To Sail Beyond The Sunset: The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson

Chapter 5 - Exit from Eden

This is not a bad jail, as jails go. I was in a much worse one, in Texas, seventy-odd years back on my personal time line. In that one the cockroaches slugged it out with each other for a thin chance of finding a few crumbs on the floor, there was no hot water at any time, and the screws were all cousins of the sheriff. Bad as that joint was, wetbacks used to sneak across the Rio and break a window or mo in order to get themselves locked up, so they could fatten up for the winter. That says something about Mexican jails that I don't care to investigate.

Pixel comes to see me almost every day. The guards can't figure out how he does it. They all like him and he has given several of them his conditional approval. They fetch titbits in to him; he deigns to eat some of their tribute.

The warden heard about Pixel's Houdini talents, came to my cell, happened to show up when Pixel was making a call on me, tried to pet him and got nipped for his presumption not hard enough to break the skin, but the message was clear.

The warden told me (ordered me) to be sure to let him know ahead of time when Pixel went in or out; he wanted to see how Pixel managed to sneak past and not set off alarm. I told him that no mortal man or woman could predict what a cat would do next, so don't hold your breath, buster. (Guards and trustees are okay, in their place, but a warden is not my social equal. Apparently Pixel realises this.)

Dr Ridpath has been in a couple of times, to urge me to plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the court. He says that I would be certain to get no worse than a suspended sentence, if I convinced the tribunal that I was truly contrite.

I told him that I was not guilty and would rather be a cause célèbre and sell my memoirs for an outrageous sum.

He told me that I was apparently unaware that the College of Bishops had passed a law years back under which any profits arising out of a case of sacrilege went to the Church, after the fee for disposing of the body was paid. ‘Look, Maureen, I'm your friend, although you don't seem to know it. But there is nothing I or anyone can do for you if you won't co-operate.'

I thanked him and told him that I was sorry that he was disappointed in me. He said to think it over. He didn't kiss me en he left, so I conclude that he really is vexed with me.

Dagmar has been in almost daily. She doesn't try to coerce me into confessing, but what she did do last time had more effect on me than Dr Eric's reasonableness: she smuggled in a Last Friend. ‘If you are going to be stubborn about confessing, this will help. Just break off the tip and inject it anywhere. Once it takes hold - five minutes or less - even a slow fire won't hurt... not much. But for Santa Carolita's sake, ducks, don't let anyone find it!'

I'll try not to.

I would not be dictating this if I were not in jail. I don't necessarily have publication in mind, but the discipline of sorting it all out may show me where I went wrong... and that may show me how to straighten out the mess and go right.

The Battle of New Orleans was fought two weeks after the War of 1812 was over. Poor communications... But in 1898 the Atlantic Cable was in use. The news of Spain's declaration of war went from Madrid to London to New York to Chicago to Kansas City to Thebes almost with the speed of light - only the delays of retransmission. Thebes is about eight hours west of Madrid, so the Johnson family was in church when the dreadful news arrived.

The Reverend Clarence Timberly, our pastor at Cyrus Vance Parker Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, was preaching and had just finished fourthly and was digging into fifthly when someone started ringing the big bell in the county courthouse cupola.

Brother Timberly stopped preaching. ‘Let us suspend services for a few moments while the Osage Volunteers and members of the bucket brigades withdraw.'

Ten or a dozen of the younger men got up and left. Father picked up his bag and followed them. Being a doctor Father did not serve on the volunteer fire team but, being a doctor, he usually did go to fires if not actively engaged in treating a patient when the bell rang.

As soon as Father closed the church door behind him our preacher got back to work on ‘fifthly' - what it was I don't know; during sermons I always tried to looked alert and attentive, but I rarely listened.

On down Ford Street someone was shouting; he could be heard right through Brother Timberly's loud voice. Those shouts came closer.

Presently Father came back into the church. Instead of returning to his pew he walked up to the chancel rail and handed a sheet of newspaper to our pastor.

I should interject that the Lyle County Leader was a four page single sheet, printed on what was then called ‘boiler plate' - newsprint printed on one side with international and national and state news, and shipped that way to small country papers, who would then fill the inside pages with local news and local advertising. The Lyle County Leader bought ‘boiler plate' from the Kansas City Star with the Leader's own masthead printed on it.

