41

WINNERS AND LOSERS

In September 1858 the Reverend Joseph Hills Perkins was called to the pulpit of the largest Baptist church in Springfield. His prosperous new flock included the governor and a number of state legislators, and Mr. Perkins was only slightly more dazzled by his good fortune than were the members of his church in Holden’s Crossing, who saw in his success clear evidence of their intelligence in having chosen him. For a time Sarah was occupied by a series of farewell dinners and parties; then, when the Perkinses had left, the search for a clergyman began again, and there was a whole new series of guest preachers to feed and board, and new wrangling and debate about the relative desirability of the candidates.

At first they favored a man from northern Illinois who was a fiery denouncer of sin, but to the relief of several who didn’t care for his style, Sarah among them, he was taken out of consideration by the fact that he had six children, with another on the way, and the parsonage was small. They decided finally on Mr. Lucian Blackmer, a red-cheeked, barrel-chested man newly come West. “From the State of Rhode Island, to the State of Grace,” was the way Carroll Wilkenson put it when he introduced the new minister to Rob J. Mr. Blackmer seemed a pleasant man, but Rob J. was depressed to meet his wife, because Julia Blackmer was thin and anxious, with the pallor and cough of advanced lung sickness. While he bade her welcome, he could feel her husband’s gaze, as if Blackmer waited for reassurances that Dr. Cole could offer new hope and a certain cure.

Holden’s Crossing, Illinois
October 12, 1858

My dear Shaman,

I was pleased to learn from your letter that you have settled into life in Galesburg and are enjoying your studies in good health. All are well here. Alden and Alex have finished slaughtering the pigs and we are luxuriating in new bacon, ribs, shoulders, hams (boiled, smoked, and pickled), souse, head cheese, and lard.

Reports indicate that the new minister is an interesting fellow once he climbs into a pulpit. To give him his due, he is a man of courage, because his first sermon was on certain moral questions raised by slavery, and while it seems to have met with the approval of a majority of those in attendance, a strong and vocal minority (including your mother!) offered disagreement with him after the church had been departed.

I was excited to hear that Abraham Lincoln of Springfield and Senator Douglas were scheduled to debate at Knox College on October 7, and I hope you had an opportunity to attend. Their race for the Senate ends with my first vote as a citizen, and I scarcely know which of the candidates will be a worse choice. Douglas thunders against the ignorant bigotry of the Know Nothings, but he placates the slave owners. Lincoln fulminates against slavery but accepts—indeed, woos—the support of Know Nothings. Both of them annoy me very much. Politicians!

Your courses sound challenging. Keep in mind that along with botany and astronomy and physiology, there are secrets to be learned from poetry.

Perhaps the enclosed will make it easier for you to buy Christmas presents. I do look forward to seeing you during the holiday!

Your loving
Father

He missed Shaman. His relationship with Alex was more wary than warm. Sarah was always preoccupied with her church work. He enjoyed occasional musical evenings with the Geigers, but when the playing ended they were confronted with their political differences. More and more, in the late afternoons after his house calls were done, he guided his horse to the Convent of Saint Francis of Assisi. With every passing year he had a clearer understanding that Mother Miriam was more courageous than ferocious, more valuable than forbidding.

“I have something for you,” she told him one afternoon, and handed him a sheaf of brown papers covered with small, cramped handwriting in watery black ink. He read it as he sat in the leather chair and drank his coffee, and saw it was a description of the inner workings of the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, and that it could have been written only by someone who was a member.

It began with an outline of the national structure of the political secret society. Its base was composed of district councils, each of which chose its own officers, enacted its own bylaws, and initiated its own members. Above them were county councils, made up of a single delegate from each of the district councils. The county councils supervised the political activities of the district councils and selected local political candidates worthy of the order’s support.

All units in a state were controlled by a grand council, composed of three delegates from every district council, and governed by a grand-president and other elected officials. At the top of the elaborate structure was a national council that decided all national political matters, including the selection of the order’s candidates for the presidency and the vice-presidency of the United States. The national council decided the punishment for dereliction of duty by members, and it fixed the order’s extensive rituals.

There were two degrees of membership. To attain the first, a candidate had to be an adult male born in the United States of Protestant parents, who was not married to a Catholic woman.

Each prospective member was asked a blunt question: “Are you willing to use your influence and vote only for native-born American citizens for all offices of honor, trust, or profit in the gift of the people, the exclusion of all foreigners and Roman Catholics in particular, and without regard to party predilections?”

A man who so swore was required to renounce all other party allegiance, to support the political will of the order, and to work to change the naturalization laws. He was then entrusted with secrets, carefully described in the report—the sign of recognition, the handshake grip, the challenges, and the warnings.

To attain the second degree of membership, a candidate had to be a trusted veteran. Only second-degree members were eligible to hold office in the order, to engage in its clandestine activities, and to have its support in attaining office in local and national politics. When elected or appointed to power, they were ordered to remove all foreigners, aliens, or Roman Catholics working under them, and in no case “to appoint such to any office in your gift.”

Rob J. stared at Miriam Ferocia. “How many are they?”

