Amazing Grace

By Dianne Meeks

Marie Willis is just a little girl when her mother passes away in a horrifying accident. As her grieving father does his best to raise her right while running their South Carolina plantation, Marie grows into a young lady who loves to ride horses, shoot a gun, and play the piano. But when the Civil War breaks out, everything changes for sixteen-year-old Marie.

After her father frees their slaves, he is asked by the Confederates to become a spy, Marie helped him do this. Finally, she started carrying messages to the officers in the south, many times at risk to her own life.

When another carrier is caught and reveals he is riding for Mr. Willis, Marie quickly escapes with her father and two trusted friends. As she welcomes a new beginning in Denver, Marie must now rely on her faith to survive in chaotic times where nothing is certain.

Amazing Grace shares the story of a young womans compelling coming-of-age journey during the Civil War era as she becomes a spy and learns to rely on inner-strength, courage, and prayer to overcome all her challenges.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532008283

Dianne Meeks

Dianne Meeks was born on an Iowa farm and moved to Tucumcari, New Mexico, in 1956. She was married to a tree farmer for fifty years. Now widowed, she lives with her daughter, Laura, Osborne, on the backside of the property where she lived with her husband, Kenneth. Amazing Grace is her first novel.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Joy and Despair

M arie, a little red-haired girl, ran before her father on the river bank in South Carolina, giggling. She stopped bent over, then jumped back. She turned to look at her father. Oh daddy, look here, see this funny bug! It is awful large, and when I touched it, it snapped, isn’t that funny?

Richard Willis, a young man, with sandy hair, in his thirties, came up beside her. Honey, that is a crawdad, some people call them crayfish. They are part of the lobster family

Daddy, what is a lobster? asked Marie.

Well, a lobster looks a lot like this one but it is huge, sometimes— this long. He held his hands apart. Be careful of those pinchers, they can hurt you.

The little girl looked at the crawdad for a while, as her father watched her with pride. Finally, she asked, Does it have a mother, or has she gone to heaven like Momma did?

Deep sorrow came into his eyes, he reached down and picked her up, holding her against his chest. Oh honey, I don’t know! He fought the tears as he held her close, his heart was broken. He, along with Marie, missed her mother so much at times he felt he couldn’t go on living without her. Sometimes his chest hurt so bad he thought it would break open. The only reason he had for living, was in his arms. He held her close as he could. She sensed his sorrow, and started crying against his shoulder. Tears were streaming down both of their faces, as he held her.

Elizabeth, his beautiful wife, loved riding horseback. Quite often, Richard and Beth (as he called her) would ride their horses together across the pastures. Richard would have the groom saddle the horses, and off they would ride. They loved galloping the best. Richard loved to watch Beth’s long, red-hair blowing in the wind. The thrill of just watching her as she looked over her shoulder laughing at him, was the greatest sight he had ever seen. She quite often said, You let me win. She was right too, because if he was in front of her, he could not watch her as she rode, and he enjoyed watching her ride. He could have won a race, his horse was bigger and stronger, but out riding her was not that important to him, watching her as she rode, was.

Richard and Beth grew up in the same part of the country, they attended the same church, and went to the same school, but because she was seven years younger than he was, she really hadn’t caught his attention before. The lovely young lady he was looking at didn’t look the same as she did in pigtails, with freckles on her nose.

He saw her at church the first time after coming home from college. He was riding up to the country church, where their families attended regularly, when he saw her. He could not believe that she was the little girl that he remembered as Elizabeth Kirksey. She had changed and not only in her hair style. He remembered her as a scrawny little girl. Well, she was not scrawny anymore, and she was not little! Boy had she changed! And in all the right places.

She, and her family sat across the church. He remembered thinking, I will have to wait for her a year or so, but it might just be worth it.

He went out of his way to see her. He would try to come up with some reason why he needed to go over to the neighboring plantation, just to try and catch a glimpse of her. She never failed to speak, and blush, whenever they met.

He waited another year, then asked her father if he could court her. The answer was yes. He courted her for one month before asking her to marry him. Her answer was yes.

They were married in the same church where he had decided to try and make her his future wife. They were very happy together. During the first year they had a beautiful daughter, whom they named Marie. Beth went through a very hard labor with Marie, and after that, even though they wanted more children, they were unable to have any more. Richard made up his mind that he would teach Marie to run the plantation as well as any man could.

Beth loved to ride, she had grown up on a horse, Richard too, enjoyed riding, and since he wanted to please Beth he made sure they rode a lot. While they rode, Marie was left with a trusted house slave, whose name was Sara, she was married to Billy, their groom. In the south, Billy and Sara were called house slaves, though in truth they were more like family. They were always on hand to help Richard and Beth with anything they needed. Sara, especially enjoyed taking care of little Marie, since she and Billy never had children of their own. Sara ran the household, cooking, cleaning and watching over little Marie. Billy, was the one who always made sure the horses were ready to ride, he also cared for all other horses on the plantation. He made sure the wood box was full, plus many other duties.

Richard and Beth had been running their horses the fateful day that the accident occurred. She was looking over her shoulder laughing at him. He saw she had turned her horse the wrong way when she turned her head. He called out to her to watch where she was going, but she didn’t hear him. He jabbed his horse with his heels, trying to reach her. She had ridden into the place where there were some holes they both knew about, but she didn’t realize they were that close to the area. Her horse stepped in one of them, flipping her over its head, the horse came down on her. Richard screamed, Elizabeth.

He leaped off his horse while it was still running. She was alive, though barely. She looked at him with fear in her eyes. She said, I am so sorry. Take good care of our little Marie. That was the last words she would ever speak. As her eyes glazed over, he cried out her name over and over, holding her in his arms. Later, he couldn’t even remember how long it was before Billy came looking for them. Richard was numb.

