But then I thought that this might be just what I needed to help me talk to Christopher. Since this was a straightforward yes-or-no request, I would show him the letter, ask him what to do, and do whatever he said. Maybe it would help dispel the cloud between us and get us back to talking again.
As soon as Christopher and the others came down from the mine for lunch, I showed the letter to him. He read it without showing much expression on his face.
“Are you going to do it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“Asking me what?”
“Asking you if I should do it. Should I accept the invitation or not?”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I want to know what you think.”
“Does it matter what I think?”
“Of course it does,” I said. “Why would you think it didn’t?”
This wasn’t working out the way I’d hoped! Christopher wasn’t smiling as he spoke, and his voice sounded distant, like he didn’t care.
“I figured this was a part of your life you could handle on your own,” he said.
“What would make you think I didn’t want you to be part of it?” I said, and I know my voice had a frustrated tone. “I want to do what you think I should.”
Christopher was silent a minute, staring down at the ground.
“All right then,” he said finally, “I’ll think it over.”
Without another word, and without even looking at me, he turned around and walked off.
I went in the house for lunch, and the others were waiting for us. I sat down at the table.
“Is Christopher coming?” asked Pa.
“I don’t know,” I said softly, staring down at my empty plate.
“Corrie,” said Almeda tenderly, reaching out from beside me and placing her hand on mine, “is something wrong between the two of you?”
“I don’t know—yes—oh, I don’t know!” I burst out, then jumped up and ran from the table sobbing.
I hurried to my room and closed the door. I threw myself on my bed crying.
It was so awful! What was happening! Why had Christopher all of a sudden become so strange and quiet and cold?
I stayed in my room all afternoon and finally fell asleep.
When suppertime came, everybody was a little quiet, probably wondering what was going to happen. I guess this was what Christopher had wanted—everybody seeing everybody else when they weren’t at their best.
We sure weren’t now!
By this time I was almost afraid to see Christopher, and didn’t think I could even look him in the eye. How could this awkwardness have come up between us? I still didn’t know what had even caused it! Did this always happen between people?
And now the one person I wanted to talk to about it—suddenly I couldn’t talk to about anything at all.
Christopher came in with Pa as if nothing was wrong. We all sat down. I was nervous. I didn’t know what to say.
“Did Corrie tell you about the letter she got today?” Christopher said to Pa as we started eating.
“No,” answered Pa.
“Invitation to speak to a women’s group.”
“Where?” asked Almeda.
They all seemed anxious to have something to talk about!
“Marysville,” answered Christopher.
“Why, that’s only thirty miles from here. Are you going to do it, Corrie?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” I said hesitantly, speaking now for the first time.
“She asked me what I thought she should do,” Christopher went on. It seemed like he was trying to put the awkwardness behind us.
“So what did you tell her?” asked Pa.
“Nothing . . . yet. I haven’t had the chance. But I’m going to tell her now. Corrie—” he said, glancing over at me.
I looked up, still hesitant. But his face looked normal. His smile had even almost returned. I tried to smile, but it was hard.
“—I think you ought to accept their invitation,” said Christopher. “I might even go over there with you!”
I breathed a sigh of relief and now smiled again. And just as suddenly as it had gotten gloomy and silent, now the conversation started to flow again around the table.
Chapter 41
Marysville
I wrote back and accepted Mrs. Duff’s invitation.
Things became tolerable between Christopher and me again, though not the way they were before. We talked, but not deeply and personally. We both knew something had happened we couldn’t explain, but neither of us was ready to talk about it.
Up till now I had thought Christopher and I could talk about anything. That’s what made this whole situation so surprising. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what he was thinking.
I guess we didn’t know each other as well as I’d thought.
I took the opportunity of the time between now and then to make the yellow dress Becky and I had planned. We’d bought the fabric at the same time as the rose calico, and now I needed something to occupy me during the difficult days.
This dress took me longer than the other because it had fancy detail to it. It didn’t go together quite as easily either, and I found myself getting frustrated every time I had to take out a seam and sew it over again. No doubt that had more to do with my mental state at the time than the dress!
Eventually I got it done though, and it turned out real pretty. It was a full-length dress, not just a skirt and blouse. The bodice had an inset white yoke with lace edging all around it. The lace also went around the neck, and about the height of my knees the same lace circled around the skirt. That lower part of the lace I had to take out twice. I had an awful time getting it straight.
The yellow fabric had tiny pink flowers all over it, and the lace was also pink. The short puffed sleeves were gathered together with pink and tied in little bows. There was a pink sash that tied in a bow in the back at my waist.
Much to my surprise, when the dress was finished, Mrs. Gianini—who I’d gone to for help at least a dozen times!—presented me with a matching hat she had made to go with my dress. It was a straw bonnet, and she had used the same yellow fabric to make a sash that tied around it and hung down the back. A flower of the pink ribbon was attached to one side.
