Christy

by Catherine Marshall

  “So in 1750 Neil led them across the narrow hazardous passes, fording rivers, penetrating into the virgin forest of what was then Washington County, North Carolina, later to become Tennessee. Some of the grannies, like Aunt Polly Teague and Granny Barclay, have told me that when at last their forebears lifted their eyes to the smoky blue of these mountains, the peaks lost in ragged cloud edges—for all the world like Ben Nevis or the Coolins—when once again they saw valleys thick with morning mist, so reminiscent of their Scottish bogs, when they listened to the music of the tumbling mountain streams—they wept. They had come home again.

  “Never would they forget their ballads, their highland stories of the occult, their Gaelic superstitions. Always their men would be fighters, quick to take offense, slow to forgive. To their children and to their children’s children they would hand down their love of race, their personal loyalties, their stubbornnesses, their distrust of governments, their servility to no man. These are their strengths and their weaknesses, their glory—and sometimes, Christy, their damnation.”

  Miss Alice had finished. We sat silent for a long time watching the flickering firelight, lost in the spell of the story. At last I thanked her and slipped out, eager to be alone with my thoughts. No wonder Dr. MacNeill had said, “These are my people. I love them.”

  It was not until later that I began to wonder how Miss Alice had been able to tell it like that. Not as though she were telling someone else’s story at all. As though somehow, sometime she had lived so completely into the MacNeill family that she had made it her own.

  Many of the mountain schools were in session only about twelve weeks of the year—six weeks in the summer after spring planting and six weeks in the winter after harvest-time. The Low Gap School had managed four months. Though we hoped to do even better, there was still the necessity of planning around crop times since then the children were needed at home. The parents were insistent because the highlanders had firm traditions about planting times: beans must always be planted on Good Friday. (No one could tell me why.) Corn should be put in when the oak leaves were as large as a squirrel’s ear; late corn and cabbage on the Fourth of July. Since the holiday could not encompass everything, we announced a six-week Spring Planting Holiday to begin on March 29.

  For me it was a welcome recess because it gave me time for calling in the homes and for Fairlight’s reading lessons. And now Opal McHone, hearing about the lessons, pleaded that she too wanted to learn to read.

  Perhaps it was teaching Fairlight and watching the other women at the Sewing Circle that brought into focus some of my dreams for the Cove. When adults were hungry to learn to read, who could deny them that? Or when Fairlight’s spirit was so athirst for beauty that she kept arranging flowers in the one chipped crockery cup she owned, then she was ready to have some beauty added to her life.

  Yet if we were eventually to have more adult classes in reading and in household arts and crafts (as Miss Alice had all but promised the Sewing Circle), then we were going to need either another schoolteacher or a helper for these new projects. Then too, I had that long list of supplies we would need if we were to take in boarders. All of it added up to money and Dr. Ferrand’s work was already stretched financially over seventeen missions scattered over Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas. Was there some new way to obtain funds? My thoughts began darting from one idea to another.

  The week before school let out for the holiday, I had been trying to select an exciting action story from the Bible one evening for my Scripture reading the next day. Going through into the book of Esther, I ran head-on into superlative drama. I had not read before about this King Ahasuerus, an Eastern potentate so absolute and cold-blooded that unless one was ordered into his presence, he ventured into the inner court only at the risk of his neck. For such a stumbler, if the king held out his golden scepter, well and good. In that case, you could tell his excellent Majesty why you were there. But if the king ignored you—say, happened to be too deep in his cups or too engrossed in conversation or just too lazy that day to hold out the scepter—then you were dragged off and hanged.

  Young and beauteous Queen Esther decided one day that she had to risk this dangerous game of Russian roulette, for she had a pressing request to make and the king had not noticed her for a month. In preparation for her uninvited trek into the inner court, the queen asked her kinsfolk to fast and to pray for her for three days; she also fasted and prayed herself.

