Excerpt

Chapter 1

Jason crumpled, like a dropped rag doll.  Face-first, he fell on Broad Street’s sidewalk. The crowd gasped. Several spectators rushed to his side. The softball-size lump of shiny black coal that struck Big Jason’s right temple lay next to his outstretched white hand. Blood trickled from his nose. Big Jason lay still and grew pale as the crowd pressed in for a closer look.
The sky was overcast that Friday afternoon and a cold wind blew from the mountains in the west. As the ides of March 1943 approached, winter was refusing to let spring take matters over early in North Carolina’s central piedmont region. An early spring would have been fine with Judge Stevens. Oakton had seen its first purple crocuses and was impatiently waiting for daffodils. The forsythia bush at the foot of General Joe Johnston’s statute on Oakton’s town square had but a handful of blossoms.
By the time that ancient forsythia bush would cover itself with yellow blossoms, baseball would compete with the docket for the top of Judge William T. Stevens’ mind. His playing days with the Atlanta Crackers were never far from his thoughts. He opened one of his dirty second-floor office windows for a better view of the town square.
In the confused moments that followed, Judge Stevens saw Cliff Thompson leap to his feet and scramble around the corner and run down the alley as if a ghost was hot on his heels. There was Lil’ Will Wallace tapping his mule’s reins on her back. Judge Stevens couldn’t hear him, but Lil’ Will’s lips mouthed, “Git up.” The mule pulled the rickety old green wagon over the pavement behind the crowd of white people gawking at Jason and away from Broad Street toward the road to Lenoir. The wagon’s faded red wheels and spokes would pause momentarily in each pothole and then lurch forward. The mule’s pace was about the same as that of the people window shopping on Broad Street. Lil’ Will’s pa, Big Will, followed in a large new red wagon pulled by four mules. Judge Stevens could see that Big Will had positioned his rig so that anyone from the crowd looking in their direction would not notice the two burlap bags of coal among the supplies in Lil’ Will’s wagon.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?”
Judge Stevens was waving his hands. “Well, come closer – quickly.” He put his head out the window and peered toward the road to Lenoir.
The mayor walked between Judge Stevens’ desk and his hand-made mahogany credenza. “Bill, I can’t see a damn thing but you in the window.”
Judge Stevens was so excited that he hit his head on the raised window as he drew it back inside. “Ouch! Dammit! Andy, I’m sorry you missed it. I know this is gonnna make us a winner in Denver.” The judge was still rubbing his head and smoothing his silver hair.
“Whatever has gotten into you? What did you see out there to put you in such an all-fired frenzy? All I see is a crowd milling around that boy on the sidewalk. Why is he sitting on his tush?”
“Andy, I’ve never seen the like. Big Jason, was giving poor Cliff a trashing and a crowd gathered. At six feet and a half, Jason was taller than anybody else on the street. Nobody, and I mean nobody, was trying to stop ’im.”
“Yep, he’s tall. My Dan tells me he’s the meanest kid in town.”
“Well, lemme tell you. That colored Wallace boy was driving his pa’s wagon down Broad. He took a look at the fracas and stopped his mule over there by that mailbox on the corner of the square. You shoulda seen’im. He reached back and pulled a big lump of coal out of a bag behind him and, without moving from his seat, threw it and hit Jason in the head. Knocked Jason out cold.”
“You mean to tell me he threw it from all the way over there? Why, that’s more’n a hundred feet!”
“If that boy can hit a baseball anything like his pa could, he’s our answer for catcher when we go to Denver this year.”
“But he’s a nigger. Are you outta your mind? And, besides, why aren’t you calling the sheriff – Mr. Officer of the Court? Didn’t you see the nigger assault Jason?”
“Yeah, so what if he’s colored? We played colored teams in the tournament last year and in ‘41. As I recall, they stole bases any damn time they felt like it and beat our asses handily. Oh, and, no, I ain’t calling the sheriff. Jason deserves what he got and more.
“Andy, don’t you remember? Our poor Jimmy never threw out one of those base runners.”
“But playing against a colored team is bad enough and that’s mighty different from having one of them play on our team. You know our boys won’t stand for it.”
“Even if it means not winning that Denver Post Baseball Tournament prize money – and the fame we need for Oakton?”
“Bill, you know our town. It won’t fly.”
“Andy, level with me. You don’t like my idea, do you?”
The mayor dropped his head and suddenly found the tops of his well-shined brown wingtips to be very interesting.
“Andy, we go way back. I know you never had any truck with niggers. You can tell me straight out.”
“Alright. No, I don’t like your idea. I know I wouldn’t play with’em. So I wouldn’t ask our boys to do something I wouldn’t do. ”
“Not for the prize money? Not for the bigger prize of making this town that no one ever heard of a place to visit and invest in? That’ll help you fill up your hotel – bring vacationers to these hills…”
Cardinal County was not a tourist attraction. It was said that the county had more than a hundred different species of trees and right now there were buds on most of them. The little town of Oakton was the county seat and sat near the middle of the county. Cardinal County had sharecropper cotton farms here and there. Corn was grown in quantity, but consumed mostly by families and their livestock. The big industry was furniture manufacturing. The trees of Cardinal County kept the furniture makers supplied with wood and loggers and craftsmen employed. Oakton was functional. It had one of what most towns would have: one general store, a gas station, an ice house, a shoe store, a clothing store, a hardware store, and one hotel.
Andy thought for a moment, slowly rubbing his chin. “Bill, we’ll just have to find another way.”
Judge William Stevens closed his window. “Okay. I’ll see you at the Chamber meeting next week.”
Mayor Andy Mitchell left without another word.

Chapter 2

“Boy, have you done plum loss yo’ mind!? How cum you couldn’t reckon dat one of them white folks would see you throw dat piece of coal?”
Lil’ Will hung his head and half listened to his pa. He carefully studied patterns in the brown wire grass on which he stood holding Della’s reins. Lil’ Will was not little. He was an inch shy of six feet. His muscles were plainly seen to ripple when he swung an axe or a hoe. Lil’ Will and his pa were the same build and size. He was called Lil’ Will because his mother, Rosie, did not want to call him Junior. Beagle sat next to Lil’ Will’s right leg.
Lil’ Will could not believe that anyone could have seen his quick throw. But he made no reply to his pa. He had learned early on not to talk back when getting a dressing-down from an adult – parent, teacher, or neighbor. The fact that he was now nineteen and was as tall and broad shouldered as Big Will made no difference. He was still his pa’s boy.
Big Will glanced over his shoulder again before he continued. “Son, I believe Judge Stevens seed you. I heard his winda open and seed him stick his face out for a betta look.”
Lil’ Will looked up, wide-eyed, jaw agape. “But…”
“No buts. The judge paid no attention to dat crowd around Jason. His head was turned toward you.”
“But…”
“Will, stop sayin’ ‘but’. Ain’t you got nothin’ else to say?”
“But ol’ Cliff was gonna get beat worse ‘cause nobody could stop Jason.”
“Boy, since when is it yore bitness to stop one white boy from beatin’ another white boy? That’s another reason why I think yore head is still empty after all my teachin’. I sho’ hope dis is the last time I gotta hafta tell ya. Stay outta white folks’ bitness!”
“But, pa, Jason’s always beatin’ people up and gettin’ away wid it.”
“I’ve heard ‘bout dat Jason. You ain’t listenin’ ta me. Dat ain’t got nothin’ ta do wit you. Lemme tell you how meddlin’ in white folks bitness can hurt me and yo’ little sistah.”
The mules were still in their harnesses and hitched to the wagons. They were standing in the barnyard, looking toward their stalls. Della made a loud snort and shook her mane.
Big Will looked over his shoulder again toward the road to Oakton. “Now, Will, you listen to me careful. I’ma tell ya straight from the shoulder. If Judge Stevens sends the sheriff to fetch you and dey put you on the gang for a stretch, we could lose our lil’ loggin’ and haulin’ bitness. By myself, I can’t cut enough trees and haul enough logs to satisfy Mr. Martin. So, Mr. Martin would jes git somebody who can fill his quota, and dat would be dat. Den, how do I pay de rent on dis place, the mortgage on dis heah new wagon, and save for Willie Mae’s schoolin’?”
The wire grass was no longer interesting. Tears welled up in Lil’ Will’s eyes as he considered what his absence could cost his family. He thought about how much Willie Mae, a fifteen-year-old ninth grader, wanted to be a teacher. She talked about it almost every day. He blinked his tears back and glanced toward Della. He did not want his pa to see him cry.
Big Will took a step closer and put a hand on Lil’ Will’s shoulder. Big Will lowered his voice. “Son, you gotta see further than the tree just in front of you. As you grow into a man, you got to realize dat yore actions can affect yore whole family. It’s a fine thing to want to save one boy from gettin’ a beatin’ from a bigger boy. Dat makes me proud of you. But you got to start thinkin’ like a man. Some day soon, you’ll have yore own family.”
“Thanks, Pa. I’ll do better.”
“Okay, son. Now let’s get these critters watered and fed.”
“Git up, Della. C’mon, Beagle.” Beagle was a brown and black and white Beagle. He followed Will everywhere without being called. It was Willie Mae’s idea to name the dog Beagle.
Will led Della over to the back porch of their bare plank, tin-roof house. Beagle went, too. The planks on the outer wall had never been painted and were various shades of brown. The back porch floor was almost level with Will’s wagon. The floor where he stacked supplies from the wagon was weather-beaten and smooth from wear. It had a bleached look from the hot water and lye soap Willie Mae used to scrub it. Later, he and Willie Mae would move the supplies inside the kitchen and the coal bin. Now, he led Della to the barn and parked the wagon in its usual place. Out of her harness, Della shook herself and dust flew.
Will thought of the sweet feeling he got when that piece of coal found its mark and Big Jason went down. The feeling surprised him. He didn’t mean it to be revenge. Was it? The memory of Jason beating him last year was now a bit more bearable. That beating was no longer a lost war, but simply a lost battle. Before today, every time Will thought of it, he had felt rage building throughout his being. He never told Big Will that Jason beat him because he would have had to tell his pa that he took the south road. Pa had told him to never take that road from the factory, even though it could serve as a shortcut to the highway toward Lenoir. The south road cut through a white neighborhood.
One day when Will detoured to visit with his girlfriend, Dena, for a few minutes, he was late getting to the factory to unload and it would have made him arrive home with Della and the wagon after dark. Big Will forbade having the mule and wagon on the highway after dark.
Will was still savoring the day’s events as he pumped water for the mules in the corral. The pump stood over a well near the back porch. Big Will had rigged a wooden V-shaped trough that, when swung under the pump spout, guided water to a large tin funnel stuck into a galvanized iron pipe. The vertical pipe connected to an elbow half a foot underground and a pipe that carried the water to a cylindrical metal tank inside the corral. The pipe was not connected to the tank. Instead, it lay over the opening and water poured into the tank.
“Hey, Lil’ Will.” Will flinched. He had been lost in replaying the memory of Big Jason falling and had not heard Willie Mae arrive at the pump with two porcelain-lined buckets from the kitchen.
With a big grin, he turned to greet her. “Hey, Mae!” Lil’ Will grabbed her shoulders. “Wait’ll you hear what I did today in town!”
Willie Mae listened while Lil’ Will told his tale and pumped water for her and the corral critters.
At tale’s end, Willie Mae smiled her best conspiratorial smile. “So, big bro, when Pa said, ‘Stay out of white folks bitness,’ did you tell’im yo’ bitness was jes repayin’ an old debt?”
They shared a victorious laugh. Lil’ Will had told her all about the visit with Dena and the beating while Willie Mae did her best to repair as much of the damage Big Jason had done to his face before Big Will arrived.
“Well, lil’ sistah, does a bear have hind pockets?”
“Will, I’m ready. C’mon. Soon it’ll be too dark.” Big Will was calling from the barn. He was wearing a beat up catcher’s mitt that had a rusty buckle on the back of his left hand. It was the only mitt Big Will ever used in his twenty years of baseball. His right hand held an old baseball, brown-red with dirt and its leather cover nicked from smashing into rocks and wire backstops.
“Pa, I’m comin’.” Will ran to the barn for his catcher’s equipment. He retrieved his pa’s face mask, chest protector, and knee pads. Each item was well worn and showed its age despite homemade repairs over the years. The catcher’s mitt was Lil’ Will’s. He had used it for two years, since taking over catching from Big Will for the Oakton Bears – a semipro Negro team. He strapped his equipment on for the first time since last season as Big Will watched.
Lil’ Will walked to the side of the barn and tossed a wide-blade hoe that had lost its handle onto the ground in front of him. They were used the barn as a backstop. Big Will would be the pitcher. Lil’ Will was squatting behind the hoe home plate.
“Alright, Will. Let’s go over a few reminders before we start. Dis is important for catchers. You got ta stay ready to block balls in de dirt wid your body. Stay in front of the ball. Next, ‘member to keep your throwin’ hand behind your back until the ball hits your mitt, and…”
Beagle barked. A car drove into the yard and followed the wagon track to the barn. Judge Stevens stepped out from his ’41 Ford.
Chapter 3

The front door slammed. Eighteen-year-old Dena flinched and dropped her pencil on her English homework.
“Dena! Dena. Where are you?”
“Here I am, Ma. Is something the matter?” Dena stepped from her doorway into the hall. She knew something was up when her mother called her “Dena” instead of the usual “Dee.”
Jessie was walking briskly through the front room, removing her hat as she went. “Yes, Dena. There’s something the matter alright. Talk is going around the neighborhood that that no-good boyfriend of yours assaulted a white boy uptown today.”
Dena’s right hand went to cover her mouth as she gasped. She hurried to meet her mother. “What? Ma, are you sure it was Will?”
“Just as sure as I’m sure my name is Jessie Mae Smith Miller. I overheard the principal say to the basketball coach that one of his ninth-grade dropouts named Will Wallace had hurt a white boy in town this afternoon. The nerve! On Broad Street – at the square – and in broad open daylight!”
“But, Ma, how would he know that? Wasn’t he at school all day? Besides, Will wouldn’t hurt anyone.” In spite of herself, worry wrinkled Dena’s brow.
“Hummph! Let me tell you! The principal said his brother called. You know the one, he owns that barber shop on Simpson Street. Well, according to him, your Will threw a big lump of coal and hit a white boy in the head. Knocked him out for a few minutes.”
“What? I refuse to believe that Will would just up and do such a thing. How would a barber know? Why wasn’t he minding his business and cutting hair?”
“Said a customer he had finished ran back into the shop with the news. Said Big Will and his son were driving their wagons out of town this afternoon when it happened.”
Dena, flustered, suddenly felt exhausted. She looked about for a chair, found one, and flopped down on it. “But, this can’t be. Will never hurt anyone before. Why would he just pick on some random white boy? He doesn’t even know one. Do you?”
“Y’all sho’ making a lotta racket in here. What’s all the fuss about?” Cecilia, Dena’s older sister by two years, entered the front room tying the belt of her chenille housecoat.
Jessie gave a sigh and sat on the sofa, arranging two small pillows behind her. “Dena’s no-good boyfriend is starting some trouble with white folks. Didn’t you use to like him?”
With a big grin and hands akimbo, Cecilia rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Sho’ did. What a hulk! ‘Course, he was too young for me. Very reluctantly, I had to let that one pass. Whew!”
Jessie frowned at her daughter. “Cee, don’t be crass.”
Jessie taught fifth and sixth graders in the county’s only colored public school. Dena could not remember how many times she received admonishments from her mother. She always heard Jessie and her father, the Reverend Joseph P. Miller, tell her and Cecilia to be refined and lady-like. After Cecilia worked for a few more months, she would follow her mother’s dream and go to Charlotte in the fall to attend Johnson C. Smith University in the second class to ever include women. As Dena remembered, Jessie was more excited than Cecilia when the acceptance letter arrived from Smith.
Cecilia sat beside Jessie on the sofa. “Can’t we speak our minds while Pa’s not here and do a little girl-talk? Uh-huh! Will is one fine specimen of mankind. What a body! Good catch, sis!”
Jessie shook her head. For the first time, Dena smiled. Her smile vanished as quickly as it appeared. She worried that the rumors were true. “Ma, what do you think might happen if Will did this thing?”
“What may happen,” corrected Jessie. “Nothing good. White folks may not know who did it – yet. But you can bet that sooner than later, some colored person will tell one of them. Then, who knows? A lynching? A riot? I just don’t know.”
“Aw, Ma. It’ll blow over in a few days.” Cecilia lifted a foot toward the coffee table, glanced at Jessie and caught the look on Jessie’s face.  Dena bet correctly that Cecilia would not make the move.  Cecilia returned her foot to the floor, leaned back, and crossed her legs.
“Cee, child, oh, how I wish you knew what you are talking about. That is hardly likely. My pa told me about the white-on-colored race riot in Wilmington – right here in this state. He also told me that in the summer after the First World War ended, seven race riots happened in seven different cities in the United States – seven in three months! I can’t count how many lynchings happened while I was growing up. When they get the notion that a colored man is forgetting his place, you can’t predict what may happen. Look at the race trouble in Detroit that started just two weeks ago. Now, that’s a riot you don’t need a history book to find. Believe you me, that thing in Detroit is not over.”
Dena leaned forward. She held her face in both hands with her elbows on her knees. She listened with intense interest. She glanced at the usually reserved and calm Cecilia, whose face had changed and now looked as glum as Dena was feeling. She reached over and picked up from the end table a small porcelain figurine of a white woman holding a vase. She turned it over several times. Haltingly, Dena spoke to her mother while gazing at the figurine. “Ma, it ain’t fair. Cecilia has dreams. Will has dreams. I have dreams. I don’t see how we can have a chance for a good life anywhere – North or South. Everything is against us. What I see is that there is no way to win.”
“Child, education is the key for us. Each generation that passes brings more progress. Education will help you be ready when opportunities come.”
Dena was quiet. There would not be education or opportunities for working men like the Wallaces. What of Will, another dropout? She was trying to frame her thoughts into words when Cecilia spoke.
“Ma, I agree that education is a better alternative than a life of domestic work or hard labor. But what does a person like Will have to look forward to? Say, Dena marries him. He wants to be a professional baseball player. I’ve seen him play – he’s really good. But he’ll never get the chance to earn much money in baseball. Not even enough to feed himself. It’s a white man’s game.”
“Game? If it pays money that comes from outside the colored community, we don’t control the game. When you go to college, I hope both of you will find respectable young men to marry who are preparing for a profession. Besides, baseball is not a profession. Why, when I was growing up, certain girls avoided soldiers, sailors, and ballplayers.”
Dena’s eyes filled with tears. Jessie and Cecilia were blurs.
Jessie walked over and put a hand on Dena’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Dee. But we need to end this now. I want you to stop seeing Will Wallace. Associating with him could bring disaster to this house, or even to your father’s church.”
Jessie disappeared down the hallway.
Dena’s tears spilled into her lap in a noiseless flood as she rocked back and forth in her seat. She beat her fists against her knees and bit her lower lip, determined not to cry out. She felt an arm embrace her. Cecilia swayed her from side to side, cradling, and drawing Dena’s head against her waist. Dena let her head lean on Cecilia while she repeatedly squeezed the figurine with both hands. Cecilia fingered Dena’s curly braids.
Jessie called from the kitchen. “Cee, come and give me a hand with supper.”
“Yes, Ma. I’m comin’.”
Jessie corrected Cecilia. “I’m coming.”
Cecilia rolled her eyes. “Yes, Ma. I’m coming.”
Cecilia used the soft raised flowers on the belt of her housecoat to wipe the tears from Dena’s face. She then turned Dena’s face up. Dena saw sadness in Cecilia’s eyes. Cecilia reached down and kissed the top of Dena’s head. “I hope you won’t go to your room and be alone. Please come with me to the kitchen. You can help me fry the fish.”
Dena had not reached the thought of going to her room, but realized that she would have if Cecilia had not spoken. Dena felt warmness toward her sister when she realized Cecilia knew her next thought and would guide her away from isolation. Softly, Dena said, “Okay. Give me a minute.”
When Dena entered the kitchen, Jessie was using a large bowl on the family dining table in the middle of the kitchen to mix yellow cornmeal, eggs, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, buttermilk, and butter. Cecilia was firing the wood range and melting lard in a large cast-iron skillet. From a cabinet, Dena took a tin pie pan to the small counter near the range. She poured buttermilk into the pan and dipped the whiting pieces that Cecilia had cut in the buttermilk. She seasoned each piece then shook them all in a brown paper bag containing just the right amount of cornmeal. Cecilia gently dropped the battered fish into the hot lard.
Without a word, Jessie put her cornbread into the oven and checked a pot of rice. Dena slow-fried two pieces of fatback in a pot while she chopped onions and washed and chopped cabbage.
They cooked in silence. Jessie and Dena avoided eye contact. Cecilia made it a point to smile each time she could catch Dena’s eye or touch her as they passed in the small kitchen.
The front door opened and closed. “Hello-o-o to my favorite three ladies of all time!” Joe Miller’s booming baritone voice was clearly heard in the kitchen.
In unison, his daughters responded, “Hello, Pa. How was your day?” Jessie was clearing the family table. “Hello, Joe. I’m glad you’re home.”
Joe made his way toward the kitchen. “My day was fine, considering I gave a eulogy at the Johnson funeral this afternoon.” He entered the kitchen with a smile and a jaunty step. He looked at the three women and stopped in his tracks. “Huh? What’s with the long faces? It smells too great in here for there to be unhappiness in any corner.” Joe gave them his famous big wide smile with his arms extended as if to hug the whole room.
No one said a word. Dena looked at the floor. Cecilia and Jessie found something to turn or stir.
Joe’s arms and countenance dropped. “Okay. Since no one is talking, I guess I know what the matter is. Dee, it’s about Will Wallace. Am I right? Your mother probably told you to stop seeing him. Right again?”

Dena’s room was next to her parents’. When the kerosene lamps were out and Dena was lying in bed and staring at her ceiling, she could hear her parents debating the matter of Will Wallace. She heard her father say, “Jess, do you remember what happened after Mrs. Lillie Mae Smith, my dear mother-in-law, told you to stop seeing ‘that no-good Joe Miller?’”
Before she slipped into sleep, Dena said through clenched teeth, “No matter what Ma thinks is best for me, nothing is going to stop me from seeing Lil’ Will.”

