No. 88

Casting Lots in 1896

Stewart King c/o

John C. Davant, Attorney

501 Cleveland St.

Clearwater Florida

January 31, 1938

Dear Stewart,

Another letter from your attorney. It is finished! This is farewell. Thank you again for this lovely house.

Weeks ago, in my letter about the horses in Kanona, about the spring of 1896, and of how, if I promised not to tell, then why did you treat me so badly, etc., well, that letter disturbed me and caused me to regret that it was mailed. As I dropped it in the mailbox, I turned and something said to me, “If I died for your sins, then why did you sin again?”

Some thing? Some tool!?

I turned around and found not one thing there, of course, but my hard heart. And with this my final telling and farewell to you, my son. It is as if I do not want to start a new year, and I keep postponing my sobriety, our separation, but the calendar turned despite my imagination and despite you leaving us for good despite my praying. So it is, the Goodness of the Lord.

Taking you back now to our last night in Kanona, New York, on the one-year anniversary with your family, in May of 1896. There was a nice dance for us at the hotel. You joined us and found some young ladies, some students of Carrie's, to show you some steps and the other way around. I only danced with Charles, of course, and wore a fancy dress from your mother's old closet. I attended to your mother as much as she would let me, which was hardly ever now that we were with an audience, and that served me just as well, for we were quite sick of each other by this point.

Taking you back to where you do not want to go, my indulgence. Nevertheless, my reparations tour must go on.

Even though the dress I wore was too fancy for the long ride back to Iowa, I had to wear it on the train for the rush out of the hotel in the morning because my uniform dress did not make it onto the line and was not dry in time. I left it there, in the hotel, because I hated it and I decided that if anyone had a problem with it, then I would say I forgot it. Or blame your mother, which was becoming a handy switch for me.

As we boarded the train, we all complained of sick stomachs and wondered if we might have been poisoned by some bad preparations. As we pulled out of the station and let the air hit us a bit, we thought we were going to be just fine, but the train slowed down to a crawl and then air stopped moving, and then our stomachs started moving. First yours, which landed on my arm, and then your mother's which landed on my lap. Since our company was upset, rightly so, and since the train was going slow, I fled outside and stood on the coupler bridge, gripping the railing as it was my turn to vomit.

But then the train started to move faster, and I found myself unable to put up with the elements, the moving scenery, my wet dress, and the taste in my mouth. All I could do was to hold on and rock and wait for more pieces of me to be deposited. And it came out, my emptiness.

I did not want to go back to my seat. That seat. I did not want to look at you two. I did not want to go back to Clinton. I thought about waiting for the train to stop and then I would escape. But I could not find a nicer family. I knew this for a fact.

In a fit of anger, I removed my skirt. I held it out and let it flap away. My pantaloons were still covered by a thin linen skirt, which would be enough. I thought now that the silk top did not match my style. It was too confining. So, I removed it and tossed that, too. This exposing my chest to near scandal, revealing my rosary, which was swinging as I rocked with the train cars.

As I made the disconnect, unbinding myself to this outfit, this fitting, I looked out as we flew by the hills and valleys of greenery for a long time. It was lovely, but it had nothing to do with me. It was going in the other direction. I was stuck in this grip on grim, metal, and industry. I felt like a tool, some gear, because I believed I was a utility. I needed to flip a switch, or take something, to solve a problem, to make it go away.

What is this thing? This “IT”?

Then, I remembered something that your uncle Charles told me the night before, when we ended our evening in Kanona. He was walking out to say goodbye. We passed several gambling tables at the hotel and he said he used to do that, a bit, toss his coins to get a brief moment of lift, but was cured of it during the war, when he was at sea, and looked straight at the thing.

It was after he was in the Battle of Mobile Bay. He was on the deck in that heat. They called it Farragut's Ball, but it was no dance.

Charles said, "They cast lots for my clothing... Jesus knew they would cast lots for his clothing."

After the battle, they were in the process of sending away the dead bodies, or buckets of flesh as they mushed fragments into the buckets, the officers allowed the victim's blankets and things to be divided. Even their half-filled diaries.

Charles quoted from one of the Scriptures, "Let's throw dice." Or "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." And so Charles turned his back on the bidding then and he did forever after, binding himself to our Lord, he said, and he would no longer be attached to anything like that. Not even me? We would have to be different now, I knew it, after that last dance, because he was moving to be closer to Boy Henry, He wanted to get to see him, his stock trading, and the horses, as much as he could. And there was nothing now pulling him to Clinton. And there was not enough to bind him to me.

That was my memory, as I stood there on the back of our train car, barely hanging on there on the bridge over the coupler, this iron fist that connected the cars. I looked down and saw I was very close to the edge. I scooted back but still held on and looked out. I felt that I was in the middle of a decade on the rosary, on a stop in the life of Christ, or a trial of Mary, perhaps, or a chapter in the life of Charles Brother, or my stop. What could I stop doing and make a conversion if I but stopped?

And as I rocked back and forth on that edge in my undergarments, I swung into that pattern again of dancing or walking or swinging or folding clothing with Charles, the back-and-forth swing, and slow visiting and stride that was the end of the happiest year of my life, and me at rock bottom. It was the year of my rescue, but here I was still attached to my old way. I imagined that dress flying into a tree, binding to a branch or crown of thorns, or wrapping itself around a telegraph pole, but I did not want the dress, I wanted the cross.

Stewart, if you are out there, know that I pray for you every day, as a bride prays for the firefighter and his friends, who promise to have his back according to a set style, of course, regulations and protocols and standards, of course, their culture must be universal, agreeable and light and ready. But most of all, sober and looking straight at the thing. Turn your back, Stewart, well, wait a moment, Oh! praise God, I see my prayers are answered, Yes, My Lord, Yes, I guess you have, in your style, looked straight at the thing. As I turn away then and as I do now, from that blinding, foolish imagination that I could have ever been your better mother, because you had one already. And she didn't want to do it.

Even if I did want to do it, it was wrong. I knew it was wrong to lecture you this way, but did it anyway, but that dress is gone. And I wanted to tell you how and why and when I tossed out the dress for my showing off.

I thought it would get better for us, by me being around. And in my staying, I looked at the thing and, over time, stopped wanting to be rescued, as if our Lord had not come and did what He did. And in your leaving, you kept me with it, forcing me into the caregiving, which was awful until it was, like a Morgan, stepping up and pacing, like one holds a bead, like a turning of a set of beads. I could not have cast a better lot in life. It was good of you to run and never look back. It was good of me to stay. It was good of her to mourn, kick, and throw flour all over the kitchen and whatnot. It made no difference what she did. It made no difference at all. Win or lose, I was not going anywhere.

--Miss Minnie

Copyright 2025 Christine Friesel