The sheet Father handed to Brother Timberly was of that sort, with the same local stuff inside as had been in the Leader's weekly edition dated Thursday, 21 April 1898, except that the upper half of page two had been reset in large type with one short news story:

SPAIN DECLARES WAR!!!

By wire from the New York journal April Z4 Madrid - Today our Ambassador was summoned to the office of the Premier and was handed his passport and a curt note stating that the ‘crimes' of the United States against His Most Catholic Majesty have forced His Majesty's government to recognise that a state of war exists between the Kingdom of Spain and...

Reverend Timberly read that one news story aloud from the pulpit, put the paper down, looked solemnly at us, took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow, then blew his nose. He said hoarsely, ‘Let us pray.'

Father stood up, the rest of the congregation followed. Brother Timberly asked Lord God Jehovah to lead us in this time of peril. He asked Divine guidance for President McKinley. He asked the Lord's help for all our brave men on land and sea who now must fight for the preservation of this sacred, God-given land. He asked mercy for the souls of those who would fall in battle, and consolation and help in drying the tears of widows and orphans and of the fathers and mothers of our young heroes destined to die in battle. He asked that right prevail for a speedy end to this conflict. He asked for help for our friends and neighbours, the unfortunate people of Cuba, oppressed for so long by the iron heel of the King of Spain. And more, about twenty minutes of it.

Father had long since cured me of any belief in the Apostles' Creed. In its place I held a deep suspicion, planted by Professor Huxley and nurtured by Father, that no such person as Jesus of Nazareth had ever lived.

As for Brother Timberly, I regarded him as two yards of noise, with his cracks filled with unction. Like many preachers in the Bible Belt, he was a farm boy with (I strongly suspected) a distaste for real work.

I did not and do not believe in a God up there in the sky listening to Brother Timberly's words.

Yet I found myself saying ‘Amen!' to his every word, while tears streamed down my cheeks.

At this point I must drag out my soap box.

In the twentieth century Gregorian, in the United States of America, something called ‘revisionist history' became popular among ‘intellectuals'. Revisionism appears to have been based on the notion that the living actors present on the spot never understood what they were doing or why, or how they were being manipulated, being mere puppets in the hands of unseen evil forces.

This may be true. I don't know.

But why are the people of the United States and their government always the villains in the eyes of the Revisionists? Why can't our enemies - such as the King of Spain, and the Kaiser, and Hitler, and Geronimo, and Villa, and Sandino, and Mao Tse-Tung, and Jefferson Davis - why can't these each take a turn in the pillory? Why is it always our turn?

I am well aware that the Revisionists maintain that William Randolph Hearst created the Spanish-American War to increase the circulation of his newspapers. I know, too, that various scholars and experts later asserted that the USS Maine, at dock in Havana harbour, was blown up (with the loss of 226 American lives) by faceless villains whose purpose was to make Spain look bad and thereby to prepare the American people to accept a declaration of war against Spain.

Now look carefully at what I said. I said that I know that these things are asserted. I did not say that they are true.

It is unquestionably true that the United States, acting officially, was rude to the Spanish government concerning Spain's oppression of the Cuban people. It is also true that William Randolph Hearst used his newspapers to say any number of unpleasant things about the Spanish government. But Hearst was not the United States and he had no guns and no ships and no authority. What he did have was a loud voice and no respect for tyrants. Tyrants bate people like that.

Somehow those masochistic revisionists have turned the War of 1898 into a case of imperialistic aggression by the United States. How an imperialist war could result in the freeing of Cuba and the Philippines is never made clear. But revisionism always starts with the assumption that the United States is the villain. Once the revisionist historian proves this assumption (usually by circular logic) he is granted his Ph.D. and is well on his way to a Nobel peace prize.

In April 1898, to us benighted country people certain simple facts were true. Our battleship Maine had been destroyed, with great loss of life. Spain had declared war on us. The President had asked for volunteers.

The next day, Monday 25 April, came the President's call asking the state militias to furnish one hundred and twenty- five thousand volunteers to augment our almost-nonexistent army. That morning Tom had ridden over to Butler Academy as usual. The news reached him there and he came trotting back at noon, his roan gelding Beau Brummel in a lather. He asked Frank to wipe Beau down for him and hurried into the house, there to disappear into the clinic with Father.

