SHE HAD ALWAYS DEVOTED HERSELF TO THE GOOD WORKS she believed Jesus would have pursued had He walked the earth when she did. Others who themselves were counted as devout and committed to the Lord's work marveled at her ceaseless efforts to improve the plight of those less fortunate than herself. In this and in her genial winsome tenacity, she embodied Rush Junkin to such a degree it sometimes took Ellie's father's breath away.
And like Rush, Ellie somehow carried her religion efficaciously with her into her relationships with her own family, friends, and acquaintances. That is to say, Ellie lived that rare splendid Christianity that left its mark on the world around her—a world that confessed the divine faith but often only as an external custom—rather than itself being marked by that world.
Maggie increasingly challenged that world in all-out, no-holds-barred frontal assault, her pen her mighty, slashing, conquering phalanx. Often, no prisoners returned from battle with Margaret Junkin. She was a foot and a half, one hundred forty pounds, twenty-nine-years, and one sex different from her father; but otherwise his image, though not yet possessing the faith of a giant that he had.
Ellie lived her mother's more sanguine but no less powerful faith. Her temperament not outwardly as strong willed as Maggie's, she knew her own mind even better, and she knew she loved Tom Jackson. Cancellation of marital plans after serious courtship with a man she had come to know better than did anyone else reflected no doubts about the major; rather, it had forced her to deal once and for all with long cherished, and secret, desires of going to a far country with the saving gospel of Christ. She had waited for God to provide the man whose heart would be as one with hers in this endeavor. Waited until her life was nearly, perhaps, three-quarters over now. The man had not come. And she knew now Tom Jackson's course—devout though he was, and called by God as a messenger by word and deed of that saving gospel—to be in this land, not one far away. As sectional tensions in the nation over slavery, states’ rights, agrarian economics, the industrial revolution, economic tariffs, religion, and culture in general continued to mount, she had to agree that men like Tom had a special, important place as apostles of reason in a national climate that, even within her own family, had grown sullen, suspicious, and angry.
She loved Tom Jackson, but she could not marry him. Could not. Could she? God, have You not called me to Your service? Have I not always been the one, often the only one, to counsel others to pursue Your known will, Your designs for life, no matter what the cost, always trusting and obeying? And Lord, have You not chosen me out to go where others will not, in order to accomplish Your will? Have You not blessed me with the wonderful rich desire to do Your will above all else? Yes, how blessed I am, for I could never have formed that desire in myself! And is not that will to go where they have not heard? To go where none else will? She thought of Romans 10:14: “For how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”
So why had God not brought her a man with whom she could go and do such work? Certainly, a seemingly endless stream of them had paraded through the Junkin home through the years of her father's ministry and academic service. She smiled wryly as she thought of the clear-eyed, square-jawed men of God who had pursued her, who had desired her hand. And some of them had gone. To South America, Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands. To a man, they would have called upon God to share their lives with her had she consented.
But she had not. God had never allowed her to get even close to marriage, not once. It had never even been a consideration. Perhaps He knew how fragile and unsure her feelings really were in the quiet places of her heart. In all else she seemed to understand His plan and design for her life. In love, she had always been unsure, other than the nebulous feeling that someday He would provide the man matched perfectly for her and for the desire He had given her to reach the unreached. Oh, that I could go by myself! Why must I be accompanied by a husband anyway, my Lord? Could perhaps someday a woman travel abroad with your healing light on her own? I guess that would be unseemly—and unsafe.
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” “How unsearchable are his judgements, and his ways past finding out.” These verses and others sometimes disquieted her. Had she plans and assumptions not of God? Had she put the Almighty in a shut box of Elinor's making? Oh, a person could go crazy sometimes trying to figure out the will of the Lord! She calmed herself and remembered the words of her mother: “Not if we wait on Him. For if we wait on the Lord, His plans for our life will make themselves clear.” And Rush had added: “If they are not clear, and we cannot see His hand, we can always trust His heart. ‘Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.’”
Yes, Tom Jackson would have to wait, perhaps forever, for her hand.
Lylburn Downing was the first person to see Jackson as the professor unlimbered his long legs from the stagecoach. As he usually did, Jackson offered Lylburn a friendly greeting. Not all whites did that, though some did. What struck Lylburn as peculiar about Jackson were his curious habits of nodding respectfully to the older Negro men he passed on the street and stranger still, his practice of bowing in respect for the Negro women, in the same manner other white gentlemen did only before women of their own race.
Many of Lylburn's questions regarding Jackson had been addressed the night Lylburn stood at the door to the Franklin meeting, surreptitiously giving ear to that evening's debate: “What should be done about the Negro?” His appetite had merely been whetted on other matters, and his curiosity peaked about Major Jackson.
