Daughter of Grace

by Michael Phillips

  “And, Corrie,” she said, “why don’t you write something brief on the bottom of it. Just explaining the picture, you know. You have such pretty writing. It’ll make it all the nicer.”

  Well, if Mrs. Parrish was trying to make me feel good, she sure was doing a good job of it! Who can turn away a nice compliment like that? I tried to act nonchalant about it, but inside I was happy that she liked my picture.

  I asked her if I could borrow Mr. Ashton’s desk for a minute, seeing as he wasn’t there, and a pencil. She cleared a place for me, and then I sat down.

  I wrote on the bottom of my drawing:

  On September 17, at approximately 3:30 in the afternoon, the mining town of Miracle Springs, California, was honored by a visit from United States Army Captain Ulysses Grant, shown here on his horse with his men. The visit took place during the town picnic in honor of the newly completed church and school building. Captain Grant spoke for a while to the people in attendance, also shown in this picture. The Captain was on his way to his new duty at Fort Humboldt, at the northern California lumber town of Eureka.

  I couldn’t help adding at the bottom of that, but in smaller letters: Picture by Cornelia Belle Hollister.

  It was sure no photograph. But we didn’t have photograph machines in Miracle like they did in Sacramento. Mrs. Parrish liked it all the same, and she marched outside with my picture and tacked it up with a hammer right then for the whole town to see.

  Mr. Singleton saw it the next time he was in town and asked Mrs. Parrish who wrote the brief article on the Grant visit. I laughed when she told me about it—him calling it an “article”! And I do have to admit that he treated me a little more like a grown-up next time we talked about my working on something for his paper.

  For the time being, about all that came of it was that every once in a while Mrs. Parrish’d ask me to draw something for her board—sometimes just for fun, sometimes showing the men some new mining contraption she had for them to buy. And always she’d ask me to write something to go along with the picture.

  Pretty soon the writing part of it got to be more than the drawing part. She’d ask me to just write up a notice about such and such a thing for the board, with no picture. And by the time she thought about printing up a little flyer about her company, well I guess I was the natural one she thought about to do most of the writing for it, even though she told me what to say.

  So as it turned out, my first chance to see my words in a real newspaper was in an advertisement for the Parrish Mining and Freight Company. And by the time Mr. Singleton and I talked again about real article-writing, he’d gotten used to my being someone who could write a little, even if up until then it had just been little advertisements.

  Captain Grant, I read later in one of the San Francisco papers, hated the cold and wind and rain and fog at Fort Humboldt so much that he got despondent, and some folks said he started drinking real bad. The Alta article in 1854 ended by saying, “Captain Ulysses Grant resigned at thirty-two years of age. He has now left the army, apparently for good, and returned to his family in Ohio.”

  Ever since his first visit to Miracle, whenever I saw news about Mr. Grant, I copied it down. And, of course, he didn’t stay out of the army forever, but came back to become one of President Lincoln’s generals in the Union army. But I didn’t know that would happen when I read of his resignation in the Alta in 1854, and the news made me sad.

  Chapter 6

  The Adventure

  Even though I’d lain awake in bed long after everyone else was asleep the night after the picnic, I was the first one up the next morning.

  Pa was still snoring in the other room, all the kids were quiet and still, and it was just beginning to get light. I got out of bed quietly, dressed, and went outside. I was too keyed up even to think about staying inside! Mrs. Parrish’s words of the previous afternoon had been ringing through my head all night.

  The minute Pa came out of the cabin half an hour later, I ran toward him. I guess I didn’t exactly use a subtle approach to get him to agree to what I was about to ask. I’m afraid I didn’t even give him the chance to get to the outhouse!

  “Pa, Pa, can I go to San Francisco with Mrs. Parrish?” I shouted, running up to him.

  Poor Pa! I don’t think he even knew I was out of bed!

  He glanced up, bewildered. “What’re you talking about, girl?” he said as he fiddled to straighten one of his suspenders.

  “San Francisco, Pa! Mrs. Parrish asked me to go with her!”