When I first tried the whole thing on, I felt so good about what I had done. It was so pretty I was almost afraid to wear it, but it turned out to be the perfect thing to wear to the meeting in Marysville. I wouldn’t wear it in the carriage all the way there. I’d change after we arrived.
Not too many letters passed between Christopher and me during that month. I was glad to have had the dress to occupy me. I kept writing, but mostly my letters were full of questions and doubts, and I didn’t dare give them to Christopher. I didn’t know if I ever would. Probably I’d burn them someday!
I don’t know if he was writing to me or not. He didn’t give me more than one or two, and they weren’t about much more than everyday stuff. I was beginning to worry that Christopher had changed his mind about me. So a new cloud began forming in my mind. Every day I expected to wake up and find him packing his bags to go back to Virginia.
Christopher did go over to Marysville with me, but fortunately so did Almeda and Becky. A few months earlier I wouldn’t have imagined anything more wonderful than a whole day alone in a carriage with Christopher. Now I was relieved to have other people along so we wouldn’t have to sit there in awkward silence as we rode along.
There was a pretty large gathering in the church building where the meeting was held. It was mostly women who came. In fact, as Christopher pointed out on our way home, he was one of only five men in attendance.
I spoke to the group first about just what I had done, sharing some of my experiences working for the Sanitary Commission in the East, right where the fighting was going on. I talked about President Lincoln and General Grant and Gettysburg, and I told them about
working with Clara during the fighting in Virginia.
Then I talked about some of the things I’d said in the last article I’d written about the war, the one I wrote on the train when I was going back to Pennsylvania after my visit to New York.
“I have read several articles in newspapers from around the country,” I said as I began to conclude my speech, “that have used the term defining moment to describe the war. All of us who write about such things have been groping to find a way to put the war into perspective, and those are the words that some men are using to help them do so.
“But if the war was, as they say, a moment of definition in our national history, what does it define? Does it define who and what the people called Americans are? Does it define what this country we call the United States is all about?
“If so, I cannot say I altogether like what such a definition yields. That we could kill our own countrymen—what does that say about us? We pride ourselves on being a nation founded on spiritual freedoms and biblical values. Where have those values been for the last five years? We named this nation the United States of America, and yet when the first serious threat to that unity came, we were not united at all, but utterly divided. What does that make of us but hypocrites at the very foundation of what we call this country?
“I suppose this is why, though I pray that God will fill me with forgiveness, at this point I cannot say the anger is altogether erased from my heart toward those who precipitated the events that led to the war. They turned us all—Northerners and Southerners, Easterners and Westerners—against those biblical values that were our foundation. They made us hypocrites whenever we speak the words United States.
“Yet no American is without his share of the blame, because we all allowed it to happen.
“Can we look upon ourselves, upon the ugly scar of this war, and take accountability for the great wrong which has been done against our founding fathers and against our Constitution itself? It will no doubt take another generation or two before that question is answered.
“At the same time, however, we have discovered that this is no nation of cowards. Whatever sins may be laid to our charge—and during these last five years there are many—we have nevertheless found that to be an ‘American’ is something worth fighting for. It is no untarnished image, but it is a strong and courageous one.
“As I said in an article I wrote soon after the end of the war, we have spent the years of this war looking into a red-stained national mirror—looking at the enemy, but at the same time looking at ourselves. The images in that mirror are far from pleasant. Yet we also see in that mirror a strength of fiber in the word American. If the mirror has revealed flaws in our character, it has also revealed a valor that I hope will grow into an even greater national strength in the generations to come.”
I paused. The room was still and quiet. I hadn’t realized how emotional my talk would be, but a look around at the faces staring at me was sobering. Christopher’s eyes were big and round, as if in disbelief to hear me talk like that. I guess he had never heard me give a speech before.
“One of my favorite passages from the Bible,” I went on after a moment, “is John 15. The image of pruning is something I think a lot about because I love growing things. John says that the Father, who is the gardener, prunes every branch that bears fruit, so that it will bear even more fruit.
“Why is it that pruning makes plants grow and thrive? I find so many of God’s ways curious and backward from what we might expect. Why does cutting a branch off a tree actually make that branch grow better and produce more fruit? It seems strange, but it really does work that way.
“I suppose that I am trying to look at this terrible war, which has meant so much loss of life in our nation, as a time of pruning from which good will eventually come.
“I do not as yet see much good beyond the fact that the Negroes are free, and there is no more slavery. I pray we will eventually be able to see more good results in the end. I confess that at the moment I find it difficult to see beyond the bloodshed, the heartache, the dreadful cost . . . and the loss of a great President and even greater man. Only time will show what good fruit has resulted from this terrible pruning.
“But I do not want to take this pruning image too far. According to the Bible, God prunes branches to make them fruitful. But I do not for a moment believe that God brought this pruning upon our nation to make it more productive and healthy in the end. We brought it upon ourselves.
