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Authors: Michael Phillips

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Miss Katie's Rosewood

BOOK: Miss Katie's Rosewood
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Miss Katie's Rosewood
Copyright © 2007
Michael Phillips

Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
www.backerpublishinggroup.com

Ebook edition created 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-1133-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Cover design by The DesignWorks Group
Cover photography by Steve Gardner, PixelWorks Studio

To courageous, bold-thinking Christians . . .

—and our many loyal readers through the years who have written to express their appreciation for the ways in which my books, and those of George MacDonald, have helped them think and pray more expansively about the nature and character of God and His work.

In a world where perceived “doctrinal correctness” exerts an almost pervasively overpowering influence in the church, not all Christians appreciate bold and honest challenges in faith. Most are content to dwell in the comfort zones of safe theological harbors where every question has a predetermined response, passed down through the years by the accepted “traditions of the elders.” For those finding themselves in such an environment who choose to launch out into deeper scriptural waters, the spiritual journey can be a lonely one. Though there are a few exceptions, to whom the body of Christ owes a great debt, the courage to examine status-quo doctrines more carefully than is customary is neither honored nor encouraged by many pastors, priests, leaders, teachers, publishers, or evangelists. Those who attempt to explore such deeper waters usually find themselves swimming upstream against a tidal deluge of proof-text theology (with little fresh
thought
included) massed against them. Yet they are driven on in their quest. They hunger to probe the far-reaching themes of Scripture and thus to know the Father-heart of God more intimately.

It has been to encourage
you
—and you know who you are—in that quest that I write. Your responses have confirmed that it is an adventure—a difficult one—that we have shared, and continue to share, together. And we must all take heart to continue! Because in no other way than by probing the Scriptures prayerfully and expansively can we learn to know God the Father as Jesus did.

To know God
aright,
not by doctrine but by the high
Logos truth of His nature as revealed by His Word, and then to obey Him in
Not my will
Christlikeness, is the one true goal of spirituality. This book and the journey herein depicted is dedicated to you who have made that right knowing, and the prayerful desire for Christlike obedience that of necessity proceeds out of it, the deep cry of your heart and the focus of your life's pilgrimage. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for your encouragement and support in my quest. And I encourage and honor you in your own!

C
ONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Prologue

1. Midnight Warning

2. Tragedy

3. Pursuit

4. Watch

5. By the Stream Bank

6. Apprehension

7. Reflections

8. In the Country

9. The Cell

10. Witness

11. The Beginning

12. Scaffold

13. Train

14. Separation

15. Forever Changed

16. On the Train

17. Philadelphia

18. No Trace

19. Rosewood

20. Katie's Bold Decision

21. Peculiar Rescue

22. Getting Worried

23. News and Secrets

24. Visitor to Bingham Court

25. A Quiet Talk at Dusk

26. Fateful Visit

27. I Take Matters Into My Own Hands

28. The Wind in the Horse's Head

29. New Friends

30. Perfume and Problems

31. On the Trail of the Kidnappers

32. Too Late

33. Stranger in a White Neighborhood

34. Near Wolf's Cove

35. Rescue

36. Waiting

37. Sunrise Thoughts

38. Rosewood's Three Men

39. Reunion

40. The Old Farm

41. Baltimore

42. Good-bye to the North

43. Harvest Time

44. More Surprises

45. A Talk About the Future

46. Cotton and Omens

47. Seeds

48. Sam Jenkins

49. Herb Watson

50. Mr. Watson's Offer

51. Rosewood's Owners Talk It Over

52. Final Determination

53. The Warning

54. The Decision

55. Good-bye

56. Standoff

57. Campfire Reflections

58. North

59. New Rosewood

60. New Beginnings

61. The Rest of Our Lives

Epilogue: Remembering

More From Michael Phillips

A Personal Closing Message From Michael Phillips

About the Author

Other Books by Author

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P
ROLOGUE

We'd been through a lot together, Katie and me. First we were strangers. Then we began thinking of ourselves as sisters trying to survive together. Then we found out that we were actually cousins
.

But mostly we were friends. And that made all the difference in the world.

And now these two friends, Kathleen Clairborne and me, Mary Ann Daniels—Katie and Mayme as we called each other—were just about grown-up young women. It was hard to imagine, but I was twenty and when you get to be that age you look at things a little differently than you do when you're fourteen or fifteen. That's how old Katie and I were in the spring of 1865 when we met just after the war ended. Now it was 1870. The South had changed and things were dangerous.

As I said, I was twenty and Katie was nineteen. We loved our North Carolina home, the plantation called Rosewood in Shenandoah County, but my father and our uncles (Templeton Daniels was my father, Ward Daniels was my uncle, and they were both Katie's uncles) had been encouraging us to think about our future. Their sister, our aunt Nelda, had visited Rosewood a
while earlier and had invited us north for a visit. She had written a few times since too, telling us about a girls' school for young women in Philadelphia where we could get more of an education than either of us had ever dreamed possible.

It wasn't that my papa or Uncle Ward were anxious to see us leave Rosewood. If they could have had their way, they would keep us there permanently. But they wanted what was best for us, even if it meant leaving for a while to attend school in the North. They recognized that things were changing for women as much as for Negroes. They wanted to give us every opportunity to do as much with our lives as possible.

The idea of being separated wasn't one any of us liked. But Katie and I gradually realized that maybe my papa and Uncle Ward and Aunt Nelda were right, and that we needed to see what schooling might offer two girls like us who weren't really girls anymore. If we didn't take advantage of schooling pretty soon, it could be too late. That's not the kind of thing you can do after you start a family.

My beau, Jeremiah Patterson, was in the North, and not so very far from our Aunt Nelda's in Philadelphia. That gave me another reason for looking forward to the trip. I hadn't seen him in over six months, since just after his daddy Henry's marriage to Josepha, our cook and friend. And Robert Paxton, Katie's young man friend, had just moved to Hanover, Pennsylvania, also not so very far away from Philadelphia.

So we decided to take the train north to visit Aunt Nelda for three or four weeks, to visit the school in Philadelphia and see if we liked it there. And also hopefully to arrange a visit with Jeremiah and Rob.

We planned to go north in May.

Even without Jeremiah's help, the six of us at
Rosewood (my papa and Uncle Ward, Henry and Josepha, along with Katie and me) had got the fields ready and the year's cotton crop planted. We'd even managed to get ten more acres planted than the previous year. So it would be a good time for us to be away. The weather would be good, the cotton would keep growing, and we'd be back in plenty of time for the harvest. And we needed a good harvest too, because a few debts had piled up over the past year or two.

At least that's how we had it planned.

But one thing about plans . . . you never know when something's going to come along and upset them.

M
IDNIGHT
W
ARNING

1

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