It wouldn’t even surprise me, if they did find gold, if Pa gave part of his own share to Mr. Jones. Pa was like that, though he didn’t usually let folks see the things he did for other people.
I had always suspected him of giving more than a fair share of the first mine’s profits to Mr. Jones, though I know he would have denied that had anybody asked. Even though Mr. Jones didn’t do too much regular work as he got older, he still managed to live decently and keep his cabin and have plenty to eat and buy a new mule or horse every so often. There were some who believed Mr. Jones’s stories about a big strike he’d had in ’48. But I had my own suspicions, and they had Pa’s name hooked to them.
I had other suspicions about Pa as well, and about where his money went.
Anyone with two eyes could see that Pa had worked harder and more hours on the first mine than either Mr. Jones or Uncle Nick. Yet when all was said and done, Uncle Nick seemed to have more money than we did. He had bought a lot of cattle and some expensive horses, and he and Aunt Katie traveled quite a bit. I’m not saying Uncle Nick got more than his share. He was a hard worker, and he earned what he got. But for all Pa’s efforts, even with Almeda’s business to go along with it, we didn’t ever have any extra money. They bought land, of course. But I know they also helped a lot of people and probably put more money than anyone else into keeping up the church building and helping support Rev. Rutledge and his family.
I was coming to see that Pa and Christopher were a lot more alike than I think either of them realized. I don’t know if it’s always true that girls tend to get husbands like their fathers. But I reckon that when you like your father, as I did, you must figure that’s a pretty decent place to look when you’re sizing up other men.
They bored into the hill from the northeast side, using dynamite to start the shaft, and all of us went up to watch the first blasts. I stood back with Almeda and Becky and Aunt Katie and all the younger children, watching as Pa and Tad and Zack and Uncle Nick explained everything to Christopher about the fuses and the direction the dynamite would blow. It was all new to Christopher, and he was eager to learn all he could.
All Alkali Jones could do was chuckle and cackle at the proceedings—that is, until Pa handed him that first match.
Finally everything was ready. Pa gave the signal, Alkali lit the fuse, everybody backed up well out of the way, I held my hands over my ears . . . and we all waited.
Bang! sounded the great explosion.
Rock shot out of the hillside in what seemed like every direction, but none of it landed near us.
A big cloud of dust and dirt rose up in the air, then gradually settled back down to the earth. Now there was a hole in the mountain, the beginnings of the cavity where the new mine would be.
We all cheered and clapped.
The new mine was underway!
As I stood watching, I remembered the morning some months back that I had gone into the old mine and it had seemed smaller. I thought to myself that the old mine was like my childhood, and now this new one would be the mine of my adulthood.
As all the rock and dust fell, the men ran forward armed with shovels and picks to begin clearing away the debris. They were so anxious to get on with the business of finding gold!
They continued with more dynamiting and picking away all morning. We brought out some lunch about noon. They were all enjoying their work too much to come in. At suppertime we nearly had to drag their filthy, exhausted bodies away, but finally they gave up for the day and walked back down to the house all dirty, sweaty, and laughing.
“Hee, hee, hee,” cackled Mr. Jones, who ate with us every day that he came to the mine, which was just about every day. “I done seen a lotta mines in my day. But dangburn it, I never seen one git into a hill so fast as that. Hee, hee.”
“We didn’t make it all that far, Alkali,” said Pa. “But I reckon with five of us, we didn’t do too bad at that.”
After supper, I took a candle and slipped outside. I wanted to see just how far they had gotten by the day’s end.
I wasn’t quite as impressed as Mr. Jones. They hadn’t even burrowed so far in that you could call it a cave yet, but it was the beginning of one anyway. From now on the work would be slower. I held my candle up, but nothing yellow shone from the walls—only gray and brown dirt and stone.
They continued working on the next day and on every day after that, digging and picking farther into the mountain and then hauling the rocks and gravel and dirt out with wheelbarrows down toward the stream, where they made an arrangement of several sluice boxes in a row to sift it out for the gold.
Gradually they began taking a little gold out too. Pa said all the hills around here had some gold in them. It was just a question of whether there was enough to make it worth all the effort of getting it out. Those first months, all they got was dust and a few pea-sized nuggets.
By the middle of May, the cave was deep enough into the side of the mountain that Pa was getting hopeful they’d find the vein before long. But he didn’t want any discoveries made while he was in Sacramento, so he gave the boys and Christopher time off to work at other things when he had to be gone for a whole week or two at a time. Sometimes they’d bring out loads and loads from inside the shaft and wait to sluice it till Pa was gone.
Chapter 38
Summer 1866
The spring, then the summer came.
The days and weeks went by leisurely yet steadily. Before I knew it, the days were long and hot. The chilly storms of winter were half a year’s turn of the earth away and the snow of Christmas night already a fading memory.
Christopher and Rev. Rutledge had by this time become close friends. They lent one another books—although most of the borrowing was done by Christopher, because he had been able to bring only a few favorite books across the country and found Rev. Rutledge’s library a great treasure. They also spent a lot of time talking about theological matters, both delighting in the other’s mind and spiritual journeys. Pa sometimes accompanied Christopher to the Rutledges’ and sat in on those discussions. Before long he was reading more himself than he ever had before.