The other slaves who had driven their masters in from areas outside Lexington knew to expect the unexpected from Lylburn. So no one was surprised when he tied his buggy's horse to the hitching post, tiptoed to the back door and cracked it open. Lylburn was good for diversions like that, to help keep things interesting. A couple of the slaves would already have told on Lylburn because they thought the teenager uppity and interested in talking and acting like white folks. But he was amusing and, without really trying, he did tweak the white folks’ noses. So those potential trouble makers chuckled along with the others as the tall, gangly sixteen-year-old cocked his head and leaned down through the door to listen to the articulate practiced voices echoing forth from within.
“Boy, I'm gonna hold the whip for Marse Russell when he tans your hide.”
“Nigger, he'll beat you so hard you'll be leaning like that for good.”
But most of it was in good cheer because, despite his uppity ways, Lylburn was somehow an eminently likable fellow who himself had a curious habit of doing helpful things for the other slaves, the sort of thoughtful things normally only a woman would do. But Lyl-burn was no woman, as the rascal Big Ben and the other slaves had learned on another night, this one outside Colonel Preston's house.
True, Ben's master Sam McDowell was feared by all the slaves as the worst nigger-hater in Rockbridge County. Yet at the same time they feared him, they mocked him to scorn—surreptitiously, of course. For even a slave knew the folly of a man beating up on and damaging his own property. Good healthy slaves were not only increasingly expensive; they had grown gradually more difficult to come by at any cost since the 1808 law outlawing the importation of Africans.
Marse McDowell was the only man the slaves knew of in Rock-bridge County who actually physically beat his slaves, though a couple of others were not above other forms of physical, and mental, abuse. Putting aside the feelings of affection and care most masters held for their slaves, it just made no financial sense to mistreat them—for a sane man, anyhow.
But Sam McDowell, whose wife had finally tired of her own beatings and returned north to her family, evidently had little sense (or at least little true wisdom), though his plantation was one of the largest in the county. His slave Ben, being big, strong in body and will, and cur-dog mean, probably by nature, took the brunt of his master's wrath. Oddly, McDowell had been a slave himself—to whiskey—before his wife left him. And he had built the bulk of his plantation's size and prosperity after she left him. The other Negroes knew well he had built it on the broad shoulders of slaves like Ben.
So Ben vented his rage on other slaves. Mostly, it came through the intimidation of a look or expression. Ben was so big, strong, and mean that he had a difficult time forcing a fight or even a response from any of the other slaves. The numerous swollen ridges crisscrossing his back and shoulders testified to the great physical suffering he had known. Lylburn believed Ben's behavior testified to worse mental suffering, not the least McDowell's use of Ben's mother for his own pleasure, which had occurred shortly before her death and Mrs. McDowell's departure.
So Lylburn, with his unusual, femininelike sense of intuition and discernment, knew Ben had many deep scars of many kinds. And unlike all the other slaves, Lylburn, though several years younger than Ben, had reached out in various ways to help Ben. At first Ben was so confused by such behavior he was unable even to respond. Then, he became suspicious and angry. These feelings crested the night of the gathering at the Preston home when Lylburn detected blood blotches staining the back of Ben's thick shirt from underneath it. Dressing Ben in thick shirts, and never allowing him to go shirtless, fit with McDowell's meticulous practice of concealing his behavior toward his slaves from the other whites in the area. Many whites knew some of his hateful behavior, but he had muted things just enough to escape serious social ostracization.
At first, Lylburn knew better than even to acknowledge Ben's bloodstains. Most of the slaves were more concerned about their own well-being than Ben's because they knew his wrath would not go unsatisfied toward someone, probably before the evening was out. Finally though, seeing the tears filling the mountainous Ben's eyes and his pained, hunched movements around his master's horses, Lyl-burn was constrained to gently ask the fearsome giant if he would like him to fetch some salve and ointment for his back.
For an instant, relief and thankfulness showed clear in the large black eyes. Then, as quickly, these dissolved to rejection and hatred. Lylburn, having never seen such vitriol, even in Ben, retreated a half step. It was too late. With a guttural grunt from somewhere deep inside, Ben lifted a great hand across his body, then smashed the back of it across Lylburn's smooth brown face.
The blow drove Lylburn into two other black drivers ten feet away, and all three went to the ground like felled timber. Several nearby slaves stared in surprise as Lylburn spit the dust out of his mouth and dared to begin rising to his feet. (When Big Ben struck a slave, the man usually knew to stay down the first time.) However, Ben hauled him up by his freshly cleaned shirt collar, spun him around, and backhanded him with another fierce smashing blow. Lyl-burn flew into the other two drivers again, just as they were getting back to their feet, and the three went back down in another pile.
Little Jimmy, one of Nathan Carter's slaves, and probably the fastest man—black or white—in Rockbridge County, had by now raced all across the front yard, up the steps, across the portico, and into the house. He did not wish to tell Preston's doorman Gus to fetch Marse McDowell, for these scraps were best kept among the slaves for a variety of reasons. However, when one man's property was in imminent danger of serious damage or even destruction, another, larger, raft of reasons superceded the other considerations. Not the least of these were the financial consequences incumbent on Marse McDowell should Lylburn be seriously injured by Big Ben, and any subsequent consequences meted out by McDowell to Ben. In the end, when such unfortunate events transpired, no pleasant outcome would probably be possible.
