“Do I now hear a proposal?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you’ve said, and I think you’re right. We can’t let the future rule our present. So, when I get back from Saint Jo I’d like to discuss the subject with you.”
I’m afraid Prudence would have accused me of losing my dignity, because I flung my arms around Cameron and looked up into his face. In spite of his stoic calm, I could see his blue eyes brimming with emotion. Discretion forbids me to relate our intimate conversation, but the world about us seemed itself to tremble with our excitement.
As he stepped toward the door, he said, “In Saint Jo I hope to find a token of my commitment at the jeweler’s.”
“That’s so sweet of you, Cameron. But,” I said, thinking of the name of Weber embroidered into the sampler I’d purchased from Mr. Nuckolls, “if you could also render a service for me in Saint Jo it would be equally kind.”
Cameron knitted his eyebrows at the request. “You wouldn’t be stirring up more trouble, would you? Making enemies in Saint Jo as well as here?”
“No, whatever would give you the notion?”
“Perhaps that tone of voice. I’ve heard you use it before with your brother, usually when you’re asking him to do something no man would want to be caught doing in broad daylight.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, besides, I see myself as one who solves problems rather than as one who stirs up trouble.”
“You do know that Mr. Coleman has declined to present himself anew for sheriff in the August election.”
“And you think that’s because of me?”
“You do keep him busy.”
“As well I ought, seeing how he needed me to discover an arsonist burned the shed in Brownville and the warehouse at Mount Vernon.”
“Now you do see how that causes trouble. Without there being an incendiary, Mr. Coleman could sit back and relax, but now he’s obliged to hunt down a criminal, at least until August.”
I was about to reply when we heard harsh words outside. Stepping into the street we found two men arguing for a bit and then thrashing each other about.
“What’s this?” I asked Cameron.
“You’re the expert on stirring up trouble, you tell me.”
“I bet it’s over either a woman or a piece of land.”
“There’s also politics and religion.”
“You see,” I observed. “I’m not the only source of trouble around here.”
“Certainly not, but I’m glad to see you own up to your role, even if it’s a minor one. So, while I’m away, take care of yourself...for me.”
“That I will do,” I said, returning to my interest in the sampler, “if you’ll see if a Mr. Weber owned a house in Saint Jo. It’s a needle in the haystack, but if we find it, I think we can start stitching together a solution to the Friend mystery.”
* * *
I spent Friday and Saturday in my office reading letters from the States and sending out as many. The number of stories and miscellaneous information from back east put me in a predicament. I didn’t know which ones to select for the gazette, they all seemed of interest.
Then there were my own essays I needed to polish, but I must admit I wasn’t as diligent as an author ought to be as the lure of Hope Leslie and Madame Bovary undermined my well-intentioned work habit. Delving into Hope Leslie, time passed quickly through the hourglass. The tricky part was guessing which words had been deleted by the bullet. When I finally put the book down, Madame Bovary seduced me, and it, being in French, took me to a distant culture that yet seems so real and palpable. Flaubert’s descriptions of landscape, of peasant life, and the small town were so beautifully wrought, as was each character’s personality. He was the Rembrandt of literature, who, replacing the brush with a pen, lifted the veil from a face to reveal its soul.
To shake myself from my addiction, I set about working with my hands, hoping to develop skills in typesetting and presswork. I had come to the conclusion that I could not always count on Teddy to do this, because his carpentry skills were in high demand on the frontier. I could perhaps oblige Monsieur Carr to jump ship and work for me, if he wished to continue on as my well-paid gardener; but I don’t know if Mr. Furnas, who currently employed him part time at the newspaper, would take kindly to such impressment.
I should say that I didn’t spend those two days in complete solitude. Indeed, on Friday, in the late afternoon, Mr. Martin called at the office. I think he came to waste time with Teddy as he often did in the late afternoon. I do wish I could disentangle him from my brother as he cannot exert but a malign influence.
