American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  “So you once considered yourself a Christian, but do not now?”

  Waters nodded. “I suppose that is a fair description.”

  “I see. Well, I am glad to know that. But prayers are never wasted, Mr. Waters, even in the face of what seems to be the case with regard to their answers.”

  “Suit yourself. But I have heard it all before. Just tell me one thing—if your God is so full of love, why did he take my wife? God knows, I prayed as hard as I knew how.”

  “For one thing, he is not my God, as you say. He is everyone’s God. His being and purpose is unaffected by who happens to believe in him and who does not. Even should the whole world turn against him and profess unbelief, down to the last man and woman on earth, he would still be our creator, our God, our Father, and our friend. But as to your question—I do not know. Perhaps because he wanted you to discover how good a Father he is.”

  “You must be joking!”

  “I never joke about the goodness of God.”

  “That is as nonsensical a statement as my wife’s saying that her dying was God’s will. How could such a thing possibly be? I ask about my wife’s death, and you counter by talking about God being a good Father. It’s self-contradictory.”

  “I absolutely disagree, Mr. Waters. Puzzling… yes. Occasionally frustrating and painful… yes. But contradictory—no. The dichotomy between human suffering, even death, and God’s goodness only seems contradictory because we are capable of seeing so little into it. But when we are able to see all the way inside it, we will at last see clearly that the goodness of a perfect Fatherhood lies as the creating and loving foundation for the entire human experiment.”

  “An interesting expression to use for life,” smiled Waters. “But I am curious why you do not see the goodness you speak of as in conflict with life’s pain.”

  “Because heartbreak, grief, and pain have all been included in the grand and wonderful scheme of life as means for our betterment,” replied Davidson. “God does not necessarily originate them, but he uses them as instruments to help us grow, though how exactly he wields them is often a mystery to our sight. I suppose to answer your question—I do not see pain as evil but as an agent for good, providing opportunity to allow God’s goodness into our lives in fuller measure than would otherwise be possible.”

  “All I know is that I have had a rough time being a father without a wife.”

  “Cherity… it is an unusual name—did your wife give it to your daughter?”

  “Actually, no. It was my idea. I thought it a good way to remember the old—”

  He stopped and smiled. “It is unimportant,” he added. “But it is a name that suits her well.”

  “I take it, Cherity is your only child?” said Davidson.

  “No, she has two sisters, eleven and thirteen years older, both now married. Kathleen and I were both well into our thirties when Cherity was born. Kathleen died shortly after giving birth. Maybe it is my age, I don’t know—I am a little old to be raising a daughter alone. And Cherity is a bit of a renegade, I’m afraid.”

  “I have found her nothing but charming,” said his guest. “I hope you will one day allow me to return your hospitality and come for a visit. We raise a few horses, too, which should be—”

  A shriek interrupted them as Cherity bounded into the room.

  “Do you really, Mr. Davidson!” she cried. “I couldn’t help hearing what you just said. Do you really have horses on your plantation!”

  “Yes, we do,” laughed their guest. “Only eight or ten, but there are several I am certain you would enjoy riding.”

  “Oh! Daddy, can we go for a visit? Can we please!”

  “We will see, my dear,” laughed Waters. “Virginia is quite a long way.”

  “We are famous for making ladies of young women.”

  “My Cherity… a Southern belle!” laughed Waters.

  “Oh, no… please, Mr. Davidson, don’t say that!”

  “Why not?”

  “My daughter does not want to be made into a lady, I’m afraid,” said Waters. “Her intention is to become the next Sarah Sacks and tame what remains of the wild West.”

  During the day’s meeting at the Presbyterian church, Richmond Davidson found it difficult to keep his concentration from wandering. His thoughts continued to stray in the direction of his two new acquaintances. He wondered what purpose God might have in sending him to a man who, on the surface of it, was so completely different from him in outlook.

  “The matter is not one of slavery per se,” the present speaker was saying, “but of the constitutional right of the states of this nation to determine their own laws in this and other such matters. The national government was not established to legislate morality but to govern by law. The right of the states to determine their own law must be preserved at all costs or the foundation of the constitution will ultimately crumble.”

  “Surely,” countered another, “you cannot use such an argument to justify something so odious as the vile slave trade that makes of human beings mere chattel to be bought and sold as animals? There are times when governments simply must step in to regulate human behavior, and now is such a time.”

  “I grant you that such times exist,” rejoined the first speaker. “But if now is indeed such a time, it must be the government of the states that does so, not that of Washington. We must keep in mind that the Savior never condemned slavery in and of itself, nor spoke out on political issues. If one is to make the Word of God the basis for one’s position, one simply cannot find a condemnation of slavery anywhere within its pages….”

  Davidson found the arguments on both sides persuasive, yet to some degree also tedious. He had heard them all many times already. That both sides remained intractable, each seemingly as incapable of listening with an open mind as the other, did not fill him with much hope that the issue would be resolved amiably. If Christians could not arrive at a harmonious meeting of the minds, how could politicians be expected to?

