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Title: The Mormon Prophet
Author: Lily Dougall
Release Date: December 11, 2005 [EBook #17279]
Language: English
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The Mormon Prophet
BY
LILY DOUGALL
Author of The Mermaid, The Zeitgeist, The Madonna of a Day, Beggars All,
Etc.
TORONTO
THE W.J. GAGE COMPANY (LIMITED)
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
PREFACE.
In studying the rise of this curious sect I have discovered that certain
misconceptions concerning it are deeply rooted in the minds of many of
the more earnest of the well-wishers to society. Some otherwise
well-informed people hold Mormonism to be synonymous with polygamy,
believe that Brigham Young was its chief prophet, and are convinced that
the miseries of oppressed women and tyrannies exercised over helpless
subjects of both sexes are the only themes that the religion of more
than two hundred thousand people can afford. When I have ventured in
conversation to deny these somewhat fabulous notions, it has been
earnestly suggested to me that to write on so false a religion in other
than a polemic spirit would tend to the undermining of civilised life.
In spite of these warnings, and although I know it to be a most
dangerous commodity, I have ventured to offer the simple truth, as far
as I have been able to discern it, consoling my advisers with the
assurance that its insidious influence will be unlikely to do harm,
because, however potent may be the direful latitude of other religious
novels, this particular book can only interest those wiser folk who are
best able to deal with it.
As, however, to many who have preconceived the case, this narrative
might, in the absence of explanation, seem purely fanciful, let me
briefly refer to the historical facts on which it is based. The Mormons
revere but one prophet. As to his identity there can be no mistake,
since many of the "revelations" were addressed to him by name--"To
Joseph Smith, Junior." He never saw Utah, and his public teachings were
for the most part unexceptionable. Taking necessary liberty with
incidents, I have endeavoured to present Smith's character as I found it
in his own writings, in the narratives of contemporary writers, and in
the memories of the older inhabitants of Kirtland.
In reviewing the evidence I am unable to believe that, had Smith's
doctrine been conscious invention, it would have lent sufficient power
to carry him through persecutions in which his life hung in the
balance, and his cause appeared to be lost, or that the class of earnest
men who constituted the rank and file of his early following would have
been so long deceived by a deliberate hypocrite. It appears to me more
likely that Smith was genuinely deluded by the automatic freaks of a
vigorous but undisciplined brain, and that, yielding to these, he became
confirmed in the hysterical temperament which always adds to delusion
self-deception, and to self-deception half-conscious fraud. In his day
it was necessary to reject a marvel or admit its spiritual significance;
granting an honest delusion as to his visions and his book, his only
choice lay between counting himself the sport of devils or the agent of
Heaven; an optimistic temperament cast the die.
In describing the persecutions of his early followers I have modified
rather than enlarged upon the facts. It would, indeed, be difficult to
exaggerate the sufferings of this unhappy and extraordinarily successful
sect.
A large division of the Mormons of to-day, who claim to be Smith's
orthodox following, and who have never settled in Utah, are strictly
monogamous. These have never owned Brigham Young as a leader, never
murdered their neighbours or defied the law in any way, and so vigorous
their growth still appears that they claim to have increased their
number by fifty thousand since the last census in 1890. Of all their
characteristics, the sincerity of their belief is the most striking. In
Ohio, when one of the preachers of these "Smithite" Mormons was
conducting me through the many-storied temple, still standing huge and
gray on Kirtland Bluff, he laid his hand on a pile of copies of the Book
of Mormon, saying solemnly, "Sister, here is the solidest thing in
religion that you'll find anywhere." I bought the "solidest" thing for
fifty cents, and do not advise the same outlay to others. The prophet's
life is more marvellous and more instructive than the book whose
production was its chief triumph. That it was an original production
seems probable, as the recent discovery of the celebrated Spalding
manuscript, and a critical examination of the evidence of Mrs. Spalding,
go far to discredit the popular accusation of plagiarism.
Near Kirtland I visited a sweet-faced old lady--not, however, of the
Mormon persuasion--who as a child had climbed on the prophet's knee. "My
mother always said," she told us, "that if she had to die and leave
young children, she would rather have left them to Joseph Smith than to
any one else in the world: he was always kind." This testimony as to
Smith's kindheartedness I found to be often repeated in the annals of
Mormon families.
In criticising my former stories several reviewers, some of them
distinguished in letters, have done me the honour to remark that there
was latent laughter in many of my scenes and conversations, but that I
was unconscious of it. Be that as it may, those who enjoy unconscious
absurdity will certainly find it in the utterances of the self-styled
prophet of the Mormons. Probably one gleam of the sacred fire of humour
would have saved him and his apostles the very unnecessary trouble of
being Mormons at all.
In looking over the problems involved in such a career as Smith's, we
must be struck by the necessity for able and unprejudiced research into
the laws which govern apparent marvels. Notwithstanding the very natural
and sometimes justifiable aspersions which have been cast upon the work
of the Society for Psychical Research, it does appear that the
disinterested service rendered by its more distinguished members is the
only attempt hitherto made to aid people of the so-called "mediumistic"
temperament to understand rather than be swayed by their delusions.
Whether such a result is as yet possible or not, Mormonism affords a
gigantic proof of the crying need of an effort in this direction; for
men are obviously more ignorant of their own elusive mental conditions
than of any other branch of knowledge.
L.D.
MONTREAL, December, 1898.
THE MORMON PROPHET.
_BOOK I._
CHAPTER I.
In the United States of America there was, in the early decades of this
century, a very widely spread excitement of a religious sort. Except in
the few long-settled portions of the eastern coast, the people were
scattered over an untried country; means of travel were slow; news from
a distance was scarce; new heavens and a new earth surrounded the
settlers. In the veins of many of them ran the blood of those who had
been persecuted for their faith: Covenanters, Quakers, sectaries of
diverse sorts who could transmit to their descendants their instincts of
fiery zeal, their cravings for "the light that never was on sea or
land," but not that education by contact with law and order which, in
older states, could not fail to moderate reasonable minds.
With the religious revivals came signs and wonders. A wave of peculiar
psychical phenomena swept over the country, in explanation of which the
belief most widely received was that of the direct interposition of God
or the devil. The difficulty of discerning between the working of the
good and the bad spirit in abnormal manifestations was to most minds
obviated by the fact that they looked out upon the confusing scene
through the glasses of rigidly defined opinion, and according as the
affected person did or did not conform to the spectator's view of truth,
so he was judged to be a saint or a demoniac. Few sought to learn rather
than to judge; one of these very few was a young man by name Ephraim
Croom. He was by nature a student, and, being of a feeble constitution,
he enjoyed what, in that country and time, was the very rare privilege
of indulging his literary tastes under the shelter of the parental roof.
In one of the last years of the eighteenth century Croom the elder had
come with a young wife from his father's home in Massachusetts to settle
in a township called New Manchester, in the State of New York. He was a
Baptist by creed; a man of strong will, strong affections, and strong
self-respect. Taking the portion of goods which was his by right, he
sallied forth into the new country, thrift and intelligence written upon
his forehead, thinking there the more largely to establish the
prosperity of the green bay tree, and to serve his God and generation
the better by planting his race in the newer land.
The thirtieth year after his emigration found him a notable person in
the place that he had chosen, with almost the same physical strength as
in youth, stern, upright, thrifty, the owner of large mills, of a
substantial wooden residence, and of many acres of land. He was as rich
as he had intended to be; his ideal of righteousness, being of the
obtainable sort, had been realised and strictly adhered to. The one
disappointment of his life was the lack of those sturdy sons and
daughters who, to his mind, should have surrounded the virtuous man in
his old age. They had not come into the world. His wife, a good woman
and energetic helpmeet, had brought him but the one studious son.
Ephraim was thirty-two years of age when a young girl, strong,
beautiful, impetuous, entered under the sloping eaves of his father's
huge gray shingle roof. The girl was a niece on the maternal side. Her
New England mother had, by freak of love, married a reckless young
Englishman of gentle blood who was settled on a Canadian farm. Pining
for her puritan home, she died early. The father made a toy of his
daughter till he too died in the fortified town of Kingston, on the
northern shore of Lake Ontario. No other relatives coming forward to
assume his debts or to claim his child, their duty in the matter was
clear to the minds of the Croom household, and the girl was sent for.
Her name was Susannah, but she herself gave it the softer form that she
had been accustomed to hear; when she first entered the sitting-room of
the grave Croom family trio, like a sunbeam striking suddenly through
the clouds on a dark day, she held out her hand and her lips to each in
turn, saying, "I am Susianne."
That first time Ephraim kissed her. It was done in surprise and
embarrassed formality. He knew, when the moment was past that his
parents had perceived that Susannah needed more decorous training. He
concurred in believing this to be desirable, for the manners that had
surrounded him were very stiff. Yet the memory of the greeting remained
with him, a thing to be wondered at while he turned the whispering
leaves of his great books.
Susannah had travelled from the Canadian fort in the care of the
preacher Finney. He was a revivalist of great renown, possessing a
lawyer-like keenness of intellect, much rhetorical power, and Pauline
singleness of purpose. That night he ate and slept in the house.
The original Calvinism of the Croom household had already been modified
by the waves of Methodist revival from the Eastern States. Finney was an
Independent, but Martha Croom had an abounding respect for him; his
occasional visits were epochs in her life. She had prepared many baked
meats for his entertainment before the evening of his arrival with
Susannah, but while he was present she devoted herself wholly to his
conversation.
The feast was spread in the inner kitchen. In the square brick fireplace
burning pine sticks crackled, bidding the chill of the April evening
retire to its own place beyond the dark window pane. The paint upon the
walls and floor glistened but faintly to the fire and the small flames
of two candles that stood among the viands upon the table.
The elder Croom sat in his place. He was burly and ruddy, a wholesome
man, very silent, very strong, a person to be feared and relied on.
Ephraim believed that force went forth from his father's presence like
perfume from a flower. There were many kinds of flowers whose perfume
was too strong for Ephraim, but he felt that to be a proof of his own
weakness.
Martha Croom, also of New England stock, was of a different type. At
fifty years she was still as slender as a girl--tall and too slender,
but the small shapely head was set gracefully on the neck as a flower
upon its stalk. Her hair, which was wholly silvered, was still abundant
and glossily brushed. Her mind was not judicial. She was more quick to
decide than to comprehend, full of intense activities and emotions.
"I have heard," said the preacher slowly, "certain distressing rumours
concerning--"
Mrs. Croom gave an upward bridling motion of her head, and a red spot
of indignant fire came in each of her cheeks. "Joe Smith?", she cried.
"A blasphemous wretch! And there is nothing, Mr. Finney, that so well
indicates the luke-warmishness into which so many have fallen as that
his blasphemy is made a jest of."
Ephraim moved uneasily in his chair.
Mr. Croom made a remark brief and judicial. "The Smiths are a _low_
family."
Mrs. Croom answered the tone. "If the dirt beneath our feet were to
begin using profane language, I don't suppose it would be beneath our
dignity to put a stop to it."
"It is the Inquisition that my mother wishes to reinstate," said
Ephraim.
The master of the house again spoke with the _naïveté_ of unquestioning
bias. "No, Ephraim; for your mother would be the last to interfere with
any for doing righteousness or believing the truth."
Mrs. Croom's slender head trembled and her eyes showed signs of tears at
her son's opposition. "If God-fearing people cannot prevent the most
horrible iniquities from being practised in their own town, the laws are
in a poor condition."
"You have made no candid inquiry concerning Smith, mother; your judgment
of him, whether true or false, is based on angry sentiment and wilful
ignorance."
The preacher sighed. "This Smith is deceiving the people."
"His book," said Ephraim, "is a history of the North American Indians
from the time of the flood until some epoch prior to Columbus. It would
be as difficult to prove that it was not true as to prove that Smith is
not honest in his delusion. We can only fall back upon what Butler would
call 'a strong presumption.'"
Mrs. Croom, consciously or not, made a little sharp rap on the table,
and there was a movement of suppressed misery like a quiver in her
slender upright form. Her voice was low and tremulous. "If you'd got
religion, Ephraim, you wouldn't speak in that light manner of one who
has the awful wickedness of adding to the words of the Book."
Ephraim continued to enlighten the preacher in a stronger tone. "Whether
the man is mad or false, almost all the immoralities that you will hear
reported about him are, as far as I can make out, not true. He doesn't
teach that it's unnecessary to obey the ten commandments, or beat his
wife, nor is he drunken. He's got the sense to see that all that sort of
thing wouldn't make a big man of him. It's merely a revised form of
Christianity, with a few silly additions, that he claims to be the
prophet of."
Mrs. Croom began to weep bitterly.
The elder Croom asked a pertinent question. "Why do you wilfully
distress your mother, Ephraim?"
"Because, sir, I love my mother too well to sit silent and let her
think that injustice can glorify God."
It was a family jar.
Finney was a man of about forty years of age; his eyes under
over-reaching brows were bright and penetrating; his face was shaven,
but his mouth had an expression of peculiar strength and gentleness. He
looked keenly at the son of the house, who was held to be irreligious.
And then he looked upon Susannah, whose beauty and frivolity had not
escaped his keen observation. He lived always in the consciousness of an
invisible presence; when he felt the arms of Heaven around him, wooing
him to prayer, he dared not disobey.
He arose now, setting his chair back against the wall with preoccupied
precision. "The spirit of prayer is upon me," he said; and in a moment
he added, "Let us pray."
Susannah was eating, and with relish. She laid down her bit of pumpkin
pie and stared astonished. Then, being a girl of good sense and good
feeling, she relinquished the remainder of her supper, and, following
her aunt's example, knelt beside her chair.
The two candles and the firelight left shadowy spaces in parts of the
room, and cast grotesque outlines against the walls. Nothing was
familiar to Susannah's eye; she could not help looking about her.
Ephraim was nearest to her. He was a bearded man, and seemed to her very
old. She saw that his face looked pale and distressed; his eyes were
closed, his lips tight set, like one bearing transient pain. At the end
of the table her uncle knelt upright, with hands clasped and face
uplifted, no feature or muscle moving--a strong figure rapt in devotion.
