American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  “Neither do I! I love Sunday. I will always think of it as the day I spend with my father.”

  “But your mother was very faithful to church,” her father went on. “You are free to go anytime you like. It’s just that I’m not interested myself.”

  He looked her over with admiration. “You know,” he said, “it wouldn’t hurt for you to have a little training in how to be a lady. You are growing up fast, Cherity, my dear. Perhaps I should send you to a finishing school.”

  “Ugh… Daddy, you can’t mean it! I would hate it.”

  “It couldn’t hurt you.”

  “But I don’t want to be a lady. I want to live in the West. I don’t need a finishing school for that.”

  “Maybe it was a mistake for me to take you out to Kansas,” he laughed.

  “Don’t say that, Daddy! I love the West.”

  “I know! That is obvious. You are reading those dime novels about cowboys and Indians and the gold rush from morning till night!”

  He glanced at the clock on the wall.

  “Oh, oh,” he said, “it’s getting late. It’s almost five. I’ve got to finish getting ready.”

  “You’re not going away again, Daddy?”

  “Just into the city. There’s a meeting in Boston tonight, at the Lyceum. I have to cover it for the paper.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  “I’m afraid not, dear. The evening will be late and you would be bored to death. It’s only going to be some religious men discussing slavery. I think I will be bored to death too!”

  “I’m so tired of hearing about slavery, Daddy. I wish everybody could be like they are out West.”

  “It is a very complicated issue. And it’s not so peaceful out West anymore either. Kansas is almost in the middle of a war over it.”

  “I still don’t see what’s so complicated about it.”

  “As much as I detest the idea, the plantation owners in the South depend on their slaves to work their cotton and tobacco crops. They are afraid the entire economy of the South would collapse without slavery. Maybe they are right, but that still doesn’t justify it in my mind.”

  “Well it seems simple to me. People are people. What more is there to it than that?”

  Waters laughed. “Perhaps they should have you address the meeting!”

  “I would, Daddy, if they’d let me!”

  “I am sure you would! But I have to get ready to go. I’ll grab some supper in the city. Will you be alright alone?”

  “Of course, silly Daddy! I’m reading about Sarah Sacks. I will not be lonely even for a second.”

  Waters smiled, then reached over and tousled his daughter’s hair. “I wonder what those three busybody ladies would think of that,” he said. “They would probably be upset that you are not reading the Bible.”

  “But it’s boring, isn’t it, Daddy?”

  “Not all of it. Some of it is really quite interesting. But who can tell what is true and what isn’t?”

  “Do we have a Bible, Daddy?”

  “Your mother and I each had one.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I put your mother’s away with her other things.”

  “Oh well… I think I’ll keep reading my Sarah Sacks, Cowgirl of the West.”

  Nine

  On his way into the center of the city, Cherity’s father could not help reflecting on the recent discussion from that afternoon. Though reminders of the visit by the three ladies irritated him, he found himself wondering if he had in fact done altogether right by his daughter. The state of her spiritual soul was not on his mind, however, but whether he had properly prepared her for adulthood. In allowing her so much freedom, had he perhaps erred on the other side?

  She’s a wild one all right, he mused. He could not help smiling at the thought. Yet what could he do? He had not intentionally made her into a tomboy. Now she was so thoroughly enamored of the West that he could not so much as even imagine her in a dress. His older daughters had admonished him, too. They suggested that Cherity might come live with them for a while. He could not bear the thought of parting with her, though he had reluctantly begun investigating a few boarding schools that might provide her what he could not.

  He reached the Lyceum and sought the balcony. At such functions, he usually sat as far back as possible. He was less interested in what was said by the various speakers as the reaction of the crowd. That he could best gauge from its midst, with as many people as possible in front of his range of vision. As the auditorium filled and the hour of eight o’clock approached, he pulled out his notebook and pen.

  Some thirty minutes into the debate and discussion, a slight commotion to his right drew his attention. A latecomer with a traveling bag was standing beside him in the aisle.

  “I am sorry to disturb you,” the man whispered as he leaned down. “Might I just trouble you to squeeze into that vacant seat next to you?”

  “Of course,” replied Waters, wondering what kind of person brought luggage to such an event. The man set down a suitcase next to Waters in the walkway, then inched past him and sat down. Both men turned their gaze forward and Waters tried to refocus his attention on the speaker at the lectern.

  Another thirty minutes or so passed. A break between two of the speakers gave rise to shuffling and murmuring among the crowd. The newcomer had noticed the busy activity of Waters’s pen taking notes.

  “Are you transcribing the talks?” he asked when Waters paused momentarily and glanced up.

  “Oh… this—no,” replied Waters. “I’m a journalist. I’m covering the event for my paper and I like to make certain I get my quotes accurate. So I make every effort to write them down word for word rather than trust my memory.”

  “How interesting. And a sound policy, I must say, for a journalist.”

  “What about you? I detect from your voice that you are not a Bostonian.”

  “It is that noticeable?” smiled the latecomer.