They came out in about ten minutes. Father told Mother, ‘Madam, our son Tom is about to enlist in the service of his country. He and I will be leaving for Springfield at once. I must go with him in order to swear that he is eighteen years old and has parental approval.'

‘But he is not eighteen!'

‘That is why I must go with him. Where is Frank? I want him to hitch Loafer.'

‘I'll hitch him, Father,' I put in. ‘Frank just now left for school, in a rush. He was a bit late.' (Tending Beau had made Frank late, but it wasn't necessary to say so.)

Father looked worried. I insisted, ‘Loafer knows me, sir; he would never hurt me.'

I had just returned to the house when I saw Father standing at the new telephone instrument, which hung in the hallway we used as a waiting-room for patients. Father was saying, ‘Yes... yes, I understand... Good luck, sir, and God speed. I will tell her. Goodbye.' He took the receiver away from his ear, stared at it, then remembered to hang it up.

He looked at me. ‘That was for you, Maureen.'

‘For me?' I had never had a telephone call.

‘Yes. Your young man, Brian Smith. He asks you to forgive him but he will not be able to call on you next Sunday. He is catching a train for St Louis at once in order to return to Cincinnati, where he will be enlisting in the Ohio State Militia. He asks to be permitted to call on you again as soon as the war is over. Acting for you, I agreed to that.'

‘Oh.' I felt an aching tight place under my wishbone and I had trouble breathing. ‘Thank you, Father. Uh... could you show me how to call him, call Rolla I suppose I mean, and speak to Mr Smith myself?'

Mother interrupted. ‘Maureen!'

I turned to face her. ‘Mother, I am not being forward, or unladylike. This is a very special circumstance. Mr Smith is going off to fight for us. I simply wish to tell him that I will pray for him every night while he is gone.'

Mother looked at me, then said gently, ‘Yes, Maureen. If you are able to speak to him, please tell him that I shall pray for him, too. Every night'

Father cleared his throat, loudly. ‘Ladies -‘

‘Yes, Doctor?' Mother answered.

‘The matter is academic. Mr Smith told me that he could talk only a few moments because there was a long line of students waiting to use the telephone. Similar messages, I assume. So there is no use in trying to reach him; the telephone wire will be in use... and he will be gone. Which in no way keeps you two ladies from praying for his safety. Maureen, you can tell him so in a letter.'

‘But I don't know how to write to him!'

‘Use your head, daughter. You know at least three ways.'

‘Doctor Johnson, please.' Mother then said gently, to me, ‘Judge Sperling will know.'

‘Judge Sperling. Oh!'

‘Yes, dear. Judge Sperling always knows where each of us is.'

A few minutes later we all kissed Tom goodbye, and Father also, while we were about it, although he was coming back... and, so he assured us, it was extremely likely that Tom would be back - sworn in, then told what day to return for duty, as it was most unlikely that the state militia could accept a thousand or more new bodies all on the same day.

They drove off. Beth was crying quietly. Lucille was not - I don't think she understood any of it - but was solemn and round-eyed. Mother did not cry and neither did I... not then. But Mother went upstairs and closed her door... and so did I. I now had a room to myself, ever since Agnes married, so I threw the latch and lay down and let myself cry.

I tried to tell myself that I was crying over my brother, Thomas. But I knew better; it was Mr Smith who was causing that ache in my heart.

I wished, with all my soul, that I had not caused him to use a French purse in making love to me a week earlier. I had been tempted - I knew, I was certain, that it would be ever so much nicer just to forget that rubber sheath and be bare to him, inside and out.

But I had told Father solemnly that I would always use a sheath... until the day when, after sober discussion with the man concerned, I omitted it for the purpose of becoming pregnant... under a mutual firm intention of marrying if we succeeded.

And now he was going off to war... and I might never see, him again.

I dried my eyes and got up and took down a little volume: of verse, Professor Palgrave's ‘Golden Treasury'. Mother had given it to me on my twelfth birthday, and it had been given to her on her twelfth birthday, in 1866.

Professor Palgrave had found two hundred and eighty-eight lyrics which were fine enough, in his exquisite taste, for his treasury. That day I wanted just one: Richard Lovelace's To Lucasta, On Going To The Wars':

- I could not love thee, Dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.

