On the Trail of the Truth

by Michael Phillips

  But she also had an annoying side. Now that she and Uncle Nick and Pa and Mrs. Parrish were married, she seemed to figure it was my turn. That whole week whenever we’d get to talking, she’d make little comments how I needed to be practical and look ahead to the time when I’d be starting my own family, and how I oughtn’t wait as long as either of them. According to Katie, it was high time I either got a job or got married.

  “There’s that new young fellow up the pass, Corrie,” she reminded me more than once, “not much older than you, and a nice young man. He’s going to be looking to settle down with a wife before long.”

  She just didn’t understand that I wasn’t interested in marriage yet. Maybe I would be later, maybe I wouldn’t. I didn’t know. But right now there were other things I wanted to think about. Still, Katie kept whispering these kinds of things in my ear. She was determined to be practical, a realist, while Mrs. Parrish had always encouraged me to think about my dreams.

  As much as I missed Pa and Mrs. Parrish, the time without them helped me to see this difference between Katie and Mrs. Parrish, and to think more about myself too. Mrs. Parrish was always telling me that everything has a good side, if you know how to look for it and find it, and I reckon this was one of those times.

  Mrs. Parrish had asked me to go into town once or twice while they were gone to check in at the Freight Company, just to make sure everything was in order. I thought it a mite strange—she’d gone on lots of trips before without anyone having to check up on the business. But I wouldn’t find out why she’d asked me to do that until a few days after they got back.

  In the meantime, I did ride into Miracle Springs one afternoon. When I walked into the Parrish Mine and Freight Company office, Mr. Ashton immediately stood up from the desk where he was sitting and gave me a very pleasant, though awfully formal, greeting.

  “Good morning, Miss Hollister,” he said.

  Miss Hollister! I thought. It’s only me, Mr. Ashton—Corrie Belle!

  But instead of saying what came into my mind, I just answered, “Howdy, Mr. Ashton. Mrs. Parrish said I should come in to see you while they were gone and see how you were doing.”

  “Everything is smooth as can be, Miss Hollister,” he replied, still in a stiff but friendly voice. “Marcus loaded up the Jefferson order this morning and is off to Nevada City with it. And the invoices for the shipment of tools and that sample for the new kind of sluice box came—” He picked up some papers off his desk as he spoke and held them up to show me. “So I have no doubt the merchandise will be arriving in the next day or two. Several of the men are anxious to see the new box.”

  I hardly had a notion what he was talking about, but when he was done he kept looking at me like he was expecting me to say something.

  I gave a halfway sort of nod. “Uh . . . so Marcus Weber’s not here today?” I said. I had intended to say hi to him too.

  “That’s right, Miss. On his way to Nevada City. When do you expect Mrs. Parr—”

  Mr. Ashton caught himself and smiled with an embarrassed grin.

  “When do you expect Mrs. Hollister back, I should say, shouldn’t I, Miss Hollister!”

  “Takes a heap of getting used to the idea, doesn’t it, Mr. Ashton?” I said. “I don’t know what to call her either.”

  “Yes, indeed! Many changes, indeed.”

  “I don’t know exactly, Mr. Ashton,” I said, finally answering his question. “I figured it’d be about a week, like maybe we’d see them back on Sunday or Monday.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s what I thought, too. I only wondered if you, now that you and Mrs.—Mrs.—Hollister—now that you are family, you know—I thought perhaps you might have heard something differently. But yes, Sunday or Monday . . . I’m sure that’s about right.”

  As I left the office I couldn’t ever recollect seeing Mr. Ashton act so strangely. He was talking to me like a perfect stranger! And I was at a loss to figure how Mrs. Parrish marrying Pa would make him behave so downright peculiar to me.

  But it started to come a little more clear after she and Pa got back from their honeymoon trip.

  On Thursday, after they got back to Miracle on Tuesday, Mrs. Parrish said, “Corrie, it’s time you and I had a talk.”

  “Woman to woman?” I said, smiling. I loved the chances we had to be alone and talk for a long time, especially about living as a Christian and thinking more about God in the things that went on every day. I wanted to be a woman like Mrs. Parrish, a godly woman who was different than other folks. I had already learned so much from her, but there was still a lot I didn’t understand. She was teaching me to find out answers for myself by praying and searching in the Bible. So I was expecting another talk like that when she took me aside.

  “Yes, woman to woman,” she replied. “But perhaps even more . . . mother to daughter,” she added.

  “I like the sound of that,” I said.

  “So do I.” But from the look on her face and the serious tone of her voice I could tell something different was coming than the kind of things we’d talked about before.

  There was a long pause. A knot twisted in my stomach, as if something bad was about to come, although Mrs. Parrish had never said or done anything to make me afraid. Finally she spoke up.

  “This is very difficult for me, Corrie,” she said, then paused again. “You know how much I love you—both your father and I?”

  “Yes, ma’am—of course,” I said.

