American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  But Veronica did not answer him. Instead she turned and addressed Cecil.

  “Is that the next packet you have for me?” she said, reaching for the thick envelope in Hirsch’s hand. Almost before he realized what she was doing, she grabbed it from him. “Oh, look!” she exclaimed. “There’s a man taking a—”

  The two men glanced in the direction of Veronica’s gaze. At the same moment a blinding flash illuminated the interior of the restaurant along with the light explosion of a brief poof.

  “What in blazes!” exclaimed Garabaldi.

  “It’s a man photographing those newlyweds,” said Veronica. “How sweet.”

  “Not in my restaurant,” said Garabaldi, rising. “I’ll get rid of him.”

  But already the photographer was hastily gathering up his things. He required little persuasion by the angry restaurant owner before he was on his way and gone, and the small wedding party behind him.

  Ruffled but relieved, Garabaldi returned to the table. “I apologize for that incident,” he said.

  “No harm done,” said Hirsch.

  “Now, Mrs. Fitzpatrick…,” said Garabaldi.

  “I wanted to speak with you both,” said Veronica. “It is simply this. I have finally figured out what you are doing. I should have sooner, but I did not stop to think about it. You see, Mr. Garabaldi, I have seen the contents of one of Mr. Hirsch’s mysterious packets which I have been delivering. So now I know that you are using me to pass information to the South.”

  “Keep your voice down!” whispered Garabaldi, who glanced at Hirsch with a dark expression.

  “Now Cecil has threatened to turn me in as a spy,” Veronica went on, looking back and forth between the two men. Both wore serious and angry expressions.

  “But I can do the same,” said Veronica. “Maybe no one will believe me and that is a chance I have to take. But I am willing to take it. I do not like being used as you have used me. So I am telling you that if you intend to continue using me to deliver your information, I want to meet whoever this information is coming from… and I want more money for my part in all this. I will take this packet to Columbia. But when I return I want to meet whoever else is involved and I want a third of whatever you receive. Otherwise I will go to the authorities and tell them what I know and take my chances with whatever you might tell them.”

  She looked back and forth between the two men who sat looking at her stunned and furious, but for the moment speechless.

  “Well, Mrs. Fitzpatrick,” said Garabaldi calmly at last, for he did not want to cause a scene in his own establishment. “It would seem that you have taken us both by surprise. I presume you will give us time to think over your, ah… your demands?”

  “You have until I return from Columbia,” replied Veronica. “Now, Cecil,” she said, turning toward Hirsch, “what do you want me to do when I get there?”

  Veronica breathed a great sigh of relief as she took a cab from Garabaldi’s back to her house. She was shaking and perspiring, but she had done it just as she and Seth had planned. He came to call later that same afternoon, and they boarded a train for New York. There they booked two rooms and spent the night, then caught the early morning train to Boston.

  Forty

  The departure farewell at the Philadelphia station between Cherity and Deanna was filled with tears and promises of letters and future visits. In the short time they had known one another, their hearts had been knit together in much the same way Carolyn’s had with Deanna’s mother.

  Cherity felt very lonely waving through the window to the four standing on the platform as her train pulled out of the station.

  As for Richmond, Carolyn, Thomas, and Deanna, the moment Cherity’s train was out of sight, they dashed for the next platform to board their train for Burlington, scheduled to leave in twenty minutes. This would be one of the most exciting rides of Deanna’s life!

  They knew that after the Steddings’ return to Mount Holly, Aaron and Zaphorah had stayed with the Borton’s. As Richmond guided their rented carriage along the road beside Rancocas Creek, however, he realized that after a year Deanna’s family might no longer be with Aaron’s former employer. Carolyn’s last letter from Zaphorah had been three months earlier. But as long as they could find the Borton farm, if they had moved since then, they would surely be able to locate them.

  Along the way, Richmond recalled Aaron’s explaining to him the close connections between the Borton and Woolman families, of the marriage that had taken place in 1684 on New Jersey soil between John Woolman and young Elizabeth Borton, and that his employer, John Borton, a Quaker minister in the tradition of his fathers and grandfathers, and his wife, Martha Woolman, had again linked the two families in marriage five generations later.