  As he made his way back to the Waters’s home by horse-drawn cab, reflecting on all he had heard, Davidson realized that the decision before him concerning the Senate must in the end be a personal one.

  What did God want him to do?

  If it was to serve in Congress, could he hope to influence events and accomplish significant eternal good for the cause of Christ? If he could not hope to do so, what would be the objective in his making the attempt? If argument and persuasion were of so little effect among Christians, as seemed obvious from the day’s meeting, what could he hope to achieve as a Christian in the political arena? Was not example perhaps a more powerful influence than persuasion? If so, how could he most effectively influence by example?

  With much on his mind, when he arrived, Davidson found Cherity Waters home alone engrossed in her novel about the West.

  “Hello, Mr. Davidson,” she said, answering the door. “Come in. My father said to tell you he will be home about five o’clock,” she added as she led her guest inside. “Mrs. Porterfield will be here soon to help me with the supper. You are staying, aren’t you, Mr. Davidson?”

  “I would not forgive myself if I declined your hospitality,” he replied.

  “Oh, good—I’m so glad. How long will you be in Boston?”

  “My train leaves tomorrow morning.”

  “Was your meeting interesting?”

  “I suppose so,” he replied as he sat down, “although I sometimes think that so much talk actually accomplishes very little.”

  “Was it all about slavery, Mr. Davidson?”

  “Yes, that was the subject of the discussion.”

  “I don’t like slavery, although my daddy says the South depends on it. Do you depend on slaves, Mr. Davidson?”

  “Yes… yes, we do. We have a great deal of land and it takes many people to work it.”

  “I think there must be a better way. I don’t know how you can stand to own slaves.”

  “We try to treat them fairly.”


  “But they are still slaves.”

  “I suppose you are right. But since Jesus never said that owning slaves is wrong, I have simply always tried to treat our slaves as he would want me to.”

  “What does Jesus have to do with it?” asked Cherity, with an innocent matter-of-factness.

  “He has everything to do with it. Though he lived many years ago, he was much more than a mere man. He was a very unique man, unlike anyone who had ever lived before, or that has ever lived since.”

  “But he’s dead now, so what can he have to do with you and your slaves?”

  “I don’t believe he is dead, Miss Waters. That’s why I say he has everything to do with it. I believe with all my heart that he is still alive and that he is my Lord. In other words, I am his slave, although I don’t really think of it like that. What I mean by that is that I try to do what he says—everything he says. Obeying him is what my life is all about.”

  “I’ve never heard anything like that. My older sisters are religious, and so was my mother, and I guess so was Daddy when he was younger. But I have never heard he or my sisters say anything like that. How can you possibly know what he wants you to do?”

  “Because four men who knew him wrote down what he said and taught. So we can still read his words and try to obey them.”

  “I still don’t see how that can have anything to do with life today when he lived so long ago. How can someone still be alive after so long? You make it sound like a riddle, Mr. Davidson.”

  He laughed. “Well, perhaps one day I will have the opportunity to explain it to you. But I am curious—how did you become so interested in the West, Miss Waters?”

  “That sounds funny for you to call me that. Nobody calls me Miss Waters.”

  “I was trying to be polite,” smiled Davidson.

  “Is that how people talk in the South?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Well I would rather you just called me by my name. Friends ought to call each other by name, don’t you think, although I have to call you Mister Davidson because I am just a girl. But I don’t like the sound of Miss Waters.”

  “All right then, Cherity,” laughed Davidson, “is that better?”

  “Much better.”

  “So tell me why you love the West?”

  “I went to Kansas with Daddy three years ago when he was writing a story that had to do with the Kansas territory and something about some compromise or other and slavery. I don’t know—I don’t understand any of that. But he took me on the train with him, then we rode horses all around and we visited ranches and forts and saw buffalo and Indians and everything.”

  “It sounds like you had a good time. But there are hostile Indian tribes there too.”

  “Yes, the Kiowa. But we didn’t see them. I really wanted to see the Cherokee. They’re one of the civilized tribes, did you know that? I’ve read all about them. Do you have any children, Mr. Davidson?”

  “I have a daughter too, although she is a few years older than you.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Cynthia.”

  “I have two older sisters too, but they’re both married and they were already practically grown up when I was a little girl, so I didn’t really have anyone to play with. Does Cynthia have people her own age to play with?”

  “Well, she is eighteen now, so she doesn’t play like she used to. But her two younger brothers were playmates when she was young. And a girl named Veronica at the neighboring plantation.”

  “How old are Cynthia’s brothers?”

  “Seth is fifteen and Thomas is thirteen.”

  “I am right in between them! I wish I could meet Cynthia. She is probably pretty if she is from the South.”

  “I think she is,” laughed Davidson. “But then I am her father.”

  “What is Cynthia’s mother like, Mr. Davidson?” asked Cherity.

  “She is my wife, so of course I think she is the most wonderful woman in the world. Her name is Carolyn.”

  “Do she and Cynthia talk a lot?”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a mother,” said Cherity, an uncharacteristic note of melancholy entering her voice.

  “You have a mother, Cherity.”

