Centennial

by James A. Michener

  “Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,

  The only throb she gives

  Is when some heart indignant breaks,

  To show that she still lives.”

  When he finished, the audience cheered and whistled, and he stayed at his harp, his eyes closed, praying that this moment of acceptance might never end. Finally young Chisholm came onstage and led him off, and in the wings Chisholm started to cry and embraced the boy and told him, “You will never forget this night. You were a triumph,” and Philip’s mother came and took him away.

  So the last number came, and Philip, in his costume as the Little Drummer Boy of Fredericksburg, beat the triple drums as if the entire Union army marched to his command, and Mr. Murphy was splendid as the dying sergeant, and Mrs. Murphy blew the bugle in her right hand while her left waved a flag; she represented the Spirit of the Eventual Triumph of Right over Wrong, meaning the north over the south, and young Chisholm was heroic as the lieutenant who led the charge, and through it all Mervin Wendell, unaided by any mechanical device, as the program promised, exploded shells, imitated Minié balls whining at the enemy, operated a Gatling gun and almost became the ammunition train.

  At the final tableau, with Mrs. Murphy still blowing her bugle and waving her flag, the audience burst into cheers, and as the curtain fell, Mervin Wendell asked that question which haunts touring companies on their infrequent nights of triumph, “Why can’t it always be like this?”

  Sheriff Dumire, having participated in many such closing nights, was as gentle as possible, but he was also firm. No, the Wendells could have nothing, absolutely nothing, not their costumes, nor their drums, nor even Philip’s harp. He surmised that in a dozen states like Iowa and Nebraska they had defrauded merchants, and the citizens of Colorado required protection. The tour was indeed ended.

  So the six actors sat in the darkened theater, discussing what they would do next. Young Chisholm looked forward to a bright future; he was only twenty-two and looked sixteen. He could trade on his looks for years, and in the morning would be off to Denver. The Murphys had known an endless chain of disastrous nights, but they had always been able to find some traveling company that needed a good Irish comedian with a wife who could double on trumpet. They thought they’d head back to Chicago.

  The Wendells would stay in Centennial. “But what can we do?” Mervin pleaded. Since the age of twelve the stage had been his home, and he knew nothing else. “What work can I do?” he repeated aimlessly.

  Before she could respond, unexpected help arrived, in the form of a man they had not seen before. He came hesitantly through the back door of the theater, a place to which he was not accustomed, and made his way tentatively to where the family sat. He was a tall man, ungainly and shy. Since the stage was dark, the Wendells could not see his clerical collar or the Bible which he carried in his two hands.

  “I wonder if I could help,” he asked gently, and at these words Mrs. Wendell’s shoulders slumped and she leaned back against a box and said, “We need a great deal of help.”

  “I know,” he said. “The hotel has taken possession of your things.”

  “They can’t do that!” Mervin cried. “I paid in advance.”

  “For the room,” Maude said with much tiredness. “We ate like pigs.”

  “Excuse me,” the man said, ‘my name’s Holly. Reverend Holly from the Union Church.” He went to each of the Wendells, extending his hand in greeting, and said to Philip, “You ought to be in bed, young man. Tonight you’ll sleep at our place.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Maude asked.

  “This town was deeply moved by the circus deaths. We were reminded that actors and jugglers and clowns ...” sensing that he had used an infelicitous grouping, he stopped. “Many of us would like to help.”

  He boarded them for three days, then announced that he had found them a permanent place, a furnished house owned by a Mr. Delmar Gribben, a member of his congregation.

  “How will we pay the rent?” Maude asked.

  “For two months there will be no rent. After that you’ll have the money, for the railway station needs a part-time man to handle baggage, and the job is yours, Mr. Wendell.”

  “Does it pay?”

  “Of course it pays! Mr. Wendell, this community wants you and your family to reside with us. We need more people. We need you.”

  So the Wendells deserted a theater which had long ago deserted them and gratefully moved into the Gribben place on First and Fifth, that is, at the far end of First Street just after it crossed Fifth Avenue. The rambling house faced the open space of North Bottoms and the eastward curve of Beaver Creek. That Sunday evening, at the informal worship services Reverend Holly enjoyed conducting, the three Wendells secured for themselves a place in the affections of Centennial.

  It was the custom, at these night services, for musical members of the congregation to offer solos and duets. Hymns were preferred, such as “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Work, for the Night Is Coming,” but Mervin suggested to the pastor that he and Maude, assisted by their son, offer the group a moving song with which the family had had some success when worshipping in states like Ohio and Indiana. Reverend Holly was delighted and Mervin consulted briefly with the pianist. Yes indeed, she knew the proposed song. It was, in fact, one of her favorites.

