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Clara’s Best

Word count 45,000

Historical fiction

My Daniels ancestors arrived in the colonies in 1636, my Camp ancestors in 1645, and my Casebeer ancestors in 1724. These three families began merging in Placerville, California, aka Hangtown, during the California goldrush of 1849. Besides being made of sturdy pioneer stock, among the things they would eventually have in common is me.

My name is Shannon Thomas Casebeer. I was born in Placerville in 1951. One hundred years after the goldrush, Placerville still exuded the rowdy spirit of our country’s youth. I was raised on Reservoir Hill on a forty-acre spread which had been home to my family since 1888. My great great grandpa Camp was a genuine 49er. My granddad Daniels taught me to pan for gold with the same pan with which his grandpa Camp instructed him. My great grandma Daniels was born in Placerville in 1869, and she lived to the ripe old age of 96. I remember her well and fondly.

My great great grandpa, Jared Waldo Daniels went West as a surgeon and an advocate for the Native Americans in 1855, and he served as a surgeon for the Union during the Civil War. I treasure my family’s copy of his reminiscences.    

My youth was an aromatic blend of all this remarkable heritage. Placerville is the heart of the historic mother lode. Our property boasted three gold mines and an area which had been hydraulically mined and permanently scarred by America’s rush to riches.

El Dorado County is proud of its remarkable heritage, and it celebrates it each year with Pony Express Days, the wagon train parade, street dances, the John Studebaker wheelbarrow races, and all variety of historic and well attended events.  Suffice it to say, my childhood instilled within me an all-consuming appreciation for all this fabulous heritage, along with a deep and abiding love for God and Country.

Among my family’s treasures are several journals which were penned by my beloved ancestors.  These journals piqued my curiosity for history and sparked within me a healthy appetite for literature. My favorite authors include Dickens, Poe, Stevenson, and the incomparable Mark Twain.

My ancestor’s journals inspired my own efforts at breathing life into history by capturing emotions through mixing and matching words. I’ve written three historical novels. While works of fiction, each novel is for the most part historically accurate. Through these efforts, I hope to rekindle a sense of duty, unity, and patriotism which seems sadly largely lacking in much of today’s society. My goal is to create affable characters which invariably draw the reader deep into the heart of history, just as though they themselves were there. I believe I’ve succeeded. You can feel the character’s beating heart and hear their rhythmic breathing as they draw you with them into the pages of time.

Each novel is a rousing adventure and a captivating immigrant’s tale. They include Obie, Miah, and Clara’s Best. Together they make up The Hangtown trilogy. I suggest publishing each of the three manuscripts individually over time, and then following up with an anthology containing all three plus additional material. I have quite a number of poems from which we could choose. This would make a total of four books. Some people are hard-pressed to resist a complete collection.

For your consideration, I’ve provided several excerpts from Clara’s Best. Like the other two novels in The Hangtown Trilogy, Clara’s Best is an immigrant’s tale. Comprised of just over 45,000 words, it’s a brief but rambunctious adventure through the American West.

INTRODUCTION

The following novel, while historical fiction, is, for the most part, historically accurate. It chronicles the trials and tribulations of my Irish ancestors as told in the words of my great-grandmother, Clara Kinnie Stancil. It encompasses the years from 1850 until the early years of the 1940s. While told with deep sincerity and an eye for humor, it shares, in occasionally painful detail, Clara’s most personal account of her own experiences and our country’s many successes and frequent failures. As such it is, on occasion, deadly serious. I relate it here as faithfully as I’m able and just as it was told to me by my grandmother, Clara’s daughter, Ivy.

PROLOGUE

Ireland was all stony pastures and craggy bluffs and smelled of sea breeze and heather. So said Mither. Then came the famine. Volumes galore have been previously penned chronicling the devastating potato famine that scattered the clans of Ireland. I’ll not prolong the misery with my words.

In the summer of 1850, while the earthly remains of her mom and dad were still leaching into the rocky ground of their beloved Emerald Isle, my mither, Mariah, 15 years of age at the time, along with dozens of other bereft and grieving orphans were loaded onto sailing ships, much like unwanted cargo, and shoved off for the storied shores of America. Most sailed with little more than the tattered garments of their youth which eventually served for many as their shrouds. Fortunately for Mariah, arrangements had been made.

