In the Valley of Hope Page 5

  “And the winner is...” Birdie's hands were trembling as she held the envelope and began to tear it open. “And the winner is. My, my. I get so nervous. The winner is,” and again Birdie paused for dramatic effect. “The winner is Mrs. Wissler.”

  All eyes turned to the Wissler table. There were, after all, two Mrs. Wisslers present.

  Birdie looked puzzled at the lack of reaction from the crowd, adding to her anxiety. Then her eyes met a stare from Ada that was so intense that if it lasted a second longer the envelope in her hand would have caught on fire.

  “Which Mrs. Wissler?” someone said.

  “Oh, my goodness,” said Birdie fanning herself.

  “Lawd, Lawd, the winner is, of course, Mrs. John Wissler.”

  The crowd applauded as Ada stood and waved proudly, and then she gracefully curtsied. Just before walking to the podium to accept her award she glanced back at Carrie and silently mouthed, “Sorry.”

  “Thank you all so much. This is such an honor and I really didn't think I had a chance to win for a fourth year in a row. All the others who were nominated were just as worthy of this honor as me. Thank you so much for making me the happiest woman in the Valley tonight. I want to say a special thank you to members of my family who are with me here tonight. Won't you all please stand?”

  The Wissler clan reluctantly stood as the audience applauded.

  “That lovely lady is my dear sister in law, Mrs. Frank Wissler. She's not much for goings on like this, but I persuaded her that she needed to come out tonight and rub elbows with the finest people around. That's her boy, Frank III. And next to him is my handsome son John Wissler, Jr. with his friend, Dr. John William Koontz's niece, Miss Nan Koontz, who's visiting here all the way from Missouri.”

  With the meeting concluded Ada tried to find Birdie to thank her for doing the right thing. When there are injustices, she thought, you've got to make things right. Birdie was nowhere to be found.

  Ada chattered all the way home. She wasn't talking to anybody in particular, just chirping on and on about who was there, what they were wearing, what they said, and how humbled she was that all those good people thought so highly of her to make her Woman of the Year for the fourth year in a row.

  The passengers in the backseat were amused at Ada's warbling. Frank III giggled out loud when Carrie mocked Ada's snobbish gestures. Their entertainment abruptly ended when Ada wanted to know “what's so funny back there?” Then she quickly returned to her favorite topic, the good fortune of Mrs. John Wissler.

  John, Jr. repeated his mother's words after her. “Fourth year in a row. Woman of the Year. Fourth in a row. We know, mother. We know,” evoking even more laughter from the rear seat.

  Having their fill of the entertainment for the evening Frank III and Carrie shared their opinions on the evening.

  “Did you have fun, Mama?”

  “Not really. Just not for me, I guess. Only good thing was having you there with me. Thanks for coming. How about you. Did you see anything you liked?”

  Frank III grinned thinking that there was only one thing he liked, but he wasn't about to tell his mother.

  “Be honest. Tell me what you thought.”

  “Just didn't see anybody there more special than my friend, Charlie Polk. Still don't understand why he can't come to visit at Strathmore.”

  Chapter II – Formative Years

  Aunt Teeny's Birthday – February 13, 1910

  On February 13, 1910, the biggest news story in the Valley, at least according to the Shenandoah Herald in Woodstock, was Christina Shown's birthday party. Aunt Teeny's birthday was such a big deal that it warranted a lengthy front page article headlined, Hale and Hearty in Her 95th Year.

  How she became so newsworthy is something of a mystery. After all, Teeny lived alone and far enough off the beaten path to be seldom seen by anyone. For 56 years, she had lived in a two-room cabin formerly used as a schoolhouse that she attended as a child. In all of her 95 years, she has never traveled outside the area in which she was born and never laid eyes on, much less used, a telephone or a phonograph. She has never seen an automobile and never ridden a train.