  “Well then, Corrie, you must take what I’m about to say as coming from a heart that loves you very much.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, Corrie,” she went on, “I have to be honest with you and say that I’ve been thinking a great deal about you—about your future. Both your father and I have. And we have discussed what some of the possibilities might be for you—alternatives, things you might do.”

  I didn’t like the sound of her words. Was she going to start getting like Katie and try to marry me off? Had she and Pa spent their week away planning out my whole future?

  But I kept my first feelings to myself and decided to hear her out. And I realized after a while that nothing had changed at all, and that she still wanted me to be able to dream, yet to be practical at the same time.

  “You see, Corrie, most women don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about what they might like to do. They just live a day at a time and life comes along, and they just do what they do without ever stopping to wonder if they might do something else. Or if they might have to do something else. I have thought about this because of losing Mr. Parrish. Women are more vulnerable. They need to be prepared in case they are suddenly on their own. But most women never think of that until it is too late. I certainly never did. Do you see what I mean?”

  “I think so.”

  “Men don’t do that, at least not most of the men I’ve known. Men plan and dream and work to see their dreams fulfilled. Most of the men around in these parts have dreamed of getting rich in the gold fields. Now, most of them won’t, and their dreams will never come true. But at least they think and plan and try to do what they dream of doing. Other men want to get a spread of land they can call their own, maybe have a farm or a ranch and raise horses or cows or grow wheat. I’ve known other men who dream of going to sea. Some of the things they want to do happen, others don’t. But most men are thinking and planning about how they want their lives to go.

  “But most women, Corrie, they just take life as it comes. They’re so dependent on men that they figure what happens to them will depend on what the men in their lives do—brothers, fathers, husbands. They think the men have to make the plans and do the figuring and try the new things and explore the new places and make the money and stake the claims . . . and all the while the women just have to follow along.”

  She stopped, this time for longer. She took a couple of deep breaths, and I could tell she was still thinking.

  “I’m not saying that’s wrong. In one sense, God made men to be the leaders and
the doers and he made women to be the followers. God made the woman to be man’s helper, that’s exactly how the Bible says it, Corrie. The men are supposed to be the ones that are in charge of how the world goes, and the women are supposed to help them, not run off trying to do their own kinds of things independent of men.

  “But not every woman gets married. And, married or single, a woman’s still got to know how to think and how to make decisions. How else can she be a good helpmeet, as the Bible calls it, if she doesn’t use the mind God has given her?

  “And some women—and this is what I wanted to get to, Corrie—some women don’t have men to depend on. Women like me, when my husband died—and like your mother, after your father left. Some women find themselves in circumstances where they have to be able to make their own decisions, to fend for themselves. If they take life just as it happens to come to them, well, they never know what is going to become of them.

  “When my first husband died, Corrie, I had to do a lot of thinking and praying. I began to realize that a woman’s got to be able to think and plan and have alternatives too. Some women more than others. When I suddenly found myself all alone, I realized that I had to make the decisions about what was going to become of me. I had no man to depend on. My life was mine. That’s when I started thinking that a woman needs dreams and plans and thoughts of her own. You can never tell when you’re going to be making the decisions that will determine what becomes of you. Do you see what I mean?”

  “Alternatives?” I asked.

  “Yes. Possibilities—different things you can do, choices you can make. Most women don’t have many alternatives because they never give life or their future enough thought, and never think about the different possibilities. But some women have to. If there’s no man to do it for them, they have to take hold of the reins of their own lives. And they do so because they want to—they want to make the choices that will decide what they do. Most men nowadays aren’t too comfortable with women doing that. But more women than ever are getting an education and even getting jobs everyone figured were just for men.”

  “Like Miss Stansberry?”

  “Yes. Harriet said she had wanted to be a schoolteacher ever since she was young. And though she has her brother with her, I have the feeling she probably would have come out here anyway, even if she was by herself.”

  “She is an adventurous lady,” I said.

  “But women are doing things other than just what folks figure are women-things, like teaching.”

  “Running a business like you do sure isn’t what too many women are doing.”

  Mrs. Parrish laughed. “I’ll say! And it was hard for many of the men around here to accept at first. But like I said, after Mr. Parrish died, I had to think of my options—should I go back East, take over my husband’s business, try to get married again? I decided to become a businesswoman, and I’ve never regretted it. I love what I have done, and I am so thankful that such a possibility was available to me, even though my first husband had been the one to open the door to it for me.

  “Your mother too, Corrie—it was much the same for her. She was left without a man, with a family, with decisions to make.”

  “Ma didn’t have many things she could have done,” I said. “We just stayed on the land like always. Of course, she had kin there to help us.”

  “What if there hadn’t been kin, or what if you hadn’t had the farm? Then she would have had to consider other possibilities.”

  “But we did decide to come west in the end.”

