It seemed to say that he’d come to some decision. I didn’t know what it might be, but he was more like himself after that and he started talking again to us. I think everybody, even Uncle Nick, was relieved. I hoped by and by he’d tell us what had brought on the change.
But he didn’t, and things settled back into their old routine. The other four kids seemed to forget all about Pa’s temporary moodiness, and sometimes I wondered if Uncle Nick ever paid much attention to those kinds of things.
But I kept watching Pa, hoping maybe he’d tell me, even if he didn’t want to tell everybody. And he kept behaving strangely every now and then, going to town and not telling what for, and once riding all the way to Marysville.
“Where’ve you been, Pa?” I asked him when he got back. It was late in the day and he’d been gone since morning, and his horse was bushed from hard riding.
“Marysville.”
“What for? I never heard you talk of knowing anybody there,” I said.
“I had to see your newspaper feller, Singleton.”
“Why him, Pa?”
“I had some business with him, that’s all.”
And no matter what I did, I couldn’t pry out of him what he was up to.
But he was up to something, I was sure of it. He went into Miracle more often too, and started paying more attention to the Gazette every week than he ever had before, though why the sudden interest in Mr. Singleton and his paper I didn’t have a clue.
Most curious of all was my suspicion that he went to see Mrs. Parrish some of the times he rode into Miracle. I found out he’d been by her office by accident once when I was talking to her.
I mentioned it to Pa casually. “Mrs. Parrish said you paid a call on her,” I said, to see if he’d say something. But he replied gruffly, “Weren’t no call on the lady. We just had some things to talk over ’bout the school committee, that’s all.”
And then a few days later, Pa was sitting by the fire in the evening looking through a Sacramento paper. I couldn’t figure any way he’d have gotten his hands on it except from Mrs. Parrish. More and more I just kept noticing things about his behavior I couldn’t account for.
Then all of a sudden his interest in newspapers stopped, and so did his rides into town. I would have forgotten about everything, except that about a month later, as the weather was turning cold, all at once his peculiar habits returned. Now all of a sudden he took an unlikely interest in the mail delivery. Every two weeks, regular as clockwork, he’d ride in to the new General Store where the mail came every other Friday, and he’d wait for it.
We’d never had any mail that I could recall. Who’d send us anything? Yet there was Pa waiting for that stage every Friday when it was due!
Finally, in the later fall, as we were thinking about looking forward to our second Christmas in California, whatever Pa’d been waiting for must’ve come on the stage. That particular Friday he came home from Miracle with a different look on his face—not exactly a smile, and not even a “happy” look, but just a different look, with a light in his eyes, like something good was about to happen.
That evening, I finally got answers to all my questions about the peculiar goings-on for the last two months. Pa sat us all down, Uncle Nick too, took a big deep breath, then told us he had some real important news to tell us. Suddenly, I found myself thinking about all those same fears I’d had after the Grizzly Hatch affair. But I kept still and Pa started talking.
“Well, I reckon you all think I been actin’ mighty ornery these last coupla months. An’ I’m sorry if I ain’t been too cheerful, but I had a heap o’ things on my mind.” He stopped, took in another breath, then started up again.
“I been thinkin’ a lot about this life o’ ours here. An’ I guess we got a parcel o’ things to be thankful for. But I still can’t help thinkin’ it ain’t no way for a family to live. Why, with varmints like Grizzly Hatch wantin’ to take their piece outta our hides, and with Buck Krebbs sneakin’ around wantin’ to put a slug into me an’ Nick and tryin’ to hurt Corrie, and with us still havin’ to wonder every day ’bout the law catchin’ up with us from the East an’ runnin’ us to the pokey—why, it ain’t no life for kids! Things are still too rough out here in the West, an’ I ain’t no sort o’ man who can make a good life for the five o’ you like things are now.”
It sounded like he was getting ready to say something awful, like that we shouldn’t be together, and I couldn’t keep from interrupting him.
“We don’t mind it, Pa!” I said. “As long as we’re with you, everything’s gonna—”
“Let me finish, Corrie,” said Pa, almost sternly. I sat back in my chair and waited for what would come next.