  Aunt Teeny has little to do with “newfangled ways,” as she calls them. The same cooking utensils used by her mother and her mother's mother are still in use in her kitchen. Her greatest source of pleasure is spinning yarns and talking about the old days to anybody who will listen while puffing on a corn cob pipe. The article in the Herald reported that she had reduced three-quarters of a ton of tobacco to ashes since she first started smoking at age 10.

  Her actual birth date was on January 29, but a snowstorm delayed the big doings until Saturday, February 20 when family and friends from the Shenandoah Valley made the trek to her cabin in the woods. They came in wagons, on horseback, and on foot along the road known as Orkney Grade to Mt. Clifton and then down a narrow path where the humble hut sat by Mill Creek.

  So many well-wishers came that there were more people outside the cabin than on the inside. A large bonfire burned in the front yard, a welcome site to those who needed to warm themselves on this chilly winter morning. At least the sun was shining, and most of the snow had melted.

  Teeny's son-in-law Buddy Boyd strummed an upbeat ditty on his banjo as the partiers lined up to bring a varied assortment of homemade gifts. Offerings included local favorites like summer sausage, scrapple, Virginia salt-cured ham, sauerkraut, beans, apples, yeast rolls, cakes, cookies, pies, and of course, lots of tobacco.

  Moses Shown stood next to his mother to help direct the proceedings and to make sure that all the guests were properly acknowledged. His wife Mary organized the food as it arrived and saw to it that everyone got plenty to eat.

  All the attention energized Aunt Teeny. Her raspy voice could be heard outside the cabin walls as she entertained her audience with colorful tales of her storied life. It was indeed a joyous event for the adults in attendance but not so for 12-year-old Mable Shown. There's just nothing here for a girl to do, she thought while warming by the bonfire and hoping her mother would eventually bring her a big piece of birthday cake. It's not that there weren't other children at the event. In fact, there were quite a few boys already making the best of their time together playing a very rowdy version of Tag-You're-It.

  What Mable didn't know was that there was another youngster there, an old friend, who was trying to get up the nerve to talk to her. Charlie Polk took leave from the other boys after noticing Mable and climbed atop a woodpile. The last time he saw Mable was that humiliating day at the schoolhouse. “Would she still remember him?” Of greater concern was the brutal teasing he would get from the other boys if he struck up a conversation with a girl.

  Charlie had never gotten over that dreadful day now two years passed and it still made him angry just thinking about it. His childhood had been stolen. He had been doing the hard labor of a grown man since he was nine and was seldom ever allowed to do anything fun. Even on this day, the only reason that he was permitted to attend Mrs. Teeny's party was because his mother sneaked him off the farm while his daddy was off trading cows at the stockyards in Woodstock.

  And then she spotted him. “Charlie Polk! Charlie. It's me, Mable!”

  “Hey,” said Charlie shyly.

  Charlie jumped down from his perch on the pile of wood and walked toward Mable while glancing over at the other boys to gauge their reaction. If they give me any lip I'll beat them up, he thought. And I can do it, too. All that farming had made him the strongest and toughest kid around.

  Now standing before her Charlie smiled and greeted her. The only girls he customarily talked to were his sisters and mother.

  “Haven't seen you since you got taken out of school,” she said smiling. “We all wondered what happened to you. We missed you,” she said while doing something totally unexpected. She hugged him.

  “I missed you all too,” he said as his face turned beet red, and then the teasing began.

  “Woo-woo,” some called in unis
on.

  “Go ahead and smooch her!” yelled one of the boys.

  All it took was one mean stare from Charlie, and the ribbing stopped as fast as it began.

  “Pay them no never mind,” said Mable. “That hug didn't mean nothing more than a sister hugging a brother.”

  Charlie wasn't so sure about that “sister ... brother” explanation. That hug sure didn't feel like hugging his sister.

  “You've grown up a lot,” she said.

  “Uh, yeah...you too,” he responded still thinking about the hug. Up until the present moment, Charlie was convinced that little girls had cooties, although he wasn't quite sure if a cootie was a dirty rodent or a disgusting insect. When he began to speak, it was like he had been struck stupid. Nothing he said came out the way he intended.