Then I cried some more, and after a while I slept. When I woke up, I got up and did not let myself cry again. Instead I slipped a note under Mother's door, telling her that I would get supper for all of us by myself... and she could have supper in bed if it pleased her to do so.

She let me cook supper but she came down and presided and, for the first time, Frank seated Mother and sat opposite her. She looked at me. ‘Maureen, will you return thanks?'

‘Yes, Mother. Dear Lord, we thank nee for that which we are about to partake. Please bless this food to our use and bless all our brothers and sisters in Jesus everywhere, both known to us and unknown.' I gulped and added, ‘And on this day we ask a special blessing for our beloved brother, Thomas Jefferson, and for all other young men who have gone to serve our beloved country.' (Et je prie que le bon Dieu garde bien mon ami!) ‘In Jesus Name. Amen.'

‘Amen,' Mother said firmly. ‘Franklin, will you carve?'

Father and Tom returned the next day, late in the afternoon.

Beth and Lucille threw themselves on Tom and Father, and I wanted to, but could not, as I was carrying George and he had picked that moment to wet a nappy. But I just held him and let him wait, so that I wouldn't miss any news - a spare nappy under him; I knew George. That baby peed more than all the rest put together.

Beth demanded, ‘Did you do it, Tommy, did you do it, did you do it, did you?'

‘Of course he did,' Father answered. ‘He's Private Johnson now; next week he'll be a general.'

‘He will?'

‘Well, maybe not that fast' Father stopped to kiss Lucile and Beth. ‘But they do promote them fast in wartime. Take me, for example. I'm a captain:

‘Doctor Johnson!'

Father straightened up. ‘Captain Johnson, Madam. Both of us enlisted. I am now Acting Surgeon, Medical Detachment, Second Missouri Regiment, with assigned rank of captain.'

At this point I ought to say something about the families of my parents, especially Father's brothers and sisters, as what happened that week in April 1898 in Thebes had its roots a century earlier.

Father's grandparents were:

George Edward Johnson (1795-1897) and Amanda Lou Fredericks johnson (1798-1899);

Terence McFee (1796-1900) and Rose Wilhelmina Brandt McFee (1798-1899).

Both George Johnson and Terence McFee served in the War of 1812.

Father's parents were:

Asa Edward Johnson (1813-1918) and Rose Altheda McFee Johnson (1814-1918).

Asa johnson served in the War with Mexico, a sergeant in the Illinois Militia.

Mother's grandparents were:

Robert Pfeiffer (1809-1909) and Heidi Schmidt Pfeiffer (1810-1913);

Ole Larsen (1805-1809) and Anna Kristina H Larsen (1810-1912);

and her parents were:

Richard Pfeiffer (1830-1932) and Kristina Larsen Pfeifer (1834-1940)

Father was born on his grandfather Johnson's farm in Minnesota, in Freeborn County, near Albert, on Monday August 1852, the youngest of four boys and three girls. His grandfather George Edward Johnson (my great-grandfather) was born in 1795, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He died in a nursing home in Minneapolis in December 1897, and newspapers made a to-do over the fact that George Washington was still alive when he was born. (We had nothing to with this publicity. While I was not aware of the policy until I was married, even at that time Howard Foundation family avoided public mention of ages.)

George Edward Johnson married Amanda Lou Fredericks (1798-1899) in 1813 and took her to Illinois, where she had her first child, Asa Edward Johnson, my grandfather, that same year. It seems likely that Grampaw Acey was the sort of ‘premature' baby as my eldest brother, Edward. After the war with Mexico the Johnson family migrated west homesteaded in Minnesota.

There was no Howard Foundation in those days, but all my ancestors appeared to have started breeding young, had lots of children, were healthy despite the uncontrolled diseases of those times, and lived long lives, mostly to hundred and more.

Asa Edward johnson (1813-1918) married Rose Alth McFee (1814-1918) in 1831. They had seven children:

1. Samantha Jane Johnson 1831-1915 (died injuries suffered while breaking a horse.)

2. James Ewing Johnson 1833-1884 (killed attempting to ford the Osage during spring flood. I bare remember him. He married Aunt Carole Pelletier of New Orleans.)

