by Annie Boone
This was perhaps, somewhat of an exaggeration, Hazel knew. Clara wanted Peter to be a wealthy mine owner, not a miner, and Minnie wanted something that she could not name. Hazel, especially, wanted her husband to be less of a stranger to her. But they were happy in their situations, despite the circumstances. Having Mother and Father with them would truly make them a family, complete and whole.
She went on, “If you could be persuaded to move here, it would be no trouble at all to have your belongings shipped here for you. You are welcome to stay at the ranch, of course. There is much room and although we are Westerners here, and we are comfortable. Our cook is very adept and I think you will enjoy her meals. We have two servants, and both are hard-working and honest.
I cannot pretend that Colorado will offer all that Boston has, but in time, as we grow, I am sure that the state will develop into an imposing place to live. There is a sense of freedom and vitality here that cannot be found in the East. Colorado is new, you see, and its ways are new. There is not much in the way of tradition here, but we are making our own traditions.
But even so, there are things that your daughters miss. For Minnie, it is the string of cranberries on the Christmas tree. For Clara, it is the majesty of Christmas as it is celebrated in a city where America first began. For me,
Hazel paused. What did she most miss about Christmas in Boston? She considered and then it came to her.
For me, it is the memory of Mother playing the piano while my sisters and I sang carols. But if you come to Colorado, my wishes can be answered, because I have a piano! I play nightly and my husband sits in the chair and listens, just as Father did.
I hope that you will give my suggestion serious thought. Having you here with us would make your daughters the happiest of women, and having the happiest of women would render our husbands the happiest of men.
That, she thought, was a rather lively way to end the letter. It was not, perhaps, entirely true, for the husbands, except perhaps for Gavin, did not realize how much their wives missed their parents and the familiarity of Christmas as they had celebrated it all their lives. But they would be happier, beyond a doubt, to have family nearby when it was time for grandchildren to be born, as, she hoped, the following year would allow.
There was the issue of Oakley. Her parents would wonder at the presence of the child in the household, a child who had no distinct identity, but closely resembled the son-in-law who did not acknowledge her. That would have to be addressed, she understood, but it was not something that could be broached in a letter which must travel almost two thousand miles in order to reach its recipients.
How pleasant it would be to have Mother at their side again, and Father enthusiastic as he had been in better times. How suited he was to the West, Hazel thought. His brimming ideas would overflow with ways in which the West could capitalize on its assets and he would find more fertile ground here than he had in the East, for the West reveled in novelty. There was room here; the very landscape nurtured a breadth of thought that was not possible in the cramped, settled East.
Yes, she thought, Father would adapt. Mother? How would she manage? But then, Hazel reminded herself, the Boston that her parents had treasured was closed to them. They had lost their money and, with that, their prestige and their cachet. Father was living in three rented rooms, a lodger now; Mother was still at the sanatorium, although gaining strength. Would it not be better to leave what was no longer theirs and come West, where they could stake a claim to a bolder future, just as a miner stake a claim to the wealth that he was willing to chisel out of the ground as Peter was doing with the Silver Belle Mine? Could they not find happiness here?
I think, she wrote, that you will be surprised at how much you can achieve in a place where there are no preconceptions about merit or background. Here, a man is judged on his character, not on his pedigree. Your sons-in-law are not ashamed to work hard, in fact, they relish it. And they are witnessing the fruits of their labors. There are no mansions here, it is true. But I can promise you a loving and comfortable home where you will find that, when a family is together, there is more wealth than we could ever have drawn on from a Boston bank.
Do, please, consider moving West to live with us. Your daughters and the future, with all its promise, are waiting to welcome you. Colorado itself will welcome you, you will see. If you think I sound fanciful, only consider that I am speaking the truth. I left Boston with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes. If you come West to stay, I will have tears of joy instead.
Your loving daughter,
Hazel
PS. This is a surprise for Minnie, so please, in your letters to her, say nothing of your forthcoming visit to Colorado. You are her Christmas present!
As she sealed the letter, Hazel wondered if this was how it had been for Minnie when she was corresponding with potential husbands for her sisters, ensuring there would be as little left to chance as possible. There was more certainty in contacting Mother and Father than in reaching out to answer advertisements in a magazine, but there was still that intimation of the unknown. Perhaps Mother and Father were just finding their footing as a married couple who had lost all that was familiar to them. They might not want to leave the remnant of their lives that was left to come here, to Colorado, where they would be starting their lives anew.
And yet, Hazel thought, perhaps a new start was just what they needed. Boston would not change its ways and the Ellises would not regain their station in life. It was a cruel fact of the way things were in the established centers of the world. But in Colorado, there were no set patterns yet. She had written the truth when she told her parents that here, they could be part of making new traditions.
If they came to Colorado to live, there would be so much that was strange to them. But if the ranch was to be their home, they could not dwell in uncertainty. Harley would welcome them and she knew that his hospitality was genuine. Despite his reserve, he was not a loner, even if he did not seem to know how to allow that invisible wall to come down. She wondered if he had always been this self-contained, even as a child. The clothing in the nursery bespoke a boy who ran and played, who wore his garments out as fast as he outgrew them. She had gone into the room not long after arriving, her manner almost furtive as she sought the source of Oakley’s wardrobe.
