simply continue writing on your own and hope someone will print what you do, without any guarantees. This contract would make you a member of our staff and guarantees you a regular income. Surely you see the value in such an offer, and surely you realize that I would not make it if I did not want to print your writing. I would anticipate that the Alta would publish everything you sent me.”
Almeda did not comment further, but simply handed the contract back to Mr. Kemble.
“What would I have to do to earn the salary?” I asked.
“Simply provide us with a minimum of two articles per month.”
I thought for a minute before saying anything else.
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Kemble,” I said finally, “I’m not sure how much writing I want to do right now.”
They were hard words to get out. Part of me wanted to jump at the opportunity right then and sign the contract immediately!
“You’re not giving up the profession?” he said with a look of alarm.
“No,” I replied. “I’m just thinking about a lot of things and wondering what it is God wants me to be doing right now. I’ve been writing for so long, maybe I’m just a little tired of it.”
“Perhaps the offer of this contract will make you reconsider,” he said.
“Perhaps,” I replied. “But I have to think and pray about it. I haven’t been home very long, and I certainly don’t want to make a three-year commitment without much more consideration.”
“I understand,” he said. “I shall leave the contract with you for your consideration. I sincerely hope you will decide in the affirmative.”
“How much is the salary you were talking about?” I asked.
“Twenty dollars a month. That would be for a minimum of two articles. For every article above that, you will be paid an additional fee.”
“How much per article?”
“It would depend on the length and subject matter. I would estimate usually between eight and ten dollars.”
Chapter 13
What to Do?
After Mr. Kemble left, Pa and Almeda and I talked some more about his offer.
Pa responded to things more from what his gut instinct told him. Almeda tended to analyze things from her business background. I suppose it’s just the opposite with some men and women, but that’s the way it was with Pa and Almeda. Even when it came to votes he had to make in the Assembly, Pa usually went more by what his heart and conscience told him were the right thing than by what all the facts and figures might say about a certain issue.
“What do you think I ought to do?” I asked both of them.
“I think you should give it a lot of serious thought and prayer,” said Almeda. “Once you sign an agreement like that, no matter how good it might seem at the time, it ties you down for a good long time. That can put a lot of pressure on you that might even make it harder for you to write.”
“Do you trust this fellow Kemble?” Pa asked me.
“Yes. He’s got his views about women not being worth as much. But that’s a difference of opinion, not untrustworthiness. I reckon I trust him.”
“Even if a man is trustworthy,” Almeda said, “or a woman, for that matter, he still has an agenda he’s trying to make happen—in a business deal, I mean. Mr. Kemble would not have made this offer unless it benefited him and his paper. That is not to say, Corrie, that he isn’t to be trusted or that the offer might not be for your good too. It only means that business people make offers that benefit them primarily. So you have to be careful to look out for how it’s going to affect you.”
“So you think I shouldn’t do it?”
“No, that’s not what I mean—only that you have to make sure you realize what it might mean for you. What if a year from now you didn’t want to write two articles a month? If you sign that contract, you’ll have to whether you want to or not. That’s all I mean—think it through thoroughly.”
“What about you, Pa?” I said, turning toward him.
“You want to know what I think?”
I nodded.
“Well then, Corrie Belle, here’s what I think,” he said. “I think it’s a generous offer. Three years ago you might have figured it was about the most exciting thing that could happen to you in the world. But I don’t think you have any idea what an important young lady you’ve become for the folks in California. Unless I miss my guess, you ain’t just a celebrity here in Miracle Springs, but a lot of folks in Sacramento and San Francisco have been following your writing too.”
“Oh, Pa, I’m no celebrity!”
“You mark my words, Corrie. Kemble ain’t the only one that knows you’re back in California. My guess is that Kemble understands well enough that folks know who you are, and he’s aiming to latch onto you before someone else does.”
“You’re saying I shouldn’t do it?”
“No, I reckon I’m just saying it won’t do no harm to bide your time while you’re praying for God to show you what he might want you to do.”
Both of them had given me good advice.
So I did what Pa had said and bided my time. I read over the two pages Mr. Kemble had left, though half of it didn’t make the least sense to me. I guess that’s the way contracts are.
Of course, I realized that I couldn’t make any decision without Christopher knowing about it and telling me what he thought. I wrote him a long letter telling him everything that had gone on. And I prayed a lot about the decision too.
I was seeing that the older a person gets the more careful you have to be in making decisions. Things carry more consequences. When you’re young, the results of something might last only for an afternoon or a day or a week. But as you grow older, the choices you make have longer and longer results.
I hadn’t really considered what the consequences might be when I’d decided to answer President Lincoln’s letter and go back east. As it had turned out, I’d gotten involved in the war pretty close up. I could even have been killed. I’d been away from home for two whole years and had more or less supported myself by my writing. And I had met Christopher! So many things had happened that I could not have foreseen—and all as a result of that one decision to travel east to see Mr. Lincoln.
Of course, God had protected me, and most everything had turned out for the good. But there was a lesson to be learned from my experience, and that was, as Pa had said, that it doesn’t do any harm to bide your time.
I figured that was pretty sound advice, along with what Almeda had said. Don’t rush. Consider the consequences. Pray for God’s leading. Think how the decision would affect me, not just today, but next year.
Chapter 14
Talking It Over with Christopher
Dear Christopher,
I told you in my last letter about the visit from Mr. Kemble of the
Alta. I’ve talked a lot to Pa and Almeda about it. Their advice was good, but now I find that Mr. Kemble’s visit has sent my reflections going off in so many directions.
As badly as I always wanted to write, it is so strange now to find myself apathetic toward it. Especially when what I always dreamed of—newspapers wanting me to write for them instead of my having to beg somebody, anybody, to pay attention to my passions—has now come to pass.
What is wrong with me? Why have I changed?
I think I know. You cannot be the one to answer my question, for you are the answer!
You have changed everything!
Because of you, Christopher—will the wonder of your love never cease astonishing me?—I find myself wondering about the future in a new way. I’ve noticed that choices and decisions carry more weight the older one gets. And of course, at the center of that wondering is what will become of you and me. What will Pa say to your plan? Will you and he like each other? I know you will, yet part of me cannot help being a little frightened.
In any case, I find myself thinking about our future together and thinking about how my choices now might affect that future. For so long, though I have tried to listen to God’s leading and to pay attention to Pa and Almeda, my choices have been my own to determine. I suppose I have been even more independent than many young women in their twenties because of my writing and traveling, and because I had no one else to consider.
But now that is all changed. Now I have to—I want to—consider you in everything I think, in all I do, in every decision. My life is no longer my own to live by myself.
As this change has come into my thinking, I have to ask myself how everything in my life will fit into yours. If a husband and wife are to be anything, it seems to me, they must be first and foremost together. They must be traveling the same life’s road as partners and comrades and friends.
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