3. Walter Raleigh Johnson 1838-1862 (killed at Shiloh.)

4. Alice Irene Johnson 1840-? (I don't know what became of Aunt Alice. She married back east.)

5. Edward McFee Johnson 1844-1884 (killed in a train wreck.)

6. Aurora Johnson 1850-? (last heard of in California circa 1930. Married several times.)

7 Ira Johnson 2 August 1852-1941 (reported missing in the Battle of Britain.)

When Fort Sumter fell in April 1861, Mr Lincoln asked for volunteers from the militias of the several states (just as Mr McKinley would do in a later April). On the Johnson farm in Freeborn County, Minnesota, the call was answered by Ewing (28), Walter (23), Edward (17)- and Grampaw Acey, at that time forty-eight years old, thus producing a situation that utterly humiliated Ira Johnson, nine years old and a grown man in his own estimation. He was going to be left home to do chores, while all the other men went to war. His sister Samantha (whose, husband had volunteered) and his mother would run the farm.

Small comfort to him that his father returned home almost at once, turned down for something, I do not know what.

Father endured this humiliation for three long years... and at twelve ran away from home to enlist as a drummer boy.

He found his way down the Mississippi on a barge, managed to locate the encampment of the 2^nd Minnesota before it joined Sherman's drive to the sea. His cousin Jules vouched for him and he was tentatively accepted (subject to training; he knew nothing of drums, or of bugles) and was assigned quarters and rations with headquarters company.

Then his father showed up and fetched him home.

So Father's service in the War was about three weeks and he was never in combat. He was not credited even with those three weeks... as he learned to his dismay when he attempted to join the Union veterans organisation, the Grand Army of the Republic.

There was no record of his service, as the regimental adjutant had ‘discharged' him and let Grampaw Acey take him home simply by destroying the paper work.

I think it is necessary to assume that Father was marked life.

During the nine days that Father and Tom waited at home before they could be inducted into army life I saw no indication that Mother disapproved (other than her first expression of surprise). But she never smiled. One could the tension between our parents... but they did not let it be seen.

Father did say something to me that, I think, had bearing on this tension. We were in his clinic and I was helping him to thin out and update his patients records so that he could turn them over to Dr Chadwick for duration of the war. He said to me, ‘Why no smiles, Turkey Egg? Worried about your young man?'

‘No,' I lied. ‘He had to go; I know that. But I wish you weren't going. Selfish, I guess. But I'll miss you, cher papa.'

‘I'll miss you, too. All of you.' He was silent for several minutes, then he added, ‘Maureen, someday you may faced - will be faced, I think - with the same thing: your husband going off to war. Some people say - I've heard talke that married men should not go. Because of their families.

‘But this involves a contradiction, a fatal one. The family man dare not hang back and expect the bachelor to do fighting for him. It is manifestly unfair for me to expect a bachelor to die for my children if I am unwilling to die for them myself. Enough of that attitude on the part of married men and the bachelor will refuse to fight if the married man stays safe at home... and the Republic is doomed. The barbarian will walk in unopposed.'

Father looked at me - looked worried. ‘Do you see?' I think he was honestly seeking my opinion, my approval.

‘I - ‘I stopped and sighed. ‘Father, I think I see. But at times like these I am forced to realise that I am not very experienced. I just want this war to be over so that you can come home and Tom will come home... and -‘

‘And Brian Smith? I agree.'

‘Well, yes. But I was thinking of Chuck, too. Chuck Perkins.'

‘Chuck is going? Good lad!'

‘Yes, he told me today. His father has agreed and is going to Joplin with him tomorrow.' I sniffed back a tear. ‘I don't love Chuck but I do feel sort of sentimental about him.'

‘That's understandable.'

Later that day I let Chuck take me up on Marston Hill and defied chiggers and Mrs Grundy and told Chuck I was proud of him and demonstrated it the very best I knew how. (I did use a sheath; I had promised Father.) And an amazing thing happened. I had gone up there simply intending to run through some female calesthenics to demonstrate to Chuck that I was proud of him and appreciated his willingness to fight for us. And the miracle happened. Fireworks, big ones! I got all blurry and my eyes squinched shut and I found I was making loud noises.

And about half an hour later the miracle happened again. Amazing!

