American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” said Seth, removing his hand almost the instant Cherity touched it. “I’m all wet and dirty.”

  “Honest labor, Seth,” said Waters. “Never apologize for the sweat and grime of honest toil.”

  “The journalist discovers inspiration already!” laughed Richmond. “You have an eloquent way with words, James… ‘the sweat and grime of honest toil.’ I like that. We’ve seen plenty of it today, haven’t we, Seth.”

  “And every day,” laughed Seth, “until the crops are in.”

  “Perhaps I am indeed inspired,” said Waters, breathing in deeply of the warm air. “It is a spectacular sight—whites and blacks all out working in the fields together.”

  “Thomas!” called Richmond to Seth’s brother on the other side of the field. “Come here, son. I want you to greet our guests. Malachi, you and the others take a break for water or tea.”

  He turned back to the carriage.

  “I am sorry we are so involved right at the time of your arrival,” Richmond said. “I would have preferred to welcome you back to Greenwood with tea on the veranda. Unfortunately, rain is on the horizon, and we must get as much of this grain into the barn as possible before it comes.”

  “Please, no apologies!” rejoined Waters. “If there is one thing I do not want to do it is interrupt your routine and necessary work. To tell you the truth, this sight is far more what I came here for than tea on the veranda! Although I am sorry that my health prevents me from being any help.”

  “Point well taken, my friend! I agree with you.”

  “Not that I won’t enjoy a cup of tea with you as well, but I could not have hoped for anything better than this wonderful sight. In fact, after we get settled in, I would sincerely like to come back and watch.”

  “Hatching a little story about Dove’s Landing already, James?” asked Carolyn with a smile.

  “I’m on holiday, remember. Doctor’s orders. Since joining the Herald’s staff two years ago on a part-time basis, my editor is very flexible. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Dr. Elliott.”

  “I would like to come back out too,” said Cherity, at last finding her voice. “But I don’t want to watch… I want to help! May I please?”

  Richmond laughed.

  “You and I shall join the women, Cherity!” said Carolyn.

  “Do you really work with them, Carolyn?” asked Cherity’s father.

  “Absolutely. We all work together. Every extra set of hands is that much sooner the grain gets under the roof.”

  Thomas wandered up.

  “Thomas, say hello to the Waters,” said Richmond. “You remember Mr. Waters… and his daughter Cherity.”

  “Hi,” said Thomas, then turned back to the field.

  “I must say, young lady,” Richmond added to Cherity, “you have indeed grown since you were last here. How old are you now?”

  “Eighteen, Mr. Davidson,” she replied.

  “Well, we should get on to the house,” said Carolyn, “and let our weary travelers settle in.”

  “I’m not a bit tired!” said Cherity. “I can’t wait to see everything!”

  “We will be in soon,” said Richmond, taking hold of his scythe where he had leaned it against the side of the carriage. “What time is it?”

  “About 11:30,” replied Carolyn. “The train was scheduled for 10:40.”

  “We’ll finish another pass east to west, then get these two wagons loaded and into the barn, then break for lunch.”

  Three hours later, James Waters sat under the shade of the roof of one of the Davidson’s buggies to the side of the same field watching his daughter at Carolyn Davidson’s side.

  For one of the first times in his life, he thought with a smile, she was wearing exactly the right clothes!

  It was true that Carolyn and all the black women were wearing dresses. But Cherity’s trousers and boots fit in wonderfully with everything he saw around him, just as she already seemed to be doing herself. They had come here for him. But perhaps she was the one who would discover a way of life that suited her better than the city ever could. The smile on her face and the laughter he occasionally heard from her mouth where she and Carolyn and several of the black women were talking as they worked certainly did his heart good.

  If the three ladies from Kathleen’s church who had made an atheist of her could see his daughter now!

  Well, let them eat cake, he thought. He would take his daughter any day, as she was at this moment, over their dark and dreary religion. And he would trust Cherity’s soul to whatever God there might or might not be, rather than to the theology of those who would prefer to make judgmental saints, after their own likeness, of them all.

  He leaned back against the leather back of the seat, closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply. He was beginning to feel better already.

  Eleven

  Whatever plans either the Waters or the Davidsons may have made with regard to the visit of the former to the home of the latter, they were thrown out the window by the urgency created by the weather, and the eagerness of Cherity Waters to get the wheat in before the rain. She was downstairs almost the moment the sun was up the following morning. She found Richmond in the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Mr. Davidson,” she said cheerily.

  “Good morning, Cherity,” he said turning toward her. “I didn’t expect to see you so early after your long journey of the last two days.”

  “Our journey was nothing compared with what you’ve been doing,” rejoined Cherity. “That’s hard work.”

  “And you were working fast!” Richmond laughed. “I kept an eye on you—you were outdoing some of the women.”

  “It feels good to work hard and sweat and get dirty. I don’t get much chance living in Boston.”