  “You OK?” asked Mable trying to discern the condition that prompted his speech difficulty.

  “Seen Frank and Cilla lately?”

  “Can’t say I have. You?”

  “Nope. I never get to see anybody.”

  The two of them sat on crates by the fire and reminisced about the fun times they had at Stover School. Charlie was no longer embarrassed that he was talking to a girl. In fact, he was enjoying her company immensely. She wanted to know about his life on the farm and if his daddy was treating him any better. Mable was also concerned that Charlie didn’t attend church. “You don’t want to go to hell, do you?”

  Charlie hesitated before answering her question. “Thought I already lived there.”

  The sound of someone yelling from the direction of the house redirected their attention. “What's going on?” asked Mable. “Can you see?”

  A man standing on the front stoop raised his voice and called for quiet. “Is there anyone here who can help me? My horse is hurt. Does anyone here have a gun so I can put her down?”

  Several men in the crowd acknowledged that they had access to weapon.

  “No, that’s wrong,” said Charlie. “Just wrong. I’ve got to go.” Quickly he pushed his way through the crowd and stopped the man who had made the announcement. “Sir, what's wrong with your horse?”

  “Don't rightly know...but she's hurting bad. Got to put her out of her misery.”

  “That ain’t right.”

  “Expect you need to mind your own business.”

  Charlie persisted. “Let me look at her. I'm pretty good with animals.”

  Mary Polk stepped forward in support of her son. “I'm the boy’s mama. He's got a gift with animals. He might be able to help.”

  “OK, then,” agreed the man. “But if he don't do something fast...then we're going to have to put her down.”

  Charlie hurriedly followed the man to attend to the animal. He was so focused on saving the animal that he didn’t notice the growing group of curiosity seekers following behind.

  “What happened to her?” asked Charlie.

  “Don’t rightly know. She did alright coming over here then about a mile back she took to limping real bad.”

  Along the path leading to Teeny’s cabin there were at least 20 horses and mules, and most of them were hitched to wagons. Charlie didn’t wait for the man to point out which horse belonged to him. He just ran ahead and started his examination.

  “How did you know which one was mine?” asked the man as Charlie knelt by the horse.

  “What's her name?”

  “Beatrice.”

  An elderly man stepped forward from the crowd. “Here’s that gun you wanted, mister. You want me to shoot her for you?”

  “We won’t be needing it.” said Charlie while rubbing the horse’s leg. Then he stood up and walked slowly around the horse, patted her on the head, and whispered something in her ear.

  After several moments the old man, annoyed by Charlie’s strange behavior, spoke again. “Get that kid out of there. That horse is lame, and you got to put her down! I can have her out of her misery in two seconds.”

  Charlie, seemingly unfazed by the interruption, laid his head against the horse's ear, whispered for a few moments longer, and then addressed the crowd. “Would everybody please stand back and give us some space?” Cautiously, Charlie paraded the horse in front of them keeping a watchful eye on her injured leg. Soon after, he climbed into the saddle and rode Beatrice around the yard.

  “Well, I’ll be,” said the old man, dumbfounded by the horse’s unhindered prancing. “Don’t that beat all?”

  “Here, mister,” said Charlie jumping to the ground. “Try her out.”

  As the man proudly road his horse around the yard the crowd cheered but Charlie couldn’t understand why they were so excited. He had been doing that kind of thing all of his life and didn’t see it as anything out of the ordinary.

  By the time Beatrice’s owner dismounted, Charlie was already following his mother to the family wagon. “Hurry up, Charlie,” she said. “Got to get back before your daddy finds out I took you with me. Got to finish your chores.”

  Meanwhile, Aunt Teeny’s party continued and everybody was talking about the boy who healed the horse. “That young’un has a gift from God,” someone said. “Closest thing to a miracle I’ve ever seen,” said another.

  “Guess you're feeling mighty special today,” said Charlie's mother who was pleased to see something good happening in his life.