Lylburn, bleeding profusely from a smashed nose and a mouth now short two chipped front teeth, was conscious, but his ears rang like the bell tower of the Lexington Presbyterian Church downtown, and even though his large brown eyes were wide open, he could see nothing. From somewhere deep inside himself, this young man who had never experienced the abuse that had so strengthened and toughened his tormentor, found an oaken resolve of his own and began, trembling and unsteady, to rise again. The eyes of the watching slaves grew wide in amazement and respect—young, silly Lylburn of all people to be standing against the bully Ben! Way in the back of his benumbed mind, Lylburn again felt the two gargantuan, hide-tough hands through his tattered shirt. But this time, the hands released him, and he heard much loud grunting, gasping, and cursing.
By the time McDowell raced onto the scene, three other slaves, their own faces bloody, had Big Ben pinned to the ground and were raining blows down on his head and body.
“Get away, you idiots!” McDowell, himself a brawny man, railed, shoving one black man off Ben and slinging another out of the way. “I said, get away, nigger!” he screamed in the face of the third man, still astraddle Ben. The slave glared back at him for an instant, then got up and moved away. McDowell stared down at the battered Ben, the blood on his large face mingling with tears. McDowell shook his head. “Just can't keep out of the manure, can you, boy? Swear I've never ever seen a harder-headed fool of any color in all my days.”
McDowell's steely gray eyes darted around the half circle of uneasy slaves. “You, Jethro, go see if your Marse Jed will loan you to take Ben back to Five Maples in my buggy.”
Little Jimmy frowned as he followed a throng of white men out of Preston's house, down the stone steps, and out to the spot between the white picket fence and the street where two servants helped the sobbing Ben to his feet. Jimmy was truly frightened now for Ben because these other white men had heard of the fight and would soon know it was Marse McDowell's boy again who had started the trouble.
And indeed, Ben, with no medical attention to his wounds from the fight, was beaten senseless later that night by McDowell after the owner returned to his plantation from the Preston soiree. But McDowell used the butt end of his quirt rather than the whip because he felt that would draw less blood—on the outside. Then Ben spent three days and nights, still with no treatment for his wounds, chained down in a locked tiny shed out behind the slave cabins.
McDowell had determined to break the rebellious giant or kill him this time because despite the Negro's substantial worth, the master felt he had come to be more of a liability than a benefit. For without the respect of the other white men around Rockbridge County, McDowell would have a very difficult go of continuing the prosperity and expansion of his beloved Five Maples plantation. McDowell knew that that respect had been sorely tested already; the blame he felt certain would attach itself to him for the slave brawl at the Preston party could seal his financial coffin. He already had his credit limit at the bank. And that institution's president, Charles Roark, had a Yankee wife who detested slavery in general and McDowell in particular, the shrew. And the Roarks had been at Colonel Preston's the night of the fight. What would his chances be now of getting financing for the new corn crib and extra stables he desperately needed?
McDowell was tempted to just sell Ben off to his North Carolina cousin who had been after him for two years to do so. But, no, Ben would probably consider that a reward and deliverance, and McDowell was not about to make life any easier on the slave. Rather, he was about to make it much more difficult than it had already been, if the obstinate darkie recovered from his beatings. On second thought, he would bide his time. He would let the boy heal up a bit and let other things settle down. He needed no more controversy or visits from Pastor White from the Presbyterian church or Rector Pendleton from the Episcopal, censuring him for his treatment of his slaves. He needed no more warnings from the town marshal. And he needed his loan from the bank. The cretins at the bank in Staunton twenty-five miles down the road would not deal with him anymore. They considered him “troublesome.” He needed his loan, and he needed his respect from the other men at the Franklin Society.
The slaves outside the Franklin Society respected Lylburn Downing. He had healed bravely from his wounds and had kept the same sanguine attitude toward Ben, never speaking a word about him unless it was one of compassion or pity. Some of the slaves felt Lyl-burn a fool, but all of them respected him. They had started calling him “Preacher” because of how he liked to always quote the Bible and how he would say words over the new babies in the slave quarters and the old folks who passed on. But most of all, Lylburn just seemed to care about folks, black and white, to the consternation of some of the slaves.
“Yep, it's him!” Lylburn said to the other slaves in an excited whisper.
“The Goober,” Little Jimmy laughed as Tom Jackson's distinctive voice, just a shade higher than the average, floated out through the door and into the warm summer air.
“The Goober” referred to the man the slaves had noted who throughout the many months he had attended Franklin meetings seemed to have a goober pea (or peanut) lodged in his throat whenever he tried to speak. Many was the week that even Lylburn had looked forward with anticipation toward the Thursday night Franklin meeting, in hopes the Goober would be speaking. If that event terrified Jackson and discomforted his inside audience, those listening outside profited with some of their chief entertainment of the week.