  But this extraordinary woman did not stop there. She was as aware of outer values as of inner ones. She knew that as a man the king would not be attracted by a wan and spiritual look. So Queen Esther turned her woman’s mind toward an overall strategy which included what to wear, and which of all the perfumes of Arabia would pique His Majesty’s nose best and how to use her rouge-pot and her kohl to best advantage.

  The result must have been good because when she walked across the pavement of the Shushan palace with its colorful squares of red and blue, black and white marble, through the hangings of fine linen, the king was so charmed by her beauty and so impressed by her courage that he not only held out his scepter but added impetuously, “What is thy request? It shall be given thee to the half of my kingdom.”

  The queen’s reply was coy: merely an invitation for King Ahasuerus and his prime minister, Haman, to attend a banquet which she had prepared.

  Naturally the king was puzzled as to why she would risk her life for a mere invitation; she could have sent that by any little slave girl. He guessed correctly that the queen had still not stated her real mission.

  But even at the banquet (which must have been a dizzying success in entertainment), the king did not ferret out what was on Queen Esther’s mind. She persuaded him and Haman to come to yet another party the next day.

  Now King Ahasuerus was piqued as well as intrigued. That night he was unable to sleep. And then at the right moment on the following day, the queen revealed her secret and made her request. She was a Jewess. (The king had not known that.) Her plea was for the life of all of her people—those Jews scattered throughout Persia and Media who had recently been condemned to death by a royal decree suggested to the king by Haman. The terrible day was now approaching—the thirteenth day of the twelfth month—when every Jewish man and woman, even children and babes in arms were to be slain. And King Ahasuerus, by this time thoroughly warmed and mellowed by the companionship of this beautiful woman, immediately granted her plea. Then it was Haman who lost his life.

  I thrilled to hear how this woman had dedicated her beauty, her femininity, and her intelligence to a great cause. It was also a perfect example of my mother’s spirited teaching about the importance of a good appearance for those in religious work. Mother had always insisted that disorder and dowdiness did not glorify God or help His cause one bit.

  So well had Mother gotten her point across that as soon as I volunteered to teach at Dr. Ferrand’s school, I had made the secret vow, “So help me, I am not going to look like one of those caricatures of a missionary.”

  Sitting there at the writing table, at that moment, the idea was born. What Cutter Gap lacked was someone to dramatize its need to people outside. I could do that. I knew that I could! But where to begin? Knoxville was the nearest largest city with people of real financial means.

  And why think small? Who was the wealthiest man in Knoxville? That was easy. Hazen L. Smith, of course. His firm supplied retail grocery stores all over East Tennessee. I knew about him because he was a good friend of my father’s. Still I decided not to use that as an entrée. I wanted to test out a growing conviction that if one had an idea or a dream that was right in the sense of being honest and unselfish and of help to other people—and had an all-out desire to make this dream come true—then a way could always be found. So I wrote a letter to Mr. Hazen Smith telling him simply that I was a schoolteacher in a mission school in Cutter Gap and requesting an interview—nothing more. I received back a brief reply setting up the interview for Apr
il 16.

  But this time—thoroughly chastened by Miss Alice’s criticism of my letters to the businessmen—I cautiously discussed my plan of the Knoxville venture with her. She gave me her permission, only warned me to go slowly and to stay well within Dr. Ferrand’s philosophy of fundraising: no pressure on anyone for a donation.

  As I planned my trip, I saw that there was no way to escape its being something of a production. Since the best train for the city left El Pano at 8:05 in the morning, I would have to spend the previous night at Mrs. Tatum’s boarding house as well as stay with her on the return trip.

  And the remembrance of my walk into the Cove in the deep snow was still too vivid for me to want to walk the seven miles out. So I inquired of my friend Mr. Pentland. “It ain’t to be thought of, your walkin’,” was his reply. “Tell you what I’ll do, I’ll drive my lumber-waggen and team out. Tuesday week next and you can ride to El Pano with me. Only I’m gonna have t’ git the waggen mended first. It was damified right bad Friday, ’twas a week ago, when it slid into the ditch where a chunk of road had clean washed out.”