“I tell ya, there’s still too much goin’ on here, and I can’t tell what might happen. What’d you all do if Krebbs did kill me? Then what?”
It was terrible to hear Pa talk like this! I looked at all the others and they were staring at him with their eyes wide open.
“I can’t take the chance of you bein’ left alone again,” Pa went on. “I gotta do somethin’ to protect you young’uns. I just can’t take the chance no longer of trying to do what I can’t do myself.”
I couldn’t help breaking into his talk again. “Mrs. Parrish’d take care of us, Pa,” I said, “if something happened to you or Uncle Nick. There’s nothing to worry so much about, Pa! And Zack and me, we’re practically old enough to take care of the young’uns!”
“Hush, Corrie, let me have my say! This ain’t easy for me neither. Now whatever you say may be true, but it ain’t enough. Mrs. Parrish ain’t kin, an’ out here in the West, kin is what matters most. An’ you an’ Zack are a mighty fine young woman an’ young man, I gotta admit that. But this here’s the West, and things are different. If I was gone, you’d need help to get by—family kind o’ help.”
He stopped again and took a deep breath. He seemed getting ready for what he’d been trying to tell us all along.
“Well, ever since that Hatch deal, and Corrie tellin’ me about Buck Krebbs tryin’ to get her and threatenin’ us, I realized I needed help with you kids. I ain’t no good as a ma to you. Lord knows Corrie’s a fine cook and all, but by the time school starts up in Miracle, she ain’t gonna have so much time, and you younger ones is gonna need more tendin’ especially when Corrie gets older. Besides that, I can’t help worryin’ about what might happen some day if our past catches up with me an’ Nick.
“So a while back I made myself what folks call a resolution, that I was gonna do my best to fix it so you wouldn’t ever be alone, no matter what might happen, and so you’d have someone to fix your meals an’ help you better’n a man like me is able to.
“It wasn’t an easy decision to make, and I spent a lot o’ time talkin’ to your Ma about it, though I don’t reckon folks like Rev. Rutledge’d take much stock in prayers prayed like that to someone else! But I can’t help what he might think, my Aggie’s the one this here decision concerns more’n anybody else, and somehow I had to know what she’d think of what I’m doin’. An’ so in the end what I decided was that you kids need a woman around here. I gotta see about gettin’ me a new wife. And so that’s what I’m fixin’ to do.”
Chapter 14
The Letter
The moment the words “a new wife” were out of Pa’s mouth, I felt a rush of warmth race into me. I’d never actually thought such a thing could be possible, knowing how Pa had felt about Mrs. Parrish. But they had been getting friendlier, and . . . well, it just seemed too good to be true!
The very idea of her as . . . as . . . the idea was just too wonderful to think about! Both my hands went to my cheeks in shocked reaction. My face was flamed, and in my brain already little bells were going off—wedding bells! I hardly stopped in that passing moment of bliss to remember Rev. Rutledge, and the look I had seen on his face when he looked at Mrs. Parrish. And I didn’t hear too well what Pa said next, I was too busy thinking about Mrs. Parrish.
Finally
I became aware of Pa’s voice again. “ . . . so you see, that’s why all the fuss with the newspapers, I had to investigate, you know, and find just the right woman. It’s always a gamble, because you can’t see no picture and you don’t know if they’re tellin’ you the whole truth about themselves. But you gotta do the best you can and hope things’ll turn out okay.
“Well, I looked in them papers and sent some letters out to an agency in the East that said they’d advertise for me what I was lookin’ for in a woman, and I read about some women whose names were in that Sacramento paper Mrs. Parrish was kind enough to get for me, but none of them seemed quite right. I told ’em not to put my name in any paper within five hundred miles of New York. And, well, this here’s finally my answer. I already wrote her back and I told her about the trouble with the law, but that I was a decent man. I don’t reckon we’ll hear back from her for a couple of months, but after that, if she’s still of a mind to come, I figure it’ll be the best thing fer all of us.”