On her other side, as a slight tree waves in the wind, her aunt's slim
figure was swaying and bending with feeling that was now convulsive and
now restrained. Sometimes she moaned audibly or whispered "Amen." Across
the richly-spread table Susannah saw the preacher kneeling in a full
flickering glare of the pine fire, one hand upon the brick jamb, the
other covering his eyes, as if to hide from himself all things that were
seen and temporal in order that he might speak face to face with the
Eternal.
It was some time before she listened to the words of the prayer. When
she heard Ephraim Croom spoken of by name, there was no room in her mind
for anything but curiosity. After a while she heard her own name, and
curiosity began to subside into awe. After this the preacher brought
forward the case of Joseph Smith.
Before the prayer ended Susannah was troubled by so strong a sense of
emotion that she desired nothing so much as relief. It seemed to her
that the emotion was not so much in herself as in the others, or like an
influence in the room pressing upon them all. At length a kitten that
had been lying by the hearth got up as if disturbed by the same
influence, and, walking round the room, rubbed its fur against Ephraim's
knee. She saw the start run through his whole nervous frame. Opening his
eyes, he put down his hand and stroked it. Susannah liked Ephraim the
better for this. The kitten was not to be comforted; it looked up in his
face and gave a piteous mew. Susannah tittered; then she felt sorry and
ashamed.
CHAPTER II.
Two quiet years passed, and Susannah had attained her eighteenth
birthday.
On a certain day in the week there befell what the aunt called a
"season" of baking. It was the only occasion in the week when Mrs. Croom
was sure to stay for some length of time in the same place with Susannah
beside her. Ephraim brought down his books to the hospitable kitchen,
and sat aloof at a corner table. He said the sun was too strong upon his
upper windows, or that the rain was blowing in. The first time that
Ephraim sought refuge in the kitchen Mrs. Croom was quite flustered with
delight. She always coveted more of her son's society. But when he came
a third time she began to suspect trouble.
Mrs. Croom stood by the baking-board, her slender hands immersed in a
heap of pearly flour; baskets of scarlet currants lay at her feet. All
things in the kitchen shone by reason of her diligence, and the windows
were open to the summer sunshine. Susannah sat with a large pan of red
gooseberries beside her; she was picking them over one by one.
Somewhere in the outer kitchen the hired boy had been plucking a goose,
and some tiny fragments of the down were floating in the air. One of
them rode upon a movement of the summer air and danced before Susannah's
eyes. She put her pretty red lips beneath it and blew it upwards.
Mrs. Croom's suspicions concerning Ephraim had produced in her a desire
to reprove some one, but she refrained as yet.
Susannah having wafted the summer snowflake aloft, still sat, her young
face tilted upward like the faces of saints in the holy pictures, her
bright eyes fixed upon the feather now descending. Ephraim looked with
obvious pleasure. Her head was framed for him by the window; a dark
stiff evergreen and the summer sky gave a Raphaelite setting.
The feather dropped till it all but touched the tip of the girl's nose.
Then from the lips, puckered and rosy, came a small gust; the fragment
of down ascended, but this time aslant.
"You didn't blow straight enough up," said Ephraim.
Susannah smiled to know that her pastime was observed. The smile was a
flash of pleasure that went through her being. She ducked her laughing
face farther forward to be under the feather.
Mrs. Croom shot one glance at Ephraim, eager and happy in his watching.
She did what nothing but the lovelight in her son's face could have
caused her to do. She struck the girl lightly but testily on the side of
the face.
Ephraim was as foolish as are most men in sight of a damsel in distress.
He made no impartial inquiry into the real cause of trouble; he did not
seek Justice in her place of hiding. He stepped to his mother's side,
stern and determined, remembering only that she was often unwise, and
that he could control her.
"You ought not to have done that. You must never do it again."
With the print of floury fingers on her glowing cheeks the girl sat more
astonished than angry, full of ruth when her aunt began to sob aloud.
The mother knew that she was no longer the first woman in her son's
love.
It was without doubt, Mrs. Croom's first bitter pang of jealousy that
lay at the beginning of those causes which drove Susannah out upon a
strange pilgrimage. But above and beyond her personal jealousy was a
consideration certainly dearer to a woman into whose inmost religious
life was woven the fibre of the partisan. As she expressed it to
herself, she agonised before the Lord in a new fear lest her unconverted
son should be established in his unbelief by love for a woman who had
never sought for heavenly grace; but, in truth, that which she sought
was that both should swear allegiance to her own interpretation of
grace. In this prayer some good came to her, the willingness to
sacrifice her jealousy if need be; but, after the prayer another thought
entered into her mind, which she held to be divine direction; she must
focus all her efforts upon the girl's conversion. In her heart all the
time a still small voice told her that love was the fulfilling of the
law, but so still, so small, so habitual was it that she lost it as we
lose the ticking of a clock, and it was not with increased love for
Susannah that she began a course of redoubled zeal.
The girl became frightened, not so much of her aunt as of God. The
simple child's prayer for the keeping of her soul which she had been in
the habit of repeating morning and evening became a terror to her,
because she did not understand her aunt's phraseology. The "soul" it
dealt with was not herself, her thoughts, feelings, and powers, but a
mysterious something apart from these, for whose welfare these must all
be sacrificed.
Susannah had heard of fairies and ghosts; she inclined to shove this
sort of soul into the same unreal region. The dreary artificial heaven,
which seemed to follow logically if she accepted the basal fact of a
soul separated from all her natural powers, could be dispensed with
also. This was her hope, but she was not sure. How could she be sure
when she was so young and dependent? It was almost her only solace to
interpret Ephraim's silence by her own unbelief, and she rested her
weary mind against her vague notions of Ephraim's support.
One August day Mrs. Croom drove with her husband to a distant funeral.
In the afternoon when the sunshine was falling upon the fields of maize,
when the wind was busy setting their ribbon-like leaves flapping, and
rocking the tree-tops, Ephraim Croom was disturbed in his private room
by the blustering entrance of Susannah.
The room was an attic; the windows of the gable looked west; slanting
windows in the shingle roof looked north and south. The room was large
and square, spare of furniture, lined with books. At a square table in
the centre sat Ephraim.
When Susannah entered a gust of wind came with her. The handkerchief
folded across her bosom was blown awry. Her sun-bonnet had slipped back
upon her neck; her ringlets were tossed.
"Cousin Ephraim, my aunt has gone; come out and play with me." Then she
added more disconsolately, "I am lonely; I want you to talk to me,
cousin."
The gust had lifted Ephraim's papers and shed them upon the floor. He
looked down at them without moving. Life in a world of thoughts in which
his fellows took no interest, had produced in him a singularly
undemonstrative manner.
Susannah's red lips were pouting. "Come, cousin, I am so tired of
myself."
But Ephraim had been privately accused of amative emotions. Offended
with his mother, mortified he knew not why, uncertain of his own
feeling, as scholars are apt to be, he had no wish then but to retire.
"I am too busy, Susianne."
"Then I will go alone; I will go for a long, long walk by myself." She
gave her foot a defiant stamp upon the floor.
He looked out of his windows north and south; safer district could not
be. "I do not think it will rain," he said.
A suspicion of laughter was lurking in his clear quiet eyes, which were
framed in heavy brown eyebrows and thick lashes. Nature, who had stinted
this man in physical strength, had fitted him out fairly well as to
figure and feature.
Susannah, vexed at his indifference, but fearing that he would retract
his unexpected permission, was again in the draught of the open door.
"Perhaps I will walk away, away into the woods and never come back; what
then?"
"Indians," suggested he, "or starvation, or perhaps wolves, Susianne."
"But I love you for not forbidding me to go, cousin Ephraim."
The smile that repaid him for his indulgence comforted him for an hour;
then a storm arose.
In the meantime Susannah had walked far. A squatter's old log-house
stood by the green roadside; the wood of the roof and walls was
weathered and silver-gray. Before it a clothes-line was stretched,
heaved tent-like by a cleft pole, and a few garments were flapping in
the wind, chiefly white, but one was vivid pink and one tawny yellow.
The nearer aspect of the log-house was squalid. An early apple-tree at
the side had shed part of its fruit, which was left to rot in the grass
and collect flies, and close to the road, under a juniper bush, the rind
of melons and potato peelings had been thrown. There was no fence; the
grass was uncut. Upon the door-step sat a tall woman, unkempt-looking,
almost ragged. She had short gray hair that curled about her temples;
her face was handsome, clever-looking too, but, above all, eager. This
eagerness amounted to hunger. She was looking toward the sky, nodding
and smiling to herself.
Susannah stopped upon the road a few feet from the juniper bush. It
occurred to her that this was Joseph Smith's mother, who had the
reputation of being a speywife. The sky-gazer did not look at her.
"Are you Lucy Smith?"
The woman clapped her hands suddenly together and laughed aloud. Then
she rose, but, only glancing a moment at the visitor, she turned her
smiling face again toward the sky.
Into Susannah's still defiant mood darted the thought of a new
adventure. "Will you tell my fortune?"
"Who am I to tell fortunes when my son Joseph has come home?" Again came
the excited laugh. "It's the grace of God that's fallen on this house,
and Lucy Smith, like Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias, is the mother of
a prophet."
"He isn't a prophet," said Susannah, taking a step backward.
"Seven years ago was his first vision, and all the people trampling upon
him since to make him gainsay it, but he stood steadfast. I dreamed
it--when he was a little child I dreamed it, and it has come true."
Then, seeming to return into herself, her gaze wandered again to the
sky, and she murmured, "The mother of a prophet, the mother of a
prophet!"
On the other side of the road a few acres of ground were lying under
disorderly cultivation. In one patch the stalks of sweet maize had been
fastened together in high stooks, disclosing the pumpkin vines, which
beneath them had plentifully borne their huge fruit, green as yet. At
the back of this cultivated portion an old man, the elder Joseph Smith,
was digging potatoes; his torn shirt fluttered like the dress of a
scarecrow. Behind him and all around was the green wood, close-growing
bushes hedging in the short trees of a second growth which covered a
long low hill. Above the hill ominous clouds like smoking censers were
being rolled up from the east; the waving beards of the corn stooks
rustled and streamed in wind which was growing colder. Susannah's dress
and bonnet were roughly blown, and the clothes on the line flapped again
around the tall figure of the witch in the doorway.
Susannah contradicted again with the scornful superiority of youth. "I
don't believe that your son is a prophet."
Lucy Smith, having the sensitive receptive power of an hysteric, was
sobered now by the determination of Susannah's aspect. She looked almost
repentant for a moment, and then said humbly, "If you'll come in and see
Emmar--Joseph and Emmar have come home--Emmar will tell you the same."
A gray vaporous tint was being spread over the heavens, folding this
portion of earth in its shadow and darkening the interior of the cabin
which Susannah entered.
Upon a decent bedstead reclined a young woman. Everything near her was
orderly and clean. She belonged, it would seem, to a better class of the
social order than the other, certainly to a higher type of womanhood.
"What have you got? Is it a kitten?" asked Susannah. Advancing across
the dark uneven floor, she perceived that the reclining woman was
caressing some small creature beneath her shawl.
"Emmar, Emmar," said Lucy Smith, "tell Miss from the mill about the
angel that appeared to Joseph."
Emma Smith was a nobly made, dignified young creature. She looked at
Susannah's beautiful and open countenance, and straightway drew forth
the young thing she was nursing for her inspection. It was an infant but
a few days old. Surprised, reverent, and delighted, Susannah bent over
it. The child made them all akin--the squalid old hysteric, the
respectable young mother, the beautiful girl in her silken shawl.
Some minutes elapsed.
"Emmar, Miss here doesn't know nothing about Joseph. She says it ain't
true."
The young mother smiled frankly. "I suppose it seems very hard for you
to believe," she said, "but it's quite true, and the Lord told Joseph
where to find the new part of the Bible that he's going now to make
known to the world. Shall I tell you about it?"
Susannah looked at her dazed; she had heretofore heard of the Smiths'
doctrines as of the ravings of the mad. It had not occurred to her that
a sane mind could regard them seriously.
"It was seven years ago," said Emma, "at the time the big revival was
here and Joseph was converted; but he heard all the Methodists and
Baptists and Presbyterians disputing together as to which of them was
right, and he felt so burdened to know which was right, and he felt a
sort of longing in him to be a great man, bigger than the revival
preacher that had been here that all the people ran after, and Joseph
felt that he could be bigger than that, and preach and tell all the
people what was right, if they would all come to hear him. And he was so
burdened that one day he went out into the woods, and he began crying
and confessing his sins and calling out to God to show him what was
right and make him a great preacher. Well, when he had been crying and
going on like that for a long time, he just fell right down as if he was
asleep, and it was all dark till a light fell from heaven and an angel
came in the light." Emma went on to tell of Smith's vision and first
call, of his backsliding and final commission.
Susannah stared. The young mother was a reality; the baby was a reality.
Could the statements in this wild story bear any relation to reality?
The old woman stood by, nodding and smiling. The young girl's mind
became perplexed.
"It was just before he began to translate the gold book that he came to
board at my father's in Susquehannah County, and he told me all about
it, and I believed him; but my father wouldn't, so I had to go away with
Joseph to get married; but since then father's forgiven us; and we've
been back home this last summer, and we've been to Fayette too, living
with a gentleman called Mr. Whitmer, who believes in Joseph, and all the
time Joseph's been translating the book that was written on the gold
plates that he found in the hill. It's been very hard work, and we've
had to live very poor, because Joseph couldn't earn anything while he
was doing it, but it's done now, so we feel cheered. And now that it's
going to be printed, and Joseph can begin to gather in the elect very
soon, and now that baby's come--"
Emma stopped again; the last domestic detail seemed to involve her mind
in such meshes of bliss that she lost sight of the end of her sentence.
All her words had been calm, and the baby that lay upon the bed beside
her stretching its crumpled rose-leaf fists into the air and making
strange grotesque smiles with its little red chin and cheeks was
undoubtedly a true baby, a good and delightful thing in Susannah's
estimation. Had the Bible in the hill been a true Bible? Susannah
intuitively knew that Emma Smith, bending with grave rapture over her
firstborn, was not trying to deceive her.