  “Exactly! You see your mother was a strong, thinking, deciding, trying-to-figure-what-was-best kind of woman. She did more than just take life as it happened to come. She made decisions about what she thought was best for her and her family. And, Corrie, I suspect there are a lot more women like that than some of the men realize. That’s why men always seem so surprised when women like your ma or Miss Stansberry—”

  “Or you!”

  She laughed. “And me—why they seem so surprised when a women stands up and does something different than ‘the weaker sex’ does.”

  She laughed again, a humorous laugh, as though she and I were in on a secret no one else knew about. “But we have to be patient with them,” she said, still chuckling. “It may take them a while, but in the end men usually come around to seeing things reasonably, as long as women aren’t too pushy to begin with. Why, nearly all of my customers are men, and by now they are used to doing business with a woman, used to the fact that I have men working for me who consider me their boss. And I think most of my customers have learned to respect me as a fair and honest and intelligent businesswoman, though most of them laughed at the very notion when I first announced my plans to continue the company after my husband’s death. Men just sometimes need a little time to get used to things, that’s all.”

  A silence fell between us. I was thinking about everything she had said. I guess Mrs. Parrish was considering what to say next, because she started in from a whole new angle, talking about me this time.

  “Do you see what all this has to do with you, Corrie?” she asked at length, very serious sounding again.

  She stopped and waited a long time for me to answer.

  “I think maybe,” I replied slowly. “You figure maybe I ought to be thinking about my possibilities, too, because I’m not—”

  “No, Corrie,” she interrupted, “not for any reason other than because I love you very much, and I think you are an extremely gifted young woman. I want only the absolute best for you, and so I think we—your father and I and you—all ought to be thinking and praying about what that might be. We need to consider choices, alternatives, that are before you.”

  I laughed sheepishly. “I’ve told you what Ma said, haven’t I?”

  “About you not being of a marrying sort? Yes, Corrie. But if your mother could see you now—and I believe she can!—she would know you are the most beautiful, wonderful daughter she could ever have hoped for! That’s not at all what I had in mind, Corrie.”

  “I’m not sure I want to get married, Mrs. Parrish,” I said.

  “I know. But whether you do or don’t, I think a young woman still owes it to herself to think about things she might want to do in life—even if she does get married.”

  “Is it because of you and Pa getting married,” I asked, “that you figure now it’s maybe time for me—you know, with me getting older and getting past school age, that I move—?”

  “Oh no, Corrie!” She put her arm around me and squeezed me tight. “I love you so much! I would keep you here with us forever if I could. I never want you to go someplace away from us. Never, Corrie! And I know your pa feels the same way, too. He’s real proud of you, Corrie.”

  You can’t imagine how happy it made me to hear that! “So it isn’t that you think I ought to be finding myself a man, or looking for job someplace, since I’m not a kid anymore?”

  “No, Corrie. It’s just that we want the best for you. We want you to be happy. And more than anything, I want to see you become the woman I think God had in his mind when he made you—a woman doing some exciting things.”

  “What kinds of things?” I asked.

  “That’s just it—I don’t know, Corrie. I simply think there’s a life full of opportunities out there waiting for you. And as much as I would like to always have you by my side, you’re right about one thing—you aren’t a child anymore. And that’s why your pa and I have been talking about some of the ways you might begin preparing for whatever the future holds.”

  “I have wondered about teaching school,” I said. “Seems that’s about the only thing a young woman like me could do—like Miss Stansberry.”

  “Teaching is one possibility.”

  “I’d have to go to college.”

  “I thought of that,” she replied. “Your father and I would have enough money to send you away to a normal school to get your certificate. Though I would hate to see you have to go away.”

  “There’s always
the newspaper writing,” I added.

  “That’s what you really want to do, isn’t it?”

  “Oh yes!”

  “But how to get you started . . . ?” Again her finger found her lips, pursed together now.

  “That’s another one of those areas where men don’t figure a woman has much place, isn’t it?”

  Mrs. Parrish laughed. “Men figure that about everything! I’ll let you in on a secret. I think they are uncomfortable because they don’t like the competition. They’re afraid a woman might do something just as well as they! But I fear you are right—it could be very difficult for a newspaperman to take articles by a woman seriously.”

  “Like Singleton,” I sighed.

  “There is something else I’ve been thinking about, Corrie,” said Mrs. Parrish.

  I looked at her, just waiting.

  “You’ve had some experience teaching, helping Harriet. So that’s one alternative you might explore. You’ve helped your pa with your brothers and sisters for two years, so we already know you could make a good wife and mother. You want to write for a newspaper, but maybe the time hasn’t come quite yet for that. What would you think of learning a little about my business?”

  “The Freight Company?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yes. How would you like to work with me?”

  “I’d never thought of that before,” I said. Then I couldn’t help smiling. “Did you talk to Mr. Ashton about this?” I asked.

  “I think I may have mentioned it to him,” she answered. “Why?”

  “Well, I went in to your office last week, like you asked me to—Say, is this why you wanted me to do that?”