As the weather warmed, I had shown Christopher nearly everything of the countryside for miles around. All the memorable spots I had renewed acquaintance with after my return to California, I now introduced to Christopher. We walked, we rode, we hiked all over, finding as many places to make new memories about as I had old ones to show him.
It was a happier time than I had ever known in my life.
I don’t know what it would have been like if we had tried to have such experiences after being married, but I was so glad we weren’t doing it that way. Christopher’s plan had turned out so wonderful—I couldn’t imagine the time being better than it was.
Of course, we continued to write letters to each other for our marriage journal. Even though we delivered the letters in person instead of sending them cross-country, we found that the act of writing helped us think through what we had to say to each other much more thoroughly. Having the year to write letters back and forth and to get so many aspects of our still learning and growing relationship figured out ahead of time was still another reason that this was such a good and growing time for both of us.
One day in the middle of the summer, a strange man rode into Miracle Springs. After he’d made an inquiry or two, he walked right in the door of the Supply Company, where I happened to be working that day, and stood before me.
The man’s dark beard was ragged and his face was brown and lined and at first glance he was fearsome to look at. But once his eyes caught hold of me and held mine for a second or two, I knew that gentleness and compassion lived behind the rugged features.
“I’m looking for Zack Hollister,” the man said. “They said you might be able to direct me to his place.”
“Yes . . . yes, I can,” I said. “I’m his sister.”
“Which one—Corrie?”
“Why . . . why, yes!” I exclaimed. “How did you
know?”
Finally the man smiled.
“He told me all about you—he’s mighty fond of you, you know.”
“And are you . . . Mr. Trumbull?” I asked.
“It seems we each know one another even before being properly introduced. Hawk Trumbull, Miss Hollister,” he said, smiling again and holding out a callused hand. “I am very pleased to know you at last by sight.”
We shook hands.
“Zack will be so excited to see you!” I said. “He never mentioned that you were coming for a visit.”
“He knows nothing about it,” said Mr. Trumbull. “It’s not exactly what you’d say is a social call.”
I told him how to get out to the house and the mine. I wished I could go with him, but Mr. Ashton was sick that day, and I had to be at the Supply till closing.
There were so many questions I suddenly wanted to ask him, but they didn’t come to me until the moment Mr. Trumbull was out of sight. And I didn’t get much of a chance to talk with him later. He stayed for supper and the night, but he spent most of the time talking with Zack and Pa.
Early the next morning, the three of them—Zack and Pa and Mr. Trumbull—rode out of town together on the business that had brought Zack’s friend from the high desert all the way to Miracle Springs. We didn’t see or hear from any one of them for a whole month. But what a story they had to tell when they got back!
While they were gone, Christopher and Tad (with a little help, but mostly verbal encouragement, from Mr. Jones) kept working the mine. But they didn’t work quite as long hours as before. They didn’t want to make a big strike without Pa and Zack, so they mostly sluiced the gravel and dirt they’d already accumulated.
The month gave Christopher and me more time to spend together and to write to each other. We wrote every day, I think, though it’s impossible to tell about every letter that passed between us.
Dear Christopher,
Do you recall my telling you about my two friends Jennie and Laura? You’ve met them at church, I think. Jennie is married now.
I don’t really have anything in common with them now, but occasionally I see them and talk a little, and that always makes me reflective. It’s funny how you grow up with people, but then the older you get the more the paths of your life diverge. Suddenly you wake up one day to realize you’re not at all alike anymore. It always makes me feel melancholy for some reason, although I’m glad for how my life has turned out.
Why is life like that, Christopher? Why do some people go down one road and others another? What makes friends grow apart?
When I told Laura several months ago about you and Pa and the apprenticeship, she seemed shocked to hear of such a thing.
“How can you stand to wait, Corrie!” she said. “Why would you want to wait so long?”
I tried to explain it to her, but she didn’t even begin to understand, any more than she had when I’d told her that you and I were best friends.
“You’re practically old enough that people will start calling you an old maid if you’re not careful,” she said. “Aren’t you afraid if you wait too long, he’ll find out things about you he doesn’t like and change his mind? Goodness, Corrie, I know if I had the chance to snag a husband as good-looking as that man of yours, I’d waste no time about it! I’d get his ring on my finger before he had the chance to think twice about it!”
As if getting a husband is more important than having a good and solid marriage—or more important than the will of God!
I tried to tell her that I wanted you to know everything bad and selfish and inconsiderate about me before we were married. I loved you too much to try to deceive you, I said—especially about myself. If it is God’s will for you to change your mind, then that’s exactly what I want to happen. I would never dream of wanting to marry unless it was what God desired for me. And what harm is there in remaining unmarried, whatever people think of me or call me, if I am the daughter of my Father in heaven?
