A Place in the Sun

by Michael Phillips

  All this time Pa had been so angry at Mr. Royce for everything he’d done, and now all of a sudden he was worrying about being fair—even to him. It didn’t take long for him to start thinking like a politician—and a good one at that, not like the kind who are always trying to twist things for their own advantage. Maybe Pa was gonna be cut out for this kind of thing after all!

  “Aw, come on, Drum,” said Alkali Jones. “How considerate has that snake been t’ you an’ yer missus here?”

  “All’s fair in love and war—and politics—that’s what they say, Drum,” added Mr. Shaw.

  “Now let’s have no more of this, the rest of you,” said Almeda. “My husband has made his first decision as a candidate for mayor, and I think we should support him to the fullest in it. And besides that, I think he’s absolutely right. Ethically speaking, it would give him an unfair advantage to speak in church.”

  “Not to mention mixing religion and politics,” added Miss Stansberry.

  “Even if there weren’t anything wrong with it,” Pa said, “Royce’d squawk and complain of an unfair advantage and might get so angry he’d start causing who knows what kind of mischief all over again. Just because I have to be fair to the man doesn’t mean I trust him any more than I ever did—which isn’t much. No, there’s not gonna be no speaking out about this change of plans in church. If I’m going to win this election, I’ll do it fair and square, so that Royce hasn’t got a straw of complaint to stand on.”

  The room got quiet and people sat back down again. Only Pa remained on his feet, slowly pacing about, as if he had to keep moving while he was trying to think. But when he spoke, since he was standing and all the rest of us were sitting, it was almost like a speech, although I knew speechmaking never crossed Pa’s mind. I couldn’t help being intrigued by the changes I saw coming over him already! He was taking command of the situation, just as Almeda had said she had hoped he would.

  “And that brings us straight back to the question I asked a little while ago,” Pa went on, “which seems to be the crux of the whole matter. My name isn’t even on the ballot. I don’t see how I can run against Royce for mayor, even if I want to. There just isn’t enough time.”

  Silence fell again. He was right. Time was short. What could be done? The ballot obviously couldn’t be changed.

  “What about a write-in vote?” suggested Katie after a long pause.

  “What’s that?” asked Pa.

  “A write-in vote. People write in someone’s name who isn’t officially running. You hear about it all the time in the east—although nobody ever wins that way because they just get a few votes.”

  “That’s it! That’s the perfect way!” exclaimed Almeda excitedly. “What do you think, Drummond?” she asked, turning toward Pa. “We’ll get word out that everyone who was going to vote for me should write in your name on the ballot instead.”

  “That’s a lot of folks to get word to,” replied Pa, “because I still don’t want an announcement made in church.”

  “We could do it, Pa,” said Zack, getting into the spirit of it. “Look how many of us there are right here. We’ll just go out and tell everybody!”

  “He’s right—we could!” said Almeda. “With eight or ten of us, each calling on five or six families, telling them to let it be known—why, the whole community would know in no time.”

  “What are we waitin’ for?” cried Uncle Nick. “Let’s get the horses saddled and the buggies hitched and be off!”

  “Hold your horses!” said Pa loudly. “I figure if all this is going on because of me, I ought have some say in it too!”

  Everybody quieted down and waited. Pa thought for a moment. He was still standing up and slowly walking back and forth.

  “All right,” he said finally, “like I said a bit ago, I’m in this thing, so maybe Zack’s got himself a good idea. If you’re all of a mind to help, then you’ve got my permission to tell anybody you want—”

  A fresh round of whooping and cheering went around the room. Even Rev. Rutledge dropped his normal reserve and got into the act with some noise.

