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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 3084287" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter Eighty-five, “Clarisse’s Offer”, Sunday June 4th , 1882, 8:30 P.M. Chester takes Clarisse's arm. "Lead on, Miss Townsend. You always know the right things to say. Let's not talk any more about politics."   She laughs. "A capital idea, Deputy Martin. Shall we?" They make their way back to the party. Chester forgets about Ashley King and Claude Buckley and just loses himself in the moment. They keep Helen Barker company while Stanley plays. When it comes time for Clarisse to perform, Chester watches in rapt attention.The night goes well, with the musicians alternating enough so that Deputies Barker and Martin each have sufficient time to dance with their respective significant others. At around 11:00 PM the musicians finally finish. Job Kane convinces Chester to have a drink with him at the bar while Jake Cook approaches Clarisse. Jake states, "Good evening Miss Townsend, you look well. Can we speak for a moment, about your employment at the Lucky Lady?" He took her elbow and walked her a few steps away. Clarisse very nearly panicked right there on the spot. "Please Mr. Cook, I do not know what I-" Jake cut her off promptly, "No, no, Clarisse it is nothing bad. Unless you feel that paying you more money would be bad?" She swung wildly from one emotion to the other, but to Jake's eyes she did not seem quite in control of either just yet. He continued quickly with a reassuring smile. "You have come along nicely, you have always had a lovely voice but your performances have become noticeably better. You are much more confident and relaxed. I have noticed that you handle the crowd much better too." Jake watches as her breathing normalizes, but again before she can speak he cuts her off, "There is a catch however." "A catch?" she said in a quiet voice. "Yes, a small catch." He kept his pleasant smile and engaged her eyes in a non-threatening way. Hermes, he thought to himself, she is like a deer surrounded by hounds. "You see with all the growth at the Lady, it is time for a full time singer." He quickly caught himself, "Another full time singer, Miss West is now an owner, and can pick and choose when to sing or not, and we need a singer for the nights that she chooses not to." She still looks confused and he states, "So now you can stop running back and forth between the saloons and settle in at the Lady. I will pay you twenty-five percent more per night than you currently make between your two saloon jobs per night. That will make it easier on that Chet of yours too, he will always know where to find you." He watched her pretty and very expressive face mirror her thinking, This woman should never play poker. "See, not so bad. Miss Clarisse Townsend, a full time professional singer at the biggest saloon in Promise City." Instead of answering she hurries over to Chet to ask him his opinion, quickly telling him of Jake's offer.Chester is sitting at the bar with Job Kane. They're talking about how the operations of the Lucky Lady are going without Niles. Clarisse rushes over. "Chet. You won't believe... I mean, Mr. Cook just..."   Chester takes hold of her shoulders. "OK. Just slow down. It sounds like you've got some good news."   She takes a deep breath and says, "Mr. Cook just offered me a full-time job here. And he'll give me a raise. No more going back and forth between here and the Comique. Do you think I should take it?" He replies, "Are you kidding? Of course, you should take it. I know it's a big step, but I know you can do it."  Clarisse gives him a big hug. "Thank you, Chet. I have to go tell Julia. She'll be so excited." She pauses, "But, I also have to tell Mr. Brower, Mr. Jaquet, and Mr. Watson. They've been like family to me. I hate to do this to them." "Don't worry, Clarisse. I'm sure they'll understand. This is a big break for you. I'm sure they'll be happy for you. Let's go see Julia. did you give Mr. Cook your answer?" "Oh. I forgot in all the excitement." She hurries back to Jake. She looks him in the eye and says, "I'll take it, Mr. Cook. Thank you so much."  Chester and Clarisse head back to the Double Eagle Boarding House where Julia now has a room. They find her and Michael Seawell sitting respectfully together in the first floor common room. Clarisse tells her the news as well as her concerns about the Comique. As the Comique's owners also board at the Double Eagle Julia has gotten to know them as well and comments, "They may be upset. When they lost their singer Flossie in January it hurt their business. I have an idea though, Josephine Marcus is also an entertainer. She will be in town for the next two weeks and her evenings are free until that play begins. They could probably get her to perform at the Comique until then, which would give them time to find another singer."Clarisse puts her hand to her mouth. "Oh no. I hadn't thought of that. Where is Miss Marcus staying? I can ask her myself."   Julia says, "She's staying at the Gay Lady, in my old room."  