But Lylburn had begun to pray for the Goober, for he had sensed through the long months that, despite the rasping, stumbling, and stammering, Jackson offered insights no one else who spoke did. His thoughts were not fanciful nor eloquent, but they were deep and probing, in a simple sort of way. Or they seemed simple and forthright to Lylburn, until he would be considering one in the quietness of his bed at night, and a new observation would come to mind from one of the Goober's seemingly simple statements of that evening or the evening before or two evenings before. Lylburn would burst at the seams to share his observations and recognitions of implicit and sublime meanings from the Goober's speechifying, but none of the other slaves seemed to care. So he would share them with his dog and his Lord.
And that was it too: the Goober spoke words sometimes that seemed to come not from man but from God. Oh, the preachers and some of the other fine men from around the county spoke as men of God, but the fact began to impress itself upon Lylburn that from the start, even when the Goober could barely spit out his words, and the Franklin men could barely stay silent in their discomfort, and all the slaves listening were trying not to disrupt the town around them with their laughter, the Goober was choking out choice pearls of wisdom Lylburn at length realized could only come out of the mouth of a man who had spent much, much time with God. Two realizations began to dawn on Lylburn's mind in brilliant invigorating certainty: he wanted to learn to speak beyond himself, with power and courage and conviction (and he knew he could speak much better than the Goober), and he wanted to speak of the things that could come only out of the mouth of a man who had spent much, much time with God.
But on this night, the Goober—who still stammered and sometimes stuttered, but in Lylburn's estimation had gradually become a poor speaker, stylewise, as opposed to a terrible one—spoke about Lylburn. And about fast, laughing Little Jimmy. And about scarred Big Ben, who the slave grapevine said had mostly recovered from his beatings, but was now sullen and withdrawn. For though he did not mention them by name, this night, the Goober spoke about the Negro. While other men spoke of how God had ordained the Negro's place as a servant because of the particular complement of gifts He had given him, some of them sourcing the black's position as having emanated from the “curse of Ham” they saw espoused in the biblical book of Genesis, and others spoke of the need to repatriate all slaves to an African homeland of their own (such as the recently created nation of Liberia), and still others advocated gradual freedom for both black and white from an anachronistic economic system that stymied the crucial process of industrialization, the Goober spoke of how “‘There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’” And, “‘I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.’” And, “‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.’” He saw through the externals to the true issues of the heart and soul—the true issues of life, meaning, and existence.
A fire began to kindle in Lylburn to tell others of these issues, this true message, this true saving message God left men through His Son and His Word. So while some of the other slaves laughed at the Goober and some listened half-attentively because he spoke of their kind, Lylburn stood motionless as a beautiful new day dawned on him in the hot night air of the Lexington where he had spent his entire life. He was a man, yes he was a man, complete and full and important as any other in God's eye. He was a man! He needed to tell others that God was for them, and that he was a man. Never again would his life be the same as it had been before this night.
All of this flashed through Lylburn's quick, keen mind as the coachman handed down the Goober's traveling bag to him from the top of the stage. Lylburn had begun to pray to the Lord that he could somehow be around the odd professor more, and learn more of the curious things he had to say. As the lanky man lumbered away, Lyl-burn offered up another such prayer. Then he remembered why Marse Russell had sent him into town, to pick up some dry goods from the general store, and he hustled off down the street.
Rarely had Ellie been out of Jackson's mind during the entire trip to Laura's. Certainty filled his mind more strongly than ever that God had designed Ellie and him for one another. He simply could not fathom the possibility that it was not to be. Finally, on the stage ride back to Lexington, after much prayer, contemplation, and wrestling of soul, a peace impressed his anxious heart that God was indeed in control and intended either for his love to be reciprocated by Ellie, but at a different time, or for him to learn and profit, apart from her, by the sublime blessing of having experienced so much of her time and radiant wondrous, and magnificently feminine, Christlikeness.
As Jackson strode down the sidewalk toward his apartment, he resolved to work harder than ever for her hand, but trust deeper than ever in God's answer on the matter, whatever answer that might be. He smiled at the joy once again provided him, in the throes of frustration and heartache, by his Lord. “There be many that say, Who will shew us any good?....Thou has put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.” The noonday summer sun seemed just a bit cooler, and the gentle breeze ferried the remembered pleasing fragrance of corned beef hash and johnnycake into his nostrils from O'Connor's Kitchen half a block up the steep street.
“So what about Mr. Walker, Major Jackson?”
Jackson turned to see Will Russell, who owned a sizable spread out toward the Rock Bridge, stepping out of Wright's Haberdashery, a clutch of sacks under his arm. Jackson knew Russell slightly through the Franklin. The man was aggressive to the point of pugnacity in his defense of slavery, Virginian sovereignty, and the South's agrarian system of life. Jackson could not remember Russell ever before initiating conversation with him on the street.
“Sir?”
Russell stepped down onto the sidewalk. His was not a handsome face, but a sturdy, ruddy one. China blue eyes as arrestingly piercing as Jackson's commanded it, and his hard stocky body advanced with a subtle swagger.