Chapter 4

Beagle barked as loud as he could. At the end of each three-bark sentence, he threw his head back and added a howl. Though he could see the approaching car, Beagle did not leave Lil’ Will’s side.
Judge Stevens closed his car door. “Howdy, Will. How are you?”
“Why, I’se fine, Judge Stevens. How’re you and the missus?”
“Oh, I’m fine and everythin’ is fine at home. How about you, Lil’ Will?”
“I’se fine, suh.”
Though Judge Stevens was all smiles, Big Will maintained a serious and unsmiling face. Big Will came directly to the point. “Judge, is dis heah an official or a friendly visit.”
“Oh, why, of course, this is friendly. On my way home, I thought I’d stop by and chew the fat for a few minutes with a great baseball mind.” Bill Stevens gave the smile of a traveling salesman.
Lil’ Will exhaled. He smiled and looked at his pa. Lil’ Will’s face changed and displayed his perplexed feelings, for his pa maintained a stoic look with arms folded. Lil’ Will expected friendly banter to begin between the two baseball heroes of Cardinal County. When that didn’t happen, he felt confused.
Lil’ Will remembered the friendly chatter between the two every time Judge Stevens would come to the ball field to see the Bears play. The judge would be the only white person watching their games. He would sit on the fender of his car and stay for hours. He would call out to players and root for the Bears along with the players’ girlfriends and wives. The judge always offered advice to rookies. He never stopped talking about the Atlanta Crackers and the time he hit this home run or that, or the great play at the plate when an opponent’s spike broke his ankle and ended his baseball career. Judge Stevens always told Lil’ Will he was partial to his pa because they were both catchers. He claimed that both of them were better talents than Mickey Owen, who, some say, helped the Dodgers lose the ’41 World Series by dropping a third strike that would have ended the game.
Lil’ Will noticed that Judge Stevens was, for a moment, uncharacteristically lost for words when Big Will didn’t respond as expected. Lil’ Will remained quiet, waiting for a clue as to how he should behave.
“Hey, Lil’ Will, I brought you three new baseballs. Lemme see if you can hit’em.”
Lil’ Will’s eyes lit up. He was stripping off his catcher’s equipment and reaching for his only bat. “Oh, yes suh, Judge. I’m sho’ I can hit’em. Yessuh.”
“Will, I see you have your catcher’s mitt on already. Why don’t you catch for me?”
“Dat won’t be much work, since you gonna pitch.”
There was an awkward silence. In a moment, they both made nervous laughter. Too loud, and too long. Lil’ Will was grateful. He took two deep breaths and joined the laughter.
Lil’ Will stepped up to the hoe home plate in the right-handed batter’s box. Instead of pitching, Judge Stevens rubbed his chin. “Can you hit left-handed?”
“I don’t know, suh. I guess so. I can write and throw left-handed as well as I can right-handed.”
Lil’ Will glanced back at his pa behind the plate. Big Will looked suspicious of the judge’s intentions and appeared to be in deep thought about something other than baseball.
“Lemme see you hit left-handed.”
Lil’ Will changed sides and his grip on the bat as a left hander would without appearing to think about it. Judge Stevens gripped the ball with two fingers of his right hand tugging at the seams, then wound and threw his first pitch. Lil’ Will could see the red strings binding the white leather appear to flash on and off like a light in the center of the sphere as the vertical back-spinning baseball approached. He swung and connected the sweet spot of his bat on the center of the ball. There was a loud crack and the three men watched the new baseball sail out of sight in the gray sky. While the men watched the ball disappear, Beagle gave chase.
Judge Stevens removed his felt dress hat. “My hat’s off to you, Lil’ Will. That was a hellva smash. Are you sure you never hit left-handed before?”
“Dis de first time. Suh.” Lil’ Will could never quite forget that he was talking to a white man – friendly or not.
“Let me pitch to you with you hitting right-handed.”
Lil’ Will was even more curious now. “But Judge, you’ve done seen me hit right-handed before.”
“Lil’ Will, what I want to understand is how you see the difference.”
Big Will alternated waving both hands in front of his chest. “Son, de Judge means dat opposin’ left-right thing.”
“Precisely.”
Lil’ Will looked from one man to the other as if they were speaking a foreign language.
“Ready, Lil’ Will?”
Lil’ Will shrugged his shoulders to shake off the conversation that he did not understand.
“Yessuh.”
Judge Stevens wound and threw a curve ball that was breaking away from Lil’ Will. He saw the strings rotating on a diagonal axis. He adjusted and whacked the breaking ball to what would have been deep right field.
“From which side did you see the ball better? Wait. That’s not quite what I mean to ask…”
“I get it, suh. From the left side, I saw the spin on the ball right off your fingertips. It was a bit later from the right side.”
“Wow! By Jove, you’ve got it. And, I’m a poor teacher. Reckon you taught yourself.”
At last, Big Will smiled. “So, son, now you can see there’s something to this left-right thing.”
Lil’ Will nodded. “Yessuh,”
Judge Stevens was excited. “Sure enough is. Why, I’ll bet you a dime against a hole in a doughnut that Lil’ Will can raise his average more’n a hundred points this year as a switch hitter. There’re only a handful of lefty pitchers around. You gonna be big this year.”
Big Will could not let a teaching moment pass. “Now, son, you’ve got to ‘member to keep yo’ body back when you hittin’ right-handed and not go flying forward after a pitch – no matter if it looks good enough ta eat. Be patient. Wait. You want all yo’ power and weight to meet the ball at about yo’ center. Now, on the left side, you look lak a natural – lak you were born over there.”
“Listen to your pa, Lil’ Will. He’s an old pro.”
“Yessuh.”
Beagle returned from the outfield and offered Lil’ Will a wet baseball. The three men had a genuine laugh.
“Judge, you threw two pitches and I ain’t caught nary a one. But ol’ Beagle sho’ did.” They laughed like old comrades. With the laughter, Beagle wagged his tail faster, as if he was in on the joke.
Big Will handed his mitt to Lil’ Will. “Okay, son. Dusk is comin’ on. Put everything away and shet and latch the barn for the night. Then, go on in and help yo’ sistah with supper.”
“Yessuh. Good to see you again, Judge Stevens. Good night, suh.”
“Always good to see you, too, son.”
Lil’ Will smiled to himself. He wondered if Judge Stevens had made a slip of the tongue. No white man had ever called him “son.” What did he mean? What was the judge feeling when he said it? Would he repeat it elsewhere? Aloud, Lil’ Will said on the back porch, “Aw, ain’t mean nothin’.”
Lil’ Will and Willie Mae were clearing away the dirty dishes. Lil’ Will had wanted to ask his pa during supper what had kept him so long in the yard with the judge. Big Will had talked on and on about the Bears and how much lumber he would haul in his new wagon. Willie Mae must have had the same thought. She spoke first. “So, Pa, what did the judge have to say?”
Big Will leaned back so that the two front legs of his ladder-back chair were off the kitchen floor. He withdrew a pack of cigarettes from a pocket on the bib of his OshKosh B’Gosh overalls and put one between his lips before he remembered his new agreement with Willie Mae to smoke only on the porch. He placed the cigarette behind his right ear.
“Y’all need ta know this. Both of you will soon be grown. Listen to what people have ta say. But, ask yo’self over and over, how will dey gain from what you tell or give dem. Don’t give up information too easily. ‘Specially, don’t volunteer nothin’ ‘fore you see what dey afta.”
Lil’ Will scratched his head. “Pa, what you mean?”
“Keep asking yo’self, why is dis person saying dis or why is dis person makin’ a present. Sooner or later, you will see what dey want. And, nine times outta ten, dey get some kind of gain. No matter if dey’s a janitor or a judge.”
Willie Mae wanted to know, “So, what does the judge want from us?”
“I don’t ‘xactly know.” Big Will paused, staring at the square Sauer’s Black Pepper can on the table. Neither child spoke. Willie Mae turned from her dishpan and waited. Lil’ Will held his dish drying cloth in front of him. At length, Big Will said in a low voice, “Yet.”
Willie Mae broke the quiet. “Why are you suspicious, Pa?”
“First off, I can’t ‘xactly ‘member the last time Judge Stevens stopped by ta chew da fat wid me. I believe last time he come heah was at de end o’ the ’41 World Series. Second, dis place ain’t on his way home from dat courthouse. Third, did he evah give a present to either of you?”
Both said, “No, suh.”
“Well, a visit, three baseballs, and lettin’ me know that he saw you chuck that piece o’coal upside dat white boy’s head got ta add up to somethin’. He want somethin’.”
Lil’ Will’s eyes grew wide, the whites shone. Big Will’s gaze was steady.
Big Will paused again, rubbed his chin. “Next thing, why did he want ta see you hit, and see if you can hit left-handed? Looks like he scoutin’ for somethin’.”
Lil’ Will and Willie Mae didn’t wash or dry another dish. They stood transfixed. Big Will continued rubbing his chin. Finally, he declared again, “He want somethin’. We’d best be careful.”
Willie Mae dried her hands and crossed the room to stand before her father. “Pa, do you reckon Judge Stevens has anything to do with Mayor Mitchell’s baseball team?”
Lil’ Will laughed. “Is a blue jay blue? If you put baseball in front of it, I’ll bet the judge gonna be in it.”
Big Will let the four legs of his chair touch the floor. “Baby Girl, where and what you hear ‘bout dat team?”
“Well, when I iron some on Saturdays for Mrs. Mitchell, sometimes I hear talk ‘bout the team. The mayor and his friends talk ’bout making a name for the town. Seems they hope a good baseball team can help make Oakton famous. They say some town in North Dakota did the same thing.”
Big Will interjected, “Bismarck.”
Willie Mae did not acknowledge him. “From what I heard, I think it was the mayor’s idea.”
Big Will frowned. “So, you think dat sorry team could be connected to da judge?”
“You said the judge wants something. You said their team is sorry. I heard the mayor is disappointed about losing year after year. You said folks talk and do things when they want to gain from you. On a day when Lil’ Will coulda been thrown in jail, the judge wants to see him hit and gives him new baseballs. Well, all that adds up in my head to the judge wanting our Will.”
Lil’ Will burst into laughter so loud that Beagle barked from his place under the back porch. He laughed so hard that he pretended to need to lean against the wall to keep from falling. “Lil’ Sis, you forgot ta notice dat I’m colored. Dat team is white.”
Willie Mae looked at her brother and shook her head. “You sho’ are silly.”
Big Will ignored Lil’ Will’s antics. His face was grim. He put his elbows on the table and supported his face in both hands. He slowly looked up at Willie Mae, took a long look at Lil’ Will, and turned to Willie Mae again. Then, he groaned. “Mae, child, as odd and as unlikely as it sounds, I reckon you nailed it. Dis could be de beginnin’ of a whole mess o’trouble.”

Read more about Will and Dena: Love and Life in World War II and Bob Rogers HERE.

Copyright 2009 Bob Rogers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Prologue

“Your mother looks serene, doesn’t she?” commented Isaac’s father with a sob, as he tenderly pushed a strand of long gray hair back from his wife’s face.
Isaac touched her cheek and shuddered.
Her skin was soft, yet had the stiffness of death underneath. “She looks so peaceful,” Isaac observed. “It feels like she could wake at any moment.” A raging tide of grief flooded him and before he erupted into unmanly tears, Isaac escaped his mother’s tent. “I’ll be back later,” he announced over his shoulder.
Feeling very alone, Isaac fled into the desert.

Rebecca’s head throbbed and she pressed her lips together to keep from blurting out what she wanted to say.
“Be quiet! Stop talking!”
But it wasn’t in her to speak the unkind words she was thinking. Meanwhile Lichel, the petite young woman beside Rebecca, who half-ran, half-walked to keep up with Rebecca’s long-legged pace continued her monologue, oblivious to her friend’s frustration.
Lichel’s high-pitched voice droned on about the latest in a line of suitors, “…So, then he looked at me, and….”
Rebecca lengthened her stride.
Her companion stopped her incessant flow of words long enough to complain. “Hey, I can’t keep up!” When Rebecca didn’t slow down, she pleaded, “Please, I can’t walk as fast as you.” Rebecca slackened her pace and Lichel broke up her self-involved spate of words again to ask for an opinion. “Do you suppose he thinks I’m pretty?”
Amused in spite of herself, Rebecca burst out laughing and asked, “Lichel, are you serious? This month alone, fathers of two very eligible bachelors in Haran have approached your parents to marry you. That isn’t including those in the last six months that they turned down. They don’t think anyone is good enough for you.”
Exchanging a sideways glance with Lichel, she asked, “Now, tell me. How would you like me to answer your question?”
When Lichel giggled, Rebecca couldn’t help but smile. The girl had an infectious laugh, and her lively dark eyes sparkled from under the drab cloth that concealed her hair. Rebecca had tolerated Lichel’s self-centered monologues for as far back as she could remember. Their mothers were best friends so it was natural their daughters were lumped together growing up.
Rebecca felt guilty for resenting Lichel.
If she was completely honest about it, her anger might just include a tinge of jealousy. The other girl was much more attractive and charming than she was. Rebecca resolved to be more patient, kinder.
She shifted the heavy clay jar on her shoulder and turned her head to speak pleasantly to Lichel, but something caught her eye. Strangers were lounging under shade trees between the spring’s entrance and the main road.
Judging by the camels resting on their haunches, and the way some of the men were slumped wearily against them, she guessed they had traveled far. A tall man, roasted almost black by the sun, stood watching the spring almost as if he was expecting someone.
For some reason, she felt strangely drawn to him.
“Excuse me,” Rebecca murmured. Leaving Lichel staring after her open-mouthed, Rebecca hurried toward the stranger, but stopped first to fill her jar from the well.
“Sir, please take a drink.” Rebecca held the heavy jar in her strong but small hands, and positioned it to lean towards the man. As he nodded his thanks and reached for the jug, she noted his dignified bearing and the long tapered fingers that circled the carafe as he drank deeply. Satisfied that he was done, she accepted the container back and asked, “I’ll also draw water for your camels until they’ve finished drinking.”
The stranger nodded and motioned his men to bring the camels.
Rebecca emptied what water she had left into the water troughs for the thirsty camels. Then she shifted the heavy jar back to her sturdy shoulder to retrieve more from the spring.
As Rebecca maneuvered the path, Lichel dragged her by the arm into the privacy of a nearby thicket. “What’s going on? Who are those men? Why did you leave so quickly to go to them?”
“I don’t know who they are,” Rebecca answered defensively, feeling attacked by Lichel’s barrage of questions. “I don’t even know why I felt so compelled to go to them.” She jerked her arm away from the other girl’s rigid grip. “You’re hurting me!”
“I’m sorry,” Lichel replied, dropping her hand, immediately contrite. “It’s just that you’re acting different than usual. You’ve never approached a man like that before by yourself. Normally, you would have asked me to go with you.” She tripped over her words trying to get them out. “I mean, you’re always inviting strangers to your house for meals, but not alone – oh, you know what I mean.”
Rebecca thought for a moment.
It was true. Lichel was right; she was predictable.
“I don’t know what came over me, but I promise I won’t do that again. Okay?”
Somewhat placated, Lichel reluctantly answered, “Yes, I guess.”
Rebecca chose that moment to escape.
Flashing her a grin, she left Lichel to finish retrieving water, and then returned to the caravan. When the stranger spoke to her again once he saw she was back, Rebecca noticed his voice had a refined quality to it.
“Whose daughter are you?” he asked casually.
She looked up shyly and answered him, “Sir, I am Rebecca, Bethuel’s daughter.”
At the questioning look in his eyes, she explained, “Bethuel is Nahor’s son.”
Trying to resist pushing her inquisitive nose where it didn’t belong, Rebecca kept her eyes down and refrained from asking any questions. She felt like a mother bird doling out nourishment to her young, as she busied herself once again pouring water for the camels. Rebecca glanced over through her eyelashes at the visitor, who was now busy removing something from under the heavy ropes that bound packs to the animals.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, almost dropping the jar. After wiping a glob of spit from her face flung by one of the camels, she then dodged to avoid another’s hooves as it shifted position.
Moving to stand in front of her, the stranger held up shiny objects that glinted in the sunlight. Rebecca fought to mask her excitement as he laid three golden bracelets in her palm. She closed her slim calloused fingers around their smooth surfaces, and examined them.
“Are these for me?” Rebecca looked up and asked warily. No one she knew had ever given such expensive presents.
“Yes, they are,” he answered her, his expression grave.
A sudden alarming thought jolted her back to reality.
Flushing red with embarrassment, she chided herself at having been so immature and accepting. She jutted out her chin, lifted her head proudly, and told him, “I can’t accept these. The water for your men was a kindness, not for pay.”
“Ah. I understand,” the stranger commented simply. And then he asked, “Is there room to stay in your home?
“We have plenty of straw and feed, as well as plenty of room for you to stay with us.” She pointed toward a small hill and hesitated, waiting. “If you would like to follow me, my family lives just over that rise.”
“Mistress,” he told her gently, “these gifts for you are for reasons other than your thoughtfulness. Would you please accept them?” he implored – his brown eyes warm and kind.
She melted.
“Yes,” Rebecca answered, before turning to lead him over the hill and across the field toward her father’s house. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw him signal his men to follow.
She wove through a herd of sheep as they bleated loudly, displaying their annoyance with her. Glancing back, she reassured herself the man was still following closely behind. As Rebecca reached the familiar cluster of one and two-story whitewashed buildings, smells of roasted meat made her mouth water.
When Rebecca reached the edge of the clearing near her home, she turned to her guest and announced, “You’ll have to wait here. Someone will be with you shortly.”
When he acknowledged her instructions with another nod of his head, she whirled back around and raced for the house. Rebecca pushed through the wooden gate and charged into the open courtyard.
“Rebecca,” called Laban, waving at her with a piece of meat in his hand, and grinning. As pungent smoke billowed upward, she smiled as he turned back to flirt with the girl smiling at him saucily over her grill.
“Laban and his way with women!” she muttered.
With her cheeks warm and heart beating rapidly, Rebecca climbed the narrow stairway to her family’s main second-story room. She burst in on her mother, who sat on a sheepskin floor mat with her back against a wall, totally engrossed in her sewing. “A man leading a caravan stopped for water and needs a place to stay,” she announced. “He brought gifts. Look!”
When her mother didn’t respond, Rebecca crossed the room and held out her arm to show off the delicate bands on her wrist.
“Who is he?” Her mother frowned at the hand under her nose and looked up. “Wait a moment.” After she finished tying off end pieces, she turned back to Rebecca and repeated a little impatiently, “Who is he and how many people are with him?”
“One,” Rebecca guessed and then noticed an extra place had already been set on the low square table. “I don’t know how many more there are. There’s a caravan of men.” Rebecca reached for an extra cushion mat from a pile against the wall and caught the twinkle in her mother’s eyes. “You already knew about him, didn’t you?”
Her mother smiled and stood up, tucking a stray hair under her head covering. “Of course.”
Rebecca tilted her head and asked, “How?” She never quite understood how her mother always stayed one step ahead of her.
“I heard there was another caravan in at the spring from the servants,” she answered, and walked over to gather Rebecca into her arms. “My kindhearted daughter never misses an opportunity to reach out to strangers, does she?”
Rebecca nuzzled against her mother’s neck, enjoying the softness of her skin. Then she pulled away so she could see Milcah’s face. “His expression changed when I told him who I was. He became excited and agitated. Mother!” she exclaimed. “He’s out there waiting for me!”
She stopped talking and noticed her brother Laban standing just inside the entrance.
“Rebecca, you have invited someone with little or no warning, again. Now, I’ll have to gather enough hay and straw to accommodate an entire caravan!” Laban complained. His brown eyes narrowed and by how his lips were moving, Rebecca figured he was counting how much money it would cost him.
“Look at these, Laban!” The bracelets jangled charmingly against each other as she held her arm out for his inspection. “He brought gifts!”
Laban’s worried expression fled as he fingered the small circles. “He brought gifts. Hmm.” Then he asked, “You won’t mind if I go look to his needs, will you?”
Without waiting for an answer, Laban charged out the door looking for their benevolent guest. Rebecca looked at her mother and they both laughed, fully aware of Laban’s weakness for money
By the time the meal was ready, Laban had returned. Bethuel followed close behind, and lastly, the stranger she had talked to at the spring. Laban’s eyes were alight with excitement as he moved briskly from the curtained doorway to a seat beside Bethuel. The visitor stood in the dim light waiting for his eyes to adjust after the bright sun.
“Come, come… join us. We’re expecting you!” Laban burst out heartily, motioning with ringed fingers for the stranger to drop to the cushion beside him on the cold stone floor.
Rebecca peeked out from behind the dark curtain separating her bedroom from the main room. She gripped the soft material, carefully keeping herself hidden.
The so-far unnamed stranger’s eyes were serious and somber in his dark face. Something told Rebecca this visit had something to do with her, and right then, she felt very alone and afraid.
“No, I am sorry. I cannot eat until you have heard why I have come,” the man insisted. He examined his elegant hands and waited.
“Yes, tell us,” replied Laban, while beside him Rebecca’s mother stood nodding her agreement.
Rebecca watched nervously as her mother’s dark eyes darted from face-to-face like a bird looking for somewhere to land. The way she held a sheepskin flask of watered down wine over an earthenware cup, and then put the container down without pouring anything was disconcerting also.
Why was her mother worried?
“My name is Eliezer and I am the head servant of my Master Abraham’s Household.
“God blessed Master Abraham, making him a very rich man. He has also blessed him in his old age, with a son, who will inherit all he has.” The man paused to include them all with a look, and then continued speaking slowly. “I believe that God sent His angel ahead of me as my Master asked Him to, because he wanted me to find a wife for his son Isaac.”
When Bethuel gave Laban a knowing look, Rebecca clenched and unclenched her hands. She had felt things were going to change, and she was right.
“Some time ago, my Master took me aside and asked me to take an oath. He asked me to travel to his family to find a wife for Isaac. On the way, I prayed that God would direct the right girl toward me. I thought that if she offered us water, and then invited us to stay with her family, it would be easier to find her. This is exactly what happened with Rebecca.” He paused to take a sip of water her mother had handed him. “Now that I have found the girl, I need to bring her back with me – with your permission. Whatever you decide is up to you. I believe the road that led me here was the right one, and that your daughter is God’s choice to be Isaac’s wife.”
Bethuel threw up his hands and looked over at Laban, who shrugged. “Since this appears to be from the Lord, who are we to argue? It’s up to Rebecca to decide. I see nothing to do, but let her marry this man as the Lord has directed.”
Bethuel signaled her mother, who called for Rebecca to come. “Rebecca, come here.”
Her mother moved to the curtain and drew her out from behind it to stand in front of Eliezer.
“These are gifts for her.” Eliezer unwrapped an exquisitely embroidered green tunic with matching robe and held it up. “Rebecca, these are from Master Abraham, along with a number of other gifts.”
Rebecca bit her lip to keep her excitement under control. Demurely, she reached for them. “These are very nice.” Then she looked toward her mother and asked, “Shall I try them on, Mother?”
“Yes, of course,” her mother exclaimed.
Rebecca slipped out to change and discovered to her delight that the ensemble fit perfectly. She almost flew back into the room, delighted with the elegant feel of the material against her arms.
“Do you like it?”
Her mother’s dark eyes sparkled as she smiled approvingly.
Eventually, tired out from all the commotion, Rebecca went to her room. Wrapped in her new clothes, she curled into a ball on her bed. She felt her eyelids drooping and smiled sleepily as sleep quickly claimed her.
She murmured something and struggled, as she dreamed of a man who stood far off in the distance obscured by a haze. He drew closer to her but she couldn’t make out his face. The dream was so vivid that it seemed as though she could walk forward and touch him.
She tried to but her feet were stuck to the ground.
“Hello!” Rebecca cried. “Hello!” she yelled louder.
His face was still a blur through the mist, but she could make out his hair. It was black and curly.
“Who are you?” she tried again, but still no answer came.
“Rebecca!” Her father tried to shake her awake as she frowned and resisted him, preferring to remain in her dream. She wanted to find out who the stranger was, and why he wouldn’t answer her.
“Rebecca!” Her mother’s stern voice broke through the fog around Rebecca. As she woke, the feel of the material against her skin reminded her that very real circumstances had inspired her dream.
Her parents stared down at her. Bethuel had an odd look in his eyes, and a frown creased his forehead. His pursed lips indicated thought, as if he was considering an important decision.
“Mother, is everything all right?” Rebecca asked, wondering what was going on. It was still dark. “Why didn’t you let me sleep until morning?” she asked groggily.
Her mother cleared her throat, which she only did when uncertain. Nervous anticipation had Rebecca biting her lip.
“There’s no time,” Bethuel replied. “You have to get up.”
“No time for what?” Confusion and doubt obscured the pleasure she had felt over the clothes and gifts. She didn’t like it.
“Rebecca. Can’t you see this is the Lord’s doing?” her mother asked.
“What are you talking about?” Rebecca shook her head to clear the cobwebs from her mind. “Yes, I know you’re talking about yesterday and I do think God sent our guest. What do you mean there isn’t time? The man just got here.”
Mother elaborated, “You’re being asked to leave now, this morning. There is to be no delay and you have to decide immediately.”
Rebecca swallowed a sob and asked in a choked voice, “What about my wedding? Why can’t I remain a few days to prepare? To spend more time with you, Father, and Laban?”
“We’ll understand whatever you decide you should do. Come now.” Mother stretched out her hand to smooth Rebecca’s hair. Tears welled up in her eyes, spilling over warm and wet on her checks as she stored away the feel of her mother’s touch. “The men are outside waiting for your decision. Dry your eyes; wash up. Come out – quickly.”
Rebecca started to argue, but closed her mouth as her parents kissed her and left the room. Where was God in this?
She wasn’t prepared to leave with so little warning, and she had so many misgivings! What could she do about Lichel? How would Lichel react? Would she feel abandoned? Rebecca was willing to go, but it was so far away.
Rebecca looked around the room. Her first doll sat in the corner, along with the first clay pot she had ever made. She touched the soft covers and remembered the love Mother had put into sewing them.
With a start, Rebecca threw off her blanket and jumped up. She was falling back to sleep and her father would get angry if she embarrassed him by dawdling further.
A short time later, with her face shiny from a good scrubbing, and her composure intact, Rebecca dragged herself onto the roof. With her chin jutted out and head held high, she forced herself to stare straight into the stranger’s eyes.
He, Bethuel, and Laban stopped eating to stare at her.
Bethuel guzzled some wine to wash the food in his mouth down, and then he asked, “Rebecca, are you willing to leave here with this man? Now?”
“Father, I am.” She squeezed her hands together. “My things?”
“I have packed them anticipating you would go,” Bethuel replied. At her surprised expression, with an indulgent smile he added fondly, “I know you, Rebecca. You’re your mother’s daughter, and you don’t ever turn down a challenge, especially one as exciting as this.”
After what seemed like only seconds, but was in reality a couple of hours, Rebecca was saying rushed good-byes to her family. There was no time for any other farewells.
A servant lifted her up onto a camel, and through a mist of tears, Rebecca said her farewells. Her heart was heavy with the knowledge she might never see her parents again.
“But what about Lichel?” Rebecca felt torn in two as she left all she had ever known. “Tell her good-bye for me! Make her understand how much I wanted to see her before I left – and couldn’t. Please?” Tears coursed down her cheeks as her mother reached up to hold her hand for what Rebecca was afraid might be the last time.
“Don’t worry, dear, I will. Good-bye Rebecca…” were the final words she heard over the clopping of camels’ hooves against the sand. Rebecca’s last glimpse of her brother and parents’ faces remained indelibly in her memory. How she longed for a way to transfer their images to something she could see and hold!