  “Yes, mam,” beamed Charlie. “It was a good time for sure.” But Charlie wasn’t talking about the incident with the horse. His happiness was the result of seeing his old friend, Mable. He couldn’t recall ever having a conversation with anyone that was more enjoyable and then it occurred to him that he didn’t even get to tell her goodbye. He hoped that someday he would see her again.

  The distance from Mt. Clifton to the Polk farm near Conicville is about seven miles, about an hour and a half ride by horse-drawn wagon. Along the way, Charlie's sister Lizzy teased him about talking to the Shown girl.

  “Charlie's got a girlfriend,” she sang. “Charlie's got a girlfriend.”

  He ignored her feeble attempt at singing and turned his attention to his unpleasant life at the farm. “Wish I could have gone to school like the other kids,” he complained.

  “Now, Charlie we've been over this before. Your daddy needed you on the farm. You got a different kind of schooling. You already know more about farming than most.”

  “Can’t read and write,” objected Charlie. “How come the others got to go to school? And why am I the only one daddy hates? If that old man beats me one more time, I’m leaving. You know he wants me dead.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true. He told me so.”

  “Change the subject, Charlie,” she replied. You need to think happy thoughts.”

  Whenever Bill Polk went to town he tended to his business and then he got drunk which almost always led to some act of violence. Usually Charlie was on the receiving end and his only defense was to hide until the alcohol wore off. Nothing “happy” about that. But there was solace to be found in his meeting with Mable. So he thought about her sweet smile, warm hug, gentle spirit, and how comfortable he felt in her presence.

  Wedding Bells – June 1, 1910

  There were at least three daily opportunities for boarding a train in Mt. Jackson headed north or south. A trip to the nation’s capital via the Southern Railroad took less than five hours, a considerable improvement over traveling by wagon or on horseback.

  Just after seven in the morning a mother and her two-year-old child sat on a bench awaiting the ride that would alter the course of their lives.

  For nearly three years, Strathmore House had been home to Marie Johnson and the place of her employment as a private teacher for Frank Wissler III and his brother, Harold. It was the only home that her son, Silas, had ever known.

  The reason for her departure was that her services to the Wissler family were no longer needed. In the fall, her former students would be enrolled in Massanutten Academy, a boarding school in Woodstock.

  The Wisslers had come to lo
ve Marie and thought of her more as a daughter than an employee. The original plan was that she would stay through the summer but then came an announcement that would change everything. John, Jr. was engaged to be married.

  Marie loved John, wished that somehow there could be a way that the two of them could spend their lives together, but she knew that such thoughts were only a dream that could never be. An unwed mother was an unsuitable wife for a man of John, Jr.'s social status. Besides, much to her dismay, he showed no interest in anything more than a best friends relationship.

  Thanks to a very complimentary letter of recommendation from Frank Wissler, Jr. she had been hired to teach at a Beckley, West Virginia school. How she would manage to care for Silas and where they would live remained to be determined.

  Silas climbed in her lap and fell asleep as Marie's mind wandered from questions about her uncertain future to feelings of sadness as she contemplated that she may never see John, Jr. or her Strathmore friends again.

  Marie's melancholy was interrupted by someone who took a seat beside her on the bench. “Can't believe you would leave without saying goodbye.”

  “John? Oh, my goodness.”

  When John smiled, Marie began to cry.

  “Mama told me you were leaving this morning. Figured you might be here.”

  “It was just too hard for me to say goodbye. You're the best friend I've ever had.”

  “We don't have to stop being friends.”

  “Don't think your new wife will think much of me and you as best friends.”

  “Expect you're right about that. I guess that's just one more secret for you and me to keep.”

  “I'll always be grateful for all you've done for me.”

  “How's Silas handling the move?”

  “He's alright. I guess he figures if he's with his Mama everything is the way it should be. Won't be long till he starts wondering what happened to you and your family.”

  “No question he's got the best mother a child could have. He's going to be just fine, and so are you. West Virginia is about to get the best teacher they ever had.”