Mother’s lamentable circumstance would become the responsibility of her aunt. Auntie Meg had already precariously established herself in America. Her humble laundry business was blessed with the regular patronage of numerous well-to-do members of a society who had arrived in America years previously and now considered themselves entitled natives.  They greeted these penniless newcomers and their baffling brogue with what we will charitably call a dubious enthusiasm.

Where, in particular, Mariah came ashore is of little importance to our tale. The east coast cities of the 1850s were, for the most part, all alike: bustling centers of commerce, crowded with all variety of displaced citizens of foreign shores, and each soul was desperate to scratch out a meager living under difficult conditions. If your visions of those long-ago days have come from perusing the romanticized pages of dime novels and penny dreadfuls, think again. If you believe the society of the times was genteel and cultured, think again. If you believe mercy and compassion came naturally to people struggling desperately to survive, or that polite society occurs naturally from chaos, think again. If you believe there is honor among thieves, you’re not acquainted with many thieves.

Cultured, Christian, hardworking folks of means don’t generally become thieves. The vast majority of ruthless theft and lawlessness is performed by the wealthy elites who consider themselves above the law, or it is performed by the poor, destitute folks who are sufficiently desperate to risk the consequences. The homeless may become thieves. The hungry may become thieves. The downtrodden, outcast, and demoralized may become thieves. People who can’t otherwise feed their families may become thieves. Crime becomes a way of life for those without options. When folk’s families are starving, rules get bent.

This was the society in which Mariah now found herself. Her Auntie Meg was a kindhearted and generous soul to the extent to which mercy and benevolence were within her meager means. She was amenable to the prospect of providing food and lodging to her dispossessed kith and kin under the condition that Mither was amenable to working diligently, sunup to sundown, to complete whatever menial task Auntie Meg placed before her. For the most part, Mariah spent the next several months entirely friendless and bent over a wash tub, elbow deep in soggy laundry. Each night found her considering it a blessing to be clothed, fed, and sheltered from the cold.

On an unseasonably warm evening in October of 1850, just as crickets began chirping and the night air smacked of dusk, Mariah, who was returning from the market, laid eyes unexpectedly on a familiar face. This was remarkable! Mariah knew practically no one. She stopped in her tracks and stared awestruck at a young man pushing a wheelbarrow through the crowded street. Simultaneously, the young man paused and returned an equally startled gaze. After a moment, he hesitantly approached, wiped his brow with a tattered sleeve, and lowered his jitney to the ground. Noting Mariah’s concern, he smiled sheepishly and announced, with a comforting Irish brogue, “I’m Lidge Kinnie. You may remember me from the ship.” Mariah and Lidge had not previously spoken, but she did remember Lidge from the ship. “Oh yeah!” Mariah answered blushing. “I do remember you!” The two visited very briefly about the lamentable circumstances they had in common, and then Mariah excused herself and continued dutifully on her way.

Some moments later, rounding a corner in the alley which led back to the laundry, several forms lurched from the shadows; two men grabbed Mariah’s arms, and a third man stood facing her with a terrifying mix of disgust and lust glaring from his bloodshot eyes. Mariah immediately screamed and began squirming and pleading to be released. Noting her brogue, the third man began viciously poking his filthy, boney finger into her ribs, and making crude, racist remarks about her ethnicity.

Just as Mariah’s fate looked ominous, a fourth man approached at a dead run from the direction from which Mariah had previously come. Grabbing a cant hook from a construction site, he began hollering at the three men who were abusing Mariah while he waved the cant hook threateningly over his head. A terrible scuffle ensued during which shots were fired, and one man pulled a knife and began thrusting it threateningly at Mariah’s mysterious benefactor.

Mariah suddenly recognized this fourth man as Lidge. Lidge eventually rendered one attacker unconscious with a blow to the head with the cant hook. Another deft whack injured the arm of another assailant before the two limped off. The third man was left sprawled bloodied and motionless in the cold, dank alley.

