On the Trail of the Truth

by Michael Phillips

  “We’ll manage for five minutes, Alkali!” shouted Pa from where he stood knee-deep in the water. He threw me a quick wink as he spoke. “But don’t you keep him long, Corrie! I don’t want me and Nick and Zack wasting too much time when we don’t know where the gold might be!”

  “Okay, Pa,” I answered him seriously. “I’ll take care of my business with Mr. Jones as fast as I can.”

  The old prospector got up from his rock, grinning and cackling his high-pitched hee, hee, hee to himself, and followed me down to the cabin. I can’t imagine what he thought it was all about, but once inside, as soon as I had grabbed a pencil and fresh sheet of paper, I started asking about his first days in California and about his discovery of gold in the creek, about how he first yelled “It’s a Miracle,” and how the stream was named, and then how the town started to grow. All it took was my first question and he was off retelling it all faster than I could write!

  Well, that was my first “interview.” And I never had a more willing talker! I could have written a whole book just about the adventures and exploits of Alkali Jones—founder of everything in California that was of any importance, friend of everybody, who had been everywhere and seen everything and done things nobody else in the world could hope to do! I probably would have had to call the book Alkali Jones, the Most Important Person Ever in California’s History.

  As it was, I wrote a two-page story that I called “How Gold Was Discovered on Miracle Springs Creek.”

  I finished it four days later. That’s when I showed it to Almeda.

  “It sounds just like an experienced writer, Corrie!” she said. “I am excited! Do you want me to send it?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to send it in from myself,” I answered. “I’ve gotta try sometime.”

  “You’re right. And they did say to have ‘my friend’ get in touch with them,” she laughed. “Are you going to use your whole name?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Do you really think they’d mind it being from a girl?”

  “If I know men, Corrie—and I do, because I do business with them all day long!—yes, I do think they’d mind. They might not say so. No man will admit to looking down on those of us of ‘the weaker sex.’ They will always talk about ‘respecting’ and ‘admiring’ us, and they’ll be more than happy to be courteous and gentlemanly if it suits them. But let a woman try to do something on her own, especially something they think ought to be done by a man, and they don’t like it. They want to keep women what they like to call ‘in their place.’ And they especially don’t like a woman doing something well that they think is a man’s thing to be doing. Don’t ask me why, Corrie—but they just don’t like a woman to be successful at anything except woman things—you know, feeding babies and sweeping floors and washing clothes and boiling water and setting dinner on the table. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing those things, but a few of us women, like you and me, want to do some other things besides. So to answer your question again, Corrie, I would say this—I think that if you sent in your story exactly like it is, and the editor, that Mr. Kemble, figured it was from a woman—especially just an eighteen-year-old one!—I doubt he’d even read it. But if he thought it was from a man, even though the words were just the same, I think he’d read it and like it. That’s just the way the world is, Corrie, if you’re a woman and you want to do something that maybe is a bit out of the ordinary for a woman to do.”

  “Then I reckon I ought to keep being just C.B. Hollister for a spell longer.”

  She laughed. “You boil my long-winded lecture on the frustrations of being a businesswoman right down to the basics, don’t you, Corrie?”

  So I sent my story to the Alta. I addressed it to Mr. Kemble, Editor, and included a letter. I introduced myself as the C.B. Hollister who had written the story about the blizzard, and thanked him very much for the two dollars. I had written another article, I said, which I hoped they might be able to use, and it was enclosed. The letter was in my best handwriting, and I tried not to make it look like it was written by a girl.

  Two and a half weeks later, an envelope came to the freight office addressed to me, with a return address from the Alta in San Francisco.

  The instant I saw it I started trembling with anticipation. I grabbed it out of Mr. Ashton’s hands, and my sweaty fingers fumbled frantically to tear it open.

  “Dear Mr. Hollister,” the letter began—and I was so nervous that I didn’t even notice the Mr. at first.

  We won’t be able to use your article. Stories about gold being discovered in creeks around the foothills are what we call yesterday’s news. Nobody cares about that anymore. We’re looking for stories about people—real people. Your Alkali Jones sounds more like fiction than fact, and if he does exist, I don’t believe a word of what he told you.

  I remain, Mr. Hollister,

  Sincerely yours,

  Edward Kemble

  Editor, California Alta.

  I was too disappointed to think about being angry about what he’d said. As much as I wanted to be grown-up about it, I immediately felt my eyes starting to fill up with tears. I had been so sure this story about Mr. Jones was even better than the blizzard one! At that moment, I never wanted to write another word!

  I dropped the letter down on the desk and quickly went out the back door before Mr. Ashton saw me start crying and blubbering right there in the office. I was glad Almeda happened to be out on the street with Marcus Weber, checking the load for an order he was taking up to French Corral.

  I went out into the back of the livery, and by then I was crying. But at least I was alone, with the smells of hay and horses and leather to calm me down instead of having to face any people.

  I guess I left the door open behind me, because I never heard Almeda enter. The first I knew she was there with me was when I heard her voice close behind me and felt her hand on my shoulder.

