Ruth Ann Rutherford’s appearance was remarkably like that of her husband— rotund build, ruddy complexion, bulbous nose. She also seemed to enjoy the sound of her own voice, for she chuckled at what she’d said even if others didn’t. It was Ruth Ann who brought the Adairs a housekeeper and cook.
“This is Sun Jie,” she said, motioning toward the petite Chinese woman who stood slightly behind her and to one side.
She was a tiny thing, perhaps five feet tall, though barely that. Her black hair was pulled back, tight to the skull, braided and captured at her nape. She was dressed in a kind of robe made of bright purple cloth, and beneath it her legs were encased in matching silk trousers. Somewhat like pantaloons, Shannon supposed, only meant to be seen rather than hidden beneath skirts and hoops and petticoats.
Shannon wondered how old she was. She looked to be no more than twelve or thirteen. Perhaps she would make a decent lady’s maid, but a cook?
Mrs. Rutherford continued on, “Sun Jie’s husband, Wu Lok, owns the mercantile at the corner of Lewis and Clark Streets. I think Henry sent you to do your shopping there last week. Don’t worry. She speaks pretty good English. Better than most of her kind, I’d say.”
Her husband? Shannon felt her eyes widen. Was it usual for the Oriental girls to be married at such a young age? What would her father have to say about that?
Sun Jie bowed at the waist. When she straightened, her dark eyes met Shannon’s briefly before training once again on the floor.
“Sun Jie,” Ruth Ann said, “this is Miss Shannon Adair and her father, Reverend Adair.”
Again the girl bowed. “How do you do?” She spoke slowly but with precision.
“Sun Jie and her husband are converts to the Christian faith,” Ruth Ann added with a smile. “Otherwise I would never suggest that you hire her to care for your home. But she’s one you can trust.”
Shannon glanced at her father in time to see a flash of irritation in his eyes, but he subdued it so quickly she doubted Mrs. Rutherford could have recognized it. Shannon, on the other hand, was well attuned to his moods and his looks.
Her father motioned toward the chairs in the parlor. “Please, Mrs. Jie. Won’t you sit down so we can become acquainted?”
“They put their last names first, Reverend,” Ruth Ann said in a stage whisper, as if the young woman couldn’t hear her that way. “Easier to just call her Sun Jie.”
“Ah.” He smiled. “Well, I do thank you for bringing Sun Jie to meet with us, Mrs. Rutherford. I wouldn’t want to impose on any more of your time while we conduct the rest of the interview. Please give my regards to your husband. Both of you have been so kind and thoughtful to us. Shannon and I can’t thank you enough.”
As he spoke, he eased the woman toward the door until she found herself standing on the front porch and could do nothing except acknowledge his thanks and depart.
Shannon smiled as she turned toward Sun Jie. “Please. Do sit down so we can talk.”
The girl complied.
Until her arrival in Grand Coeur, Shannon had never seen anyone from China before, but she’d learned there were many Orientals in the gold camps. Her first thought had been that the color of their skin and the shape of their eyes were so different from those who’d peopled her world. But now, as she looked at Sun Jie, she forgot the differences and noticed only a delicate beauty.
“How old are you, Sun Jie?”
Without looking up she answered, “Twenty-three.”
“Twenty-three?” Shannon could scarcely believe it. Only two years younger than herself.
Her father returned and took the seat beside her. “Sun Jie, my daughter and I could ask you many questions, but why don’t you just tell us about yourself. Would that be all right?”
Sun Jie nodded.
“Why not begin with how you came to faith in Christ.”
Breaking for lunch, Matthew left the Wells, Fargo office and strode up the hillside toward the company house. Neither Alice nor Todd had been awake when he left for work that morning, and he was curious to see how the two of them fared.
Despite her lengthy nap Sunday afternoon, his sister hadn’t seemed any more rested by the time they sat down to supper. She’d tried to convince him that she should do the cooking, but he hadn’t let her. The point of her coming to Idaho, after all, was so she could regain her health. And the sooner that happened, the sooner he could be back to driving a coach.
