Chapter 18

October 1, 1881

While Eli was getting his latest prisoners turned over to the jailers, Jefferson left the courthouse through the back door and ran out to saddle his horse. He rode hard up the back way, cutting across an open lot and through someones yard as he raced home. He didn’t take time to put his horse in the barn, he knew Eli would see it anyway. He jerked the saddle off and turned his horse in the cow pen.

When Eli rode into the yard later, it was almost sundown and there was no one outside. There was no one in the barn and no one came out when he rode across the yard.

He took his time, getting his horse fed, making sure all the horses had plenty of water and hay, then he walked across the yard to the back porch. The house was dark and he was wondering about this as he opened the back door.

When he walked into the dark kitchen, there were six matches lit at the same time, as they lit lamps and yelled out at him.

Not many times in his life did Eli Crow walk into something unknown. He did on the day of his twenty-fifth birthday. He had walked into a surprise birthday party, put together by Mary, Clarissa, and Rose.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Eli!” they yelled as the coal oil lamps slowly lit the kitchen with all of them standing backed up to the walls and in the doorways.

Eli didn’t know what to do or say and stood looking around the room, until Kia and Michi ran across the kitchen, arms out, yelling ‘Happy Birthday Eli’. Little Eli, Ezra, Caleb and Micah came running behind them, followed by Lilly Beth and Lee Yu. His young’uns were all six years old now.

He scooped them up two at a time, hugging them as they hugged his neck from both sides, giggling that they all had played a trick on him.

They were laughing and kissing his face as he still looked around the room. He pulled the little girls closer and kissed them and hugged them tighter, making them squeal and laugh more and more.

“You young’uns got Eli this time. Just wait though, I’ll get all of you on your birthdays next time,” he told them.

The whole family was present, even Mr. Robinson and Mr. Franklin were here and they all moved into the large dining hall to have more room. The men were the last to come tell Eli ‘Happy Birthday’. They were smiling and Jefferson, Duncan, and Moses were laughing that they finally got the best of their friend, Eli Crow.

“I reckon my family got the best of me. I forgot all about today being Friday and my birthday. I’ve never been told Happy Birthday since my eleventh birthday, when Rose and our Ma told me that. I don’t reckon I even know what to say,” Eli said as tears welled up in his eyes.

They had cooked a big supper, as big as a Thanksgiving feast. Each of them had either made or bought him something and it was fun for them to hand him his presents.

Little Duck had made Eli two pair of moccasins. Eva and Catt each made him two pair of buckskin breeches. Cadalee and Adalee made Eli new buckskin shirts. Sundy, Suh, and Sissy, made him two new pouches, after Little Duck showed them how, and Jon David braided him a new strap for his hat. Bill and Jack made him a new shiny black saddle and bridle. They’d made a silver studded breast plate with ELI CROW UNITED STATES MARSHAL embossed on it.

The women and the men had gotten together and bought him two, two year old purebred Shorthorn bulls for his herd and Eli had to go out to the pen and look at them.

When they finally settled down for a meal, Bill and Jack sang some songs.

Mary stood at the head of the table next to Eli and read a letter from Marshal Dal Hopkins up in Boones Crossing, Kansas.

Eli

I remembered your birthday, I just wanted
to write and tell you how proud I am of you.
I’ve been hearing good things about you and
your family. All of us here in Boones Crossing
are proud to call you friend.

Dal Hopkins

Eli felt like he had pepper in his eyes, they were watering up so bad.

Rose stood and read letters from Lettie, Hadalee and Nadalee. To save money, they had put their letters in the same envelope and the sisters had written theirs on the same sheet of tablet paper, front and back.

Hello to all the family, we wanted to write
and tell you we love you and that we are
fine. We like our school and working in the
hospital. We miss all of you. Dr. Harrod says
hello to everyone too.
I will be coming home as soon as my nursing
studies are completed. I’ll have a big surprise
for my family when I get there.
Please write when you can.

Lettie

Hello to my sisters and all my family.
We have been learning a lot working in the
hospital with the nice doctors and other nurses.
Hadalee and I live in the same room when we are off
duty and we are together most of the days.
I miss my big family, but I want to be a nursing
instructor, so I will stay and finish my schooling.
Please write and tell us about back home.

Nadalee

Hello to my big family.
I miss the times we were together in the big
room, eating and singing. I miss the babies and
Kia and Michi. Sometimes I think of home and I
cry. Then I think of why we are here and I smile.
Nadalee and I are so happy we have been offered
an opportunity to become instructors of nursing.
In just another year we will be teaching other girls
how to nurse.
I hope we get a hospital, we all like helping others.
Please write and tell us all about what’s happened
back home.

Hadalee

When Rose had read the letters aloud, she passed them around so each of them could read them. Jon David read them to Kia and Michi two times, so they could hear their names again, in the letter from Hadalee.

Before bedtime, each of the women sat down and wrote short letters of their own, using the front and backs of the paper and writing their names at the bottom. Tin Yu took the longest; she wanted to say the things in her heart. She wiped back the tears as she wrote them and wished them well. Rose had taught her to write and her penmanship was the best of all the family, though she had problems with the spelling of some words.