"It seems to me," she said, "that it is terribly wicked of you to
believe about this Bible." Her utterance became thick with her rising
indignation. "How can you sit and hold that child and say such terribly
wicked things?" She could not have told why she referred to the child;
the moment before it was spoken she had not formulated the thought. She
was not old enough to reason about the sacredness of babies; she only
felt.
The tears started to Emma's eyes. She clasped her child to her breast.
"Yes, I know how you feel. I felt that way too myself, and sometimes
even yet it frightens me; but, you see, I know it is true, so it must be
right. But I've given up expecting other people to believe it just yet,
until Joseph is allowed to preach, and then it's been revealed to him
that the nations shall be gathered in. Only you looked so--so
beautiful--you see, I thought perhaps God might have sent you to be a
friend to me. I have no friends because of the way they persecute
Joseph."
Susannah turned in incredulous wrath and tramped, young and haughty, to
the outer door. The first drops of a heavy shower were falling; she
hesitated.
"But tell her about the witnesses, Emmar." Old Lucy stood half-way
between the bed and the door, making nods and becks in her excited
desire that Susannah should be impressed. "For when the dear Lord saw
that folks wouldn't b'lieve Joseph, He didn't leave him without
witnesses."
Susannah, stopped by the weather, felt more willing to conciliate. She
returned gloomily within the sound of Emma's gentle voice.
"It was Mr. Cowdery and Mr. Whitmer and Mr. Harris," Emma said. "Mr.
Cowdery and Mr. Whitmer saw the gold plates held in the air, as it were
by hands they couldn't see, but Martin Harris he had to withdraw himself
because he couldn't see the vision, and he went away by himself and
sobbed and cried. But Joseph went and put his arm around him and prayed
that his faith might be strengthened, and then he saw it. So they three
have written their testimony in the front of the book that's being
printed."
A storm had now broken upon the house in torrents. The door was shut.
Emma wrapped her child closer in her shawl. Susannah sat sulky and
disconsolate. She had a vague idea that the vengeance of heaven was
overtaking her for merely listening to such heresy. Over against this
was a shadowy doubt whether it might not be true, roused by Emma's
continued persistency.
"Is it any easier to believe that those things happened to folks when
the Bible was written? Don't you believe that God appeared to Moses and
Samuel and told them the very words to write down, and showed them
visions; and isn't He the same God yesterday, to-day, and for ever? It's
just what it says in the Bible shall come about in the latter days. It's
because of the great apostasy of the Church, no one really believing in
Jesus Christ, that a new prophet had to appear--that's Joseph."
"They do believe," Susannah spoke sullenly.
"Well, there's your aunt, Mis' Croom. Now she's as good as there is in
the modern Church, isn't she? She's doing all she can to save her soul.
She can't do it, for she don't believe. Why the Lord, He said that signs
and wonders should follow them that believe. Have they any signs and
wonders up at your place? And He said that believers must forsake all,
houses and lands and all; what have your people forsook? And as to its
being hard to believe about Joseph--you just take the things in the
Bible, Elisha and the bears, for instance, and Paul bringing back Dorcas
to life, and just think how hard they'd be to believe if you heard they
happened yesterday, next door to you. And with God all times and places
is the same. Souls is only saved by believing; the Lord says so, and
accepting the things of faith to come to pass, and being baptized and
giving up all and following; and it's an awful thing to lose one's
soul."
At this reiteration of the doctrine of the soul as a thing apart from
the development of reason and character, Susannah rose, ready to cry
with anger. Her aunt's agitation on the subject had left a sore to which
the gentlest touch was pain.
"I don't believe it," she cried. "I don't believe God wants us to do
anything except just good. That's what _my_ father told me. I'm going
home. I don't care how it rains."
Emma did not hear her. Over her pale young face had come the peculiar
expression of alert and loving listening. She had detected the sound of
a footstep which Susannah now heard coming heavily near.
A large man of about twenty-five years of age entered from the bluster
of the storm. As Susannah was trying to push out past him into its fury,
he paused, staring in rough astonishment.
Lucy hung on to her arm. "Stay a bit! Joseph must hold the umbrella over
Miss. Emmar, tell her she can't no wise go alone."
Susannah fled into the driving sheets of rain, but Joseph Smith,
umbrella in hand, followed her.
CHAPTER III.
The umbrella was a very heavy one. Susannah certainly could not have
held it against the wind. Joseph Smith held the shelter between Susannah
and the blast, looking at her occasionally with a kindly expression in
his blue eyes, but merely to see how far it sheltered her.
They walked in silence for about a quarter of a mile. The rain swept
upon her skirt and feet; she saw it falling thick on either side; she
saw it beating upon Smith's shoulder, upon one side of his hat, and
dripping from his light hair. The wind was so strong that the very drops
that trickled from his hair were blown backward. His blue coat was
old--not much protection, she thought, against the storm.
The false prophet had hitherto appeared quite as terrible to her
imagination and as far removed from real life as the wild beast of story
books; now he appeared very much like any other man--rather more kind in
his actions, perhaps, and distrait in his thought. Susannah began to
think herself a discoverer.
"You are not keeping the rain off yourself."
"It don't matter about me. I don't mind getting wet."
His tone carried conviction. After a while gratitude again stirred her
into speech.
"I'm afraid you find it awfully hard holding up the umbrella."
He gave a glance downward at her as she toiled by his side. "Why you're
most blown away as it is. You couldn't get along without the umbrellar."
Regarding her attentively for a minute, he added, "Emmar will be vexed
when she hears that your dress got so splashed."
They were both bending somewhat forward against the wind; the road
beneath them was glistening with standing water. When they passed by the
woods the trees were creaking and cracking, and over the meadows hung
shifting veils of clouds and rain.
"I guess I'd better not take you farther than Sharon Peck's. Your folks
would be pretty mad if you walked through the village with Joe Smith."
The lines round Susannah's mouth strengthened themselves; she felt
herself superior to those whose attitude of mind he had thus described.
"You have been very kind to come with me. I'd like better to go home
than stop, if it isn't too far."
"I guess not. If you'd lived here longer you'd know that there was all
manner of evil said about me, and the worst of it is that some of it's
true. I've been a pretty low sort of fellow, and I hain't got any
education to speak of."
She looked up at him in astonishment; the expression of his face was
peaceful and kindly. "Then why do you go about preaching and saying--"
"I hain't got nothing to do with that at all. If an angel comes from
heaven and gives me a partic'lar revelation, calling me by name, namely,
'Joseph Smith, Junior,' tain't for me to say he's made a mistake and
come to the wrong man, though goodness knows I hev said it to the Lord
often enough; but now I've come to see that it's my business just to do
what I'm told. But as to the low ways I hed--why, I've repented and give
them up, and as to the education, I'm trying to get that, but it won't
come in a minute."
Her conscience was not at rest; to be silent was like telling a lie, and
from motives of fear, too! At length she burst out, "I don't believe you
ever saw an angel, Mr. Smith. I think it's very wicked of you to have
made it up, and about the gold Bible too."
They were still half a mile from the nearest house. Susannah gasped.
When she had spoken her defiance she realised that if she had nothing
worse to fear, she at least deserved to be left alone among the raging
elements. She staggered somewhat, expecting a rebuff.
"I guess you'd better take my arm," he said. "It ain't no sort of a day
for a woman to be out."
When she hesitated, flushed and frightened, a smile came for the first
time across his face. "You're almost beat back by the wind. It won't
hurt you to grip hold of my sleeve, you know, even if I am a thundering
big liar. I don't know as I can expect you to believe anything else.
Emmar didn't for a long time, but then, after a spell, she gave up all
the comforts of her father's house just to stand by me, and no one's
ever had a word to say against Emmar."
They stopped at a farmhouse on the outskirts of the village.
Smith had said to Susannah, "There's a gentleman I know stopping at
Sharon Peck's. I'll pass the umbrellar on to him, and he'll take you
home. He's been a Quaker, but I guess you'll find him a pretty nice
young gentleman. Mrs. Peck, she isn't to home."
He left Susannah standing upon the lee side of a wooden house amid
treeless fields. The eaves sheltered her. She stooped down and with both
hands wrung the water from her skirts. She was busy over this when the
promised escort joined her.
The remnants of his forsaken Quakerism hung around him; his coat was
buff, his hat straight in the brim, his manner prim, and when he spoke
it was in the speech of his people. His complexion was very light, hair,
eyebrows and lashes, and the down on his chin--almost flaxen; his face
was browned by exposure to the weather, but so well formed that Susannah
found him very good to look upon, the features pointed and delicate, but
not without strength.
"Thou wilt walk as far as thy home with me?" he asked.
He held Smith's huge umbrella, but he did not hold it with the same
strength, nor did he show the same skill in keeping it against the wind.
He spoke as they walked. "Thou hast walked a long way. Art weary?"
"Yes--no--I don't know." What did it matter whether she was tired or
not? Baffled curiosity was exciting her. "You are a stranger here. Are
you a friend of the Smiths?"
"I have experienced the great benefit of being acquainted with the
prophet for the last fourteen days."
"But he's not a prophet," said Susannah resentfully.
"Did'st thou never find thyself to be mistaken when thou wast most sure?
Hast thou not perceived that thy Bible tells thee in many different ways
that God chooses not as men choose?"
Then with great ardour he preached to her the doctrine of this new
Christian sect. He was a convert; his preaching was rather the eager
recital of his own experience, which would out, like some dynamic force
within him, than pressure brought wilfully to bear upon her.
He said, "I do not ask thee, friend, if thou art Methodist or Baptist or
Presbyterian, but I do ask thee, canst thou read the promises of thy
Lord to his church and be content with its present low estate?"
Susannah was habituated to some recognition of her beauty; she missed it
here, not knowing what she missed. Smith had known that it was important
for her to be sheltered from the wind; he was sorry that her skirts were
splashed; his manner, casual as it had been, had at least had in it that
element of "because you are you," the first essential of any human
relationship. But Susannah liked the young Quaker much better than
Smith; he was of finer fibre, and her heart was agape for young
companionship; so, unconsciously, she resented his indifference, not
only as to her sect but as to her sex.
"My father was an Englishman," she replied with dignity, not knowing why
this seemed sufficient answer.
The Quaker proceeded eagerly with his own story. He had searched the
Scriptures diligently, and found in them no warrant for believing that
the age of miracles and direct revelations would ever pass from the
church. Then upon the gloom of his deep despondency a star had arisen.
He had heard of a young man, poor, obscure, illiterate, who had dared to
come forth saying again, as St. Peter had once said, "This is that which
was spoken by the prophet Joel." He had come far to hear the word, and,
upon hearing it, he had found rest for himself and a hope for the world.
His ardour was beginning to tell upon Susannah's mind. The desire awoke
within her for some fellowship with his enthusiasm. Stronger was the
desire to receive personal recognition from the fair-faced youth.
"I am English," she repeated, "and of course I think it very wicked to
add anything to the Bible; it says so in the Revelation."
"That to me also was a stumbling-block for a short time; but if thou
wilt consider, friend, that the Book of Mormon is the history of God's
dealing with the wild races of our own continent from the time of Noah
until the time of Maroni, which would be about three hundred years after
the first coming of the Lord, and that this sacred history, so necessary
for the instruction of us who must now dwell in the same land, could not
be given until this continent was known to the world, thou wilt cease to
cavil, and wilt in all humility believe that that which is done of the
hand of the Lord cannot be wrong."
Faith begging the question is a sight to which the eye of experience
becomes accustomed, but Susannah, standing upon the threshold of life,
blinked and failed to focus her vision, feeling vaguely that during the
last phrase some one had turned a somersault, and that too quickly to be
watched.
"Thou wilt think upon these things?" The young Quaker stood in the storm
and looked earnestly upon Susannah, who was upon her uncle's doorstep,
within shelter of the brown pent house.
Susannah smiled. It was a perfectly instinctive smile, not one
self-conscious thought went behind or before. She smiled because the
young man was comely, and because she was young and wanted
companionship.
"I don't know," she said with perfect frankness; "my aunt will be so
vexed with me when she hears that I've been to the Smiths that I don't
believe I'll be allowed to think of anything this good while."
Her smile, her girlishness, seemed at last to pierce beneath the armour
of his devout abstraction. Fortune at work chooses her a fine-edged
instrument, and Joseph Smith, with unerring but probably half conscious
instinct, had sent the right messenger. The cloud of serious intent on
the youth's face broke now into a sudden admiring glance, half playful
yet fully earnest. His gray eyes held for a moment gracious parley with
hers. "Wilt thou," he asked, still smiling, "give it as excuse in the
day of judgment that they would not let thee think?"
"N-n-no." She was more struck with the inadequacy of the excuse than
with the fact that she had a better one if she had chosen to give it.
He was again grave, but he was not now unappreciative. "Thou art very
fair, and beauty to a young woman is, no doubt, a great snare. I will
wrestle in prayer for thee."
He was going down the brick walk between the masses of drenched flowers.
"Don't," cried Susannah faintly, "don't do that." But he did not hear
her.
CHAPTER IV.
The wind that in the hurly-burly out of doors had been a cheerful if
boisterous enemy, seemed suddenly transformed into a wailing spirit when
Susannah was making her way up the stairs of the darkening wooden house.
Its master and mistress had not yet returned from burying the dead. The
girl made her way up to Ephraim's room. The books were left open upon
the table; no one was there.
It was a new thing that Ephraim should breast a storm.
Susannah trudged downstairs again and dried her bedraggled skirts at the
fire--an empty house, a dreary wailing wind, and gathering twilight for
her sole companions.
At length a step was heard. Ephraim came in bearing Susannah's rain
cloak and goloshes. He was wet, pale, and breathless, but he would not
betray his weakness and excitement by a word.
"You were looking for me, Ephraim, and some one told you that I had come
home. Did you hear who brought me? O Ephraim! I have been out walking
with the false prophet, and then with one of his disciples." Susannah,
sitting by the fire, looked at him trying to smile through his gloom.
