A Home for the Heart

by Michael Phillips

  I am of the strong conviction that a man and wife must move together in all things, not separately. It seems that we must begin even at this stage to function as one, and therefore, though I am convinced this is the proper course to follow, I earnestly desire to know your heart on the matter. If it should not be as mine, then I would rethink and repray the whole matter.

  I will await your reply to this proposition of mine. Obviously, I do not want to proceed with it if you have objections, though I sincerely think such a course would insure us a much stronger marriage.

  My hope is, upon hearing in the affirmative from you, to take my leave of Mrs. Timms by the middle of October or the first of November at the latest. By then I will have all the crops in, she will be set for the winter, and our new man will be well able to take over my responsibilities.

  Did I tell you that I found a man whom I have hired as replacement? Being able to rest easy about Mrs. Timms has taken a great load off my mind. Tom McKittrick is with us now and working alongside me, learning everything about the place. I like him very much. He is a Christian and single, like me, with a heart to serve his new employer, which is the primary character quality I was looking for.

  In any event, once the farm is well set for winter, then I will travel west by train and stagecoach, planning to arrive in California before the worst of the winter weather sets in. I would hope that would mean before Christmas.

  What a delight it is even to contemplate being able to share Christmas with you again!

  But I will wait for your answer.

  Yours fondly and

  with anticipation,

  Christopher

  I had not been home ten minutes from town before I was in my room, pen in hand, writing my reply to Christopher’s letter:

  Dear Christopher,

  Yours is the most novel proposition about marriage I have ever heard!

  Have no anxiety about me or how I might react to something. Even where you and I may differ—I am sure we will from time to time, though the thought of it now seems foreign to me—I know you do nothing without careful thought and prayer. If I do not understand something, or even if I don’t agree, I still trust you. I know I can depend on your dialogue with God, and that if you are in error he will show you. And since you want so badly to hear him and to do nothing but what he wants you to do, I know you will be listening whenever he corrects you. So I need worry about nothing at all!

  But you especially have nothing to worry about with regard to your proposal. Everything you said makes so much sense I don’t know why every Christian family doesn’t adopt it. I love the idea!

  You’re right about my father’s experience and wisdom, though he probably wouldn’t admit it. I don’t think he realizes what a man of God he has become through the years. I have no doubt that he and Almeda will love you, but I understand everything you say and am more than willing to consent to it.

  I must admit, however, that perhaps the possibility of your being here for Christmas makes everything else you said seem insignificant in comparison. The year “wait” will not really be a wait—it will be fun! I never anticipated being married, so I’m in no hurry for that. I’m just in a hurry to be with you, my wonderful, wonderful friend, and to know that all my family knows you. I’m excited about the thought of having you here with us for a whole year before we embark on that new phase of our lives.

  I am so excited. I can’t wait to see you again!

  Yours always,

  Corrie

  Chapter 10

  The Same . . . Yet Not the Same

  I kept busy through the autumn. Gradually the oak trees went gold and red, then brown, and the temperature began to cool. Autumn arrived, and the Sierras began to think about snow again.

  I was thinking a lot too—of the past, and the future, and what was the same and what was different.

  I found that every change in the landscape reminded me so much of former times, of all that God had shown me through his world. I remembered some of the articles I had written, and I dug the papers out of the box where they were stored and read them over again. Then I decided to go visit some of the places that had prompted the articles and also some other places that had been special to me or that had caused me to think about things in a new way.

  Walking in the woods above our house, I thought of the time I’d walked there long ago and come across Little Wolf for the first time. That had been right after we’d arrived in California. Now it seemed too long ago.

  A few days later, Katie and I had a nice visit and several good laughs reminiscing about when she had come to California, thinking she was going to marry Pa. The article about her and her apple seeds started the conversation, but then we talked about so many things besides. We ended the morning by going out to pick the last of the ripe Virginia apples off the trees. That afternoon we peeled enough for two cobblers—one for each house—and stored away enough for plenty of Christmas pies.

  Another day I took a ride up Buck Mountain the way I’d gone with Mr. Jones during the blizzard, and I had a nice visit with the Wards, who still lived in their place up there. Mr. and Mrs. Ward did not seem a day older. And yet the whole visit with them was different because I had grown older. They now seemed so much closer to my own age. I had found that was true with all the adults of Miracle Springs.

  Riding slowly down off the Buck, I found myself reflecting about all the places and people I was renewing my acquaintance with.

  Everything was the same, and yet not the same. Things didn’t look or feel quite the way they had before. I thought a lot about that. Did they seem different because they had changed slightly, or was it because I was now looking through the eyes of an adult rather than those of a girl. Even though two years wasn’t that long a time to be away, it had been years since I had seen some of the places I was now visiting. How much different might my memories be, after being worked over and over in my mind as I grew, from the reality of what those places really were like?

  It probably shouldn’t have surprised me that all this reminiscing occupied my mind. I had always liked to think about things and to ponder what they were like and what they meant. But even after I had been home several months, I would still find myself noticing something and saying to myself, “That’s different than I remember it.”