Clarisse says, "Oh good. Thank you Julia. I'll see you later." Chester and Clarisse go to the Gay Lady. She asks the bartender, "Is Miss Marcus in? I wish to speak with her." He says, "I think she's in Miss Townsend. You can go on up." Clarisse says, "Thank you." She turns to Chester, "I should go up alone. I don't want her to feel pressured. Is that alright?" Chester replies, "Sure. I'll have a drink at the bar while I'm waiting. Good luck." Clarisse climbs the stairs up to Julia's old room. Stopping in front of the door, she goes through what she wants to say. *knock, knock* Josephine calls out, "Who is it?" "It's Clarisse Townsend. I would like to ask you something." "Come in. The door's unlocked." The young woman enters the room. Josephine is sitting at her dressing table. "Miss Townsend. May I call you Clarisse? You can call me Josephine. Have a seat." "Thank you, Josephine. That's kind of you." She sits. "I was wondering if you would consider performing at the Comique the next couple weeks. I've been offered a job singing at the Lucky Lady. I also sang at the Comique and I don't want to leave them short-handed."Josephine says, "That would be wonderful. Our play rehearsals are all scheduled for later afternoon and early evening since Conrad and several of the others work nights, so my evenings are free. Will you talk to the owners about this first? Please make sure they know I'm planning to move on to Colorado after the play is over."Conrad and Kate danced for the next half-hour, many of the previous band members also now dancing as the band members from the Rio Grande have now taken their places. Kate cannot recall a time when she's seen Conrad happier.  As always, to see someone else's happiness helped Kate recover her own, although the wild spirit that had descended on her earlier had departed for the night. She fairly floated for the floor as they danced in the crowded Cantina. "You're very happy tonight, aren't you?" she said.He replies, "And why wouldn't I be? This is the longest period of time that we've spent together since our visit to New York a month-and-a-half back. And it is so nice to see you happy as well. Now about the play? What type of role would you like in the production? At this point we are planning three performances, the night of Friday the 16th at the Lucky Lady, the night of Saturday the 17th at the Gay Lady and the afternoon of Sunday the 18th at the Promise City Town Hall."She states, "I don't really know. I don't have any idea if I can act and I believe you already have an excellent pianist. And with my schedule I'm not sure how much time I can devote to it. I can't even sew to help with costumes," she laughed. "What things need doing?"  He replies, "We need a logistics manager, somebody to make sure that everything other than the play itself runs smoothly at each location. I was originally thinking of Laurie Gilson for that role but I think that you would do nicely."She says, "It would give me the opportunity to interact with people I rarely meet," she said thoughtfully. "So I would have to make sure there were enough seats, proper lighting and such?"  Conrad replies, "Yes, normally the producer of the play handles all of those things, which in Josie's case meant Pauline Markham. Josie has no interest in doing any of that, for that matter, she's barely directing leaving most of that to me. Not that I mind.""I'd like to help, and I think I can take care of the logistics for you, just let me know what's already been done so I don't repeat your work. I know Ruby wanted me to be involved.  Will Miss Marcus be able to step in for Ruby if it's necessary? She could likely do the part in her sleep, but..."He replies, "I just need you to make sure that everything is set at all three locations. The Lady should be a non-issue since you have regular access to it and I believe that your friend Minerva still has a key to the Town Hall building. It's primarily Burton Lumley who you'll have to work things out with for the Gay Lady and he's normally non-cooperative to people who work at other saloons than his, but since he's running for Town Council he might be more helpful than usual.""Beside the fact of the extra business he'll be getting the night of the show. It's a Saturday night. The fights at the Palace aren't the draw they used to be but they're still hitting the other saloons. And people will attend who wouldn't normally spend their night in a saloon. I'd say he has every reason to be cooperative. If not, well, he's just another person to win over," she smiled.  "And you are just the person to win him over," Conrad replies. The band continues for another hour, finally stopping at midnight. Conrad walks Kate back to her home.  There were some things about the location of her home that Kate appreciated a great deal. One of them being that almost no one could see the door to the kitchen and who came or went from it. Standing at that door Kate held Conrad's hand and thanked him for the lovely evening. She lifted her face to kiss him and said again, "I love you."He returns the kiss, a long deep passionate one. He softly states, "And I love you too. Meeting you is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I....I have invited my mother to come here to see the play. I want to introduce you to her."  "Oh." She hesitated, nerves plain on her face. "I'd be pleased to meet her. She's accepted your invitation? I don't imagine she's been here before."He states, "She hasn't left San Francisco since I was born. She hasn't accepted yet, but I have another week to keep sending her telegrams until she does. It's late and we should each be getting off to bed. Good night darling."    "Good night." She released his hand and slipped inside the kitchen, closing the door softly behind her. It was pitch dark in the kitchen, so Kate muttered a short incantation causing a ball of soft blue light to float above and ahead of her. She peeked into Ginnie's room and reassured herself that her girl had gotten home safely, then followed the ball of light to her own room. After changing and brushing out her hair Kate took out a small key and unlocked one of the drawers of her vanity. She pulled out her journal and found the next blank page, now near the middle of the book. For the next hour she wrote about what had happened that day, as well as penning a letter to Maggie to whom she had not written enough recently.  It was one-thirty by the time Katherine climbed into her bed to sleep.The sun was high by the time Katherine woke in the morning. Dimly from downstairs she heard a burst of children's laughter and smiled. She fairly flew into the simple skirt and blouse she had set out for the day and got her hair twisted up behind her head. Downstairs in the kitchen she made a breakfast of bread, cheese, and fruit. It took quite a bit of it to fill her up but she enjoyed it. Before she went through the door that connected her kitchen to the schoolroom she cracked the door to listen.Kate hears the rich speaking voice of Manuel Gonzales stating"....another hundred years until the Spanish knocked on our doors and ruined our day with their silly European notions. Although we really shouldn't pin all of the blame on the Spanish, after all Columbus was actually Italian. Plus you shouldn't overlook that the Canadian Maritime Provinces and sections of the Maine coast were actually first visited by the Vikings four centuries before Columbus. Of course, they had the good sense to just visit and not try to live here."Kate's eyes grew wide and she hurried into the room. "Good morning," she said pleasantly. "How is everyone this morning?"  Manuel holds up his hand to keep the children from answering. He then picks up his pointing stick and using it like a conductor's baton leads the children in a multi-verse song of "Good Morning Mrs. Kale" which tells of their happiness to be there and the opportunity to learn. The final verse gives thanks to the Committee for Racial Equality.Katherine laughed delightedly and clapped even as he face turned red. "Beautiful. I see we'll have to add singing to our days. Did you thank Mr. Gonzales for coming?"  He says, "Yes they did.  And I'm not quite done. I have one lecture more to go but need the help for a friend for that. If you could watch the class for the next ten minutes or so we will be back then."  "Certainly," she said, curious and a little nervous. Mr. Gonzales then hurried out the door and Kate turned to her class, asking who had attended the wedding yesterday and what they had noticed that was different. She kept up the discussion until Mr. Gonzales returned.  Manuel Gonzales returns accompanied by Judge Lacey. Both older men are wearing their military uniforms. Gonzales explains that he served as an Admiral in the Mexican Navy while Lacey tells of serving as a Lieutenant in the United States Army during the Civil War. Gonzales says, "One goal of this school's sponsors is to promote racial equality. A key obstacle to that is obviously hated between the races. The two largest races within Promise City are those of the human and the wood elf. The greatest conflict between those two races in North American history was the Mexican-American War fought from 1846 to 1848. In order to put that conflict behind us once and for all and show that we can now be friends Lieutenant Lacey and I will now recount for you a balanced perspective of that conflict, why it was fought, and how the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo established a fair and just end to the conflict."Kate took a seat with her students, aware that this would continue her own education as well as the children's. She was certainly going to have to go through the town and ask experienced people to come in and talk about what they'd learned.  Judge Lacey explains that he didn't actually serve in the Mexican-American war, but that he served with a number of soldiers who had and heard their stories first hand. He also says that he followed the accounts almost daily. Manuel Gonzales says that he did serve in the war but that as luck would have it, his fleet did not see any of the major combats. They begin with explaining the situation in both Mexico and Texas leading up to the war. Kate notes that Gonzales omits any mention of his participation at the Alamo. They then begin a brief account of each major battle. Interestingly enough though, Lacey is the one to describe the Mexican Army movements and perspective while Gonzales explains that of the United States. A significant portion of the lecture is the Treaty negotiated by representatives of President Polk. It was named for the city of Guadalupe Hidalgo where it was signed. It called for Mexico to cede fifty-five percent of its territory to the United States in exchange for fifteen million dollars in compensation for war-related damage to Mexican property. This included Arizona, California, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado, Nevada and Utah, although it would be another five years until much of this land actually exchanged hands under the Gadsten Purchase which gave more money to Mexico. The treaty established the Texas border at the Rio Grande. But the key provision emphasized in the lection is Article V, which granted protection for the property and civil rights of Mexican nationals living within land