For the Hangtown Group OBIE, chapters 13 & 14 OBIE Chapter 13 A PLACE FOR ME One cool, blustery day in early March, we were busying ourselves with our usual mule grooming chores. Lidge was checking out an ol’ mule’s teeth and I was around back fixin’ to curry out her tail. Dad had just outfitted the ol’ gal with a shiny new set of iron shoes. All at once her ears come down, her hind end kind of bunched up, and a hind foot come snatchin’ out and rung my shinbone like a bell! I collapsed to the ground frantically rubbing my throbbing ankle and desperately fighting my inclination to besmirch that mule’s pedigree, and Lidge grinned at me like I was just off the boat! “I figured you knowed better than that.” He says, with his lips curled back and his teeth all catching sunlight. “When an ol’ mule’s hind end puckers up that a way, you best drop and roll.” “I thought that’s what ya done in case of fire.” I said, dusting my drawers and struggling to find my feet. “When an ol’ mule behaves that a way” Lidge says, offering me a hand up, “you can reckon she’s fixin’ to fire!” I cautiously resumed my enterprise, keeping an eye peeled for any further sign of insubordination and flinching with every twitch, and it wasn’t but twenty minutes later when all at once Lidge dropped his currycomb to the ground, sank onto a nail keg, hung his head in despair and sighed a sigh well beyond his years. His sudden collapse into despair caught me off guard, and I stood there staring for a moment, perplexed and speechless. Lidge had been a little down in the dumps for several days, but I’d just shrugged it off as spring fever. It seemed evident now; this was more than just youthful melancholy. “What’s wrong pard?” I asked, dropping my own brush and kneeling at his side. “Everything!” he replied, wiping his sweaty brow with his sleeve and staring at the ground. “Well,” I said, would you like to talk about it?” “Obadiah,” he said, looking up solemnly, “have you ever been really poor?” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Well”, he said, “my family and I risked what little we had in Ireland and sailed thousands of hard, hazardous miles to this country, in search of what that old piece of parchment calls, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Now Pa’s dead, Ma’s ill, we’re poor as church mice, and even though we’ve been blessed with a fine church family and we’re doubly blessed by our friendship with you folks, we’re not actually blessed with much happiness. As far as liberty, is a person really free when they’re enslaved to poverty to the point that without the compassion of folks like you it’s likely that we’d starve?” Well, I was at a loss to answer that. Life’s experiences had rendered me old for my years, but not near that old. We stood there in an uneasy silence for a time and then Irving careened up to the stable door like a cyclone, on that barn sour gray. “Hang it up boys.” He hollered. “Let’s call it a day.” I lay restless in my bunk for a long time that evening, tossing, turning and trying desperately to sleep. It just wouldn’t happen. My buddy’s comments lay smoldering in my mind. Lidge and I had much in common, but my family had been marvelously blessed since arriving in America and Lidge and his family had faced poverty, deprivation and despair. I’d been raised a Christian all my life. My parents taught me to seek the Lords’ will always, to exercise hope, faith, and charity in all things, and to promote justice tempered with mercy. I believed that an all-seeing, all-knowing God distinguished the sin from the sinner, that he hated one and loved the other, and that through God, justice and mercy would prevail. Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to reconcile these beliefs to my friends’ situation. Where was justice and mercy now? Where was charity and love? Where was the hand of a loving God in this? The following day was Saturday. I attended an estate sale with Klouse and Irving, had a long, leisurely lunch at an open-air restaurant on the wharf, and spent the remainder of the afternoon tending ill-tempered, unreasonable, cantankerous, old mules. That evening I enjoyed family time, devotions and cobbler, and then retired to bed early, contented and luxuriously stuffed! I devoted a great deal of thought and long hours of prayer to Lidge’s situation and even though I’d not found a good answer, I arrived at church Sunday morning expecting to find Lidge in that same state of depression and prepared to be a sympathetic friend. I was clearly not prepared for what I found. Lidge was at the side door as I started up the front stairs of the church. He was clearly exuberant, uncharacteristically animated, and desperately anxious to share his news. In his hand was a crumpled notice; similar to many I’d seen posted at the pier, and in his tone was an excitement and enthusiasm that took me completely by surprise. “Look here!” He whispered in a tone, which feigned quiet but was anything but. He pulled me to one side, hastily waving the dog-eared document in my face. “Alright, alright!” I said, “What is it?” He was trembling with anticipation and I steadied his hand as he began to read: CALIFORNIA GOLD the notice read and NOTICE OF INTENT. HEAR YE! HEAR YE! NOW HIRING FOR MANY POSITIONS, GALLEY HELP NEEDED, NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY. PHILLIDELPHIA TO SAN FRANCISCO IN FIVE MONTHS. DEPARTING MARCH 17TH, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 18 & 49 Lidge’s face was flushed and his eyes danced with excitement. “I’ve already hired on.” He announced triumphantly, “and the Captain has promised to save a place for you!” OBIE CHAPTER 14 GEORGE WARSHINGTON HISSELF Dear God, why me? I’m not certain what part my prayers have played in this new turn of events. When I was praying for new opportunities for Lidge, I hadn’t figured on the Lord being quite so prompt! It usually takes longer than that! I sure hadn’t counted on anything quite like this! From now on when I pray, I’m gonna be way more specific! The more Lidge laid out the details of this little jaunt, the more I grimaced and shook my head. The ship is a barnacle covered ol’ schooner that has been sitting at anchor and slated for salvage for years. They scraped her down and scrubbed her up just for this occasion. Part of the crew is made up of old salts that have been retired since Noah’s time, who shook off their mothballs when they heard the word GOLD! The rest of the crew is made up of landlubbers such as Lidge and me, who’ve been commandeered mainly because we’re old enough to be weaned and a little too young to exercise better judgment. My voyage from Germany had been enough to worry the feathers off a wooden Indian, and this overoptimistic little endeavor makes that trip look like a weekend excursion on a millpond. One of the highlights, should we even get that far, will be rounding Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America. Well, I don’t know what you’ve heard about the Horn, but it’s one of the most infamous passages anywhere in the world. Why, the very mention of THE HORN is enough to cause the saltiest ol’ seaman to drop his pipe and wet hisself! They’re calling for stops at Rio de Janeiro & Valparaiso, and arrival at San Francisco in about five months. Well, If that ancient scow even floats, and if they manage to keep her afloat till they round the horn, and if they don’t all die of the cholera along the way, depending on conditions and prevailing winds, it could easily take as long as eight months to reach California, and then what? According to the barrage of wild tales that have been circulating for a couple of months now, some poor old codger out on the west coast was trying to run a sawmill and had the misfortune of having some unthinking scallywag discover gold in his millrace. Well, of course before you know it, word is out and the whole place runs amuck! The word is that folks are pouring into the California foothills from all over the world. They reckon that this year alone, they’ll have fifty thousand crazed men swarming in from the states and fifty thousand more from around the Horn. Can you even imagine, in your wildest dreams, what kind of horrendous mess that will be? Why, there’s not gold enough in all creation to draw a sane man into a sinkhole like that! Why, I wouldn’t run a risk like that, if George Warshington hisself were backing the whole affair. Lidge and I talked the whole unholy spectacle over pretty thorough, top to bottom, and I told him pretty certain, in no uncertain terms, that he was crazier than a pet coon if he’d be drug into a campaign like this, and there wasn’t nothing in this world, that would ever make me change my mind and go! To be continued…
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 16:22:51 +0000
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