  “Wait a second . . . hold on!” shouted Pa. “Don’t you go chasing off before the wagon’s hitched! I was about to say you could tell anybody you want . . . but ye gotta keep word of this quiet—just one person to the next. I don’t want this being talked about on the streets of Miracle Springs. I don’t want Royce getting wind of it. You just tell people to spread the word around quietly and not to make a big ruckus about it, but just to walk into that schoolhouse on Tuesday and do what they feel they oughta do. The less Royce knows the better. I don’t want to give him any more fuel to try anything else that’s gonna hurt somebody. After the election’s done, he can come and see me if he’s got a complaint.”

  “That sounds easy enough,” said Uncle Nick. “Now can we git going, Drum?”

  “Nobody goes anywhere till after church tomorrow,” answered Pa. “I don’t want it talked about, you hear? Tomorrow afternoon, once folks are back home, then we’ll see what can be done. But we’re all going to go to church as usual, and we’re not going to say anything. You all promise?”

  Everyone nodded, although Uncle Nick and Alkali Jones didn’t like the idea much. I think they would have liked to go and shout the news in the middle of the Gold Nugget so the whole town would know everything in five minutes!

  Rev. Rutledge rose from his chair and walked over to Pa. “May I be the first to offer you my congratulations, Drummond?” he said, extending his hand. “I think you have chosen a reasonable and a wise course of action, and I want to wish you the best.”

  “Well, I reckon we’ll see what’ll come of it in a few days!” replied Pa, shaking his hand. The two men looked at each other for a couple seconds as their eyes met. I can’t say it was a look of love so much as a look of mutual respect, and even friendship. They had sure come a long way together.

  We went to church the next day, like Pa had said, but we all sat there with half-smiles on our faces, as if we all knew a secret we were keeping from the rest of the town.

  Which, of course, we did!

  But we didn’t keep it from them for long. That afternoon, everyone who had been at our place the day before—everyone except Pa, that is. He didn’t feel he ought to go to people and ask them to vote for him—rode on horseback or by buggy all throughout the community to pay short visits to everyone we could. Almeda and Miss Stansberry and Rev. Rutledge had planned out where we would all go. Even Tad and Becky had their calls to make.

  The visits continued on Monday, although Almeda and I went into the office and tried to conduct a normal day’s work in spite of the distraction of knowing the election was the next day. Smiles and nods and whispered words of hope and encouragement as the day progressed told that the word of Pa’s write-in candidacy had spread through the town as quickly and successfully as anyone could have imagined.

  Late in the day, Franklin Royce paid another call. He came into the office, asked for Almeda, then extended his hand and shook hers in one last election formality.

  “Well, Almeda,” he said, “by tomorrow evening this will all be over. So may the best man win, as it were.”

  Almeda smiled, thinking to herself—as was I—that he could not possibly have realized the significance of his own words. He obviously knew nothing about Pa, or Almeda’s decision to remove herself from the race.

  We all went to bed tingling with anticipation and excitement . . . and a little fear besides!

  The next morning, the fateful day of November 4, 1856, we all got up and rode into town in the wagon with Pa, so he could cast his vote.

  Chapter 26

  Election Results

  The voting stopped at six o’clock that night.

  The government man from Sacramento, Rev. Rutledge, and a few people they’d gotten to help locked the door right then and started to count the ballots. They figured to be done and announce the results by eight-thirty or nine o’clock.

  By eight a p
retty big crowd was beginning to gather around the schoolhouse. Lots of people had come back to town, whole families in wagons, carrying lanterns and torches. At eight-fifteen, Mr. Royce drove up in his fancy black buggy. We were all bundled up warm in the back of our wagon. People came over now and then to speak briefly to Pa and Almeda, but mostly we just waited nervously. We tried to figure out how many voters there were. Pa and Almeda thought there would be somewhere between three and five hundred men who lived in and close enough to Miracle to vote for its mayor. There were probably another hundred or two hundred men who lived farther away who would have come to town to vote in the presidential election.

  At about eight-forty the door to the schoolhouse opened. Some men came out, and everybody who was waiting came and clustered around the stairs to hear the news. The government man held a paper in one hand and a lantern in the other.

