The Ballad of Lucy Whipple

by Karen Cushman

  "Ma!"

  "Don't shout, Lucy. I'm here. Want a bed, mister?" she asked, wiping her hands on her apron and giving a cold, appraising eye to the stranger and the mud on his boots.

  "I do indeed, ma'am, praise the Lord. I am Brother Clyde Claymore, minister of the Free and Independent Church of Christ's Brethren, come to save souls, and I wonder if there is about here a family that might like the pleasure of taking me in for a spell in Jesus' name."

  Mama frowned. Our pastor in Massachusetts had baptized and married and buried Whipples for forty years and had eaten Sunday suppers and Tuesday lunches with them and had his socks darned and his coat pressed by one Whipple woman or another. But he had refused to bury Pa because Pa was not a church-going man, and ever since, Mama said she had no use for religious men. Said they left a bad taste in her mouth, like old mushrooms.

  Finally she answered him. "There ain't many families around here at all. There are the Flaggs, but you won't like staying there unless you like sleeping with coyotes, them being the wild sort. Mr. Scatter might do, but he has an unmarried daughter with marriage in mind, and most of the rest live in shacks or tents and don't have room to swing a cat by the tail, much less take in a stranger. This is about the only place in town to stay."

  "Then I will stay here, ma'am, thank you very much."

  "Mr. Scatter gets eighteen dollars and twenty cents for each of these beds each week and I'm not about to give one away. You got eighteen twenty, Mr. Claymore?"

  "Brother Claymore, ma'am," he rejoined, doffing his hat and flourishing it before him as if he were going to sweep the floor. "And you are Sister...?"

  "Sister nobody, Mr. Claymore. I am Mrs. Whipple and I have little affection for men of the cloth. Come back with eighteen twenty and you may have a bed. Good day to you. And next time wipe your feet."

  Seemed like Brother Clyde Claymore didn't have $18.20, for he got back on his tiny mule and rode into the camps up along the river, looking for shelter and praising God. The walls of the ravine rang with his call for all to forsake their wicked ways and accept God, hallelujah, and by the way perhaps make a small offering so Brother Claymore could get some food and a bed, amen.

  For all he was so big, Brother Claymore was gentle and soft-looking, an easy butt for the jokes of the miners. For a while he and his doings provided most of our supper conversation.

  "That crazy Clyde," said Amos one night. "Know what he did today? Leo Mack told him that Flapjack was yearnin' and yowlin' and missin' his wife and kiddies something fierce. Flapjack, who has no wife and no family and never said a kind word to nobody in all his years! So Clyde went and hugged Flapjack right there at Flat Camp in front of the whole crew. Thought old Flapjack would bust a gut."

  Jimmy slapped his knee and shouted, "That ain't nothin'. In a voice loud enough to wake snakes, he told Leo Mack he loved him! We was hootin' and whistlin', but ole Clyde stood there grinnin' like a possum eatin' a yellow jacket. Said nothing we could do or say would stop him from loving Leo. Gol durn, pardon me, ma'am, if Crazy wasn't so durned big, Leo would have pitched him in the water."

  The Gent said Brother Clyde wanted nothing more than to preach to the miners, but they hid when they heard him coming, so he'd just stand there and preach to the trees. "I said to him, 'Clyde,' I said, 'you'd do a blame sight better if you worked that hard at mining,' but he just laughed and said he was mining, mining for souls."

  As I peddled my pies—mock apple made of crackers and a bit of cider vinegar until summer brought real fruit—I bumped into Clyde now and again, riding that tiny mule. Clyde called the mule Apostle because the mule, like the Apostles, was wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.

  Somehow Clyde was picking up pinches of gold dust here and there, and after a week or so those pinches amounted to a bit. He came back, dumped it into Mama's lap, and said, "Might this be eighteen dollars and twenty cents, ma'am? I'm mighty tired of sleeping with my mule."

  "Looks to be, Brother Claymore," said Mama, softening a little toward a boarder with gold. "I will get it weighed at the store. Go wipe your boots." Although Mr. Scatter had been accused from time to time of dampening his hands when weighing gold so some of the dust would stick to his fingers, he had the only scales in town. Gold was sixteen dollars an ounce, or about a dollar a pinch, but the scales were the only way to be sure.