Laura laughed when I said that. Everything I said sounded ridiculous in her ears, just like her reasoning, which completely omitted any thought of what God might want, sounded to me.
How could we have grown to be such different people?
Christopher, why is it so difficult for people like Laura, who goes to church just as much as I do, to understand when I try to tell her we are trying to order our lives by God’s design, not our own? Sure the first question we ought always to ask—about everything and anything . . . in every situation . . . every moment—is: God, what do YOU want me to do, to say, to think? Not that I always listen to him or get the message right or obey perfectly. But I want to try. I want God’s will to be the first priority of our life together.
So few people seem to think that way, Christopher! Are you and I so odd, so out of step with the rest of the world?
Then just this afternoon I happened to see Jennie in town, and I suppose our talk prompted all this. She’s been married now about six months. And all the happiness and excitement she felt a year ago when she was telling me about the young man who is now her husband—and when I was trying to tell her how different it was with you and me—all that is gone now.
I knew the minute I saw her downcast face that something was troubling her. I asked her what was wrong. She said that being married was harder than she’d thought it would be. Then she started crying.
I put my arm around her and took her into the back office at the Supply Company and we sat down. She needed someone to talk to, and she started telling me how it was without my saying another word.
The poor young thing! Christopher, I feel so bad for her—yet what can I do? It is too late. Now they’re married and have to make the best of it. I’m sure they will, but they never had the chance we did to get to know each other ahead of time.
“I should have waited,” she told me. “My pa told me it wasn’t a good idea to get married so soon.” That’s Patrick Shaw, you remember, a good friend of Pa’s—the one who played the banjo at the Christmas Eve gathering.
“But I wouldn’t listen, Corrie!” Jennie was sobbing now. “So finally Pa gave his consent, though I know he didn’t want to. I wish he hadn’t given in to me, though I was being pretty stubborn about it at the time.”
I asked her what the problem was.
“I just didn’t know him, Corrie,” she said. “I thought I did, though Pa said I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did. He used to be so talkative and considerate, always being nice to me, doing things for me, bringing me presents and flowers. But almost as soon as we got married he stopped doing things for me or even talking to me. After a while he got gruff and then started going out with all his old friends like he used to before he met me. All he wanted out of me was to cook his meals and wash his clothes and . . . well, you know. He seemed so different, like he’d changed. But Ma says people don’t change—that he’d just been putting on his best for me and now that we were married he didn’t have to bother. She and Pa’d seen it, she said, and that’s why Pa had told me to wait. But I was so sure that the way he was with me was the real him, though now I see it wasn’t.
“I suppose he didn’t know me too well, either. I got upset yesterday, and before I knew it I’d raised my voice and told him that he’d changed and he wasn’t making it any fun to be married. He got really mad at me and yelled back, ‘I ain’t the one who’s changed, Jennie,’ he said. ‘You’re the one who’s different—all grumpy and glum all the time!’ Then he turned and stormed out of the door. Oh, Corrie, what am I going to do!”
I didn’t know what to tell her, Christopher. She should have listened to Mr. Shaw.
I’m sure we’ll have lots of things to get used to about each other too—but at least we’ll know each other better than they do. And if, at the end of the year, Pa says we don’t know each other well enough yet, then I hope we’ll both have the good sense to listen to him!
I plan to anyway. I don’t want you to have to yell at me. I don’t ever want to do anything t
hat would make you yell at me!
I am full of so many other thoughts, but it’s late and I have to get to bed.
Corrie
Dear Corrie,
Yes, I plan to listen to your father too!
That’s the whole idea behind this arrangement—to entrust our young and inexperienced judgment to someone older and wiser and who can counsel us with more wisdom than we can muster even between the two of us!
I know exactly what you mean about watching the paths of life diverge as you gradually find yourself separating from people you have known for years and at the same time drawing closer to people you hadn’t known before. We are a good example! Two years ago the name Corrie Hollister would have meant nothing to my ears . . . now it means the world to me! Our paths came together, just as yours and Jennie’s and Laura’s have diverged.
I have thought about this for years, trying to get to the bottom of just what draws certain people together and likewise moves them apart without allowing a close proximity of soul to develop. There are relationships and friendships and associations that seem to last for a season, but even these often gradually drift apart, while others become permanent, stand the test of time, and remain deeply part of one’s life forever.
What is the difference? It has seemed an important question to me somehow. More specifically, why do some people come to the point in their lives where they begin asking that question you raised—God, what do YOU want me to do, to say, to think?—about everything that comes along . . . while others never seem to begin asking it?
I have come to think it has to do not just with having things in common, but with the choices and decisions every man and woman makes.
Sharing things in common, it would seem, is the first circumstance that draws two people together—a shared interest, a shared goal, even some chance commonality of location or need. For example, your father and Patrick Shaw are friends first of all because by accident they both happen to live in Miracle Springs, and second because they share nearly adjacent plots of land north of Miracle Springs. You and Laura and Jennie were friends because your fathers knew each other. You and I first shared the common goal of getting you well after you were shot and brought to Mrs. Timms’ farm.
A Home for the Heart Page 20