  “To a Bostonian,” rejoined Waters. “Our speech is said to be the thickest in New England! Our tongue sounds equally foreign to some as any drawl from the Deep South of Mississippi,” he added with a laugh.

  “My own Southern roots are not quite so deep as that. I am a Virginian.”

  “Ah,” nodded Waters. “That accounts for the polish of your Southern tongue. Though if I am not mistaken, I hear a hint of something else I cannot quite put my finger on.”

  “Would it perhaps be British in nature?” smiled the Southerner.

  “Yes, of course—that is it!”

  “I spent several years in England in my twenties.”

  “What were you doing there?” asked the Northerner.

  “I studied at Oxford. I intended to make a life for myself there. But circumstances forced me back to the States.” A pained expression passed briefly across his face. “I have been in Virginia ever since,” he added.

  “What are you doing so far north?”

  “I came to attend this evening’s symposium, though snow delayed my train and I arrived far later than I expected. Spring is already in bloom at home. I never dreamed I would encounter inclement weather conditions. I’m afraid I am ill-prepared for them, without so much as an overcoat, and arriving too late to secure lodgings. I came straight here from the station.”

  “Ah… so that would explain the luggage. I must admit, I was baffled at first.”

  “It was more than a little embarrassing to walk in late like that, carrying a bag and scouring the auditorium for a vacant seat. But I had traveled such a long way to hear Dr. Wingate. My name, by the way, is Richmond Davidson,” he added, extending his hand.

  “I am pleased to meet you,” said the reporter. “I am James Waters.”

  They shook hands as the next speaker rose and stepped to the podium.

  An hour later, as the meeting broke up, the two new acquaintances stood and moved into the aisle. Davidson retrieved his suitcase and they began slowly inching in the midst of the crowd toward t
he exit.

  “I want to make my way down front and try to speak to Dr. Wingate,” said Davidson as they went. “It was very enjoyable visiting with you. Before we part, I wonder if you could direct me to someplace I might spend the night? Is there a reputable hotel or boarding house nearby that would take in a traveler at this late hour?”

  Waters took in the question with a thoughtful nod. His reply was not what Richmond Davidson expected.

  “I have a better idea,” he said. “I cannot pass up such an opportunity to show a Southerner what Northern hospitality can be like. I would be pleased if you would come home with me.”

  Davidson stared at him a moment, then smiled in astonishment.

  “That is more kind of you than I can say,” he replied. “I don’t know how to reply.”

  “Just say that you will accept. We would love to have you.”

  “But your wife… will she—”

  “It is just my daughter and myself, Mr. Davidson,” said Waters. “She is fourteen and full of energy. Believe me, she will love to have you.”

  “Then… I will accept your kind offer. Thank you very much!”

  “Good! Well then, why don’t you go down and visit Dr. Wingate while I secure my buggy from the stables? I shall wait for you outside the front entrance.”

  Forty minutes later, the two were seated in the small carriage, somewhat cramped for two men, in which Waters had made the twenty minute excursion from Constitution Hill into the center of the city. It was about ten-thirty and the evening was chilly and crisp. As they moved out from the center of Boston, other traffic thinned until they were virtually alone, the only sounds accompanying their conversation the rhythmic clip-clopping of Waters’s single horse trotting briskly along the hard-packed dirt street, punctuated by a few creaks and groans of the wood, springs, and leather beneath them.

  “Was it merely to see Dr. Wingate that you came all this way?” asked Waters, giving the reins a brief flick with his wrists.

  “No, although I do respect the man highly,” replied Davidson. “But the subject matter of the symposium interested me highly as well.”

  “How so?”

  “Slavery, Mr. Waters… isn’t that the issue on everyone’s mind these days—in the North and in the South? I was curious to find the matter discussed from a spiritual perspective.”

  “Ah, yes… I see.”

  “I look forward to tomorrow’s follow-up discussion at the Presbyterian church,” Davidson went on. “All one gets in the South are the economic considerations and states’ rights arguments. Inevitably the balance of power in the Senate looms large as the most prominent factor of all. The Southern states are very worried if present trends continue. That anxiety tends to dominate everyone’s outlook. But such things are not of paramount concern to me.”

  “What is?”

  “As I say—the spiritual considerations.”

  “Why is that?” asked Waters.

  “Because that is how I make my decisions—by considering the spiritual implications. My only concern is what God wants me to do.”

  A cloud passed over Waters’s brow, though unseen in the darkness by his Southern guest.

  “Some might consider that quite an eccentric, even a backward thing to say,” observed Waters wryly, but with a hint of bite in his tone.

  Davidson laughed good-naturedly. “You are right!” he said. “Believe me, many do consider me eccentric… and worse! Most people have no idea what to make of a man who tries to order his affairs by the New Testament.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  “It is what I try to do. It is the only thing I believe we have been put on this earth for. But as to the charge of being backward—stop and think about it. In what age or former time, with the possible exception of thirty or forty years following his death, have those who call themselves Christians actually tried to live their lives on the basis of wholehearted obedience to Jesus Christ? I would certainly not say that such is the case in our time. Nor can I think of any such era in the history of the world outside the first century, where daily obedience was the primary driving force of the thing called Christianity. Therefore, it seems to me that backward is the last description accurately to apply to one making such a commitment, but rather progressive, even revolutionary.”