  “Are you still planning to work on a ranch out west?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” laughed Cherity. “Sure, I dream about it. There’s nothing I love as much as horses. But as you grow up, practicality creeps in. So I don’t know—I will have to take my life as it comes and see what happens. But it never hurts to dream, does it?”

  “No, Cherity, it certainly does not,” replied Richmond. “Dreams often get us started on the road to where we eventually wind up.”

  “Where is everybody?” Cherity asked.

  “Still asleep,” laughed Richmond.

  “I thought you would all be up at the crack of dawn and back out in the fields,” said Cherity in surprise. “We’ve got to get that wheat in before it rains. It didn’t rain yet, did it, Mr. Davidson?”

  “No, it kept away for the night. Let’s go see what it looks like.”

  He led her from the kitchen and outside, past the barns, then paused and looked about. The morning was still with but a hint of a breeze. The sun had just begun to creep out over the eastern horizon where, except for a few stray rays shooting through, the oaks and beeches blocked the view.

  “Can you smell it?” Richmond asked.

  “What?”

  “The rain in the air?”

  “I think so,” said Cherity. “It smells good, a little like the ocean when it blows in toward Boston.”

  “That’s it, the smell of moisture. And the little breeze, when it comes from that direction, usually means rain.”

  “You have to know a lot about the weather to be a farmer, don’t you, Mr. Davidson?”

  “I suppose so,” he said. “More than anything, you have to understand land and growth and the kind of life God put into things that make them grow in different ways.”

  “Isn’t that just what people call Mother Nature?”

  “I suppose. But what is Mother Nature but how God works in his world? It is a colorful expression people use to say how God works.”

  “Isn’t it just how the world works by itself?”

  “Ah, Cherity… nothing works by itself. Nothing in the whole world works without God breathing life into it.”

  “What’s that down there?” she asked.


  “That’s what we call our arbor. It is a special garden that Carolyn and I have been developing for many years to remind us how good God is.”

  “May I go in it?”

  “Of course. Anytime you like. I’ll give you the five-minute tour right now.”

  He led her down a gentle incline and soon they were hidden from view of the house in the midst of the garden.

  “It’s lovely!” Cherity exclaimed. “You could get lost in all these little pathways.”

  “Probably not for long. Eventually you would come out and look up and see the house or the oaks and beeches of the wood, and get your bearings again.”

  “I can’t wait to explore it!” exclaimed Cherity.

  “You are welcome to do so anytime.”

  They left the garden and walked back up the hill. This time Richmond took a different route. Suddenly Cherity found herself standing alongside a rail fence looking into a pasture where twelve or fifteen horses wandered about grazing leisurely on the grass at their feet.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Oh… they’re beautiful!”

  Richmond gave a whistle, and as if on command about half of them turned toward the sound. Some ran, some walked, some whinnied, and others came silently. Within a minute or two, eight long noses were snorting and sniffling about them, with Cherity in an ecstasy of delight.

  “You should see Alexander call them, or Seth,” said Richmond. “They are able to speak the horse-tongue far better than I!”

  When they walked back inside the kitchen fifteen minutes later, Carolyn and Maribel were bustling about and the smell of coffee was in the air.

  “Cherity is anxious to get back out to the wheat field, Carolyn,” said Richmond. “She is worried about the rain.”

  “Is that true, Cherity?” smiled Carolyn. “Richmond is always pulling someone’s leg.”

  “No, Mrs. Davidson,” she said, “he’s right—we have to hurry. Rain is coming. You can smell it in the air.”

  “She is right, Carolyn,” said Richmond more seriously. “I’m going to go down to the village and tell Malachi to rouse the men as soon as he can. We might only have a few hours.”

  He turned toward the door.

  “May I go with you, Mr. Davidson? I would like to see where the Negroes live.”

  “Sure, Cherity… let’s go!”

  They returned twenty minutes later. By then Seth and Thomas had been roused, rubbing their eyes a little sleepily, and had begun fortifying themselves for the day’s work with Maribel’s breakfast.

  Within an hour, a little before eight, workers from both big house and Negro village were filing into the field of wheat, now about three-fourths cut, two-thirds bundled, and one-half safely inside and under the roof.

  For the first few hours, Richmond, Seth, and Malachi bundled with the rest of the men, who also helped carry the bundles to the wagon so that the cut stalks would get inside should the rain come upon them suddenly. When the field was bare of stalks on the ground, once again everyone resumed their former positions and the rhythmic whooshing of scythe strokes got under way. Soon Negro voices began to rise in song—high strains from the women and deep voices of the men coming from opposite sides of the field, mingling harmoniously in the center—that must surely bring tears to the eyes of the angels in heaven to hear such beautiful melodies from such an oppressed race. As Cherity worked, she could hardly contain her joy to be surrounded by such music.

  “I know we are in a hurry, Mr. Davidson,” said Cherity during a break from the work about midmorning, “but may I try the scythe just once? I want to learn how to do everything!”

  “Of course. I’ll show you how to hold it.”

  A brief lesson followed, after which Cherity tried it herself.