  “But she’s dead. I never knew her.”

  “You will know her one day.”

  “How can that be if she’s dead?”

  “You and she will meet in heaven.”

  “Maybe,” said Cherity almost disinterestedly, “but it won’t be of much use there. I won’t be a girl who hasn’t had a mother then. So what difference will it make?”

  “All the difference in the world,” replied Davidson. “God knows you have had to grow up without a mother. He’s the one who loved your mother so much he wanted her to be with him. He will make the love between you and your mother so special when you and she finally meet that this whole life you have had to live without her will seem like just a few seconds. You will altogether forget that you haven’t had a mother here because of how wonderful that love there will be.”

  “You make it sound too good to be true, Mr. Davidson.”

  “God is so good that such things must be true, Cherity.”

  The sound of the door opening put an end to their conversation. Both turned to see the cook walk in. Davidson stood as Cherity introduced him to Mrs. Porterfield. Cherity’s father returned within the hour and neither the subject of slaves nor the Bible came up between them again.

  Ten

  Richmond Davidson made use of the opportunity of being away from Greenwood to stop by his cousin’s office in Richmond, where a few pending legal matters required his signature.

  The law offices of Harland Davidson were located on the third floor of a modern office building in the heart of the Richmond business district. The Davidson cousin, son of the brother of Richmond’s father, was seven years younger than Richmond himself, though at just thirty-eight years of age was already recognized as one of the city’s shrewdest and most skilled attorneys. All his wily expertise, however, had proved powerless to help his own sister and two other cousins, not to mention himself, in gaining the larger share of the Davidson family inheritance to which they felt entitled. That he had had to draw up the papers for the final settlement of his deceased aunt’s estate, even act as Richmond’s agent in its disposition, only deepened his sense of injury and injustice in the affair.

  The son of his uncle Grantham had always baffled and irritated Harland Davidson. Richmond was an intelligent and educated man. As Harland understood it, he had nearly had as much schooling in law as he himself. There was, however, a naïveté in his manner and mode of expression that grated on him. The man could carry himself with a certain degree of sophistication, it was true, yet at the same time he held such odd beliefs. Religion was one thing, but to interpret the Bible so personally, trying to apply its ancient texts in literal fashion in today’s modern world—the thing was absurd. He was a churchman himself, a deacon in the city’s most prestigious Baptist church. But he knew where to draw the lines with one’s religion, and professed himself unable to make heads or tails of most of his cousin’s spiritual hogwash. Yet what choice did he have but to put up with it, as one puts up with a doddering uncle who yet held the power over the family purse strings?

  Of more concern to Harland were his cousin Richmond’s and his wife Carolyn’s notions of magnanimity toward those of darker skin. Comments had been made in his hearing that worried him. The younger Davidson wracked his brain to remember a time in Richmond’s younger days when he had espoused such beliefs. But he had gone off to England to study, then come back and turned into a religious fanatic. Maybe something had happened to him there. Harland could overlook his cousin’s eccentricities. But if such habits persisted, who could tell what might happen to the Davidson estate? That’s why he had been keeping a close eye on things even before Aunt Ruth had passed on. Now it was more important than ever that his cousin not be allo
wed to go off any deep ends.

  New times were on the horizon. The standing of decades-old names of repute in the South must be guarded by cautious behavior. These were not times when it was prudent to show too much benevolence toward those of African descent. One’s loyalties might be called into question. That could prove untoward for anyone associated with such a man as Richmond Davidson. Especially a close relative such as himself. He had his own reputation to consider.

  “Ah… Cousin Richmond,” said the attorney, glancing up from his desk as his secretary entered with the source of his reflections.

  “Hello, Harland,” said Davidson. “I was up North for a few days and decided to stop by on my way home. You had written that you had some papers for me to look at?”

  Richmond sat down in a chair opposite the desk as the secretary left the room and closed the door behind her.

  “Yes,” said the lawyer. “Stuart has decided to formally contest your mother’s estate.” He opened a cabinet to his right.

  “Do you honestly feel that is the right course, Harland?” said Richmond as his cousin produced the file and set it on his desk. “Surely it was not my mother’s intent that money would come between us all—”

  “It was your own mother’s fault,” said the lawyer a little coldly. “If her intentions were otherwise, she should have left a will. But to leave nothing more than a handwritten note to you, with such an unclear phrase as, ‘see that all other relatives are treated equitably and fairly,’ is bound to create sticky legal ambiguities.”

  “Of course I realize it was ambiguous. That is why I directed that you, Stuart, Margaret, and Pamela each be paid two thousand dollars immediately.”

  “A mere pittance considering Greenwood’s value.”

  “Hardly a pittance, Harland. There was six thousand dollars in the bank at the time, which to my knowledge is probably more than there had ever been. It is not as if the account has had tens of thousands sitting in it. We had to borrow the additional two thousand, which was a heavy burden to lay on the plantation. And after doing so, for Stuart to contest the estate and expect more… I don’t know, Harland. As both Mother’s attorney and Stuart’s, it seems that you would understand the unreasonable grounds of such a claim.”