  So she struck those deep, rich chords which signal the opening of Septimus Winner’s outstanding triumph, “Whispering Hope.” This notable song had been published in 1868 under the pseudonym Alice Hawthorne, the author feeling, and rightly so, that its extraordinary sentiment would seem more appropriate if the composer was thought to be a lady. It had swept the nation, primarily because the legato notes sung by the soprano invited the bass or baritone to boom out a patter accompaniment, while the third voice, if there was one, could engrave delicate arabesques. It was a song predestined for Maude and Mervin Wendell, and they knew how to exploit it. In a clear, sweet treble Philip lined out the lush words:

  “Soft as the Voice of an Angel,

  Breathing a Lesson unheard,

  Hope with a gentle Persuasion,

  Whispers her comforting Word;

  Wait till the Darkness is over,

  Wait till the Tempest is done,

  Hope for the Sunshine Tomorrow,

  After the Shower is gone.”

  As the child sang the melody, his mother, in a strong contralto, sang a close harmony which moved alternately above and below the note her son was singing, uniting occasionally on a single note to produce an effect of such delicious accidentals that the audience sighed at its sheer loveliness.

  Now came the good part, the chorus. While Philip and Maude continued as they were, singing their soprano and alto versions of the words whispering hope, Mervin broke in with a deep, rumbling baritone, singing three and four words while they sang one. He produced such a powerful effect that when the chorus ended, the audience started to applaud, even though it was in church.

  “I think we have heard sursum corda,” Reverend Holly said. “As this gifted family sings our old favorite it sounds more like a hymn than the hymns we sing,” and with this benediction the Wendells became citizens of Centennial.

  Henceforth, on any occasion when the citizenry gathered, they were asked to sing, and “Whispering Hope” was bound to be called for. How stable, how strongly bound they seemed when they united in this song, their voices separate yet blending. “They’re a lesson to us all,” Reverend Holly said many times. He actually preferred the other number by Septimus Winner, also published under the name of Alice Hawthorne, which the Wendells offered, “Listen to the Mockingbird.” The words of this song lacked the purity of “Whispering Hope,” and there was a certain repetitiousness about them. Mervin preferred singing it while sitting in a chair, his right hand pressed against his forehead, his eyes fixed on an imaginary fire:

  “I’m dreaming now of Hallie, sweet Hallie, sweet Hallie,

  I’m dreaming now of Hallie.

  For t
he thought of her is one that never dies;

  She’s sleeping in the valley, the valley, the valley,

  She’s sleeping in the valley,

  And the mockingbird is singing where she lies.

  At this point the audience heard the mockingbird in the distance, for Philip in the wings gave a fine whistling imitation of the bird, but before he ended, his mother walked onstage, whistling as fine a series of bird calls as the west had ever heard. She was phenomenal, sliding up and down the scale, doing robins and nightingales and thrushes and even hawks, while her husband sang:

  “Listen to the mockingbird,

  Listen to the mockingbird

  The mockingbird still singing o’er her grave ...”

  When the last chorus was reached, the Wendells really let go. Now Philip walked out from the wings, whistling his heart out as the mockingbird, while his mother shrilled a score of wild bird notes and her husband expressed his grief in deep, passionate notes.

  One member of the audience was not impressed. Sheriff Dumire kept close watch on the Wendells and asked himself, What are they using for money? They were dressing well, eating regularly and moving from one party to the next. On Sunday mornings when the collection plate was passed, Mervin made a show of dropping a heavy coin, a quarter or perhaps even a half dollar, into the metal plate, where it echoed, and he had been seen at the livery stable looking at a type of horse which could only be used to pull a carriage. Something was wrong.

  So Dumire casually dropped by the railroad station to ascertain what salary Mervin was making, and the agent told him, “We only had a half-time job for him. Gets four dollars a week. He said something about a second job.”

  Dumire watched Mervin even more closely and satisfied himself that he had no second job. “He can’t be living on four dollars a week. Not the way they eat.”

  His suspicions intensified, but his freedom to investigate became hampered by a development he could not have foreseen. Since it was summer, young Philip had no school to attend, and with the sheriff’s office only three blocks from his home, he had fallen into the habit of spending time there, sitting quietly on the porch, watching carefully as the sheriff came and went. One day Dumire, eager to know what the family was up to, invited the boy into the dark-paneled office, but as Philip sat there, clearly overcome by hero worship, the sheriff was reluctant to question him.

  “I like men who have jobs,” the boy said as his eyes followed the tough little sheriff.

  “Your father has a job.”

  “Not a very good one. Not a real one like yours.”

  Such admiration pleased Dumire, and on his duty walks through the town he began to look for the boy. It was obvious to him that Philip was striving to do all the things he had been deprived of during his years of traveling with the theater, and one evening the sheriff watched him in the empty lot across from the Gribben house, and the boy was throwing stones with commendable accuracy. “Good shot,” he called. “Where’s your father?”

  “He’s visiting with the Wilsons. They give him sandwiches.”

  During another inspection tour Dumire saw the boy swimming in the creek, kicking well and diving deep without fear. “You’re not afraid to stay under, I see,” he called. “By the way, where’s your mother?”

  “At the Church.”

  He began to look forward to the boy’s visits to his office, and was pleased when Philip told him, “You’re the bravest man I ever met.” He was amused when Philip asked, “Mr. Dumire, why is the bottom of your face so brown and the top so white? Do you use make-up like my father?”