Not finding Teddy at his post did not deter Mr. Martin from pulling out a chair from the kitchen to make himself comfortable. I tried explaining to him that I had work at hand in writing articles for my gazette.
“Well,” he said, “I might be of assistance to you.”
“I can’t see how, as this is a lady’s gazette, written for and by ladies.”
“Why, I can bring you news of interest to the ladies. For example, do you know Congress has made it more difficult to import indecent literature? They’ve even banned certain daguerreotypes, and it doesn’t take a thick brow to conjure up what might be their subject matter. I doubt you’ll be able to read anything in French from now on, especially from the pen of that Flaubert fellow, whom, I think even the French government, lude as it is, being monarchical, has charged with immorality for that book of his celebrating the life of an adulteress. Something called Breviary or Mrs. Breviary, or a title of that sort. In any case, it may be a good idea to keep these things from the eyes of the weak willed, but as for men of solid physiognomy, I think such boycotts harmful. The governments ought to let ideas flow betwixt nations, lest we stagnate in our inbred ignorance. Now don’t you think your lady readership might have an interest in that bit of news?”
“Oh?” I answered as I lifted myself up to sit on the table, fluffing out my dress to cover up my latest interest in reading. I had only begun Flaubert’s novel and had not yet discovered anything untoward, and I didn’t expect to, but I wouldn’t want Mr. Martin spreading about town that Miss Furlough spent her time up in that office of hers reading salacious novels.
I followed up on my exclamation by stating the obvious. “I cannot object to a boycott. Just as we would not want to import poisons for the body, nor should we wish to import poisons for the mind. Let food for both body and mind be pure, for by indulging only in the good, we all become healthier and better. So, keeping the bad from our sight can do no harm. I do wish peddlers of sin would move on. I would pay them well to do so.”
“I remember a do-gooder like you doing exactly as you say, and I must admit I admired the result.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Yes, as I recall, this do-gooding woman, who even dressed a bit like you, paid each of the two ladies of the evening in her town a hundred dollars in gold to move, and so they did, each moving into the other’s abode.”
“I don’t think your do-gooder resembles me in the slightest, because I would have done quite differently.”
“How so?”
I examined Mr. Martin’s physiognomy carefully as I said, “I would have used less than one-hundred dollars in buying a bottle of whiskey, emptying it, and then refilling it with turpentine.”
He stared at me, and I could not tell whether he did so because he felt judged or because he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Do you know what I would have done,” I asked him, “with my bottle of turpentine?”
“Drink it?” he said. “That would certainly end all your worries about the two women.”
His frivolity did not distract me from the idea that a guilty man often resorts to flippancy when cornered.
I rose from the desk while gracefully sweeping up Madame Bovary into the fold of my dress. Opening the door, I informed Mr. Martin that I had to return to my work and if he lingered, I would have to charge him a consulting fee.
He kindly left.
However, in his wake, an idea lingered in my mind. Something about his story and the shifting around of properties intrigued me. I couldn’t say exactly how, but in some way, it seemed a clue to the unraveling the Friend mystery.
CHAPTER 18
On Saturday, I ventured out of my office and witnessed the arrival of a cartload of books and other mobiliary items, which made its way down Main Street from the Post Office to the newly established Nemaha Land Office. I espied Mr. George Nixon, register of deeds, escorting the load. After directing the dispersal of his stock, Mr. Nixon headed up toward the levee to two lots he had purchased next to McPherson’s warehouse.
I noted that the dock was throbbing with activity as McPherson’s competitor, McAllister, was still moving some seventy tons of goods he’d received there last week. This was a decent ten tons more than McPherson had squeezed into his store. I heard someone comment that if McAllister hadn’t extended his warehouse earlier in the year, he wouldn’t have been obliged to import so many goods. I suggested that if they hadn’t been Scotsmen, they wouldn’t have to worry so much about making money.