“Why, young Cadet Walker—ex-cadet Walker, that is—has fully recovered from his fracas with the departed Yankee interloper, Mr. Kennedy,” Russell said, “and has of late made no great attempt at keeping secret from the community his intent to next dispatch with you.”
The statement impressed Jackson as so ridiculous that he could process no immediate response. He did realize, not from Russell's words, but from the irksome manner the man only partially concealed, that he did not like him. The planter did not mean this first public hailing of Jackson as a warning or even the passing of information. Rather, he perhaps was the one who desired information—from Jackson's reaction. To pass along to his friends? Jackson wondered. To James Walker?
After a long silent moment, the quartet of azure eyes fastened, Russell blinked, then continued, “Odd ideas to be directed toward a West Point man and war hero from a young pup, don't you think, sir?”
“The oddity is not with robust cavalier youth, sir, but with respected men who would be prey, and party to, the dissemination of such unedifying gossip.” As he often did, Jackson spoke potent words softly and without rancor.
The ruddy cheeks flushed a deeper crimson.
“Why, I hardly think—”
“Perhaps I shall see you in church tomorrow,” Jackson said with a hard stare. Russell hailed from a long line of Scottish Presbyterians. “Good day to you, sir,” the major added, politely touching his hat and resuming his stalking stride down the sidewalk.
Russell glowered after Jackson, biting his lip. The sacks encasing his packages crackled as his tensed muscular arm compressed them. It will indeed be a pleasure to witness Cadet Walker dispatch with your hypocritical hide, sir. That thought brought the smile back to Russell's face as he called for his slave Lylburn, whom he had received five years earlier from the estate of his wife's deceased father, Philip Downing III.
Fatigue gripped Dr. Junkin like a clever, tenacious foe long crouched nearby in the shadows, who had sprung upon him when, just for an instant, his protective guard had wavered. When Rush was alive, she provided the world's greatest early warning system, discerning even before he when the tides of exhaustion, depression, and cynicism were about to roil over him. Now she was gone, and the neatly written note sat before him on his desk. He had the reputation—some would even say fame—as wise, fearless exemplar and champion of truth and light. Would they ever know just how inadequate and lacking he now felt? How much he had depended on her, needed her? How much he still missed her?
The revelation amazed him. He, who had preached—and lived, he thought—the absolute sufficiency and efficacy of God for one's life. How had she come to be so much a part of him, so vital a part of him? Had he sinned by coming to lean so much on her, though never realizing he had? “He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.” Dr. Junkin had long grappled with a spirit of condescension toward the apostle Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 7, toward which he had secretly harbored thoughts as being penned by a man who because of his own lack of marital status, acquired who knows why, had perhaps donned just a bit of a cavalier attitude toward the institution and had maybe even come to fancy himself slightly above it. Junkin did not really believe that, but his old rebellious “sin nature” liked throwing it up in his face. Now that she was gone and the depth of his feeling for and dependence on her had begun to reveal itself, God had brought him into a new period of learning and growth, one he had never anticipated…all praise be to God. And now, he had the letter.
He did not doubt its validity. Junkin could think of few men in Lexington—or elsewhere, for that matter—more spiritually mature and devoted to God than the letter's author, John Lyle, owner of the local bookstore and elder in the Presbyterian church. Junkin knew also of Lyle's affection and regard for the tall VMI professor who liked to browse through the shop after completion of the day's classes, reading from the classics and the hard-to-gets, and discussing and debating theology. He knew how Tom Jackson relished the spiritual insights and wisdom he soaked in from the mild-mannered, fifty-year-old bachelor. John Lyle enjoyed ruminating with the flesh and blood embodiment of much of what the pages of his grandest books hailed, the noble man of honor who served with equal faith in war and peace.
So the letter most certainly rang with truth, truth of which Junkin had previously heard bits and pieces around the college, the church, and even at his dinner table. But this confirmed it all. James Walker would stand at the corner of Fourth Street and Washington at half past the hour of 9:00 P.M., Thursday, July 22, 1854. He would be armed and would recommend Professor Thomas J. Jackson be as well. It was a matter that demanded satisfaction. It was a matter of honor.
Yes, Junkin felt very tired, in body and soul. Laying next to Lyle's letter on the huge gleaming—and, as always, clear—walnut desktop, was another letter. It was from a congressional friend back in Ohio, one who had sided with Junkin when the final split came on the board of regents and he left Miami University for the second time. The man admitted the chances of Junkin returning to Miami—even if he should desire to do so, which he did not—were next to nothing. However, the congressman urged, that did not preclude him from returning to a college presidency somewhere in the North. He could have his pick of many, including two in particular about which the congressman had taken the liberty to discreetly inquire. One position currently availed itself; the other, well, could, if need be. The leadership of both schools demonstrated eminent—and discreet—interest, even delight, at the prospect of Junkin acceding to the helm of their institution. Both also offered moving expenses, plus approximately 20 percent increase in salary.
Though the congressman valued Junkin's friendship and company, neither of the two schools lay in the legislator's own state. The specter of increased sectional conflict and perhaps even eventual violent conflagration motivated him to urge his old friend's return to his native section.
