Chapter 59
Home Again

It was a lonely, tearful stagecoach ride back to Miracle Springs the next day. I kept thinking I had cried all the tears it was possible to cry, and then more would come. How many tears could a girl have, anyway? There must be an end to them somewhere!

I didn’t find out where the tears ended that day. By the time I reached home I had vowed never to have anything to do with politics, writing, or men again!

The minute I walked into the house I fell into Almeda’s arms. I was so glad no one else was there right at that moment. She knew from one look at my face that something was dreadfully wrong, but she just let me cry and held me tight. Gradually, through my tears, I told her everything.

“Oh, Almeda,” I finally tried to say, still blubbering like a five-year-old, “how could I have been such a downright fool as to think he loved me?”

She probably had seen the whole thing coming long before I had. But if she did, she didn’t say so. She just kept comforting me.

“He never cared about anything but himself. He was completely self-absorbed. How could I not have seen it?”

I had done a lot of thinking all day riding on the stage. I had wanted to talk to Almeda so badly back in Sacramento. Now that I finally had her all to myself, I gushed out with everything I’d been thinking and feeling.

“Hearts can get in the way and cloud how you see nearly everything sometimes, Corrie. It’s part of life, part of growing up. I wouldn’t feel too badly if I were you.”

“How can I not? I was so blinded by everything that was going on. Cal had no real depth—it’s all so clear now! All he cared about was his own ambition. We never talked about spiritual things or what really matters in life. Oh, Almeda, I just feel so foolish!”

“Time will help you understand it more clearly. I liked Cal too, Corrie. We all did. Whether he changed after the war started or was out for what you and your father could do for him from the beginning—we may never know for sure. He seemed sincere enough. I was taken in, too.”

“Besides everything else, he took the Sanitary Fund money! How can I not feel responsible? I feel as if I’ve betrayed both the Union and God!”

“They will both forgive you.”

“But it’s too late about the money—he’s gone.”

“You said Mr. King and Mr. Stanford immediately sent some fast horsemen after the stage.”

“They did, but they didn’t have much hope of catching it. They had probably over a two-hundred-mile head start and would be close to the Arizona border by the time they could reach them. Even if they did catch them, it would likely have taken bloodshed to retrieve the money, and neither Mr. King nor Mr. Stanford wanted that.”

“I see. I suppose in that case it wasn’t worth it.”

“They were a lot more worried about information Cal had to give to the South than just the money. Working so close to an important governor like Mr. Stanford, Cal knew a lot of things about the northern war effort.”

A lump formed in my throat. “Almeda, how can I not blame myself? All my writing and talk about truth and being a true person, and I can’t even recognize someone who isn’t true when he’s standing right in front of me! How could I not have seen him for what he was?”

“Was he untrue right from the beginning?”

“Oh, I don’t know! After the way it turned out, how can I possibly know what was there inside him to begin with?”

“I don’t know either, Corrie,” said Almeda. “I do know we have to learn truth in stages. It doesn’t come all at once. We have to learn about truth by encountering some things along the way that aren’t true. Otherwise we never learn to tell the false from the real.”

“Do those things that come along always have to hurt so badly, and make me feel like such a nincompoop?”

She laughed, and I halfheartedly joined in.

“A lot of times they do,” replied Almeda. “Pain is one of the world’s best teachers.”

“The worst of it is forgetting about God all this time. I was so absorbed in Cal and what I was doing that I thought about him only once in a while, and I hardly prayed at all. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it!”

“It’s all part of the growing and maturing process. Perhaps this will help you remember him more in the future. You’ve heard the expression about being older and wiser?”

I nodded.

“Well, just consider yourself an older and wiser and more truthful young woman now, after all this. If you grow and mature from it, won’t it have been worth it in the end?”

I had to stop and think about that. In my present state of mind I wasn’t at all sure.

“Almeda,” I said at last, “when I was waiting for God to give me a sign about his will, Cal Burton was the person who finally convinced me to get involved in this election.”

“Yes?” Almeda prodded when I paused.

“Well, it’s just . . . maybe . . . do you think I heard wrong from the beginning? I mean, how could it have been right for me to be involved when Cal was so . . . so wrong?”

“Corrie,” Almeda said gently, taking my hand, “the Lord uses many methods to open his will to us. Apart from what’s happened with Cal Burton, do you think what you’ve done for the election—and for the Union—has been wrong?”

I thought about it for a minute. “No, I don’t. I think it was the right thing to do, but—”

“Then maybe God did use Cal to help you make your decision, even though Cal himself wasn’t aware of being an instrument in God’s hands.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said. “Right now, that doesn’t seem to help me feel much better about it.”

“It will in time.”

“But what about my forgetting the Lord,” I went on, “and not making him part of what was happening with Cal?”

“One thing about God, Corrie, that I’ve learned to take comfort from, is that he never forgets us—he always keeps doing his work in us, never stops working away in our hearts and minds. We may forget him, but he never forgets us. His work down inside us doesn’t depend on something so unreliable as whether we happen to be thinking of him or not. His work of maturing us goes on even when we’re not conscious of it. And he won’t let us remain forgetful of him—not for long, anyway. He makes sure he gets our attention again eventually when he needs to, one way or another.”