Pa pulled a white envelope out of his pocket and held it up for us to see. It was rumpled. I could tell he’d read it two or three times already.
Then Pa started to read the letter out loud to us:
Dear Mr. Drummond Hollister,
My name is Katie Morgan. I am from southern Virginia, as you will see from the address on my letter. I saw your advertisement in the newspaper from Raleigh south of here. I have never been married. I am thirty years old and now live with my younger sister. But she is to be married in two months. She and I have lived with an elderly aunt and uncle for twenty years, since our parents were killed in the Black Hawk War in 1832. Our uncle has not been well recently and died three months ago. Our aunt is returning to New York to live the rest of her days with another aunt, her sister. With my sister marrying, I feel it is time for me to seek a new life for myself.
I have not had many adventures in my life, though eight years ago a young entrepreneur (that’s what he called himself) from New York asked me to marry him and come to live in the big city. That would have been an adventure, but I felt it my duty to remain with my aunt and uncle. Now, however, I feel perhaps the time for my life’s adventure has come. My parents dreamed of settling in the West, but after they were killed by Chief Black Hawk’s followers, my sister and I were sent back to Virginia. Now perhaps it is time to realize their hope, and mine. I have dreamed of travelling to California ever since 1849.
I am not beautiful, but neither am I altogether plain. I am quite short, with brown hair, a good complexion, and rather stocky build. I am not accustomed to niceties, for we have never had money to spare. I like children, and animals. I know hard work and do not mind it. I am anxious enough to come to California that I will spend the little I have saved to get me there. I have saved only about half the $450, however, required to make the sea voyage by way of Panama. If you would like to see me, and would send the rest of what I need to complete the trip to Sacramento, I will stay for a month. You do not need to marry me if you do not care to. I am determined not to be a spinster, and in California I do not doubt I will be able to find a suitable man. I am not overbearing, but neither am I timid—or so my aunt has always told me.
I would like to know about your children. Your advertisement said you also live with your wife’s brother? And of course, I am most interested in you. I hope to hear from you soon.
Very truly yours,
Kathryn Hubbard Morgan.
The room was silent a minute.
I had my own thoughts and emotions swimming around inside my brain trying to get over the shock of Pa getting married again—and to a stranger.
Uncle Nick had got over his initial whooping and hollering and was now sitting quietly, staring down at the floor. I reckon he was thinking about Ma, because he finally said, “It don’t hardly seem like the right way of treatin’ the memory of my sister, Drum, writin’ off for some mail-order bride you never seen!”
Pa took in a deep breath, as if the words stung him a bit. A quick flash of pain went across his face, but it was lost as he answered Uncle Nick.
“I know what you’re thinkin’, Nick. I been strugglin’ with the same thing for weeks an’ weeks. But I gotta think this is what Aggie’d want.”
He stopped, took another lungful of air, then added, “It’s for her kids too, Nick—mine and Aggie’s—that I’m doin’ it. I gotta see to the raisin’ of her kids—and I gotta do somethin’ better’n what you and me can give ’em!”
Again it was quiet and nobody said anything for a long time.
“Will we have to call her Ma, Pa?” asked Becky after a spell.
There was such an innocent worry in her voice. But Pa didn’t chuckle or even crack a smile. He just got up, went over and picked Becky up in his great big arms and looked into her face. Then he smiled, trying to put her mind at ease.
“You’ll always have just one Ma, Becky, and nobody’s gonna ever take her place. You’ll call her Miss Morgan at first, and then later maybe Mrs. Hollister, or Miss Kathryn. I don’t rightly know, Becky. Maybe you’ll even find you like havin’ another woman about the place, kinda like an aunt or somethin’. But I doubt any of you’ll ever call her Ma.”
“What’ll she be like, Pa?”
“That I don’t know, Becky! That’s somethin’ we’re all gonna just have to wait to find out.”
Chapter 15
School
One of the most important things about to happen in Miracle Springs during this time, at least as far as the kids were concerned, was the opening of the Miracle Springs school.
Pa and Mrs. Parrish and the school committee had met quite a few times, and I’d been hopeful about Pa and Mrs. Parrish as a result of working like that together and seeing each other more regularly.