  He was as good as his word. On that Tuesday I could hear the wagon rattling down the road long before it came in sight and Mr. Pentland’s soft “Whoa, boys,” and then his booming “Howdy, Preacher”—floated up from the front yard. I was all ready and ran down to meet him.

  “Whee-ee!” was his greeting. “Them’s mighty fancy clothes. Why, she’s a sight t’ make a man stand at gaze, ain’t she, Preacher?”

  David did not answer. He stood there looking at me with an expression I could not quite read—not disapproving, yet not his usual jocular self either. He seemed to be annoyed because I had not confided in him. But I had not felt that I should; after all, this trip might be just a waste of time.

  “David, I’m really not trying to be mysterious. It’s an idea I have—maybe silly, but something I’ve got to try.”

  “I understand perfectly.” The tone was a little too dry. “You have another idea about improving the mission. That’s what bothers me.”

  He turned to Mr. Pentland. “Better keep an eye on her, Ben. Once these women start getting ideas, nothing is ever the same again, is it?”

  “Well now—wimmin! Aggervatin’ contrivances, I always say!”

  A little self-consciously I moved toward the wagon, and David swung my little going-away satchel into the wagon bed and helped me up on the seat beside Mr. Pentland. He lingered, obviously not satisfied with the conversation. The teasing look was back in his eyes.

  “If anything goes wrong,” he said, “the mission will stand loyally behind you—but do be careful.” And he waved us off as Mr. Pentland clucked at the horses and the wagon went lurching down the road.

  There were no springs in this vehicle, so the wheels creaked and jolted, the wagon box jumping into the air at our backs as we rattled over rocks in the corrugated roadbed. Whatever screws and bolts and nuts were holding the wagon together would surely soon be loosened and flying through the air!

  “Devil’s washboard,” Mr. Pentland muttered as we skittered into an especially large hole and swerved out the other side. “Them’s gizzard-shakin’, teeth-rattlin’ holes! Fair to wear out a person’s patience.”

  When finally we came to a better stretch, Mr. Pentland commented, “You’re a traipsin’ gal for sure. If I mought ask, what are you a-figurin’ to do in Knoxville?”

  I hesitated. “Well, there’s a businessman I want to call on. I thought maybe I could get some help for the school.”

  “What kind of holp?”

  “Money, I guess. We need so many things.”

  “Well, law! Why are ye tryin’ to keep that a secret from the preacher?”

  “Oh, I suppose because he makes fun of me sometimes. Anyway, if I shouldn’t get what I’m going for, then the less I’ve said, the less embarrassing it will be.”

  “ ’Course you’ll get it! You’ve got gumption and you’ve got a pert and nimble spirit. Well then! That’ll git the where-withal onytime.”

  In the wagon we were having to take a more circuitous route, one that followed the streambeds with the rise of the nearest mountains to our right. Sometimes we would be jolting along in open countryside where it was pleasantly sunny, then our way would swing in close to the base of a mountain and lo, the sun would vanish, blotted out by the mountain. Then we were in stygian gloom, a shivery place without light or life, and I would marvel that such a few paces back, it had seemed such a benign landscape.

  In my mind these eerie spots came to be connected with the ravens that Mr. Pentland had told me about on my first day with him—those monstrous ravens with their wide wingspread and their savage bills; with feathers so black that they could look iridescent-purple—those swooping, craven ravens who liked to prey on weak or sickly creatures, and whose best delicacy was the eyes of live baby animals. Surely I must be an odd one, I told myself, to let the gloom cast by mountain shadows affect me. Naturally I mentioned this to no one. But then I thought of the fun and adventure of seeing Mrs. Tatum again and of being on my way to the big city, and I noticed the shadows no more.

