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| Old Wichita newspaper office and print store. |
(for Kenzie)
She was a doll.
More so than the most treasured beauty dotting a Victorian girl's toy shelf, that precious figure, miniature dress of the finest, soft cloth, eyes of glass and with a deep blue gaping that would draw your moral soul into a sea of life that never ends. Eyes that, like the most delicate of hands, would clasp time for you, keeping it still and in safe-keeping. Such a figure, possibly from the farthest seas of the orient -- a little monument of wood, metal, paper and china, never able to match ---
"So what do you think, Little Girl? Wanna go inside the schoolhouse?" I asked my daughter, Gabby.
My daughter always loves going inside the old school building at Wichita's Old Cowtown Museum. She loves sitting behind the oak desk in center stage before a blackboard filled with white chalked representations of the alphabet, set in the most self-assured calligraphy of the Victorian Age. On the board, there is arithmetic and at the tip-top, sterling portraits of the presidents from George Washington through Rutherford B. Hays.
Bonnet falling over her eyes as she leaps sprightly from her chair, she grabs a McGuffey's reader and talks to the empty bleachers, pretending rows of 1870s children are seated in them, slates in their laps.
Gabby loves playing teacher, loves pulling the chord that rings the school bell and signals class to be in session. That's what she loves -- the play.
I want to make sure she likes it here. After all, her brother, Max, didn't want to come. Doesn't like dressing up. Not like at Halloween when you get candy for doing it. But Gabby's all for it. She and I sampled clothes in the Old Cowtown Museum wardrobe, searching for the right look and the right fit, which is sometimes elusive.
"I can hem this up at home tonight," my friend Jacky says, standing with a strip of measuring tape over Gabby's slight frame. You gotta appreciate Jacky and all she does for that place. She's really the face of the museum.
Jacky assures me that Gabby's dress will be ready for the 4th of July 1876 centennial-style celebration Saturday. That morning, I will lace up and tie in double knots the strings going up the long black boots she will wear over black stockings. I'll be in my bowler hat, suspenders and with my vest completely fastened as men of a more flowery era would never bare their cotton shirts before the public.
They came-a-beatin' and stompin' with the vibrant kick of righteous indignation. A group of fine Christian woman clothed respectfully from their necks to their ankles called to the masses and marched onward, led by a pious man wearing a frock coat and tall black hat, King James Bible clutched like a cast iron hook.
"We gotta go, Gabby," I tell my girl. "They're having a temperance rally. They're gonna talk about how bad alcohol is, how it's from the devil and all. It'll be funny."
Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,
Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve...
Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves,
"C'mon Gabby, I say. They're singing and crap, this rocks, little girl, we gotta join 'em," I tell her and she eagerly takes my hand.
"Well, most baseball players were lushes, but I'm game," he says and joins the ever increasing rag-tag of marchers.
Gabby and I tag along, walking long, veering around the corner past the hotel, blacksmith shop, Fritz Snitzler's Saloon and Turnverein Hall toward the train depot and a platform, from which the esteemed clergyman delivers his discourse, flanked by the town's leading dignitaries and U.S. flags with 38 stars representing every darn state in the union.
"Beloved, we gather before you, knocking at your door today, in proclamation of our blessed king and savior, the Lord Jesus Christ," he exclaims, voice booming in the outside air, traveling with the audacity of a modern telegraph.
"My friends, we beseech you this day within the ancient, mystic chords of the spirit, arms wide open and with a love as natural as that love, with which Christ loved his Bride, the Church."
Amens abound from the women. Silk handkerchiefs wipe the sweat from their unmade faces. The man leans in, an accusatory finger calling down evil like Christ over Satan at the end of a fast.
"But today, evil is upon us!" he exclaims. "Evil! An inexorable growth infesting the soul of our nation! Invisible spirit forces, upon which we have a wrestling of the flesh, have corrupted our farms, towns, cities. Demonic stimulants have entered the body and stolen the farmer from his plow, the mechanic from his industry, the banker from his till and -- beloved -- the husband, father and spiritual head of his brood from the family."
We're laughing, Gabby and me. At the hyperbole, the comic herky-jerkiness of the preacher's flailing arms, the 19th century patois.
"The fruitage of the spirit that Paul talked of in his epistle to the church of Galatia, the fruitage -- love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, faithfulness, meekness -- Temperance -- has been usurped by the vineyards and barley and hops and the distilleries of demonism.
"A brood of vipers has taken over this generation and our nation might not survive till tomorrow if it is not snuffed to the ground like dust. We must eradicate the artificial stimulants, the evil liquid spirits that put out the sunshine of life -- we must cast them like serpents from the land. We must close the doors forever of the tavern, the beer hall and the winehouse. We must pour fourth all beer, all wine, all whiskey into the rivers that will wash our nation clean and reclaim our moral souls before the blessed kingship of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
Then they all get off stage, singing, "Shall We Gather at the River?"
The passers-by are laughing in the sunshine. I've met all kinds of people here. From all over the USA, Europe, Asia and Africa too. I was in the carpenter shop when a fellow told me he was from Seattle. Home of the sonic boom and grunge rock, too. Jimi Hendrix, who performed the National Anthem at Woodstock.
"Yeah, I knew his dad a little bit," the guy said. "He passed away not too long ago."
Wow!
I can generally tell what states they're from by the accents. Although I'm not as good as my dad, who's better than Click and Clack from "Car Talk." Raised in the most bucolic of Kansas farm settings, and after two years in the Army, he can tell you what town in New Jersey someone is from.
Yup. The fellow in the khaki shorts and Indiana Jones hat is from Minnesota. "I'm Lutheran," he says. "We only drink alcohol on days that end in y."
"A Minnesota Lutheran?" I say. "Just like the Lutherans in Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon."
"Ohhh, those are Norwegian Lutherans," he says. "We're the German Lutherans."
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| Me and Gabby at Jimie's Diner, Wichita, Kan. |
I pass by Denyse, who played one of the Christian Temperance women flanking the pastor. She's back in her black Nirvana T-shirt and jean shorts, grabbing a Marlboro from the pack kept tight in her purse. I've known Denyse since my first year of college. She and I and others in our circle used to hang out under the stars of her hometown in Rushing Waters, Kan., smoke, have a few beers and talk about life.
Then I see Jacky, who makes small talk with Gabby, and looks up to tell me the girl is like her own daughter. I thank her for being so good to my girl.
"She's a cutie," Jacky says.
"She's a drama queen," I say. "Superdiva, that's what I call her."
But Gabby really loved being here, dressing up like a little girl from another place and time. "It's like being in a movie," she said.
Jacky tells her that from time to time movies get filmed at Old Cowtown and perhaps someday she can be an extra.
"Maybe someday, Little Girl," I tell her. "Maybe someday."