When he rounded the corner onto Randolph Street, he saw his nephew playing with the pale-gold puppy in the small yard in front of the company house. This morning he’d asked a number of people in town if they knew where the pup belonged.
“Plenty of stray dogs hereabouts,” one man had answered. “Not like men’ve got time or place for pets.”
Looked like the pup had a new home.
Matthew’d had a dog as a boy. A black-and-white spaniel called Trip. Just like here, most farmers had little use for pets. A dog on a farm was expected to work almost as hard as its master. Run off critters that tried to break into the henhouse or kill a sheep. Help a man when he was hunting. That sort of thing. Trip had been the best.
When Todd saw his uncle striding up to the gate, he pulled the puppy into his arms, pressing him tight to his chest, clearly afraid Matthew was about to announce the pup’s true owner had been found.
“It’s okay,” he said, feeling sorry for the kid. “Looks like you can keep him.”
“I can?” His sudden grin looked a mile wide.
Funny how good that made Matthew feel. “How’s your ma?”
“She’s okay. She’s restin’.” Todd stood. “She helped me name the puppy.”
He cocked an eyebrow.
“I’m callin’ him Nugget.”
“Good name.”
“It’s ’cause of his color. You know. Like gold.”
“Yeah, I got it.” He motioned toward the front door. “Let’s go fix something to eat. Your ma’s probably hungry.”
“I’m hungry too.”
“Makes three of us.”
Matthew found his sister reclining on the sofa in the parlor, a blanket covering her legs. Sunlight streamed through the large window, illuminating dust motes in the air.
Alice smiled when she saw him. “Is it that time already?”
“It is. Are you hungry? Todd is.”
“I could eat something.”
“Cold beef with cheese and some bread and butter sound okay?”
“Whatever’s easy.” She closed her eyes, as if exhausted by the brief conversation.
He left the parlor and went into the kitchen.
A doctor consultation was in order, he thought, as he prepared the meal for the three of them. He needed to know what to do for Alice. She hadn’t been forthcoming when he’d asked questions about her illness. His gut told him she needed more than simple rest, but he didn’t know what that might be. He’d hardly been sick a day in his life. A cold every now and again, but nothing that put him to bed. And he’d broken his left arm when he was a boy.
He wondered if Alice remembered that. She’d been pretty small when it happened.
Taking up the lunch tray, he carried it into the parlor and set it on the low table before the sofa. His sister looked at him, and there was something in her eyes that caused a twinge of alarm. She seemed . . . disconnected . . . departed. Then she gave him a small smile and he thought he must have imagined it.
“Eat up.” He took up some pillows to put behind her back. “You need your strength.”
He was going to contact the doctor before this day was out.
Shannon stood on the porch, watching Sun Jie make her way down the street toward the south side of Grand Coeur. That was where—Mrs. Rutherford had informed them in front of their new housekeeper— the area known as Chinatown was located.
She could almost hear her father preparing his sermon now. She’d recognized his annoyance with the woman’s condescending attitude.
Delaney Adair was a Southerner through and through. No man could say that he wasn’t. But he’d disagreed with many of his friends and neighbors back in Virginia on the issue of slavery and the supposed inferiority of the colored races. He believed, deep in his soul, that all men were the same—white, black, yellow, red. He believed they should all be free to live and serve God as He called them. While her father was in favor of a state’s right to govern, while she was certain he would support the Confederacy once the new nation was free of Yankee invaders, Delaney Adair would also press for the emancipation of the slaves. He even admired Abraham Lincoln for that very act.
Imagine. A Southern gentleman admitting that he admired President Lincoln. It had cost him a number of friends, but he’d stood firm in his belief. Shannon reluctantly admired him for his unwavering stance before popular opinion.
“God would not have us discriminate between the races,” her father had told her on more than one occasion. “He would not have us be another’s master. He would have us respect one another. Respect even our differences. Serve one another out of love.”
Yes, she admired her father above all men. But she often wished he would keep such thoughts to himself.
