On the Trail of the Truth

by Michael Phillips

  During those first couple of weeks, Mr. Royce continued to be his same smiling, friendly self. In fact, three days after the poster went up in our window, we were astonished by another personal visit by the opposing candidate himself. Mr. Ashton had spotted him out the window walking in our direction from the bank.

  “Here comes Royce!” he said, and he hurried back to his chair and tried to busy himself with the papers in front of him. Almeda and I braced ourselves for—well, we didn’t know what, but I don’t think either of us expected it to be pleasant.

  But Mr. Royce walked in the door, a big smile on his face, and went straight up to Almeda.

  “Well, Almeda, I must say this is a surprise! Welcome to the race!” he said.

  “Thank you, Franklin,” she replied, shaking his hand. “You are being most gracious about it.”

  “Whatever our differences in the past may have been, I congratulate your intrepid decision. California needs more women like you!”

  Almeda smiled, the two wished each other well, and then the banker departed, leaving Almeda with a question on her face. “Have I completely misjudged that man?” she said after a moment, speaking more to herself than to either of us. Her eyes remained fixed on the door Mr. Royce had just left for another few seconds. Then she shook her head and went on with her work. Was she doubting whether she had done the right thing?

  Thereafter, Mr. Royce kept being nice about the whole thing. Whenever anyone asked him about the election, or mentioned Almeda’s running against him, his response was something nice and friendly.

  “It’s a free country,” he might say. “Anyone is able to do as his conscience leads him, and I salute Mrs. Hollister’s courage to stand up for what she believes in.”

  Or: “She is a strong woman, and Miracle Springs should be proud to have her as one of its leading citizens.”

  Or: “It is remarkable, is it not, what women are able to achieve when they persevere? She has done a great deal for this town, and I for one have the greatest respect for her as a businesswoman in what is predominantly a man’s occupation.”

  Whether he was truly being nice, or just didn’t think he had to worry about Almeda’s hurting his election, I didn’t know. One thing was for sure, folks were starting to change their opinion of him, and his nice comments about Almeda only made them like him all the more.

  But some people didn’t believe a word of it. Like Katie. When she heard that last remark he’d made to Patrick Shaw—which his wife had told Katie—she got downright riled.

  “I tell you, Almeda, he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth!” she said. “All those nice words don’t fool me a bit.”

  Almeda laughed. “Why do you say that?” she asked.

  “He may be saying nice things about you, but he makes sure he always mentions that you are a woman, and that this is a man’s world. He doesn’t have to say anything—it’s obvious he wants people to think for themselves that being a mayor’s no job for a woman.”

  “He’s never said a word to that effect, Katie.”

  “He doesn’t need to. He’s relying on the men around here to draw that conclusion for themselves. Patronizing, that’s what it is. He’s being nice to you so that folks won’t take you seriously. It’s almost as if he treats your running against him as a joke that doesn’t really mean anything as far as the election’s concerned.”

  “I don’t know, Katie,” Almeda replied with a thoughtful look on her face. “It just may be that Franklin Royce has changed his ways after all.”

  Chapter 23

  I Surprise Myself!

  Right in the middle of all the excitement of getting the handbill ready and everything else to do with the election, a letter came from San Francisco that caught me by surprise.

  “Dear Mr. Hollister,” it read. “I would like to run your article about Summer in the Gold Country in the Alta next week. Enclosed is $4 for it. I have to admit your pieces continue to surprise me. Some of the people on our staff tell me your writing is among the most favorably received of anything we print among our women readers. I don’t know how you do it, but you seem to have a good feel for the kinds of things that women enjoy reading about. Keep it up! I am confident we will be able to sell this article to several eastern papers as well.” It was signed, “Edward Kemble.” Then underneath had been added: “It may be that we will also run your story about the lame schoolteacher. It will depend on whether we have space to spare. You’re getting the picture about ‘human interest.’ But of course, right now we’re swamped with election news.”

  I was elated. This was the most positive thing he’d ever written me! He actually said there were people who liked reading what I wrote!

  Over the next two or three days, I read his letter several times. My conscious mind couldn’t help feeling good at the words “favorably received,” “good feel for what women enjoy reading,” “keep it up” and “you’re getting the picture.” But down deep something was bothering me.

  At first I didn’t know what it was.

  Then gradually thoughts began coming back to me about that Sunday when Rev. Rutledge had preached on truth. He had talked about people being true rather than ideas. I found myself wondering about it further, questioning how to make my writing “true.” It seemed like I was getting to do what I had always wanted to do. Writing for a newspaper had been my dream, and now here I was actually doing it! And if I was going to keep on doing it, I wanted to write truthfully.

  I thought about the two articles and about what I had written, and about what Mr. Kemble had said about them. The more I thought about them, the more I did feel like I could be proud of those articles as truthful. I honestly did feel there was something more special about the gold country than just the gold itself—and that was the land. And I hoped what I’d written about Miss Stansberry overcoming her lame leg would show folks something about her down inside that was a good thing for them to see, a part of her true character.