She began again, then stopped; how to impart the full flavour of that
which had befallen her she did not know. It seemed to her that the
difficulty lay in Ephraim's silence. She was not aware that she had not
even a distinct thought for a certain interest in her late companion
which she most wanted to put into words. "Ephraim, it's all very well
for you to stand there drying your feet, but--but--they were just like
other people, as you told Mr. Finney, you know."
"Did you expect them to have horns and tails?"
"I don't think they are very wicked," said Susannah. She looked down as
she said it, speaking with a certain undefined tenderness of tone
begotten of a new experience.
"Well?"
"That's all."
"How could you know whether they are wicked or not?" he burst out
angrily. "Do you suppose that they would show _you_ the iniquity of
their hearts?"
"Why, Ephraim, you've always stood up for them before!"
He gave a sort of snort. "I never stood up for them by making eyes at my
hands and cooing out my words."
She looked up in entire bewilderment.
"It doesn't matter what I mean," he added. "What did they say? What did
they do? Tell me. If I'd known these fellows had come back, do you
suppose I'd have let you go?"
"You are so strange," she said. "They did nothing but just bring me home
and hold the umbrella, and Joseph Smith said he knew he'd been a bad man
and didn't know anything. I thought you'd be interested to hear about
them, Ephraim."
"I should have thought you'd had too much self-respect to allow him to
talk to you like that. Of course he was trying to work on your
feelings."
"No, he wasn't, Ephraim. You are quite as unjust as my aunt to-day. He
wasn't trying to work on my feelings. He was just--well, he was sorry
that my frock got so wet, and he just happened to say the other thing. I
am sure--"
Her conviction concerning the naturalness of Smith's conduct and the
Quaker's sincerity had arisen in the presence of each, and was not now
to be ascribed to any particular word or action which she could remember
and repeat.
"Oh, he was sorry your frock was splashed, was he? And the other fellow
they call Halsey, was he concerned about that too?"
"Who told you that his name was Halsey?" The interest of her tone was
unmistakable.
"That is his name, and he must be a degraded fellow to take up with
Smith."
She saw that Ephraim's clothes were very wet; he must have walked far.
She attributed his exhausted look entirely to fatigue, and his
ill-temper to the same cause. "Mr. Halsey seemed quite good and in
earnest, like the people that come to see Mr. Finney when he stays here,
asking about saving their souls, as if their souls were something quite
different from the other part of them; and, Ephraim, I have often wanted
to ask you, but I didn't like to. You don't believe what aunt and uncle
do, do you? Aunt talks as if you didn't believe. Do you think"--her
voice trembled--"do you think that I ought to think about my soul--that
way?"
Ephraim never perceived the nature of her difficulty. He thought she
questioned the earnestness of life. He leaned back against the jamb of
the chimney, vainly trying to dispel his anger and bring his mind under
the command of reason. He looked at Susannah steadily; she was somewhat
pale with weariness and excitement; she could never be other than
beautiful. How perfect was the moulding of the strong firm chin, of the
curving nostrils! The breadth of the cheek bone, the height and breadth
of the brow, beautiful as they were in their pink and white tinting,
conveyed to him almost more strongly the sense of mental completeness
than of outward beauty. He did not dare to look at her questioning
eyes; his glance travelled over the amber ringlets, damp and tossed
just now, drooping as if to say "Susannah is lonely and perplexed, and
she needs your help." Ephraim, proud, and mortified to think how ill he
compared with her, laughed fiercely within himself. This was a young
woman of distinction, and just now she knew it so little that she sat
looking up with respect at his ill-conditioned self. How long would that
last? How long would she remember any word that he chanced to say to
her?
"Susannah, I think you are very ignorant. Were you never taught anything
when you were a little girl?"
"My father and his friends were always polite to me." She spoke with
grave, rather than offended, dignity.
"She is entirely sweet," he said to himself; "she will never answer me
in anger." Then he went on aloud, "And I am not polite; I am ill-trained
and ill-bred. Well, listen, Susannah. Whatever my mother may or may not
tell you about my peculiar opinions, whatever _I_ choose to believe or
to do, remember this, that I tell you that _you have_ a soul to be
eternally lost or saved, and it behoves you to walk carefully and
concern yourself about your salvation." There was a vibration of intense
warning in his voice. He was thinking of the life that might be so noble
if will and reason sided with God, and of the snares that the world lays
for beauty, and the light way in which beauty might walk into them;
and, as with all dreamy minds, he was too absorbed in his thought to
know how little it shone through the veil in which he wrapped it.
Susannah grew a shade paler. She had struggled in a blind child-fashion
to maintain a religion that would embrace her manifold life, but now it
appeared that, after all, Ephraim endorsed the general view; his refusal
to comply openly with it came of wilfulness, not unbelief. The
stronghold of her peace was gone. "My papa never spoke to me about
religion in that way, but I don't think he believed that."
Ephraim thought of the weak and reckless young father, of the careless
life broken suddenly by death.
"He has learned the truth now," he said shortly.
After a pause, in which she did not speak, he betook himself to his own
rooms, leaving Susannah to the companionship of the lonely house, the
howling wind, the gathering night, and a new fear of a state eternal and
infernal, into which she might so easily slip. Ephraim said so, and he
would never have proclaimed what he would not comply with unless its
truth were very sure.
As for him, his self-despite was pain that rendered him oblivious of her
real danger. Where was his boasted justice? Gone before a breath of
jealousy. The neighbours had told him that she had smiled on Halsey,
and the abuse of the Smithites, in which his mother indulged in the
blindness of religious party-spirit, had fallen from his lips as soon as
his own passion had been touched. Had his former candour, then, been the
thing his mother called it, _indifference_ to, rather than reverence for
truth?
This was the travail of soul that Susannah could have as little thought
of as he had of hers. It held Ephraim in its fangs for many days.
CHAPTER V.
The return of Smith and his few followers, and the speedy publication of
the first edition of the Book of Mormon, stirred anew the flames of
religious excitement. All other sects were at one in decrying "the
Mormons," as they now began to be called by their enemies. There was
perhaps good reason for intelligent disapprobation, but Understanding
was left far behind the flying feet of Zeal, who, torch in hand, rushed
from house to house. It was related that Joseph Smith was in the habit
of wounding inoffensive sheep and leading them bleeding over the
neighbouring hills under the pretext that treasure would be found
beneath the spot where they would at last drop exhausted; and there were
dark hints concerning benighted travellers who, staying all night at the
Smiths' cabin, had seen awful apparitions and been glad to fly from the
place, leaving their property behind. There was a story of diabolical
influence which Smith had exercised in order to gain the young wife whom
he had stolen from her father's roof, and, worse than all, there were
descriptions of occult rites carried on in secret places, where the
most bloody mysteries of the Mosaic priesthood were horribly travestied
by Smith and his friends, Cowdery and Rigdon, in order to dupe the
simple into belief in the new revelation.
Ephraim Croom had again withdrawn himself out of hearing of the
controversy. Judging that Susannah was sufficiently guarded by his
parents to be safe, he became almost oblivious of conversation which he
despised. He did not reflect that Susannah knew nothing of his hidden
conflict, that she could only perceive that, after uttering an ominous
warning, he had left her to work out its application alone.
It was at first not at all her liking for the Smiths, but only her
unbiassed common sense, which convinced her that the wild stories told
concerning them were untrue. When she became enraged at their untruth
she became more kindly disposed toward the young mother, whose baby had
made a strong appeal to her girlish heart, and the big kindly lout of a
man who had sheltered her from the rain. This benevolent disposition
might have slumbered unfruitful but for the memory of the fine and
resolute face of the young disciple who had promised to wrestle in
prayer for her. There was novelty in the thought. The gay witch Novelty
often apes the form of Love. Susannah did not know Love, so she did not
recognise even the vestments falsely worn, but they attracted her all
the same. Her young blood boiled when her aunt, dimly discerning some
unlooked-for obstinacy in her niece's mind, repeated each new report in
disfavour of the Mormons. It was the old story about the blood of the
martyrs, for ridicule and slander spill the pregnant blood of the soul;
but they who believe themselves to be of the Church can seldom believe
that any blood but their own will bear fruit. Every stab given to the
reputation of the Smiths was an appeal to Susannah's sympathy for them.
Mrs. Croom, with a sense of solemn responsibility, was at great cost
bringing all her influence to bear upon the young girl whom her son
loved. She drearily said to herself, after many days, that her influence
was weak, that it accomplished nothing. The strength of it pushed
Susannah, who stood faltering at the parting of the ways, and the
impetus of that push was felt in her rapid and unsteady step for many
and many a year.
One day, when the men were out cutting the maize, Susannah rode with her
uncle to the most distant of his fields, and found herself on the hill
called in Smith's revelation Cumorah.
The sound of the men at work and the horses shaking their harness was
close in her ears while she strayed over this bit of hilly woodland. It
is one of the low ridges that intersect the meadows on the banks of the
Canandaigua, and here Smith professed to have found the golden book. It
was because of this that Susannah had the curiosity to climb it now.
The beech wood grew thick upon it; the afternoon sun struck its slant
sunbeams across their boles. Once, where the beeches parted, she came
upon a fairy glade where two or three maples, fading early, had carpeted
the ground with a mosaic of gold and red, and were holding up the
remainder of their foliage, pink and yellow, in the light. The beauty
wrought in her a dreamy receptive mood. Climbing higher, she came upon a
very curious dip or hollow in the ground. In its narrowest part a man
was lying prostrate; his face was buried in his hat, which was lying
upon the ground between his hands; the whole expression of his body was
that of attention concentrated upon something within the hat. When she
came close he moved with a convulsive start, and she saw that it was
Joseph Smith.
His look changed into one of deference and satisfaction. He rose up,
lifting his hat carefully; in it lay a curious stone composed of bright
crystals, in shape not unlike a child's foot.
"It's my peepstone," he said. "It's the stone I look into when I pray
that I may be shown what to do." Exactly as one child might show to
another some worthless object he deemed choice, he showed the stone to
her.
"I don't know what you mean. How could a stone help you?"
"All I know is that when I've been lying for a long time, feeling that
I'm a poor fellow and haven't got no sense anyway, and the tears come to
my eyes and gush out, feeling I'm so poor and mean, then when I lie and
look and look into this peepstone, I see things in it, pictures of
things that is to be, and sometimes of things that are just happening
alongside of me that I didn't know any other way. I can't say how it may
be; I only know when I see it that I am 'accounted worthy.'"
"You couldn't see anything in the stone."
"No more I couldn't. The stone's nothing, an' I'm nothing, and that's
why, when I do see the pictures, I know it must be either God or the
devil that sends them; and it's not the devil, for I always work myself
up to a mighty lot of praying first, and why should the pictures come
after that if it was the devil?"
"What do you see?"
"I'll tell you one thing I have seen. Mebbe you'll know what it means;
mebbe you won't. I don't know myself rightly yet. I've often to study on
those things a long while before I know what they mean, but lately I've
seen you."
"Me?"
"Yes, you, miss. The things I see are like small tiny pictures inside
the stone. Your bonnet was off. You were inside a room. There was tables
and chairs, and there was a man there. He wasn't very old; he had light
hair."
"What had he to do with me?" she asked, astonished.
"I just saw you stand there, and him a-sitting, but a voice in my own
heart seemed to say--"
"What?"
"It was one of my revelations. If I tell you, you won't believe it.
Howsomever, I think it's my duty to tell you, although you may tell your
folks, and they may persecute me." He paused here, and when he began
again it was in a different tone of voice and with a singing cadence.
"The voice said, 'I say unto thee, she shall see the white stone, and
shall be told the thing that she shall do for the salvation of her soul;
and I say unto thee, Joseph Smith junior, that thou shalt say unto her
to look upon the stone, for she is chosen to go through suffering and
grief for a little space, and after that to have great riches and
honour, and in the world to come life everlasting.'"
As he spoke he was holding up the stone, which glistened in the
sunlight, before her eyes.
Susannah stared at it to prove to herself that there was nothing
remarkable about it. The feeling of opposition seemed to die of itself,
and then she had a curious sensation of arousing herself with a start
from a fixed posture and momentary oblivion. That afternoon as she was
going home, and in the following days, phrases and sentences from the
prophecy which Joseph Smith had pronounced in regard to her clung to her
mind. In disdain she tried to tell herself that the man was mad; in
childlike wonder she considered what might be the mystery of the vision
within the stone and the prophecy if he were not mad. She had never
heard of crystal-gazing; the phrase "mental automatism" had not then
been invented by the psychologists; still less could she suspect that
she herself might have come partially under the influence of hypnotic
suggestion. The large kindliness of the new prophet, the steady sobriety
and childlikeness of his demeanour, the absence of any appearance of
policy or premeditation, were not in harmony with fraud or madness. Her
gentle intelligence was puzzled, as all the candid historians of this
man have since been puzzled. Then, tired of the puzzle, she fell again
to contemplating scraps of his speech, which, having a Scriptural sound,
suggested piety. "She shall be told the thing that she shall do for the
salvation of her soul," "She is chosen to go through suffering and grief
for a little space." How strange if, impossible as it might seem, these
words had come to her--to her--direct from the mind of the Almighty!
CHAPTER VI.
Some days after this Susannah sat alone at the window of the family
room, the long white seam on which she was at work enveloping her knees.
Far off on the horizon the cumulous clouds lay with level under-ridges,
their upper outlines softly heaped in pearly lights and shades of dun
and gray. Beneath them the hilly line of the forest was broken
distinctly against the cloud by the spikes of giant pines. That far
outline was blue, not the turquoise blue of the sky above the clouds,
but the blue that we see on cabbage leaves, or such blue as the
moonlight makes when it falls through a frosted pane--steel blue, so
full of light as to be luminous in itself. From this the nearer contour
of the forest emerged, painted in green, with patches and streaks of
russet; the nearer groves were beginning to change colour, and, vivid in
the sunlight, the fields were yellow. From the top of a low hill which
met the sky came the white road winding over rise and hollow till it
passed the door. Who has not felt the invitation, silent, persistent,
of a road that leads through a lonely land to the unseen beyond the
hill?
