Chapter 45
Stanford for Governor

I hadn’t seen Cal for quite some time, even though I hadn’t stopped thinking about him. There had been letters from time to time, but it wasn’t nearly the same.

Then all of a sudden one day, there he was in Miracle Springs! I was working at the Mine and Freight when the stage rolled into town. And as I stood staring blankly and absent-mindedly through the backward letters of the word P-A-R-R-I-S-H painted on the window, suddenly there he was stepping down out of the coach.

I couldn’t believe my eyes! I blinked a time or two. I must have been dreaming, I thought. But when he turned momentarily in my direction, I knew there could be no mistake.

The next second I was out the door and bolting across the dirt street—not very ladylike, but I wasn’t thinking of propriety at the time!

“Cal!” I called out, clomping along in my office boots, my dress flopping about behind me, and holding on to my bonnet to keep it from flying off into the dirt. “Cal. . . !”

He turned from where he had been saying something to the driver and smiled at me in greeting. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d run right up to him and almost threw my arms around him. Luckily I caught myself in time.

“Whatever are you doing here?” I exclaimed, gulping for breath.

“What else would I be doing in Miracle Springs,” he said, “but visiting my favorite writer and person, Cornelia Hollister?”

Hearing my full name from his lips sent a tingle through me, and I was glad I was already flushed from the run across the street!

“But why?”

“You don’t think visiting you would be enough of a reason for a man?” he said with a grin and a wink.

“Oh, Cal, don’t joke with me. You must have come for some other reason. Did you come to see Pa about some Republican business?”

He laughed. “Ah, Corrie, but you are inquisitive. Well, you’re right, I did come on Republican business—but not to see your pa. I tell you, I came to see you!”

“I . . . I don’t understand.”

“I’ll tell you everything. But don’t you want to wait until the dust from the stage settles? Perhaps we could have dinner together. Is there someplace—”

“Of course! You’ll come home and have supper with us tonight!” I said enthusiastically. “Everybody will be happy to see you again!”

“I had in mind someplace where we might be alone,” said Cal.

I blushed in earnest.

“Am I embarrassing you, Corrie? I do apologize. It’s only that I have something very important to talk over with you—something I want to discuss in private, something that concerns our future.”

What was he saying? My head was spinning, frantically trying to think what to say, what to suggest. Before I could get another word out, Cal spoke up again.

“Now that I think about it,” he said, “I suppose it would be fitting to include your father—your whole family, in fact—in the announcement I have to make.”

“Announcement, Cal . . . what announcement?” I faltered.

“Oh, you’ll just have to wait to hear with the rest of them!” he laughed. “I gave you a chance to hear the good news by yourself. But now you’ll just have to share it with everyone else!”

He finished his statement, then just stared at me with his blue eyes and a big grin.

“So . . . do I consider that a formal invitation to supper?” he said at length.

“Uh . . . uh, yes,” I stumbled out. “Yes . . . of course.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then . . . I know you’ve probably got work to do over at the office. So I’ll just keep myself busy, look around the town awhile, maybe have a drink. And Carl asked me to pay a visit to Mr. Royce as long as I was coming this way. Shall I meet you out at your house this evening?”

“Uh . . . yes,” I said. “I reckon that’ll be just fine.”

“I’ll hire a buggy and be out.”

He turned and began to walk away. I was still standing there in a daze. “No . . . wait, Cal,” I said, finally coming to my senses. “Ride out with me. I have Almeda’s buggy here. Come over to the office around five o’clock.”

“I’ll be there,” he said cheerily.

Still I just stood there watching him walk over to the boardwalk and then toward Mr. Royce’s bank.

I wasn’t much good at the office the rest of the afternoon. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, and it was all I could do to keep away from Marcus and Mr. Ashton. If they took one good look at me, they’d start asking all kinds of questions about whether I was sick or something. This was one time I did not want two old unmarried men fussing over me. So I spent most of the afternoon in Almeda’s office with the door closed. But I didn’t get a single thing done!

All I could think about were Cal’s words, going over and over and over again in my mind.

The announcement I have to make . . . someplace where we might be alone . . . in private . . . something that concerns our future . . . our future . . . OUR future . . .

The ride out to the claim later that day with Cal at my side was nearly torture! He was talkative and friendly, as always, but I was about as interesting as a wet dishrag! It was the longest ride home from town I’d ever had.

I wasn’t any better at supper. Pa and Almeda and the others were delighted to see Cal, of course, and he was charming and friendly, laughing and nice and hospitable. He congratulated and praised Pa, saying he always knew his star was on the rise.

They talked about politics mostly, and a lot about the problem with the Confederacy and Fort Sumter.

“Do you think there’ll actually be fighting, Cal?” Pa asked.

“It seems impossible to avoid it now, with both sides so dead set against any kind of giving in.”