  “If that woman ain’t always—” Pa muttered to himself. But then he stopped and said to me, “I don’t know, Corrie. I ain’t heard nothing about it till just this minute, and—”

  “She asked me yesterday at the picnic, Pa, and—”

  “Tarnation, girl! Hold on to your britches! Just gimme a minute to take care of myself!” As he was talking he hurried off toward the outhouse at the edge of the woods.

  When he came back a few minutes later, he looked considerably more relaxed and ready to listen to me.

  “Now, what’s this all about, Corrie?”

  “Mrs. Parrish has to go to San Francisco for some meeting or something, Pa. Some place where they show off new stuff for folks like her to buy to sell the miners.”

  “Something like a fair or exhibition?”

  “I don’t know, Pa. I reckon. But she asked me if I could go with her! Can I, please, Pa!”

  I was trembling inside. I could hardly stand the thought of getting to see the great city and the Pacific Ocean! But Pa just stood there still for a minute thinking. He was such a kind man, and I loved him. But sometimes I couldn’t help being just a little afraid too. This was one of those times, and I was so afraid I’d start crying or something if he said no.

  “Well . . .” he finally said, although his tone showed he was still in the thinking stage and hadn’t really made his mind up yet. “Well, I reckon I don’t see no reason why not, just so long as—”

  “Oh, thank you, Pa!” I shouted, and gave him a big hug. “Thank you! I’ll be real good, Pa, and you won’t have to worry on account of me!”

  And without realizing I hadn’t even given him the chance to finish his sentence, I turned and ran off up toward the mine. I wasn’t going anyplace in particular—I just had to run to get out all the excitement that was built up inside me.

  Pa never did get a chance to tell me what he was going to say. I guess he figured he’d said enough to get the idea across that he wasn’t going to oppose the idea. And he always stuck by his word.

  I could hardly wait for the next two weeks to pass! Every moment, every hour was a torture. I couldn’t think of anything but getting to go to San Francisco. For a girl who’d come all the way across the country, it might seem that the thought of visiting one more city wouldn’t be so exciting. But San Francisco was different. Sitting right there on the Pacific Ocean, it was growing just about faster than any city in the country because of the gold rush.

  And to get to stay in a hotel with Mrs. Parrish! Why, I’d never dreamed of such a thing! The other four kids were full of envy, but I reminded them that I was the oldest and that maybe when they were my age I’d take them to the city for a visit. That seemed to satisfy them, and no one really begrudged me in my enthusiasm.

  Pa couldn’t see what the fuss was about. He’d been to San Francisco, he said, and it wasn’t so all-fired special. I asked him if he’d stayed in a fancy hotel, and he just laughed and said, “Not exactly.” But he was glad I could go, and when we left gave me a kiss and a wink, and said, “Have fun, Corrie!” Then he said to Mrs. Parrish, “You keep her away from the docks!” with a serious voice, but as I looked at him I think he might have been joking.

  Mrs. Parrish laughed real loud. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Mr. Hollister,” she said. “Corrie’ll be with me the whole time!”

  “Maybe that’s what I’m worried about!” Pa answered back.

  Mrs. Parrish laughed again, then flipped the reins, g
ave a “H’yaah!” to her two horses, and we were off!

  Mrs. Parrish said Sacramento was about sixty miles—one day for a man on a horse, three or four days by mule or wagon train. She said we’d make it in two with the new surrey she’d just bought pulled by her two best horses. It was early in the day when we left, and we first returned to Miracle Springs to fetch Rev. Rutledge, who was riding with us as far as Grass Valley. Then we’d go on to Auburn where we’d spend the first night.

  I sat in the back seat, but my hindquarters didn’t get sore like on the wagon coming out west last year; Mrs. Parrish’s new surrey had padded black leather seats. The minister and Mrs. Parrish talked most of the morning about wanting to get churches started in Grass Valley and some of the other communities around the gold-mining region. I suppose I should have been interested, but my mind was filled instead with the week ahead of us.