  “I have some results to report to you,” he said, and silence fell immediately over the crowd. “First of all, in the election you’re most interested in, that for mayor of Miracle Springs, we have tallied the unofficial vote as follows. These will have to be re-confirmed, but this is the first count. For Mrs. Almeda Parrish Hollister, the first name on the ballot, there were 67 votes cast.”

  A small ripple of applause scattered about. Already I could see a smile starting to spread across Mr. Royce’s face where he stood not too far away.

  “For the final name to appear on the ballot, Mr. Franklin Royce, we have a total of 149 votes.”

  Again there was some applause, though it was not as loud as Royce had expected. His smile grew wide. The turnout was not very high, but he was willing to take the victory any way it came. He began making his way through the crowd and toward the steps where he was apparently planning to address the people of Miracle Springs with a short victory speech. He had just taken the first two steps when he was stopped by the sound of the man at the top of the landing again.

  “And in what is a most unusual and unexpected occurrence, we have a third unregistered candidate. . . .”

  Everybody could almost feel the chill sweep through Mr. Royce’s body. The smile began to fade from his lips.

  “This candidate has received a sizeable number of write-in votes. In fact, by our unofficial tabulation, a certain Mr. Drummond Hollister, with 243 write-in votes, would appear to be the winner. . . .”

  Before these last words were out of his mouth, a huge cheer went up from the crowd gathered there in the darkness. Instantly scores of people clamored around Pa and Almeda, shouting and shaking hands and clapping and whooping and hollering. In the middle of it, suddenly Mr. Royce appeared. His smile was gone, and even in the darkness I could see the rage in his eyes.

  “I don’t know what kind of trick this is, Hollister,” he said. “But believe me, you won’t get away with it!”

  Without waiting for a reply, he spun around and walked back to his buggy. No one took any notice as he turned his horse and cracked his whip and flew back toward town. Nothing ever came of this last threat. There was not a thing he could do. Pa had won the election fair and square!

  Chapter 27

  Looking Past the Election

  After the headlong rush of events for the four or five months leading up to the election, the months of November and December of that year seemed like a sudden calm. Like a river tumbling over rocks and through white, foamy rapids, our lives suddenly opened out into a calm pool.

  Everyone, myself included, felt like just sitting back and breathing out a sigh of relief. It was good to know there were no more stories I had to write immediately, no more dangers facing anyone, no more elections, no more trips, no more handbills to pass out. The next morning I lay in bed for a long time, just enjoying the quiet. I didn’t want to get up, I didn’t want to write, I didn’t want to think about anything!

  The whole town seemed to feel that way. People seemed relaxed, but they were talking plenty about the election results! The men spent a lot of time hanging around the street in front of the Mine and Freight, although we hardly had a customer for three days. They weren’t interested in seeing any of us, or in doing business. They were waiting to catch sight of their new mayor!

  When Pa rode into town that Wednesday afternoon, I knew by the look on his face that he had no idea what was waiting for him. He was such a down-to-earth and humble man that he still didn’t realize that he was suddenly a local hero. He had hardly gotten past the first buildings of Miracle Springs when word began to spread, faster than the time it took him to ride the rest of the way in. By the time he got off his horse and was tying the reins to the rail in front of the store, fifty men and women had gathered around him—shouting, cheering, throwing out questions—with kids running through the streets like miniature town-criers, telling everybody that the new mayor was in town!

  Pa just looked sheepishly at everybody, confused and not sure what all the fuss was about. After a minute or so they all quieted down, as if they were waiting for Pa to make a speech or something. But when he finally spoke, all he said was, “Tarnation, what are you all raising a ruckus about? I just came to fetch my wife, and I can’t even get through the door!”