  As they bounced along, Carolyn turned around to where Deanna sat quietly at Thomas’s side.

  “Do you recognize anything?” she asked with a smile.

  “I don’t know,” replied Deanna. “I can’t really tell. The memories are hazy and distant. The trees and bushes have grown.”

  The carriage slowed. A sign beside the road read “John Borton.” Richmond pulled into the drive.

  “This must be it,” he said.

  A minute later they slowly pulled up to the house.

  No one was in sight. Then a tall black man strode slowly out of the blacksmith’s shop a hundred feet away.

  Deanna gasped. “Papa!” she whispered.

  Carolyn and Thomas helped her down out of the carriage, and Deanna dashed toward him.

  As they watched, Carolyn heard the door of the house open. She turned toward the sound. Zaphorah walked onto the porch and saw the buggy in front of the house with three people standing in front of it.

  “Carolyn…,” she said in disbelief as she came down the steps and hurried forward.

  But then her eyes were drawn to the sight of Aaron in front of his workshop holding someone tight in his arms.

  She caught her breath and her hand went to her mouth.

  “Oh… oh…,” she began, then broke into a run.

  Carolyn seemed to be crying a lot lately. She could not help it again as she saw mother and father and daughter wrapped in each other’s arms. Nor was she alone. Both Thomas and Richmond were wiping at their eyes as well.

  John Borton was in town with his brother Pemberton. When they returned they saw an unfamiliar buggy standing in the drive. John walked into the house and heard the talk and laughter of familiar voices coming from the kitchen.

  Aaron rose when he entered.

  “Mr. Borton,” said Aaron, “we have guests! I want thee to meet the dear brother and sister in the Lord who brought our daughter home.”

  “Richmond,” he said, beckoning Richmond forward, “this is the man I told thee of, Mr. John Borton.”

  “Mr. Borton, it is an honor to meet you,” said Richmond, shaking the older man’s hand. “I am Richmond Davidson.”

  “Mr. Davidson.”

  “And may I present my wife, Carolyn.”

  “Mrs. Davidson,” said Borton, shaking Carolyn’s hand. “And please meet my brother Pemberton,” he added. More handshakes went around the room.

  “And look,” said Zaphorah excitedly.

  Both Bortons glanced around the room and saw four black young people rather than three, along with Bortons own three children: Rebecca eighteen, John fourteen, and James twelve. With them also sat a young man who bore a striking resemblance to Richmond.

  “Would this be…?” began John, looking toward Deanna.

  “It’s Deanna, Mr. Borton!” exclaimed young Suzane Steddings. “Deanna’s come home!”

  “I see that!” laughed Borton. “How does she come to be here… and with thee, Mr. Davidson?”

  “It is quite a story!” laughed Richmond. “But I hope you will call me Richmond. And I would like you to meet our son Thomas.”

  Thomas stood.

  “Thomas, this is John Borton… and Mr. Pemberton Borton.”

  “I am
pleased to meet you both,” said Thomas, firmly shaking the hands of the two men.

  “Thomas and Deanna wound up on the Underground Railroad,” said Zaphorah. “Isn’t it wonderful how God works?”

  “It surely is indeed!”

  “And Aaron tells us he is buying several acres from you,” said Richmond, “and plans to build.”

  “That is right,” replied Borton. “He had his heart set on five acres that were for sale years ago before they left. Feeling responsible for what happened—after all, he was on an errand as a favor to us at the time—we felt the least we could do was to help him reach his dream.”

  The three Davidsons remained at Mount Holly four days. Aaron proudly gave Richmond a tour of nearly every inch of his five-acre parcel. Richmond and Thomas helped with the clearing of the land that was then in progress in preparation for what Aaron hoped would be the site holding a completed house by the end of that year.

