Chapter 53
A Moment Between Past and Future

Late in May of that year, Mr. King asked me if I would be willing to travel to a few small communities and conduct some fund-raising meetings by myself.

He wanted me to go up into the foothill regions, the gold communities that I was familiar with, but not just near Miracle Springs—also down toward Placerville. I told him I’d be willing just so long as he told me what to do and arranged everything.

Railroads were much in the news that year. There had been all kinds of politics and debate; the companies had already been created, and a bill was before Congress in Washington to finance the building of a railroad from coast to coast. All the people of Sacramento, especially Governor Stanford, had been deeply involved in it for quite a while already. But California actually had only one railroad in operation—the Sacramento Valley Railroad, running out toward the foothills in the direction of Placerville.

I took the train out from Sacramento for the few meetings Mr. King arranged for me, where I spoke and got pledges from people for the Sanitary Fund. I didn’t actually take any of the money back with me; it would be sent to the committee’s headquarters in Sacramento later.

Traveling by train was exciting! I could hardly imagine being able to get into the passenger car behind a great black locomotive and ride right across the mountains and all the way to the East. But from the way everyone was talking, that day wasn’t so far away. In fact, the route that had been decided on would go close to Miracle Springs. It was called the “Dutch Flat Route” and would run in the valley just on the other side of the hills from Miracle Springs. I wondered if we’d be able to ride up on the ridge and hear it chugging along someday!

During my few days of fund-raising, after I gave my short speeches about the Union and the war and the need for money, people would come up afterward and want to talk to me. And not just women; men would come up too, asking me questions and just wanting to talk in the most friendly way.

Most of these people didn’t want to talk about politics or the war, but about personal things. A lot of them had read my article about the flood, or something else I’d written, even years before, and they’d want to talk about that. Then they’d tell me what they were thinking about, or what was on their minds. Everywhere I went, women would come up and invite me to supper with their family. After the first night, I didn’t have to stay in another boardinghouse for the whole trip.

If it wasn’t too crowded or noisy, some of them even confided things to me, problems they were having, and one or two asked my advice and what they should do. Before long I realized that my little trip out from Sacramento had more to do with individual people and what was going on inside their hearts and lives and minds than it did with raising money for the Sanitary Fund.

The most eye-opening realization of all was that the people coming up to talk to me afterward were more interested in me as a person, in Corrie Belle Hollister, than they were in all the things I may have been talking about. They seemed to see in me someone they could understand and who might understand them, someone they could talk to, even confide personal things in.

I came away with lots of new ideas about how my involvement in politics might have more to do with the people I ran into than it did with the bigger issues that seemed more important at first glance. Suddenly I found myself imagining people’s faces, and thinking about what I could say to them and how I might be able to help them in some way. I found myself thinking more about people than politics.

I had always tended to think of myself as young and insignificant. Even with all I was doing now, I still wasn’t “important” like the men were. Yet these few days changed the way I looked at myself.

It wasn’t about importance . . . it was about people. It was about looking into their eyes and seeing a friend, a person who could understand and care. I found myself wondering if perhaps that wasn’t the greatest “opportunity” I could ever have, the greatest “open door” of all.

I found all these things going through my mind as I stood on the last morning waiting for the train to arrive. I had completed my final fund-raising talk the night before at a church in a small foothills town. The morning train would take me back into Sacramento, and from there I would take the stagecoach back home to Miracle Springs.

The sun was well up in the sky, and it was a bright warm spring day. As I stood there on the wooden platform, holding my leather case that Almeda ordered for me out of a catalog, I thought of the changes that had come and were coming to our country, and of course the changes that had come to my own life as a result. All my past flitted by in a few moments, and I could not help but wonder about the future—if it would hold as many changes and surprises as had the past. I remembered my talk with Pa about how circumstances sometimes take us down roads we don’t anticipate.

That had certainly happened to me, even just since Pa and I had talked about it! My decision to get involved in the election two years ago had caused things to happen in my life that wouldn’t have otherwise. Here I was, raising money for the Union! Mr. Kemble and I had talked about making a book out of some of my earlier journals, about our coming to California back in 1852. That was another change on the horizon, another opportunity, as Cal would call it.

As I stood there, hearing the whistle of the train in the distance as it began to come into the station, I felt as if I were standing between my past and future—looking back, seeing the past, and waiting for a future that nobody can ever see.

I glanced toward the slowing train as it approached. Even the train itself, and these tracks right in front of me, would before long stretch all the way out of sight to the east, over the Sierras, and beyond. The very tracks themselves seemed to symbolize to me the endless stretching out of life—going in two directions. Just like the tracks, our lives stretch out behind us, reminding us of all the places we’ve been, all the experiences we’ve lived. But it also stretches out in front, and we don’t know where that train track leads! We just have to get on the train and find out.

I knew where this train was going. It would take me back into Sacramento. But where was my life headed? It had been an exciting ride up till now. But I wondered where the tracks would lead me next.