  Yet something kept eating at me inside. I’d written about ideas and thoughts and feelings and people in a good and honest way, even in a way that people might like reading about. But something was still wrong.

  I remembered Rev. Rutledge’s words: Truth is not ideas . . . only a person can be true.

  All at once I knew what was wrong with the two articles. It wasn’t anything I said about Miss Stansberry or the gold country. It was in Mr. Kemble’s letter. All the nice things he’d said were pleasant to hear. But the words that now suddenly jumped off the paper as I looked at his letter again were the very first ones: “Dear Mr. Hollister . . .”

  Mister Hollister . . . Dear Mister Hollister . . . Mister . . . Mister . . . !

  That’s what was wrong! Truth wasn’t the ideas, it was the person, and I was the wrong person! Mr. Kemble didn’t even know who I was! He thought I was a man. How could I possibly be a writer who was trying to write about true things when I myself wasn’t being true?

  Then the words that had come out of my own mouth that same day came back to me, the words I had prayed to God in the woods after the church service: Lord, make me a true person!

  If my writing was going to mean anything, no matter what it was I happened to be talking about, then I had to be true myself! And maybe this letter from Mr. Kemble was my opportunity to start. After all, being a true person isn’t something you put off and figure you’ll get around to some other time. You either are or you aren’t. And if I had let this little lie slip in about who I really was—even though neither Almeda nor I had a thought of deceiving Mr. Kemble at first—I couldn’t wait for some other time to set it right.

  Setting something right is a thing you have to do now, not later. So I figured I’d better do something about this situation . . . and soon.

  I’d gotten the letter at the office in the morning. All day long I thought about it. And by the middle of the afternoon I’d made a decision that surprised even me.

  So that night, in as calm but determined a voice as I could, I sa
id to Pa and Almeda:

  “I’m going to San Francisco.”

  Almeda’s eyes opened up wide as Pa exclaimed, “What in tarnation for, girl?”

  “If I’m gonna keep writing for his paper,” I said, “there are a few things I need to talk to Mr. Kemble about. And I just don’t figure there’s any way to do it but in person.”

  I reckon they both sensed from the resolution of my tone that there was no way I was going to let them talk me out of it.

  But that didn’t stop them from trying. In fact, at first Pa said if I was determined, one of them would have to go with me. But in the end, after endless instructions and warnings, they sent me off with the boys keeping me company for at least half the way.

  Chapter 24

  Face to Face With Mr. Kemble

  Zack and Little Wolf went with me on horseback as far as Sacramento. We camped out for one night somewhere between Auburn and Folsom. We lay around the fire and talked until after midnight before I finally drifted off to sleep.

  I left my horse at a livery in Sacramento and went on to San Francisco alone. Zack and Little Wolf said they’d keep busy and see the city and would meet me back at Miss Baxter’s Boarding House in three days. Miss Baxter could hardly believe it was us, and said she’d never have known Zack if he bumped into her on the sidewalk. What a feeling it was, the three of us—still kids inside, I reckon, but alone in the city and knowing we could handle ourselves. Well, Zack and Little Wolf could handle themselves, and I felt safe enough as long as I was with them!

  Not until I was alone on the steamer floating down the Sacramento River did it begin to dawn on me what I was doing. I was on my way to the biggest city in the West—alone!

  I’d climbed tall trees when I was little—terrified that I was going to fall, too frightened to look down, yet tingling with excitement as I kept climbing higher and higher . . . afraid, but glad to be afraid! And not so afraid that I didn’t want to get as high up as I could.

  That’s how it felt as I looked out over the river and watched the shore glide past and felt the warm breeze on my face and in my hair. I was nervous, and thought that anyone who saw me would have noticed my knees shaking under my calico skirt. But I wouldn’t have wanted to be anyplace else.

  I thought of traveling to San Francisco with Almeda exactly three years earlier. I was so dependent on her back then. It had been her trip about her business. She’d made the arrangements. She knew what to do and where to go. I had been just a little girl.

  And now here I was, not only going to San Francisco alone, but going there on my own business, about something that concerned my life. It had been my decision to come, and I was on my own to figure out what to do. I had the name and address of a boardinghouse run by a friend of Mrs. Gianini’s, but that was all.

  I still felt young, but I knew I was starting to grow up. I was going to San Francisco by myself and, as fearsome as it might be, I knew I could figure out what I should do. And if I couldn’t, then maybe it was time I learned. I had to grow up sometime. And maybe the best way to learn how to stand on your own two feet without your pa or ma helping you is to just go out and start walking on them without anyone’s help.

  I thought too about how dependent I had been on Almeda spiritually. She had been the one who had first told me how God felt about us, and about how he wanted us to think and live and behave. I hadn’t known anything about God and his ways back then. When I think back to some of the questions I used to ask her, I can’t help but be embarrassed at how naive I was. But on the other hand, that’s how you grow and learn—by wondering, by asking, and by having someone you can look up to who can help you as you’re trying to figure things out. So I’m glad I wrote in my journal about some of those lengthy conversations Almeda and I had. I still go back and reread them now and then—the talk we’d had about what sin meant when Mrs. Gianini was working on the dresses, the talk we’d had right on that same Sacramento River steamer about faith, the Easter Sunday afternoon just after I turned seventeen when I’d prayed that God would make me into the person he wanted me to be, and the long talk on the way home about obeying. Every one of those talks remains so special in my memory, and makes me love Almeda all the more as a mother.