Lidge breathlessly confessed to Mariah that he’d been following her for some distance in the hope of determining where she lived. Had he not, Mariah’s fate would have undoubtedly been unthinkable. Examining the fallen assailant, they were horrified to find that the blow to the head had lacerated the man’s skull. Within a few moments, he breathed his last and lay stone cold dead. Lidge’s blow had killed him.  

Mariah’s immediate reaction was that of appreciation and relief, but Lidge was clearly mortified! He collapsed to the ground, rocking and moaning inconsolably. Mariah brushed the wet hair from his bloodied face and gazed into his panic-stricken eyes. “What is it, Lidge?” she enquired.  “That was clearly self-defense. You probably saved my life!”

Lidge’s very soul had been irreparably transformed by this incident. He’d remember its horror all the days of his life. He’d remember the guilt and searing burn of conscience, tinged with a terrible satisfaction and the copper smack of adrenalin that thrilled his heart and swelled his throbbing veins. He’d remember the horrible rush of vengeance and the anguished invigoration of surrendering entirely to rage and unbridled passion.

“I’ve already been hauled into the precinct twice” Lidge grimaced, “once for vagrancy, and once for pinching biscuits. If I’m taken in for this” he said, “they’ll almost certainly lock me up for good.”

Just then, a lantern light cast its dim glow at the end of the alley. The security guard was working his way toward them, shaking and checking doors as he approached. Mariah helped Lidge to his feet, and the two staggered for a cargo container some thirty feet away. They cowered in the shadows and waited, panting and praying silently to themselves. Moments later, the lantern cast its flickering light on the bloody corpse of Mariah’s assailant, and the night air was violently pierced as the guard began blowing his whistle. “This way.” whispered Mariah, and the two sprinted to the far end of the dark alley and into the moonlit stillness of the foggy harbor and its docks of anchored ships.

Just as the two stopped, bent over and gasping for breath, another whistle blew to the left followed quickly by another fast approaching from the right. Some thirty paces ahead, a streetlight revealed a gangway which climbed quickly to the quiet deck of a dark and silent vessel. Panicked by the whistles of the approaching officers, and seeing no better alternative, Lidge led Mariah up the gangway and into the inviting doorway of an open supply room, closed the door, and bolted it behind them.

Moments later, voices approached their refuge, and the muffled conversation continued as several men took up vigil outside their door. After about thirty minutes, unwilling to reveal themselves to those who inadvertently held them hostage and exhausted by their ordeal, Lidge found a scrap of canvas and prepared a makeshift bed on the cargo strewn floor. There, he and Mariah collapsed and were slowly soothed by the rolling ship into a fitful sleep.

Several hours later, Lidge groaned and struggled to his feet. Cautiously making his way through the darkness to the doorway Lidge unbolted the door, peered outside, and then returned aghast for Mariah. The two walked speechlessly to the railing and stared in disbelief! There before them, awash in the blinding sunlight of midday and ringing with the raucous cries of gulls, lay the vast, uninterrupted ocean in every direction as far as the eye could see.

They stood for a moment, wide-eyed and dumbstruck, and then, before either could muster voice, a firm hand came down on both their shoulders. Turning cautiously, they grimaced up into the stern, gray bearded countenance of the ship’s first mate. Without a word, he shook his wooly face in disapproval and led them unceremoniously to the captain’s quarters. The captain’s reception was equally disconcerting. He had absolutely no interest in their tale of woe. “You two have two options”, he grunted, as though he himself had no particular preference, and was entirely unmoved by their whining protestations. While it would be an unwarranted expense for the ship and a dangerous roll of the dice for the stowaways, he was prepared to put them adrift in one of the ship’s rowboats to fend for themselves on the merciless Atlantic, or, if willing, they could sign on as galley help and peel potatoes from here to San Francisco. They thought it over briefly, swallowed hard, and chose what appeared to them the lesser of several unimaginable evils. Next stop, Recife, Brazil, with good sailing, one month away. 

Episode Seven

{a number of years later, in San Francisco}

MOUND HOUSE

Following a month of convalescence, Lidge returned to work. His low spirits and bouts of debilitating depression were increasingly a cause for concern. The hustle and bustle of city life, in conjunction with his now chronic fear of crowds, suggested a move to the country.