Jon David was always there to help her and the others with their spelling. That boy already had twenty-two books and would read them aloud at night to anyone who would listen. Kia and Michi would sit on either side of him, looking at the pages as he read. By the end of summer, they too were scribbling short letters to the three nursing students in St. Louis, with Jon David’s help.

There were many more exchanges of letters, to and from the family, and the young nursing students in St. Louis over the next year. They always told of the love for one another and for the family. The one thing consistent with Lettie’s part of the letters was, she always mentioned the handsome young Doctor Harrod somewhere in her letters.

Fort Smith, Arkansas Late October, 1881

The marshals were home and out in the garden helping pick the last of the dried peas. Rose looked up to see a man and woman in dark cloaks walking up the river road toward their house, each carrying a travel bag.

She got Jefferson’s attention and he looked at them, smiling. Jefferson grinned as he turned to poke Eli, where he stooped to pick peas.

Eli stood and looked over to where Rose was pointing, then smiled and brushed the dirt from his hands against his buckskins. With a big smile on his face, he strode right toward the man and woman as they turned to cross the yard and meet Eli.

“Marshal Eli Crow,” the woman said, smiling.

“Yes Sister Margaret, I am pleased you came to see us.”

“Marshal Crow, meet my boss,” she said, smiling again as the man stepped forward, grinning.

“I am Bishop Joseph John Cortaleon, of the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock. I am pleased to meet you, Marshal Eli Crow. I’ve heard many stories about you and have even read numerous newspaper articles about you, written by a Miss C. Whitehead. I must say, you are exactly the man I had pictured from the descriptions. I am honored to meet you.”

“Sir, it’s me who’s honored. I’m glad you came all this way to Fort Smith. I hope Sister Margaret has told you why I wanted you to come.”

“She has Eli, and I can assure you, we are very interested in your ideas.”

“Bishop Joseph, do you see that big bald hill over there across the river, with the trees all around the base of it?”

“I do.”

“There’s twenty acres there, it’s yours if you’ll build us a hospital here and we’ll give you some more land for a church next to it too.”

“Eli, I appreciate your generosity and your support, but there’s more to it than acquiring the land. Of course the land is necessary and has to be acquired before we can raise building funds, but we’ll need many thousands of dollars for the construction of a new hospital and to supply it.”

“How many thousands, Sir?”

“Eli, we would have to have at least fifty thousand dollars to build a forty bed hospital like we have in Little Rock, it will take us a few years to raise the funds.”

“Sir, we need a hospital right away, we have some nurses in training in St. Louis already and we have a promise from Doctor Gerald Harrod that he’ll come here if you build a hospital.”

“Eli Crow, Sister Margaret has warned me you were a force to be reckoned with. Please tell me how you were able to convince Doctor Harrod to agree to come here? He’s one of the most renown young doctors in America,” he couldn’t help but smile at this young man’s determination.

“I just asked him, like I’m asking you to build us a hospital. I have certain funds and we will pay half the cost, and hand you the deed to the land, if you’ll tell me yes.”

Rose, Mary, Clarissa, Jefferson, Duncan, Moses, Eva, Catt, Juni, Tin Yu, and all the others were gathered around as they listened to Eli’s plea for a hospital. They all smiled at the Sister when she looked around the circle at them.

It may have been Eli’s earnest plea for help in the Fort Smith community that got an instant decision from Bishop Joseph Cortaleon, but the women of the Crow family knew exactly when it happened and what caused it.

Seven year old Kia and Michi ran into the circle of adults, each with both hands full of wildflowers, for the Bishop and the Sister. They each stood with both hands clutched full of flowers, as they reached up to them smiling.

“Eli Crow, I came here with Sister Margaret simply because she was relentless in her urging that I come meet you and your family. I finally agreed to come and she asked permission to accompany me.

“In my mind, I came here to meet you and look for a possible site to plan a hospital and a mission in the future.”

He stopped talking and reached down to pick up both little girls and hold them as they presented the flowers for him to smell, pressing the flowers to his nose and giggling.

“Eli, we’re going to build you a hospital over there on that bald knoll and call it Crow Hill Catholic Charity Hospital.

“We’ll need lots of volunteer help from your family and all your friends. We’ll need construction workers and carpenters, we’ll need contacts with lumber mills and we’ll need workers who are experienced in concrete and bricks. We’ll need so many things, but God willing, we’ll build that hospital.

“We’ll need lots of donations from the public too, Eli, but I can see, with you and your family behind us, we can do this,” Bishop Cortaleon shook Eli’s hand while still holding the girls.

Kia and Michi twisted in his arms and reached over his shoulders with their flowers, toward Sister Margaret. With no hint of hesitation, she lifted both young girls into her arms and smelled their flowers as they pressed them to her face.

“We have builders and carpenters and we’ll find the other workers and bricklayers. You just get the plans to us and we’ll get started,” Eli said, smiling.

“Eli, I’m not sure we can have all this done in time to start right away. I was thinking of possibly announcing our plans this summer, then by next spring have everything in place to start construction.”