There was nothing hidden about the room. The garments were neatly folded and put away. But Oakley must have been in the room, searching, perhaps for boy’s clothing to wear? Or for something else? Or had the nursery been her bedroom when she was younger and she had returned to it for its familiarity? The ranch had a number of unoccupied rooms, filled with furniture from other houses, Hazel supposed. Minnie had told Hazel that according to Gavin, Oakley had shown up at the ranch after infancy, but while she was still a very young child. Had Oakley’s mother had reason to leave her daughter with Harley, the father, knowing that Harley would not turn his own child away, even if he had not acknowledged his paternity?
Hazel sat at her writing desk, the letter in her hands. These were questions which would demand answers before the Ellises came. But only Harley had the answers and he had given no indication thus far that he was prepared to divulge what he knew.
15
Clara was fretting over her Christmas performance. It seemed that it was going to be impossible for the actors in the program to have speaking parts.
“They all have accents,” she complained.
“So do we,” Hazel pointed out. The cloth background for the Bethlehem stable scenes was pinned to the clothesline outside. It was a windy day and the fabric swayed in the movement, making it difficult to tell whether the images matched the Bible narrative.
Clara came to an abrupt halt in the midst of her diatribe. “We speak properly,” she corrected her sister. “The people in the mining camp come from everywhere. We cannot relay the birth of Jesus with Mary sounding as though she comes from Canada and Joseph speaks like a German peasant.”
“I doubt if either sounded anythi
ng like a Bostonian. Now, I’m holding the cloth as best I can,” Hazel said, bending low so that she could grip the fabric from the bottom. “You can look at it and tell whether it’s enough.”
“The manger is very good,” Clara said. “I thought we’d use a real manger, though. Peter can build one and we can put hay in it. I’m sure that one of the miners’ wives will have given birth by then. Not that I can say for sure that all of the women who are with child are wives,” she said darkly.
“Clara, you cannot expect an infant to be put in an outdoor manger in winter!”
“It would not be for very long,” Clara said.
“No,” Hazel said firmly. “The children risk enough living in the camps. They can’t take the change of taking ill. We must have Mary carrying a doll in her arms. Besides,” she said with guile as Clara began to protest, “what if the baby should mess its diaper? The smell—”
Clara’s fastidious nature saw the wisdom of this argument immediately. “Yes, of course,” she said. “You are right. We’ll leave the manger filled with only hay and Mary will hold a doll in her arms. The doll must be so well wrapped that no one will be able to tell that it’s not a real child. Yes,” she said, concurring with her decision. “Exactly.”
“Have you chosen Mary and Joseph?”
Clara sighed. “Not yet. I want everyone to see the performance and afterward, we can serve cakes and hot coffee.”
“What about the children?”
“Oh. Something?”
“Hot apple juice?”
“Yes, I suppose. Although it wouldn’t surprise me if they drink coffee. Really, Hazel, you’ve no idea how—how—ramshackle their lives are. It’s quite alarming. The children have no schooling, and they run around like heathens. I believe that the women do try to maintain a home within the camp, but how can they when they’re simply swarmed together like a colony of insects?”
“Do the people. . . are they aware that this performance is taking place?”
“Of course,” Clara said. “I’ve told them so.”
“In English.”
“I could tell them in French, I suppose; some of the French-Canadian miners would understand.”
“What about the others? You do not want to put on this performance and then have no one show up because they hadn’t a clue that they were invited. I wonder if you should offer some presents for the children?”
“If Peter could only strike the silver vein before then,” Clara said, “then we could do this in a proper fashion.”
“Let’s not put that sort of a time frame on it,” Hazel said. “I can ask Harley if he would like to provide for presents for the children. They would be small presents,” she warned. “How many children are in the camp?”
“Oh, many.”
“Clara, we need to know how many. If there are going to be presents, we must have enough.”
“You’re certain that he’ll do this?”
It was the opening that Hazel had been waiting for. She unpinned the cloth scenery from the clothes line. “Let’s go inside,” she suggested. “We can hang it inside your upstairs room and—”
“Not the upstairs room,” Clara said with pink cheeks. “It’s. . . well, it’s not at all appropriate. Downstairs will be sufficient.”
“Very well,” Hazel agreed, curious at her sister’s reluctance to let her see the upstairs.
When they were inside the house, Hazel returned to the subject of Harley’s generosity. “I know that he will be happy to provide money for presents for the children. He is sending money to Mother and Father so that they can travel to Colorado for Christmas.”
Clara was speechless. “Mother and Father? For Christmas?” she repeated.
“Yes, but you must say nothing to Minnie. I’ve written to Mother and Father, but I don’t want Minnie to get her hopes up, in case they are not able to come.”
“Mother and Father might come! Oh, Hazel, if they would come, it would make this Christmas the best ever!”
Hazel smiled, recalled her sister’s account of how Peter had responded to a previous hope for a superlative holiday. But she could not help but agree that it would indeed give the holiday season an added lustre, if Mother and Father were there to share it with their daughters. And, of course, their sons-in-law. For the Ellis family had expanded with the marriages of the daughters.
