THE EDUCATED MERCHANT
PART I. IOWA
Thomas Akers, Rosalia Gomez, and Joseph Hatcher had been best friends all their lives.
Tom had been in love with Rosalia most of their lives.
Rosalia knew it. So did Joe.
Therefore, it might have been a very unhappy shock to Tom when, just after high school graduation, Joe asked Rosalia to marry him, and she said yes.
Certainly, it was a shock, but Tom was a philosophical type. His romance with Rosalia had been mostly in his heart and head. Joe had taken a more direct route. As far as Tom could tell, they were all still best friends. Everything was okay, and before long, Rosalia and Joe added twin girls, Gabriela and Isabella, to their family.
Joe was a blacksmith. His father had started the business, did excellent work, and was quite successful. Joe had worked with him from grade school until his father's death, then had continued on. People liked him, and liked his work.
Blacksmithing is rough, dirty work, and Joe had many cuts, bruises, and burns to show for it. The damage always healed - until one time it didn't. A deep cut became infected, led to blood poisoning, and suddenly Rosalia was a widow, with two three-year old twin daughters.
The blacksmith shop had been the family's main source of support. Tom had worked with Joe enough to keep the shop open for a while - to do the simpler things, like horse shoes and hinges - but he couldn't cover all the demand. Besides, he had his own business to run, the general store that he and his mother had kept going after Tom's father had died.
Tom suggested to Rosalia that he try to find a buyer for the business. If he could sell the whole enterprise for cash - the land and buildings, and all the equipment and supplies - it should be enough to support Rosalia and the girls for quite a few years. She agreed, and he very quickly found a buyer with cash, who wanted to keep the business going. That was a major problem solved.
But more sadness was on the way - not entirely unexpected, but Rosalia had always counted on much more time. She had known most of her life that there were problems with her heart, but it was one of those situations in which the doctors said she could "probably" live a normal life span, if she was careful and lucky. "Probably" didn't work this time, and when she began to fail, her decline progressed quickly.
She provided Tom with power of attorney over her estate. She had no debts, except those that would come about with her death and burial. Her only income was from the sale of the blacksmith business, with which Tom would continue to cover the girls' needs. Rosalia owned the small house she and Joe had bought. Hopefully, Tom could find a cash buyer for that, with the proceeds set aside for the girls. If not, he would collect rent until it could be sold.
Rosalia thanked him for making that all so easy. "You know, Tom, neither Joe nor I have any living relatives - none I know of, anyway. Even when we were very young, it was only our parents, and when they died, we had only each other. That leaves the girls with limited options. I think we are agreed that you and your mom will look after them, and take them into your home. I'm right about that, aren't I?"
"Of course, you're right."
"Thank you. I would like to ask more than that, Tom. I want my girls to have a real home and family, and I want it to be legally recognized, not subject to a later whim of some court. Could I ask you, Tom, to officially adopt them? You've always been part of our family, and they really have no one else. That would relieve me of my last worry."
Of course, he agreed, and they quickly took care of all the legal paperwork. Rosalia died a few days later.
***
Obviously, it was a sad and confusing time for Gabriela and Isabella - more familiarly known as Gabby and Bella - but Tom had always been "family," and they loved their "Grandma Akers." Both Tom and his mother worked full-time at their general store, so someone was always near for the girls. Kids are resilient, and it wasn't long before things were more or less "normal."
One day, Gabby could not be found. Tom walked all the streets in town, questioning every person he met, without success. Finally, a woman volunteered that she had seen a man and a woman stop their wagon, pick up a little girl and put her in the wagon, then drive on. Tom asked if the woman had tried to stop them, or call for help. She looked puzzled. "She was Mexican," she said.
Tom got his horse, and went looking for the wagon. He didn't have far to go. The wagon was parked by the side of the road, and a young couple with two small boys were eating lunch nearby. Gabby was sitting alone, in the back of the wagon. Tom scooped her up in his arms, hugged her tightly, then placed her in front of him on the horse. He let the horse wander to where he could look directly down on the picknickers.
"Do you come from a place where it is legal to kidnap children?" he asked, in a reasonable tone.
They were obviously surprised. "We haven't kidnapped anyone," the young man replied.
"Are you saying that my daughter climbed into your wagon all by herself?"
They noticed Gabby for the first time. "It wasn't like that. We were traveling through town, and saw this little girl all by herself. As she was Mexican, we assumed she was an orphan, and in nobody's care. My wife has always wanted a servant to help around the house...."
"It would be so lovely to have the extra help," the wife interrupted, "And she will soon be old enough to do quite a lot."
"In the first place," said Tom, "My daughter is not Mexican. She is an American, born in this country. Her mother's grandparents came from Mexico, but that was many years ago. However, it wouldn't matter if she was black, brown, red or yellow - in the United States, it is illegal to kidnap anyone to be your house slave."
"It wasn't like that!" the man protested, again.