  “No!” Dumire laughed. “Sheriffs and cowboys wear big hats ... to keep the sun off their heads. That’s how you can tell a cowboy. Down here brown, up here white.” Next day Philip appeared wearing a large hat.

  One morning the boy was perched beside Dumire’s desk, watching him file papers, when the station agent ran in with a telegram from Julesburg. Dumire read it, frowned, then tossed it professionally to Philip, as if he were a deputy:

  BOARD UNION PACIFIC 817 AND ARREST CHARLES KENDERDINE ALIAS HARVARD JOE ARMED AND DANGEROUS

  SHERIFF BAGLEY

  Dumire permitted the boy to follow him down Prairie as he headed for the station, and although the sheriff was not tall, he carried himself with such authority that he imprinted upon Philip’s mind an image of how a man ought to look: clean, hard, devoid of frills. In his life backstage he had seen few such men.

  Number 817 pulled into the station; Dumire climbed aboard. Philip could see him, hands over his guns, arguing with a seated man, and in a moment Harvard Joe, much taller than Dumire, came dutifully down the steps, allowing himself to be guided through the main streets to the jail.

  Philip waited for the sheriff in his office, and when the courageous little Kansan returned, the boy said with beaming affection, “You can handle those guns.”

  “It wasn’t the guns,” Dumire said. “It’s knowin’ what to say so you don’t need them.”

  At this moment a man Philip knew as his landlord, Mr. Gribben, entered the office and asked, “Sheriff, can I speak with you for a moment?

  “Certainly,” Dumire said.

  “Alone?”

  Dumire indicated that Philip must go, and he did, pausing to stare curiously at Gribben as he left.

  “I want to speak with you, Axel. On an ugly business.”

  “Business often gets ugly.”

  “I want to warn you about somethin’, but I must first state that under no circumstances will I press charges.”

  “Just information?” Dumire asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Because the facts would prove you a fool?”

  “They would indeed. Sheriff, the Wendells are workin’ the badger game.”

  This was the clue Dumire had been waiting for. If they were running a badger game, everything became clear. “Tell me about it.”

  “I’m speakin’ of my own case,” Gribben said. “And two or three others I’ve watched, although on them I could be wrong.”

  “You met her at one of the socials,” Dumire suggested. “She thanked you for letting them use your house. Brushed against you. And in your hearing Mr. Wendell said he had to catch the night train to Denver?”

  “How did you know?”

  “There’s only one way to work the badger game. The wife gets the target steamed up, the husband says he’s got to leave town, and some way or another she lets you know you can take her home, and just when you got your pants off and hers down, in storms the outraged husband with a revolver. How much did they blackmail you for?”

  “The house.”

  “The what!”

  “The house. Reverend Holly had pleaded with me that since it was vacant and since they were a Christian family, it was my duty ... You know that Holly. Well ... they grew to like it. Now it’s theirs.”

  “Have you gone completely idiot?”

  “It was either the house or a scandal, and my wife ...”

  “You gave them the house?”

  “Yes. I went over to Greeley with them and switched title to their name. ‘For one dollar and other valuable considerations.’ Miserable son-of-a-bitch actually handed me the dollar in front of witnesses. So now it’s theirs.”

  “What do you want me to do? Arrest them?”

  “God, no!” Gribben cried. “My daughter’s getting married. She wants them to sing at her wedding.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Watch them. Catch them. And run them out of town.”

  Dumire considered this for some time, then asked, “Was Mrs. Wendell in this too? I mean ... of course she was the bait, but was she a real partner?”

  “Her? Hell, her old man was so wobbly with that gun that I could of settled with him for fifty bucks. It was her that brought up the house, conducted all the negotiations. She’s the brains.” He reflected on this, then added hesitantly, “Did you see how their kid stared at me when I came in? I wouldn’t be surpr
ised if he was in on it too.”

  He was. But not in the way Mr. Gribben suspected. He had been asleep that night, but he had heard a strange voice, like the others he had heard on previous nights, and he had peeked through a small opening in the door and had watched as his mother unbuttoned Mr. Gribben’s pants and allowed him to unbutton her blouse, and he could pretty well guess what was going to happen next, except that at the critical moment his father rushed into the room, waving a pistol and making a fiery statement about honor. There was a long argument, with Mr. Gribben trying to get his pants back on and getting them stuck on one leg, and there was discussion about a house, perhaps the one they were living in, and when Mr. Gribben left, cursing at them, his father fell into a chair and said in a hoarse voice, “We can’t do this any more, Maude. It’s too dangerous,” but his mother did a little dance around the room, touching the walls and crying, “The kind of house I’ve always wanted.”

  It could have been damaging for a child of ten to absorb what Philip had seen. His mother’s amorous play with Mr. Gribben could have been fearfully disturbing, and his father’s exhibition with the gun might have distressed the boy, but to him, what happened was merely an extension of the plays the family had performed. This was confirmed when he saw the pistol his father brandished: it came from the theatrical company and had a trigger which made a click, but no hammer. And the words his father had said when he burst into the room were not real words. Philip knew them well, and could have recited them, for they came from a play the family had done in Minnesota, the one in which Philip played a girl perched on his mother’s lap when his father tore into the room and cried,