  Almeda wasn’t due until April or May, but Katie, who was due earlier, was starting to show a lot. And once the election was over, the anticipation of two new babies on their way into the Hollister-Belle-Parrish clan started to take more of everybody’s attention. I could see both Pa and Uncle Nick treating Katie and Almeda with more tenderness, pampering them more than usual. Katie still could be reserved and distant, and every once in a while she would say or do something that made me wonder whether she liked Almeda at all. Sometimes I saw a look on Uncle Nick’s face as if he might be thinking, “What’s going on inside this lady I married?” Nick tried to be gentle with her, helping her across the bridge with his hand, or fixing her some soup when she didn’t feel well. Sometimes she’d be appreciative and smiling, but at other times she seemed to resent it, and would snap, “Let me alone. I can take care of myself!” Uncle Nick would stomp around muttering, or go off for a ride or a walk alone in the woods if Katie got after him. It was obvious he didn’t know what to do. Being a husband was still pretty new to him. But Almeda never seemed to take it personally or be hurt by it. Once she said to me quietly after Katie and Uncle Nick had left and we were alone for a minute, “I know what she’s going through, Corrie, and I know how hard it is.”

  “What is it?” I asked. “You mean with the baby and feeling sick and all?”

  She smiled. “Oh, that upsets our system a bit,” she answered, “but there’s more to it than that. The Lord is at work in your Aunt Katie’s heart, Corrie, and she doesn’t like it. We must continue to pray. Her time is coming.”

  That was all she ever said. But ever after that, when I’d look into Almeda’s face when Uncle Nick and Katie were around, or when we’d go up to visit them or to help Katie, I saw an even more tender look in Almeda’s eyes. Maybe she was praying at those times too. After what she’d said to me, I noticed Almeda paying all the more attention to Katie, looking for every opportunity possible to help her or do something for her. I wondered if she would say something to Katie about God as she had with me several years before. But as far as I know, nothing was ever said.

  In the meantime, more visitors began to show up around our place, men coming to ask Pa’s advice about things. They came both to the claim and to the office in town. Sometimes it was about a little thing that didn’t have anything to do with Pa, but maybe they figured that since he was mayor and was a man they could trust, he was the one to ask. And once he realized this was going on, something in Pa’s bearing began to change. There seemed to be a confidence growing inside him. Around town, people would greet him with, “Hey, Drum!” and he’d wave and answer back. Gradually he seemed to get used to the attention folks paid him and quit minding it so much, as if he realized it was his duty now to be something more to them than he had been before.

  Chapter 28

  Dirty
Politics

  It took some time before we found out the results of the national election. We knew the following week that Mr. Fremont had lost his home state of California, but it was weeks before we found out that he had lost the rest of the country too. James Buchanan had been elected the 15th President of the United States.

  By that time I was sure my story had never run in the Alta. I was disappointed for the Fremonts, and I didn’t know what to think about my story. I was sure it would have helped counteract all the rumors and lies being told about Mr. Fremont during the campaign. And Mr. Kemble had seemed to want the information so badly. I couldn’t imagine what had happened. I wrote to Mr. Kemble to find out, but it was well toward the end of November before I got a reply from him.

  Dear Miss Hollister,

  I understand your concern over your Fremont article, especially after the hard work and dangers you undertook on the Alta’s behalf. It was a fine bit of legwork you did, and now that I have been able to extract more of the full scope of what happened from your colleague, Mr. O’Flaridy, I realize just what a powerful article it was and how fortunate I am indeed to count you as one of my reporters. I commend you once again for a fine piece of journalism!

  Unfortunately, as it turned out, I was unable to run the story in the Alta prior to the election. Apparently your man Gregory got back to the Globe and immediately began trying to cover his tracks with accusations against you and our paper. I received a not-so-friendly visit from the editor of the Globe, and he told me that if we tried to run a pro-Fremont piece there was sure to be trouble, for the paper as well as for you. I told him I didn’t believe a word of it and that I fully intended to stand by my reporter and run the story. The world needed to hear, I said, that what was being said about John Fremont was nothing but a pack of lies. He left in a huff and I made plans to print your story just as you gave it to me.