He found out later, when he could think and feel again, that the horses had returned to the barn. Billy, the groom, knowing something was wrong, jumped on the master’s horse and went in search of them. When he found them, the master was still holding his Beth, just rocking her gently and talking to her. It was very hard for Billy, to get the masters attention. He finally talked him into laying her on the grass, telling him that the mistress needed to rest now. The next few days were a blur to Richard. He must have been alive during that time, but he was not aware of anything going on around him. He couldn’t respond, even to his daughter.

One afternoon he had went to Beth’s grave to mourn, when he was startled by what he thought was an audible voice, it seemed to be Beth talking, Take good care of our little girl, Marie. Whether it was just a thought, knowing that was the last words she had spoken, or if it was real he couldn’t say. He then realized he had shut everyone out of his life, since the accident, even Marie. He cried out, Beth, Oh Beth. He then spoke to her, Yes, I will try to do my best for her, she is all I have left. Just then a voice coming from within said, I AM still with you. Richard knew at that time, Jesus was still with him, he was not alone. He stopped crying and started back to the house, he had a daughter to take care of and raise.

Chapter 2

The Growing Years

R ichard and Marie spent most days together, riding with her in front of him for a time, then he bought her a black and white pinto pony. He asked her what she was going to name the pony. Marie gave this a couple of days thought. You could see the skin under the white hair looked a light red. She thought she would like to name her pinto pony Paper thus showing what a quick wit she was, not only that but also her sense of humor. One morning at breakfast she asked, What is black and white and red all over?

Her father studied the riddle for a while, finally giving up said, I have no idea. What is black and white and red all over?

A newspaper. I’m going to call my pony Paper. She was enjoying her father’s look of confusion.

Finally, he said, very slowly, OOOOKKKKAAAA, Paper it is.

When Richard was with Marie, he was always teaching. Teaching was second nature to him.

Marie seemed like she understood everything her father taught her. Sometimes after they ate the evening meal, he would quiz her about what she had learned that day. It always amazed him how much she understood. He taught her about the crops, which were tobacco and cotton. He taught her why it was so important to raise a garden of their own, so they could be self-sufficient. He also raised high quality horses. He talked about the qualities that you should look for in the best of horses.

He explained to her how the slaves worked very hard for them, and needed to be treated with respect and understanding. He told her that he thought they worked more willingly for the plantation if they were treated right, and not treated like animals, as some plantation owners seemed to treat their workers. Richard rarely raised his voice to a discordant slave, let alone a whip. He was very opposed to whipping a slave. His people truly thought a lot of him, and were glad to stay with him. He raised Marie to know the slave quarters were to be inspected once a month, to see that they were not infested with lice, insects, mice or other vermin. Richard set aside Sunday morning every week, so the workers could go to church, if they wanted to. They had their church services right there on the plantation. They had their own preacher who conducted the services, he was a Christian. Richard was always amazed when he heard them singing, he thought their singing was beautiful.

He gave Marie his love for music, he always told her that music had the power to inspire you, and give you hope and peace. She received piano lessons while just a very young child. She truly enjoyed playing and others enjoyed listening to her play, along with her playing she sang. Her father loved to hear her sing, and usually sang along with her. They were often called on in church to sing a duet together, which they always enjoyed doing.

Because he had an overseer on the plantation who was very competent, Richard spent most of his waking hours entirely with Marie. He taught her to ride with the best, she took to riding a horse like a duck to water. When practicing her riding she rode astride as a man would, usually dressing as a boy, or wearing a split skirt. Riding astride was not considered lady like, but no one was supposed to see her ride. She practiced in a field out of sight of anyone and the field was free from holes, Richard made sure about that. She loved to practice trick riding, she would throw herself out of the saddle and pretend to fall, but she would be supported by the other stirrup. She worked on surprising her father with something new, which she did quite often. Most of the time, he thought she would give him a heart attack. She turned out to be one of the best trick rider’s he had ever seen, or heard of. Richard also gave his daughter lessons in fire arms, she was very good, often outshooting him.

Not only was she raised to run a plantation, ride and shoot with the best, but also how to run a house hold. That was something he could not coach her in. The learning to sew and cook he left to Sara. She was a very good cook, and kept a clean house. Richard taught Marie how to take care of her finances, he tried to explain what to invest in and when to invest. Richard always said, You never know what the future may hold. They were content with their lifestyle. No one told them they were wrong in living the plantation life, until a few years before the Civil war.

During this time the political affairs in the states were beginning to have trouble. Owning of slaves was much in discussion, along with the tariffs, which were under fire.

The slave trade was wrong, and even a lot of Southern people felt it was wrong, among them was Richard, he had a basic dislike of it. That was why even while he owned slaves, he tried to make their existence as easy on them as possible. Richard had heard the horrific tales of the slave ships, how from fourteen to twenty percent of the slaves who were put aboard the ships died before reaching their destination. Yes, the south could not have been as affluent as they had become without the benefit of the workforce of slaves. But that came at a high price to the slaves. Not all slaves were treated as well as Richard’s.

Richard, also, did not have to rely on the plantation for his income. His family had a true financial empire. They had always known how to invest their money wisely, he had finances no one else knew about. He had holdings in the north, and the south, in the railroads that were being built across the nation, investments in England, and the shipping industry. He just enjoyed living in the south. He was not a braggart, nor did he think himself better than other men. He was always helping others who were less fortunate than he, but he did not speak to others of what he owned.

There were many benefits to living in the south, the land is beautiful, the climate is mild. The green goes up to the blue sky, flowers in bloom, trees in bloom. The magnolia tree’s when in bloom are lovely, flowers everywhere