Junkin smiled in remembrance of his old friend's cigars, wit, and high integrity. He counted the congressman among his best infidel friends. A nominal Romish “faith” would not account for much the day one stood in judgment before Almighty God. Thus, mixed with the business of shepherding an institution of high learning and enjoying one another's company socially, Junkin had long encouraged his good friend's embracing of the redemption found only through true believing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, should the congressman in fact have been chosen to that elect company by the heavenly Father before the foundation of the world. Thus far, the Ohioan had evidenced no distinct signs of belonging to that blessed community, but he continued to nurture a strong, apparent regard for Junkin, most recently demonstrated by the initiative he had taken in sending his recent correspondence.
There was one conviction the congressman and the theologian-educator shared: a profound, abiding belief in the sanctity of the American Union. They differed profoundly on the issue of slavery—the congressman was an abolitionist, while Junkin, though he thought the peculiar institution an unhappy phenomenon, saw a clear justification of it in the Bible—but both would pour out their life's blood to assure the continuance of the Union. Even here, their motivations differed. The congressman vigorously advocated the idea best expressed by the newly minted phrase manifest destiny, and the power, riches, and industrial might attendant to that concept of America's inalienable, God-ordained right of expansion westward across the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean. Junkin argued with equal vehemence his belief that the federal system, whatever geographic annexations might follow, stood as an earthly type of the sacred eschatalogical and celestial reality of God's perfect will.
Yes, sometimes now it all became almost too much to bear, especially without Rush's gentle steadying way. Junkin knew his temper, ever a challenge to him even since his earliest recollections, had reared itself more frequently since his beloved's departure. He felt the whole family had had difficulty not only with the pain of her passing but with their adjustment to it. Perhaps, after all, no one had realized how efficacious had been her role in the nurturing, guiding, and strengthening of the large clan. Perhaps he had not realized it. Strange the titanic void left for so many with the loss of one person. The great leonine head bowed. Tears swelled the jet eyes. He had only one place he could go. He wanted to speak, as was his custom for private prayer, but his tightened throat would not allow the words to come. So the words of Psalm 86 poured forth from his heart.
Bow down thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy.…
Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto thee daily.
Rejoice the soul of thy servant: for unto thee, O Lord,
do I lift up my soul. For thou, Lord, art good,
and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto
all them that call upon thee.…
Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord;
neither are there any works like unto thy works.…
For thou art great, and doest wondrous things:
thou art God alone.
Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth:
Unite my heart to fear thy name....For great is thy mercy
toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.
Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious,
longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.
O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me;
give thy strength unto thy servant,
and save the son of thine handmaid.
Shew me a token for good; that they which hate me
may see it, and be ashamed: because thou, LORD,
hast holpen me, and comforted me.
A tide of warmth filled him, and the tears now filling his eyes were tears of joy that the One who had won, kept, and sustained him still did so. Now he would go forth, girded by his Lord, for he knew he would be provided work for the kingdom, and the strength and aid for that work. How unsearchable and inscrutable such a love that never fails and never ends.
When he looked back up, his face aglow, he saw Ellie standing in the doorway.
“Come in, princess,” he said, the jet eyes kind. Despite the busyness of his schedule and the absence of Rush as his conduit to Junkin family affairs, he had detected the pain stabbing at Ellie that was sourced in her separation from Major Jackson, pain she had worked hard to disguise behind her usual charm and winsomeness. A father knows his daughter, he thought, and this child, though like her blessed mother she ever tries to cover it so as not to burden herself on others, is hurting badly. For just an instant, he was seeing her again as a scared little towhead standing at another door to another study of his, half afraid to come in, but wanting badly to do so, in order to find out from her father if boys would still like her even though two of her fingers had been chopped off by an axe a few days before in an accident with her younger brother George. Yes, all of his children had needs in different ways, ways a father just came to know. Maggie, for instance, had always endeavored to assert her independence—and in some regards, such as her splendid literary efforts, had. Yet she remained strangely dependent in many ways, both on her younger sister Ellie and her parents, as life seemed one long and vigorous wrestling with God to her, despite her undeniable faith. “Maggie, dear, must you ever kick over the traces?” Rush would ask gently when her eldest child would engage herself in a particularly weighty new complexity of life. In contrast, the road had nearly always seemed to rise and meet Ellie, with her God-given é lan and her wonderfully full and confident faith, and through the abundant overflow of that faith, she had always tended to console her father even more than he did her. In all those ways, she was her mother's and not her father's girl. At this moment, that made him love Ellie and Rush all the more.
Junkin saw the pensive little towhead again as Ellie came toward his desk because that indomitable spirit had experienced few situations since the maiming of her hand where help from any source other than God seemed to her to be warranted. As he asked her to sit down, though, it was again Rush of whom he thought, and her example and strength he realized he had been calling upon more often of late, not apart from the Lord, he felt, but as provided by Him. The realization then struck him for the first time that Tom Jackson, still fairly young in the Christian faith, had recently come to gain the same from Ellie in his months with her.