that now became the United States. Gonzales states that he personally was responsible for the wording of that section, one of his proudest accomplishments. This upcoming election and its extending of voting rights to those of all races would probably not have been allowed under the Arizona Territorial Charter otherwise. The lecture ends with the two old soldiers giving each other a firm handshake and thanking each other for their service to their countries. They then turn the class back over to Katherine.Kate addressed the class, saying, "I'm going to send you out for recess. When you come back in we'll have the first primer class in the front of the room. The rest of you can take the maps to the back of the room and find the areas Mr. Lacey and Mr. Gonzales just told us about including the Gadsten Purchase and the Texas border.  Make sure you thank Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Lacey on your way outside. Dismissed." The children said “thank you” sincerely but hurriedly as they scooped up the toys from the box by the door and ran out to play. When the room was free of children she turned to the men herself. "Thank you both for helping out. That's just the kind of presentation we want the children to see, and you did it beautifully."   Judge Lacey says, "Why thank you Mrs. Kale. I was pleased that Mr. Gonzales asked me to help." Manuel says, "Yes, and it was Mr. Lacey's idea for us to do the presentation in Uniform but to take each other's parts for the description of the war. It is far too easy for a soldier's national pride to show when describing his own army's accomplishments and the last thing we wanted to do was glorify war to the children."    Lacey says, "I can't take the credit for that idea, you can thank Nate Caudell. That was the same format that he and Henry Pleasants used when they taught about the Civil War to his classes back east."  "Indeed it was," states Mollie Caudell stepping forward from the adjacent room with Meagan O'Hara. "And how long were you ladies listening in?" Lacey asks. Mollie says, "We arrived somewhere in the middle of 1847. We came in through the kitchen door so as not to interrupt."Katherine smiled at the other teachers, glad they had arrived so she wouldn't have to take on the whole roomful of children on her own. "It's an excellent strategy, I'm glad you used it. They were wonderful weren't they?" she said to the other ladies. "We'll need to arrange more things like this, including getting Mr. Caudell and General Pleasants here."Mollie laughs and says, "That may have to wait for a couple of weeks. Henry is working nearly round-the-clock in his new job. It seems that Patrick Seawell was only half right when he said that his father didn't take to retirement. The elder Seawell found doing nothing to be boring but wasn't really looking to work more than part-time. Henry's now picking up the slack. And Nate's now doing two jobs between the Assay Office and helping with the election.""I think we can wait a while. The school will be here for a long time. We wouldn't want to use up all our resources in the first few weeks."   Mr. Gonzales and Judge Lacey said their goodbyes and stepped outside. The sounds of the children's voices saying goodbye drifted through the door before it swung shut. Kate turned to the other ladies and said, "I hope you both had a good night last night. I certainly enjoyed myself."Meagan O'Hara blushes in response to Kate's question. Mollie says, "Oh yes, Nate and I had a wonderful time. And it was such a beautiful ceremony. I particularly liked the Elvan touches. Until we moved out here I never had any interaction with elves. Back east....well, the descriptions are quite different than how they really are."Kate states, "When I left Tombstone to come here my friend Nanuet was on the stage. I'd never seen an elf close up before and I admit I was afraid. There was a centaur who walked along with the coach, too. There are so many terrible stories back east. Thank heaven I learned better. So many beautiful things I never would have known. The song during the ceremony was lovely. A friend speaks Elven, but he only told me that it was a long-winded way of saying that the two become one while still remaining individual. Sounds like people who know what marriage is about to me."Mollie says, "Yes indeed, that is a good description. When Nate met me I was illiterate, barely civilized and not the most honorable person in the world. As my Sergeant he taught me what Southern honor is all about. As my teacher he taught me how to read. As my boyfriend he taught me how to properly interact with regular folk. But despite all those changes he's always let me make my own decisions. At that meeting a week ago he was opposed to me wearing my uniform but he understood and respected my decision to do so."Kate nodded. "Tom and I had our disagreements too, but he never tried to tell me what to do or think. It's one of the ways to know you have a man worth keeping.   Meagan, how was your night?"  "Just fine," she replies. She then comments, "The children will be back soon. What is the plan for the rest of the morning and afternoon?"  Kate looked at her and smiled but let it pass. "I was planning to tie in the mornings lessons to the presentation. Geography and history..." Kate went on to explain what her thoughts had been, ending with going back to their regular schedule for the afternoon.</blockquote>

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