"No? I can't see any other possible explanation or justification." He looked at the couple, and at their two little boys. "Do not come back to our town for any reason, or I'll have the sheriff arrest you. Also, I'm going to ask the sheriff and our newspaper editor to warn the towns ahead of your possible visit, and urge everyone to keep an extra careful eye on their children."
With that, Tom made sure that Gabby was securely seated in front of him, turned the horse, and headed back into town. The sheriff saw them coming.
"I see you have your daughter, Tom, but no prisoners. If you took matters into your own hands, I hope you buried the bodies deep enough that I won't ever find them and be forced to charge you with a crime."
Tom handed Gabby to the sheriff, then climbed down from the saddle. "Go on home, Gabby, and tell Bella and your grandma that I'll be there shortly." As Gabby ran off, Tom turned back to the sheriff. "No, I didn't kill anybody. If I'd had a gun and a little less self-control, it might have turned out quite differently, however. Neither man nor wife thought they had done anything wrong. The child was alone, no one looking after her. The wife was thrilled to acquire a servant to help her at home. Besides, the little girl was Mexican. Who could possibly miss her!
"They had two little boys. They're probably very good parents to their own children. I wouldn't have been able to deprive the little ones of a parent, no matter how bad."
"The fact that they didn't think they did anything wrong makes it worse, in my estimation," said the sheriff. "Did you think to bring them back for a trial?"
Tom laughed. "If it was your child, or the mayor's, a jury might have convicted. But stealing a half-breed 'Mexican,' even one they knew was mine? Our fine townspeople were never fair to Rosalia's family. Do you really think they would convict a White couple of a crime against a Mexican child?"
***
In those days, if you had asked Tom how his life was going, he would probably have replied that life was "fine." It was. He and his mother had a prosperous business. The girls were doing well, and - with a lot of help from "Grandma" - he was able to meet all their needs. He hadn't touched any of their money, and didn't intend to; that was for their futures. He was "happy," in a general way, but wasn't content. He was a merchant by default - his father's assistant in the store, and then his mother's partner, when his father's death made it necessary - but he never felt like an owner and operator of a general store. In reality, besides the girls, he was interested in only one thing - books.
He loved to read books, and devoured them like food, but he also liked to own them, and to hold them in his hands. Books were in short supply there at what he called "the end of the Earth" (western Iowa), so he acquired every volume he could lay his hands on. From "dime novels" to tomes on philosophy and religion, he collected them all. More than that, he read them all. At first, he didn't understand a great deal of what he read, but he made himself understand it, by going over and over the texts. He read for information, but he also read just to learn how to read. He loved to discover words previously unknown to him. He loved to study the various ways that authors put words together with other words, to explain new or difficult concepts. For the time and the place in which he lived, he became an expert with words.
The girls benefited greatly from his "hobby." They learned to read early, and not just the basics, but with real comprehension. He also taught them to write, first with block letters and then in cursive. Tom could write fairly legibly when he took the time (he seldom did), but both girls adopted a graceful, flowing, easily readable style, almost from the start. They were both justifiably proud of their signatures.
Tom might have remained an over-educated Iowa merchant for a long time, had not death changed his life direction one more time. His mother was not old, but Tom thought she had been growing frailer for a year or more. When she died, there was no principal cause. Her body just seemed to give out. Tom found himself full owner of a store he did not want, with two seven-year old daughters still in need of a full-time parent. He reviewed his options.
Option One: Stay where they were, doing what they had been doing. He didn't really want to be a merchant, but he knew he was good at it, and didn't really see any other local possibilities. He'd have to hire some good full-time help for the store, and would have to find someone to be with the girls while he was at work. Still, it was all doable.
He had thought that the biggest negative to staying where they were was that he was amazingly restless, wanting to be somewhere else, doing something else. That was still important, but he found himself thinking more about the girls than about himself. He knew they had already had a little trouble with schoolmates shunning them and calling them names, because they were "Mexican." Of course, they weren't Mexican. They were born in Iowa. Their mother was born in the United States, too, as were Rosalia's parents. But prejudice needs to have a name, and "Mexican" was as good as any to highlight the different look of the girls, Rosalia, and her parents. They were the only dark-skinned people in town - not dark, like a Negro - that was a different prejudice - but dark enough to be different than their neighbors. Apparently, "different" is always bad, or suspect in some way.
Tom didn't know why Rosalia's parents had originally come to town, but he was pretty sure they couldn't have found work and stayed if Tom's father hadn't provided work in the store. Rosalia had suffered some in school, but she had the full-time protection of two White boys from well-respected local families. The girls were in somewhat the same position, being Tom's daughters, but that "acceptance" was superficial. They were still the only "Mexicans" in town.
So, was there an Option Two? He couldn't see anything local - in a town without even a library! - that would employ his real "skills" and interests. The options seemed to be reduced to moving somewhere else. Where, and to do what? He quickly decided that the "where" had to be to the West. He realized that his interests might be more likely to find a home in the more "civilized" parts of the nation - in other words, East - but in most respects, he liked frontier living. He had been born in Philadelphia, but almost his entire life had been spent in western Iowa. He didn't want to go back.