  Though he had not met John Woolman himself, in the venerable John Borton, fifteen years his elder, Richmond Davidson felt that he had connected with the very roots of Quaker faith in America. From a line of six generations of Quaker ministers, the name Borton was as linked as that of Woolman to the foundation of the Society of Friends back to the days of George Fox in England. Within minutes of their arrival Borton offered his home to them for as long as they wanted to stay.

  Richmond was full of questions. He learned not only much about the history of the Society of Friends, but also of the founding of the New Jersey and Pennsylvania colonies. Borton, on his part, was eager to learn about the Davidson experiment, for by now he had learned from Aaron of the freeing of the Davidson slaves some years before. The parallel between Richmond Davidson and the famous Quaker from Mount Holly did not escape him. To be compared with Woolman would have drawn immediate objection from Richmond. But to the rest of those gathered under the Borton roof, the similarities between the two men were not hard to observe. It was no wonder, they thought, that Richmond felt such an affinity with Woolman’s writings—the two men were cut out of the same spiritual cloth.

  The Davidsons accompanied the Bortons and Steddings to the following Sunday’s Meeting in Mount Holly, a new experience in group worship for Richmond and Carolyn.

  In the following days, Richmond and Carolyn, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by one or more of their new friends, rode or walked through the town and countryside, walking past John Woolman’s former apple orchard, through the streets where he had his shop, and through the peaceful countryside along Rancocas Creek. For both it was a time of reflection and prayer and spiritual renewal, as if, though they were not Quakers themselves, they were touching their own deep spiritual foundations.

  The evening before they were to leave, Thomas found Deanna and, as difficult as it was with so many other curious and pestering young people about, managed to get her away from the throng. They walked away from the house and then along the creek, which at this time of the year was more like a river.

  “I picked these for you,” said Thomas, handing Deanna a small bouquet of wildflowers. “Probably half are weeds, but it’s all I could find.”

  “They’re beautiful!” said Deanna, who had immediately fallen into the speech of her childhood when reunited with her parents. “I thank thee.”

  They walked on in silence.

  “I, uh… I just want to thank you again for all you did for me,” said Thomas. “I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”

  “Who knows what would have happened to me if it weren’t for thee,” smiled Deanna. “I wouldn’t be home now if it weren’t for thee and thy family. I have much to thank thee for too.”

  “Yeah… well, I guess we both have quite a bit to be thankful to God for.”

  This time the silence lasted for several minutes as they walked slowly along in the twilight. The crickets in the trees along the stream had come out and the water of the stream was splashing along beside them.

  “I, uh… hope it’s all right… that is, if you don’t mind,” said Thomas at length, “if maybe I came to see you again sometime.”

  Deanna could hardly believe her ears! Had Cherity been right?

  “Of course,” she said softly. “I would like that very much.”

  “And maybe… wrote to you?”

  Deanna nodded, then ventured a glance up at Thomas with a smile. He was looking straight into her eyes. She glanced shyly away.

  Thomas hesitated another moment, then turned toward her, slowly took Deanna in his arms, and brought her close. Deanna returned his embrace, and they stood a moment in contented silence.

  After several seconds, her eyes filling with tears and her heart exploding within her as they pulled away, Deanna turned and ran for the house.

  Forty-One

  That same night, the six adults gathered to break bread together in the name of the Lord.

  The night was late. Suzane was in bed. Rebecca and Mary lay in bed talking in Rebecca’s room. Moses and John and James were talking in the room of the two Borton boys. And Thomas and Deanna were wide awake in their beds with thoughts of one another.

  The aging Borton brothers, John and Pemberton, sat down with Aaron and Zaphorah and their Davidson guests in the parlor of the Borton home.

  “Thee will be leaving us tomorrow,” said John, looking at Carolyn and Richmond. “Our lives are enriched from knowing thee and we desire to share wine and bread with thee and pray that the Lord will go with thee and bless thee.”