  Now those truths she had given me were part of me. She had taught me, helped me, encouraged me, and loved me. But the most important thing she had done for me was to help me stand on my own spiritual feet. She had helped me to think for myself, helped me as I learned how to pray, and encouraged me gently as I grew.

  I had been grappling with the whole prospect of what growing up meant, and about my future. But the fact that I was thinking about options, about writing, about what truth was, and about growing to be a woman. The fact that I was asking God about them, showed that maybe I was growing up after all—or at least starting to.

  And now here I was on my way to San Francisco! I would never have imagined it just a few months ago. But now . . . who could tell what the future might hold.

  If being so far away from home wasn’t enough to make my knees quake, the thought of facing the editor of one of California’s biggest newspapers sure was! The more I thought about it, the more foolish this whole thing seemed. Yet I still knew I had to go through with it, even if it meant I never saw another word of mine in Mr. Kemble’s newspaper . . . or any other newspaper! If growing as a Christian and being a “true” person had anything to do with becoming an adult, then I had to do this thing I had come to do, no matter how hard it might be. I’d never keep growing if I didn’t do the thing that was set before me.

  Another idea had been running around in my mind since just before we got to Sacramento. The closer we got to the big city, the more I found myself thinking about it—and it had to do with the election back home between Almeda and Mr. Royce. By the time I walked into Mr. Kemble’s office the next day, I had figured out exactly what I wanted to say to him.

  Of course, the conversation didn’t quite go the way I had planned it!

  The lady in the Alta office seemed a little surprised when I asked to see Mr. Kemble. I don’t know why. I tried to look as professional as I knew how, and I had brought along my best clothes to wear. But I couldn’t hide my age.

  She asked if he was expecting me. I said no. Then she asked my name, and I said he didn’t know me and that I wanted to wait to tell him my name in person.

  That kind of annoyed her, and she told me to sit down and wait, which I did. It was a long wait, and I think maybe she hoped I’d get tired and go away. But I kept sitting there, and finally she got up and went somewhere out of my sight. When she came back a minute or two later, she said, “Mr. Kemble will see you now, young lady,” and she led me down a hall to the editor’s office.

  The instant I walked in the door, a panic seized me, and I forgot everything I’d intended to say!

  There sat the man I took to be Mr. Kemble behind a big desk, looking up at me with a half gruff expression that said, I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but I’m busy. So get on with your business and say what you have to say before I throw you out! Before he had a chance to say anything, all of a sudden I was talking, hardly knowing what was coming out of my mouth.

  “Mr. Kemble,” I said.

  “That’s right,” answered the man.

  I walked forward and stood in front of his desk.

  “My name is—”

  My throat went dry suddenly and I couldn’t get out the words.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Miss . . . Miss whoever-you-are. You don’t need to be afraid to tell me your name.”

  “That’s just it, sir. When I tell you my name, you may say you never want to see me again.”

  “I doubt that. But come on—out with it. I haven’t got all day.”

  I tried again. “My name is—C.B. Hollister. Corrie Belle Hollister.

  “What? You’re C.B. Hollister? I don’t believe it!”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kemble. I never meant to not be truthful . . . it was just som
ething that happened at first, and then I never had the courage to say anything once you started calling me mister in your letters.”

  I was shaking from nervousness and fear and from wondering what he would do. But at least I had said it.

  “You’re just a kid,” he said at length. “And a girl, besides!”

  “But I want to be a newspaper writer,” I said, though my voice was trembling. “I am sorry,” I apologized again, “and that’s why I came here to see you, to tell you the truth about who I was, and so that the rest of any articles I write can have my full name on them, so that everybody else will know too.”

  Mr. Kemble leaned back in his chair, thinking for a moment.

  “You came all the way to San Francisco for that?” he asked. “Just to see me and set the record straight on this C.B. business?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hmm,” he mumbled. “That shows some spunk—I like that.” He paused again. “But as to your doing any more writing for the Alta . . . most of my reporters are older, and—”

  “I’m nineteen,” I said. “Halfway to being twenty.”

  He chuckled. “That’s hardly old in this business!”

  “You said folks liked reading what I wrote,” I ventured cautiously. “They didn’t care how old I was . . . or that I was a young lady instead of an old man.”

  He leaned forward and eyed me hard for a minute. Now I was afraid I’d said too much!

  All of a sudden he threw his head back and laughed. “You do have spunk, young Miss Hollister! And you’re not afraid to say what’s on your mind,” he added more seriously, “or to come a hundred and fifty miles to make something right, even if it’s for something you shouldn’t have done in the first place. I like that. Those are good qualities for a writer—spunk and courage. So tell me, what’s on your mind to write about now—same kind of human interest stuff our former friend C.B. Hollister’s been sending me?”