She shrugged. “We don’t believe there are great numbers of men in the secret order. Perhaps a thousand. But they are the steel in the backbone of the American party.

“I give these pages to you because you oppose this group that seeks to harm my Mother Church, and because you should know the nature of those who do us evil, and for whose souls we pray to God.” She regarded him soberly. “But you must promise not to use any of this information to approach a suspected member of the order in Illinois, for to do so might place the man who wrote this report in terrible danger.”

Rob J. nodded. He folded the pages and offered them back to her, but she shook her head. “It is for you,” she said. “Along with my prayers.”

“You mustn’t pray for me!” It made him uncomfortable to talk with her regarding matters of faith.

“You cannot stop me. You deserve prayers, and I speak of you often to the Lord.”

“Just as you pray for our enemies,” he pointed out grumpily, but she was undisturbed.

Later, at home, he read the report again, scrutinizing the spidery penmanship. Someone had written it (perhaps a priest?) who was living a sham, pretending to be what he was not, risking his safety, perhaps his life. Rob J. wished he could sit and talk with that man.

Nick Holden had easily won reelection twice on his reputation as an Indian fighter, but now he was running for a fourth term and his opponent was John Kurland, the Rock Island attorney. Kurland was highly regarded by Democrats and others, and perhaps Holden’s Know Nothing support was flagging. Some people were saying the congressman might be turned out of office, and Rob J. was waiting for Nick to make a spectacular gesture designed to win votes. So he was only slightly surprised when he came home one afternoon to hear that Congressman Holden and Sheriff Graham were gathering another volunteer posse.

“Sheriff says Frank Mosby, that outlaw, is holed up in the north county,” Alden said. “Nick’s got folks so stirred up, they’re more in a mood to lynch than to arrest, you ask me. Graham is deputizin people right and left. Alex left here all excited. He took the goose gun and rode Vicky to town.” He frowned apologetically. “Tried to talk him out of it, but …” He shrugged.

Trude hadn’t had a chance to cool, but Rob J. threw the saddle back on and rode to town himself.

Men were clustered in the street in small groups. There was loud laughter on the porch of the store, where Nick and the sheriff were holding sway, but he ignored them. Alex was standing with Mal Howard and two other youths, all of them holding firearms, their eyes bright with importance. His face fell when he saw Rob J.

“Like to talk to you, Alex,” Rob said, leading him away from the others.

“I want you to come home,” he said when they were out of earshot.

“No, Pa.”

Alex was eighteen years old, and volatile. If he felt pushed, he might just say go to hell and walk away from home for good. “I don’t want you to go. I have good reason.”

“I’ve been hearing about that good reason all my life,” Alex said bitterly. “I once asked Ma outright, is Frank Mosby my uncle? And she said he isn’t.”

“You’re a fool, to put your mother through that. It doesn’t matter if you go up there and shoot Mosby all by yourself, don’t you know that? Some people are still going to talk. What they say doesn’t matter at all.

“I could tell you to come home because it’s my gun, and because it’s my poor blind horse. But the real reason you can’t go is that you’re my boy, and I won’t let you do something that’ll eat at you the rest of your life.”

Alex shot a desperate glance to where Mal and the others were watching curiously.

“You tell them I said you had too much work waiting at the farm. And then you go get Vicky from wherever you tied her, and you come home.”

He went back and mounted Trude and rode up Main Street. Men were roughhousing in front of the church, and he could see that already there had been some drinking.

He didn’t turn around for half a mile, but when he did, he saw the horse with the prissy, uncertain trot she had developed with her bad vision, and the figure bent over her neck like a man riding against a strong wind, the little bird gun held with its muzzle high, the way he’d taught his sons.

The next few weeks, Alex stayed out of his way, not so much angry at him as avoiding his authority. The posse stayed away two days. They found their quarry in a crumbling sod house, taking elaborate precautions before sneaking up on him, but he was asleep and unheeding. And he wasn’t Frank Mosby. He was a man named Buren Harrison who had stuck up a storekeeper in Geneseo and robbed him of fourteen dollars, and Nick Holden and his lawmen escorted him triumphantly and drunkenly to justice. Subsequently it was learned that Frank Mosby had drowned in Iowa two years before, while trying to ride his horse across the Cedar River during floodwater.

In November, Rob J. voted to send John Kurland to Congress and to return Stephen A. Douglas to the Senate. The following evening he joined the crowd of men who waited for election news in Haskins’ store, and in a display case he saw a pair of marvelous pocketknives. Each had a big blade, two smaller blades, and a little scissors, all of tempered steel, a case of polished tortoiseshell, and caps of gleaming silver on both ends. They were knives for men who weren’t afraid to whittle life with thick shavings, and he bought them to give to his sons at Christmas.

Just after dark, Harold Ames rode in from Rock Island with the election returns. It had been a day for incumbents. Nick Holden, Indian fighter and upholder of the law, had narrowly defeated John Kurland, and Senator Douglas also would be going back to Washington.

“That’ll teach Abraham Lincoln not to tell people they can’t keep slaves,” Julian Howard chortled, shaking his fist in triumph. “That’s the last we’ll hear from that son of a bitch!”