Nixon’s land ran up from the levee onto a hillside, where he employed a half dozen men to level it. It’s there that I had an opportunity to query him about bounties and the like. He explained how bounties functioned, and how they could change hands, but he also said that if there were any warrants already processed, I would have to go to the Omaha land office to review them.
Mr. Rossell interrupted our conversation to discuss a petition for Mr. Nixon. The petition, I learned, concerned postponing land sales in Nebraska. A popular idea in these parts judging from the list of signatures. Mr. Rossell’s intent was to convince Mr. Nixon to forward it to Washington City to see if it might resonate there as well.
As I headed back down the hillside, the words bounties, shifting properties, and signatures floated about in my brain until I concluded that I must needs make my way to Omaha, bridge over the Platte or no, if I hoped to stay the hand of my would-be assassin.
* * *
On Sunday, July twelfth, I attended church with Prudence, Jonathan, Kitty, Stewart, Teddy, and Mary. Mary made a fuss over Teddy’s attire, straightening up his collar and dusting it off, a common occurrence; however, it seemed to me that this time she was more exasperated than amused.
After the service, Kitty asked to talk with me apart. We strolled off with our Sunday baskets onto a vacant lot where last year someone had buried a next of kin. The gravesite provided an open space amongst the brambles.
“Why the secrecy?” I asked.
“Because I’m not so sure as to whether I ought to do this or not. You know I’m not one to take chances like you, but for this once, and because I love you, I’m taking a risk. It’s so exciting.”
“What risk?”
Kitty delved into her basket and produced a pistol. “I found it in the room of the gentleman who left the hotel by a window without paying his bill. He had it under his pillow with a pouch of a dozen balls, and he forgot it in his hurry. I told Stewart about it and he told me to ask the clerk if the man left a forwarding address. That’s when we discovered he hadn’t. Stewart wondered if his secrecy and flight didn’t have something to do with Sheriff Coleman coming into the hotel at the time. Anyway, Stewart and I had the same idea, we should let you have it, thinking of what happened to you in Saint Jo. Of course, if the gentleman comes back to pay his bill, we’ll have to return it to him, but for the time being you’ll have something better than a parasol to defend yourself with.”
I took the pistol and instinctively put my finger in the barrel. It felt oddly familiar. I placed it and the balls in my basket and we rejoined our compatriots at the church.
There was a lively discussion in progress with one of Furnas’s men, printer Thomas Fisher, discoursing on politics. He said that California expected to divide itself into two or three states. Jonathan followed this up to let us know that he personally knew three gentlemen out there, and he gave the names which now elude me, and that all three had intimated to him their intentions to be governors. I made the observation that they would only become so if two of them were slavers, as the only objective in creating three states out of one would be to have four more senators to represent the interests of slaveholding states.
My intervention in the conversation won me one of those compliments you’d just as soon gift to another.
“My, my, Miss Furlough,” suggested Mr. Whitt with a wink, “if it weren’t for the dress, you’d be in the Senate yourself. I’m sure plenty of senators young and old would make a declaration of sentiments in your favor.”
“I believe half the senators, those from the South, haven’t any sentiments at all, at least any human sentiment.”
Mr. Fisher took exception to my comment. “We don’t need any more people getting riled up about this slavery issue. If people would just leave it alone, it would solve itself. The way those abolitionists get fired up, they drive themselves to crime. Why think of that poor old Jimmy Lyle getting killed in Kansas by one of the Bible pounding abolitionists.”
“And how many Negroes did poor old Jimmy kill?” I asked. “I suppose we don’t keep a record of that.”
“Don’t tell me,” said Mr. Fisher, “you’re at one with them rabble rousers.”
Before I could answer, I heard a familiar voice come to my defense. “I think she’s just honest, and unlike most of us, plays her cards straight and tells us what she thinks. Besides, you don’t just need abolitionism or anything much to start a raucous out here. You know that we of the territory just held a political convention up north in Bellevue, don’t ya?”
“No, Mr. Davenport,” I said warmly, pleased to see that he had stopped off to see me during his trip from Nebraska City to Saint Jo, “but do tell.”