Butch proposed the Postmaster’s position at Shingle Springs. Shingle Springs is located in El Dorado County, about 40 miles from Sacramento in the Gold Rush foothills, and sits directly on what would eventually become Highway 50. The towns of Coloma and Placerville are less than 15 miles away. Before the area was settled by Anglo-Americans, a Maidu village called Bamom was located in the vicinity. Like many of the other towns in California's Mother Lode, Shingle Springs grew on the site of a mining camp set up by gold miners during the Gold Rush, in this case, a group of "49ers" who had followed the Carson Immigrant Trail through Pleasant Valley, Nevada. It took its name from a horse-drawn shingle making machine capable of producing 16,000 shingles a day, that was located near the springs at the western edge of the camp. The Shingle Springs Post Office opened in 1865. Butch’s title of California’s Post Master General gave him the authority to select Post Masters for any Post Office in the state. If Lidge were willing, the position was his.

In the fall of 1867, after a traumatic and tearful parting with their family at the Tea House, Lidge and Mariah loaded a wagon with their few possessions and set out for Shingle. Following a weeklong trek, the couple set up housekeeping in a small cottage on the outskirts of town. Lidge’s quiet, unassuming disposition made him instantly popular at the little Post Office, and as a result of his years of experience in San Francisco, his vast knowledge of everything Post Office related insured a sound and successful management of his new post.

Mither and Da adjusted quickly to their new surroundings, and Lidge soon reacquired his old vigor and zest for life. Mariah too thrived in the fresh air and wide opened spaces of the country. In 1868, Mariah’s healthful glow took on a whole new facet by the joyful announcement that she was once again pregnant. I was born on May 31st, 1868. By being frugal as church mice, the family thrived over the next few years.

We rarely threw anything away. If we bought something in a glass jar or bottle, once it was emptied, that container became a treasured family heirloom. If something arrived in a wooden crate, that crate was likely to become furniture or part of the house. We mended and patched clothing and shoes until there was nothing left but taters. Livestock was all that stood between us and starvation. When a rabbit or chicken was butchered, we made use of every scrap, including the fur or feathers. When we butchered a tuff old laying hen, we stewed her feet and all. Da said, when nothing else will grow, you can always count on turnips. We ate lots of turnips. When Mither pulled a turnip, we ate it greens and all.

If we prepared a tomato or a squash, we saved the seed for planting. On the rare occasions that Da slaughtered a hog, there wasn’t a shred that wasn’t either pickled or smoked. Mither used the head to make head cheese. She’d have Da split the head in half, and then she’d scrub it, and scrape it, and singe off all the hair. Once she’d snipped out all that didn’t suit her, the rest would be simmered in a huge tub on the wood range until all the meat cooked free from the skull. At that point, she’d season it, and cool it, and slice it for sandwich meat. Even the intestines were scrubbed out and stuffed to produce sausage comprised of almost everything edible. Mither teased there should be some way that we could smoke the squeal.

When we had nothing else to eat, Mither would collect dry corn from the barn. Then she’d run water through ashes from the wood range to make lye water. Once the corn was shucked and the dried kernels were separated from the cob, she’d soak the kernels in the lye water until they plumped and softened. Then she’d rinse them good and make hominy. Truth be told, I kind of enjoyed hominy.

In 1871, our lives were swept once again to life’s dark side. Once more drawn by the call of the wild and an urge to escape the crowds, Father arranged for a new job, and moved the family to a desolate outpost in Lyon County Nevada. The little way station, briefly a Pony Express stop, now operated as a stage stop and way station between Carson City and Virginia City, Nevada. Lidge believed the place had enormous potential as the rail road continued expanding through the area. We had no more than settled in at the little station when Da was caught out in a storm and developed pneumonia. Two weeks later, my father passed away. Mither, in desperation, and clueless as to how to survive without Da, took solace in a new marriage to L. T. McLain. Mr. McLain was Irish, like us, and a widower with two sons.

Life at the little outpost was excruciatingly difficult. For several months, Mither worked tirelessly from sunup to sundown, in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. And then, only months after my father died, my mother died too, and at three years old, I was left all alone, with a strange man and his two unruly sons.