“Remember,” Hazel cautioned. “Nothing to Minnie.”
“I never see her anymore,” Clara said. “She’s always working with Gavin. I should be terribly upset with Peter if he expected me to go down into the mine with him.”
“You have enough to do,” Hazel said. It was up to Clara to maintain the household, keeping the home clean, doing the laundry, cooking the meals, taking care of the sewing and mending and now, with her efforts to present a Christmas program to the residents of the mining camp, she was certainly busy enough.
“Peter is always amiable and appreciative,” Clara said. “I think he and Father will get along very well. I don’t know if Mother will take to him right away. He does require some getting used to.”
“If he’s a good husband to you, and you feel that he is, then Mother will be sufficiently pleased.”
“Yes, but she’d be even happier if we could be rich by the time they arrived,” Clara said. “I thought that it would not take so long, but Peter tells me that it can be quite time consuming to find the silver vein. He is very patient, but I am not.”
“I don’t think that Mother or Father will be in haste for the mine to produce the wealth that you are waiting for.”
“You can say that because Harley is the wealthiest cattle rancher in this part of the state.”
“Not quite that big an area,” Hazel corrected her.
“He’s very wealthy, nonetheless.”
Hazel managed to keep her face from revealing anything. “Mother will not be pleased if she comes and we are talking about money,” she said. “She always said it was vulgar to talk about money.”
Clara exhaled a long, slow sigh. “I can’t help but think about it,” she said shamefacedly. “We grew up with everything and now we must work for everything. Peter works hard, too, and I can’t fault him. But I thought we would be rich by this time and we are not. I hoped to be able to host Mother and Father,” she admitted. “But the house is too small for company.”
“The ranch isn’t too small. We shall have them with us and they can visit you and Minnie as they please. If they come.”
“I shall write to them,” Clara said, “and add my persuasion to yours. Surely if the two of us are united in this, they shall not be able to say no. But what about Minnie?”
“I called upon her and we chatted,” Hazel said. “She said she is well, but upon occasion, she feels like weeping for no reason. She is concerned that she is afflicted as Mother has been.”
“Nonsense!” Clara said immediately. “Mother was overwhelmed by the debts that Father could not pay and she could not endure the daily degradations of not having the money for the things that we wanted and then, inevitably, what we needed. Minnie is entirely forthright about needing to work so that she and Gavin can make raising sheep profitable. I don’t for a moment believe that she is going to end up in a sanatorium for her nerves.”
“Nor do I,” Hazel agreed, relieved that her sister had taken the most salutary view of Minnie’s condition.
“It’s possible that she’s in the family way,” Clara suggested. “But I would expect her to be happy at news like that. If Mother were here, she would be able to find out.”
“If Mother were here,” Hazel returned, “Minnie might not be downcast. We must hope that she and Father agree to come.”
“They must agree to stay for a long time. Did you put that in your letter? They would not wish to travel in the winter. They must stay until spring.”
“I have asked them to consider moving here,” Hazel told Clara.
Clara’s face, once again, revealed the intensity of her hopes for this to come t
o pass. “Move here! That would be—oh, Hazel, if they would move here and be with us, Minnie would ever so joyful and we would be a family together again. Do you realize,” she said, her brown eyes suddenly serious with weight of her thoughts, “that when we have children, they will grow up without grandparents. We had Father’s parents for a time, and we visited Grandmama in England. But nobody here, it seems, has grandparents. The ones who moved here did so on their own and they have children, but that isn’t enough.”
It was true, Hazel realized, what Clara had said. The people who came West were young and hardy and full of hope. Those hopes might be dashed and cares aged the settlers before their time, but they did not have the generation before them to call upon for advice and aid.
“When you write to them,” she said, “you might want to mention that. It may persuade them. If they learn that our husbands do not have family in close proximity, they may take pity on us.”
Clara laughed. “I will certainly make our situation sound most piteous,” she promised. “It will be wonderful to have them here. They will be able to come to the performance. Oh, Hazel, do you think Mother would sing?”
“Perhaps. You might ask her.”
“I don’t know. I don’t want her to think that we are putting on a performance for one of the ladies’ charities. There are none, at least, none that I am aware of. Except for the Missionary Society and they send money to missionaries who venture into the most wretched of places. But there is no one here who comes to the aid of the miners and their families and perhaps someone should.”
It was unusual for Clara to be so concerned about others. She did not lack for compassion, but Hazel and Minnie had always known that Clara’s realm of interest tended to be focused on matters entirely relevant to her. The miners in the camp were nothing more than neighbors and as Peter had built such an impressive house in comparison to the camp, it was plain that Clara was a step above the others. Perhaps that was the crux of the matter, Hazel thought as she rode Juno back to the ranch. Here at the mining camp, Clara could be the great lady of the community. Even though Peter was a miner, the Edwards couple lived in a respectable dwelling. Whatever the reason, Clara was, in her high-handed and resolute way, serving the work of the Lord. God was already aware, by this time, that Clara was not the humblest of His servants, but He could not dispute her effectiveness.