  Mrs. Parrish was quiet for the hour or so after he left us, but by mid-afternoon she was back to her old self and we were laughing and talking about all sorts of things. I imagined we’d have some serious talks too. We always did when I was with Mrs. Parrish, and I liked that. But that first day of my big adventure was mostly just fun, and when we got to Auburn I hardly even felt tired.

  The next day wasn’t quite so long, and we arrived in Sacramento before suppertime. We stayed at a boarding-house where Mrs. Parrish knew the landlady. I was hoping I’d get to see Miss Baxter, who had been so kind to us all a year ago, so after supper Mrs. Parrish took me to see her.

  “Why, Corrie Hollister!” exclaimed Miss Baxter after I reminded her who I was. “I’d have never known you! You done a heap of filling out in the year since you was here!”

  “Have you seen Captain Dixon?” I asked. “Has he been back again?”

  “He’s due just next month—maybe even in two weeks. Land sakes, wouldn’t he enjoy seeing you!”

  “Oh, I wish I could see him again!” I said. “There’s so much I’d like to tell him about how we’re getting on.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to come back . . . and bring that parcel of sisters and brothers with you!”

  “I’m afraid it might be a little farther out to Miracle Springs than you realize, Miss Baxter,” put in Mrs. Parrish. “Nevertheless, perhaps you could have word sent to me when Captain Dixon does arrive. It might be that I can schedule a freight pick-up for that time.” She wrote down something on a piece of paper and gave it to the landlady, and after a few minutes’ conversation we left and went back to our boardinghouse.

  The next day was the most exciting day I’d ever had in my life!

  Bright and early we took a horse-cab down to the river landing. There, waiting to take us down the Sacramento River was the most beautiful white steamer I could have imagined! Walking on board, I felt as if I were stepping into a fairy tale adventure! The deck was full of people waving and shouting and jostling about, but by the time the captain shouted “Cast off!” and his men below unhooked the big ropes, I was in a world of my own. Slowly we inched away from the dock, and gradually I could feel the swaying motion beneath my feet as the captain guided us out into the middle where the current began to take hold.

  Beside me Mrs. Parrish was saying something about never getting over the thrill of being on the water and feeling the motion underneath her, but I hardly heard the words.

  Chapter 7

  Thankfulness From Behind the Clouds

  Floating down the Sacramento River, I got to thinking about the new church in Miracle Springs. I thought about the building of the church, and how much Pa had helped with it.

  After Rev. Rutledge came to Miracle Springs, he held services of some kind every Sunday, usually at Mrs. Parrish’s. When summer came, work got started on the new building that was going to be used both for a school and the church. By then there were enough new folks in town that it was crowded in her house. But that just made Rev. Rutledge and Mrs. Parrish all the more enthusiastic for the work that was going on at the building site.

  And I think it gave them both a quiet kind of good feeling to see Pa and Uncle Nick helping with the new building more than all the other men, even though Uncle Nick might not have done it on his own, without Pa making him.

  They provided lots of the lumber too. Pa said the Lord gave us that gold in the ground, and he figured he should give some of it back. So whenever they needed more boards, he’d hitch up the horses and go into Sacramento to buy a wagonload. And some of the big beams and timbers he cut right from trees on our own claim.

  Pa still never said much out loud, but he was thinking about a lot of things, I could tell. I knew Rev. Rutledge was downright thankful for Pa’s support with the church building, though the two of them still were formal to each other. I doubted they’d ever be friends, but at least they were able to work side by side without arguing. And probably it helped Pa in his impression of the Reverend to see him with his shirt off in the hot summer sun, sweating with the rest of the men, helping to hoist a beam into place or driving in the nails of the wall supports or climbing up on top of the roof to help steady one of the joists. I think he was a little surprised that Rev. Rutledge was such a hard worker, and it gave him more respect for him than he’d had when we first went to Mrs. Parrish’s for dinner.

  All through the summer months, the men of Miracle would get together two evenings a week and most of Saturdays to help with the church. By the middle of the summer it was looking like a real building.

  Rev. Rutledge was excited about a place to hold church services, of course, but some of the other folks in the community—mothers of young children, mostly—were thinking of the uses for the place during the week. Mrs. Parrish organized a committee of seven people in Miracle to start looking for a teacher to come, and they wrote to papers in Sacramento and some of the other cities and towns around to advertise their need.