Although I never thought of Mr. McLain as a father, over time, I grew fond of him, and I believe he cared for me too. The boys on the other hand were a constant source of trial and tribulation.

Mither was buried in a single grave very near the stage stop.  As a result, passersby soon began referring to the facility as Mound House. Eventually a small community grew up around the stage stop. Mound House was located halfway between Carson City and Virginia City, Nevada.  Serving as both a way station and, for a time, a Pony Express stop, despite its location, literally in the middle of nowhere, the facility soon became a bustling hub of activity for traffic between Carson City, Fort Churchill, and points north and west. Following the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, it became a station and siding on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. It served for some time as a wood and water stop.

Equally impressive as the thoroughfare itself, were its remarkable locomotives. Everything about a steam locomotive is awe-inspiring.  The low moan of the engine, the earthy smell of burning fuel, hot steel, and well-oiled brass, and the rise and fall of the undulating rails, are an endless source of wonder for me.  A swiftly passing locomotive brings to mind a living, breathing creature.  To me, a steam locomotive belching smoke and billowing clouds of steam is the living personification of power itself. There’s no other sound in the whole wide world like the sound of a distant train, with its rhythmic rumble and the whistle’s mournful wail.  It’s a little like the call of migrating geese as their primordial cries grow faint, and they follow their leader along an ancient path.

 

On May 10th, 1869, after several days of delay due to flooding, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific connected track at Promontory Point Utah.  The dedication was attended by hordes of photographers and reporters, who were on hand to witness what was heralded as the work of the age. Tom Durant himself was there, to drive the final spike. Most of the credit went to bureaucrats and flatlanders, and as usual, the lion’s share of the proceeds went to the politicians and predators at the top of the food chain.  I can tell you this; if it weren’t for the Chinamen and their dump carts, they’d never have gotten ‘er done!

 

Without question, as those golden spikes were driven into that last tie at Promontory Point, Utah, America’s manifest destiny was achieved.  East was symbolically and literally joined to west, and the vast expanse of North America’s great Republic truly became one nation, indivisible.

 

The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad was at once a monumental accomplishment, an unparalleled feat of construction, the dream of manifest destiny realized, and a death knell for a proud people. Within a decade, the vast herds of buffalo that had covered the plains like a luxurious quilt for centuries were reduced to tattered remnants and piles of bones, and North America’s Native People were ruthlessly pursued and annihilated.  Those who survived the ruthless campaign were herded onto reservations, where their once proud nations were required to abandon their heritage or vanish along with it.  Despite the best efforts of the few who interceded passionately on behalf of the Indians, treaty after treaty was torn asunder by the wave of settlers rolling toward the west.

 

Doctor Jared Waldo Daniels, who began providing medical services to our troops and the Indians in 1855, and served as Inspector of Indian Agencies during the 1870s, shared the following observation regarding the Sioux War and Minnesota Massacre of 1862 & 63, “It is only natural that everyone be curious as to the cause of the uprisings of a people who have always striven to live in peace and harmony with their more civilized neighbors.  To state a fact that is as old as the history of our country’s Indian relations, and the great cause of all our trouble with them, is to say, very clearly in my estimation, violated treaty obligations on the part of our government.”

 

Back in 1861, with violence between Indians and settlers at its peak, and blood having long been shed on both sides, the United States Army commissioned Fort Churchill so that an influx of new settlers from the East could live in some semblance of peace. The fort housed as many as 300 soldiers, providing a bulwark against Paiute forces. The Army selected for its base a site on the northern banks of the Carson River, a well-traveled area that had come to the attention of explorers only a few years previously. Constructed as a functioning and modern military outpost, its main compound included six officer’s quarters, an armory, and multiple barracks. The Paiute War was bloody but brief, its outcome a decisive victory for the United States. With Indians no longer posing a serious threat, Fort Churchill was decommissioned in 1869.

Following his service during the Indian uprisings and Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to General of the Armed Forces in 1866, and served until 1869, when his popularity as a Union war general resulted in his election to two terms as the 18th President of the United States. In these capacities, he made a number of visits to Nevada.