Rebecca’s first few days traveling were the most difficult. Having never gone far from home, she was unprepared for the unexpected waves of homesickness that often washed over her. She sometimes even missed Lichel’s monologues.
The second day after leaving home, bustling servants preparing to move camp woke Rebecca early from a restless sleep. As she lay on her sheepskin pallets in the semi-darkness that came just before dawn, she listened to the camels snorting and shuffling outside her tent, eager to be moving.
Rebecca’s tumultuous emotions made her sick to her stomach and she fought to keep from being sick. Though she had seen God’s hand in this enough to come, her faith was wavering. What if she and everyone else in her life had guessed wrong – and God hadn’t sent Eliezer.
Rebecca reluctantly pulled herself up from bed. With the help of her maidservant, she dressed, brushed out her long dark tresses, and then covered them primly with a headpiece. Rebecca felt the sun’s first rays warm against her skin as she stepped out from the dark tent into the clearing. She stared listlessly at a bright array of clay dishes set out nearby on a small table.
She had no appetite for breakfast.
“Is the breakfast not appealing?” A deep voice caused her to look up into the dark piercing eyes of its owner. Eliezer towered over her with a concerned look on his face.
“No. It isn’t that,” Rebecca answered nervously. “I was just thinking.”
“You are missing home,” he said sympathetically with a knowing look. “It is quite natural and to be expected.”
Tears came to her eyes, but Rebecca blinked them back. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she declared bravely, poking her chin out as she always did when trying to bolster her courage.
“May the Lord bless you for making this difficult decision the way you did.” Eliezer hesitated, as if he wanted to say more. His directness defused Rebecca’s fragile façade of strength and she fled to her private compartment just as the floodgates of tears burst.

Once her homesickness subsided, Rebecca actually started to enjoy the predictable but monotonous daily routine. Mornings found servants packing tents and belongings onto the pack mules, only to reverse the process each night. After a tedious day of straddling her camel along the desert road, Rebecca always enjoyed the cool stillness accompanying the evening meal.

Day after day, they plodded along. Sometimes, she found speaking with Eliezer a pleasant diversion.
“What’s Damascus like?” she asked one day as they rode side-by-side.
“It is a busy place,” he commented in his deep resinous voice. “Many people from all over come to trade.”
“How did you come to serve in Master Abraham’s household?” Rebecca looked at him sideways and noted the mask that often slid over his expression when she asked personal questions.
“That is a long story, Mistress,” he answered and moved away from her. “Excuse me, but I think I need to check on something.”

Several weeks into the trip, Rebecca came out of her tent to something different altogether.
“Where’s my breakfast?” she asked a servant, who just shrugged and hurried past her. Unaccustomed to such treatment, Rebecca opened her mouth to call him back and then saw Eliezer.
“Get that pack on the camel. Quickly!” he ordered the same servant she had planned to chastise for dismissing her.
Now she saw why.
Rebecca frowned. She couldn’t understand the tumultuous state of the caravan.
“What’s happening?” she asked another servant, who pushed a small cup of wine and a plate of dates into her hands.
“Today we will arrive,” the man explained, before dashing off to take care of some other task.
“Hurry, hurry!” There was another spate of activity, as even the normally quiet Eliezer barked at the servants. “Get that pack tied down tight,” he ordered.
“Eliezer,” she pressed him as he passed her. “Why is everyone hurrying?”
“We’re almost to Canaan.” When he said that, her heart skipped a beat. So far, Rebecca had only dreamed of meeting Isaac, but now she had to confront the actuality of it.
“Come here.” As an afterthought, Rebecca motioned one of the young girls she had brought to attend her needs. “I want my veil. Please get it for me from my things they’ve packed.”
She hadn’t worn her veil for most of the trip because it wasn’t expected, nor was it practical. Now, however, Rebecca needed yet one more barrier, one more piece of protection to help her feel safe.
Once everything was packed, someone helped Rebecca onto her camel and they set out at a brisk pace. Even the camels didn’t need coaxing to get started; they seemed to know the end of their long journey was at hand.
Rebecca flinched when someone shouted from behind her. “There’s someone over there on the field!”
She peeked out from behind her veil.
A man rested against a small tree but she couldn’t make out his features in the gathering dusk. His robes were far different from the field hands’ clothing she had seen working in the fields.
“Do you know who that man is?” Rebecca pulled her veil firmly about her face and addressed Eliezer as he drew up beside her. “He’s too well-dressed to be a fieldworker.” Her bracelets tinkled against one another as she pointed toward where he was, “There he is.”
“I don’t know for sure,” he answered, looking thoughtfully at her. Rebecca shifted in her saddle, trying to get a better glimpse. “It looks like Master Isaac, but he’s supposed to be living in the Negev Desert in Beer Lahai Roi.
“Look. He’s running toward us.” Nervous perspiration broke out on her forehead. Isaac might decide to send her back.
“Ho!” A brisk order and raised hand from Eliezer brought the line to a sudden stop. “It is Master Isaac.”
A stocky, ruddy-faced man jogged toward them, and Rebecca lowered her eyes as he approached. Eliezer slipped off his camel to wait.
“Master Isaac!” he exclaimed ecstatically.
“Eliezer!” Isaac cried.
Rebecca furtively eyed the man named Isaac from behind her veil. Wearing a broad grin, he clasped Eliezer’s arms and enthusiastically kissed him on both cheeks. “Where have you come from? I knew you were gone, but Father wouldn’t say where you had gone.”
Eliezer stepped back from Isaac and then asked, “Your father is well?”
“He’s as good as can be expected.” Isaac spoke quickly; pushing back unruly dark curls from his eyes. Rebecca watched and listened from a few feet behind. “With Mother’s death, it’s been hard. You’ve watched Father; you know how he is, Eliezer. He didn’t take Mother’s death very well in the first place. It was a long while before he even ate or drank. I came back to see how he was and stayed on for a bit.” He shifted his gaze toward Rebecca. “Who is this?”
She slid off the camel and stood quietly with her eyes down, hating waiting for an inspection as if she was a sheep at an auction. Remembering who she was, Rebecca jutted her chin out and stood up tall and straight. Though she remained demurely quiet with her hands folded, she watched what was going on through her lashes.
Eliezer explained, “This is your future wife, Master Isaac.” At Isaac’s surprised expression, Rebecca’s courage plummeted – he wasn’t even expecting her. “I was instructed to retrieve her from your father’s lands, then to bring her back if she was willing to come.” At the question in Isaac’s eyes, the man added, “The Lord answered my prayers for guidance and direction, her family recognized God’s hand in the situation, and agreed Rebecca should come.” Eliezer raised his eyebrows meaningfully and continued, “Furthermore, the girl came along with me exactly as your father asked – immediately – with almost no time to prepare.”
“She has lovely eyes.” Isaac stood looking at her thoughtfully, rubbing at his forehead, and frowning. The silence seemed to stretch forever as her heart thundered in her breast. He reached out to tip her chin up so she had to look at him. “A desert flower I knew nothing about, blooming in the wilderness far away.”
He was so handsome!
His serious brown eyes captured hers as he spoke to her. “You came so far knowing so little about what to expect. Why – what made you do this?”
“I believe in God, my lord.” She lowered her eyes again, shyly. “It appeared to be His will that I come, so I did. Could I do any less?” Rebecca’s heart was palpitating wildly. She was sure he could hear it.
What she said was true. If she hadn’t seen the Lord’s hand in this, it might have been too hard.
“Well, it has been an extraordinarily long journey for you. And for you, my friend.” Isaac grinned. “I see God has rewarded your loyalty to my family once again. Shall we move on?” With a twinkle in his eyes, he included Rebecca. “Let’s take our desert flower home.”

Twenty years later…
One cool clear night, Rebecca cuddled up against Isaac on sheepskin rugs in Sarai’s old tent. A lonely far-off cry of a bird sounded in the distance as Isaac rubbed her aching back as he told her, “I prayed you would become pregnant and God gave you the baby you asked for. Why are you complaining?” His next words stirred the guilt she had been trying to ignore. “Aren’t you happy?”
“Of course I’m happy.” Rebecca shifted onto her back, but turned her head to look at Isaac, “No man could make any woman happier.” She picked his hand up to lay it where the baby was kicking. “This baby is so active! What a lively one – like you!” Rebecca laughed and then sighed. It had taken so long to get pregnant that she felt guilty for feeling glad it would be over soon.
“Why don’t you talk to the Lord about it in the morning?” He laid a cool hand on her forehead. “Go in the fields. Talk to Him before the dew falls, as the sun is coming up.” He smiled reassuringly at her. “I would encourage you to take quiet walks early – now – while you can before the baby comes.”
Rebecca nodded slowly as her thoughts drifted.
It was fortunate for her they shared their faith so openly. What a difference it made in the atmosphere of their home to go to God in prayer, rather than take their troubles out on each other. She had avoided more than one argument by dropping to her knees first before opening her mouth.
Her robe jumped as the baby wiggled and Rebecca sighed. It didn’t seem normal to hurt so much from one unborn child’s movements.
How Rebecca envied Isaac his snoring.
She turned her head and smiled, watching his profile and listening to his raspy breathing. His mouth was wide open.
Once the kicking let up, Rebecca closed her eyes and fell into a deep dreamless sleep. The next thing she heard was Isaac’s insistent voice. “Sweetheart, wake up. If you are to spend time in prayer and meditation, this must be the time – before the workers go out.” At her hesitation, he reassured her, “I will explain to Father why you can’t supervise breakfast. He’ll understand and we’ll get someone else to cover for you.”
Once she actually made it outside, Rebecca welcomed the early-morning coolness as she skirted the tent and walked briskly away from the clearing. Dogs barked behind her in the distance, but she ignored them, confident the mongrels wouldn’t leave their scraps to bother her.
“Lord,” Rebecca began praying once alone on the path.
It had been so long since she had taken early-morning time like this to pray, she had almost forgotten how. “I thank you that you always hear me.” It was hard to know where to start. “Thank you for bringing me here to my husband. You know my faith. I try to do what I believe you want me to do. However, right now, I am constantly in turmoil. My concern isn’t so much for myself, but for the baby.” Rebecca was trying so hard to be brave, but she sobbed as she walked. “Lord, help me! I want my mother and I’m so far from home!”
The breeze shifted direction and gained force, nudging Rebecca away from the path toward an outcropping at the top of a small incline. After discovering a large flat rock shaped like a seat, she sat down to pray.
Absently stretching her long legs out in front of her, she examined her sandy feet peeking out from beneath her robe. The cool air felt so good on her bare face and it was nice that for once, nobody needed anything from her.
Her robe over her tummy jumped where the baby kicked, and she giggled.
Rebecca bowed her head; afraid if she knelt to pray she wouldn’t be able to get back up. “Why is my baby so painfully active in my womb?” she implored Him to show her.
She was so absorbed in prayer that when a voice suddenly came from nowhere, she jumped.
“There are two nations in your womb.”
“Hello?” she asked and sprang to her feet, looking around to see who was speaking. Her only answer was the dry wind blowing through the bushes and down the hill. She shivered with apprehension and suddenly felt very alone.
“The older will serve the younger,” someone said from close by.
“Oh!” Without looking around, Rebecca let out an involuntary cry and slipped to her knees on the rocky ground in spite of her protruding stomach.
She knew who it was – the Lord!
Twins – is that what He meant? How unbelievable.
Now, why would God speak to her?
Was it because she obeyed Him to come so far – or that she took such risks because she trusted Him?
Rebecca’s head hurt.
However, she felt better as His presence surrounded and enveloped her in a soothing cloud of peace. It seemed like hours before she felt released to get up to wobble home, shaken.
She arrived and almost collided with Isaac on her way into the tent. He was adjusting his headpiece and wasn’t paying attention, and nearly knocked her down.
“Sorry,” he exclaimed and steadied her as she almost fell. After seeing the look in her eyes, he exclaimed, “You look as if you saw a ghost!”
Rebecca could only stand there staring at him as sudden pains sliced through her. She grabbed her abdomen in a protective gesture and as water gushed down her legs, her eyes met Isaac’s.
At her unspoken question, he answered, “Yes, sweetheart, it’s time.”
He put an arm firmly around her and shouted for the midwife. “Help! The baby’s coming!”
“Isaac!” Rebecca cried, unable to take another step.
“Hurry!” he bellowed again as three women came from nowhere.
Rebecca panted as she felt herself half-lifted, half-carried into her and Isaac’s tent, and then laid on their bed. Only faintly aware Isaac had disappeared, she listened while the women tended her, their voices crooning and encouraging. Pain rifled through Rebecca again, and she screamed.
How she hated Isaac right then!
“Push!” someone yelled. Rebecca pushed with all her might. A wail sounded, then one of the women cried, “It’s a boy!”
Rebecca tried to get up on her elbows for a better look, but dropped back down to the bed as another pain came. Immediately, someone commanded her. “Push!” She bore down, and this time smiled weakly, as a second set of cries pierced the air. “It’s also a boy!” the midwife cried.
One of the women held up a ruddy-faced fuzzy-haired baby, and said, “This one had hold of the first baby’s ankle!” Then she held up the second baby, but Rebecca just closed her eyes – her hair was soaked with sweat, and she felt weak but happy.
About an hour later, one of the women bustling about tending Rebecca and the babies herded Isaac into the tent. He stood there uncertainly, and then broke out laughing. Rebecca looked up at him, a babe nestled on either side of her. “Do you see what happens when we pray? We never know what we’ll end up with!”

A few days later, while she nursed one baby at each breast after she and Isaac had finished eating, Rebecca asked him to do something for her. “Tell me about what happened in our family before Eliezer came and found me.”
She smiled up at him as one of the babies gurgled in her arms
“It’s a long story.”
“Tell me – please,” she cajoled him, giving him her special smile. He could never refuse it when she showed him her dimples. “I want to know why you are so much like your father Abraham…”
“Now?” he asked incredulously.
Rebecca smiled at each baby suckling, and then pointedly stared back at Isaac to say, “Do you have anything better to tell our boys than how God led our family?”
“Oh all right,” Isaac conceded and grinned sheepishly. “You win. My father used to be known as Abram before his name was changed… lean back, darling – it’s a long story.”

Read more about The Golden Thread and Catherine Craig HERE.

Copyright 2008 Catherine Craig. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Prologue

From the time that I was able to comprehend the meaning of the word “immigrant,” sometime in second or third grade, I have thought of myself as a first-generation immigrant. I was born in India, and although I was only one year old when my family and I emigrated, I still am, in fact, a first-generation immigrant. My parents were the first of their immediate families to leave India for the United States; with no one supporting us, my parents and I had moved halfway around the world, in search of a better education for all of us. We were alone in our journey.

I did not learn of my other relations in the United States for many years. I made the discovery after a trip to India to visit my parents’ families. I had so many cousins whom I had never met, or even talked to on the phone, that I decided to make a family tree so I could remember them. I began collecting information from various relatives, writing names and questionable dates in my little blue notebook. My questions forced many family members to recall the names of dead relatives, but they also brought back wonderful memories for some. My parents and I spent many hours sitting on a cot learning about relatives whom we had never known, and my parents often interrupted the narratives to ask questions of their own.

After we returned to the United States, I temporarily shelved the family tree project. Sitting at a computer a few thousand miles away from the place where I had h e a rd their names made it difficult to organize my dead ancestors and their descendants. Weeks became months, months became years, and eventually I entered high school. I did not remember that I had planned to make a family tree until I returned to India after my sophomore year of high school. After asking our family’s health, the first thing my aunts asked me about was the status of my family tree. I told them I had probably lost my little blue notebook, but they coaxed a promise out of me before I left: I would find the notebook and finish the family tree or I would phone them from the United States and they would find the information for me.

When my parents and I came home to our New York apartment, I searched the old boxes that we were planning to put in storage. I found the precious notebook, and I turned the pages until I came to the information for my family tree. The penciled writing at the beginning and end of the accounts had smudged badly, so I asked my parents to help me decipher my notes. They promptly informed me that the notes were unreadable and that they did not remember the information themselves. My parents suggested that I seek out my cousins in Chicago. This was the first I had heard of any relatives in the United States, so my initial response was to ask just how long they had been in Chicago and why I had never met them. My parents were rather evasive in their answer. My cousins were not in fact my cousins, but distant relatives who had lived in Chicago since the late 1980s. Nevertheless, there was no justifiable explanation for my not meeting them. However, my mother and father were quick to
assure me that there was no time like the present to begin corresponding with my newly discovered Indian

Thus began my first meaningful familial relationship outside of my immediate family. My cousins were just as pleased and shocked to learn of my existence as I had been to learn of theirs, so we began a lengthy correspondence, sharing our experiences as Indian Americans. I visited them during the Christmas vacation of my senior year of high school. It was then that my cousins finally revealed to me that their mother had kept diaries of her early experiences as an Indian immigrant. They escorted me to an attic, turned on a desk lamp, and left me to read in peace.

I was intrigued by my aunt’s accounts of life in Chicago during the Cold War, and I kept reading for several hours, until, despite my best efforts, I was exhausted and struggling to stay awake. One phrase in particular caught my eye as I was falling asleep, and when I woke in the late afternoon, I re-read the diary entry. There was a mention of a relative in California working in the Ghadr movement. I knew very little about the Ghadr movement, except that it was a revolutionary movement for Indian independence from the British Empire. That fact alone placed this relative’s stay in America somewhere between 1850 and 1950. I kept reading to see if I might have some very distant relatives in California, until I skimmed over a mention of the Hindu Conspiracy Trial. I began overturning boxes on the attic floor in an effort to find more information, but there was nothing to be found. In a moment of frustration, I began physically abusing the desk, until, quite by accident, one of the drawers slid open, revealing a cardboard box small enough to hold some letters or perhaps a small book. The box held letters and a book, as I resumed my previous position at the desk and received a course in early Indian American history.

It was not for several months, until my history teacher challenged my class with an optional project about a certain group of immigrants in American history, that I conceived the idea of combining excerpts from the diaries of my Californian ancestor and my Chicagoan aunt. I returned to Chicago during my spring break and proposed the idea to my cousins. They were enthusiastically in support of such a project to understand Indian American history, but they had no time to devote themselves. I immediately agreed to begin the project in their attic. I spent two weeks in the attic, researching, taking notes, and formulating the organization of the excerpts. I searched online and in numerous library books for photos which corresponded with the stories I wished to tell. Miraculously, I finished my collection by the end of spring break and was able to show it to my cousins. They agreed that I should keep the album and take it back to New York.

I re-read the compilation of diary entries when I returned home. There were many gaps between entries because of missing information or omitted material, which made understanding the book difficult, but not impossible. Nevertheless, I began annotating the collection, and the first two-thirds of the current book were completed. I included the third part because I could not find a satisfactory conclusion to my ancestors’ stories. Reconstructing parts of their lives did not make the collection relevant to many people, so I spent an entire day mulling over the possibility of a third part, a counterpart in length and topic to the first two parts of my book. I brainstormed and discarded various topics owing to the numerous demands of my senior year of high school and the need to prepare for college.

It was not until I attended a Deepavali festival for the first time in three years that I finally was able to write the present conclusion to my family saga by drawing the first two parts of my family’s history together in a third part about my own experience in New York City. I finished my story and compiled all three parts within the next weekend, an amazing feat considering the years of b r a i n s t o rming and writing which had led to that moment. Several years after that important weekend, I find myself editing this book for what I hope is the final time. I would like this album to survive, so that it might become a repository of family history for my own descendants.

The first Indian in the United States is believed to have been a sailor who entered the country in 1790, but the first sizeable migration of Indians to the United States did not occur for more than a decade, in 1907. The “first wave” of Indian immigrants consisted of mostly poor, uneducated Punjabi farmworkers, younger sons with no land in India. They initially immigrated to California, Washington, and Oregon in the hopes of making a quick profit and then returning home with some extra money in their pockets.

Following these Punjabis, who were mostly Sikhs, came a smaller group of young intellectuals who hoped to study in the United States. While well educated in India, some of these students were not wealthy enough to pay for their education at American institutions, and they often worked alongside the Punjabi Sikhs during the summers to pay their tuition. My Californian ancestor became one of these student-farmer types on a more permanent basis when he was expelled from Stanford University for his participation in the Ghadr movement, which university officials viewed as anarchist.

The most famous of these Indian students were Lala Har Dayal and Taraknath Das, both Hindus who studied at Stanford University. In 1912, Lala Har Dayal and Taraknath Das founded the Ghadr Party, whose aim was to gain Indian independence from Great Britain. Drawing on the ideals of the American revolution and the social difficulties experienced by Sikhs in the United States, Har Dayal, the primary leader of the movement, managed to create a significantly large organization to worry British officials, who infiltrated the movement and persuaded American officials to prosecute Ghadr members on conspiracy charges. The result was the infamous San Francisco Hindu German Conspiracy Trial which lasted from 1917 to 1918 and temporarily

[Compiled from several entries all made in January 1917]

The day of the “Hindu” laborers begins before dawn, as we leave the bare cabins to work in the fields. The white employer is amazed at our industriousness, but for us, it is nothing. In the summer, we work especially long and hard by American standards. We normally wake up at 4 am and work with their teams until 10 am, use their hoes until 4 pm, and then their teams until 9 pm. Occasionally, workers wake up at 1 am if there is a great deal of work to be done. Our eagerness for difficult labor may seem odd to an American, but the work is nothing for an Indian who needs to make a living. The words of Professor E.E. Chandler at Occidental College are typical of the white employers’ attitude toward Indians: “I do not believe the Imperial Valley is a white man’s country and I am willing to hand it over to the Hindus and Japanese.”

The first Indian immigrants came to northern California in 1907, but the majority did not come for several years afterward. Many came to escape persecution and the British rule of India. They began working in the fields, orchards, lumber mills, and railroads around Marysville in Northern California. They were especially attracted to California’s narrow farming belt, which runs the length of the entire state. The climate is similar to Punjab, and the threats of typhoid and malaria are nothing to Indians and other East Asians. Many of the original immigrants became migrant workers, passing southward as the growing season progressed. By 1909, Indians were farming sugar beets in Monterey Bay, Visalia, and Oxnard; celery, potato, bean fields near Holt (a town near Stockton); and the orange groves of Indians have been working in America for nearly ten years, but we are still stereotyped by the white community. I am a true Hindu, while the rest of my comrades are Sikhs. This model is representative of the rest of the Indian population in California; there are Muslims, Hindus, and Christians, but mostly Sikhs. Still, the small minority populations have confused many Americans, who think all of us wear turbans, but call us Hindus. We are the “turbaned tide” of “ragheads” to the newspapers. While many of us fit the white stereotype of the uneducated savage, individuals like myself are largely ignored.

I was educated in India under the influence of British civilization, and I came to America to study at Stanford University. It was here that I made my connections with the Ghadr Party of the United States [party for Indian independence from England, founded in the United States]. However, I soon found out that revolutionary activities are not looked upon kindly in the country of the first modern revolution. I was warned to disassociate myself from the Ghadr Party or I would be expelled. But how do you give up your ideals and call yourself a human being? Now I have no money to return home, even if I desired to, so I remain as one of the few educated agricultural workers in the fields and orchards of California. Over the past few years, I have become a close observer of the largely Sikh Indian community and of the Ghadr movement in the United States.

The Sikhs are unusual in that they are isolated from every other community in the United States. There is no friendship between migrant workers of different races, especially because they are often competing for the same jobs. Only race, not a similarity of economic situation.