Susannah was again alone in the house; this time Ephraim was absent with
his mother, and her uncle was at the mill. On the white road she saw a
man approaching whose dress showed him to be Smith's Quaker convert,
Angel Halsey, a name she had conned till it had become familiar. He did
not pass, but opened the gate of the small garden path and came up
between the two borders of sweet-smelling box. In the garden China
asters, zenias, and prince's feather, dahlias, marigolds, and
love-lies-bleeding were falling over one another in luxuriant waste. The
young man neither looked to night nor to left. He scanned the house
eagerly, and his eyes found the window at which Susannah sat. He stepped
across the flowers and stood, his blonde face upturned, below the open
sash. Under his light eyebrows his hazel eyes shone with a singularly
bright and exalted expression.
"Come, friend Susannah," said he, "I have been sent to bring you to
witness my baptism," and with that he turned and walked slowly down the
path, as if waiting for her to follow.
Susannah, filled with surprise, watched him as he made slowly for the
gate, as if assured that she would come. When he got to it he set it
open, and, holding it, looked back.
She dropped the long folds of muslin, and they fell upon the floor
knee-deep about her; she stepped out of them and walked across the old
familiar living-room, with its long strips of worn rag-carpet, its old
polished chairs, and smoky walls. The face of the eight-day clock stared
hard at her with impassive yet kindly glance, but its voice only
steadily recorded that the moments were passing one by one, like to all
other moments.
Susannah went out of the door. The sun drew forth aromatic scent from
the borders of box, and her light skirt brushed the blossoms that leaned
too far over. Outside the wicket gate at which the young man stood was a
young quince tree laden with pale-green fruit. Susannah let her eyes
rest upon it as she spoke: she even let her mind wander for a second to
think how soon the fruit would be gathered.
"Why should I come to see your baptism?" she asked, with her voice on
the upward cadence.
The young man blushed deeply. "I am come to thee with a message from
heaven." He glanced upward to the great sky that was the colour of
turquoise, cloudless, serene.
"It is a strange errand." There was a touch of reproof in her voice, and
yet also the vibration of awe-struck inquiry. Her mind rushed at once to
the memory of Joseph Smith's prophecy.
"Come, friend," said the young Quaker very gently.
"I can't possibly go."
His strange reply was, "With God all things are possible."
The text fell upon her mind with force.
"Come," he said gently, and he motioned that he would shut the gate
behind her.
"Not now; my shoes are not stout; I have no bonnet or shawl."
"Put thy kerchief over thy head and come, friend Susannah, for 'no man,
putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom
of heaven.'"
At this he walked on, and she was forced to follow for a few steps to
ask an explanation. She tied her kerchief over her head and the thick
white dust covered her slender shoes.
"What do you want me to come for?" she asked.
He looked upon her, colouring again with the effort to express what was
to him sacred. "It has been given to me to pray for thy soul. To-day, as
I prayed, it was borne in upon me that thou shouldst be with me in the
waters of baptism."
Susannah paused on the road, planting the heels of her shoes deeply in
the dust. "I will not," she cried. "I will never believe in Joseph
Smith."
"And yet it has been revealed, friend, that thou art one of the elect.
The time will come very soon when thou wilt believe to the salvation of
thy soul."
He walked slowly onward, and after a minute Susannah, with quickened
steps, followed him, in high anger now. "I do not believe in the
revelations of Joseph Smith," she cried. And because he did not appear
offended she spoke more rudely, catching at phrases to which she had
become accustomed. "If the salvation of my soul should depend upon it, I
would rather lose it than believe."
But when she had said these last words a little gasp came in her breath,
and her heart quailed in realising the possibility of which she had
spoken. Her own angry words had diverted her attention from questioning
the reasonableness of the new faith to the fearful contemplation of what
might be the result of rejection.
If she quailed at her own speech, the grief of the young Quaker was more
obvious. He put up his hands as if in fear that she should add to her
sin by repeating her words. Quiet as was his demeanour, the emotional
side of his nature had evidently been deeply wrought upon to-day, for
when he tried to speak to reprove her, grief choked his utterance. It
was not at that time a strange thing for men under the influence of
religious convictions to weep easily. On the contrary, it was accounted
by evangelists a sign of great grace; but Susannah, accustomed only to
the reserve of English gentlemen and her uncle's stern Puritan
self-repression, seeing this young Quaker weep for her sake, was greatly
touched. She became possessed by an excited desire to console him.
The young man turned, weeping as he went, into a little wood that here
bordered the road. Susannah followed, full of ruth, thinking that he
merely sought temporary shade.
They had proceeded under the trees a few paces when Emma Smith came up
from the bank of the river to meet them. Halsey controlled himself and
spoke to Emma.
"She has refused. For this time she has rejected the truth."
Now to Susannah the matter for amazement was that she had come so far
from home (although, it was not very far), that she had actually
arrived, as it seemed, at an appointed place. The sting that this gave
to her pride was greatly eased by perceiving that she had not by this
fulfilled his hopes.
Emma Smith had a pale, patient face, which was at this time made
peculiarly dignified by a look of solemn excitement. Young as she was,
she turned to Susannah with a protecting motherly air.
"Perhaps next time the opportunity is offered the young lady will
embrace it and save her soul." She spoke consolingly to Halsey, but
looked at Susannah with encouraging and respectful eyes. "You will see
this young man baptized?" she asked.
Under the protection of Emma Smith, Susannah stooped under the willow
boughs and found herself upon the bank of the river in the presence of
Joseph Smith, his mother, and some half-dozen men.
Lucy Smith was muttering somewhat concerning a vision of angels, and the
suppressed excitement of them all was manifest. Susannah was infected by
it; she was now tremulous and eager to see what was to be seen.
Joseph Smith advanced into the flowing river and stood in a pool where
the water was well up to his thighs. Standing thus, he began to speak in
the same formal tone and with the same solemn expression that Susannah
had marked when he spoke the revelation concerning herself, but more
loudly. "Behold! we have gathered together according to the revelation
which has been given to me--"
Here a dark young man called Oliver Cowdery groaned and said "Amen." A
tremble of excitement went through the group upon the shore.
Loudly the prophet went on--"Knowing well that there is nothing in me,
who was wicked and graceless to a very high degree, and wanting in
knowledge, but was yet chosen, upon this sinful earth and in these last
days, when wickedness and hypocrisy is abounding, to open to all who
would be saved a new church which is such as that which the angel hath
revealed to me a church should be, and all them which shall receive my
word and shall be baptized of me or of Mr. Oliver Cowdery, whom the
angel Maroni, descending in a cloud of light, has ordained with me to
the priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of
angels and of the gospel of repentance and of baptism by immersion for
the remission of sins. And this shall never again be taken from the
earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in
the new Jerusalem."
The loud voice carried with it an impression of strong personal feeling;
the effect on the bystanders was such as the words alone were wholly
inadequate to produce. Cowdery, who during the speech had frequently
groaned and responded, after the Methodist fashion, now shouted and
clapped his hands towards the heavens, whereupon Lucy Smith fell into a
convulsive state between laughter and tears, and the men standing beside
her dropped upon their knees. Emma Smith remained standing; upon her
face was a rapt triumphant expression. She put her arm round Susannah
protectingly, and Susannah did not repulse the familiar action.
Joseph Smith now in the same voice called upon his father to be
baptized. He addressed him formally as "Joseph Smith senior." The old
man had, as it seemed, a great fear of the water. It took both priests
of the new sect together to lift and immerse him. There was more
splashing than was seemly. The baptism of a farmer named Martin Harris,
which followed, was more decorous.
The sunlight lay bright on the other side of the flowing river, and the
shadow of the willow tops above them was outlined on the stream. On the
sunny bank opposite there was a thicket of sumac trees reddening to the
autumn heat; the wild vine was climbing upon them, making their foliage
the more dense, and at their roots, by the edge of the stream, the
golden rod was massed. On the bank on which they stood the colouring was
more quiet. A few ragged spikes of the purple aster were all that grew
under the gray green willows, which with every breath turned the silver
underside of their soft foliage to the wind. The place for the baptism
had no doubt been chosen because of the depth of the water, and because
the bank here was comparatively bare.
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. The steady sound of the
mattock in a neighbouring field was the only token of the common
bustling world that lay close around the curious isolation of the hour.
It was time that Angel Halsey should be baptized. In his Quaker clothes
he waded into the water. His manner now was entirely serene, his face
full of joy.
A thought was struck wedge-like into Susannah's understanding. If
Halsey, who was so manifestly on a higher plane of education and
refinement than these others, could so triumphantly embrace the new
faith, it must surely contain more of virtue and reason than she could
see. The influence of what he was, being so much greater than the
influence of what he had said, caused her mind to work with solemn
earnestness as she followed him in sympathy through the symbol of death
and resurrection.
When the prophet came back to the shore he appeared for the first time
to recognise Susannah, and stopped before her, but at first with a
distraught manner, as if he were trying to recollect some dream that
eluded him. He still had his hand familiarly on Halsey's arm, for he had
been conducting him out of the water.
"This is the elect sister?" Smith asked in a hesitating tone, as if
still striving with memory. "Does she desire baptism?"
"Not yet," answered Halsey, "but I have asked the Lord for her soul, and
I believe that it has been given."
In Halsey's mind up to this moment there was, no doubt, only the
solicitude of the missionary spirit; but Smith was a man whose mind was
cast in a different mould; he had already marked the solicitude and
given it his own interpretation, and he had already opened his own eyes
upon her beauty. How far this had conscious connection with the
condition of actual trance into which he now fell cannot be known. It is
probable that what the Psalmist calls the "secret parts" are not in
such minds as Smith's open to the man's own eye.
Smith became wrapped in a sudden ecstasy. Oblivious of all around him,
he looked up into the heavens, and it was apparent that his eyes were
not beholding the material objects around. Those about him gazed
awe-struck, waiting and listening, for he began to speak in a low
unknown tongue, as if holding converse with some one above.
Susannah shrank back, but was held by Emma's encouraging arm. Halsey
stayed perforce, for the prophet's grasp had tightened convulsively upon
him.
In a few moments the vision was over, and Joseph Smith opened his eyes
and smiled in his own slow kindly way upon the frightened girl and upon
Angel Halsey, who stood with steadfast mien.
"It has been revealed to me in heaven that the soul of the elect sister
is indeed given to be united to the soul of this young disciple, that
thereby she may obtain salvation."
He took Susannah's hand, and she felt no power to resist him; he clasped
Halsey's almost more timid and reluctant hand over it.
"Wherefore in the sight of God and in the sight of these elect saints
now present I declare that these two are joined together in the mystical
union of a most holy marriage which God himself has revealed from
heaven."
For some moments Susannah gazed fascinated; then she snatched away her
hand; dignity sought to maintain itself; pride rose up in anger. Her
growing awe of the prophet numbed to a certain extent both these
sentiments, but stronger than pride and self-respect and awe was some
tender shame within her heart which was hurt beyond enduring, so that
she put her hands before her face and wept, and walked away from them
weeping, followed by Emma, who began, as they walked, to weep in
sympathy.
Tears bring relief to the brain, a relief it is hard to distinguish from
comfort of soul. When Susannah could check her unaccustomed sobs, when
she found herself walking quietly homeward with only the weeping Emma by
her side, the spirit of long suffering and patience stole upon her
unawares.
"Why do you cry?" she asked gently.
"I think it must be so hard for you," said Emma; "it's been very hard
for me, although I love Joseph with all my heart; but you are so
childish and so good-looking, it seems someways as if it came harder on
you; and then that Mr. Halsey hasn't got the warmth of heart that Joseph
has."
To this astonishing reply Susannah found no answer. Emma was too
respectable, too honest in her sympathy, to be derided, but Susannah's
understanding could ill endure the thought that the incident of the hour
was important. As the outcome of honest delusion, she might forgive it;
something in the pathos of Halsey's strained face as she remembered his
look when she turned away weeping, urged her to forgiveness.
"Mr. Halsey is nothing to me," said Susannah at last; she spoke with a
falter in her voice, for Emma's unfeigned grief touched her.
"Oh! don't say that. Some judgment might come on you that would be worse
than any suffering that would come from obedience to the word of the
Lord; and besides, it's the will of God, you see; and of course He'll
see that it's done, so you'd be punished for rebellion, and you'd have
to obey all the same."
Susannah was beginning to be infected by this steady assumption that God
had indeed spoken. Could it be possible?
CHAPTER VII.
How much better humanity might have been had we been at the world's
making we cannot tell, but as it is, the Creator knows that a woman
whose veins are pulsing with youth does not know, as she stands between
her lovers, how far influences not born of reason are affecting her
understanding. Ephraim remained neglectful, and Susannah remembered with
more and more distinct compassion Halsey's wistful face and the touch of
his trembling hand. But the emotion which is deeper than human love was
also in ferment. The shock which she had received, aided by the pressure
at home, had effectually worked religious unrest. She was certain now
that she must do some new thing to obtain peace with God. Long
monotonous days ripened within her this altered mind.
On one of the warm days that fell at the end of the apple harvest, when
such vagrant labourers as had collected to help the farmers were
loitering at liberty, Smith held his first and last public meeting in
the place where his boyhood had been passed. It was near the cross-roads
on the old highroad to Palmyra, where a small wooden bridge carries
over a creek that runs through the meadow to the Canandaigua. Here in
the leisure time of the afternoon Smith lifted up his voice and preached
to an ever-increasing crowd, composed first of men, and added to by
whole families from most of those houses within touch of the village.
The elder Croom, his wife, and Susannah were returning from the weekly
shopping at Palmyra's store; they came upon the crowd, and stopped
perforce. Wrath was upon the faces of the elder couple, and nothing less
than terror upon Susannah's white cheeks.
Susannah would have run far to have been saved the awful interrogation
of opportunity. Perhaps all that she knew just then, in her childlike
bewilderment, was that the slanders of the persecution were wrong, and
her untrained mind jumped to the conclusion that the God of truth must
therefore be with Smith. Beyond this there was unnamed wonder at the
unexplained influence that Smith held over her, and more curious
thoughts, stretching out like the delicate tendrils of an unsupported
vine, concerning Halsey, his prayers and warnings, and the strength of
selfless devotion that she had read in his innocent eyes.