  Also, glad as I was to be home, I was having difficulty settling down into a regular routine. When I left home two years before, I had felt an uneasiness, wondering how long I would be gone and when I would return. Now I found almost the reverse happening. Now that I was back, I couldn’t seem to fit comfortably into the life I had known before.

  I puzzled over this for some time as I rode down off Buck Mountain.

  I took a number of long, peaceful walks during the fall. Quiet moods came over me more often. I don’t know if it was because of being older and seeing everything through more experienced eyes, eyes that had seen more of the world. Or perhaps it was from being here in California for the first autumn in more than two years and appreciating it and relishing in it all the more because I’d been away.

  I read Mr. Thoreau’s book again from cover to cover during the fall, recalling to mind so many places that had looked different after I learned to look at nature through Mr. Thoreau’s eyes.

  I was returning one day from a long walk in the woods. As I emerged into the clearing up above the house, my eye caught the entrance of the mine, now still and empty. They hadn’t worked it much for several years now, though Pa still puttered and clanked about with a pick now and then.

  I had not been near the mine since coming home. Now, suddenly, the youthful urge to explore came over me. A lamp was perched on a rock ledge just inside the entry. I had several matches in my pocket, and I tried to light it. There was still some kerosene left, and the wick took. I adjusted the flame, then picked the lamp up by the handle and crept farther into the black mouth that had been the center of our lives so long ago.

  The mine cave was like everything else in
Miracle Springs—it looked the same but felt different. There were a few changes from how I remembered it, whether from work Pa and the boys had done or my own faulty memory, I didn’t know.

  It was early in the morning. It had been quiet outside, except for the birds. In the cave, there wasn’t a sound.

  I walked slowly straight through the open subterrane. Even though my eyes were wide open and there was enough light from the lantern to see by, I wasn’t concentrating or focusing my eyes on the rock of the walls.

  Suddenly the back wall confronted me. I nearly knocked my head as the roof slanted down to become the end of the cave.

  This wasn’t where the wall was supposed to be, I thought to myself. It should be farther back. Perhaps the way curved around to lead deeper into the mountain.

  I turned and looked all about me.

  No, I had reached the end. I had walked all the way through the mine.

  Puzzled, I turned my light back and held it up, gazing all around me. The cave was so much narrower and shorter than I remembered. Then again I turned to face the back wall. It had always seemed so huge whenever I’d come in before, when Pa and the others were pounding and chipping and hammering away.

  At last it struck me . . . the cave hadn’t shrunk—I had grown. Not in body—I was no taller than when I last saw it. But my eyes were bigger . . . my inner eyes, which had seen a great part of a huge and enormous world.

  Once more, all I had witnessed came back to me. These eyes of mine had traversed this whole country. They had watched terrible battles and seen blood, anguish, and death. How could something like a little cave not seem smaller after all that?

  I thought of all the people I had met who had had influence on my life—President Lincoln, Sister Janette, Clara Barton, the dead boy at Gettysburg whose eyes had seemed to cry out to me . . . and of course, Christopher Braxton.

  Those people, those experiences—they had changed me.

  Of course, I had known that already, but somehow I knew it more deeply now. Maybe what made me aware of it at a deeper level was realizing that I could never go back and make it the way it had been before. I had seen too much, been too many places, known too many people. Things would never be the same.

  A light brightened the cavern behind me, adding to the thin illumination of the lantern I held. I turned.

  There stood Zack.

  “Breakfast is waiting you, Corrie,” he said.

  “How did you know where to find me?” I said with a smile.

  “I was out in the stables . . . I saw you go in. What are you doing here anyway?”

  “Oh, just renewing old memories, I reckon.”

  Zack nodded as if he understood perfectly what I meant.

  “But the mine seems smaller than it once did,” I added.

  Now it was Zack’s turn to smile.

  “It happened the same way with me,” he said, “after I was away in the desert with Hawk.”

  Mostly I think my moods during this time were quiet because everything I saw, every place I went, every thought I had, I wanted to share with Christopher.

  Before, I’d been able to appreciate things just for the way they were. But now something was missing when I just looked at them all by myself. Not that I couldn’t have told Almeda or Pa or Becky or Zack or Tad about them. But to make the experience complete, I would have to sit down with Christopher and know that he was looking at the things that were so special to me through the same eyes that I was.

  Oh, I wanted to show him everything! Every leaf, every twig, every tree, every path through the woods, every rock where I sat, every bend in every stream, every sunset, every sunrise . . . everything! I wanted to take him to all my special places, ride into the mountains together . . . everywhere!

  I know the others noticed the quietness about me, and I think they understood. Of course I’d told them about Christopher, and they were certainly aware of the letters flying east and west between Miracle Springs, California, and Richmond, Virginia. Nearly every day that fall, I imagine there was probably a letter from one of us going one way or the other in just about every state between the Atlantic and Pacific!

