Chapter 39
The Town Council

Almost the moment we got back to our place, exhaustion came over Almeda from all the energy it had taken to pour herself out like she had. She slept for two or three hours that afternoon, and I went into the office in town. When I came back that evening and our eyes first met, she smiled at me, and there was something new in her look. I suppose I saw for the first time how much depth there had always been in that smile. And I could tell she was glad that I knew everything. It was like a smile exchanged between sisters who know each other completely.

Nothing much changed otherwise. Things returned to normal with Katie. No more sullenness, no more outbursts, but neither was there any exuberance or special friendliness. I was sure Katie had been touched by Almeda’s story, but you could see nothing of it on her face or in her actions. I hoped something was going on inside her.

Meanwhile, business at the Mine and Freight hardly seemed to suffer at all on account of Mr. Royce’s competition up the street. Now and then we’d hear of some sale he made to someone, or of something he was doing. But most of our customers remained loyal to Almeda. And of course the way the election turned out and what Pa and Almeda had done for Shaw and Douglas and had promised to do for the others—all that just deepened people’s allegiance to them.

I thought that after Christmas dinner Mr. Royce might eventually close down his store. But he kept it open, although he was pretty subdued about promoting it. He probably knew it wouldn’t do much good anyway, and I think he was starting to realize that maybe Pa and Almeda weren’t the adversaries he had always imagined them to be. He also stopped making so much noise about making trouble for Pa and his claim. Maybe getting beat in the election sobered him into recognizing that he wasn’t quite as all-powerful in the community as he had thought. He made good on his promise to call no more notes due. In fact, just shortly after the first of the year he lowered the interest rate on a few of the larger ones, not wanting folks to be mad at him for what they’d heard about Pa and Almeda’s arrangements with Mr. Shaw.

Mr. Shaw kept paying them, and they kept paying the fellow in Sacramento, and so in the long run it actually worked out better for the Shaws than it had been before.

As it turned out, I didn’t get the chance to visit again soon with Ankelita Carter. She wrote saying that she was sending some men to Sacramento for supplies, so Zack and Little Wolf and I arranged to go to the capital and meet them and return Rayo Rojo without having to ride all the way down to Mariposa. But I still hoped to meet the Fremonts some day!

Even with Christmas and the beginning of the new year behind us, I still couldn’t get myself in a frame of mind to do much writing. Somehow the motivation was missing after the events leading up to the election and disappointments about my article and Mr. Fremont’s loss. I tried to write a few articles throughout the first months of the year, but they were nothing I wanted to send in to Mr. Kemble. I found myself wondering if I’d ever write much again. I drew lots of pictures and kept writing in my journal, and otherwise spent most of the daytime in town at the Mine and Freight. Almeda kept working too, although by the beginning of March her pregnancy was far enough along that she had to slow down and take most afternoons off.

Several interesting things happened in town during those early months of 1857. Some meetings were held in Sacramento about town planning. Now that the gold rush was gradually giving way to the growth of California and the concerns of statehood and settlement, the state’s leaders in the capital seemed to think communities like Miracle Springs needed some help figuring out what to do with themselves. Because of my articles, someone there had actually heard about the election and knew of the outcome. And so Pa received a personal invitation to come to the meetings. They asked if he’d be willing to make a short talk about the problems and difficulties he felt he had in being a leader in a former gold-boom town that was now growing into a more diverse community.

When the letter first came, everyone was excited about it, and Alkali Jones was laughing and cackling about Pa running for president himself next. Everyone was excited, except Pa. His response was just what you might have expected—casual and disinterested.

“I can’t see what you’re all making such a fuss about,” he said. “They most likely sent this same letter to a hundred other men just hoping that one of them would show up with something to say.”

But inside I could tell Pa was mighty proud, and a time or two I caught sight of him alone re-reading the letter, so I know he was thinking about it more than he was willing to let on.

He did go to Sacramento, and he did speak a little to the meeting of town leaders who were there, although he downplayed that when he got back, too. But it was obvious that he was different after that—more serious about being mayor, talking more about problems that needed solving in the community, thinking about the impact of things on the people he served as well as his own life and family.

One of the results of Pa’s going to Sacramento was a town council.

“It’s the way a town ought to be run,” Pa told us, “so no one man can tell everybody else what to do. They can vote on things, and that way it doesn’t all just rest on the mayor’s shoulders. And besides that, the council gives the mayor someplace to go for advice, other men to talk to—”

“Other men?” repeated Almeda with a sly smile. “Are only men allowed on the council?” The rest of us laughed.

“You’re dang right, woman!” said Pa with a grin. “You don’t think after what you put this community through last year that anyone’s going to stand for a woman on the town council!”

“They just might! And I suppose you’re going to tell me that only men can vote for the council too?”

Pa smiled, drawing it out a long time, waiting until everyone quieted down and was watching for what he would say next.

“Well, actually what they recommended,” he answered finally, “is that the mayor himself pick the people to be on the first council, instead of trying to call an election.”

“And so no women will get selected?” persisted Almeda.

“I think you’ve just about got the gist of how California politics works at last,” said Pa.

We all laughed again, Almeda louder than anyone.

“Seriously, Drummond,” she went on, “are you really going to pick the council yourself? How will you choose?”

“I don’t know yet. But I gotta have some folks I can talk to besides just you and Nick and Corrie and Alkali and the rest of you. That was all right for trying to decide about the election last year, when we all just got together and discussed everything. But what would folks think if that’s how I did my mayoring, just getting my advice from my family? One thing’s for sure, I’d never get re-elected! No, folks want to know their voice is being heard somehow. That’s what they called ‘representative government’ in Sacramento. We all know that everybody votes for president, but they said the same thing’s important in a town too, that the mayor and council represent all the people, not just their own interests.”