  “Thank you,” nodded Richmond. “We cannot adequately express our gratitude for your hospitality. You will go with us in our hearts. I came here hoping in some way to touch the spirit of John Woolman and his legacy. What I discovered to be even greater is the living faith represented by each of you. Faith that is alive is more to be honored than reverence for the dead, though I am certain that too has its place. However worthy old John Woolman, and such I consider him, in each of you I have found the true unity of the brotherhood. This unity I cherish above much of what passes for spirituality in today’s churches.”

  “The unity we represent may be greater than you think,” smiled Pemberton Borton. “I am now a Baptist.”

  “You don’t say! And your brother still speaks to you?”

  John laughed. “We have discussed the relative merits of our doctrinal differences at some length,” he said, “as you might imagine! But we are both committed to unity as the bond cementing together Christ’s church rather than doctrinal sameness. We have learned to take pleasure in our differences rather than allow them to divide us.”

  “A most uncommon point of view,” said Richmond. “And one with which I heartily concur.”

  “To be honest,” added John, “I am not in disagreement with many of the concerns that my brother has felt about our Society that at length led him to the change he felt necessary. All movements, in time, stray from their founding principles, and the Society of Friends is no exception. For all George Fox’s talk of not wanting to start a church or a denomination, we are a church. We have become the very thing he spoke against. For all Quaker talk of religious tolerance, when some of our number broke away for doctrinal reasons, even before Woolman’s time, they were brought up on charges of sedition. So much for tolerance, even within the Society of Friends! The ideals of Quakerism have not always been faithfully lived by its adherents.”

  “The same would be said of all movements of faith,” nodded Richmond.

  “To be sure. And in our time, many Quakers hardly even consider themselves Christians. Quakerism is in many places drifting toward a sort of secular mysticism that I find most disturbing—a slap in the face of our founders and our faithful men such as John Woolman. But I have determined to remain where I am and to try to use my influence to do what I can to slow these trends.”

  “It is not that I have lost my affection for my Quaker roots,” added Pemberton. “But with secularism literally running rampant, and with so many in our Meeting no different than Unitarians and Un
iversalists, I simply felt my faith would be better served in another environment. Of course I still treasure my Quaker heritage. It is a rich legacy even though I am not optimistic about the direction it is moving. But I have made no attempt to change my dress or my speech or my way of life.”

  “In a spirit of brotherhood, then,” said John, “we would like to partake of wine and bread with thee. Our Society does not look to such sacraments as necessary rites of the church. We view all fellowship of believers as fulfilling the communion of which Christ spoke. In that spirit, and in respect of my brother who is now in a church where such observances occupy a more important role, we pass the cup and share the bread in remembrance of the Lord’s sacrifice, and in recognition of the bonds of brotherhood and unity between all those believing sons and daughters of his family.”

  “Amen,” said Aaron.

  A silence fell in the room. Nothing more was spoken. John Borton took the plate upon which sat a small brown loaf of bread. He broke it in half, then passed the plate to Zaphorah Steddings. She took one of the chunks, broke off a portion, then turned to Carolyn at her side, broke the piece in her hand in two and handed one to Carolyn with a smile. Carolyn took it and they ate together. Zaphorah then passed the plate to Aaron, who shared his portion with Richmond. As they ate, the two Borton brothers divided another portion and shared the pieces with one another.

  Then John took the cup of wine. In the same manner, each serving another rather than himself, he offered the cup to Carolyn, who drank, then he drank himself. Borton then handed the goblet to Richmond. He offered it to Zaphorah, who drank, then Richmond drank. He handed it to Aaron, who offered it to Pemberton, who drank, followed finally by Aaron, who drank and set the cup back again on the table next to the bread.

  Each of the six then sat in reverent stillness, praying within the quietness of their own hearts. The Quaker spirit of silence descended upon them as a holy blanket of peace.

  After thirty or forty minutes, the voice of Pemberton Borton broke the hush. “Our Father,” he prayed, “we thank thee for watching over the daughter of dear Aaron and Zaphorah, thy own daughter. She is in thy sight and thy heart even now. We thank thee for bringing her safely through this time of trial and restoring her to her home. Amen.”