Shannon turned and reentered the house. Her father was seated in one of the mismatched chairs, his Bible open on his lap, a pair of glasses perched on the end of his nose.
“It appears you won’t have many meals to prepare for your father after today,” he said.
“I like cooking for you.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead.
He chuckled. “When it suits your mood.”
She playfully slapped his shoulder.
But he turned serious again. “God has great work for us to do in Grand Coeur. There are men here from around the country, from around the world. ‘The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.’ That’s why the Lord has called us to this territory, Shannon. We are the laborers He needs to bring in the harvest.”
She nodded, although she wasn’t convinced. At least when it came to her part in this master plan.
“Think of it, daughter. It isn’t just these miners who so desperately need Christ. Sun Jie and her husband are believers. Perhaps we can be of help in the conversion of more Chinese. The gospel is the good news to all. Not simply to those of European roots. How exciting this could be.”
It seemed to Shannon that she was there by default. God had called her father, and the Lord got her in the bargain.
“Yes, Father,” she answered softly. “It is exciting.”
She turned away, and her gaze fell upon the table near a window where she’d set out the cherished portraits and photographs brought from home. There were portraits of her grandparents and another of her mother that had been made the year before she died. There was a photograph of a number of young women of the county—good friends, all—taken in 1860, the year before the war began. What innocents they’d been. And there was a photograph of Benjamin, the man she was to have married. But the Yankees had killed him at the Battle of Malvern Hill, just one of more than twenty thousand gallant men of the Confederacy killed in that weeklong campaign in Virginia.
She crossed the room and took up the framed photograph. How handsome Benjamin had looked in his uniform, his black hair combed back, his mustache and goatee neatly trimmed.
I should have married him before the war started. Maybe he wouldn’t have joined the army so soon. Maybe he wouldn’t have died. Why wasn’t I in more of a hurry to wed him? Now who will I marry?
Shame washed over her. What a horrid person she was. Benjamin had been killed on the battlefield, and here she was thinking of herself and how her life had been inconvenienced. So different from what she’d thought it would be. If her father could read her mind . . .
Perish the thought.
Delaney returned to the church that afternoon. He’d planned to begin work on his sermon for the following Sunday, but instead he found himself on his knees at the altar.
“Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you . . . Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing . . . Pray without ceasing . . . Pray without ceasing.”
Earlier this afternoon he’d felt great excitement at the prospect of being able to help Sun Jie and Wu Lok bring the good news to other Orientals in Chinatown. But as he’d walked from the house to the church, truth had pierced his heart. The Orientals needed the Lord no more and no less than the godless men who nightly frequented the saloons of Grand Coeur. And neither people group would be easy to reach. He couldn’t depend upon them to suddenly appear at one of his services. Prejudice would keep the Chinese from the white man’s church, and strong drink and riotous living would keep most of the miners away. If he meant to win souls, he would have to go out to meet them where they were.
He’d seen his daughter’s reluctance when he’d shared his excitement, but now he felt reluctance himself. Throughout his ministry, he’d enjoyed the society of people quite like himself. That was no longer the case. What if he wasn’t up to the task? What if he hadn’t the knowledge he would need? Or even the compassion. If his daughter had been spoiled by the life they’d enjoyed in Virginia, then it was no less true of himself. Until the war began, he’d lived in comfort and plenty. Even now he wasn’t without financial resources.
“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
“Lord, I thank Thee for bringing us to Grand Coeur. I thank Thee that my daughter is out of harm’s way, that the war can’t endanger her here. Be with our loved ones who are still in Virginia. Be with our soldiers and their families. I thank Thee for this church and for the congregation I have come to this territory to serve. Lord, empower me by Thy Holy Spirit to reach out and evangelize. Show me common ground with those who are different from me. Fill me with Thy compassion.”
“Pray without ceasing.”
“Lord, please help my daughter find contentment here. Please send her a friend so she won’t feel alone.” He remembered the way she’d looked at the photographs earlier and the loss that had flickered in her eyes as she’d remembered Benjamin. “Please heal her heart and perhaps allow her to find love again.”