  “I guess I was wrong,” she said softly. “Even from a man, he didn’t like the article!”

  I laughed and turned around. She was holding the letter from Kemble in her hand, and a tender smile of compassion was on her face. She knew the hurt I was feeling.

  But I couldn’t help it—the tears kept coming!

  “No matter how old a girl—or a woman—gets, Corrie,” she said, “there are times when you just have to cry. Right now, won’t you just let me be—if I can say it—won’t you let me be a mother to you?”

  She opened her arms and drew me to her breast.

  I laid my head against her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and melted into her tender embrace, quietly weeping. My emotions were so full, but I didn’t know if it was from the letter, or from the happiness I felt at having Almeda love me as much as I knew she did in that moment. Sometimes you can’t tell whether you’re happy or sad, but you just keep crying anyway.

  We stood there for two or three minutes, neither saying a word, holding each other tight. It was such a wonderful moment of closeness, I didn’t want it to end.

  Finally I felt her arms about me relax.

  “You really wanted that story about Mr. Jones to be published, didn’t you?” she said, looking down into my eyes, still red but at least dry now.

  I nodded.

  “And you thought it was . . . maybe not the best—but as good as the article you wrote about the Wards?”

  Again I nodded. “I can’t see that it was as much worse as Mr. Kemble said.”

  “But you’re afraid he’s right, and that you’ll never amount to anything as a writer if something you liked is really as bad as he says. Is that how you feel?”

  “I reckon that’s about it. And he didn’t say a thing about sending them anything else. I thought he said he wanted firsthand accounts. Now I’m just back to where I was before the blizzard—which is nowhere!”

  “Not quite, Corrie. There’s one big thing that’s changed.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You did write that article, and it did app
ear in the Alta, and you did get paid for it. Don’t you realize what that means, Corrie—you are a professional writer! You have done it. Maybe only once—but that’s a start!”

  “But what about this?” I said, pointing to the letter from Kemble.

  “It’s nothing! If Singleton, and now Kemble, aren’t smart enough to see a future-budding reporter right under their noses, then you can send what you write to someone else. Somebody will be interested!”

  “In my story about Alkali Jones, do you think?”

  “Perhaps. But maybe not. Kemble may be right about it being yesterday’s news. But you can’t let that stop you. You’ll write another article, and then another. Some of them will be published, and some won’t. But that can’t stop you from writing them, not if you believe in what you want to do, and believe in yourself to do it.”

  She paused. “Do you believe in yourself, Corrie—as a writer, I mean?”

  “You mean, do I think I’m a good writer? I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Maybe not a ‘good’ writer. But do you believe in yourself as someone who’s going to be a decent writer someday—even if some day way in the future? Can you believe that about yourself? Can you believe that God can do that with you . . . and maybe even that he wants to?”

  I thought a minute. “I reckon I can believe that,” I replied.

  “And you want it to happen, am I right? That is, if God opens the way for it to happen, then you want it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s how I felt about this business, Corrie, after Mr. Parrish died. I desperately wanted to make the business work. I wanted to succeed, maybe because I figured most of the men around thought I’d pack right up and be on the next ship back to Boston. But no I wanted to stick it out, even during the hard times, and make it work. And it seems to me maybe that’s what you might have to do too—stick it out, even through the hard times, and not give up, because you’re determined to make it work . . . and to do it.”

  “That’s what you mean by believing in yourself?”

  “That’s right. There are times, Corrie, when you’ve got to go after something you want, even when you think you’re all alone and when nobody else believes in you or thinks you have a chance to do it. There are times when you’ve got to plow ahead with your own determination to succeed. That can be especially true for a woman trying to do something on her own. You can do it, Corrie. You can write . . . and you will! The day will come when you can march right into Mr. Kemble’s office and lay your papers down on his desk and say, ‘I’m Corrie Belle Hollister, if you please, and not Mister C.B. Hollister, and my story is as good as you’re gonna get from any man-reporter!’”

  “I could never do that!” I said, laughing.

  She laughed too. “Maybe not in those words. But if that kind of determination is inside you, and you believe in yourself that much, then I can promise you, Corrie Belle Hollister, yours is a name people are going to see in print someday.”

  “So what do I do now,” I asked, “if I’m going to try to keep believing in myself like that?”

  “You keep looking for ideas, and you keep writing in your journal, and you keep thinking up stories and articles to write . . . and you keep writing them and sending them to Mr. Singleton and Mr. Kemble. And with everything you write you’re going to learn a little something more, and one of these days those editors will start paying attention when they see your name on a story. Believe me, Corrie, Mr. Kemble has not seen the last of you!”

  I laughed again. It was nice to hear her say it, though I couldn’t be quite that confident myself.

  The article about Alkali Jones never did get into a newspaper, though every once in a while I still think about writing a whole book about his life. Almeda’s other words, however, about determination and believing in yourself—I never forgot them. Her encouragement came back to me more than once later, because that was not the last rejection I got for something I wrote. There were a lot more to come!