President Grant’s Southern detractors insist on calling him a drunk. I can claim no personal knowledge of the President’s vices. I can however claim knowledge of his virtues. On one of the President’s trips through Nevada, during a rest stop at Mound House, following a roast beef sandwich and a mug of lukewarm beer, President Grant was seated at the bar. Several patrons, having heard me sing on numerous occasions, set me on the bar to sing for the President. Asked if he had a request, the President suggested “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.” With the exception of one verse, which I forgot in the nervousness of the moment, I belted out the entire song, a-cappella, and concluded the performance with my most angelic grin and a deep and sincerely felt curtsey. The President rose to his feet, offered a standing ovation, and kissed me ever so tenderly on the head. Through the years he wrote me several letters. I’ll love President Grant until the day I die.

In 1877 a post office was established at Mound House, and in 1880 the V&T began construction of a narrow-gauge railroad from here to the mining camps of western Nevada and the Owen’s Valley region of California. Named the Carson & Colorado Railroad, Just as Father had expected, it turned The Mound House into a booming shipping point for several years.

 

Episode Nine

CYNTHIA

In 1883, I turned fifteen. Suffice it to say, life was hard, and I was hard at it from sunup until sundown, and frequently before and after. Mr. McLain’s boys helped a good deal with the horses and livestock. For the most part, we kept a respectful distance and spoke only when necessary. Any chores done inside the facility, with the exception of bringing in stove wood, and butchering chickens or rabbits, which the boys considered great fun, were considered woman’s work and beneath their dignity.

The boys made frequent trips into town for prairie hay and dry goods. During Mr. McLain’s frequent absences, they occasionally returned all liquored up. On one such occasion, I woke to find the boys and an acquaintance entirely intoxicated and crawling into my bed in a drunken frenzy. Despite my writhing protestations, they took for themselves unspeakable liberties which left me forever scarred by the ordeal.

Two months later, the incident made itself known by a noticeable swelling of my belly. I spent many sleepless nights in tears, staring at a flickering candle for companionship, and torn between an inherent maternal affection for the fragile life squirming in my tummy, and a debilitating sense of shame, rage, and disgust for how it got there.

On numerous occasions, as a small child, the boys had wrapped me, head and all, in a blanket, and refused to release me until I’d hollered, uncle. On many occasions, my compliance had been insufficient to gain release. I’d developed an abiding and unnatural fear of darkness and confinement. That fear would now become all-consuming and debilitating. I had a crippling burden and no one with whom to share it. The nights became endless and intolerable. As nightfall enveloped me, it was reminiscent of those suffocating occasions in the blanket. Although not confined, it was as though I was pinned on my back with the world itself pressing ponderously on my chest. The horrors that befell my feverish brain are inexpressible in mere words. You can’t begin to imagine the shame, self-loathing, and revulsion that tore at my heart and grieved my very soul. Night after night, I prayed for release, and my prayers went unanswered.

One afternoon during those dark days, I was standing on the back porch, at the top of the stairs, numb to the world around me, when the boys roughhousing in the house suddenly crashed through the screen door, sending me headlong down the flight of stairs, to land on my face and stomach on a farm implement. My nose was badly mashed, and the impact was sufficient that several days later my pregnancy ended. On Mr. McLain’s return, a neighbor related his observation of the incident. After questioning the boys, Mr. McLain fell into a terrible depression. He spoke to no one for days. I’d never seen anyone in such a state of debilitating despondency.

Weeks later, my stepfather loaded me into a wagon, along with a few of our belongings, and lit out for parts unknown, never to be heard from again. There were rumors that he’d left for the Klondike, but we never really knew for sure and certain. Along the way, he dropped me off at an orphanage in Genoa, Nevada. Thus, ended my years of youthful innocence and adolescent optimism, but thank God, there were better days ahead.

The orphanage in Genoa was a sprawling three story affair with a bathhouse, a kitchen, a massive dining room, and several dozen tiny rooms, each boasting one window. It was constructed originally by several well-to-do townsfolk who envisioned the monstrosity as a vacation destination. Of course, there were not sufficient people for miles around to fill the place. They believed if they built it, they would come. They didn’t, and it eventually became an orphanage.