One such example is the situation of 1907, the first year of a considerable Sikh influx. In that year, the Japanese keiyaku-nin (labor contractors) were on the verge of forcing better wages in 1907. White farm owners would have been forced to hire the Japanese at rates close to $3 per day.8 Employers were in a corner until the Sikhs migrated to America. Working at first for $0.75 per day, the Sikhs formed a migrant labor force along with Mexicans and a few Greeks. Although many were unskilled in the fields, they worked their way up in the labor force. Now, some of them work for $4 per day, most of which they send to their struggling families on the other side of the world in Punjab. The Japanese, embittered by the loss of their near-win in the struggle for dominance, often call Sikhs “English slaves” and “poles” because of their height.

Still, despite Sikh successes, the early years of low wages have ruined the image of the Indian laborer, not to mention the 1909 U.S. Immigration Commission report’s admission that it is “practically universal to discriminate against the East Indian in wages.” In their dealings with employers, Sikh bosses often recall how surprised employers are that they and their men are competitive farmers. The white men consistently underestimate the Indian, even as they praise him. The same Professor Chandler from Occidental College once made a remark that was complimentary and racist at the same time: “The Hindu resembles us except that he is a black, and we are shocked to see a black white man.” Still, many Sikhs regard such remarks as compliments. On the social ladder, they say, they are much below African Americans and Mexicans. Sometimes the darker-skinned ones have even attempted to pass themselves off as African Americans to obtain higher wages, while the Banks may praise the Sikh, but almost no one else does. Angry whites, afraid that they might lose their jobs to a race willing to work longer hours for less pay, have called them names and beat them. In one incident in early 1908, many Sikhs who had worked for a man named George Pierce were driven out of Davisville. It was one of the most publicized attacks on Sikhs. The Sikh laborers had started work as orchard pruners, but the whites were afraid of the small, but growing, number of Sikhs in their little town. The white residents beat and terrorized the Sikhs, burning their camp, robbing them of $2500, and finally driving them out of town. At the end of its account, the Sacramento Bee happily declared, “All is quiet today and there will be no more trouble if the Hindus keep away.”

Another of my gang told me of another smaller, but not uncommon, incident. “I used to go to Marysville every Saturday,” he said, “[and] buy children ice cream and talk. One day a drunk ghora (white man) came out of a bar and motioned to me saying, ‘Come here, slave!’ I said I was no slave man. He told me that his (i.e. white man’s race) ruled India and America, too. All we were were slaves. He came close to me and I hit him and got away fast.”

The Sikhs, isolated from American society, have built their own organizations. They have formed labor gangs of pindi (village-men), even if their geographic p roximity in India was questionable. They have “discovered” tenuous family links so they could truly call themselves family. An extended family in India is very important, so often the gangs consist of twelve to twenty men. They are fluid organizations, with members often coming and going, and during harvest time, there are adopted American institutions. In Vacaville, Sotham Singh is known as a Sikh labor contractor, negotiating labor contracts for large groups of workers.

Sotham Singh has taken the place of the boss man in the traditional Sikh labor gang. The bosses negotiate labor contracts for the whole group. Sometimes, Hindus even join the groups because the work requires an extra laborer. Sharing living expenses and wages, the workers form gangs for a mutual support system, creating almost a collective organization. Each group of workers also takes care of an older man useless for field labor, and they pay him equal wages to serve as their cook.19 Gangs pay for weekly groceries, and when necessary, a funeral for their pindu (village-mate). They are often the only link to a past life in India, and it is for this that I stay with my gang, even though they are of a lower class and a different religion.

[Compiled from entries of February 1917]

There was another Ghadr meeting tonight. Increasingly, the leadership of the Party has struggled to stay in control of the meetings. The Sikh farm laborers have begun complaining more often about discrimination in the fields and the orchards. As soon as one man mentions how he is paid less than another worker of say, the African race, the others join in with a chorus of righteous exclamations.

The fools cannot keep their mouths shut about their difficulties in America. Ghadr Party members are forced to spend precious time listening to their complaints at a meeting of a political party designed to change the political, social, and economic balance in India. Their social complaints about life in America would be better addressed at one of their gurdwaras, those Sikh temples.

Despite their social concerns, the quality of life in America is not as important as whether the laborers are able to earn a living. Most plan to return to India after they have earned a sufficient sum of money to support their families. The men here are mostly younger sons who have come to seek their fortune and return home. The Ghadr Party is merely a political organization founded in the United States for the benefit of the sojourners, who are supposedly able to do more to win Indian independence in America.

Rather than formulating plans to achieve Indian independence, the peasants spend the meetings telling stories. A select group of Hindu intellectuals founded this movement five years ago with the name “Revolution.” Some translate it “mutiny.”  The name itself is Punjabi, and strangely enough, the farmers seem to have forgotten their native tongue.

It is most likely with the dissent in mind that Ram Chandra officially began the meeting with the singing of a particular Ghadr song, to remind the Sikhs of our purpose:

The time for prayer is gone.

It is the time to take up the sword.

Empty talk does not serve any purpose.

It is time to engage in a fierce battle.

Only the names of those who long

for martyrdom will shine.

The next textual items on the agenda were quotes from the works of Thomas Jefferson and others of his generation, who have long been regarded as the founders of the first modern democracy. They are one of the away from our families and all things familiar: this is America, the land of freedom and opportunity, where, more than a century ago, another group of men declared their freedom from the British Empire. They fought a war and won the right to form their own nation; what better place to start a revolution than here?

If there is any doubt about the purpose of the Ghadr movement, the American Declaration of Independence justifies our actions:

But when a long train of abuses & usurpations pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce [the people] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, & to provide new guards for their future security…The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries & usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.

In contrast to the American situation, the British have been abusing Indians for nearly three centuries. The first armed rebellion to our resistance movement caused the formal transfer of power from the British East India Company to the British crown, and there have been no other rebellions of note since. Only a collision of unbearable circumstances has forced us to rebel. In the early part of this century, many of us fled India for cholera, smallpox, the plague, swept across the country. In the midst of the deaths, the British seized our land, annexed the state of Punjab, and forced us into poverty. Granted, subdivisions of land below profitable levels has increased the number of landless farmers because of foreclosures, but the loss of Indian land is not the first instance of British tyranny. The British have been physically torturing and tormenting our people in various ways since the day they entered our country. There is no justice: if a native Indian does have an opportunity to testify at a trial, he cannot afford to leave his home. In “The Rights of British America,” Thomas Jefferson describes the American situation under British rule, which is similar to the subjugation of Indians:

Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.

Just as the Japanese field workers call us “English slaves,” Indians are verbally insulted everywhere we go. As one Ghadr song states,

The whole world calls us black thieves,

This abuse from those outside of our community ought to unite us in purpose, since the first step toward improving social conditions everywhere is respect from the rest of the world; that is, we must fight and win a war against the British in India. However, Sikhs have filled every Ghadr meeting for the past two years with complaints about the movement’s failure to improve their lives. There was a time, at the founding of our blessed organization in this country, that this tension between Hindus and Sikhs was not as apparent. However difficult relations between Hindus and Sikhs may be in India, in California in 1912, we all were able to ignore religion for a greater and nobler purpose: the freedom of India from the British Raj.

Our first newspaper, printed in San Francisco on November 1, 1913, proudly displayed an editorial written by Lala Har Dayal to describe our purpose:

Today there begins in foreign lands, but in our country’s tongue, a war against the British Raj…What is our name? Mutiny. What is our work? Mutiny. Where will mutiny break out? In India. The time will soon come when rifles and blood will take the place of pens and ink.

The patriotism of the movement, partly due to America’s own revolutionary history, led us for a year or so. Then, Lala Har Dayal, the Punjabi Hindu who founded the organization, was forced to flee to Germany, after he was arrested by American officials for preaching anarchism.

The movement nearly collapsed after Lala Har Dayal Hindu, in charge of the movement. Ram Chandra is not a Punjabi like Har Dayal, and even more prejudiced against the Sikh farmers than I could ever possibly be. In only three years of his leadership, Ram Chandra has managed to alienate almost every Sikh member of the Party. He has reorganized the Party to exclude all Sikhs from administrative or organizing positions. Ram Chandra has also openly disparaged the Sikhs, calling them all sorts of filthy names, while at the same time using their money for Party activities. Many have broken away and under Bhagwan Singh, have formed a new Ghadr Party with the same name and newspaper. Now there are two organizations claiming to be the real Ghadr Party.

The same year that Har Dayal left, four hundred of our revolutionaries returned to India to start the freedom fight. The meeting before they left was a celebratory one, in anticipation of the coming victory. We passed around old copies of the Ghadr, reading aloud the messages that had led to this final send-off, such as one editorial proclaiming:

Enough: Wake, O Hindus and rub your eyes. Open your minds. Store your wealth in the Ghadr office and register your name in the army of the Ghadr. Cleanse your blood. How long will you remain seated in lethargy? Be ready to spring like tigers.

The initial call for mutiny in India was painted on one wall of our meetinghouse, just as it had been printed in
WANTED

Fearless, courageous soldiers for

spreading mutiny in India

Salary: Death

Reward: Martyrdom

and Freedom

Place: The Field of India

Although many Ghadarites did succeed in rousing the peasantry, a large number failed and were arrested by British spies. The rebellions were quickly put down, and the initial failure caused morale to drop sharply in America. Since then, we have worked to rebuild the Party in America, but the arrests have cost us support.

March 3, 1917

It seems that the Ghadr movement has attracted more attention than anyone had anticipated. In the middle of the Great War, a combination of envy and distrust has served to make us the subject of an investigation. For a few brief months in 1914, we had begun communications with German intelligence through the agent C.K. Chakraverty. We broke off relations as soon as the war began, but still the relationship with the Indian National Committee in Berlin has been exaggerated in the press. Some have accused us of disloyalty and treason because we sought to better the economic and social status of our people.

March 18, 1917

The Party has suffered a significant loss. Several newspapers describe it as “the Hindu German Conspiracy,” but there is little truth in that statement. There have been no communications with the Berlin Indian National Committee since the official declaration of war, when the United States entered the war against Germany, but anything deemed “un-American” has been under suspicion since that time. The American newspapers have changed the German names of streets, foods, and everyday household objects, and anything remotely connected with Germany is under suspicion. The bad reputation of the arrival of the Sikh laborers as the “invasion” of the “turbaned tide” has not attracted much sympathy for the Ghadr cause. British spies have infiltrated our movement, and the agent Hopkinson has supplied false information about Ghadr activities to the American government. The newspapers are only too happy to supply fictional accounts of our monstrous doings to satisfy the appetite of the American public.

The first people arrested have been only those directly involved in the dropped India-Germany link, not active members of the main Ghadr movement. The agent Chandra Kanta Chakraverty has been arrested, along with the Germans Franz Bopp, Ernst Sekuna, E. H. von Schack, and William von Brincken. So far, none of the main body of the Ghadr Party has been affected by these arrests, but I can only assume that many of us will be dragged into this mess before it disappears, through the association of the arrested men with the Ghadr Party.

November 4, 1917

I have spent this long summer and most of autumn in hiding, disguising myself as a Mexican migrant worker. their group, but they have been surprisingly sympathetic, allowing me to hide my Indian identity.

American officials have arrested Ram Chandra and one hundred and five of our fellow Party members since March, the time of the first arrests. Their trial begins in a week or two, and I have elected to remain in San Francisco to hear the fates of my comrades. Unquestionably, the Ghadr movement has been shattered in the United States. Most of the leadership either has fled the country, or is lying in God-knows what condition in a filthy jail cell. I cannot visit the jail myself, but a few of my more adventurous Mexican comrades have taken their chances to peer inside the high-barred windows of the jail. They do not return with the same smile on their faces as when they had left, but they will not tell me anything.

Despite the dangers, I occasionally manage my own foray into town, although I am careful to stay several hundred feet away from the jail. It is not difficult to hide in San Francisco at this moment. Larger than usual crowds wander in the streets to catch sight of the new imprisoned attractions. Journalists from all over the United States are crowding around the courthouse and the jail, trying to catch a glimpse of those inside. They shout questions day and night at my miserable comrades cramped inside their prison cells.

May 1, 1918

It seems that it has been ages since my comrades first went on trial in the San Francisco courthouse, but it has only been a little over one year since the arrests began. On November 20, the first day of the trial, I finally dared windows, along with so many others who could not get a seat inside. The authorities had cracked open a few windows, so that the voices of the lawyers carried outside, and nearly all was silent in the streets as many people pressed up against the courthouse windows.

Inside, the dark, filthy, disheartened faces of the arrested Hindus and Sikhs on one side of the courtroom contrasted with the best clothes of the town officials and the handsome suits of the Washington diplomats. The prosecution was mostly calm and collected, confident of their ability to win, while my comrades were calm as well, but out of resignation rather than assurance of winning their case.

The trial began surprisingly with a reference to the esteemed Har Dayal. The U.S. Attorney said in his opening statement:

This conspiracy had its inception surrounding this one individual. This man, Har Dayal, was a rank, out-and-out Anarchist; he believed in a combination and consolidation of all Anarchistic forces in the entire world for the purpose of social, industrial and all other kinds of revolutions of the rankest character.

After this dramatic proclamation, the trial dragged on for weeks, which then turned into months. I cannot remember now when anything happened, but only what did happen. The highlights of the trial proved to be short bursts of drama, as the case took unexpected turns.

one of the former members of the Ghadr Party came forth to testify for the prosecution. His betrayal provoked the first reaction from the defendants, as they all stared in surprise and then glared at his reappearance. Jodh Singh was one of the four hundred Ghadarites who had left to stir up protest in India in 1914. The last the Ghadarites had heard of him, he had been arrested by British officials in Bangkok. It was obvious, now, that British agents had shipped him from Asia to betray the Party. Then, surprisingly, he refused to testify when he took the witness stand, shouting, “I will die with my own countrymen!” Officers removed him from the witness stand. I left the window to find something to eat, and to mull over Jodh Singh’s sudden changes of allegiance. I decided to return to work, and it was several weeks before I came to the courthouse again.

At the time of my arrival, there seemed to be an even larger drama than that of Jodh Singh’s reappearance unfolding inside. When I asked the watchers what was happening, they all told me in not-so-complimentary terms to be quiet. Phrase by phrase, I managed to hear the controversy through the courtroom windows. Apparently, one of the defendants was complaining of inadequate legal representation. The other Indian defendants shouted, “Give us justice–this is a farce!” It was at this point that I realized how long this trial could potentially last without any useful arguments being made.

The trial proceeded in a strangely comic manner over the following months. Each bizarre occurrence received the generally expected response, but for a few surprises. For example, one day, the agent Chakraverty decided to confess to his participation in a German-Indian alliance. The revelation caused a furor on the side of the defense,

Sometime after Chakraverty gave his confession, another Ghadarite accused Ram Chandra of selling him and five others into slavery to the Germans for $10,000 and alleged that Ghadr rules stated that he ought to be killed for exposing secrets to the public. The prosecution also made further ridiculous comments on the Ghadr agenda, suggesting that party members plotted to bring Rabindranath Tagore, the famous Indian poet and philosopher, to the United States as part of a conspiracy. They brought forth evidence of a letter which they had “decoded” to read that Chakraverty had played a role in Tagore’s visit to the U.S. The prosecution also brought forth other decoded messages that supposedly indicated that Ghadr agents stationed in countries such as England, Germany, France, Japan, and China, as well as those on Pacific islands, were agitating for Indian independence as per orders originating from the United States. While it is true that the Ghadr movement does have sister movements outside of the United States and India, any communication between these groups has been strictly between leaders, with no involvement of the large body of Party members. Still, the newspaper reporters scribbled furiously, attempting to record every one of these ludicrous statements.

In the midst of all these accusations, however, the defendants managed to cause a small furor in the courthouse. One of the defendants subpoenaed an American, William Jennings Bryan, who has written a book about India. The newspapers speculated that the defense lawyers might attempt to use Bryan’s book to show that the German link was not the cause of revolutionary activities, but rather the conditions in India. Regardless of the controversy excited by calling upon an American man in defense of a foreigner, the situation soon resolved itself and the trial continued its

The trial finally appeared to be coming to a close early this year, when the most unexpected event happened. The court had just announced a recess, when out of nowhere, Ram Singh, one of the defendants, shot Ram Chandra, who was also on trial. It appeared that the trial had succeeded in killing the American Ghadr movement. Newspapers based as far away as the Washington Post reported the incident:

Ram Chandra arose and started across the room. Ram Singh also a rose. He raised his revolver and began firing. Ram Chandra staggered forward and fell dead before the witness chair, with a bullet in his heart and two others in his body.

At the same moment Ram Singh fell. Holohan [a U.S. Marshal] had shot once with his arm high over his head, so that the bullet should clear nearby counsel. The shot broke Ram Singh’s neck.

Everyone had scrambled for safety after the first shot was fired. There was great disorder in the courtroom, and it took the judge some time to restore order. The judge ordered everyone out of the courtroom, except for the law officials. The crowd returned home in a subdued manner, and all of us watching through the windows followed.

One week later, Judge Van Fleet has handed down he been convicted of conspiracy in a fabricated court case. Their sentences are light, from one to eighteen months of jail time, but the loss still hurts the Ghadr Party. No one speaks of achieving equal status with whites in the United States, and there is little talk of revolution. The media has dispersed, but there is no talk of a Ghadr meeting or even a Ghadr newspaper. I suspect that after their jail time is over, many will return to India, or at least leave California. I myself have decided to return to India, taking whatever savings I have and finding a job there to support my family. America is no longer the land of opportunity for the Indian immigrant.

From 1918 to the late 1970s, my family remained in obscurity in India. Some members of the family may have continued participating in Ghadr activities similar to those of my Californian ancestor, but any evidence of those events remains buried in India.

What is evident, however, is that the family maintained its tradition of education. An education is highly valued in Indian culture, and a good education is relatively expensive, even in India. The family finances most likely recovered within several generations of the California scholar-turned-farmworker, since my Chicagoan aunt had enough money to immigrate to the United States in the late 1970s.

By the time of her arrival, my aunt was categorized as part of the second wave of Indian immigrants to the United States, which followed on the heels of the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965. The first wave, as described by the previous diarist, was mostly comprised of Sikh agricultural laborers. In contrast, the second wave of immigrants was composed of Indian professionals specializing in the sciences. They sought jobs, just as those in the first wave, but class differences and changing circumstances in America placed the new immigrants higher on the ladder of American society than their predecessors. The new immigrants were well educated and well versed in Western culture because of the modernization of India caused by British colonization. They were also well received in the United States because new federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid called for more medical personnel, and the nuclear arms race of the Cold War created a niche in the other scientific disci
plines. By 1980, many lesser-educated family members of the professionals already in the United States migrated and opened their own Indian shops, founded Indian organizations, and organized

December 1, 1980

Excerpt from “Then and Now: Indian Immigrants of Chicago in a Period of Transition,” a newspaper column written by my aunt and printed in several Chicago-area Indian newspapers

It has been three years since the day I set foot in the United States. I knew almost nothing about the country when I arrived here, except for three things: I was a trained doctor, someone that the United States needed, and therefore I could find a job; Hollywood, the famous film industry, was located in the United States; and Chicago, my new home, was the home of the infamous gangster Al Capone.

Chicago is much different from what I had expected. When I first came to America, my knowledge of this country was mostly information gleaned fro m Hollywood films exported to India and a few works of American literature read in a university philosophy class. It was in an American bookstore several weeks after my arrival that I came across the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson again. When I went to the counter to pay for my purchases, the clerk remarked that I ought to read Walt Whitman as well. He handed me a worn copy of a book titled Leaves of Grass, and with a few misgivings, I purchased the additional book.

I was homesick for the first time when I re a d Whitman’s poems. They reminded me so much of the work of the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore that I opened my small carton of books to find a copy of Tagore’s Gitanjali (Song Offerings). I began comparing

on the other side of the world, with the unknown Whitman poetry written nearly thirty years before that on this side of the world. Their poetic style and subject matter are very similar: they both speak in similar tones about nature and society. In one religious poem, “For Him I Sing,” Whitman declares his devotion to a higher being:

For him I sing,
I raise the present on the past,
(As some perennial tree out of its
roots, the present on the past,)
With time and space I him dilate
and fuse the immortal laws,
To make himself by them the law
unto himself.

In contrast, Tagore has not yet sung the song he “came to sing” for a supreme being:

The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day, I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only the wind is sighing by.

I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house….

I live in the hope of meeting with him; but this meeting is

While these poems are similar in subject matter, their tone differs greatly. Walt Whitman is not humble about his role as a singer and has already begun his work. Tagore is much more modest than Whitman; he has not yet fulfilled his purpose but “live[s] in the hope” that it will happen some day.

Tagore’s unassuming manner is similar to my own demeanor as an Indian arriving in the United States, while Whitman’s pride in himself represents my American colleagues. The shock of arriving in America and being confronted with such characters almost caused me to return to India, but several years later, I would like to think I am neither Tagore nor Whitman. I assert myself, but am also exceedingly polite, a balance unusual in both in America and in India, but more tolerated in America. For this reason, I have been assimilated into the Indian American community of Chicago, a group of people balancing somewhere between the mindsets of Tagore and Whitman.

Copyright 2008 Diya Das. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

The tensions of the Civil War era, a turbulent time in American history, pitted immigrants against nativists, management against labor, and pro-slavery factions against abolitionists. In many northern states, support for the war was weak. President Lincoln had to draft soldiers to fight.

When the Northern draft was enacted in October of 1862, resistance built up in regions where the common people’s interests were in jeopardy. Riots broke out in several states, including Pennsylvania. The coal region and farmlands were hotbeds of resistance since losing a breadwinner threatened the survival of the family. The outbreaks of hostility in Pennsylvania were not as large or as violent as the ill-famed New York riot of 1863, but they highlight the lack of northern unity regarding the war. The slogan “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight” became popular among the masses.

Immigrants resented the hostile reception they received from the Know Nothing Party and other nativist groups who opposed the influx of workers from Europe. At the same time, the country was experiencing a surge of growth in industry and needed cheap labor to mine coal for the production of steel for railroads and other businesses.

Northeastern Pennsylvania had a particularly high percentage of immigrant workers. Irishmen who were recruited for mine work were usually poor unskilled laborers, not certified miners who commanded a higher wage. They performed strenuous and dangerous tasks and were paid by the miner from his earnings. The cultural and religious differences between English and Welsh bosses and Irish and German workers worsened already strained labor relations.

Pay was based on filling coal cars with good clean  anthracite, so important safety considerations, like shoring up the roof and clearing rubble, were often neglected in order to fill the cars. Colliery owners were known to pay workers in scrip which could only be used at the Company store, limiting their buying power and their independence.

Mine workers suffered when there were strikes or stoppages, but also when overproduction caused the price of anthracite to drop. Work injuries and deaths were common, and without public welfare agencies, the families had to rely on themselves, their churches, and their benevolent societies. The draft was a flame set to the tinderbox that was the coal region in 1862.

Benjamin Bannan, editor of The Miners Journal of Pottsville and Schuylkill County draft commissioner during the Civil War, blamed the “Molly Maguires” for voter fraud, political defeats, the draft riots, violence at the mines, and murders. He contributed to the anti-Irish hysteria of the era by associating the Molly Maguires with the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a benevolent association.

While Katie’s adventures are fictional, the events of Call Me Kate depict the common experience of those turbulent days.

CHAPTER 1

Coal Mining Crisis November 1860

“S’ter, s’ter, I need to see Katie right away!” The disheveled boy who burst into our classroom was my friend and former classmate, Con Gallagher. He bent to catch his breath beside the well-polished teacher’s desk.

Twenty pairs of horror-filled eyes turned in my direction, then darted back toward the frowning nun, expecting the worst. Sister Mary Charles never tolerated disruptions, especially to her beloved literature class. I was in for it unless Con had a darn good reason to be here.

Ink splashed from the inkwell as I jumped up from my desk, but Sister was even faster. Accompanied by the rattle of rosary beads, she dragged Con into the corridor by a sooty sleeve and told me to return to my seat. I hesitated, then plopped back down. What in the world was happening?

My friend Annie leaned across the aisle and whispered,  “This better not be one of Con’s pranks or you’ll both get paddled.”

“Shhh!” Everyone strained to hear the conversation in the  hall, but whatever was said did not take long.

“Miss McCafferty, go to the cloakroom and get your  belongings please.” Sister Mary Charles’s no-nonsense voice was tinged with kindness, usually reserved for the Latin scholars.

Since I expected a scolding, Sister’s concerned tone bewildered me completely. As I stepped forward, the piercing breaker whistle split the air. A mine accident!

The frightening sound spurred chaotic movement. Girls hugged each other and cried, then one by one my classmates slid to their knees. My whirling thoughts fixed on a terrifying conclusion. Please God, no. Please no.

I ran into the hallway without stopping for my shawl and screamed, “Con, what happened?”