Chuck and his father caught the eight-oh-six out of Butler the next morning and were back that same afternoon - Chuck sworn in and assigned to the same company (C company, 2^nd regiment) Tom was in, and with similar delay time. So Chuck and I went to another (fairly) safe spot, and I told him goodbye again, and again the miracle overtook me.

No, I did not decide I was in love with him, after all. Enough men had had me by then that I was not inclined to mistake a hearty orgasm for eternal love. But it was nice that they happened since I intended to tell Chuck goodbye as often and as emphatically as possible, come what may. And did, right up to the day, a week later, when it really was goodbye.

Chuck never came back. No, he was not killed in action; he never got out of Chickamauga Park, Georgia. It was the fever, whether malaria or yellow jack, I'm not sure. Or it could have been typhoid. Five times as many died of the fevers as were lost in combat. They are heroes, too. Well, aren't they? They volunteered; they were willing to fight... and they wouldn't have caught the fever if they had hung back, refused to answer the call.

I've got to drag out that soap box again. All during the twentieth century I've run into people who have either never heard of the War of 1898, or they belittle it. ‘Oh, you mean that one. That wasn't a real war, just a skirmish. What happened? Did he stub his toe, running back down San Juan hill?'

(I should have killed them! I did throw an extra dry martini into the eyes of one man who talked that way.)

Casualties are just as heavy in one war as in another... because death comes just once to the customer.

And besides... In the summer of 1898 we did not know that the war would be over quickly. The United States was not a superpower; the United States was not a world power of any sort... whereas Spain was still a great empire. For all we knew our men might be gone for years... or not come back. The bloody tragedy of 1861-65 was all we had to go by, and that had started just like this one, with the President calling for a few militiamen. My elders tell me that no one dreamed that the rebel states, half as big and less than half as populous and totally lacking in the heavy industry on which modern war rests - no sensible person dreamed that they could hold out for four long, dreary, death-laden years.

With that behind us, we did not assume that beating Spain would be easy or quick; we just prayed that our men would come back... some day.

The day came, 5 May, when our men left... on a special troop train, down from Kansas City, a swing over to Springfield, then up to St Louis, and east - destination Georgia. All of us went over to Butler, Mother and Father in the lead, in his buggy, drawn by Loafer, while the rest of us followed in the surrey, ordinarily used only on Sundays, with Tom driving Daisy and Beau. The train pulled in, and we made hurried goodbyes as they were already shouting ‘All abo... ard!' Father turned Loafer over to Frank, and I inherited the surrey with the gentle team.

They didn't actually pull out all that quickly; baggage and freight had to be loaded as well as soldiers. There was a flat car in the middle of the train, with a brass band on it, supplied by the 3^rd regiment (Kansas City) and it played all the time the train was stopped, a military medley.

They played ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory...' and segued right into ‘I wish I was in de land of cotton' and from that into ‘Tenting tonight, tenting tonight' and ‘- stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni!' Then they played ‘In my prison cel I sit' and the engine gave a toot and the train started to move, and the band scrambled to get off the flat car into the coach next to it, and the man with the tuba had to be helped.

And we started home and I was still hearing ‘Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching' and that tragic first line, In my prison cell I sit...' Somebody told me later that the man who wrote that knew nothing about it, because wartime prison camps don't have anything as luxurious as cells. He cited Andersonville.

As may be, it was enough to make my eyes blur up and I couldn't see. But that didn't matter; Beau Brummel and Daisy needed no help from me. Just leave the reins slack and they would take us home. And they did.

I helped Frank unharness both rigs, then went in and upstairs. Mother came to my room just as I closed the door, and tapped on it. I opened it.

‘Yes, Mother?'

‘Maureen, your Golden Treasury - May I borrow it?'

‘Certainly. ‘I went and got it; it was under my pillow. I handed it to her. ‘It's number eighty-three, Mother, on page sixty.'

She looked surprised, then thumbed the pages. ‘So it is,' she agreed, then looked up. ‘We must be brave, dear.'

‘Yes, Mother. We must.'

Speaking of prison cells, Pixel has just arrived in mine, with a present for me. A mouse. A dead mouse. Still warm. He is so pleased with himself and clearly he expects me to eat it. He is waiting for me to eat it.

How am I going to get out of this?