The door opened, the girl’s feet whispered across the floor. She bent, set a tray on the small table. “Thank you, my dear.” She nodded, touched the man’s shoulder, smiled at Ransom, left the room. He looked down. There were two cups, a plate under each, two silver spoons, a bowl of sugar, a tiny pitcher of heavy cream, two cloths. The Judge leaned forward, grunting at the discomfort to his leg, motioned to the cream and sugar. “Here’s the way it is, Mr. Clark. May not seem like it but judging other men is harder work than you might think. Been at it a long time. Got to do something to clear my mind when I’m not on the bench.” He looked toward the fire, nodded to himself. “My heart, too. Can’t listen to people’s problems day after day, year after year, decide who’s right, who’s wrong, and not get beaten down sometimes. Got to get my mind on other things, things that are not based on human troubles.” He paused, staring into the fire. “Like horses.” He turned his head, looked directly at Ransom. “I raise horses, Mr. Clark.” He took a sip of coffee, touched his lips with one of the cloths, leaned back in his chair holding the cup in his lap with both hands.
“Geneseo is a small town, Mr. Clark. Hard to live in a small town and not know something about most everyone in the vicinity. Particularly if you have been entrusted by the people of the community to judge the problems that sometimes come up. Of course I’ve had occasion to deal with your father Benjamin and several of your brothers.” He paused, glanced toward the fire, back. “I’m glad to acknowledge that you have never had call to be in my courtroom. No, I know of you from farmers, farriers, the blacksmith shop, the general store, and you are held in some regard, I’m pleased to say. Hatfield for one says you plow a straight furrow, that you’re a man to be trusted to do your best, and that your best, with animals, equipment, tools, is very good indeed. In short, from what I’ve heard, you are the sort of young man I would like to help me with my horses. If you would consider coming with me regularly, I offer you two dollars a week and found.”
Ransom gave an imperceptible nod. He was right. This man and his daughter, were from another world. He could not remember that Benjamin had ever given him to understand by word or deed that he was worthy of consideration, certainly not of affection. His father’s half-starved hounds fared better than his children. No deed, no word of Ransom’s had ever brought a smile or a nod from old Benjamin. Until he had left home, worked for other men, Ransom had never had reason to think that his existence meant any more to the world than the life of a dog. Now he hardly knew what to make of this startling appraisal, the offer of pay. For eighteen years he had lived with a man whose opinion he had rarely thought to question, had not thought his father’s brutal ways unusual. He had believed that no man would value him except for how long he could work, how much he could lift. Yet ignorant as he was of the world outside Livingston County, he knew that opportunity rarely knocked twice, nor waited over long after knocking before moving on. Whatever world the judge and his daughter lived in, it was a far better world than the one he knew.
“Yes, sir. When do I start?”
3
Ransom Clark stayed in the employ of Judge French for two years and two months. When he left for the army in the spring of 1833, he looked much as he had when the judge had brought him in. A closer look would have revealed subtle changes, however. He was cleaner, stood taller. Though he spoke rarely, he spoke well. The profanity of earlier years, which he had learned so well from Benjamin, was heard only in moments of extremity, and never when the judge or his daughter was near. The changes that Ransom had undergone were principally internal. From an ignorant country boy he had become a moderately well-read young man.
The judge had not intended to hire a laborer, a boy to muck out the stables, but a man who could learn in time to handle horses, to learn at least the rudiments of the business of horses. To understand the business of horses, or any other for that matter, the judge said, he must have some knowledge of the world, the fundamentals of developing a product, whether it was horses, crops, printing, or buggy-making, and how and why and when to buy or sell. On these things a man made or lost his money, in some cases his life. The surest way to that world was experience and reading. It was evident that the young man knew his letters. The judge thought he saw in Ransom a man in his youth, ignorant but intelligent, unskilled but strong, a young man who would rest but never quit. As it turned out, he was right.
In less than a year Ransom had learned all the judge knew about horses, and more. He could ride as though he were a part of the animal, whether in a walk, step, canter, trot, or gallop. On occasion the judge, while watching him run a fine horse, had heard cries come down the wind, curses in all probability, sounds made by a man in the awakening realization of his own power, his youth, his ability. The judge, on his feet now but using a cane, smiled. Joie de vivre, indeed.
Nor was his subtle training all physical. Eunice Luceba French, the judge’s daughter, had seen to that. Her mother was an invalid, her life’s strength having gone into the creation of ten children, of whom Eunice was the oldest. With the help of a hired girl barely older than herself she had taken over the management of their home. Like Ransom, she was twenty years old. When her responsibilities allowed, she played the piano, sang, and read.
Four months after Ransom started work, the judge had offered him the room over the single stable at the rear of their lot. It was clean, dry, and secure. With a wash basin, a rope bed, and a lamp, Ransom began to understand what it meant to have more than shelter, to have a home. While Lucy, as her father called her, never entered his room and he only rarely had entered their home again, she had begun to take small chores to the back porch, sitting in a rocker, shelling peas, sewing, sometimes reading, when he came to the steps on Saturday afternoons for his pay.
The first time, after he and the judge had settled their business, as Ransom had nodded to her, turned to go, she had spoken. “Mr. Clark?” He had turned, looked directly at her. “Ma’am?” He was in no way bold, but he was direct. For an instant she had found herself at a loss, though she had set her mind at a question. She looked down, then back at his hazel eyes, his slightly raised brows. He stood straight, arms at his sides. He didn’t fidget. He stood immobile, waiting. “Do you read?”
The job with Judge French had been reason enough to stay, Lucy had become the reason to strive. He had come to sense that she was a doorway to a world he had not known existed, a doorway though which even he might pass. Finally she became the reason that he must go.
It had begun with her reading aloud a piece or two from the newspaper while he sat, transfixed, on the step. The reading led to talk, the talk to more reading. An hour here, an hour there. She had not only attended the common school but had completed the course of instruction at the Livingston County High School. She read newspapers, she had even read her father’s law books. She had learned to read and speak in the French language, a liquid, sensual sound. He asked her to read in the French and gradually he had picked up a word here and there, alphabet, numbers. She and her father talked, she said. Really talked. He told her of cases that had come before him, told her of the accused and the accuser, the reasons. She fairly glowed with knowledge. Within a year Ransom came to the steps whenever he was free and she was there, following her words like a plant follows the sun. She loaned him books. She opened his eyes. She lifted his heart. He had lived for nineteen years imagining that, except for his mother, he was alone against the world; it cared nothing for him and he sought nothing from it except survival. The cares and concerns of others were nothing to him, only survival. He had once seen in his path a butterfly, unsuccessful in shedding its cocoon, wings glued together, dragging itself along the ground, crippled, doomed, but driven to live. Now, with Lucy, his wings were coming free.
The hours with her were gold, the rest were lead. He had come to believe she was an angel, a miracle. She had laughed. “Oh no, Mr. Clark. I am not a miracle, or if I am, then everyone is a miracle.” She was no longer laughing. “I believe that every woman, and man, and child, is a miracle. Whoever we are, wherever we live, whatever our race or nation, we are each unique.” She drew a breath. “No one of us has ever lived before. We will never live again. Thousands of people over thousands of years had to have met just when they did, had children just when they did, for you, for me, to be here. Do you understand?” She paused, leaning slightly toward him, holding her small