  And her joking about what I might someday say to the editor of the Alta was something I remembered too. When that day came, it didn’t happen just as she’d predicted, but I couldn’t help thinking back on her words nevertheless.

  Chapter 13

  Learning to Believe in Myself . . . and Write

  The following school year was very different for me. For the first time in my life I wasn’t going to school, either as a student or a teacher’s helper. It made me realize in a whole new way how much things were changing.

  For everybody! Zack wasn’t in school anymore either. He spent his time about equally between helping Pa and Uncle Nick at the mine and helping Little Wolf and his pa with the riding and training and selling of horses. Now that Central California had been being settled for five or six years, there were a lot more than just gold prospectors coming into the state, including farmers and ranchers. Little Wolf’s pa had developed a fair business in horse selling. There seemed to be a continually increasing need for good riding and cattle horses, and they brought even more money if they were already broke and trained—which was where Zack and Little Wolf came in. The two of them loved it! Anything to do with horses made them as happy as could be.

  Anyhow, with Zack and Little Wolf and I gone, and Elizabeth Darien married and moved to Oregon, Miss Stansberry chose a new helper—Emily! During that year she turned fifteen, the same age as I was when we came to Miracle Springs.

  Without older boys like Zack and Little Wolf and Artie Syfer in the school anymore—and there weren’t any fourteen-or-fifteen-year old boys coming up in the class—Rev. Rutledge came to check up on Miss Stansberry usually once a day, to see if she needed any help moving a desk or lifting something. She was such a capable lady it was easy to forget about her being lame, but the minister didn’t forget. He was always trying to find ways to make it easier for her. Sometimes when I was on my way home from town late in the afternoon just before suppertime, I’d see Rev. Rutledge’s buggy out in front of the school where he was still helping Miss Stansberry. I suppose, though, with the two of them sharing the building like that, using it both as a school and as a church, they probably had plenty to keep them both occupied.

  We continued living in the cabin out at the claim. Almeda and I would take a buggy into town with Emily and Becky and Tad every morning and return in the afternoon. Sometimes only one of us might go into town. Occasionally I’d want to stay home and work on something I might be writing, and other days Almeda would want to spend part of the day with Pa. By that time, whenever she did want to stay at home, I knew most of what needed to be done at the freight office. When she wasn’t there, I wasn’t Mr. Ashton’s or Mr. Weber’s boss. They knew what to do too, and we all did our jobs together and talked about any decisions to be made before Almeda got back. Yet they would ask me questions, almost as if I were their boss, just because of me and Almeda being in the same family now. Although it was a mite peculiar, I got used to it—but I’m glad she was there most of the time.

  I didn’t forget Almeda’s words about having to work for something you believed in. I figured if I had the Belle blood in me, like Pa sometimes said, then I ought to put it to work for me.

  So I didn’t let myself get discouraged because of that letter Mr. Kemble wrote, saying he didn’t believe what I wrote about Mr. Jones was true. I just said to myself: “Well, we’ll see, Mr. Editor! I’ll show you who can write around here! You’re not just talking to anybody, Mister—you’re talking to a Hollister, half of whose blood is Belle blood! Yeah, Mr. Editor, we’ll see about what’s true and what’s not! And what’s true is that I’m gonna be a reporter for your paper someday!”

  That’s what I said to Mr. Kemble in my thoughts. But I was nice as could be whenever I sent a story to him. And I kept signing my name C.B. Hollister. Almeda had talked to me about believing in myself, but I wasn’t ready to believe in myself quite enough yet to start using my real name! I figured what he didn’t know about who C.B. was wouldn’t hurt him for the time be
ing.

  So I wrote stories on anything that I thought might be interesting to the folks either in San Francisco or in Sacramento. If it seemed more to do with Sacramento, I sent it to Mr. Singleton in Marysville. If it seemed more appropriate for San Francisco, I sent it to the Alta. Since I didn’t know exactly what kinds of things a newspaper editor would be likely to publish, I tried all kinds of different approaches. Here’s one I tried.

  This fall the school in Miracle Springs begins its third year. Teacher Miss Harriet Stansberry reports an enrollment of twenty-four students, up eight from the previous year, though she says the average age of her children is younger than before.

  When asked about the future of the school, Miss Stansberry answered: “There are still new families coming to the area, even though the rapid growth has slowed somewhat. From the age of my students, it seems as if the enrollment will probably stay about where it is for some years to come.”

  I then went on to tell a little about the school and what kinds of subjects the children studied, and even had a quote or two from some of the students, including one from Emily.

  I sent this to Mr. Singleton, reminding him that he had printed the very first thing I had written about the opening of the school back in December of ’53. I don’t know whether it was that, or whether maybe he was afraid of losing the Parrish Freight advertising, but he did print this new article about the school, though he cut most of it out, including all the quotes from Emily and the others. When it appeared it was only two paragraphs long and didn’t have my name anywhere on it. And Mr. Singleton never paid even fifty cents for anything I sent him. I began to wonder if that $2.00 was the last money I’d ever see for anything I wrote. But even if it was, I still wanted to write newspaper stories. I’d just have to keep doing other work besides.