  So we were joined at suppers by Brother Clyde. One night the Gent asked him what kind of church he was minister of.

  "Well now," he replied, "that's an interesting story. The Lord called me to serve Him, thank you, Lord, but He didn't tell me how. So I just started out preaching the benefits of prunes and proverbs until someone asked me that very same question, what kind of church was I a minister of. 'Well sir,' I replied, 'that I can't rightly say, but I know what kind of minister I am. I am a minister who has little taste for sects and isms, for being on my knees, for preaching indoors to those who already believe and behave. I believe in love, turning the other cheek, Heaven and Hell, the power of God, and being a brother to all of like belief So I became founder of the Free and Independent Church of Christ's Brethren, and its bishop and only minister."

  "You ever preach to wild Indians or get chased by pirates or redcoats?" Butte asked, his mouth full of potato. Everyone laughed. Seemed like my educating wasn't doing Butte too much good.

  "No, I can't say so, young fella, though I been treed by grizzlies and run out of town by unbelievers, and I been beset by boils, rashes, ulcers, and the rheumatics. But as long as I was doing God's work, all was well."

  He looked sad for a minute and then continued, in a voice much softer than his usual boom, "Now I'm thinking about packing up and moving on. Back to New Hampshire. There are always groups who need toting back east, so I'd get my way paid." Suddenly I was very interested.

  Brother Clyde went on. "Don't know what else to do. I can't say I've done very well as a preacher. No converts, no followers. I thought to be having a prayer meeting by this time, but not a body around here will come. The good Lord doesn't need a spiritual father with no children, a shepherd without sheep, who labors long in the vineyards but grows no grapes."

  The boarders all looked down at their plates. Feeling sorry for the man was one thing, but getting religion for his sake was more than they planned on. I, however, had a masterpiece of an idea. //Brother Clyde were to lead a group back east, and if Mama were to approve of him, then she might let me go with him!

  The next day I started my campaign. "I somewhat like Brother Clyde, don't you, Mama?"

  Mama poured potato water and yeast and flour into a big bowl and commenced mixing it with her hands. "You know how I feel about so-called men of God. I'm sure your pa up in Heaven is sitting closer to God than all the smug, strutting, hypocritical preachers in history." The dough got turned out onto the tabletop and kneaded harder than necessary.

  "I don't think Brother Claymore is like that," I said.

  "No matter. Sounds like he'll be gone soon anyway."

  I decided to approach from the other side. "Brother Claymore," I asked one night, "what kind of religion do you preach? I mean, are there rules?"

  "Well, Miss Lucy, I'm not much for rules. I preach free will and free grace and every man's salvation is between him and the Lord."

  "What exactly does that mean? Do you believe people go to Hell?"

  "Lucy!" warned Mama.

  "That's all right, Sister Whipple. That's how young folk learn, asking questions."

  "Mrs. Whipple," Mama muttered.

  "Free will, Miss Lucy," Brother Claymore went on, "means people choose Heaven or Hell, God or the Devil, but I can't rightly tell who is going where and neither can anyone else, so I minister unto them all and refuse nothing."

  "Would you ever refuse to bury someone because he was, well, a sinner, or greedy, or maybe not a church-going man?"

  Mama scowled at me, but Brother Clyde answered. "No, can't say I would, Miss Lucy. The way I see it, we're all sinners time to time, and it does no
good for me to shut up my bowels of compassion. My job is to help people find their way to God, and I can't see how not burying a man would help him or me or God any." He looked at Mama. "Finding God is what it's all about. Perhaps I could help you, Sister Whipple, find your way to God."

  "Mrs. Whipple," said Mama, "and I know where and how to find God. It's just you men who claim to speak for Him I have trouble with."

  "We ministers don't speak for God, Mrs. Whipple. God speaks through us. Trouble is sometimes we have a hard time figuring out what is God's voice and what Brother Claymore's."

  Mama sniffed and Brother Claymore continued, "It is my opinion, after years of reading and studying and praying on the matter, that wicked churchgoers who do evil to their fellow men are cast out of God's sight, but good men are in Heaven with the Lamb of God, amen, whether they set foot in a church or not."

  At that Mama smiled, and I felt like I was halfway packed and on my way back to Massachusetts!