Old Croom, deacon and magistrate, was not one to tarry at such a
gathering longer than need be. When he perceived that some of the planks
of the bridge had been taken to support the dam he alighted and broke
down a log fence in order to drive his horses through meadow and stream
to join the road nearer home. His women must needs walk over the scanty
beams. Mrs. Croom, stately and well attired, could make her way through
the crowd; no one there was so rapt but that he let her pass when, with
eyes flashing in righteous indignation, she tapped him on the shoulder
and bid him stand aside. Susannah followed in her aunt's wake, the crowd
of neighbours and strange labourers closing behind them again as they
worked their way, of necessity slowly, nearer and nearer the preacher
and the little band of adherents that stood steadfast around him.
Susannah heard the words of the sermon in which open confession of his
own past sin, bold persuasions to Christianity and righteousness, were
strangely mingled with the claim of the new prophet. She could not
remember one moment what he had said the last. Low hisses and muttered
threats of the angry men about her fell on her ears in the same way,
making their own impression, but not on reason or memory. A sickening
dread of a call that would come before she got away was all that she
fully realised. It came when, in her white gala dress, she stood still
at last near to, and under the eye of, the preacher.
The sermon was finished. There was a silence at its end so unexpected
that none in the crowd broke it. It seemed for those moments to reach
not only into the hearts of the crowd, but into the wide, empty vault of
sunny blue above them, and over the open fields and golden woods. Then,
before the wrath of the crowd had gathered strength to break into
violence, Smith went down into the water and called loudly to all such
as felt the need of saving their souls to enter upon the heavenly
pilgrimage by the gate of his baptism. His adherents had cast themselves
upon their knees in prayer. Susannah saw the strong, dark face of Oliver
Cowdery looking up to the sky as though he saw the heavens opened, and
she saw Angel Halsey look at herself, and then, clasping his hands over
his fair young face, bow himself in supplication.
A man, ragged in dress, and bearing the look of ill deeds in his face,
made his way out of the crowd into the water. He was a stranger to the
place, and the spectators looked on in silent surprise. Before Smith had
dipped him in the stream and blessed him another man came forward, pale
and thin, with a hectic flush upon his cheeks. He was a well-known
resident of Manchester; all knew that his days on earth must be few. A
low howl began to rise, loudest on the outskirts of the crowd, but the
fact that the man was dying kept many silent, feeling that the doomed
may surely have their own will.
Before Joseph Smith had spoken his benediction over this trembling,
gasping creature, when Halsey had left his kneeling to spring forward
and lead him to the shore, Susannah began to move forward to the water.
No one who saw her move at first dreamed of what she sought. Her aunt
had pushed on some distance farther and stood waiting, almost too
astonished at this last baptism to notice that she was separated from
her charge. Now, when she saw Susannah pushing forward, she only
wondered with others what she would be at, and spoke to her
ineffectually, without the shriek and struggle which she made when the
girl was beyond her reach.
So Susannah, moving like one in an agonised dream, came to the edge of
the pool. Among the praying band there was no doubt as to her intention,
no astonishment; the kneeling men gave instant thanks to God for her
decision, and Halsey, having helped the feeble man to land, led Susannah
down into the water, his face illuminated by the victory of faith.
Susannah heard now her aunt's wild shrieks; she heard too the surging of
the crowd, but the meaning of neither sound came to her. She waded on to
where Smith stood, with only the dazed sense of a goal to be reached.
She was perfectly passive in his hands as he dipped her beneath the
surface and raised her up, but she listened to the blessing he
pronounced with a sudden leap of the heart, feeling that now at last the
misery of fear was past and the demand of God satisfied--it must be so
because it had cost so much.
When she came to herself she saw that the crowd, like a wild beast, had
sprung downward upon the disciples. Even in her first terrified glance
she was impressed by the strange and awful difference between the
distorted and hideous faces of the mob and the exalted calm of the few
men who had at this time fixed their minds on the unseen rather than the
seen. She looked up to Smith in the swift appeal of terror, and felt
once for all the huge courage by which his life was marked. His hand,
helping her to the shore, never trembled. He calmly directed her steps
into the quiet meadow before he gave himself to the battle.
When her person was no longer there to be protected, the Mormons gave
way at once before the gathering strength of the mob. She saw them
beaten down mercilessly; she saw Smith himself beaten and thrown
prostrate in the water. The still, warm air that a few minutes before
had seemed instinct with prayer was now vibrating to the howls and
taunts and curses of the mob. Susannah had no doubt that these, who were
now her friends, were being killed; their sufferings justified her to
herself and produced a fierce exaltation in the step which she had
taken. In her experience of life she thought that the mob would turn
upon her next, and stood waiting, every muscle tense, her hands
clenched, feeling excitedly that she would rather die than live to see
such intolerable wrong.
This tension of nerve relaxed somewhat when her uncle lifted her
forcibly into the waggon. With eyes wide open with horror and lips
trembling, she asked, "Did they kill them, uncle?"
"No, child, they only gave them a good trouncing in their own pond." He
choked here, out of pity for her, keeping back the torrent of his anger.
Even at this early date it was bruited that Joseph Smith exercised some
unseemly force of will by which he distorted the reason of his converts.
This report explained the fact that for the first day after the shock of
Susannah's baptism her aunt and uncle did not lay the blame of it at her
door, did not argue or persuade, only watched her as one recovering from
a strange disease. But in the afternoon of that first day the pent-up
fever of the aunt's wrath against those whom she thought to blame broke
forth, and almost in delirium.
The last hot weather of the autumn still held; in the same still hour of
the afternoon, the hour in which Susannah's baptism had taken place the
day before, Angel Halsey, pallid with his yesterday's beating and
ill-usage, but steadfast and even joyful of face, walked up to the front
door of the magistrate's house.
This door opened upon an unfrequented entrance-hall. Susannah heard the
knock, heard her aunt move with the dignity befitting an expected
visitor. Then she heard Ephraim's step on the stair for the first time
that day, and reflected dully that he must have seen the advent of some
important person from his window to be thus answering the call of the
door.
After that she heard words that had the sound of suppressed screams in
them. She realised that the house mistress was ordering some enemy from
her door. These commands were not obeyed, and Susannah, hearing that the
intruder remained, began in fear to suspect the meaning of the
intrusion. As she rose the report of a fire-arm startled her from all
the remnants of her selfish dulness, causing her feet to fly.
From within the sitting-room she saw the entrance-hall. Its door was
open to the wide sweep of land that lay in floods of sunshine. In the
light, half turning now to go as he had come, stood Angel Halsey. Her
eager eyes drank in the sight of him, because last night she had thought
to see him die. She saw his quietness even while, it seemed to her, the
gun still echoed, and it was Ephraim who held the gun! Beside Ephraim
her aunt stood, like one in a frenzy, her very garments twitching and
her gray hair fallen loose. None of them looked to see the girl within
the shaded room.
"Friends," said Halsey, "I came to say 'Peace be with this house,' and
to speak with her to whom God has given the spirit of obedience to his
truth, but it is written that when any house refuses to receive us we
must depart."
His voice was for some cause growing fainter, but Susannah was certain
that the cause was not fear.
He took a letter from his breast. "I wrote it," he said, "in case I
might not enter to speak with her."
He gave the letter to Ephraim, who took it reluctantly, as one impelled
by some strong sense of right.
Halsey went out. He tottered upon the path, but he opened the gate and
walked on. Ephraim, still holding the gun and the letter, turned and saw
Susannah.
Ephraim's face was gaunt and haggard as she had never seen it before;
his eyes were large, and she thought she read unutterable distress in
them, but could not understand. She held out her hand for the letter,
but as he gave it both she and he perceived for the first time that it
was stained with blood; they felt mutually the thrill that the sight
gave.
He put his hand out suddenly and pushed her within the room. "Go," he
entreated, "for God's sake, Susy, go to your own room; take his letter
with you if you will, but go."
Susannah went amazed, but she began to think that Ephraim's distress had
not been a gracious sorrow, but remorse for his own crime. He must have
shot Halsey as he would have shot at some evil beast. When she had time
to remember that Halsey had tottered when he walked, she fled back,
straining the blood-stained letter to her breast, and tore open the
closed door. Her aunt was sitting in a low chair sobbing. Ephraim,
bareheaded in the sunshine, was standing on the path shading his eyes to
scan the road. Susannah ran out, not to him (her shame and grief for him
were too deep for any word), but with intent to run after the wounded
man and nurse his wound.
"It can be but a slight flesh wound," said Ephraim mechanically.
She looked first where he was gazing, and saw that some distance down
the road Halsey was stepping into a chaise. Another man took the seat
beside him and they drove away.
Then she looked at Ephraim. He did not appear as though he felt his
guilt; he had the mien rather of one who was striving bravely to endure
hardship. Then indeed she felt that the gulf of thought must yawn wide
between them; she could even yet have pitied Ephraim's contrition, but
he was not contrite. In indignation she retired, sitting in the privacy
of her little bedroom.
It was a strange letter, not alone because the ink was blurred by blood
that, still warm, soaked it through in parts, but because, coming from
a young man to a maid, in the first flush of her strength and beauty, it
offered love and marriage, giving only as his reason, urging only as her
motive, the service of God.
"If," the letter read, "thou canst see thy way, dear friend, to hold
fast that thou hast in the house of thy friends, if thou canst see thy
way, by steadfast confession and by the grace of thy demeanour, to
strive among them for their conversion, it would be well while thou art
still so young to remain with them for a time--at least so I think. But
our prophet thinks, and I also greatly desire to think, that the strain
upon thy faith would be too great, that thou mightst fail; and
remembering that it has been revealed to him that our union has been
sealed in heaven, he thinks that thou wouldst do well to commit thy
tender life now to my keeping."
The phrase "and I greatly desire to think" was almost as strong as any
in a long letter to tell which way his delight would lie, and Susannah's
was not a mind upon which this indication of reserve force was thrown
away. She trusted, vaguely in thought but implicitly in heart, to that
which lay behind--something which did not alarm her, which in her inner
vision wore no warm nor obtrusive colouring, but which she knew to be
intense and of enduring quality. And she saw herself alone, beaten by
adverse winds and without other shelter.
Halsey touched upon the fact that Smith and his disciples (he did not
say himself) had suffered greatly from yesterday's ill-usage, and said
that, having given their message to the people, they were that day
leaving for a place called Fayette, in Seneca county, where it had
previously been determined that the new church should be organised. He
himself would wait either until Susannah saw her way to come with him,
or until he knew that she was at peace, having chosen of her own accord
to remain. He would bring a chaise, in which she could travel if she
would, near her uncle's house at dawn upon the next morning. He would
take her, he said, to the house where the Smiths were in Fayette, but it
was implied through all the letter that the mystic marriage which Smith
had solemnised was considered by Halsey as valid, and that if she joined
her material fortunes now to those of the persecuted sect, it would be
as his wife.
In speaking of the future he did not gloss over the persecution; he did
not even promise, as Smith had done, a sure and material reward. The
mind of the young Quaker convert was fixed upon the things that are
unseen. This was not hidden from the girl. The thought of being with him
in his faith and resignation gave her peace. Poverty and persecution
seemed as nothing compared with the torture of being surrounded by
people whose thought and actions aroused in her young heart whirlwinds
of passionate opposition. Even Ephraim, instead of rising in his
strength to condemn the outrage of yesterday, had attempted to-day to
wound or kill. Her amazement and dismay at this drove her out as it were
with a scourge.
Halsey had told her to pray, and she had tried to pray. Halsey had told
her to search the Scriptures for guidance, and she read. Text after text
came home to her heart, bidding her leave her kindred to share the
fortunes of the persecuted children of faith.
CHAPTER VIII.
At break of day Halsey was waiting upon the road with a fairly good
horse and a comfortable chaise. Susannah never forgot the light that
came to his eyes when he saw her approach; it was like dawn in paradise.
Angel Halsey was not without shrewd worldly wisdom. He turned into a
cross corduroy road that led through the woods, passing only some small
clearings to the west of Palmyra, and thus by a detour avoiding that
village, he returned again to the highroad between Canandaigua and
Geneva. The pursuers, upon failing to hear that the chaise had passed
through Palmyra, might turn back, or if they had gone on they might have
outstripped them on the road, and be in front rather than behind. This
danger peopled the long lonely road with possible enemies both before
and behind. The strain upon the imagination was very great. The road was
heavy and rough.
Susannah perceived that Halsey's apprehension of being overtaken was
almost solely on her account. He was so upborne by his religious
enthusiasm as to be oblivious to the pain which his wound of yesterday
gave him, and was perfectly willing to encounter the violence of her
kindred again if need be, yet, seeing her terror with a quickness of
sympathy which roused her gratitude, he took every possible precaution
that could allay her fears. All through the weary, weary day she hardly
spoke to him, never addressed him by name.
They reached the new town of Geneva at sundown. When they had set forth
again, it was a great comfort to Susannah that grayness had succeeded to
sunshine. She was weary of the yellow light, of the dull glare from the
stubble fields, of the obtrusive colours of the autumn foliage, of the
blueness of the sky, of everything, indeed, that she had seen and heard
during the wretched hours of the day. They now travelled through a very
flat tract; little of the land was cleared; the road was straight. It is
hard to explain the mental weariness produced by a straight level road.
The hope and interest inspired by undulations or curves are lost. The
distance ever gives a farther reach of the weary way to the view, as if
by a parable it would impress on the traveller the knowledge that the
future was to be barren of delight.
About two miles from Geneva, before the daylight was quite gone, they
were both startled by hearing a rushing, crashing sound coming toward
them in the woods. Were their pursuers upon them after all? Had they
chosen this, the most lonely part of their road, to fall upon them?
They did not speak their thoughts to one another. Angel struck the
horse, and it galloped forward perhaps about a hundred yards, and then,
of its own accord, stopped suddenly.