Each room, when stretched to capacity, held two or three orphans. My roommate was Cynthia. Cynthia was a petite, towheaded little princess, who immediately beguiled every soul she met, until they became better acquainted. Cynthia was batshit crazy!

Cynthia didn’t care particularly for anyone, but for some inconceivable reason, Cynthia took an immediate liking to me. So, we became roommates. Occasionally, we were served meals in our rooms. On such occasions most everyone received a knife, a fork, and a spoon. Cynthia and I received only spoons. On the occasion that Cynthia acquired a knife, or anything sharp, she invariably threw it like a dagger at the door. Needless to say, the maintenance man took a dim view of this behavior.

Most orphans who had proven themselves responsible enjoyed the privilege of a lamp or candle in their room. Our room remained dark. On the lamentable occasions when Cynthia was able to acquire matches, she invariably lit something on fire. Several years later, Henry had need to verify his date of birth, which we believed to be May 6, 1868, around the same time as mine. This proved impossible to verify, because none of his records had survived the conflagration. Cynthia had burned much of the orphanage to the ground. Cynthia goes off halfcocked about every twenty minutes; I love her like a sister, but it takes a terrible toll on a body’s nerves.

So, as the story goes, there’s this old farmer. He goes into this store searching for something for anxiety. His nerves are clearly shot! While paying for his merchandise, his hands are shaking until he’s just barely able to count out his change. About then, this woman at a display behind him bumps a supporting can in a pyramid display of cans. Those cans come down in a crash and clatter that would startle the feathers off a wooden Indian!

This poor old fellow is instantly on top of the counter! The clerk assists him down and asks what in the world is wrong. “Well,” the farmer explains, staring at the floor and shaking his head dejectedly, “It’s my wife; she thinks she’s a chicken! She clucks and fluffs and scratches. It’s beginning to take a toll!” The clerk is horrified and clearly sympathetic. “Well,” he suggests, “why don’t you just get rid of her?” “It’s not that easy.” The farmer explains. “I don’t know how we’d survive without the eggs.”

That’s kind of how I am with Cynthia. At this point, I rely heavily on our friendship.

One Friday morning, the facility received a new boy. One wing of the institution housed boys, the other wing, girls. This policy was strictly enforced, for the most part. We all became acquainted while in the dining room for meals. Henry was French Canadian. While on a trek from Quebec and the Great Lakes region, to points north, Henry’s parents had taken ill and passed away. Henry was around my age, taller than average, easily tanned, thin as a rail, and he spoke softly, with a delightful French accent. There was reason to believe he had Indian ancestry.

I’d love to share the heartwarming account of a shy boy, warming gradually to a bashful, teenage girl. That didn’t happen. To everyone’s amusement, on the very first moment that Henry lay eyes on me, we spied each other instantly as he entered the dining room. Both of us fought the inclination to look immediately away. Instead, Henry never took his eyes off mine. He made a beeline across the entire dining room, tipping over several chairs in the process, took me in his arms for an uncomfortably long embrace, stared with startling tenderness and moist eyes into the very depths of my soul, and then found us a seat together at the table. From that moment on, except during long nights confined to our rooms, Henry and I were inseparable.

Episode Thirty-five

 

A MOMENT’S HESITATION

 

In May of 1938, Henry and I each turned 70. Quite an achievement, if I do say so myself. I look at least 70. And I feel at least 70. And I darned sure act at least 70. But It’s still mighty hard to believe I’m 70! Ralph and Sylvia haven’t aged a day. Oops! I mean Cynthia. One weekend, Ralph and Cynthia surprised us with a birthday extravaganza! They’d arranged a room for all four of us at Camp Richardson at Tahoe, following a sunset dinner cruise on a sternwheeler.

Bright and early one afternoon, around three o’clock, we all boarded the Packard and headed for the lake. None of us had ever been aboard a steamboat. She was a dandy vessel! We strolled the decks feeling quite Twainesque. We took a tour of the boiler room and then stood at the stern, listening to the gentle chugging of the engine and refreshing ourselves in the spray from the churning paddlewheel. She did a wide lap around Emerald Bay, and then chugged a tighter circle around the Island and the elegant tea house.