“Even with an incident like I’ve just been through?”

“The Lord will use anything or anyone. He uses all kinds of people and all kinds of situations. He will even use people who don’t know him to open doors in our growth, like he used Cal Burton. He will use them for us, and attempt to use us in their lives at the same time.”

“I doubt if I had much impact in Cal’s life.”

“Oh, I disagree, Corrie! I imagine God was using you to knock on some doors in Cal’s heart and mind, just like he will use Cal, even in retrospect, to accomplish some older and wiser maturing things down inside you. Nothing in life ever goes to waste when we belong to the Lord—even the times when we might think we haven’t been faithful to him. He takes it all and uses it for the best and deepest purposes.”

“Hmm . . . If that’s true, I wonder if God was knocking at Cal’s heart.”

“Who knows how differently it might have turned out if he’d paid attention to the small voice of God inside him speaking through you?”

“But I wasn’t saying much of anything to him about the Lord.”

“Your life was speaking important things to him, Corrie. I could see that the two times he was here. Your character, your bearing, your truthfulness. You may think you were nothing but a starry-eyed young lady. But your deepest self shone through like a clear-sounding bell. Cal noticed. Yes, God was knocking at his heart through you. But he chose to ignore the voice and to go his own way. So he will have to suffer the consequences, and you will have to go on with your life and learn from it all.”

Suddenly the door burst open and Pa came in.

“I thought I heard the sound of someone riding up,” he said, striding toward me and scooping me nearly off the ground in his arms. “Merry Christmas, Corrie!”

I’d nearly forgotten. Christmas was only nine days away!

“Merry Christmas, Pa,” I said. If only I could keep from crying again!

“You show her the letter, Almeda?”

“No!” exclaimed Almeda. “I forgot, we got so involved in talking. Corrie, you have a letter!” she cried, turning and running across the room.

“What can it be that’s worth all that commotion?”

“Wait till you see, Corrie!” said Pa, with nearly as much excitement in his voice as Almeda’s.

Almeda ran back toward me, carrying an envelope, then thrust it into my hand.

“It came five days ago, Corrie! We’ve all been dying of curiosity waiting for you to get home!”

I took the envelope. The return address said only: THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

With trembling fingers I tore open one end of it and pulled out the letter. I couldn’t keep my heart from pounding as I read.

MISS CORNELIA BELLE HOLLISTER,

I have been made aware of all your work for the Republican party on behalf of my election, as well as your efforts to raise money for our Union forces in this present conflict. I want to express my deepest appreciation on behalf of the nation, and to tell you that your patriotism has not gone unnoticed. It would be my pleasure to meet you here at the White House in Washington, if circumstances would permit you to make the journey. I would very much like to give you my personal hand of gratitude, as well as ask you to help me in the war effort with a new project here in Washington.

Yours sincerely,
A. LINCOLN
President

The single sheet fell from my hand and I staggered to sit down in a chair. I sat there stunned.

“What is it, Corrie?” asked Almeda. “Is something wrong?”

Pa picked up the paper and read it. “Nothing wrong, Almeda,” he said after a moment. “It’s an invitation to visit the President!”

“The President!” she exclaimed.

“Signed right here by Abraham Lincoln himself,” said Pa, handing the paper to Almeda.

“Corrie . . . that’s—that’s wonderful!” cried Almeda.

How could it be . . . how could I possibly accept? But how could I not accept? Thoughts of the war and the danger and the time and expense involved—none of that entered my mind in the first seconds that I sat there. I thought only of the face of Lincoln from a picture I had seen. The President had written to me!

How much time passed as I sat there in a daze, I don’t know. When I first became aware of voices around me again, Becky and Tad were there too, and I vaguely heard Zack and Alkali Jones outside approaching the house. Mr. Jones was laughing and cackling over something.

In the blur of my racing brain, there was Mr. Jones on the other side of the house with Zack, both of them laughing and talking. My ears weren’t working right any more than my brain. They must have been playing tricks on me from the last time when I’d heard him making jokes about the Hollister clan running for office. Because of what I thought I heard Mr. Jones saying was, Corrie Fer President, hee, hee, hee!

My mind was spinning with thoughts of the war and Mr. Lincoln and stagecoaches and trains and money, and when my eyes and ears finally cleared, the room was quiet.

The whole family surrounded me, staring straight at me as if waiting for me to say something. Not a one of them said a word. They were all just gazing expectantly at me.

“Well?” said Pa finally.

“Well, what?” I asked.

“Are you gonna answer the question we’ve all been asking you, or are you gonna just keep sitting there staring off like you can’t see or hear anything?”

“What question?”

“Are you gonna do it, Corrie?” they all shouted. “Are you gonna go?”

At last my mind seemed to start working again. I took in a deep breath.

“Of course I’m going to do it,” I said. “He’s the president of our country, isn’t he? I can’t very well turn him down, now can I?”