“Sir, I don’t mean to dispute you, but we need a hospital. We got a doctor and nurses coming next fall, just leave it to me and my friends, we’ll get started right away. Do you have any plans with you?”

“I have plans, but they were only for preliminary evaluation,” he said as he patted his satchel.

“Leave them with us and get us the real plans up here as soon as you can. I’ll get our son-in-law to start rounding up a crew of helpers that will build us a hospital before you know it,” Eli smiled.

The women were gathered around Sister Margaret and as they talked low, they all walked toward the back of the boarding house.

“Eli, would you have facilities I could use? I’m afraid we came here straight from the steamboat docks and there’s not a place one can get relief on the way.”

“We sure do, come with us Sir, and we’ll show you,” Eli said as he smiled proudly. He knew the Bishop was going to be surprised and impressed with their indoor plumbing.

Bishop Joseph and Sister Margaret stayed two nights with the Crow family. By the time they had to leave, they were regretting their stay was so short. After talking with Eli and the family for a part of three days, the two were as excited about a hospital in Fort Smith as the Crow family was. They even met with Judge Parker at the courthouse briefly and he pledged his support. As they sat in his chambers during a short recess, he instructed Jefferson to start a petition for the city leaders to get behind the construction of the hospital and to put a full page ad in the newspaper, asking the citizens and businesses to donate money, supplies, services, and their time to the proposed charity hospital.

Jon David had put up signs about the new hospital needing donations, on the doors and around the diner on the walls. When people started giving him nickels and dimes and quarters for this, he brought a gallon jar from home and put it on the counter.

It became an every morning thing for the diners, who were in a hurry to get fed and to work on time, to drop a few coins into the jar. The jar had to be emptied once a month.

The Crow’s Nest became the meeting place of most of the attorney’s and courthouse employees that had to report to work early. During the day, it was the place to be if you were a U.S. Marshal waiting to be called to testify or present evidence in a case. When the court recessed for dinner, there wasn’t an empty seat.

Each of the attorneys always left a nickel for Jon David, as a tip. They liked this boy; he was full of information about who was on trial and for what. He knew whose trial was coming up next week and which big case was postponed. He asked questions about law and he remembered it all. It soon became a game for the attorneys to ask him a question about law, just to see if he remembered what they’d told him a week ago, or a month ago. He remembered it all and they marveled at his memory.

Judge Parker, hearing about him from numerous attorneys, spoke to Jefferson and Eli about him.

“How old is Jon David?”

“He’s about fifteen or sixteen, I think, Your Honor,” Eli said.

“Has he ever been to school?”

“Not that we know of, but he is a voracious reader and he reads to all the girls and babies and even to the boarders as well. He knows by heart the words to each and every song the Franklin brothers sing at our house. He can hear a poem once and recite it word for word a month later. He can read poetry like no one I’ve ever heard before, taking a pause at just the right moment, like it was written,” Jefferson answered.

“What’s his last name, Eli? That boy needs to go to school and get an education, he’d make a great teacher.”

“His name is Jonathan David Vines. He wants to be a lawyer, Your Honor,” Eli told him.

“Then we need to get him an apprenticeship as soon as we can.”

Judge Parker came in the diner early the next morning. Quiet fell over the place as he was recognized by all there. The lawyers all scooted down one seat and let him sit at the end of the counter. Jon David poured him a mug of hot coffee and welcomed him to the diner.

“Good morning, Your Honor.”

“Who’s on trial today, Jonathan?” Judge Parker asked, like they’d already been talking about it.

“You have four on the docket today, Your Honor. That is after you finish up on the case you were on yesterday,” Jon David answered and named off the four.

“How did you know this, Jonathan?”

“I heard the attorneys talking about the cases they had coming up.”

“How many came before the court last week?”

“Thirty one. One was acquitted and three pleaded guilty before their trial started. Of the twenty seven who went before the jury, five were sentenced to be hanged. You sentenced fifteen to prison for ten years and five of them to life without parole and you postponed two cases until next month.”

“You can’t stump him, Your Honor. The boy’s got a memory like none we’ve seen before,” one attorney said.

“Jon David, are you serious about becoming an attorney?”

“Yes Sir, Your Honor. I want to be a judge like you one day too. I talked to Eli and Momma and they want me to try to get into school somewhere.”

“I’ve talked to Eli and Jefferson. We’ll find you an attorney to serve apprenticeship under. That’s the way a lot of men become attorneys. I want you to study hard and become an attorney also. If you can do that, I’ll see to it you get the attention of the politicians who appoint the judiciaries.”

“Yes Sir, Your Honor, and thank you, Sir.”

“Your Honor, we’ll all kick in and help the boy, you just let us know how and where. Though we may regret it later if we ever come up against him in court,” the man sitting beside the judge said and they all laughed.

That was it for Judge Parker, he was through socializing for the day. He had court in twenty minutes.

There wasn’t a law library anywhere close to Fort Smith, Arkansas, but with all the attorneys here because of the heavy caseload, there were many law books. Judge Parker had many reference books himself in his chambers and in his study at home.