Con caught me by the elbows. His blue eyes met mine. “The coal face your father was working collapsed. His legs are pinned. But he’s alive, Katie!”

I broke from his grasp and dashed out of the schoolhouse into the cold gray November morning, a day as bleak as Con’s news.

“Does my mother know?” Strands of my unruly auburn hair escaped its pins and stuck to my tear-dampened cheeks. I rubbed it back with my palms.

“Bad news travels fast. She may have run to the scene already, I don’t know. I went right to school to tell you to get home.”

“HOME? I’m going to the mine!”

“No Katie, go to your house. Someone needs to be there. Dinny went to get Gram and her remedy kit so she’ll be set to treat your da’ when he arrives. I’ll help you tear cloth for bandages and boil the water that Gram will need to clean your father’s wounds. Your da’ may even be home by now.” Con’s words made sense so I bolted down the alley, a shortcut to the house.

As we reached the side porch, I heard a measured clopping sound echo down Front Street. My heart clenched and missed a beat. The hoofbeats of the Black Mariah, that omen of misery and death, was headed to the mine. Panic flooded through my veins.

There was no sign of life at our house. I opened the back door and called for my mother. Hollow silence met my call. Down the cellar!

I ran out to the rear of the house while Con went to check with the neighbors. When I lifted the heavy door to the storm cellar, I heard Mother singing a cheerful tune as she sealed jelly jars in a pot of boiling water. She looked up, startled, as I dashed down the steps.

“Katie, what’re you doing home before lunch?”

“Didn’t you hear the whistle? Hurry, Father’s injured!”

The surprise on her face turned to horror. She ran up the stairs, using her apron to wipe her steam-flushed brow as she raced outside. “How do you know?”

“Con came to school to tell me. Father’s pinned in the chamber. The men are clearing the entrance to free him.”

“Oh God, oh God!” My mother wrung her hands and looked helpless.

I ran inside and got mother’s woolen shawl and my old cape. By the time I returned, Con was there, reassuring her that help was coming. “My grandmother is on the way in case her skills are needed.”

Con had left before anyone knew how bad Father’s injuries were, but the huge fall of rock had killed Johnnie Pat, the young nipper working the doors.

Mother and I set off for the colliery. Con didn’t argue this time. He offered to stay behind to read’ up for his grandmother. Mrs. Gallagher was a stickler for cleanliness, and her sickbed requirements were well known to Con and his brother Dinny.

A huge crowd had gathered at the mine entrance. Friends rushed up and offered sympathy and news. I turned my back on the large black coach and dark horses hitched nearby. The gloomy-looking Black Mariah reminded me of a large crow hovering over a dying rabbit.

Mother composed her face and stiffened her spine as she came to grips with the situation. I tried to imitate her restraint, even though I felt like sobbing. Our outward courage was shattered an hour later when an ear-piercing scream tore through the crowd.

Johnnie Pat’s mother saw her son’s body carried out on a litter. He was covered from neck down with sailcloth, but blood from his saturated shirt had seeped through the canvas, and smudge marks marred his still, marble-white face. The younger children, clinging to Mrs. McFadden’s skirts, began to howl, echoing their mother’s cry. She collapsed next to the litter, sobbing bitterly. Her elderly father comforted her, then turned to beckon to our parish priest.

Father Maloney, wearing a violet stole over his black cassock, anointed Johnnie’s forehead while intoning in Latin “Si es capax.” If thou art alive. No one here had any doubt that Johnnie was dead.

I automatically translated the Latin prayer. Through this holy unction may the Lord pardon thee of whatever sins or faults thou hast committed. Johnnie’s faults were minor -quarreling with his older sister, teasing his little brothers, maybe pocketing a few mints from the barrel at the Company store. Johnnie Pat had been in my younger sister’s class until he went to work in the mines. If God is just, then Johnnie’s place in Heaven will be higher than the biggest boss’s here on Earth. Where would the owners stand on Judgment Day?

The women of the Patch surrounded the boy’s heartbroken mother. They cared for the other McFadden children while their brother’s body was whisked away. In the Patch, giving comfort to the grief stricken was a well-cultivated skill.

I held my mother’s elbow to steady her as Father was brought out. Although he was alert, no one knew just how serious his injuries were. The priest once again stepped forward, this time to perform the last rites in full. Father clasped a crucifix while the priest anointed his eyelids, ears, nostrils, lips, hands, and feet. Mother moaned once, then bit her clenched fist to keep from sobbing.

After the blessing, the company men carried Father to the waiting coach. Mother and I kept pace alongside as best we could, but fell behind the horse-drawn vehicle on the steep incline of Ridge Street. I was glad Con had stayed behind to wait.

By the time we reached the house, the workers had taken Father from the tall black carriage and lowered his mangled body onto the splintery porch floorboards. Mother choked back a cry at the sight of his gray, pain-filled face and awkwardly twisted torso. She knelt and caressed his bruised hand.

“Here’s Gram,” said Con, leaping the bannister to help the white-haired woman who trudged across our yard carrying a bundle. Old Mrs. Gallagher, Con and Dinny’s grandmother, was renowned as a healer and herbalist. Her daughter-in-law, Deirdre, was right behind her, toting a large satchel. Dinny, Con Gallagher’s identical twin, arrived with a basket of supplies as the workers hurried off to deliver the next accident victim to his grieving family. Directions flew as the old woman went into action.

“Dinny, go over street and get Catharine McCall and Aggie McCafferty.” Dinny dashed off to get my grandmother and great-aunt who lived across town.

“Con and Katie, take hold of one side of this sheet and help lift Jack. Deirdre, you and Mary take the other side. Careful now!”

We shuffled our way into the parlor and placed Father on a pallet on the floor. Mrs. Gallagher opened her bag and took out several items.

“Katie, I need soap and water, and clean rags.”

Quickly cutting off Father’s shredded pants legs, she expertly removed scraps of fabric and embedded coal from the wound, then pressed it to stop the bleeding.

As she began sewing up the wounds, I frowned, sensing something strange. Father was not screaming with pain. He did not wince at the cleaning of the wounds or stitching of his flesh. Mrs. Gallagher shook her head and glared at me when I opened my mouth.

“Katie, take these soiled rags to the burner and bring fresh.” She shoved a bowl of blood- drenched cloth at me with a meaningful look. I scrambled to obey, but by the time I returned the procedure was finished.

“Rest and quiet are what Jack needs now. Go on, all of yeh, and let him sleep off the shock.”

Deirdre and my mother began cleaning the parlor while Mrs. Gallagher lifted Father’s head to give him sips of willow tea. Con and I went out on the porch where I asked the questions that were pounding inside my head.

“Tell me how the accident happened. Were you right there? Who else was hurt?”

“Hold on, Katie. Calm down. I’ll tell you what I know, if you’re sure you’re ready to hear it.”

I inhaled deeply and sat on the railing, hugging the post. “Tell me.”

“I was outside in the gangway loading coal while Sam Davison and his buttie were in the chamber preparing to blast the coalface. Your father had just taken a hand augur into the room for Sam to drill a hole for the powder when there was the creaking sound of a squeeze. I only had time to cover my head and crouch. It was pure luck that the coal car protected me from the shower of rock.” Con shook his head at his miraculous escape.

“Poor Johnnie Pat wasn’t lucky. He only started as door keeper last month, and he didn’t recognize the warning sounds. The rock slide shattered the beams, and Johnnie was hit by a flying splinter.” Con stopped and rubbed his forehead, screening his eyes from my sight before continuing.

“When I heard him scream, I ran to help, but the stake was lodged solid in his chest. I couldn’t do anything but pillow his head with my jacket.” Con’s voice cracked. “The poor lad cried out ‘Mama! Mama!’… then he died in my arms.” Con hid his face in the crook of his elbow.

“I’m so sorry for making you relive the horror, Con. Please forgive me.”

“No, I want to tell what happened.” Back in control, Con recounted the rest in a near monotone. Once started, he seemed incapable of stopping his recitation.

“I yelled into the blocked chamber and your father answered. He, Sam, and Packy were all injured. The only entry was blocked so I couldn’t get to them.”

“Thank God they weren’t suffocated,” I said. “Why aren’t there two exits?”

“We’ve been trying to convince the owners that there should always be two shafts sunk every time a new mine is opened, but they say the cost is too great.”

My sorrow simmered into rage at the operators’ neglect.

“When the rescuers came to free the men, I ran to school to get you.”

“Oh no, Sarah and Maymie! No one went to their classroom.”

“It’s better that your sisters stay in school until your mother is settled and your grandmother’s here. Maymie, especially, is too young to help, and she’d be horrified by the blood. Thank God she didn’t see Johnnie as we saw him today.”

That day permanently changed our lives. Father’s wounds healed, but he did not regain use of his legs. Everyone in the family assumed new chores, and a feeling of insecurity fell upon us. Then the Christmas season arrived, and the busyness of the holidays helped take our minds off the future. The money that Sarah, Maymie and I had saved to buy candy and small gifts for each other was put toward the household accounts, but no one complained. The best Christmas gift was that Father was still with us.

Our family income was at its lowest point. Father had been earning only part-time wages since late spring. The mines had just started up full time for the winter heating season when the tragedy occurred.

We sold Father’s tools and made a tidy sum, but much of the money went toward medical needs. Our family buckled down and made cuts in the budget.

December 1860 was a time of change for the whole country, not just our family. Distant events would have far-reaching consequences for almost everyone in the Patch.

The week before Christmas, my mother and I ran into Annie O’Donnell and her family at the Company Store. Annie and I were whispering about the handsome stock boy when the tone of our mothers’ conversation caught our attention. Mrs. O’Donnell held a newspaper with a banner headline that read, “The Union Dissolved.”

My mother frowned and said, “South Carolina has finally broken away?”

“Yes, Lincoln’s election gave South Carolina the reason it was looking for.” Mrs. O’Donnell looked disgusted. “This will mean war. President Buchanan will have to defend federal property in South Carolina.”

“Why do they want to leave the Union?” asked Annie.

“They’ve been threatening for years now, but the election of Lincoln set a flame to the slavery issue,” sighed Mother.

“At least South Carolina is far away,” I said.

Mrs. O’Donnell declared,”Not far enough. Even though no shots have been fired, my boys are already talking about going off to soldier.”

Copyright 2008 Molly Roe. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Chapter One

Virginia Wilderness
Near Chancellor’s Crossing
May 2, 1863 ““ Night

Lieutenant General Thomas Jackson, commanding the Second Corps of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, raised his hand. His party of eight staff members halted on the Mountain Road, a half-mile in front of the corps’ skirmishers. Jackson was inching his way down the heavily-rutted path, cut through an impenetrable terrain of pines, shrubs, and hardwood trees, trying to spy out whether the Union army was going to run all the way back to Washington or make a stand in the wilderness. Since he heard nothing but tree limbs rasping in the cool evening breeze, Jackson nudged Little Sorrel, his small red horse, and continued down the road.
The moon escaped from its cloudy shroud and illuminated the thickets on both sides of the road. Jackson scanned them; they were empty. A flurry of activity, 200, no, maybe 300 yards in front of him, caught his attention. He flung up his hand. His aides pulled up, not making a sound. Jackson leaned forward in his saddle, listening. The sounds were recognizable: the sharp ring of axes on trees, shovels scraping against the rocky ground, shouts, and commands. All the sounds associated with the hasty construction of breastworks.
Jackson took out his watch and tilted it until he could read the thin black hands in the faint moonlight. It was nine o’clock. Four hours ago, the Second Corps came screaming out of the woods and smashed into the Union’s right flank. The surprised and overwhelmed Yankees ran. Jackson ordered his men to give chase until fatigue, darkness, and the thick undergrowth unraveled his assault. He instructed his three division commanders to reorganize the men as quickly as possible. Not satisfied with routing the Yankees, Jackson was determined to cut them off from the fords along the Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers. While his men hastened into formation, he pressed ahead to see if he could determine what the Yankees planned to do. A tree crashed to the ground. Jackson had his answer. They were going to fight.
“Let’s go,” he said, turning Little Sorrel around and heading back toward the Confederate line, back to the battle, and back to the two-year war for Southern Independence.
He followed his aides onto the Bullock Road where he had left the 18th North Carolina Infantry Regiment holding the Confederate forward position. Suddenly, the woods exploded with the thunder of hundreds of guns. Musket flashes pierced the darkness, lighting up the blooming dogwoods. Bullets ricocheted off trees, whistled through the underbrush, and slammed into the dirt. A branch crashed to the ground on Jackson’s left. His aides stampeded to avoid the deadly fire.
Before Jackson could flee, someone knocked him out of his saddle. He flew through the air and landed on an exposed tree root. He stifled a groan. A body fell on top of him and pinned him down. Bullets smashed into the tree above his head.
“Lie still, General!”
Jackson recognized the terrified voice of his brother-in-law, Joseph Morrison.
Another volley pierced the night. Jackson tried to get up, but Morrison shoved him back down to the ground. The root dug into his ribs. Overhead, his men yelled for the Tarheels to cease firing. Slowly, the gunfire abated like the end of a rainstorm.
Jackson shifted impatiently. “You can get off me now, Lieutenant. The shooting has stopped.”
Morrison released his grip and rose to his knees. Jackson sat up, leaned against the tree, and felt his ribs. He winced in pain.
“Are you bad hurt?” Morrison asked.
“It’s nothing. Providence has been kind to us this evening.”
More horses poured down the road, this time from the direction of the Confederate line. In the moonlight, Jackson saw the red-shirted Ambrose Powell Hill, commander of the Light Division, jump off his horse.
“General, are you hurt?” Hill asked.
“Just a couple of bruised ribs,” Jackson replied after completing a very thorough search of his person. He stood and plucked his weather-stained kepi from the ground. He shook the dust from it. “Tell me, Hill, have you managed to find your way to the Rappahannock?” Jackson drew the kepi down over his blue-gray eyes.
“Yes, sir, but the men are exhausted. I think we should hold off the attack until morning.”
“No, sir. No! Press them!” Jackson stabbed his finger into Hill’s chest. “Don’t let them escape. Cut them off from the United States Ford.”
Hill remounted and disappeared into the night.
“Lieutenant Morrison, I want you to return to General Lee. Tell him to press forward immediately.” Jackson swung up on Little Sorrel and rode in the direction of the army. His aides scrambled to catch up.

Chapter Two

Fairfield Plantation
Guinea Station, Virginia
May 9, 1863

Jackson stood on the steps of the Chandler House waiting for General Stuart to arrive for a staff meeting. The Yankees were gone. They had retreated to Washington to lick their wounds. When that was done, conscripts would refill their depleted ranks, new weapons would be distributed, the cavalry would be mounted on fresh horses, and the Army of the Potomac, twice the size and strength of the Army of Northern Virginia, would march, once more, down the highways to Richmond.
Jackson knew time was not on the South’s side. An opinion shared by General Lee. That’s why the moment the Yankees lit out for home, Lee, accompanied by his senior staff, left Chancellor’s Crossing for Richmond and a meeting with President Jefferson Davis. Lee stated that he wanted to take advantage of his army’s victory before those people ““ as he called his northern opponent ““ had a chance to regroup and return to Virginia.
After an exchange of pleasantries and congratulations, Jackson opened his battered portfolio and proposed an immediate invasion of the North. His goal was to impede the Union war machine by destroying the railroads and canals that brought Pennsylvania coal east. A Confederate presence north of the Mason-Dixon Line would force Lincoln to send the Army of the Potomac before it could refit and rearm from its latest defeat. “We pick good ground and destroy their army,” he told the attentive Davis. “Once we do, the Eastern Seaboard will be open to us. We can winter in Harrisburg or Philadelphia. In the spring, we can march on New York or Washington. We’ll force the Yankees to understand the price they’ll have to pay to hold the South in the Union at bayonet’s point.”
Davis and the Cabinet approved the plan. Jackson immediately left Richmond to prepare his corps for the journey.
Now came the difficult part; saying goodbye. He crept into the nursery and leaned over his daughter’s crib. Julia was awake. She recognized him in the morning light and smiled. He swept her into his arms and held her close. She grasped his finger in her tiny fist. Tears stung his eyes. Since her birth, less than six months ago, he had only been with her a handful of days, and, if all went according to plan, a year or more would pass before he held her again. In that year, she would take her first step and say her first word. He kissed her forehead. “My sweet little girl, your Papa has to go away. But I want you to know that I love you very much, and I’ll think about you every moment I’m away.” With another kiss on her forehead, he laid her back in her crib. “But I’ll come home. I promise.”
Anna filled their last moments with loving admonishments for him to take care of himself. When she ran out of advice, he gathered his wife close. “Set me as a seal upon thine heart,” he quoted from the Song of Songs. “For love is strong as death”¦”
“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it,” she whispered.
The clock on the mantle struck the hour. He had to go. One final kiss; one lingering glance at the door.
Tears spilled from Anna’s eyes. “I’ll expect you home.”
“Then I best come home.” It took all his strength to walk down the hall and out the front door. The way back to his family was to perform his duty and defeat the Yankees.
The sound of hard riding turned his mind from the heartbreaking scene in the parlor to the more practical matters pressing him. General James Ewell Brown Stuart, called Jeb, pulled up with his typical flourish: the yellow fringe of his sash dancing, black ostrich plumes bobbing in his hat, gold spurs jangling, and red silk-lined cape swirling about him like a matador’s cape.
“Good morning, General Jackson.” Stuart threw himself off his mare and came to stand at the bottom of the steps.
“General Stuart.” The early morning sun reflected off something shiny on Stuart’s jacket. Jackson pointed to a small gold shield. Attached to the shield was a chain, and at the end of the chain was attached a small stiletto. The blade was stuck in the coat’s buttonholes. “That’s new.”
Stuart gazed at the shield fondly. “I think it lends me certain panache, don’t you think?”
Jackson laughed. Stuart and his love for fancy uniforms! He was the South’s Beau Brummell. The more gold braid a uniform had, the better he liked it. He imbued the role of the knight errant, the dashing cavalier he had read about when he was a boy. The romantic portrayal of Stuart as the Beau Saber sold newspapers, but Stuart was more than the dandified caricature the editors portrayed. He was the best cavalryman Jackson had ever known. Twice, he had ridden around the Union army. In last week’s battle, Stuart had discovered the Union’s right flank in the air. This intelligence was responsible for the South’s triumph in the Wilderness.
“Yes, it brings out the rose,” Jackson said.
Stuart grinned and sniffed the red flower sticking out of the buttonhole above the stiletto.
“Is General Rodes away?” Jackson asked. He headed toward the back of the house.
“He left for Orange Court House on time.”
“Good, good.” After the staff meeting, the rest of his corps and two brigades of Stuart’s cavalry would join Rodes’ division on the long journey to Pittsburgh.
Jackson’s adjutant, Major Sandie Pendleton, met the two generals as they came into the backyard. He handed them cups of what passed for coffee in the Confederacy these days. Any other young man, not yet 23, might find it daunting to be the assistant adjutant general of the Second Corps and be responsible for, among other things, organizing the corps’ march from the Rappahannock to Pennsylvania, but the blue-eyed, lantern-jawed Pendleton thrived in the position.
“Everyone’s here,” Pendleton reported, “but General Ewell brought his wife.”
Jackson frowned at the irregularity. He glanced at the bald headed Ewell seated next to a pretty, blonde widow at the mess table. Ewell was returning to duty after losing his leg last summer at the Battle of Groveton. Jackson was pleased to have him back. Ewell was an aggressive fighter, unafraid to commit his troops to battle. Unfortunately, Ewell’s aggressiveness could only be activated if he was told precisely what to do. For Old Baldy was a man who was good at following orders but never initiating them. Which explained his contentment at obeying the dictates of his new wife, even down to the amount of milk he poured into his coffee.
General Jubal Early greeted Jackson as he took his seat at the head of the table. Early was a small man, gray with age, bent to pieces with arthritis, and prone to the occasional profane outburst. Jackson overlooked the profanity when Early forgot who he was talking to. A raised eyebrow from Jackson was usually enough to remind him.
“General Ewell, I’m glad you’re back,” Jackson said. “This corps has missed you. We’re not the same with you gone.”
Ewell flushed at the kind words. “It’s good to be back. If it would please the General, I’d like to introduce my wife. General Jackson, this is the Widow, Mrs. Brown.” His face lit up with the happiness of a newlywed. “My dear, this is General Jackson.”
Mrs. Brown rose and curtsied. Her black crepe veil fluttered in the breeze.
Jackson didn’t know how to respond to the odd arrangement. He sipped his coffee and waited for inspiration to strike. Next to him, Stuart sat ramrod straight like a setter on a pheasant. His blue eyes flashed with curiosity, and he quivered at the promise of a secret to ferret out. Jackson took another sip of coffee and decided to leave the matter with the cavalry leader. Stuart would breathlessly report all the reasons Ewell was calling his wife by her dead husband’s name before the army marched five miles down the road.
Jackson set down his mug. “General, congratulations on your marriage. I’m happy for you. Now, having said that, a staff meeting is no place for your wife.” He smiled at the Widow Brown. “I suggest you go into the house and have breakfast with my wife and daughter.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” the bride insisted. “I’m here at my husband’s request. He needs me.” She fixed Ewell with a piercing stare. When the stare failed to gain a reaction, she poked him hard in the ribs.
Thus roused, Ewell came to his wife’s defense. “I’ve come to rely on Mrs. Brown since our marriage. She’s proven to be an immeasurable help.”
“What possible help could she give you at a staff meeting?”
“I counsel him in all types of matters,” Mrs. Brown answered for her husband. “Therefore, I’ll remain.” She planted herself in her seat, opened her fan, and began to cool herself.
“No, you will not!” Jackson raised a warning eyebrow at Ewell. “Don’t force me to make it an order.”
Ewell snapped to attention at the bark of command in Jackson’s voice. He gave his wife a pleading smile. “I’ll be fine, dear. Go, and have a nice visit with Mrs. Jackson.”
The Widow Brown shot Jackson a withering glare. She appealed to Ewell. “I’ll go, if that’s what you wish, dear.”
He nodded. The fan closed with a crack. She jerked to her feet and stalked across the yard.
“In the future, I’ll make sure she doesn’t attend any more staff meetings,” Ewell eagerly assured Jackson.
“What do you mean in the future? Surely, you don’t intend to bring her along?”
“She’ll remain safe behind the lines.”
“She’ll remain in Virginia!”
The back door slammed shut. Ewell flinched. “How do I tell her?” He whispered.
“I suggest you tell her gently.”
Early choked on his coffee. Jackson stared at him. “Is there something you find amusing this morning, General?”
Early’s shoulders shook in laughter. “No, sir.”
Jackson looked around the table and saw that most of the men were having a hard time containing their laughter. Except for A.P. Hill, who looked ghostly. “Are you feeling any better?” Hill was suffering another bout of the mysterious illness he had contracted during his West Point days.
“I’m ready to go,” Hill said.
“Good to hear. Now, if there are no further distractions, let’s get down to business.”
Pendleton handed Jackson a file.
Chapter Three

Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States, at least of those northern and western states that had stayed the course upon his election, stared out the White House window. At the moment, he was ignoring the table full of generals just returned from Virginia. They were a thoroughly whipped contingent and listening to them chilled him more than the cold, damp room or the dispiriting scene unfolding in the streets beneath his window.
The ruins of the Army of the Potomac, whose sole purpose was to restore all the states to the Union, marched through the muddy, empty streets and a soaking spring rain: heads down, shoulders slumped, and guns dragging in the mud. No cheering throng welcomed them. The few citizens dashing through the rain didn’t even acknowledge the army’s passing. The weary mules struggled to draw the heavy cannon through the mud. The mules were not the only ones who were exhausted. The soldiers, the Cabinet, the Congress, and the nation were exhausted, too. And so was Lincoln.
The last telegram he had received from Virginia forewarned of disaster. The Eleventh and Twelfth Corps had surrendered, the Third and Fifth Corps had been severely damaged, and Commanding General Joseph Hooker had been captured.
Lincoln sighed to the very depths of his tortured soul. “What will the country say?” He said to no one in particular. “How will I be able to explain this defeat?” He tugged at his tie as if the black strip of material was strangling him. “How will I be able to convince the nation that we must carry on?”
He returned to the table, sat down, and studied each general: Reynolds, Couch, Sickles, Meade, and Sedgwick, in turn. “For we must carry on, gentlemen. We can’t allow the lives lost to be sacrificed in vain. No, that I cannot ask from the nation. Now, tell me, what are we to do about the Army of Northern Virginia?”
“Permission to speak freely?” General John Reynolds asked.
Lincoln was relieved to hear the fire in Reynolds’ voice. Maybe some spark of battle remained within his generals. He waved his hand in permission.
“Sir, you need to get out the way and let us do our jobs.”
“I don’t believe I’m in the way.” Lincoln observed his generals’ careful, neutral expressions and realized he was the only one in the room with that opinion.
“I’m sure General McDowell wouldn’t agree,” Reynolds said. “Or General McClellan”¦”
Lincoln interrupted angrily. “If I hadn’t interfered with General McClellan, he’d still be sitting on the Virginia peninsula bombarding me with telegrams demanding more men and supplies.”
“That’s because you forced him to take the field before he felt the army was ready. And you denied him the reinforcements that were a necessary part of his strategy.”
“I had to protect Washington.”
“No, you had to answer Congress’ demands that you do something about Jackson running loose in the Shenandoah Valley.”
Defeated, Lincoln sighed.
“Exactly.” Reynolds smiled sympathetically. “Your political realities dictate to you, and you, in turn, dictate them to your commanders. And when they fail, the newspapers scream, Congress turns up the heat, and you summarily dismiss them. It’s public; it’s messy; and it’s humiliating.”
“What do you suggest?”
“That you trust your generals to get the job done. We want to win this war as much as you do.”
Lincoln sat back in his chair and stretched out his long legs. The War Department’s file on Reynolds did not differentiate him from any of the other generals in the army. He was a West Point graduate who served in the Mexican War and had been brevetted twice for bravery. He did most of his active duty out west. When the war began, he was the Commandant of Cadets at West Point. As for his conduct, the file described him as a soldier’s soldier: smart, fearless, and beloved by his men. But the defiance in the dark, flashing eyes was not in the file. While the rest of the generals sat staring at the table, Reynolds dared to challenge his commander-in-chief on the very way he was running the war. “Take command, and I’ll give you all the leeway you require.”
Reynolds shook his head. “We both know you can’t do that. You’re up for reelection next year, so you must have victories. General Grant’s triumphs out west are too far away to matter. You must win in Virginia, so the newspapers can trumpet your success in bold headlines. You need the nation to know this war will successfully end.”
“You are very astute, General. If you’ll not come to my rescue, to whom shall I turn?” He gazed at his generals again.
“Your new commanding general is sitting in his room at Willard’s Hotel,” Reynolds told him. “Send for General Hancock. He’ll give you the victories you need.”
“I don’t know much about him.”
“Find out. You won’t be disappointed.”