“Nor do I believe that this pruning was necessary for our health, as it may be for a young tree. I will always look upon this civil war as a great evil, as a black mark upon our national soul. We should not have fought it. It was wrong of us—on both sides—to take arms against our own countrymen, although the southern political leaders who refused to acknowledge the obvious moral wrong of slavery must no doubt bear the heaviest weight of responsibility.
“So when I speak of pruning, it is with no sense of the inescapability of this war. It was not necessary, and I hate the memory of it. I cannot think of the day I spent on the Gettysburg battlefield and remember the faces of the young men lying there in blue and gray without tears coming to my eyes.
“But now, as we look back and try to find meaning in what happened, we must only hope and pray that good will come of the pruning, that fruitfulness and a restoration of our national health will be the result, no matter that we took the pruning knife in our own hands and did what no one but God ought to do—that is, take the lives of our fellowmen.
“I believe with all my heart that God is able to make good come out of bad and wrong and evil . . . if we allow him to. I only hope and pray that we as Americans will be able to do so.”
I turned and went back to my seat between Almeda and Christopher in the front row. Everyone clapped so loudly that it began to be embarrassing. Mrs. Duff went up front, but when they kept clapping, she motioned me to come back up and join her. Finally the room settled down.
“Would you mind answering questions,” she said to me, “if any of the listeners have any?”
“That would be fine,” I said.
Immediately several hands shot in the air, and Mrs. Duff, who knew nearly everybody by name, began calling on people one at a time.
“What is it like being a woman writer?” someone asked. “Are you accepted by your male peers?”
“Some find a woman trying to do a man’s job annoying, others don’t seem to mind. After they get over the initial shock, most men try to be fair and judge you on the basis of what you do. Not all, of course, but most. Once the war was taking such a toll, there were so many woman doing so many things—Clara Barton and others like her, for instance—just because all the men were out on the battlefields, that men became more accepting of women doing all kinds of things.”
“Will there ever be a woman President?” asked another.
“That is very difficult for me to imagine!” I laughed. “How could there be—we can’t even vote!”
“Will women ever get the vote?”
“Certainly . . . someday,” I answered. “At least I think so, though it may take another hundred years!”
“What about you, Corrie? Will you ever try to go into politics?”
“No. I like to write about politics, but I doubt I would ever seek office . . . even if women did get the vote in my lifetime.”
“What about your father? Why don’t you run for his seat in the legislature?”
The question caught me off guard. I hesitated momentarily.
“Corrie Hollister for legislature!” shouted someone. Then others joined in. I just stood there smiling, then finally breaking into laughter.
Finally the noise died down. Mrs. Duff took a few more questions, which I answered. Then the meeting broke up. We were there another hour, however, because everyone wanted to meet me and shake my hand and talk to me and thank me for coming.
I couldn’t help feeling proud when one of the ladies complimented me on my dress and asked
if I’d bought it when I was in the East. If she had only seen me gritting my teeth the second time I had to redo the lace around the skirt!
Chapter 42
Working Through Our First Big Misunderstanding
Christopher was quiet again all the way home. If it hadn’t been for Becky and Almeda, the ride would have been unbearable. We three talked, but Christopher just sat with the reins in his hands all the way, hardly saying a thing.
We got home just about dark.
Almeda and Becky and I went inside, while Christopher unhitched the carriage and put up the horses. We quickly fixed up some supper, and I expected Christopher to come in at any moment, but he never did, and I didn’t see him again that evening. He went straight to the bunkhouse and to bed without even eating.
Whatever the problem had been earlier—it seemed to have come back.
When Christopher wasn’t at breakfast the next morning either, I resolved that I had to talk to him. This awkward silence could not go on forever. I was afraid. But I had to find out what he was thinking, even if it meant learning the worst.
Finally, halfway through the morning I got up my courage and walked up to the mine. I looked all around but didn’t see him.
“Where’s Christopher?” I asked Pa finally when he saw me and came over to greet me.
“Took off a few minutes ago. Said he needed a break. Must have—he’s been working harder this morning than I ever seen a man work in my life . . . sweat pouring off him. If he kept that up, he’d collapse before noon.”
I forced a smile, thanked him, and turned to walk off.
“Hey, what is it with the two of you lately anyway?” asked Pa behind me.
A lump rose up to my throat. How could I answer him?
I turned and tried to say something, though I can’t even remember what I was going to say. But instead of words, tears came rushing out. I turned again and ran off toward the woods. Pa just stood there watching me, bewildered but I know hurting for me at the same time.
I wandered into the trees and finally got my tears to stop, then headed back down toward the house at the edge of the clearing between the wood and the pasture. Just as I was turning in toward the house, suddenly Christopher appeared from behind a tree, coming up from the woods in the opposite direction.
A Home for the Heart Page 22