A decade earlier, going west would have meant California or Oregon. There hadn't been much of anything any closer. Westward travelers still came through town every day but, after years of tens of thousands of immigrants looking for new homes or new adventures, and with a transcontinental railroad almost completed, many small communities had been established. along the westward routes. Tom didn't know much about them, and assumed that most were still pretty primitive. Nevertheless, his desire for change was so strong that even being a merchant in a new place had its appeal over staying a merchant in Iowa.
He began to make a point of talking to the westward travelers, finding out where they were headed. There was still a lot of interest in the Far West, but closer destinations were often mentioned. One area that intrigued him was along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Territory. Denver had already developed considerably, mainly due to mining interest. A little farther to the north, the Army had abandoned Fort Collins now that the Indian wars were over, but a small agricultural settlement there was attracting a steady stream of new residents. Probably there were few amenities, so far, but already in 1870 there was talk of establishing an agricultural college. That suggested to Tom that, although change might be slow to come, it might become the kind of community that eventually would be interested in his kind of learning.
He also wondered if it might prove good for his girls, because there would almost certainly be a lot more people in Colorado Territory - Indians and those with Mexican origins - with darker complexions. He knew that probably wouldn't reduce prejudice - it might even be greater, in a newly-established community of White settlers - but it might spread out the discrimination, so that the individuals were not so obviously targeted. It also might open the door to friendships for the girls not burdened with issues of "color" and difference.
All things considered, Tom thought it was time to present to the girls the idea of moving. He approached it as the necessary transition that it was. Grandma's death meant he would have to make significant new arrangements at the store, as well as getting someone for the household chores. With no relatives or particularly close friends in town, and with the girls not yet old enough to have established a lot of personal ties, it might be a very logical time for the three of them to embark on a new adventure.
He didn't expect any dissent. After all, it had always been the three of them acting in unison, but he was interested in any questions or comments they might bring up. Bella asked where they would go. He said, honestly, that he didn't know, but he told them a little about Fort Collins, as an example. That got him a general stamp of approval on a move, if that's what he thought was a good idea. As Gabby put it, why put all that effort into keeping the store working if he didn't really want to keep the store working? There was a decided logic in that.
For Tom, the question that would decide "if" and "when" was how quickly he could sell the store. He wanted to sell for cash, as they had been able to do with Rosalia's property, leaving no rent to collect or payments to arrange. When they left town, he wanted it to be a clean break.
Large amounts of cash were seldom available in frontier towns, but Tom felt this was one time when local businessmen might scramble to find it. The store was the biggest and best-stocked in the area. Also, there would be no need to pause operation between ownerships. Everything could be ready for the new proprietors to continue selling as soon as Tom walked out the door for the last time.
Before he announced he was putting the store up for sale, Tom wanted to be completely honest in what was being offered. He set aside about six months' worth of food and supplies for their own use. They gathered up their personal belongings, and Tom let the girls pick out any small pieces of furniture or other items that were particularly treasured by them. The sale would include everything left - the store itself, with the shelves close to fully stocked and more in the storeroom; the adjacent three-bedroom house where they currently lived, with all the remaining furniture and supplies; and the land on which the store and house were situated. The cash value was high. He didn't know what would be a reasonable offer, but he thought he would accept almost anything that was all cash, and that would give them enough to get comfortably settled elsewhere.
For their departure, Tom purchased a strong wagon with a billowy white "prairie schooner" top, like most of the wagons passing by. The girls loved the look of it. Even loaded with all their supplies, the contents would be fairly light and fairly compact, with plenty of room for sleeping inside.
The question of what kind of animals would be used to pull the wagon took up a fair amount of Tom's brain power. He knew that, especially for long trips with rough roads and steep hills, oxen were the easiest to handle and most dependable. Mules were very good, also, but tended to have minds of their own. (He had heard many stories from travelers about the extra time required to chase down their mules each morning.) The third choice, horses, were fine for light loads and gentle terrain, but were generally thought not to have the strength or stamina for heavy wagons and steep hills.
Tom immediately ruled out mules, as he knew absolutely nothing about handling them, and it seemed like they might provide frustration he didn't need. Oxen seemed pretty safe, but the load would be light, and Tom didn't intend to go over the mountains. Horses seemed their best bet. He had two horses of his own, he had helped Joe shoe a number of others, and he felt quite comfortable handling them. With the light wagon load, and his intent not to cross the Rocky Mountains, horses seemed adequate.. He bought two more, practiced hitching them to the wagon, and finally pronounced the Akers trio ready to travel.
As he hoped would happen, several men pooled their resources so they could offer Tom cash for the store. Tom felt their offer was quite low, but it was all cash, and gave him and the girls plenty to live on, with a good nest egg for later. He took the money, boosted Gabby and Bella up into the wagon, and soon joined a stream of wagons passing west through town. They were on their way.
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