Winfield Scott Hancock sat outside the president’s office fidgeting with his hat. Two hours ago, a runner had appeared at his hotel room with orders to report to the White House; the president needed to speak to him. Hancock arrived promptly at three o’clock, only to have the White House usher inform him that Lincoln was running late. The usher gestured to a bench against the wall and asked Hancock to wait. That had been 30 anxious minutes ago.
Hancock crossed to the window. He straightened his tie in his reflection, smoothed his mustache, and raked at his goatee. All his grooming couldn’t stop his heart from thudding in his chest or his stomach from churning. Satisfied that he looked calm and collected, at least on the outside, he looked past his reflection and down into the street below. The sun had come out from behind the clouds and was attempting to dry the large mud puddles in the middle of the road. The sidewalks teemed with people hurrying about their business with such sublime casualness, Hancock wondered if they even cared that a battle had been fought and lost no more than a week ago.
The office door opened, and a young man stepped out. “General Hancock?” Hancock turned from the window. “I’m John Hay, the president’s secretary. He’ll see you now.” Hay led the way into the office. Lincoln sat behind his desk, reading what appeared to be a dispatch. “Have a seat,” Hay whispered, pointing to one of two chairs in front of the desk.    The President signed his name and handed the document to Hay. The secretary left them alone. “I apologize for the delay, General.” Lincoln took off his spectacles. “Too many papers to sign. An occupational hazard.”
“No apology’s necessary.”
“I’m glad you’ve agreed to see me.” Lincoln walked around the desk and collapsed into the chair next to Hancock. “I hear you’re called Superb. I have many nicknames and none of them superb.” He smiled ruefully.
“Don’t let the newspapers get you down, Mr. President,” Hancock said. Lincoln sat slumped in his chair; his eyes dull with fatigue. He was thin, as if the weight of the war was whittling him down to nothing. “Strong leaders are easy targets.”
“Would you mind being a target?”
“Sir?”
“General Hancock, I’ll be honest with you. I’m desperate for this war to end.” He rubbed his brow with a weary hand. “I need a man who’ll fight. I thought that man was General Reynolds, but he turned me down. Instead, he suggested I give the army to you. I’ve looked at your record. It’s very impressive. Will you help me? Will you take command?”
Hancock’s heart stopped pounding and his palms stopped sweating. In one unexpected moment, he was being offered the army; the culmination of a 20-year career, spent mostly occupying insignificant positions in out-of-the-way posts because his superiors considered his talent to count mules and bullets an irreplaceable skill. Now, at last, he was being given a chance to prove what he long believed about himself; that his genius was for war and not bookkeeping. He wouldn’t waste the opportunity. “It will be my pleasure to serve.”
“What needs to happen for the army to return to the field?” Lincoln asked. Then he grinned. “Even though I don’t want to interfere with your command, I can’t have the army sitting in Washington forever.”
“I’ll meet with my corps commanders tonight and have a comprehensive plan on your desk within the week.” Hancock stood. “With your permission, Mr. President, I’ll get to work.”
“Permission granted.”

Read more about Throw Away The Scabbard and C.L. Gray HERE.

Copyright 2008 C.L. Gray. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”   ~George Bernard Shaw

A Note from the Author

First, I want to thank you for your interest in learning more about living on purpose through the pages of this book excerpt, Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life.  It’s been my great pleasure to write this book and to endeavor to “practice what I preach” over the past decade-plus, although I do hope I don’t come across too “preachy” in the book or in my life.

I believe that there are no accidents in the Universe, including that you and I have been connected in this way.  I imagine for most people who have downloaded this excerpt, they have done so because they are longing for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning in their life. I honestly believe that the Life On Purpose Process that is outlined in depth in the complete book is an invaluable roadmap to such a life.  I can say that with utter honesty because I’ve witnessed its positive impact not only in my life over the past decade-plus but in many other people’s lives as well.

It’s my hope and intention that this “sample” of the book that outlines the Life On Purpose Process will be of value to you as well as helping you to determine if the whole meal – the whole Process – is something that will serve you along your own path to a life on purpose.    Here is an overview of what’s included in this excerpt:

A Life On Purpose in a World On Purpose: This first portion is intended to give you a sense of what’s possible, and to begin to answer the question: “Why bother taking the time and energy to clarify my life purpose?”

Table of Contents of the Full Book:  Just to give you an idea of what’s included in the full book and so you’ll know where the parts that make up this excerpt fit in.

My Personal Journey Along the Purposeful Path – I’ve included part of my story in this excerpt so you and I can become better acquainted and so you will understand why I feel so passionate about people clarifying their life purpose.  Of course, you may elect to skip this section and go straight to the heart of the Life On Purpose Process, and then come back to this section later.  That heart is Passage #2, which is included in this excerpt.

Meet the Boomers:  The Boomers are fictional family – a composite of many of the clients I’ve worked with.  In Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life, we follow them along as they travel the six passages that make up the Life On Purpose Process so I thought you’d want to go ahead and meet them.

Passage #2 — Starting on the Purposeful Path: Albert Einstein once said: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” In this free excerpt you will learn about the life on purpose perspective — a shift in consciousness that is at the heart of the Life On Purpose Process thousands have used to bring clarity of purpose to their lives.

The shift in consciousness and thinking that’s outlined in depth in Passage #2 is such a foundational part of the Life On Purpose Process I felt in would be the best way for you to gain value from this excerpt while at the same time getting a tasty sample of the overall process so you could decide whether to enjoy the full meal.

From Sample to Full Meal: This section provides you with a good overview of the entire Life On Purpose Process so you’ll know what’s available if you decide to begin your journey along the Purposeful Path using this process as your roadmap.

Reviews & Endorsements of Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life: I thought you might be interested to hear what others are saying about this life enhancing process and book.

Life On Purpose: More than a Process – a Way to Enhance Your Life: By the time you reach this section, you will have experienced a tasty sample of the Life On Purpose Process, and some of you will be hungry for the whole meal.  I’d be remiss to keep you salivating without letting you know where to go for satisfy that hunger.

So, let’s get started.

Table of Contents of the Full Book

Introduction: A Life On Purpose in a World On Purpose
My Personal Journey along the Purposeful Path
Why Begin the Journey?
The Six Passages of the Purposeful Path
Passage #1: Preparing for the Journey
Determining Your Starting Point
Exercise: Living on Purpose Self-Test
Determining Your Destination
The Tremendous Life-Shaping Power of Vision
A Word About the Value of Personal Coaching
Passage #2: Starting on the Purposeful Path
The Three Basic Components of Life
The Basic Elements of an Empowering and Enduring Life Purpose
Exercise: Wheel of Life
Passage #3: Uncovering What Has Been Shaping Your Life
What Shapes Your Life Before You Know Your True Purpose?
Pulling the Curtain on the Wizard of Your Past
Pulling the Curtain on the Wizard Who’s Been Shaping Your Life
Deepening Your Awareness of Your Inherited Purpose
Obstacles and Roadblocks to Clarifying Your Life Purpose
Passage #4: Clarifying and Polishing Your True, Divinely Inspired Purpose
The Bridge to the Land of Purposeful Paradox
Exercise: Priming Your Passion
Polishing Your Life Purpose
Passage #5: Learning the tools for Living on Purpose
Living True to Your Divinely Inspired Life Purpose
Where Does a Life Purpose Live?
Opening the Purposeful Toolbox
Universal Laws of Attraction and Purposeful Creating
Purposeful Practices, Ponderings, and Prayers
The Purposeful Pivot
Purpose Principles
Purpose Projects, Purposeful Play, Patience, and Persistence
Life Purpose Project Page
Purposeful Play
Purposeful Patience and Persistence: The Unstoppable Tool
A Potpourri of Additional Power Tools
Replacing Off-Purpose Patterns with On-Purpose Patterns
Passage #6: Mastering the Tools for Living On Purpose
Three Dimensions of Living On Purpose: The Spiral of Fulfillment

A Life On Purpose in a World On Purpose

What would it be like to understand your Divinely Inspired Life Purpose with crystal clarity? Right in this moment, you can begin to experience your life on purpose. Imagine that you know and are deeply in touch with your vision for what’s possible, like when you were a child just starting out on this bold adventure called life. Imagine also that you know and are deeply in touch with your core values-those intangibles that mean the most to you. And that you know and are deeply in touch with the essence of who you are. Finally, imagine that all of this is bound together and connected by the attractive power of Universal Love, your relationship with God or a higher power, and by your spiritual nature.
Through this book, it is my interest and intention to create a powerful and purposeful coaching relationship with you, one that is perhaps best summed up by these words from the Life On Purpose Coaches Creed:

Imagine a relationship in which the total focus is on you, on your Life Purpose, and on living true to it …
Imagine someone listening not only to your words, but also to the soul behind them as it expresses its truest desires …
Imagine someone who will be your partner as you hold yourself accountable for living true to your Life Purpose …
Imagine that this person is curious about your dreams and aspirations, your vision for the world, and what you are most passionate about in your life. -This is a person who will help you clarify projects that are consistent with your vision, your values, and who you are, and will help you develop the means to fulfill them …
Imagine a relationship with a person who may, at times, appear even more committed to what you want in your life than you are …
Imagine that in this relationship you can count on this person to absolutely tell you the truth with ruthless compassion-about the many gifts and talents that perhaps you’ve taken for granted, as well as where you might be selling out on who you really are …
Imagine a relationship that supports you in breaking free from the self-limiting constraints of your past, in which the voice now exposing your limitations is recognized for what it is-a voice from the past. Imagine that your true spirit is nurtured to shape and form your life, moment by moment, day by day.

Imagine every aspect of your life being shaped by your Divinely Inspired Life Purpose. Your actions are shaped by your Life Purpose; your thoughts, decisions, choices … all shaped by your Life Purpose, which comes from the blending of your vision, your values, and the essence of your being together with Universal Love and your spiritual nature.
What would such a life be like? Imagine it right now, for just a moment or two. What would you experience, living such a life? What would it feel like to know your Life Purpose so clearly that it would have the power to shape each moment and all that you do?
What would your life look like? What are some of the things you’d be doing as true expressions of your vision, your values, and the essence of your soul? What would you no longer do because it would be inconsistent with your Life Purpose? Imagine the magical nature of such a life.
What would be different about your life? And what would likely be the same? What would you have in your life, and what would you no longer have-simply because it is inconsistent with your Life Purpose?
Now, let’s stretch our imagination just a bit more. Imagine that you’re living in a world where everyone knows his or her Life Purpose, and is living true to it. In other words, you’re living on purpose in a world on purpose. Can you imagine such a life? What would that be like?
This book outlines the Life On Purpose Process-a proven, systematic, spiritually based, and practical approach that has already assisted thousands of people to clarify their Divinely Inspired Life Purpose and to begin to live a life beyond what they could have initially imagined. Are you ready to begin your journey along the Purposeful Path to such a life? If so, here’s your first coaching assignment:
After pondering about the questions above, write down your thoughts to each one, and share this with someone whom you care deeply about. Explore this world on purpose with him or her.

My Personal Journey Along the Purposeful Path

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all of your thoughts break their bonds: your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive and you discover yourself to be a greater person than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” – Patanjali, Indian philosopher

As part of my early morning spiritual practices, I often trudge up the footpaths that wind around Glassy Mountain behind Carl Sandburg’s home, a few blocks from my home in Flat Rock, North Carolina. On this morning, as I stop to catch my breath, my mind flashes to an ugly, yet necessary, time in the early eighties. I’m on the bathroom floor in my apartment in Greensboro, , during another time of contemplation. Sobbing, and in a fetal position, I can’t remember how I ended up here or how long I’ve been this way. I know only that I’m in great emotional pain and will do anything to make it stop. I imagine what I might do if I had a gun. Would I have the nerve to use it? If I did, would I screw it up like I’d screwed up the rest of my life? The more I think about it, the more real the gun becomes, until finally I realize it’s not my imagination but a real gun- which I hold in my hand.
I feel the smooth wooden handle in my palm and the cold metal circle of the snub nose pressed against my temple. My finger begins to tighten on the trigger. Just a little more pressure, a quick flash of pain, and the deeper pain will finally be over. Funny, I think as I lay there, how many people will be surprised to learn of my suicide. To outward appearances, I’ve got it made: my own veterinary practice, investments in real estate, a fancy car, a wallet full of credit cards-all the trimmings of a supposedly successful life. But beneath the well-crafted exterior is a hollow core of emptiness and suffering. My life feels worthless, without any real meaning. All the adornments of my Good Life don’t add up to true happiness or fulfillment. The truth is, I feel alone in the world, with no one who truly cares about me or understands what I’m going through.
Suddenly, someone has invaded my privacy. “Go away,” I think as loudly as I can, then realize I’m also shouting it. “Go away! Leave me alone!”
But whoever it is doesn’t leave. A moment later I smell the pleasant fragrance of a woman’s perfume, then hear the voice of an angel. “It’s okay, Brad. We’re going to get you some help. It’s okay.” I recognize the voice of my friend Rebecca.
Now, as I sit watching the exquisite sunrise over the Blue Ridge Mountains, that day in Greensboro seems to be from a different person’s life-and in many ways it is. I am no longer that confused, scared, lonely young man. I no longer practice veterinary medicine; instead, I’m the founder of the spiritually based Life On Purpose Institute. And today I can truthfully say my life is filled with purpose and meaning.
The journey of the last two decades has been a wild roller coaster ride, filled with slow upward climbs and exciting, sometimes scary descents. It is what I affectionately term my Purposeful Path. Before my near-suicide, I traveled the path mostly asleep, unaware that I was even on a journey. Then came ten years of awakening, with a few long naps mixed in. And for the last decade, as I’ve continued my awakening process, I’ve done my best to assist others along their own Purposeful Path. What follows are some of the key stops along the way.

Chasing the Red Queen
I’d like to say that after my near-suicide my life was suddenly and miraculously transformed…but my mother told me to never lie. The truth is that my transformation was slow and arduous-a journey of many trials and errors, with a number of side trips and more than a few dead ends.
My next significant moment of awakening came a few years later, during my second marriage. At that time, I was still caught up in the great American Dream of acquiring as many expensive toys as possible and had a lovely companion who was just as good at the acquisition game. We lived in a plush neighborhood, on an acre of land, in a beautiful home complete with a rear deck overlooking a babbling brook.
Unfortunately, I was working too much to enjoy any of it. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. In Lewis Carroll’s childhood classic Through the Looking-Glass, one of Alice’s misadventures in Wonderland is with the Red Queen, who takes her on a wild run through the countryside. But no matter how fast Alice runs she can’t seem to get anywhere. Finally, breathless from her efforts, Alice is allowed to rest long enough to comment, “Everything is just as it was!” The Queen replies, “Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
I knew just how Alice must have felt. I was physically exhausted and emotionally out of breath, running as fast as I could to keep up with an out-of-control lifestyle of my own making. As I gazed across the wooded lot and listened to the bubbling of the water across the rocks, I realized that much of my reason for purchasing the home had been that very scene. At the time I had imagined spending countless hours out on the deck, basking in the sun, watching the seasons roll by-but the seasons had rolled by without me. I’d not so much as stepped foot on the deck in all that time. I’d been too busy working fifty to sixty hours a week at my veterinary practice so that I could pay the mortgage on the house and keep two car payments up and three credit cards paid down. Like Alice, I realized something was wrong with this picture. I was running as fast as I could just to keep up.
While I still hadn’t suffered quite enough to make any radical changes, a seed of “divine discontent” had been planted.

But Enough About Me (for now…there’s more in the book)
I love to share the story of my journey along the Purposeful Path, but this book is really intended as a personal guidebook to assist you.
First, you’ll uncover what’s been standing in your way and move it aside, opening yourself to do the inner work of clarifying your true, Divinely Inspired Life Purpose. At that point, the real fun and adventure begins as you step onto the lifelong path of living true to the life purpose that has revealed itself.

Meet the Boomers

Meet Bob and Barbara Boomer. Bob is closing in on sixty, while Barbara is in her middle fifties. They’ve been married, more or less happily, for over twenty-five years. They have three children: Becky, twenty-four, who recently graduated from college and is searching for the career that will make her happy; Brent, twenty-two, who is in his junior year of college; and Brandon, seventeen, who will be graduating from high school this year and will likely go on to college-although he hasn’t a clue which one or what he wants to major in.
The Boomers are a typical family, and being American, their lives have been shaped by the pursuit of the Great American Dream. Until recently, neither Bob nor Barbara have given much thought to the idea of. If you were to corner them into talking about it, though, their views would be consistent with the common cultural perspective that a Life Purpose is what one is to do while alive on Earth. But recently, one of Barbara’s friends gave her a book that started her thinking more about her purpose in life, and which then led to her sharing her thoughts with another good friend-her husband, Bob.
Because he thought of Life Purpose as “what I’m here to do,” when Bob went to find purpose and meaning for his own life, he went the route of work. On the strong advisement of his parents, he became a dentist like his dad. He graduated from dental school with honors and worked for five years as an associate before opening his own practice, in which he’s been for over twenty years. While he won’t admit it to anyone but Barbara, he’s pretty burned out from having looked into thousands of mouths for over two decades, and the sense of purpose in his work has dried up. Still, since he has college tuitions to cover, a hefty mortgage on this 2,500-sqare-foot home, and monthly bills to pay, “off to work I go” has become Bob’s theme song.
The upside of Bob’s focusing so heavily on work is that he has become a very successful dentist and a prominent member of his community. The downside is that, in the process, the rest of his life has been thrown out of balance in the following ways:

* He’s alienated from his wife and children
* He has no real time for friends, only professional colleagues
* He doesn’t really have any hobbies or interests outside work
* Spiritual life … What’s that? He hasn’t gone to church since his wedding to Barbara and while he does believe in God, he’s not bothered to be in touch since he was a child. Late at night, however, when he can’t sleep which is often, he wonders if there isn’t more to life than he’s experiencing. He suspects the answer if a resounding Yes.
* His health is poor by most people’s standards though fairly typical for those in his profession. He’s about 20 pounds overweight, has high blood pressure, insomnia and is addicted to watching late night TV as a way to de-stress from his work.
Barbara, on the other hand, considers it her purpose in life to be a good mother and a supportive wife to Bob. One of her greatest worries is what she’ll do with herself once Brandon leaves home-which is due to happen in less than a year. It was because of this that her friend recommended Traveling the Purposeful Path. She also finds herself awake at night asking herself such questions as “Who am I? Am I really just Dr. Bob Boomer’s “Better Half”? What is the rest of my life for?”
Neither of the Boomers can really see themselves in a shuffleboard-and-golf style retirement, though Barb is tired to the point of exhaustion from the last two decades of trying to keep up with her adrenalin-addicted husband while also raising her three children, more or less single-handedly.
The Boomers are a fictional-real family, a composite of many different people I’ve worked with in the past, and their plight is typical of many people who have mistakenly identified their Life Purpose to only be about what they do to get by. We’ll be following the Boomers as they travel along the Purposeful Path.

Passage #2: Starting on the Purposeful Path

As you begin your journey along the Purposeful Path it makes sense to choose the one that will get you where you want to go most expediently. To do this we’ll start by exploring this basic question: What is a life purpose?
I’m not asking what your personal purpose is, not yet. In fact, I’d like for us to look beyond your own limited, personal view to see if we can identify a more common, general definition of a life purpose. What would you say the Cultural Perspective is?
One way to think of this would be to imagine that you’ve decided to conduct a survey by going out on a street corner where you live and asking a few hundred people what a life purpose is. What do you feel the most common answer would be? What would be the central theme of the responses you receive?
The most common response may be similar to your personal response, or it may be different. What we’re really trying to get at with this survey is not just what people say a life purpose is, but how they relate to the concept. In other words, look not only at what people say, but also at what their collective actions say. This is important because we often talk about something conceptually, but it may not be reflected in the actions we take or the way we live our lives.
Write down one or more responses that you think people would give if their responses accurately described and reflected how they lived their life. For the moment, disregard those that wouldn’t have an answer or wouldn’t know what you meant by the question.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Since founding Life on Purpose Institute in 1996, I’ve had the opportunity to ask this question of not just a couple hundred people, but thousands. Here is the central theme that runs throughout the vast majority of those responses:
“A life purpose is what I’m meant to do while I’m here on earth.”

The key here word is “do.” Most of us believe that our life purpose is all about what we’re here to do. We may say this in various ways-it’s what we’re here to accomplish, it’s something that only we’re able to do, it’s something we’re to do that gives us joy, and so on.

Since we’re talking about people’s perception of something, of course, this perception is as valid as any other. And as with any perception, it results in a certain way we live our life. What I’m going to suggest next may stretch you a bit, so be ready to simply try this idea on and let’s explore it together.
I’m suggesting that when we think of a life purpose as something we do, it heads us in a particular direction right out of the starting gate. It’s as if we jump into life and see a sign that says, “This way to your life purpose,” and the sign points in the direction of “doing.” So when we get to the next question, “What is my life purpose?” we’re already heading down the path that’s all about doing.
As a result, most of us live a life filled with a lot of doing-and for many of us, a lot of having, which is a natural byproduct of all the doing. But we may be missing something, like the true sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that we really want. It’s as if we’ve taken a detour without realizing it. We wonder how we ended up where we are…but it was that road sign pointing to “doing,” way back at the very start.
I have found that when people work from this Cultural Perspective, they often look to two areas of life for purpose and meaning. For many, they look for purpose in their work-their job, career, or profession. For others, they may look in some primary role in life, like being a good parent or spouse, or a “dutiful” son or daughter.
Unfortunately, operating from this perspective has some limitations and pitfalls. For example, what happens if you misidentify your life purpose as your job, career, or profession, and then, for whatever reason, you’re not able to continue your work? Some time ago, when I first paid a visit to my local dentist, this struck home in a very powerful way.
As my dentist looked over my record, he noticed that I’d stated my profession as a Life on Purpose Coach. Most people have one of two responses when they learn of my profession. They are either confused by it but too embarrassed to ask, so they say nothing at all, or, as in the case of my dentist, they become curious and ask what it means.
After describing the type of work I do, my dentist replied, “Boy, my dad could sure use you right now.” He then went on to tell me that his dad had been a prominent physician in this part of the country for close to forty years, but that recently, due to his health, he could no longer practice medicine. “He feels like he has no purpose or meaning to his life,” my dentist went on to say. And that accurately describes what often happens when people misidentify their work as their life purpose.
The same is true for people who think that one of their primary roles is their life purpose. For example, what happens when someone thinks that being a good parent to their children is their life purpose, and then they wake up one day to find that their children have grown up and left home? We even have a name for such a condition: it’s called the empty nest syndrome.
Looking from this perspective has another pitfall in that we often misidentify some part of our life as our life purpose. But doesn’t it make sense that our life purpose should be able to include all of our life-not just our work, not just some significant role, but all of our life and all that we do in our life?
If we’re interested in clarifying our true purpose so that we can have a life that is fulfilling and satisfying, we need to operate from a new perspective of what a life purpose is. This way, when we head out into life, we’ll be able to travel down a different path-a Purposeful Path that leads to a life of joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment.
Here’s a different perspective I’d like for you to try on-the Life on Purpose Perspective. Consider that:

A life purpose is the context, vessel, or container into which you pour your life.