  The sun shone for a few days, and the melted snow running off the mountains swelled the rivers and creeks to dangerous levels. The miners had to be extra careful as they waded in and out, digging and washing the gravel, and even so a pan or a boot or a hat occasionally would come bobbing on the river right through town and out toward the sea.

  One drizzly Tuesday morning, Butte slipped and fell into the river. He hit his head on a rock and, caught in the swift current, was swept downstream, miners running along the bank all the way, shouting and calling his name.

  He stuck on some rocks at the bend close to town, and some miners nearby, busy trying not to listen to Brother Claymore, raced down to the banks, where they stood around deciding how to get Butte out without getting any of them in. They commenced pushing and shoving and arguing and were about to start spitting and punching when suddenly Butte broke free and began again his tumbling down the river.

  Brother Clyde ran down, pulled off his coat and hat, and, "quicker than you can spit and holler howdy," Jimmy Whiskers said later, plunged into the river and tumbled and rumbled right after Butte. They banged into some rocks together, and finally Brother Clyde, with Butte tucked under his arm, rose from the water like a river god in a Greek myth.

  A parade of wet miners followed Brother Claymore back to town, Butte draped over the tiny mule's back. If Mama were the type of woman to faint, that would have been the moment, I thought later, with Butte's limp body hanging sideways over Apostle and all those miners deserting the river on a Tuesday to accompany him back to town. But she didn't faint, didn't scream or cry, just turned pale as snow and stood there wiping her hands on her apron.

  We all looked at Butte, lying motionless on that mule, arms and legs hanging down into the dirt. Not a movement. Not a whisper. Then all of a sudden he hiccupped, giving up a whole lot of river water and most of his breakfast. The miners cheered and shoved each other and passed around a bottle of whiskey, which even Brother Claymore took a drink from, him apparently not being the kind of preacher to deny an occasional sip of liquor to a man, even himself.

  Mama stopped wiping her hands, put Butte to bed with cobwebs and brown sugar on his cuts, and thanked Brother Claymore over and over for his help. "Don't thank me, Sister Whipple," boomed Brother Claymore between sneezes and sips of whiskey. "God Himself reached down and plucked your boy from the jaws of death."

  All by myself in the kitchen, I took a deep breath. I was relieved that Butte was all right and grateful to Brother Clyde, but mostly I was pleased. If Mama didn't trust and admire Brother Clyde now that he'd saved Butte's life, she never would. Massachusetts was just around the bend!

  But I rejoiced too soon. The miners, sitting outside and finishing that bottle of whiskey, decided that God might have saved Butte, but it was Brother Clyde who had flung himself into the river. "The man is a hero," said Amos Frogge between hiccups. "An honest-to-Godfrey, ding-dong, real-life hero, and I for one aim to go to his prayer meeting and listen to what he has to say." The others agreed with varying degrees of reluctance, and the Gent went in to tell Brother Clyde that they'd all go to his prayer meeting and how was next Saturday.

  I was desolate. A prayer meeting would likely mean followers, and followers would mean Brother Clyde wouldn't be a failure and go home, and I was doomed to live in Lucky Diggins until my skin shriveled and I looked like something out of a story by Edgar Allan Poe.

  Saturday morning Jimmy Whiskers helped Mr. Scatter clean up the saloon. People brought benches from their kitchens to line up in front of the bar that Brother Clyde would use as a pulpit. Prairie and Sierra gathered wildflowers, and the Gent turned all the paintings of scantily clad ladies and the "Scatter said it: No credit!" signs toward the wall.

  When the sun was high in the sky, people began to gather from up and down the river. I had baked twenty pies, planning to sell to the crowds coming to the meeting. Once again I would have to earn my own fare to Massachusetts.

  The Flagg girls showed up from their digs across the river. I had never seen them up close, they being skittish as wild things. Lizzie looked to be my age, perhaps a bit nearer fourteen, and Ruby Ramona was a little mite with braids that stuck straight out from her head. Both were skinny and dirty, smelling of the squalor and the critters they lived with.

  The townsfolk were none too friendly toward the Flagg children, their drunken father, or the mother, said to be a lunatic. When the girls started toward my pies, Leo Mack, Poker John Lewis, Billy Parker from the restaurant, and some others began howling like coyotes and throwing pinecones at them. The Flaggs may have been dirty and stupid and crazy, but folk were there for a prayer meeting. Seemed to me the occasion called for more seemly behavior. Sometimes I can't figure people.