“Well up in Bellevue they put forth Judge Ferguson for delegate to draw votes away from Mr. Furnas’s man, Colonel Rankin. That would put Omaha’s Colonel Bowen in the lead. Well, that was enough for our good gentlemen to adjust their diplomacy by pulling out pistols and bowie knives.
“So let me tell you Mr. Fisher, it’s not because Miss Furlough speaks the truth that young men throw punches, it’s because young men want to throw punches that they find a reason to do so. If it ain’t for abolitionism, it’ll be for Colonel Rankin. Like the Good Book says, we’re a sinful lot. Just think of Mr. Christ. He told the truth and somebody wanted him crucified for it. Now who was wrong, Jesus or those who nailed him to the cross?”
Thomas Fisher mumbled something about being needed at home.
“Mister Christ?” I asked. “You refer to the Lord as Mr. Christ?”
“Well, I don’t know that he had a professional title. Wouldn’t sound right saying Doctor Christ.”
“Though he did heal nearly as many men and women in three years as the average surgeon here puts in the ground in a month.”
“Doctor Christ then.”
“Savior might be sufficient.”
“As you wish.”
I felt like I needed to have a theological discussion with my beau someday. He had not attended Oberlin as I had, so I could excuse his lack of vocabulary when discussing soteriology and other commonplace subjects of a religious school, but even accounting for this, he seemed yet rough around the edges on some necessary issues, and I couldn’t let them go without resolving them.
I considered this seriously as the two of us walked toward my house. If I didn’t fully understand his spiritual state, there could be no marriage. I could not yoke myself to someone not equally bound to Christ. Christ is not only our hope for the afterlife, he is also a woman’s only protection in this world. Indeed, if a man is not bound to Christ, he is not obligated to serve his wife as Christ serves the church. What abuses would a man, no matter how good he may seem, levy upon a wife, if he have no heavenly guidance?
In spite of these nagging misgivings, I did ask Cameron if he could do me one more service, and I
was pleased to see that he accommodated me. I told him, if time allowed, I would that he meet me up in Nebraska City, on my way down from Omaha City. He inquired as to why, and I told him because I would be a damsel in distress in need of a prince charming.
“Normally a lady doesn’t plan these things out in advance,” he observed. “Half of the fun in getting rescued, I imagine, is the surprise.”
I told him I had many things to do, which necessitated a schedule of events, and therefore I hadn’t time for surprises, so he’d best get used to my rather predictable and tedious way of life.
* * *
On Monday I reported early to my office, anxious to get my essays completed in order to take the stage on the morrow.
I must admit that Jonathan provided fodder for my first essay, and I should thank him for it. The title was Things not to Do as a Man. I thought it well that the ladies read this and inculcate the lessons in their male children whilst they were young, so that they might not grow up into Jonathans. The gist of it said that a young man ought not take off a woman’s bonnet or watch feminine ankles climb steps, and that he ought not be remiss in putting an umbrella over a woman’s head or in helping her on with her cloak. Neither should he complain when sick or when the meal is ten minutes late, or wear out the carpet in front of the looking-glass.
For my second essay, Mr. Martin proved to be my muse. Ladies, I wrote, The blood of a single person, and the blood of a million persons, is to be held in one estimation. Difference in physiognomy or complexion argues no difference in the susceptibility of grief or pain. Men cannot be classed into orders. If it is good for an Englishman or an American to deal justly with another, it is good for him to deal justly with all men--including Indians and Africans. The world was made for no one man or set of men. God made it, and he made it neither for angels, nor kings, nor nabobs. He made it for humanity!
I was justly proud of my creations and went home with a full heart to pack my carpet-bag.
* * *
On Tuesday, the fourteenth of July, what Monsieur Carr joyfully referred to as Bastille Day, I found Prudence in the kitchen. She moved about mechanically making breakfast, but I could see tears streaming down her cheeks.
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