Upon the side of the road, pushing itself backward among the bushes, the
better to gain space for its run, was a bull. Its eyes were bloodshot,
its head lowered for a long moment to measure its distance ere it made
the attack. The horse seemed palsied with terror. It moved backward with
tottering steps, trembling all over, heedless of whip or rein.
The backward movement prolonged the hesitation of the bull, which turned
itself to take another aim. The horse uttered an almost human cry. In
the moment of hearing that cry Susannah felt that she had already gone
through some shocking form of death. Halsey brought down his whip,
striking the horse with all his might; it leaped forward, lifting the
chaise almost into the air; then it was rushing madly on, dragging the
wheels behind it with terrible velocity.
They had caught sight of the rush of the bull. They felt the animal's
heavy side just graze the back of the chaise, and they heard behind them
a bellow of rage that seemed to fill all the solitary place with
diabolical echoes.
The body of the chaise was bounding upon its leather bands, jolting
cruelly against the axle. Susannah cried out that she should be thrown
from her seat. The swift-falling darkness encompassed their path. Their
hope lay in the straightness of the road, and their chief fear was that
by some greater roughness of the way the chaise, which was now swaying
fearfully, might be overturned.
Gradually the sound of the bull's galloping became less distinct. The
chaise was still upright. The horse, beginning to falter in his pace,
took more kindly to the accustomed control of the rein. It was then
Susannah found that she had been clinging to Halsey for support, and
that he, by bracing himself with one arm to the side of the chaise and
holding her with the other, had prevented her from being thrown out.
In gathering her shawl about her she wrapped herself again in a certain
amount of her former reserve, but the excitement that she had been
through made her former silence impossible.
Halsey at first received her remarks in silence, then as he essayed to
answer, his voice grew low and faint, and a sudden suspicion of the
cause pierced through her mind.
In another moment he sank, leaning against her. Putting her hand beneath
his coat, she found to her dismay that the strain of holding her had
opened his wound; his clothes were again wet with blood.
The reins slipped from his hands. Susannah tied them loose to the front
of the chaise and, putting her arms round the fainting man, drew the
bandages tightly but with unskilful hands; she lessened the bleeding and
caused him such acute pain that he lifted his head and spoke.
"What shall I do?" she asked piteously. The blood, diverted from the
brain, had left it without healthy circulation, but she did not know yet
that this was affecting his mind.
"Friend," he whispered, "that was in truth no bull; it was the devil
himself."
"The devil?" she asked faintly.
"He almost succeeded in his cruel attempt to cause us to be discouraged
from the way."
"It seems to me he only succeeded in causing us to take the way with
greater vehemence," she replied in some scorn.
In the next minute she heard him whisper eagerly, "Look up; look between
the branches; quick! Do you not see the face looking at us?"
The branches of the overhanging tree were black with night. She looked
up in the direction that his feeble hand indicated, and with
indescribable terror scanned the blank spaces in which no human face
could possibly be.
"Look!" he whispered again impatiently. "Don't you see it? It is the
face of a man. A white face! It is the face of thy cousin as I saw it
yesterday when I was counted worthy to suffer. Look! look! does thou
not see him?"
His words had the effect of producing in her that maddening fear of the
dark which ghostly tales induce, and now he fainted again. She was
afraid to cry for help, afraid even of the rustle of her own garments.
She did not know how far she was from any house. And it seemed to her
that this lover, who was almost a stranger, was dying in her arms. The
misery of this hour governed her action in the next.
Halsey in the bottom of the chaise lay with his head against her knee,
and soon, holding the bandages of his wound close upon it with one hand,
she took the reins with the other and urged the horse forward. She had
had no thought all that day but to go, as Halsey had said, to Emma
Smith's protection. She hoped now that there was but one road; that when
she came to the first settlement she would be with the Smiths. This was
not the case. She travelled an hour, obliged to pass more than one
cross-road because she dared not turn down it. At length she found
herself in front of a large house with lighted windows, which was
evidently an inn.
The door opened, letting out a stream of candlelight. A man stood in the
doorway. "What place is this?" cried Susannah's voice from the darkness.
"It's John Biery's hotel."
"Will you have the kindness to tell me if you know of any one called
Mr. Joseph Smith?"
There was some talking within. "No, we never heard of Mr. Joseph Smith."
"Or Mr. Oliver Cowdery?" Again there was talking.
"No, it don't seem that we've any of us heard o' those names before. Be
you alone?" The deep bass voice of John Biery was becoming more
insistent in its rising inflection.
For some half-minute Susannah did not answer, and then fear of being
compelled to retake the road made irresolution impossible.
"Indeed, sir, I am not alone. I have in the chaise with me a sick man,
and I fear that he may be dying. I thought to find friends, but it seems
in the darkness I have missed my way. I must beg of you to assist me to
lift him into the house and give us shelter for the night."
The men had remained perfectly still, drinking in her every syllable
with that fierce thirst for news which is a first passion of dwellers in
such desolate places; then, aroused by what they heard, they came
forward across a rough bit of ground to the road. The burly form of John
Biery came first, and he called for a lantern, which was instantly
produced by one of those who followed. They held it up over Angel's
crouching form and death-like face. Then they held it higher and stared
at Susannah. Her shawl had fallen from off her shoulders. The
handkerchief upon her neck was loose, and underneath the pink border of
her bonnet the ringlets had begun to stray. Her resolute face, so young
and beautiful, startled them almost as an apparition might have done.
"I'm dead beat," said the hotel-keeper under his breath, "if I ever seed
anything like that!" But with the ready suspicion of a prudent
householder he questioned her. Where had the man come by the wound? For
they saw the blood-stained bandages she clasped.
Yesterday, she explained, he had received a slight bullet-wound by
accident, and to-day, in their long travel, the loss of blood had
disabled him.
"Does he belong to you, young lady?"
Susannah busied herself with the bandages for a moment, but terror had
carried her far. She replied with gentle decision, "He is my husband."
CHAPTER IX.
"It is our fault."
That evening Ephraim Croom stood in his father's sitting-room, near the
door of the dark stair that led up to his own rooms. His shoulders were
drooping. His face was gray and haggard. Even his hair and beard, damp,
unkempt, seemed to express remorse in their outline. He stood doggedly
facing his father and mother, repeating the thing that he saw to be
true, but with no further words to interpret his insight.
To his parents his opinions, his attitude, appeared as an outrage upon
reason. His father looked at him with greater severity than he had ever
before exercised upon his only child. "I reckon, Ephraim, that you speak
without using the sense that the Almighty has been mercifully pleased to
give you. You know, Ephraim, the girl has been as a daughter in this
house. When has it been said to her that her father, dying in his
worldly follies, left her destitute, the pittance she gets needing to go
for his debts? She's had about as good a home as any girl should want,
and your mother and the ministers have dealt faithfully with her
concerning her soul."
Ephraim made a movement of the head as if for a moment he could have
stood upright, feeling in one respect innocent; then again there was
nothing but the droop of shame visible.
His mother looked at him with eyes that were red with weeping. She had
been wiping them with fierce furtive rubs of her handkerchief; now she
was rubbing the handkerchief, a hard ball, in the palm of one hand.
Perhaps grief at Susannah's loss had been dominant until Ephraim's
accusation had fanned her anger. "She'd better have gone with him openly
from the baptising. I never thought then that it was love-making she was
after." Deep scorn was here expressed. "Religion! 'Twasn't much religion
she had in her mind. And we treated her real kindly, Ephraim, thinking
'twas the hold of delusion they had upon her. 'Twould be very small use
to bring her back even if you or your father could have found out which
way they'd gone. 'Tisn't likely she'd stay long if you fetched her,
seeing she's that sort of a girl, with a hankering for the man. There
isn't a place in this house to lock her into unless it is the cellar."
It was perhaps the thought of the unspeakable degradation it would be to
the worthy house to hold a girl as prisoner in the cellar, perhaps the
dismal knowledge that that which had already befallen them and her was
not much better than this, that caused his mother here to lose her
self-control entirely and weep bitterly. Ephraim shrank under her words
as if they had been the strokes of a whip striking him. When she had
ended he went on heavily up the dark stair.
Both the men were in riding-dress. The elder man, when he had comforted
his wife as best he might, laid aside his boots and whip determinedly,
believing that the use for them, as far as concerned the search for his
niece, was at an end. Upstairs, sitting between the three windows that
looked east and north and south, Ephraim sat as long as exhaustion made
rest necessary. He was still equipped for the road, thinking only which
way it behoved him to travel, and when.
CHAPTER X.
The next day, toward afternoon, Joseph Smith stood by the bedside of
Angel Halsey. Susannah, wan and weary with a long night's nursing, was
sitting beside the pillow. Smith looked upon them both benevolently. It
was some minutes before he spoke. Susannah was too much in awe of him to
say much, but his presence was welcome. Since Halsey's rational self had
been lost in his delirium, loneliness like darkness that could be felt
had pressed upon her.
"Our brother will be healed," said Smith at length. "It is given to me
to know that he will be healed." He then spread his hands over the sick
man and made a short prayer. There was much fervour in his words and his
voice was loud.
"Give him to drink," said Smith.
"Biery's wife told me as long as he was in fever not to give him water."
Smith looked down upon her kindly, but he spoke in a tone of absolute
authority. "My sister, I say unto thee give him water. It is given to me
to know that he must have water and that he will do well."
"It is never done in such cases," said Susannah. "I remember when my
father--" She had not the faith that Smith required of her.
Without a frown, with perfect gentleness, Smith fetched the water and,
lifting the sick man's head, allowed him to drink eagerly. Halsey was
obviously comforted.
Smith had something else to say. If he had not been who he was Susannah
might have perceived that he was somewhat perplexed, even embarrassed.
Just as a child does not easily attribute to the adult such hindering
emotions, so she supposed him to be upon a plane above them.
He lingered by the bedside, apparently watching the sufferer. At length
he said, "You set out with this young man--yesterday morning?"
"Yes, very early."
There was another pause, then he said, "Did you go before a justice of
the peace?"
"A justice of the peace?" Then she added inconsequently, "My uncle is a
justice of the peace." She had never heard of a civil marriage; she did
not know in the least what he meant.
"Or--or a minister?"
She began to understand now.
"I married you myself, sister, and it was sealed in heaven, but I
haven't got a license to marry, so that the Gentiles would say--that the
knot wasn't tied, ye know." The last words were a lapse into common
parlance. She had grown accustomed to the hybrid nature of his
mannerism.
He had expected and feared to see her white face flame into excitement,
but to Susannah it seemed a small thing now what the Gentiles might say.
If the marriage was indeed sealed in heaven, then all was well. And if
it was not, worse could not be. She was too weary now to respond to the
prophet's worldly solicitude for her. Looking at the still unconscious
Halsey, she felt that there was time enough for further action.
Smith said, "Emma would have come, but the child has spasms."
"We meant to go to you," said Susannah. "We lost our way. I only heard
to-day where you were."
After a while he said, "I might stop here with our sick brother and send
you to Emma, but there is a congregation called for to-night. Mr.
Cowdery would have come, but he was at the baptising."
"Did you leave the baptising just to come and see us?" It occurred to
her that from his point of view two stray disciples such as herself and
Halsey could be of little importance compared with his appearance at the
solemn function.
Smith busied himself giving Halsey more water. That done, he went away
without further words. Susannah heard his horse gallop from the door.
She knew that he had travelled some five miles to pay this visit, and
she supposed that he desired to return if possible before the converts
had come up from the water. His visit had undoubtedly brought her
comfort. His response to her message had been prompt and kind. She knew
now that his thoughts and Emma's were busy concerning her. And then,
too, the sick man was better. He had gone quietly to sleep.
The woman of the house brought her for food an unusual delicacy. Smith
had ordered this. Mrs. Biery made some remarks concerning him. She said
that his coat seemed very old, but that he had given her money and bid
her attend diligently upon the sick man and his wife. Susannah, who knew
how little money the Smiths had hitherto possessed, how many things they
must want for themselves, was touched.
As her spirits revived, her faith and hope in the new sect revived also.
She looked among the few possessions Halsey had brought with him for the
precious copy of the Book of Mormon, and sat reading it by Angel's
bedside while the autumn sun was sinking.
Sometimes she heard a traveller stop at the inn door and pass on again.
At dusk there was a sounds of horses coming with speed. To her surprise
Joseph Smith came into the room again. He looked as if he had been
riding hard, but he spoke as quietly as though he had gone only from
that room to the next.
"I have brought a gentleman who can marry you according to the law of
the State." Susannah had gone forward to greet him, but now she looked
suddenly back toward the unconscious man, whose form was almost
indistinguishable in the dusk.
Smith brought candles and set them at the foot of the bed. He took
Halsey by the hand and lifted him to a sitting posture, telling him in
clear strong tones what was required of him. Halsey understood. He
became completely conscious under Smith's influence, and for the hour
almost strong. He would know where he was and how he came there, who the
minister was that had come. He even required that this stranger should
show his license to marry.
The minister was a common-looking man, small, shaggy as to the beard,
business-like. He knew nothing of Joseph Smith's prophetical claims, and
cared only to know that Susannah was over eighteen years of age.
Marriage was a thing easily accomplished in that day and region. A few
minutes more and Susannah was a wife.
In after years, when she used to think of Angel Halsey as having gone
before her into the unseen, Susannah held the belief that the part of
him which she would meet there would be that which shone out in the rare
half-playful smiles he gave, in the glance which, at the moment of
smiling, he bent on her. He was a very grave man, shrewd, in many ways,
in others as simple as a child, but above all greatly religious. His
religion, however deep might be its root, was also always upon the
surface. Only now and then, when, as at their first meeting, he
recognised in his serious way that something else was required if he
would truly hold communion with Susannah, the smile would come as from
some inward part of his spirit, like a dawning light slowly breaking
through the surface, soon withdrawn again by the power of custom. When
he thus smiled, Susannah in those days trusted him absolutely, avowed
herself entirely to his service, and felt within her heart a large
measure of affection.
Halsey's was the first case of illness in the newly-formed sect that
called itself already "_The_ Church of Christ." Joseph Smith and Cowdery
and a man named Whitmer, with whom the Smiths were now housed, having
consulted upon it, decided that they must begin at once to carry out the
commands of Scripture. They came together, therefore, and anointed
Halsey with oil, laying their hands upon him and praying fervently.