  Out of respect for Christopher’s request, I tried to be careful not to say too much when I talked to the family about him. For there to be a man in the life of the girl Ma had as well as predicted would be a spinster was news enough.

  Pa teased me a lot about it. Almeda and I had several woman-to-woman talks, and she seemed to understand why I needed not to say too much. Pa, too, and the others, never did ask straight out if we were going to get married. When I told them of Christopher’s plans to come for a visit so soon, before the year was out, they knew it was serious enough between us. But still they didn’t ask me direct, and I was glad of that. I wouldn’t have wanted to face the question!

  Gradually news filtered through the town that a young man was coming from the East to see Corrie Belle Hollister.

  Then there were those that began to wag their tongues, and I started getting questions and comments about “my beau.” With people outside the family I was able to laugh and give a vague answer without too much trouble. Some of the old busybodies who took pleasure in spreading the town gossip didn’t like it too much, but it didn’t bother me to let them stew. It was none of their business anyway, and they would find out soon enough—that is, if and when Christopher wanted them to.

  It wouldn’t surprise me if a few of the women in Miracle Springs were having a contest between themselves to see who could be the first to find out “what Corrie’s up to!” I had to laugh to myself whenever I’d see one of them coming toward the Supply Company or when one of them would begin talking in confidential tones to me after church. I knew they were going to try to engage me in friendly conversation long enough for me to let something slip that they could then take back to their friends like a precious jewel they’d discovered!

  Chapter 11

  The Future Comes Calling Sooner Than Anticipated

  There was an early snowfall in mid-October. It didn’t snow in Miracle Springs, of course, but from the cold storm that blew in we knew it had to be snowing in the higher elevations to the east. The last thing Pa said before we went to bed was, “There’s gonna be snow in the morning someplace.”

  Sure enough, next morning you could see white up in the mountains. By then the storm had blown by. It was a brilliant sunny day, and I knew the minute I got up that I wanted to ride up where the snow had fallen.

  I didn’t have a horse of my own yet. Raspberry, my old favorite, was gone. So I borrowed one of Zack’s that he called Blue Star, because of a splotch of dark, almost bluish-black, below his eyes on his pale dun head, and he and I set out up the mountains.

  It was a gorgeous day. The remaining chill in the air, so clean from the snowfall and rain, made everything fresh and clean, and just breathing the air into my lungs felt good. I followed one of my favorite trails up through the foothills to the east, along Grouse Ridge and up toward Fall Creek Mountain, where I’d ridden on my twenty-first birthday.

  About halfway up I began to encounter snow, and by the time I reached the ridge, Blue Star’s hooves were plowing through five or six inches of fresh white powder. Finally I stopped, tied the horse to a tree, and walked about for probably an hour or so—until my feet inside my boots were nearly frozen and I couldn’t stand it anymore!

  Mostly I remained among the pines where the snow wasn’t so deep, just enjoying the absolute stillness of the white and green world about me. Every tree was a perfect Christmas tree, with boughs and branches bending under the weight of the snow. Occasionally one would let go its crystalline burden, which fluttered to the ground with a powdery silent puff.

  No revelations came to me. I don’t even remember what I was thinking about. The peaceful stillness was enough to enjoy all by itself.

  Suddenly ahead of me appeared three deer—all doe, I think, or else a doe and two of her children. They were all about the same size, and one had antlers. I froze
in my tracks, trying not to make the slightest movement.

  They were walking slowly about in the snow, looking for grass and leaves to eat, and they saw me just as I noticed them. They all stopped, glancing up at me, and held absolutely still, ears cocked.

  There we stood, me and the three deer, staring at one another from a distance probably of about twenty feet. No sound disturbed the forest. I don’t even remember the single chirp of a bird. I don’t know how long I stood, probably five minutes at least, and maybe longer. It was one of those moments when time seems to stop.

  There has always been something inside me that wanted to communicate with animals. I don’t mean talk to them, but to get inside that place within them where we are alike, to touch that common creatureness that the higher animals must somehow share with man.

  There is something indescribable about having eye contact with a wild creature. A peaceful love sort of solidifies the moment, and the memory of it, even days later, can make you smile like you have a secret. You also feel that kind of bond with horses at times, or at least with special horses, like Raspberry, that you’ve gotten to know and that you feel know you too. It’s different than communicating with a human being, but feeling that momentary bond with an animal is wonderful in a completely unique way.

  That’s how I felt as I was staring at the three deer—a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood from being part of God’s creation, part of his huge family of created beings. Somehow, too, it fit in perfectly with my quiet mood.

  Then, just as suddenly as I had come upon them, one of the deer lifted its right forepaw and took a step toward me. For a second I thought it was going to approach closer! What a thrill it would be to establish such a trusting bond with a wild animal that it would come up to you without fear! But then it turned its head, set down its foot in the other direction, and took several slow steps through the wood. The other two followed, and the next moment they were gone.