Sit with that for a moment before reading on, and then we’ll look at this perspective more deeply…
Let’s use a visual aid to examine this perspective in more depth. Imagine you have your favorite coffee mug in front of you-or better yet, stop reading for a moment, go get it, and fill it with water. Now, consider that the mug and water visually represent the Life on Purpose Perspective. In other words, the mug represents one part and the water represents the other.

Write down the part of the statement represented by the mug:

And now write down the part of the statement that the water represents:
________________________________________________________________

Now check your answers:
The mug represents the context, vessel or container (i.e. the life purpose).
The water represents your life.

Now, let’s focus on just the mug and water for a moment. You may find it helpful to actually have a mug filled with water in front of you. If you look at the mug and the water, you can notice that there is a relationship that exists between them. What can you observe about this relationship? If you’re not sure where we’re going with this, think of it this way: What happened to the water when you first poured it into the cup? Before reading on, see if you can come up with your own answer.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The water took on the form of the inside of the mug, or said a different way, the mug gave shape and form to the water.

Quick Review
In our comparison, what does the cup represent and what does the liquid represent? Choose A, B, or C below.

A. The cup represents how far you can travel, and the water represents the direction.
B. The cup represents one’s life purpose, and the liquid represents one’s life.
C. The cup represents a vessel, and the liquid represents what’s inside it.

The cup represents one’s life purpose and the water represents one’s life, so B is correct. In this example, the cup is the context that shapes one’s life: the life purpose. The water is what is being shaped by the life purpose: your life.
In case you feel like you’re about to have a brain strain, pause for a moment. Take a deep breath and let it out. Now, we’re going to look a little closer at the notion of a life purpose being the context for one’s life. Remember that part of the reason we’re looking at this perspective in such depth is because we have an old Cultural Perspective to transcend.
Here are the next questions to consider:
When we talk about our life being shaped by our life purpose, what do we really mean? What makes up a person’s life?
To get to the answer, let’s go back to our comparison of the mug and the water. We said that the water represents our life. Think back to your ninth grade science class. The simplest unit of water that retains the property of water is a molecule.
If you went any smaller, you’d have atoms-two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen-but those individual atoms by themselves don’t have the properties of water. It takes a molecule composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom to give us the properties of water. But what does this have to do with a life purpose? Well, here’s the really big question, which will bring us back to what a life purpose is:
What’s the simplest unit of a person’s life?
What we’re looking for is the simplest or most basic unit of a person’s life that will retain the properties of the life. When we know this, we’ll know what’s truly being shaped by our life purpose. When we multiply this molecule enough times, we will have a person’s full life.

Hint. Just like a molecule of water has three components, the simplest unit of a person’s life has three components as well. Take a stab at it now: What are the three simplest components that make up a person’s life?

1. _____________________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________________

The Three Basic Components of Life

As we continue this exploration, we’ll next identify each of the three basic components that make up a “molecule of life.”

What do you think are the 3 basic components of a “molecule of life?”

For the purpose of this discussion, “life” refers specifically to the period of time that begins at the moment of conception (or birth, whichever you prefer) and ends at the moment of death.

Conception/Birth <============Life===========> Death

Imagine that someone decides to make a movie of your entire life, starting with your birth or conception and ending with your death, after which point the credits start rolling. As you know, a movie is made up of a whole bunch of individual frames. You can think of each individual frame as one of the basic components of the molecule of life. But what exactly does one frame of your movie represent? If you break it down into single “frames,” isn’t your life a composition of moments in time? You live first this moment, then the next, and the next, and the next… So, one of the basic components of a molecule of life is “moments in time.” Write that in one of the circles below.

In keeping with the movie analogy, let’s look at any frame of your movie. In fact, let’s look at each and every frame of the movie of your life-what’s the one thing that you consistently see in each frame?
Hint. This one is similar to the question, “Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?” Be careful not to make it more difficult than it is.

Doesn’t it make sense that the one thing you’d see in each and every frame of the movie of your life would be you? The second basic component of a molecule of a person’s life is the person-a living, conscious human being. So, write “Self” in one of the other circles.
We now have two of the three basic components. Let’s go back to the movie one last time and look at a strip of the film from any part of the movie. We could take a strip from the first day you were born, or the first time you went to grade school, or from any part of the movie of your life. If we run it through the movie projector and shine it on a movie screen, what would we see?
Take a moment to ponder this before moving on. Give it your best shot.

Hint. If you suddenly flipped the switch on the movie projector to fast forward, you’d be able to observe what we’re talking about more easily.

Think about it for a moment. Aren’t we always doing something? Even when we’re sitting around “doing nothing,” we’re doing something-we’re sitting around doing nothing. So, the last basic component of a molecule of life is “Action.” Write that in the last circle.

Now, let’s review what we’ve come up with and see what this all has to do with living on purpose. First, we’ve identified that the basic molecule of life is a living, conscious person, doing something in a moment in time. This is what is being shaped by the person’s life purpose.
You may still wonder, “What does all this have to do with my life purpose?”
Well, you may not have noticed it but we’ve just made a very important distinction-one that many people fail to make. And in failing to make it, those people are left stuck trying to figure out their life purpose.
Let’s go back for a moment and look at both Life on Purpose Perspectives-the Cultural Perspective and the Life on Purpose Perspective. Remember, we said the common theme of the Cultural Perspective is that a life purpose is what we’re meant to do while on earth. The Life on Purpose Perspective, however, says something very different. I’m suggesting to you that a life purpose isn’t what we do, but what shapes what we do.
You see, most people are asking themselves the wrong question when it comes to their life purpose. They’re asking, “What is it I’m supposed to do with my life?”
But the doing itself isn’t the life purpose. The life purpose is that which shapes and gives context to the doing!
Said another way, your life purpose is the context or overarching meaning you ascribe to life that then shapes the doingness of your life. The things we do in life are expressions of our life purpose. They aren’t the life purpose itself. The important distinction we’ve made is:
Life purpose = The context of your life that shapes what you do
Doing, actions, projects, goals = The ways in which you express your life purpose
We’ve all heard the old joke of the man who lost his keys in the dark alley but chose to look for them under the street lamp because the lighting was better. There is a lesson here that can be applied to the way in which many of us go about clarifying our life purpose: Many people are like the man who’s trying to take the easy approach even though, in this particular case, the easy approach won’t work. They’ve spent most of their life looking under the street lamp of “doing,” trying to find something that’s not there. They really need to be looking somewhere else. But where?
Let’s go back to the mug and water analogy. The question we really need to ask is what the mug is made of. In other words, what are the key ingredients of a life purpose?
We’ll start with the mug. It can be made of glass, ceramic, porcelain, steel, wood, Styrofoam, cardboard, and many other materials. And just like a mug can be composed of many different materials, so can a life purpose. As the Life on Purpose Process came to me from my inner guidance and source of creativity, however, I realized that there were certain qualities that any life purpose should have. A life purpose needs to be:

* A powerful shaping force in our lives. It should be powerful enough to shape us as we go through the many moments of our lives, doing whatever we do.
* Long lasting and enduring. Wouldn’t you want a life purpose that could last a lifetime or beyond? I sure do.
* Flexible. It should give us plenty of room to play and to express ourselves fully.
With these three qualities of a life purpose in mind, I asked my inner guidance: “What basic elements will consistently result in a life purpose with these essential qualities-every time and for everyone?” And that’s what we’ll explore in the next section.

The Basic Elements of an Empowering and Enduring Life Purpose

Many elements could contribute to the creation of a powerful, long lasting, and flexible life purpose. In my work with hundreds of individuals and thousands of people in groups, I have found the following three elements to be most effective:
* Vision: What is the vision or possibility you see for the world?
* Values: What are the core values you stand for and are willing to give your life for?
* Being: Who are you? What can people count on from you? Life purpose is more about who you are than what you do. Remember, we’re called human beings, not human doings. Many of us have forgotten that.
Let’s look at each one of these elements in more depth.

Vision-What’s Possible
If you spend much time around young, fully expressed children, you’ll notice how they live in possibility. They invent games on the spot and then aren’t afraid to change the rules whenever they realize there’s a new way to play that will be even more fun.
Children are filled with the spirit of what’s possible. Unfortunately, far too many of us have had that spirit stifled by well-meaning people, challenging circumstances, and our own reactions to and interpretations of them.
However, no matter what has happened to us in the past, it is possible for all of us to return to that childlike innocence. Not only is it possible, it’s necessary if we want to clarify our true purpose in life.
Each of us has a unique sense of what’s possible in our own lives-with our families, in our community, in the world. Getting in touch with this vision of what’s possible is one of the basic necessities for clarifying your life purpose.

Values-What Matters Most
Clarifying our core values is a refinement process, not all that different from peeling away the layers of an onion.
We often start with a long list of things we’ve been taught we should value. In fact, I call this first layer the should values.
But it’s important to peel through this layer until we get to those values we really choose to live in our life. The second layer of the onion is our chosen values.
The really important layer is even further within. I’m talking about those select values, usually not more than three to six intangibles, that we’d be willing to give our lives for. These are our core values.
Just like we all have a unique vision of what’s possible, we also have a unique set of core values that are an integral part of our life purpose.

Being-The Essence of Who We Are
One of the most important questions that can shape anyone’s life is, “Who am I?” When we can distinguish who we are and the way or ways of being that are at our core, then we have another important basic element for our life purpose.
We all have unique ways of being that we’ve come to count on and that we know others can count on as well. Distinguishing these gives us yet one more important piece of the puzzle of what our purpose in life is.

The Glue That Holds it All Together
There is actually a fourth component life purpose that is so critical to the formation of a powerful, enduring, and flexible life purpose that you can think of it as the foundation upon which the life purpose stands and the glue that holds it all together.
There are various ways to refer to this last ingredient. One way is to call it love-the universal attractive force of unconditional love that binds us all together and connects us powerfully to the rest of the cosmos. Another way to describe it is your relationship with God, a higher power, or your spirituality.
When we combine this glue with your unique vision of what’s possible in the world, your unique set of core values, and your unique qualities of being, we end up with a powerful, empowering, and enduring life purpose that still has ample room for us to play and express ourselves. This life purpose becomes the context that shapes and forms us as we go about doing all the things that make up our life.

From Concept to Reality: An Example
Okay, now let’s look at an example that will move us from concept to real life. The example I know the best is my own life. I’ve enjoyed coaching people for close to two decades, and for the past decade I’ve also run my own spiritually based enterprise, Life on Purpose Institute. While both of these are important to me, I’m also clear that they are not my life purpose.
I’ve also been happily married to my wife, Ann, for over fifteen years and I’m the proud father of my daughter, Amber. Both of these roles are very satisfying and fulfilling; yet, they are not my life purpose. My life purpose is to live an inspired and inspiring life of purposeful, passionate, and playful service; a life of mindful abundance balanced with simplicity; and a life of spiritual serenity. Or to give you the shorthand version, my life on purpose is a life of service, simplicity, and spiritual serenity.
This, then, becomes the context, vessel, or container into which I pour my life. It shapes who I am and what I do as a coach, writer, speaker, and founder of Life on Purpose Institute. It also shapes my personal life as a husband, father, and member of my community. In fact, it can shape all of my life, each and every moment of it. Said another way, some of the ways I choose to express my life purpose are as a coach, writer, speaker, founder, husband, and father.
Once you are crystal clear about your true life purpose, it has the power and the possibility to shape all of your life-your thoughts and feelings, your decisions and choices, your speaking and actions, and ultimately your results in life. There is tremendous power when all of these factors come together in a congruent way, when your thoughts, feelings, decisions, choices, speaking, and actions are all congruent and in integrity with each other. This is what makes living on purpose both possible and so exhilarating.

Call to Action Assignments
In the game of golf there is a flag at each hole. What’s the purpose of the flag? It lets the players know where they want the ball to go. This first assignment will give you a sense of the direction in which we’re headed along the Purposeful Path. Remember, you don’t have to come up with the definitive answer-simply ponder it for a few days.

Flag Assignment
Here are a few questions to ponder as part of your assignment:
* Viewing your life purpose from the Life on Purpose Perspective, what is the vision you hold for our world?
* What are the core values that you’d give your life to uphold?
* Who are you and what can we count on from you?
Now, blend all of that with the universal attractive force of unconditional love or your relationship with God, a higher power, or your spirituality. Then consider:
* What context or vessel could shape the rest of your life and all that you do?
Remember, just ponder it and see what you discover.

In Passage #3 we’ll begin to carve away whatever’s between you and determining your life purpose. We’ll begin with this basic premise: your life is always being shaped by something. There is never a time when it is not being shaped and molded. However, since most people aren’t clear what their life purpose is, it’s unlikely that your life purpose is what is shaping your life. With that in mind, take some time to work on this next assignment.

This is the next question we’ll explore:

If your life is always being shaped by something, what shapes your life when you aren’t clear what your life purpose is?
Hint. Look back to your early childhood, the “formative years,” to begin to find the answer.

Second Hint. There are many factors that shape a life. We’re looking for as many different things as you can come up with.
The Boomers at Passage #2
Here are a few of the comments that Barbara wrote in her journal regarding her insights from the Life on Purpose Perspective:

Wow, that’s all I can say-Wow! Bob and I continued the life purpose work and today we learned a new way of viewing what a life purpose is. My head and heart are still spinning. I realized today that I’ve been thinking for decades that my only purpose in life was to be a good wife to Bob and a good mother to my kids. No wonder I’ve felt in a state of panic these last several months, as my third child rapidly approaches the age when he’ll be leaving home and Bob and I appear to grow further apart.
While I still don’t know what the “context” of my life is, I feel a sense of hope and excitement at the prospect of discovering it, though also a bit of fear about the whole idea. After all, once I know my life purpose, I won’t have any excuse for not living true to it.

Here are some of the thoughts that Bob shared with Barbara after completing Passage #2:

I’m still processing the idea that a person’s life purpose isn’t all about doing. I’ve been a great “doer” all my life, since starting my first job when I was fifteen-and in the process I’ve become a good provider for you and the kids. Now I’m asked to consider that neither my professional career as a dentist nor being a good provider is my life purpose. That’s a tough one, I must admit. Still, I don’t think it will serve me to be a “full cup” on this one. Besides, as I consider that my life purpose could be the “context, vessel or container into which I pour my life,” and that context could then have the power to shape all of my life, I feel a sense of excitement and adventure, and that feels good.

From Sample to Full Meal

I trust you found this “sample excerpt” of Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life both interesting and thought evoking.  Of course, we’ve only touched upon less than 10% of what’s in the Life On Purpose Process.
The Life On Purpose Process is a proven, systematic, spiritually based and practical process that has already assisted thousands to clarify their life purpose. It will give you the tools to design your life to be a true and authentic reflection of that purpose.

Proven – Since its conception in the early 90’s, thousands of people have used the Life On Purpose to bring clarity of purpose to their life so we know it works and works well,

Systematic – The 6 Passages that make up the Process will guide you step by step – truly a road map to your life on purpose

Spiritually Based – The Life On Purpose Process works with and is consistent with universal spiritual principles that are found in all authentic spiritual paths, like the Law of Attraction, the Attractive Force of Universal Love, etc. People of many different religions and denominations have experienced the process and received immense value including those whose definition of spiritual didn’t include a belief in a Higher Power necessarily. In the Life On Purpose Process spiritual is defined as a connection to a deeply held set of values and to a purpose beyond one’s self-interest.

Practical – Not just theory or esoteric principles, but ideas, distinctions, and tools that you can apply immediately to your daily life.
So, let’s take a look at the six passages that make up the Process:
1. Preparing for the Journey Along the Purposeful Path
As with any challenging journey, it’s best to thoroughly prepare yourself for your travels along the Purposeful Path. This includes accurately determining where you are starting from and where you intend to end up, as well as knowing some of the obstacles that could possibly get in the way of completing the journey. Purposeful Preparation is important to a successful journey. The title of David Campbell’s book sums it up well: If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, You’ll Probably End up Somewhere Else. Some of the exercises included in this important first passage include:
The fun and engaging Life On Purpose Self Test, the Life On Purpose Scale, the Wheel of Life Exercise, and a very powerful process for creating a “Visionary Reality” of your Life On Purpose, along with the mental roadblocks that can slow your progress along the Purposeful Path.

2. Starting on the Purposeful Path with the Life On Purpose Perspective
As you can tell from this excerpt we delve deeply into this foundational mental shift that has served as a door into a new world of purpose and possibility for many people.

3. Uncovering What Has Been Shaping Your Life-Your Inherited Purpose
Have you ever tried to look at the back of your head without the assistance of a mirror?  Gently try it right now.  You know you have a back of your head, and it seems like if you could just turn your head fast enough, you’d at least be able to catch a glimpse of it, right?  Well, that’s what feels like for many people when it comes to uncovering what has been shaping their life.  That’s where the “Pulling the Curtain on the Wizard of Your Past” exercise comes in.  Remember in the Wizard of Oz how the Wizard ran Dorothy and her friends all over Oz looking for the witch’s broomstick?  But there was a moment when the Wizard lost his power over them, when Toto, the dog, pulled the curtain, revealing him to not be a mighty, powerful wizard, but simply a little old man with a bunch of smoke and mirror.  That’s what you’ll be able to do in this Passage #3.

4. Clarifying and Polishing Your True, Divinely Inspired Purpose
After “cleaning the slate” by identifying and beginning to be responsible for your Inherited Purpose, the real fun begins as you go through a process called Priming Your Passion to clarify your true, Divinely Inspired Life Purpose. The process can be not only life affirming, but also life transforming. In this Passage you will also discover the Land of Purposeful Paradox, the birthplace of your true life purpose and where it’s found on the Map of the Kosmos. This completes Stage One, or the clarifying your Life Purpose stage.

5. Learning the Tools for Living On Purpose
This is the start of Stage Two  of the process, in which you begin to live true to your Life Purpose. This is where the rubber meets the road, and where some of the biggest transformations take place as you’re introduced to Sixteen Power Tools for Living On Purpose. You will use these tools to begin to build your Life On Purpose.

6. Mastering the Tools for Living On Purpose
Of course, being introduced to a set of tools is just the beginning, especially if you’re interested in building a masterpiece of a Life On Purpose. In this next part you will learn how to master the art and science of creating a life that is shaped by your true, Divinely Inspired Life Purpose.

What Others are Saying About
Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life

You can read Life on Purpose superficially, and learn quite a bit about purposeful living.  That’s what I intended to do; learn about the whys and wherefores of finding my life purpose.  Instead, I found myself engaging with the material, thinking about the questions and doing the assignments.  And becoming clear about my own life purpose and how to live it out.  The book is engaging enough to pull you into the process.

Dr. Swift draws you into a relationship with him and the book.  His language is intimate and encouraging; you feel like he’s there with you, coaching and helping you as surely as if he were speaking with you in person.  He manages to translate the coaching relationship into written form, making it accessible for anyone who reads his book.

Life on Purpose is a practical, friendly, hands-on book for anybody who wants to live a more meaningful life.   – Penny Watkins for Bookpleasures.com

People successfully using the six passages have stated that the result was like the alignment of the universe for their own nurturance and reward. As they began fulfilling their individual purposes, good things began to happen for themselves and for others that they met and served.

Along with Howard Gardner’s works on multiple intelligences theory since 1983, and the many books and other tools available to use in examining one’s vocational calling and skills, Dr. Swift’s book, “Life on Purpose,” should become part of any vocational or spiritual library.  — Reviewed by Patty Inglish for Reader Views (5/07).
I feel Life On Purpose stands out from many of the other self- help books. I think the reader will find that it has more depth than some writings, which only advise the readers to think positively and visualize success. Dr. Swift’s book stresses the idea that our desires and motives need to have spiritual roots. He encourages us to realize that our life purpose can still benefit us without being at the expense of others. Love and our connections to each other are key ingredients to a truly successful and joy filled life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and felt that it’s motives were sincere and the contents very helpful. Brad Swift has obviously found how to best express his Life Purpose. Review by: Marjorie Tietjen.
“Brad has created a simple and easy way to become crystal clear about your reason for being on this planet.  Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life is your road atlas to live a more purposeful, passionate and playful life.” -Mark Victor Hansen Co-creator, #1 New York Times best-selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul(r) Co-author, The One Minute Millionaire

“Brad Swift brings us a new vision of power, passion, and purpose.  His clarity shows us how to see with new eyes, hear from within, and act from a tender and gentle integrity. With freshness and honesty, Swift opens the way for our transformation and generates in us a new excitement about our lives and our infinite possibilities.”  Edwene Gaines, author of The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity, A Simple Guide to Unlimited Abundance (Rodale)

Enlightened Millionaires know that they have a purpose for being on planet Earth.  This clarity of purpose is an integral ingredient of being both enlightened and an Enlightened Millionaire.  The book you hold in your hand outlines a proven, systematic, spiritually based approach that will assist you in clarifying your life purpose with crystal clarity.  Whether you choose to become an Enlightened Millionaire or not, you will find the Life On Purpose Process of invaluable benefit that will enhance your life and those around you.  – From Robert G. Allen, Co-author, The One Minute Millionaire

” Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life is a gentle and heartfelt guide to the fundamentals of living a life rich in joy and contribution. Brad’s style is accessible and user-friendly, and his book a compendium of thought-provoking questions and deep convictions.”  Gregg Levoy, Author, Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life

“In a world desperately in need of hope and healing, Brad Swift’s Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life serves as an excellent tool and resource for creating a life that is personally meaningful and outwardly contributive. Swift’s methods are simple yet powerful, straightforward and profound–and whether you are new to this exploration or have traveled a ‘purposeful path’ for a while, you will find insights and exercises of great value within these pages.”– Maggie Oman Shannon, author of The Way We Pray and One God, Shared Hope: Twenty Threads Shared by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Life On Purpose: More than a Process – a Way to Enhance Your Life

It’s been well over a decade since the Life On Purpose Process came “through” me as a result of asking of my Divine Inner Guidance two questions.  You see, at the point I finally had some “clarity of purpose” for my own life at around 40-years of age, I looked around and realized that there were many others in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and older who seemed to be pretty clueless about their life purpose.
So, I asked “Does it really need to take us human beings 40, 50 or more years to become clear about our purpose?  Isn’t there some way to shorten that learning curve just a bit?”
And the answers that poured forth became the foundational elements that have grown today to be known as the Life On Purpose Process.

Copyright 2008 W. Bradford Swift. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

But Lizzie continued to stare out the window, and the men fell silent. After an awkward pause, she spoke, but the words were spoken not to the men but as if they were welling up of their own volition from a dark place she hid from all around her.
“That day is burned into my soul, the day Virginia seceded. April 17th, the year of our Lord 1861. It was no godly year. There was a torchlight procession that night. I went to the bottom of the garden to view it. Such a sight! The painted hags, the wicked and the blasphemous the multitude, the mob, the whooping.”
She broke off and forced back a sob.
“Miss Van Lew” But she silenced Howard him with an irritated wave of her hand.
“I remember the tin-pan music. And the fierceness of a surging, swelling revolution. This I witnessed. I fell on my knees under the angry heavens, she wheeled around to the men and fixed them with her rapier eyes, and I clasped my hands and prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”!
“You weren’t here, she turned to Howard and McCullough, a look of ineffable sadness filling her eyes, but mobs went to houses to hang, to hang! the true of heart. Loyalty now was called treason, and cursed.”
She turned and made her way feebly back to the window, peering out as though she were witnessing the events anew, and her voice broke. “If you spoke in your parlor or chamber to your next of kin, you whispered. You looked under the lounges and beds. The threats, the scowls, of an infuriated community. Who can speak of them?”
McNiven came forward with a glass of water, but again she waved him away, and her voice crackled with intensity.
“I have had men shake their fingers in my face and say terrible things. We had threats of being driven away, threats of fire, threats of death! Surely madness was, is, upon the people. Some wished all Union people driven into the street and slaughtered. Some proposed the hanging of all persons of Northern birth. . . . A community with such sins as ours unatoned for, unsheathing the sword of treason. Who shall pay? How much blood will atone? How much of the blood will flow across our paths.”
Lizzie sighed deeply and shook her head as though to cast off the memories, then swiped at her cheeks and turned to the men as though she had not spoken. “You are all of course correct. Still, it sticks in my throat. Oh, well,” she added with resignation, “if a spy I needs must be, a spy I shall be. Who, though, shall die because of me? Whose boys, whom I’ve watched grow into fine young men, will die because of me, because of us? Can you tell me, gentlemen? Please tell me that none will, for by the light of the sun I can live with some assurance of righteousness, and the words of the prophet Daniel ring in my ears: “They shall fall down slain. That is the fulfillment of prophecy. But by candlelight . . . by candlelight . . .  Her head shook as though palsied, and she cast her eyes to the ground.
She looked up and added simply, “I will take no money.”