  I got off the train in Knoxville, made my way to the nearest intersection and stood there bewildered at the traffic. Trams and carriages and electric town cars and touring cars were rushing to and fro. The people were walking so fast, all of them in such a hurry! And everyone was so dressed up, the men in dark suits with vests, tipping their hats to the ladies as they passed; some wearing shiny shoes and spats and carrying canes; the ladies sweeping along the board sidewalks, their heads held so proudly. And such elaborate coiffures, with almost all the women wearing hats and gloves. Beautiful hats. Big elaborate hats . . .

  I looked down at my black broadcloth suit and with the palms of my hands tried to smooth the wrinkles out of my skirt. It was the best-looking garment I had taken with me to the Cove, fine material and well-tailored lines, but even with my shirtwaist with the frilled jabot, it looked so plain beside all the finery passing in front of me. I felt like a country girl, dowdy and out of place; somehow I had to get in step with civilization again.

  I boarded a tram car and asked the conductor to let me off in the main business section. There I walked until I found a hairdresser’s. When I emerged, my long hair had been brushed and brushed and elaborately arranged in curls on top of my head, caught up at the nape of the neck in a figure eight. I emerged marveling what civilization could do for a girl’s morale.

  And now I knew that what my suit needed was a dramatic hat to set it off, so I sought out millinery shops. It was at the second one that I found what I sought—a beautiful black hat, the brim faced with white velvet, with swooping ostrich plumes. There was nothing mousy about this millinery. I would have to hold myself erect, carry my head high—not walk, but sweep into Mr. Hazen L. Smith’s office to bring this hat off. But it was exactly right for the black suit and the new coiffure.

  However, I was flabbergasted when I looked at the price tag: twenty-five dollars. My entire salary for one month! I thought of Dr. Ferrand’s plea of how much even one dollar could help with the mission work. For a moment I wavered so much that my Queen Esther plan was almost lost forever. But then came the counterthought of the spiritual law that we have to give in order to receive. Businessmen like my father often spoke of it as the law that you have to spend money in order to make money. And I had a notion that drama has to be well done, never cheap, or it is best not tried at all. So I told the shoplady impetuously, “I’ll take it!” and walked out wearing the hat.

  From the moment the hat rested on my curls, there was no problem about feeling queenly. That hat was magic! Its first test came after I had reached the Smith building and was on my way to the president’s office. At the receptionist’s request, I found myself following a young man with a celluloid collar and a pimply neck down an immense room filled with rows upon rows of stenographer’s desks.

  As I swept down the long aisle formed by the desks, I was thinking of Queen Esth
er and her unfaltering walk across that vast marble pavement. For her, there must have been a moment when the king on his golden throne looked so far away that she might as well have been seeing him through the wrong end of a telescope.

  But then my thoughts were pulled sharply back to the present. As we passed, heads were lifting, eyes were turning from papers to stare. Hands lifted from clicking typewriters. The change in the atmosphere of the room was so noticeable that red started creeping up the young man’s neck above the celluloid collar. But I couldn’t share my guide’s embarrassment at the stir we were creating because my female instinct told me that these were looks of admiration.

  I was shown into a large carpeted office where a heavy-set man beginning to gray at the temples, sat behind an enormous desk. He stood as I entered—and all but whistled.

  “You, a missionary! I don’t believe it. Won’t you sit down? Here . . .”

  As he pulled up a deep upholstered red leather chair for me, I could feel his eyes sweeping me up and down in amazement. Back in his chair, warm kindly eyes continued to study me from behind gold-rimmed spectacles. “Why didn’t someone think of sending out missionaries like you before!”

  I thanked him, trying hard not to show any of the feelings of embarrassment that his frank admiration had stirred. Masculine interest and attention were always fun. Already the clothes had done their part. But now was a decisive moment. I had to see to it that the interest shifted from me to the cause. My part now was to forget myself and concentrate on the story I had come to tell.

  For days I had been planning my presentation to Mr. Smith as carefully as any lawyer draws up his brief or any novelist outlines his plot. The problem was how to capsule the situation in the Cove for a busy man, who was coming at the subject with almost no background. I set myself a twin aim—to capture Mr. Smith’s imagination and to give him the kind of facts and specifics any businessman would want.