Pa did go to her house pretty often, and sometimes he’d take me, and it got so they were downright friendly to each other. Mrs. Parrish’d greet Pa with a smile and say, “How are you today, Mr. Hollister?” and Pa’d tell her something about the mine or what we kids had been up to while he handed her his coat and hat.
Of course most of the time Mrs. Shaw and the Dewaters were there. Rev. Rutledge was always there, and looking so at home and comfortable you’d think he lived there. He was always the first to come and last to go.
Nobody said anything about it, but I got the notion that people noticed his being with her so much and wondered when the new church was gonna have a pastor’s wife to go with the new hymnbooks and freshly painted walls. I wouldn’ve dared ask her something like that, but I had the idea Mrs. Parrish might be wondering the same thing.
That wasn’t the kind of thing that Pa and I talked about, but I know it crossed his mind now and then too. Once, coming home from town, he was quiet most of the way, and then finally, like he’d been thinking about them all the way since the meeting, he all of a sudden said, “Yep . . . she’s a fine woman, that Parrish lady! I may have been wrong about her, Corrie. Ol’ Rutledge’s a lucky fella—the two o’ them’s gonna be a mighty fine thing for this town, though I never thought I’d be sayin’ such a thing.”
I was dying inside to ask him more of what he meant, but by then we were just coming around the bend and the cabin came into sight, and it was too late. Another meeting was scheduled the following week. Pa was taking me almost every time.
I don’t know if his agitation had anything to do with what he’d said to me in the wagon, but when time for that next meeting came round he seemed nervous the whole day and quit work at the mine early so he could wash and spruce up.
When he and I got into the wagon later in the afternoon to go to town, he looked cleaner than I’d remembered seeing him in months—his hair washed and combed back, with a clean shirt and pair of trousers. I looked at him, smiled, and said, “You look real fine, Pa.”
“Well, a man’s gotta scrape the dirt off hisself sometime,” he mumbled. “I just didn’t figure I oughta be trackin’ it into Mrs. Parrish’s place, that’s all.”
Pa’d gotte
n ready so soon that we left earlier than we needed to. When we got to Mrs. Parrish’s, we were the first ones there, even before Rev. Rutledge. But Mrs. Parrish didn’t act at all surprised to see us, and invited us in and had us sit down in her parlor and gave Pa coffee while she drank a cup of tea.
For the first time I can remember, the two grown-ups I cared most about in the whole world were acting friendly toward each other. After a while Pa got to feeling at ease and told her some things about him and Uncle Nick. Mrs. Parrish laughed and laughed, and I found myself wishing there wouldn’t be a school meeting at all.
But it had to come to an end by and by. Pretty soon a knock came on the door, and when Mrs. Parrish rose to answer it, into the house walked Rev. Rutledge. He seemed a bit taken off guard to find us there, because he started to say something quiet to Mrs. Parrish after she closed the door behind him, but stopped when she walked back into the parlor. When he glanced up and saw Pa, a look of surprise passed over his face, but it was quickly replaced by a smile as he walked forward and shook Pa’s hand.
Pa stood and greeted him cordially. They were on fine terms with each other by this time. But on Pa’s face, too, I saw a brief look as he rose—his face did not show surprise, but rather disappointment. I glanced over at Mrs. Parrish as she watched the two men shake hands from the entryway. Her eyes were fixed on Pa instead of the minister.
Maybe Pa’s growing friendship with Mrs. Parrish was why his letter from Katie Morgan took me so by surprise. I figured I was getting old enough to have him think of me as a grown-up, and I did most of the mothering for the young’uns already. As for the rest, why couldn’t he hire someone to do other stuff, or ask Mrs. Parrish to look in on us every once in a while?
But I knew what he’d say to those notions—that I would soon be grown and married, and he’d still have the young’uns to take care of, that Mrs. Parrish had her own business and the affairs of the church to tend to, and that she was likely gonna be the minister’s wife before long, and didn’t have time to worry about us. And then he’d say that getting a new wife was the only decent solution.
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