No. 75

Chas. in 1884 en Route

Stewart King c/o

John C. Davant, Attorney

501 Cleveland St.

Clearwater Florida

December 23, 1939

Dear Stewart,

While I studied the instructions my “teacher”, Maria Parloa, your mother was pleased with my improvements. I felt a kinship with how Charles was studying, although his letters about his drills were written a decade before. I only saw Charles Brother as a confident man, on who knew his routes, letters, and regulations five times and three times blind, if required in bad weather. Faster and faster, I railed against the demands of the mansion.

May 27, 1885

Dear M--, Could not write before. Studies constant. Esther says her name is Charlotte. Insists she has delivered twins with last. Does not recognize me. Says I am not the man she married but my twin brother. Runs me out of the house when I say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Henry “sentry go” as I am not home--routes have me 8 days out, 6 days home. Boy says she is only bad when I am home. Boy just turned 10 but now a Man. He is now learning how to breed Morgans by way of a relative of Lindel. Yours--Chas.

Your mother said that this letter frustrated her very much. Charles was too busy to think about the horse breeding venture and the promise he made to Boy Henry. But as I learned of his life as a clerk—in 1895 when he rescued me and as we got to know each other over the next 15 or so years—I began to work, or want to improve, in tandem with him. It was hardly the same conditions, but I took over dreaming about the Morgans for him. From my rosary constant, I desired to fall into imagination in the most lively manner. I do not understand it but it provided some cover for me as your mother criticized my learning the domestic arts and timings.

As I washed your clothing, when you were home, I wanted so very much to wash Boy Henry’s clothing, too, and see the boy get his own horses. As I darned socks for your father, I prayed for your father and for Charles to have dry feet. Same with securing a button. It was the like the roundness of the rosary bead, rounding the world, eternally transporting me in time through our Blessed Lady, who is that astringent, who scrubs and polishes and removes deception. For a better gloss, even if my sweat again was added to it. Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: World without end, Amen.

The sewing still reminds me of my own father, years ago, before I came to live with you, after I was sent to live with him in Iowa, from the New York port authorities. This was soon after the ship incident, when I was six or seven. Well, he would take whiskey and said something to me about how my mother was being held in a whale, and God could, if he wanted to, if he was a real Man of his word, bring her back to us, spit her out, so that she could complete the mission, and do her job.

Then, when he would fell asleep, I covered his shoulders with a blanket, had to find another one for his legs. In laying on the wool over his feet, his long toenails got caught on the hole. Must I take over the mission my mother rejected? I had no time to make the case, like Boy Henry did, for any interest. When my father rejected my efforts for doing chores for him, he instead sent me to work for the saloon, where I could get free meals and boarding, and where his good friend, my employer, speaking and peaking in Old Dutch, could be a man of his word, in his language they did their trading. Even though I thought I might get some opportunities for the handicrafts and lacework, for I admired a shop across the street, I was slotted for the serving by the tables and rounded the edges that way. Until Charles Brother.

--Miss Minnie

2025 Copyright Christine Friesel