“It’s just awful,” said Almeda. “The thought of Americans killing Americans is horrible! It oughtn’t to be happening!”

I just sat waiting, trembling inside. How could they talk about politics and the war when was Cal going to make his announcement?

I didn’t have too much longer to wait.

“But the hostilities between North and South isn’t why I’ve come to Miracle Springs,” he said when there was a lull in the conversation. “I have some exciting news to tell you all—news that I felt merited a personal visit.”

I sat staring straight down at the table, too scared to look up. Somehow I knew, though, that Cal was looking at me.

He paused, and the others waited for him to continue.

“You both know, Mr. and Mrs. Hollister,” he finally went on, “how fond I am of your daughter.”

I glanced up. They both nodded.

“So fond of her, in fact,” Cal said, “that I knew from the very start, right from that evening we all met back in San Francisco, you remember, Mr. Hollister, just about a year ago—I knew that here was a young lady I wanted to be part of my future. I knew too that I wanted her to meet my boss, Mr. Stanford. I just had a feeling about her—a feeling which, I am happy to say, turned out to be a positive omen of things to come.”

Again he stopped briefly and drew in a breath. Then he looked over at me, reached out and placed his hand gently on top of mine, and began again.

“Just a few days ago, Mr. Stanford made public his candidacy for the governorship of California. And, Corrie, he asked me to come out here to ask you personally if you would be part of his campaign—a campaign to take control of the great state of California on behalf of the pro-Union Republican party.”

He stopped. His face was bright with expectation as he gazed at me. I knew he probably thought I would be overcome with gratefulness. I was overcome, all right—but with an entirely different emotion!

“That . . . that is the announcement you told me about in town?” I asked softly, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

“Yes. Isn’t it exciting, Corrie? It’s the opportunity I was telling you about . . . the future. For us to be part of together, just like I was saying when we were together in Palo Alto. An exciting future full of opportunities that we can share!”

But I only heard about half his words before I was up from the table and running to my room. I lay down on my bed and sobbed quietly. How could I possibly have been so stupid?

But even as I lay there, I remembered the other time Cal had been here, and what a fool I’d made of myself, sneaking around in the woods with dirt all over me. I could not let something like that happen again!

I quickly jumped up off my bed, ran to my washbasin, which still had some water in it, dashed a little on my face, dried with a towel, sucked in a deep breath, and turned around to walk back out and face the music. I would be brave, and put the best face on an awkward situation I could.

I returned to the table. “I’m sorry for leaving so abruptly,” I said. “I was just overcome for a minute, and had to be alone. But I’m fine now.”

I sat back down and gave Cal the biggest smile I could manage to muster. I hoped my red eyes didn’t betray me.

“You can tell Mr. Stanford that I’d be honored,” I said. “I would very much like to do what I could to help him.”

“Good . . . wonderful!” exclaimed Cal. “I know that will please him a great deal.”

With the business out of the way, the conversation again drifted toward politics. It seemed that was just about the only things folks talked about these days. With a war imminent, there was a great sense of uncertainty and tension, even in far-off California.

Then the door opened and Uncle Nick walked in with his family. Cal immediately jumped up, shook Uncle Nick’s hand and greeted Aunt Katie warmly. Everyone took seats and the conversation resumed.

After about five minutes, suddenly a puzzled expression came over Cal’s face. “Say, where is your sister?” he asked Aunt Katie. “Edie was her name, was it not? I had hoped to see her again too.”

The room was silent a moment.

“She left for the East,” Katie said. Her tone reflected the sadness she and all the rest of us had felt at Edie’s parting.

“When?” asked Cal.

“Right after the Sumter incident,” replied Uncle Nick.

“She said she had to go—that with the South under attack, she had to be where her home would always be.”

An odd look came over Cal’s face. What Aunt Katie had said seemed to strike deeply into him for some reason.

“We tried to get her to stay,” said Uncle Nick. “Told her it was the South doing the attacking, and that if it did come to war, there couldn’t be no safer place for her than right here.”

“She hardly had any family left, anyway,” said Almeda. “We told her we loved her and that we’d try to be family to her now that her husband was gone. But once news about Sumter came, she changed. She was distant after that. I knew she wasn’t at home here.”

“Nothing we said could change her mind,” said Katie, starting to cry quietly. Almeda was sitting next to her and put her arm around her to comfort her. “I asked her what if we never saw each other again. But she just kept saying she had to be with her new country. It was almost as if we were suddenly strangers.”

Katie could say no more. She broke down and wept.

Cal hadn’t said another word, and the faraway look remained in his eyes for some time. He seemed very thoughtful and distracted and didn’t say much the rest of the evening.

The outbreak of war between the North and South was bound, it seemed, to touch everyone in the country closely, sooner or later.

Already the pain was starting to come into people’s lives.