“Papa, are you listening to me?”
The large handsome face reddened.
“Please forgive me, dear,” he said, straightening and coming around the massive desk to sit in the chair next to her. He has rarely come around that desk, she thought, rehearsing the years in her mind, but he has never failed to do so when I needed him. He touched her gently on the knee. “Now you may start again, with my complete and undivided attention.”
She squirmed a bit in the chair. Quite uncharacteristic of her, he thought, even in a difficult situation. She really likes him. I think I do too. He's not what I would have expected for her, or maybe even would have chosen—but then again, maybe he is.
“I was going to talk to Maggie, but she...she is not an objective source on this subject. Neither is Isabella, nor Ashley, nor Jennie Sue, all for different reasons. And Mother—”
She saw his slight wince.
“Papa,” she finally blurted—that was uncharacteristic too—”I am troubled and distressed by Major Jackson.”
“Oh?”
“He has become quite a nuisance to me, Papa.”
Junkin smiled. “But the boy hasn't been here since you sent him away two months ago. Did he write to you?”
“No, Papa, he ...he is really irritating me, Papa.”
The wide, shimmering eyes searched his face for answers—no, he smiled to himself, for confirmation.
“Are you telling or asking, Muffin?”
“Why, Papa, you haven't called me that in a long while.”
And you have never been in love like this. It pained him for just an instant. But then a glad, thankful feeling swept over him.
She spied the twinkling eyes in his otherwise deadpan face.
“Papa, why are you laughing at a time like this?”
He reached over and unlimbered his long arms around her, pulling her to him and patting her firm, rounded back with a big strong hand. His chest and shoulders offered an enormous cavern of shelter and safety, and the same slight fragrance of manly toilet water flavored her nostrils as had done so when she long ago cried in his arms about her chopped fingers. Many things in this world change, she thought, but very little about Papa does.
After a moment: “Papa?”
“I'm not laughing, Muffin, I'm rejoicing.”
She pushed him back a bit.
Still, the dark eyes danced with acceptance. He can be a difficult man, she thought, but when I need him, he is always on my side. Another thought pricked her sanguinity. Poor Thomas never knew such support from mother or father.…
Then she and her father were laughing—no, giggling—as though they had together discovered the secret to some long hidden treasure trove, one sought after by a multitude who had either failed in the quest or succeeded for a moment, then lost the great pearl of their pursuit. But she and he had found it. They both had it. And indeed it was a precious gift.
She had all her answers now. Much was spoken between father and daughter, but no words. He had, as he always had, shown her the whole world and more. And he had done it, as he sometimes had, with no oratory. Sometimes he indeed was difficult, as was Thomas. But she loved them both, and she would marry Thomas, if he would still have her.
A couple of oddities had impressed Anna Morrison on this latest summer trip from North Carolina to visit her sister and friends in Lexington. For one, Maggie Junkin, usually a gracious and intelligent but rather melancholy woman, had been swishing her hooped skirts around in a swirl of gay cheer ever since Anna arrived in town. At the same time Ellie Junkin, by nature the warmer and more affable of the sisters, had seemed aloof and distracted. It was not Ellie who normally immersed herself in the production of flowing lyrical sonnets of beauty and power, while standing a bit apart from the world passing around her; the younger sister, until now, had rather kept her considerable energies and will affixed to the people and needs facing her in her daily comings and goings, in a more Christlike manner than perhaps anyone the North Carolina preacher's daughter knew.
Cherub-faced and just slightly, if pleasingly, plump, Anna rarely gave herself to the practice of deep reflective thought and contemplation, so she did not dwell on this odd reversal of normal behavior and attitude in her friends the Junkins. She did take note, however, and wondered how much of Ellie's behavior, at least, stemmed from her breaking off courting relations with Major Thomas Jackson. Anna's sister Isabella had of course told her of this surprising development earlier, but neither Ellie nor Maggie had mentioned it, and Anna would not have dreamed of herself broaching such a potentially tender subject. In the meantime, she enjoyed as always the opportunity to share tea and conversation with Isabella and the Junkins, as well as sport for them the beautiful, new, lime silk taffeta dress she had bought in Charlotte on the journey up from home. Yes, it and her other new purchases had necessitated the half dozen suitcases and portmanteaus she brought, and very nearly a second traveling servant, but she only visited Lexington once a year, so was not a bit of extra effort a small price to pay for such an occasion?
Oh, this heat is infernal, Anna frowned with a sigh, fanning herself. She should have followed her own instincts and either made her visit before the summer heat hit, while en route to see her cousins in New England, or later, after it had broken, on the way back south. But Isabella had been insistent that this July sojourn occur simultaneously with the handsome Major Jackson's return from his sister's west Virginia abode.
It was true that many felt the VMI professor quite eccentric. Yet she had never felt so the times she had been around him. Nor did Ellie or Maggie. In fact, it seemed the better people knew the major, the less likely they were to consider him odd or eccentric and the more inclined they were to count him quite uncommon, perhaps, but in a fine and noble way.