  “It’s so unwieldy!” she giggled as the others all watched, some of the black men with grins on their faces. Malachi was intent with his stone, seated on the ground sharpening the other two steel blades.

  “The key is balance,” said Richmond, standing behind her and reaching around her, placing his hands atop hers as she grasped the two handles. “The odd shape and position of the handles has all been designed perfectly to allow the sickle to do the work. The blade is razor-sharp and if you balance the scythe and swing it in a gentle arc like this—”

  Still holding on to the instrument with her, and as Cherity relaxed to allow him to do the work, Richmond sent the blade in a slow moving arc through a stand of wheat with a gentle swoosh. The next moment the stalks fell gently and silently to the ground.

  “How did you do that!” exclaimed Cherity in amazement.

  “Years of practice!” laughed Richmond, stepping away from her. “Now you try it!”

  Cherity did so, and continued stroke after stroke. By the time the break was over she had begun to get the hang of it, to the admiration of the black women who would never have dared even try. Though tiny in stature alongside the men, she obviously had enough upperbody strength to manage the difficult instrument. With practice, Richmond maintained while telling her father of it at lunch, she could be a skilled reaper within a single season. She also tried her hand at bundling, and caught on to that too. She was not able to attain nearly the speed, however, of the lightning-fast black hands that gathered up just the right quantity of stalks from the ground and twined them into a tight bundle almost with a single motion. But they too, as Richmond said, had had years of practice, for they had been working in fields just like this all their lives.

  Late in the morning a caller appeared at Greenwood’s door.

  “I’m here to see Seth,” she said as the door opened.

  “He be in da fields wiff da wheat harvestin’, Miz Bowmont,” said Moses. “Dey’s all in da field on account ob da weather.”

  What the weather could possibly have to do with it, Veronica had not an idea.

  “Which field?” she asked.

  “Da ten acres… down wes’ ob da colored village,” replied Moses.

  As he spoke, Veronica glanced behind him into the house where a man she had never seen before had just walked by. She did not like the fact that there were visitors at Greenwood she did not recognize. She turned and walked back to her father’s carriage. She would have to talk to Seth about keeping her better informed. After all, she would soon be mistress of this place. Then she would teach Moses some manners toward his betters, or send him back to the fields where he belonged.

  With a vague idea of charming Seth away from his work—and doing so in full view of both his parents would be a sweet victory indeed!—she did her best to maneuver her horse and buggy—with which she had become slightly more adept under Seth’s tutelage, though she still considered horses among the ugliest and stupidest creatures on the planet—in the direction Moses had indicated. At length she drew nigh the scene of the day’s pleasant labors which she could see in the distance. She reined in, surveying her options and trying to decide which way to go across the harvested field so as not to upset the buggy. Gradually the sound of rich harmony reached her ears.

  Were the Negroes actually singing as they worked! What did they think it was, a picnic! Her father would never stand for such nonsense in his fields! There were going to be more changes around this place than merely to Moses’ uppity manner toward whites.

  For a few seconds she continued to gaze with unseeing eyes upon the scene, then heard an even more unexpected sound. A great lusty laugh of pure delight rose above the music, followed by the tinkling sound of high-pitched woman’s laughter. The first had been Seth’s. She recognized it well enough even though she had never heard him laugh with quite such abandon. What was this—singing, laughter… were they all actually enjoying themselves!

  An inner premonition told her that efforts to lure Seth away from his work would not be successful on this day. With some difficulty, therefore, Veronica negotiated the beast in front of her in a circle, bumping uncomfortably across the rutted and pitted edge of the field, back onto the wagon track, and made for home more ann
oyed than disappointed. She did not like the thought of Seth enjoying himself quite so much without her.

  Meanwhile, at the far end of the field, the enthusiasm of Cherity Waters had invigorated the entire family of laborers, both white and black. Whether they beat the rain or not, the previous afternoon and this morning had certainly been one of the most enjoyable harvests any of them had participated in. The blacks had already taken Cherity to their hearts in the same way they had Carolyn herself. And Cherity, who had never been around Negroes or wheat or harvests or country labor of any kind, except in her fantasies of the West, in which cattle came in for a larger part than wheat or former slaves, found herself in such an ecstasy of human enjoyment that she could hardly contain it. Her father’s own words about the toil of honest labor were now fulfilled in her, for hard work is truly one of the great stimulants of the spirit toward health and growth and vigor. And to have so many people suddenly around her—young, old, white, black, fathers, mothers, sons, brothers, sisters… all different but so wonderfully typical of the family of humanity—filled the girl who had grown up as a virtual only child with a tingling pleasure of relationship between races, and a joy of diverse human fellowship that must surely be a foretaste of the kingdom of heaven!

  By midafternoon they had taken a sizeable swath off what had stood that morning, and only an acre or acre and a half yet remained on the stalk.

  A sudden gust of wind blasted across the earth in their faces. Richmond paused, looked toward the northwest, then gazed up at the sky. Seth felt the drop in temperature too. He looked over at his father.

  “What would Mr. Brown say, Dad?” he called into the wind.