Pa was starting to sound like a politician!

“They said those towns without a council yet ought to get one appointed so they can get it working and get the bugs worked out of how town government’s supposed to function. Then in two years—that’d be in fifty-eight, when the next state elections are held—they can have people run for town council and mayor, and make it all more official.”

“How many are on a council?” asked Zack.

“Oh, depends, son. In big cities, maybe ten or twelve. But for a little place like Miracle Springs, four or five, maybe six, is plenty.”

“What does a town council do, Pa?” asked Becky.

“I reckon they just help the mayor decide things.”

“But who says what the mayor decides and what the council decides?” I asked.

“Well, another thing they talked about in Sacramento is a town drawing up a set of what they call bylaws. That’s like a set of instructions of who does what and how rules and laws are made. So that’s something we got to do too, after we get a council. They’ve got some from other places we’ll be able to look at and work from.”

“What if the council votes and it’s a tie?” said Zack.

“That’s why you have to have a wise mayor who knows what he’s about,” replied Pa with a smile. “In cases where they can’t make a decision, the mayor casts the deciding vote and they do what he says.”

As it turned out, Pa wasted no time in getting together the first Miracle Springs town council. He went around and talked to folks, got lots of opinions and suggestions of who people’d trust to sort of be their community spokesmen and leaders. The first man he selected was Mr. Bosely, the owner of the General Store, and then Simon Rafferty, the sheriff. Those two surprised no one because they were men most folks knew and respected. Next there was Matthew Hooper, a rancher who lived about five miles from town. Pa said he wasn’t sure if him being on the council was exactly legal, since he didn’t actually live in town. But that could all be straightened out later, he said, and if it wasn’t, then a change could be made at the next election. For now he and most folks around thought Mr. Hooper would be a real good help for speaking up for ranching interests. And to represent the miners, there was Hollings Shannahan, who had been in Miracle since 1850. But the last two—Pa had decided on six for the council—shocked everybody. The first was Almeda, and she was the most surprised of all!

“What will people say, Drummond?” she said. “Picking a woman’s bad enough . . . but your own wife!”

“I don’t care what they say, woman. You’re one of the most qualified people around here, and everyone knows it. You ran for mayor. And what anyone thinks is their own business—I want you on my town council.”

But his final selection made everyone for miles throw their hands up in the air wondering if Drummond Hollister had finally gone loco once and for all. He wouldn’t say anything to any of us ahead of time, and on the day when he made the announcement of the council members to a gathering of people in town, he saved the surprise name for last.

“As the sixth and final person to help look over this town,” Pa said, “I name a fellow I’ve had a difference or two with, but who I reckon has just about as much a say in the things that go on around here as anyone—Franklin Royce.”

So that was Miracle Springs’ first town council—Bosely, Rafferty, Hooper, Shannahan, Parrish-Hollister, and Royce—with Drummond Hollister mayor over them. As time went on, everyone saw Pa’s wisdom in picking the people he did. Everyone came to have a real confidence in the council to make decisions that were for the whole community’s good. Even Mr. Royce began to be seen in a new light. I think it meant a lot to him that Pa had picked him, although he wouldn’t do much to show it.

The first meeting of the town council was a celebrated affair that was held, of all places, in a back room of the Gold Nugget, which they cleaned up for the occasion. Lots of people were there, curious to see what was going to happen. But for the meeting itself, Pa wouldn’t let any spectators in.

“There may be time enough one day for all you gawkers to see us do some of our town counciling. But for this first time together, we aim to just talk among ourselves, and get a few matters of business settled.”

Then he shut the door and disappeared inside, leaving all the onlookers in the saloon to drink and talk and wonder out loud what there could possibly be for a Miracle Springs town council to talk about, anyway.

When Uncle Nick was telling us about it afterwards, he said, “There was more than one of the men that said, ‘What in tarnation’s got into Drum, anyhow? He’s done got hisself so blamed official about everything since the election! He ain’t no fun no more!’”

But mostly Uncle Nick said the men had a lot of respect for how Pa was handling the whole thing.

When Pa and Almeda got back later that evening it was already pretty late, but we were dying of curiosity. Pa didn’t say much, but Almeda went on and on about it.

“You should have seen him!” she exclaimed. “Your father ran that meeting like he was the Governor himself! Why, he even had to shut me up once or twice.”

“You told me to treat you like all the others and not to give you preferential treatment on account of us being married,” said Pa in defense.

“I didn’t mean you had to silence me in mid-sentence.”

“You were carrying on, Almeda,” said Pa, “and I didn’t see anything else to do but shut you down before you made a fool of yourself by what you were saying.”

“A fool of myself!”

“You were talking like a woman, not like a town councilman. And maybe you are a councilwoman, not a councilman, but you still gotta act like a councilman. I’m just trying to protect you from getting criticized by any of the others.”

Almeda didn’t say anything for a minute, then added, “Well, even if I am still vexed with you for what you did, I still think you ran that meeting like the best mayor in the world, and I’m proud of you.”

“What did you talk about, Pa?” asked Emily.

“Oh, not too much, I reckon. A town this size hasn’t got all that much that anyone needs to decide. We just looked at a copy of some bylaws I brought from Sacramento and talked about some of the stuff, trying to decide how we ought to do things here in Miracle.”

One of the things they decided over the course of the next few meetings had to do with growth and new businesses that might come to Miracle Springs in the future. With the way the state was growing so fast—and this was something Pa said they talked a lot about at the meetings in Sacramento—communities like ours had to make some decisions early about how much they wanted to grow and in what ways. Pa and the council members decided that the council would vote on any new businesses that wanted to come and start up in Miracle, so that they’d have the chance to determine if they thought it was a good idea or not.

As it turned out, this decision was one of the first ones to be tested, and the results were different than anyone had expected.