Anna was frowning again at the inconvenience of mesh gloves on such a hot and humid day when Ellie stood up.
Maggie, though trying not to, noticed the tinge of sadness betrayed in her sister's dulled eyes. Vim had so filled those beautiful eyes last night, after Ellie's talk with her father about him. (Maggie could scarcely now bring herself to say or even think his name.) Her beloved sister had seemed more like her true self than she had in months. Today, though, Maggie knew her sibling feared she had squandered a grand provision of God for her. Oh, I don't know what to think anymore! Her happiness is my chief desire in life, yet that happiness seems, for once, to be tied to her relationship with another individual, rather than just God, and an individual who would be the last on earth I should expect her to fancy.
Ellie spoke during a brief break in the other women's giggling about some of the new fashions appearing in the latest issue of Leslie's from up North that they were passing around.
“I'm sorry, ladies, but I'm due at the hospital in half an hour,” Ellie smiled.
Maggie eyed her sister. Always helping someone, even through her torment. The realization at once conjured feelings of pride, admiration, and irritation in the elder sister. And maybe a twinge of guilt. Maggie drank tea for which she was not thirsty. Ellie smiled again as she turned away. He is not right for her, Maggie grimaced, he is not. And yet, I can so understand why he, yes, being a good man—all right, there it is, he is a good man—should find her so desirable. But how can he seem to have such a profound effect on her? He is, truth be known, a rather uncommonly good and decent man, yes, and learned too. And kind, pious, thoughtful, trustworthy, forbearing of those—I—who abuse him. Perhaps he is even fun, in his unique way, to be around. But does any of that explain why she should apparently have so fallen for him? Why, is there any explanation for it at all? Well, if naught else, it furnishes fascinating possibilities for my novel—
And then there was a knock at the front door. Before Ellie could even exit the room, the servant had placed a card in her hand. Somehow, somehow, Maggie knew whose it was and for whom it was intended.
For the first moment or so, everyone watched Ellie expectantly. When she continued, motionless, to stare at the card, the ladies began to exchange quizzical glances. Finally, Isabella spoke.
“Why, whatever on earth is it, dear?”
Ellie turned slowly toward them, her upturned palm still clutching the card. A confused look draped her countenance. When she did not immediately speak, Maggie stood, crossed to her, and took the card. Her ruddy complexion washed darker as she, too, stared at the card.
Isabella raised her eyebrows to a couple of the other ladies sitting in the parlor gathering.
“It does seem as though the devil himself has left us his salutation this afternoon, darlings,” she said. “Would someone kindly share the heartstopping news before the suspense kills us?”
Maggie spoke, but only to Ellie. “But why, what should bring him calling on you now, Sister? A gentleman courter who has been politely but firmly rejected knows better than to—”
Ellie did not hear, not any of it, nor any of them. For, upon learning the identity of the man who waited outside, all in the small clutch had an opinion, some several. For Major Jackson was many things to many people, usually, as Maggie had learned, depending upon how well they knew him.
What he was to twenty-eight-year-old Elinor Junkin was immensely—and amazingly—welcome.
What manner of man is this? Ellie pondered. So quiet, so gentle, even so awkward in his own precious way. Oh, of all of them who have been sent away, that he should be the one to return; the one who will not be denied, who will not go away. But in the end, were not all the others, polished and scrubbed and refined as they were, mere boys? Here, here have I found—have You found for me, Lord—a man. Whatever else he is or is not, he is a man. And a gentleman. And on the very day when I thought my heart should finally break for loneliness and sorrow. Perhaps now it should burst instead—with joy!
And so it was settled. But of course, it had already been settled. “‘There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not...the way of a man with a maid.’” Ellie looked up at Maggie, the lustrous eyes again full and alive, reflecting the crystal light above her, the magnificent ivory smile painted across her features like the emerald green the Lord painted across lovely Shenandoah bottomland in spring.
Maggie stared speechlessly after her sister as Ellie rushed from the room, crinoline skirts rustling.
Isabella smiled from where she remained sitting. “Why I do believe only one man on the face of this woeful globe could have such an effect on our friend.” She sipped more tea, the corners of her mouth curled upward in glee even as the exquisite china pressed against her full lips.
Anna giggled and squirmed happily in her chair. Oh, how absolutely perfect! she thought to herself. “Maggie, aren't you excited for your sister? When do you think the wedding will take place?”
Maggie stood staring at the doorway, as transfixed as General Washington's statue over at his namesake school, as the chopped, slightly high-pitched voice of Thomas Jonathan Jackson sounded from the front foyer. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her stunned mind, she heard the women around her chattering and laughing with happiness at a union each, even Isabella, had finally come to know was knit together by the inscrutable, unsearchable hand of Almighty God. Numbness claimed all of Maggie's bodily members. From her strange doleful haze came Psalm 6:6. The verse had run through her mind for months and months, though less so in those recent ones since Ellie had sent Jackson away: “‘I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.’”