Dinner was served on the upper deck, under the starry sky. We arrived early to be certain of getting a good table. To Henry’s delight, this evening’s menu featured the Hangtown Fry. We enjoyed a bottle of wine, not expensive, but more than adequate, and then settled in to admire the view and prepare our growling stomachs for a treat.

While awaiting our meal, we gathered at the railing and marveled at Tahoe and the majestic snowcapped Sierras. And, high on the mountainside, Ralph pointed out the snow-filled, cross-shaped crevasse known as Tallac, which, in the Washoe dialect, means big mountain. As the sun slipped silently into a crimson haze, the moon began a leisurely climb into a cloudless sky.

Peering over the railing, Cynthia marveled at the clarity of the water and the dizzying twenty-five-foot drop. Tahoe’s frigid snowmelt is renowned for creating a clarity of water which allows a glimpse of the stony bottom to a depth of thirty feet. As we gazed down from the top deck, the distance to the water, and the depth we could see into the water, combined to make it seem like we were flying! Beneath us a procession of gigantic granite boulders passed by as if on parade, occasionally looming up from the depths until it seemed as though they’d surely bump the boat.

Once we were some distance out on the lake, they shut down the engine, so that the steamer drifted motionless in the moonlight. The wind, which had been significant much of the afternoon, became dead calm, and the surface was still as glass. The majestic snowcapped Sierra’s glimmered in the dusk, and the velvet black water cast a perfect mirror image of the moon and its shimmering light.

Between our table and the railing was another table with a young couple and three children. We briefly exchanged pleasantries as they took their seats. The mother and father sat with their backs to us, with the children seated across the table against the railing. The boys were quiet and went largely unnoticed. The little girl was probably four years old. She was extravagantly dressed in a frilly white frock. Her shoulder length hair was red as roses and all done up in ringlets. Her eyes were a dazzling green.  Cynthia was immediately smitten! 

While we ate, Cynthia and the little redhead flirted. The Hangtown Fry was scrumptious, although I have to admit to picking out my oysters. Ralph eyed them admiringly until I offered them to him. The girl’s mother sat directly between her and Cynthia, so, periodically the little child would pop up so that Cynthia could see her, and then she’d grin and giggle and plop back down.

During the evening, this behavior became routine. Eventually the father became a little annoyed. On several occasions he asked her to please sit still. Just as our desserts were being served. The little redhead, having popped up several times unnoticed by Cynthia, craned her neck and stood straight up in her seat. The chair tipped backwards against the railing, and the little girl went head over heels and disappeared over the side.

We all sat speechless for a second, until we heard the splash, and then the mother let out a lion-like scream and we all jumped up and rushed to the railing. The little sweetheart floated momentarily, face up and eyes wide open, just below the surface, and then she spiraled slowly downward into the depths.

Horrified as we were, no one in their right mind would consider jumping overboard from this height. Enter Cynthia. Without a moment’s hesitation, Cynthia sprang up on the railing, kicked off her shoes, tore away her favorite dress, and performed a dive that would have made Johnny Weissmuller proud! She entered the water without the slightest splash and disappeared immediately into the darkness.

Seconds passed while we all stood dumfounded and speechless, peering into the moonlit depths, and then, suddenly, here the two came, streaking for the surface amidst a mass of bubbles. By this time, several men on the lower deck had donned lifejackets and leapt into the water. By the time we’d managed the stairs and assembled near the gangway, they were bringing Cynthia and the little girl aboard. Both were blue-lipped and shivering, but otherwise unscathed.

The tiny, towel-wrapped bundle was passed tenderly to her mother, and Ralph held Cynthia close and wrapped her in a blanket. Before rejoining his family, the girl’s father approached me with tears of gratitude streaming down his face. I introduced Ralph as Cynthia’s husband. The father ignored Ralph’s offer of a handshake, insisting instead on a hug. “I commend you on your choice of wives, Sir.” He told Ralph, patting him affectionately on the back, and Ralph sleeve-groomed his teary cheeks and beamed with pride.

To be continued?

I appreciate your consideration.

Shannon Thomas Casebeer

417-252-0189

STCasebeer@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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