  Mrs. Parrish was excited about helping civilize this rough and wild place, and gave more and more of her business affairs to Mr. Ashton to run while she spent as much of her time as possible on “community affairs,” as she called them. Pa wasn’t about to pack up and go someplace else, because the mine was doing well, but I couldn’t help thinking he wasn’t altogether in favor of the changes. At the same time, I know he was trying his best to put his past behind him and to be a good family man to us kids. So he helped with the church and was civil to Rev. Rutledge and downright friendly at times to Mrs. Parrish. Some of the folks around Miracle were beginning to look to Pa as one of the town’s leaders—though Pa himself would have hated to hear me say such a thing!

  “What does ‘Alleluia’ mean?” I asked Mrs. Parrish all at once.

  “What makes you think of that as we’re floating down the river Corrie?” she said, turning to me.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I answered. “I was thinking about the church getting built. That made me think of Easter day and that hymn we sang, you remember, He Is Risen! Alleluia! I’ve been wanting to ask you ever since. Then that song Mr. Peters read said Alleluia a lot too.”

  “Hmm,” she said, “what would be a good way to explain it?” She thought for a minute, placing one of her slender fingers across her lips, between her chin and her nose like she always did when she was thinking real hard.

  “You know how it is, Corrie,” she finally went on, “when something is just so wonderful you want to tell everybody? Like a beautiful sunset, or some idea you’ve had, or maybe a precious possession—a favorite doll or a piece of fine jewelry?”

  “Like Pa and Uncle Nick always talking about mining every chance they get?”

  “Yes. That’s the idea. And when you talk about something you treasure like that, when you can’t say enough good about it, then you’re praising it. That’s what ‘praise’ is. And Alleluia is a word of praise—it’s a way of saying that you think God is wonderful and loving and kind. The word means Praise ye the Lord.”

  “I think I see.”

  “There is another side of it, Corrie,” said Mrs. Parrish. “It’s
easy to give praise to God when you are feeling it inside. There are times when the sun is bright and you’re happy inside, and you know God is out there making the world beautiful and keeping you safe in His hand. But there’s even a better time to thank Him for being such a good and loving God. And that’s when it’s gloomy and cold and cloudy, and maybe you’re sad, and you’re not feeling like God’s anywhere around at all.”

  “Why’s that a better time?”

  “Because that’s when it takes faith to praise God, to thank Him for being good, to tell Him ‘Thank you,’ for taking care of you and watching over you and loving you. It doesn’t take any faith to do it when you’re feeling it inside. But when your mind and heart try to tell you it’s dreary and that life is sad and that maybe God doesn’t care about you after all, that’s when it takes faith to believe that He still is there just the same.”

  She paused, and then her face lit up. “Think about your father’s and uncle’s mine,” she said. “It was the same mine two years ago, wasn’t it? The same hillside, the same dirt. The gold was even there back then, wasn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “But your father and uncle didn’t know it! To them it looked like a worthless, played-out mine, when really it was a wonderful mine full of gold.”

  “I see,” I said, but I didn’t really see what meaning she was intending. I guess she saw the confusion on my face despite my words.

  “You see, Corrie, it doesn’t take any faith now for folks to believe your father’s mine has gold in it. Anyone can go up there and look and see it with his own two eyes. There doesn’t need to be any faith, because you can see it! But two years ago, if someone had said, ‘This mine has a rich vein of gold in it,’ back then it would have taken faith to believe such a statement, because no one could see it.”

  “I understand that.”

  “It’s the same with God! If the sun hides behind the clouds for a few days, we still know it’s there. But sometimes when God hides himself behind a cloud, we let ourselves start thinking He’s gone, instead of using our faith to remind us He still is there, and is just as good and loving as always. That’s why it’s best to give God thanks when we don’t feel especially thankful. That’s how we learn not to trust our thoughts or feelings about God, but to trust in God himself. We can even trust Him when we can’t see Him!”