Copyright 2008 Michael J. O’Neal. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

She had done this many times before.  Low trees surrounded the area giving complete privacy as she removed her clothes. This was so much easier then drawing water from the well and heating it in the fireplace.  Looking down at her small ripe body, she was amazed at how she was filling out. Someday soon she would be old enough to marry Cal.  Cal Lawson has been around since she was knee high to a grasshopper, and they both looked forward to when they could marry. Daddy thought fifteen was too young to have a suitor without being watched all the time.  Daddy really has his blinders on, she thought.  He acted like she was still a little girl, and here she was nigh on sixteen.  His reply to her protests was that she was still his little girl, and always would be.
Edney knew that if she got into the water slowly it would take forever to get the nerve up, so she dove in all at once.  The coldness almost took her breath, but it was refreshing.  Edney realized that this would likely be her last dunk of the season.
Then she heard the rustling of leaves nearby.  Continuing to enjoy the water, her body had adjusted well to the temperature.  Thinking it was probably only a squirrel she tried to ignore the fear creeping up.  Still her senses became acutely aware that maybe someone was there. Prickles of worry ran across her mind. Hurrying out of the water she began to dress.  Suddenly a man jumped out from behind the nearest oak tree.  He smelled like a sack full of granddaddies, and he looked like he hadn’t bathed or eaten in a month of Sundays.  He was enough to make you puke a buzzard, but the worse thing about him was that look in his eyes.  It was the same look she had seen many times before, and it was a look that gave her the willies, especially from someone as scary as this.
As she tried quickly to get dressed, he grabbed her arm and slung her to the ground.   Wild rose thorns scratched her face.  The nerve of him, no one had ever laid a hand on her before.  Vehemence rose up in her like bile as she began to fight him off.  She scratched, clawed at his face and kicked, but he was stronger.  He held her down with one hand on her throat so tightly she could hardly breathe.  Using his other hand he fumbled with his trousers.  Then there was hot pain, so bad that Edney screamed to the top of her lungs.  The scream was welcomed with a fist in her nose, making it bleed profusely.  But the pain of the blow was nothing compared to the pain this awful man was inflicting upon her.  She felt like she was being torn apart and pain enveloped her entire being.  Mercifully she passed out.  The man thinking she was dead got his enjoyment, climbed off her and slunk away into the woods.
When Edney didn’t return home after a decent period of time, her brothers went out to look for her. They knew where she was supposed to be at and it wasn’t hard to find her.  With rifles in hand, the three young men approached her, still laying beside the river.  She wore only her chemise, her bottom lay in a pool of blood.  Edney’s dress was hanging on a nearby tree, but her bloomers were in tatters.
Jewell, the youngest brother was the first to break the silence.  “Looks like she got in a fight with a mountain lion.”
“T’werent no mountain lion,” Jesse said as he came closer to take a look.
“She’s even got bruises on her neck.”
“Somebody’s gonna pay for this,” Pete spoke in anger.
The three boys were only half brothers to Edney, but they loved and protected their baby sister. She was such a tiny little thing, and always too trusting.  It seemed to them that she had always been rode hard and put away wet.  Her own mother acted like she didn’t even have a daughter despite the protests from their father every single day of the week.  True, Louisa was a good stepmother, but her conduct toward her own child was lacking.  All Edney had needed from any of the family was to be loved and accepted, and seeing her like this really got their dander up.
“Pears to me she needs a hot bath and some motherly comfort.  We need to get her home now.”
“Well, Pete, why don’t you tote her on home?  Me an Jesse, we got some hunting to do.”
Pete had always been kind of slow, seemed everyone took to watching out for him as much as for the women folk, even though he was the oldest of the Bradley brothers.  To look at this fine strapping boy with his carrot colored hair and bright green eyes, you would never have guessed it.  Pete knew exactly what kind of hunting and he wanted to go as well, but Edney needed to be home. Picking her up, Jesse threw her dress across her like a blanket.  Pete proceeded to take her home. She couldn’t have weighed over ninety pounds, hardly any burden for a big strapping boy like Pete.
Meanwhile, rifles ready, Jewell and Jesse started looking for some clue as to who might have done this. They didn’t have to search for long because they were both avid hunters.  Noting broken branches, and high grass trampled, the place where the man was staying was simple enough to locate. Right there, beside the creek was a campsite set up. Not much you could call a campsite, only a few burned out pieces of wood and an old pan that Jewell recognized immediately as the one his stepma was missing a few days back.  Jesse wanted to keep looking till they come across the varmint who had hurt his sister, but Jewell told him to wait.  “Best we hide out here near by, he’ll be back soon enough.”  Jewell planned to at least question the man, knowing that this had to be him because of the stolen pan. It looked like this person had been watching Edney and lying in wait just to get her.  The boys quietly sat back behind some bushes and waited.
Jewell wanted to shoot the man right off, but Jesse said he needed to suffer somewhat.  Regardless, they were still combined in the thought that it was time for this man to pay the piper and they reached a compromise.  They would beat him senseless, then cut off his manhood.  After a short wait the man returned to his camp unaware that he was fixing to pass to the other side.
Jesse came out from his hiding place and approached the man. Even though the man was ragged, Jesse saw that he had on good Union issued shoes.  Obviously he was a renegade left behind.  Somewhere, the man had gotten hold of some type of drug or bad shine.  He appeared to be disoriented.  When Jesse approached him, the man asked him if he had come to return him to his unit.  This was even better then the boys had hoped.  Confederate sympathizers were ambushing Union soldiers almost every week.
“No sir”, Jesse replied, “I’m looking for the man who raped a young girl about a mile back at the river.”
A smug look crossed the man’s face. “You mean that stupid little hillbilly girl? I done her a favor, she was asking for it all along running naked in the woods.”
Jesse clenched his fists to keep from hitting the man.  This had to look like an ambush.  It would be easy enough to do but only if the man carried no signs of a beating.  “You son of a bitch,” was about all he could say. Though that mean Bradley blood made all of the children high tempered, Jewell had always been the most volatile.  Jumping out from behind a bush, Jewell shot him over and over and over again, stopping only to reload and fire again. The boys then left the site, taking nothing, touching nothing, and leaving nothing.  Vigilance had been done.

Copyright 2008 Clara Olmstead. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

The adventures continue in this story with more of the events that plague the ‘crew’.
Having returned home to Pittsburgh, after months on the road, Toby learns that his mother and sisters had had to move downriver to stay with his aunt, -which again leaves Toby homeless. And now with four other mouths to feed! Old problems resurface, as do enemies, and Toby is again on the run to keep him and the others out of harm’s way.

There is no escaping as events unfold, separating Toby and Jayne from the others and they are forced to find ways to survive on their own. Each of the characters face their own problems -some life threatening, as deathly sicknesses, revenge driven enemies, and unforeseen tragedies fill the pages and lives of your favorite characters. Love and shame, friendship, and the need for others, makes this Toby sequel something you won’t want to miss!

New immigrants -and pure dumb luck, add to Toby’s arsenal of friends, and begin the setting of something big in the future of the “River Folk”. So why not join the crew?

Copyright 2008 Thom Rogers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

PROLOGUE

Lemmon, South Dakota
December 18, 1918

What’s that?  I hear someone calling my name.  It sounds like Mary Helen.  I open my eyes and blink to adjust them to the dim light.  My head has fallen to one side and my neck has cramped.

The windows reveal the darkness outside.  A flickering candle beside me is the only light in the parlor.  Snow pellets clattering against the windowpanes when I fell asleep have stopped.  I step over to a window and pull the sheer curtains to one side.  The bright moonlight is glistening off the snowdrifts piled up against trees in the front yard.

No light, except mine, is visible in the neighborhood.  I glance at the clock on the bookshelf, 1:00 a.m.  I had been asleep only a few hours.  I hear Mary Helen call me again.

I slip into her room carrying a dim candle for light.  I go over and sit beside her small body.  I can feel the heat radiate from her as I slip my hand onto her forehead.  She’s burning up with fever.  I brush the hair from her wet face and ask her what she needs.

“Daddy, I am so thirsty.  I need some water or juice.  I saw the light in the parlor.  Is everything all right?” she wonders.

“Everything is fine, peanut,” I lied.  “Everything is fine except for your fever.  I have some water here for you to drink.”

I had aspirin to help with the fever.  Other than that, I could do little more for my Mary Helen.  Never in my life have I felt so helpless, so desperate.  I dampen a rag in the cool water basin beside her bed and wash the perspiration from her face.  I cool off the rag once more and lay it on her head.

“That’s better, Daddy.”  She tries to smile.  “How are Eddie and Mommy?”

“They are resting now, honey.”  I close my eyes as I lie to her.  “Now you need your rest.  Let the aspirin work.  Hopefully it will take down your temperature.  Keep fighting my little Helen””keep fighting.  “I’ll be out in the parlor.  If you need anything, just let me know.”

I bend down and kiss her cheek.  She is so very hot.  It’s like touching a hot-water bottle.  I leave the door open so I will be able to hear the slightest noise from her room.  I check the others and grab a quilt from the hall storage closet.  I return to my chair and wrap the blanket around me.  I thought I couldn’t possibly get back to sleep, but as I let out a sigh and relax my shoulders, under the weight of the quilt, I begin to doze once more, dreaming of how my life has changed forever.

CHAPTER ONE

St. Paul, Minnesota
October 1907

First-time events are often memorable because they alter our lives forever.  Today was a first for me in many ways.  This was my first train ride, a ride that would eventually uproot my family and move them halfway across the country.  This train ride would also be the first time I would be away from my family for an extended period of time.  And this first train ride would be the first time I would meet my new best friend.

“Excuse me,” a voice sounded somewhere beside me.  “Is this seat taken?”

Lost in my thoughts, I wiped off a small round in the middle of condensation forming over the train window.  I peered out the wet glass straining to see Katherine and my two beautiful daughters waving from the depot platform.  As the engine’s steam swirled around their feet, an ache penetrated my heart.

The girls, Mary Rose, age 7 and Mary Anne, age 5, clung with one hand on their mother’s skirt while waving high above their heads with the other.  Katherine slowly touched her eye, moved down and circled her heart, and pointed at me.  I returned the silent gesture of our love for each other.

“Is this seat taken?”  I heard someone beside me speaking a little louder, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Katherine.

The excitement that propelled me to be on the train today was dampened with the loneliness now surrounding me as I heard the engine whistle its final warning.  The rail car was packed with hundreds of prospective landowners making a special run to the Lemmon area of South Dakota.  All on board were going to a special land sale that was pending.  It was falling prey to my wanderlust that put me on this train bound for a small tent-town somewhere down the line with credit papers swelling in my coat pocket.  That wanderlust would dislodge my family from their home in St. Paul with the hope of a better life away from the big city.

Seats were filling fast as the train lurched forward.  All men, all dressed in suits and ties, except for me, I never wore a tie””couldn’t stand the thing around my neck, talked excitedly about the hopes of being at the dawn of a new town.

After the train lurched forward again, I strained to get a better view of my family, as their silhouettes grew smaller.

“Excuse me, sir.  Is this seat taken?”  This voice was now peppered with impatience.

After waving a final goodbye on this cool October morning, I realized the voice I heard was talking to me.  I looked up to see a tall, gangly young man with a wide grin on his face.

“This seat,” he said.  “Is this seat taken?  Can I sit down?

“Oh, of course,” I said.  “Please, sit.  Sorry.  I wasn’t paying any attention.”

The gentleman put his bag and hat on the carrier above the window.  “Obviously,” he answered as he flopped into the seat next to mine and neatly folded his coat over his knees.  “That your family?” he asked, nodding toward the platform.

“Yes,” I answered, painfully aware that it would be many days before I would see Katherine and the girls again.

“Nice looking family.”  The stranger stuck out his hand.  “My name is Ichabod Crane.”

Still preoccupied with thoughts of my family, I took his hand and said, “Oh, yes.  Hello.  My name is Walter Kelley.”

This stranger sitting next to me was shaking my hand and grinning.  I woke from my stupor to say, “Excuse me, Ichabod Crane?”

“Well, not really,” he laughed.  “My name is Earnest Collier, but everyone thinks I look like Ichabod Crane, you know, from the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  So sometimes I just introduce myself that way for a good laugh.  But, you don’t seem to be in a laughing mood.”

I chuckled.  He really did look like the character from the legend, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him that.  “Sorry, Earnest, but I miss my family already and we haven’t even rolled a half a mile.  Do you have family?”

“My mother and father have passed on.  I inherited the family business, a mortuary, from my father.  I can’t seem to find a girl who wants to marry a mortician, especially one that looks like Ichabod Crane.  So I am pretty much alone in the world.  And by the way,” he continued. “Please call me Ernie.”

“Okay, Ernie,” I said.  “You can call me Walt.”

I settled back in my seat as the train’s rhythmic wheels glided along their rails gently rocking my head from side to side.  The train picked up steam and soon was rolling along at a faster pace.  I felt every inch of distance between my family and myself.  I had just left, yet I couldn’t wait to get back.

I rolled my head toward Ernie.  “Do you know much about this Lemmon City we are going to?”

Ernie was reading papers he had brought aboard.  “No, not much other than it’s just one of many small towns that are blossoming up along the railroad line.  Land is available in places where people have never lived before.  Pretty exciting, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is,” I agreed.  “I want to start a new life with my family away from St. Paul.  Katherine’s Mother was killed in a tragic horse cart accident before we married.  Her father is a prominent banker in town.  He recently remarried to a good friend of the family.

“I’m a carpenter from lower town and not part of the St. Paul social class.  Katherine and I would like to take our family somewhere we can start over and be our own people.  Does that make any sense to you?”

“Absolutely,” he answered.  “I inherited a business but also a legacy.  I have longed to become my own man.  That’s why I want to start over in Lemmon.  I want to build my own business, not just continue my father’s legacy.”

“Well, Ernie, I’m glad you decided to sit beside me on the trip.  We seem to have a lot in common,” I said.

“Your wife,” Ernie asked.  “Is she a Maloney from the financial district?”

“Yes,” I answered.  “Michael Maloney is her father.  Do you know him?”

He stuck some credit papers under my nose.  There, Michael Maloney’s name graced the signature line.  “Sure do,” he said.  “Mr. Maloney gave me all the credit I need to get started in Lemmon.  He is one nice person.

“I can see what you mean, though, about coming from different social circles,” he continued.  “The Maloney name is quite well-known.  I remember the newspaper stories on the accident that killed his wife.  How did you ever meet his daughter?”

“Also, quite by accident, literally,” I answered.  “We met while I was taking a picture of a house I had recently constructed.  Se saved me from stepping into a freshly poured concrete sidewalk as I was trying to get the whole house in the lens frame.  It was one of those new portable box cameras.  I had never taken a picture before and wasn’t paying much attention to where I was stepping.

“She was looking for me at the site.  Her family wanted me to build a house for them in the country.  Their home in the city, more like a mansion, was right across the street from the new capitol building.  I started courting Mary Katherine during the construction of their new home much to the consternation of her mother.  In fact, if her mother had not been run over by that team of horses carrying marble to the new capitol building site, we probably wouldn’t be married today.  Mrs. Maloney couldn’t get over the fact I was not from a prominent family.  She never thought I was good enough for Katherine.”

“Funny how events in our life mold our future,” Ernie added.  “If my mother and father were still alive today, I probably wouldn’t be on this train heading for some unknown future.

“Did you say you were a carpenter, a house builder?” Ernie asked.

“Yes, one of the area’s best.  That is why I am so confident I can make a new life in a new town.”

Ernie thought for a moment and said, “I am going to need a good carpenter to help with my building.  Would you be interested?”

“Sure,” I answered.  “I would love to build you a shop.  What did you have in mind?”

“Well,” he pondered.  “A funeral parlor would be the base building.  It’s really all I know, but I have always wanted to have a furniture store.  I know it sounds crazy, but would there be a way to combine the two functions in one building?”

“Anything is possible, Ernie,” I answered.  “If we both get land in this sale, we can figure something that works.”

We spent the rest of the trip talking about my family, politics, Ernie’s hopes and dreams, and how our life would change dramatically if we were to move to South Dakota.   It was that first train trip that welded our life-long friendship.

CHAPTER TWO

Lemmon, South Dakota
October 1907

We talked for hours then were rocked to sleep by the train.  We woke with a start as the whistle blasted our arrival to all of Lemmon.  The excitement was at a fever pitch as the engine slowed to a halt.  Everyone on board grabbed their bags and hurried to the exits anxious to look at the lay of the land.

Ernie and I stepped off the train and looked around.  We didn’t say too much.  More shocked at what we didn’t see than what we did see.  Except for a few tents hastily thrown up in the dirt, the remainder of South Dakota seemed to be an endless sea of flat land covered by waves of grass.

Born out of necessity, there were a few businesses in the new town; a blacksmith shop and livery stable; a bank; a hotel; a law office; and a mercantile shop.  The town was just inside the South Dakota border as North Dakota honored liquor prohibition and South Dakota did not.  Thus, one of the first businesses to be established in Lemmon was the saloon.

A swarm of bargain hunters had swooped down upon the town.  The hotel, a makeshift tent with straw beds, was quickly filled to capacity.  Some prospective buyers were forced to find refuge wherever they could.  Many of them found refuge in the livery stable in the hay next to horses.  It was quite refreshing to see these well-dressed city folk lying down next to the horses and mules.

Ernie and I quickly found cots in the tent hotel before it was filled to capacity.  Ernie felt comfortable enough to change into a shirt and pants.  This was definitely a casual occasion in a very casual setting.  On the other hand, I always wore just a shirt and pants so the surroundings were very comfortable for me.

On special occasions such as going to church, I would put on a suit jacket and sweater vest, but I never donned a tie.  That was the extent of my “dressing up.”  Katherine knew that from the first time I met her and down deep in her heart she knew I would never change.

One Christmas, Mary Katherine bought me a tie.  She wanted me to wear it to church.  I politely hung it in my closet, but never put it on.

After touring the land for sale, I became excited about the new town of Lemmon and the potential of what that town could be.  With our good credit papers from the First National Bank, Ernie and I secured four lots, two on Main Street of this brand new little town for Ernie’s building and two lots just off Main Street for the new home I was dreaming about building for Katherine.

With promissory notes in hand, I boarded the train back to Katherine and the girls.  I would start building as soon as my schedule would permit it.  First to be built will be a large house for my family, then houses for others and, of course, the new funeral parlor for Ernie.

I returned to St. Paul to make arrangements for my family to move to Lemmon.  Katherine and the girls were living with her father so I could save money for the journey westward.  I made arrangements to return to Lemmon before June.  The winters in Lemmon were long and hard so we would wait until the thaw to start construction.  Katherine and I dreamed and planned our new home all winter.  When spring came, I was gathering supplies to return to South Dakota.

I sent the lumber and supplies ahead on rail cars.  I looked up Ernie Collier and hitched a ride in his hearse from St. Paul to our new town of Lemmon.  Ernie’s hearse was quite fancy.  The Model T version had bucket-type seats in front.  Behind the seat it was open to the back door like some of the larger vans.  Large flaps of material hung down on the sides and back.

When a funeral procession called for it, a casket would sit in back and the flaps would be rolled up for viewing as the hearse slowly paraded to the cemetery.

For our cross-country event, however, we had the flaps securely tied down.  We had the hearse filled with possessions we would need to start building my house and Ernie’s business.

We brought along a large wall tent and wood-stove for cooking.  Our clothes and tools were crammed into the remaining space.  Mary Katherine packed us a lunch basket filled with delicious goodies to eat on the road.  A large water jug was near the back.

There were no trees in northern South Dakota, not even a stick.  We strapped wood wherever we could on the truck and took off on our new adventure.  We were both happy to have found each other and, as we started on our journey, we vowed to remain life-long friends.  And we did.

CHAPTER THREE

Lemmon, South Dakota
Winter 1908

Ernie and I spent the entire summer and most of the fall living in our wall tent in the lot next to my new house.  We had gone home to St. Paul twice during that time because I was getting homesick to see Katherine and the girls.  The days were getting shorter and the weather was getting cooler each night.  It was getting harder and harder to remain enthusiastic about staying in Lemmon.

My house was almost complete, thanks to Ernie and another carpenter, Lyle Gusset.  With our plans for a large family in mind, I built a huge three-story house with 12 bedrooms.  It was the largest house I had ever built, and it seemed as though we would never finish before the first snow fell, but with hard work and long hours, we did.

We completed and painted the outside, shingled the roof, and even planted a few trees out front for landscaping.  We had this all done by early September.  We spent the next three months inside the house completing the basement and installing a coal furnace.  We moved upstairs to finish walls and flooring before the weather took a turn for the worse.

In November, we stepped back and declared the house finished.  All the house needed was some furnishings, the delicious smell of Katherine’s cooking, and the laughter of my beautiful girls to make the house a home.

I left Lemmon just before Christmas to return to Minnesota.  I arranged for Ernie to stay in the house while I gathered up my family to return.  Ernie slept on cots brought in from our construction tent.  He kept the house warm and completed some of the inside finish work while I was gone.  I promised when I returned we would start his building.  But, for now, winter had its way and completely dominated the area with snowstorm after snowstorm.

Katherine, the girls, and I stayed at Dad Maloney’s until February.  As telephone and electrical lines quickly followed the railroad tracks across the country, I had anticipated telephone service to be completed to our new house in February.  On February 15, 1909, I called the operator and was put through to Lemmon.

Our telephone was on a party line.  Our personal ring was two longs and four shorts.  I was excited when the two long and four short rings played in my ear.  Ernie answered, just as I had imagined, and said, “Ah, hello?”

“Hi, Ernie,” I shouted.  “It’s Walt.  Walt Kelley.  Hey, buddy, are you talking on my new telephone?”

“Wow,” Ernie yelled back.  “I wasn’t sure if I should answer it.  The last time it rang, I picked it up and broke in on two ladies having a conversation on the line.  Boy, they told me to hang up and not too politely.”

“How is the weather in Lemmon?  I “˜m getting anxious to get the family moved out there,” I asked excitedly.

“Well, the ground is still frozen solid.  The wind blows every day.  The sun shines every day, except for the days the blizzards pile up the snow, but the drifts haven’t been higher than the basement wall and I keep the porch swept off.”  He continued.  “Walt, that coal-burning furnace you have in here is great.  I keep the hopper full and the house has been toasty warm all winter.  I would say that if you could get here with little trouble, the house is ready for its new family.”

Two weeks later, on March 6, 1909, I moved my family by rail to our new home in Lemmon, South Dakota, after assuring mail and newspapers were forwarded to our new address.

When we were safely on the train, my beautiful Mary Katherine told me she was carrying our third child.  She was afraid to tell me before we left for fear I would change my plans.  She was anxious to move to her new home and didn’t want anything to interrupt.  She was right, if we could have turned around right there, I would have.

“Things in Lemmon are really primitive right now, Katherine.  There is one doctor in town, Dr. Anderson, but his experience has been taking care of a few hundred men.  I don’t think he has much practice with woman things.  Maybe you could go back to St. Paul just before you are due and have the baby in the hospital.  The nearest hospital to Lemmon is 150 miles, in Aberdeen.”

“Don’t be silly, Frederick Walter Kelley,” she laughed.  “This is our new home.  I intend to have many other children to fill those 12 bedrooms you made.  If Dr. Anderson isn’t up to speed with woman things, as you call it, we will give him lots of practice.”

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