  Mama and Butte and I tried to protect the pies, but every one of them was crushed in the general bumping and shoving, so finally I gave a free piece of squashed pie to everyone—except Lizzie and Ruby Ramona, who got chased away, and Bernard, who took one look at the unfriendly red faces and left.

  After that we crowded into the saloon-turned-house-of-God. A number of the miners called "Howdy, little sister" to me as they pushed and fought their way to the best seats.

  People were clapping their hands and stomping their feet when Brother Claymore finally came in, raised his arms in the air, and boomed, "I feel the holy fire start to burn!

  "Like Moses," he shouted, "I came a stranger to this strange land, and you gave unto me the right hand of fellowship, hallelujah. So now I extend my hand to you—join me, brothers and sisters, in making this new land a new Jerusalem, a land where the righteous flourish and the wicked are sent down, where men are praised for their hard and honest labor, their clean and sober ways, serving—"

  "Speaking of serving, Preacher, I'll have a whiskey," someone yelled.

  "You may laugh now, brother, but wide is the gate to Hell. Do not flounder in the mire of sin. Reject the lure of Satan, for it is the food—"

  "Food here! A thick juicy steak!" called someone.

  "And fresh peas!" added another.

  "And chocolate cake," I shouted, deliberately avoiding Mama's disapproving eyes. If the prayer meeting erupted into rowdiness and merriment, Brother Clyde might still be toting me back east.

  Suddenly a shot rang out and silence fell. Brother Claymore stood with his pistol smoking in his hand. "I trust I have your attention now." He sure did. "Remember, brothers, Hell is never full. Satan always has a place for you," and suddenly the big man began to cry and groan and wail. "I feel the fires, the fires of Hell, licking at my feet!" His great voice sang out like the cathedral bells the Hunchback rang as he died for love of Esmeralda. In spite of myself I was moved.

  First the miners sat in embarrassed silence, and then some people began to cry and wail along with him. Then we all were shouting and singing regardless of what we believed or did not believe. While some sang "Amazing Grace" or "Hail, Columbia," others bellowed "Buffalo Gals," "Turkey in the Straw," and "From Greenland's Icy Mountains." Pleased at the cacophony, for I was
sure it meant the prayer meeting was falling apart, I sang "Home, Sweet Home" with all the fervor I could muster.

  Then the Gent took his fiddle and Rusty his mouth harp. As they played, we sang to the tune of "Oh Susanna":

  "Oh California,

  That's the place for me.

  I'm off to Sacramento

  With my washbowl on my knee."

  Everyone sang especially loud when they got to the word "California," except for me. I sang "Massachusetts" instead, just as loud as I could.

  Brother Claymore made ready to pass his hat, saying: "All those who wish to lie down in everlasting darkness may leave; the rest stay and be counted," but I didn't feel threatened. You had to know that Brother Claymore's God would never really send anyone to Hell. He might pinch your cheek or give you a licking for something real bad, but eternal damnation? Never.

  Except for Amos Frogge, the congregation slipped away, some to the card parlor, some to a whiskey bottle, others to the back of the saloon, where a number of fights were already starting, and us into the cool spring evening, fragrant with the smell of pines and so quiet after the frenzy inside.

  When Brother Clyde came back to the boarding house, I asked, "Are you a shepherd with sheep now, Brother Clyde?"

  "One sheep, Miss Lucy. Brother Amos has chosen the path of righteousness."

  "Only one?" I felt almost guilty at my pleasure in his failure. "Then I reckon you'll be leaving here soon for the old states."

  "Not hardly Miss Lucy! Praise the Lord, this is my beginning. A soul saved is a soul saved. Thank you, Jesus!" And he fell to his knees right there and started talking to God.

  Doomed. I stayed up late, writing to Gram and Grampop by the light of a candle stub, the sound of Brother Clyde praying soft on the air.

  Another plan of mine to get out of Lucky Diggins has come to nothing. Maybe I should have prayed at the meeting for God to help me, but I was so busy trying to sink Brother Clyde that I didn't even think of it.