  “Do you consider yourself a revolutionary, then, Mr. Davidson?” asked Waters, beginning to seriously question the sanity of this man he had invited home, yet unaccountably intrigued by the lucidity of his expression.

  “No, not a revolutionary, Mr. Waters, only a disciple, and a weak one at that. Revolutionaries tend to want to change the world. Jesus himself would certainly be considered one on that basis—a spiritual revolutionary. My wife and I, however, are simply two ordinary people attempting to come to grips with an accurate understanding of who God is, and then live our lives on the basis of that deepening process of daily discovery. The world is not ours to change, only our own hearts. We have our hands full with that.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because we’re all rebels deep down, Mr. Waters. Subduing that tendency, and bringing one’s actions and attitudes into obedience to the lordship of Christ—that is an extremely difficult process. That’s why I say we have our hands full. It is hard to be a true Christian.”

  The night was silent as they rode along, the buggy’s wheels occasionally crunching over snow though most of the day’s fall had already been worn and melted away.

  After a minute or two Waters spoke again. “You mentioned a moment ago decisions you were facing?” he queried.

  “There are a few important things on my mind,” replied Davidson. “Actually… two—decisions I must make that may affect my life for many years to come. One is of a political nature—an opportunity that has arisen that I am not quite sure what to do about. The other is a decision my wife and I must make that will affect our plantation—how to handle some trouble we are having with one of our slaves.”

  “One of your slaves!” said Waters in astonishment, glancing to his side. “You actually… own slaves?”

  “Yes. Did I not tell you—we own a sizeable plantation in northern Virginia. We have thirty-four slaves. Most are good and well behaved, but there is one troublemaker in the lot.”

  Waters hardly heard the rest of the explanation. He was still reeling from the shock of realizing that he had invited a slave owner into his home.

  They rode most of the rest of the way in silence. Davidson was aware that a cloud had suddenly come between them. It was with relief to both that at last they pulled up in front of the Waters home.

  Fifteen minutes later, after they had put away the buggy and fed and watered the horse, the two men sat down inside together. Though Waters’s daughter was already in bed with her book, the sound of a strange voice mingled with her father’s brought her downstairs moments later, without the boots and hat this time, only trousers hastily pulled on over her nightgown. Her lively energy soon dominated what remained of the evening’s light conversation. Soon the temporary awkwardness between the two men had disappeared and they were laughing and chatting freely.

  The matter of slaves did not come up again.

  The following morning, when breakfast was over the two men enjoyed a final cup of coffee together as they discussed the day.

  “When do you return to Virginia?” asked Waters.

  “Tomorrow,” replied Davidson. “Which reminds me… I appreciate your hospitality more than I can tell you. But I am perfectly able to find a hotel for tonight. If you could direct me—”

  “Think no more of it, Mr. Davidson. You are here, and here you shall stay. My daughter loves having you. You are welcome as long as you like. I may not agree with your views on slavery, or on religion either for that matter. But I am a tolerant man. We liberals can take the rough with the smooth.”

  “You are very kind.”

  “But you still haven’t told me exactly why you hoped last evening’s symposium would help you with
the decisions you have to make.”

  “I don’t know exactly either,” replied Davidson, taking a sip from his cup. “I suppose I was just curious what the wider world was saying about slavery. I hoped it would help me more clearly discern God’s will in a general way on the subject.”

  “And has it?” asked Waters, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  “I think it may,” said Davidson. “Such things take time. God’s voice can be faint, even when clear. Perhaps it is the philosopher and historian in me coming out,” he smiled. “God’s perspective on things intrigues me, let me put it that way—his large general will for the world and mankind and eternity, and his specific will in my own life. Of course the two must dovetail or one is not discerning them correctly. But occasionally one is the primary focus, occasionally the other.”

  “Well, don’t talk to me about God’s will,” laughed Waters, though it was not a laugh of humor. “When my wife was lying on her deathbed, she said something about it being God’s will for her to die. I don’t think I have ever heard anything so absurd. As much as I loved her, I could not go along with such an outlook. Since then, if that was her God, I haven’t wanted anything to do with either him or his so-called will.”

  Davidson took in the comments thoughtfully. “I am sure it must have been very difficult,” he said. “I am very sorry. But I intend to pray for you, Mr. Waters, and pray that the time will come when you will see the goodness of God’s Father heart, even in the midst of death and heartache and much in life that we cannot understand.”

  “Save your prayers, Davidson. They will be wasted on me. I’m not your typical skeptic or agnostic. I was deeply involved in matters of faith for years. I’ve prayed all the prayers myself. And I’ve seen far more prayers go unanswered than are answered. Any belief system which fails in its efforts more often than it succeeds doesn’t seem to me that it has much to offer.”