Halsey, believing himself to be healed, got up from his sick-bed, and
his recovery progressed rapidly.
Full of excitement, fervour, superstition, and faith, the apostles of
the new doctrine were fully persuaded that they might expect a literal
fulfilment of the promise that signs and wonders should follow them that
believe. The fierce opposition and hatred which were roused by the
reports of their doings are easily accounted for when we consider that
their opinions had to encounter that curious distortion of reason which
has caused religious warfare in all times and places to become the worst
sort of warfare, and the fact which Smith himself had acknowledged when
he first saw Susannah, that many evil reports about him had formerly
been true; then also the new sect produced vehement psychical
disturbance wherever it touched the surrounding population, and many
things occurred which might, or might not, be termed miracles, according
to the interpretation of the observer. It was no longer possible for
Joseph Smith to ride, as he had done on the day of Susannah's marriage,
with a minister of one of the older sects. He became very notorious, and
to every one except those who were interested enough in his doctrine to
give him a fair hearing, his name became a synonym for all evil.
Halsey remained with Susannah at John Biery's hotel. Halsey was one of
the few converts who could afford to live in comparative comfort and to
pay something for the entertainment of destitute disciples. For that
reason the landlord, John Biery, held himself from the religious quarrel
that was shaking the region.
Even before Halsey had regained his strength he drove Susannah to swell
the congregation at the preachings which were daily taking place in
different places within the township, for such converts as had already
professed themselves were gathered now in the neighbourhood of Fayette.
Experiences came to Susannah in such quick succession that this was not
a time of reflection. Such part of her husband's religion as she could
appropriate she endeavoured very sincerely to embrace. After the manner
of the thought, of the time she supposed that the sect was either right
or wrong--if right, all right; if wrong, all wrong. Sometimes the
ghastly fear that her growing belief was false would arise with hideous
menace.
CHAPTER XI.
All the doings of the infant sect were directed by those utterances of
Joseph Smith which he held to be revelations. These were confided
sometimes to the elders, sometimes to the converts at large. Susannah
frequently heard of them first through Emma Smith, whose pious heart was
constantly filled with wonder and thankfulness at the thought of the
great honour vouchsafed to her husband. These revelations, sometimes
illimitable in their sweep, and sometimes having reference only to the
most minute practical details, were at this time all in accordance
either with the dictates of common sense or with the severely literal
meaning of some Scripture text. They were therefore easily justified
either to reason or to the eye of faith, but the results of their
application were often startling, and it was facts, not theories, that
chiefly caused Susannah to stagger.
At length the growing excitement among the congregation seemed to gather
toward some climax. It was then that Joseph Smith was said for the first
time to cast out devils.
Near to John Biery's hotel lived a family of the name of Knight. The
worthy farmer became a convert, and so also, in appearance, did his son.
Susannah first saw them at their baptism, which took place one cold
bleak day in the margin of Seneca Lake. The horses which had brought the
little company to the edge of the water, having been tied among the
trees, made a constant rustling and trampling among the fallen leaves.
The sharp rustle, the thud of the hoofs upon the ground, were sounds
long connected in her mind with the crisis of her doubt, which then
began. The maples stood above them, tall and leafless; the waters of the
lake were leaden in hue and cold. Looking southward on either side of
its long flood, the snores with their many points and headlands lay
cold, almost hueless, near by, and in the distance blue as tarnished
steel.
It was a bitter day for baptist and for the immersed. Joseph Smith went
out alone into the water, commanding the other elders to remain upon the
shore. Whatever else the man had or had not, he had splendid courage in
facing physical ills. There were but few candidates. Susannah, standing
apart near the shore, chanced to be in the path by which the younger
Knight descended to the water. He was a young man with strong features
and a thick, unhealthy skin. He was dressed in the wet garments which
another candidate had taken off. Cold he might have been, but as he
passed she heard his teeth chatter so loudly that it almost seemed to
her that his very bones rattled. She drew back with the impression that
some horrible thing had passed by. Before she had time to wonder that
the chill should have had such an effect upon the hardy fellow, his feet
were in the water, and he turned and caught her eye. The look he gave
her became suddenly one of terrified entreaty.
Susannah did not move; she was spell-bound. He began to wade toward
Smith, who stood in the deeper water. She wondered why he allowed
himself to be immersed. She was certain that he did not desire it, was
certain also that no motives of interest, no physical force, could have
operated to compel, when suddenly she asked herself sharply, what force
had taken her into the waters of this extraordinary baptism?
To her astonishment, when Newell Knight came up from the water he was
shouting aloud. She thought that his accents were a horrible simulation
of merriment, but by the others they were accepted as an evidence of
holy joy.
Two days after, when Susannah and her husband were returning from
Smith's preaching through the autumn night, they were met as they were
approaching Biery's hotel by a messenger from Knight's house. The
messenger had been sent to fetch Halsey. He reported that Newell Knight
was in "an awful way." Susannah alighted at once and walked to the
tavern, in order that her husband might drive with all speed to the
afflicted man.
The lights as they shone from John Biery's windows reminded her vividly
of the first time, a month since, when she had driven to that house at
night. She had grown much older since then, stronger in many ways,
weaker in some, but she was not conscious of this; it was not her way to
give even so much as a passing glance at herself as one of the actors in
life's drama. The road on which she trod was heavy with mud. The
night-winds cried around and through the empty branches of two or three
neglected trees in the clearing. The square wooden tavern stood at the
cross-roads. The light from the door made a pathway through the
darkness, up which Susannah walked.
When she entered, the heat and fumes from fire, candles, tobacco-pipes,
and steaming mugs met her. She was accustomed to walking through John
Biery's main room to gain the stair that led to her own; on the whole it
was not disorderly, or Susannah had but to appear on the threshold to
reduce it to order. To-night the men did not let her pass with their
usual civil "Good evening"; they assumed that she had an interest in
their talk.
"Is Mr. Halsey stopping over to Farmer Knight's?" asked Biery. "My! and
they'll be real glad to get him, ye know. Twiced they've been here fur
him. They say that Newell Knight he's possessed with a devil."
Susannah wrapped her shawl tightly across her breast, a nervous movement
caused not by cold but by the desire to withdraw her real self from the
surrounding circumstance.
A tall thin man sitting by the table set down his mug with a clatter
upon it. "Wall now, tain't my idea thet thet's exectly what's taken
Newell. I saw a case of a man thet was taken under the preacher Finney.
'Twas over to Ithica. The hull town knew about it. A lot of folks went
in. I jest looked in when I was passing, and seen the man meself. He was
lyin' on the floor. His wife was aholdin' his head, but he didn't know
her. He hedn't no knowledge of any of the folks. He jest lay there
rollin', and his eyes was rollin'. And when Finney was fetched, Finney
he said 'twas 'conviction.' I don't know what the man was convicted of,
but 'twas 'conviction' Finney called it. He didn't say nothing about
being possessed with devils."
The third speaker was a small fat man. His face was smooth and had the
peculiar boylike appearance that chubbiness gives even to the
middle-aged; he had bright black eyes, and before he spoke he glanced at
Susannah critically.
"When they're taken that way under Finney," he said, as if meditating,
"'conviction' commonly means conviction of sins--their own sins, ye
know, not other folk's; and when they git up, if they've taken anything
wrongfully they hev to restore it fourfold afore the conviction will
leave off a-worrittin' them. I don't know how 'tis among the Mormons."
The last words were said in an undertone and he had dropped his eyes. It
would have required a brave man to treat Susannah to open sarcasm.
She stood looking from one to the other. She still wore her girlish
cottage bonnet, and as its fashion was, it had slipped backwards upon
the amber ringlets that hung upon her neck; but the girlish look was
fast passing from the face, the hair parting fell on either side of pale
cheeks.
"Oh, as to thet, 's fur as I know, one religion's as good as another,"
said the politic Biery.
Susannah looked at the fat, bright-eyed man who was no longer looking at
her. "I know" (her voice fell with a strange gentleness through the
thickened atmosphere of the room) "that there are many malicious stories
abroad about the dishonesty of our people which are not true."
But as she went up the stair she remembered that she had heard of no
case where reformation of character had been followed by the returning
of the fourfold. Most of these saints of the new sect had before their
conversion been, like her husband, already God-fearing and righteous,
but in cases where, like their leader, they had been reclaimed from
evil courses, had they not been satisfied with offering the present and
future to God, leaving the past? She had heard of no case of restitution
such as Finney insisted upon.
Susannah entered the low, wide room in which she lived. The chimney from
the lower room passed up and was always warm. She went and laid her cold
hands against the rough plaster that covered its bricks, and, being
tired, she leaned, laying her cheek too against its warm surface. The
one candle cast but a faint light upon the chairs, the bed, the table.
The small panes of the window-glass were bare to the darkness without
and the empty tree-branches. The heavy latch of the closed door was
fastened crookedly for lack of good workmanship.
Her unsatisfied mind ached for counsel, and her thought, roving over the
world, could fix only on Ephraim as she had at first learned to know
him, wise and quiet and kind. The warm chimney seemed a poor thing to
lean her head against while she felt that her faith was failing. Then
the remembrance of the shot Ephraim had fired and his callousness choked
back her tears.
She waited an hour, two hours; then, becoming anxious on Halsey's
account, she borrowed a lantern and went across the fields to Knight's
farmhouse.
Quite a number of people had gathered. Susannah met some of them coming
from the house, but others were still there, standing about the fire in
the kitchen. She heard that the later arrivals had all been disappointed
of the sight of Newell Knight in his fit. Halsey had assumed authority,
stating that it was indeed a case of possession, and that none but those
who were strong in faith and in the power of prayer must come near the
possessed. The craving of the visitors for excitement was only fed by
the sound of the young man's voice, heard at short intervals.
He cried aloud, sometimes shrieking that he was being taken into "the
pit" and that Joseph Smith could alone deliver him, sometimes exclaiming
in a strange voice that he was no longer Newell Knight but a demon, and
sometimes only moaning and gibbering words that no one could understand.
Halsey came out to Susannah. "Wouldst thou see him?" he asked tenderly.
"The sight will distress thee, for it is truly terrible to see with the
eye of flesh the power of hell, and yet I cannot forbid thee if thou
wouldst come, for perchance the Lord may mean it for our edification."
Susannah went with him into the inner room, hardly knowing why she went,
but probably impelled by the instinctive desire to relieve suffering
which was part of her womanhood. The young man's father and mother,
together with two or three Mormon converts, were kneeling upon the
floor, saying prayers for the sufferer in more or less audible, more or
less agonised tones.
The young man lay upon a pallet-bed, in what would have been called by
the medical science of the time "convulsions." His eyeballs were rolled
upwards in a manner most disfiguring to his face. His hands were
clenched. Halsey no sooner entered the room than he, too, fell upon his
knees, lifting his face upward as if in silent and fervent prayer.
For a moment Susannah felt impelled to follow his example. "But
perhaps," she thought to herself, "cold water upon the patient's head,
or a warm foot-bath--" Such suggestions caused her to resist the impulse
to join the praying band, and, having resisted it, she suddenly
experienced, as one feels a fresh breeze entering a close room, a
strong, clear sense of knowledge that in this matter, at least, her
husband was deluded, that the friends had better rise from their knees
and betake themselves to ruder remedies.
Susannah had never learned to command; she had never even learned to
advise. She had too much reverence to speak aloud, disturbing those who
were at prayer. She stood hesitating, and then, in very low tones,
whispered her belief in her husband's ear.
No doubt Halsey was shocked at his wife's unbelief; perhaps by the law
of telepathy, for whose existence some psychical experts vouch, his
thought penetrated the mind of the sensitive upon the bed. Whatever the
cause, Newell Knight sat up and pointed at Susannah, crying aloud that
he saw the devil about to seize upon her. So excited was the mental
atmosphere, so vivid were the sufferer's words and the effect of his
pointing finger, or, perhaps, so substantial was his vision, that more
than one of the saints afterwards averred that they had seen the Evil
One about to embrace Susannah. But they did not agree in the description
of his form.
Halsey wrapped his arms about his wife, and led her like a child from
the room and from the house. She hardly had time to speak before she saw
the night again about her. He set her down upon an old log that chanced
to lie against Knight's barn, kneeling beside her. There, when they were
alone in the darkness, he invoked that name to which throughout all
Christendom the devils are believed to be subject.
"Angel," she said gently, "stop praying and listen to me. If you can
command the devil in the name of our Lord, why don't you do that to poor
Newell Knight?" She felt strong sympathy for the young man; she was
moved almost to tears to think they were taking the wrong way with him.
"I have tried and failed. We have sent for Joseph Smith. My faith is not
strong enough," he added humbly. "This cometh not forth but by prayer
and by fasting. Look! I am even now unfaithful to my charge because I
love thee, friend, more, I fear, than the work of the Lord."
They were left alone because Halsey in passing out had left the door of
the sick room open to the eager neighbours. Now reluctantly he went back
to his task of guarding the patient, and Susannah, after assuring his
anxious soul that she felt no ill effects whatever from the dire
proximity, went home again across the dark frozen fields with her
lantern. She sat half the night watching and waiting.
It was in the darkest hour before the dawn that she heard Halsey's step
and crept down through the black house to unlock the door for him. When
they had come again into the room she saw that he was greatly excited,
filled with apparent calm of an exalted mood.
"We have beheld a most glorious victory, friend; and truly we have been
shown signs and wonders, and a very great miracle has been wrought. I
wish thou couldst have seen with thine own eyes, and yet--"
She thought that he had been going to say that her lack of faith had
made it more expedient for her to be away, but that he had checked in
himself even the thought that he was more worthy of privilege than she.
It seemed that Joseph Smith, having been preaching the evening before at
a place some twenty miles away, had not been able to reach Knight's
house until nearly two in the morning.
"He rode all night," said Halsey, "and lost not a moment in coming to
the inner room; it was like him."
"Yes," said Susannah, "it was like him; he is very kind."
Halsey went on. "He spread his hands over Newell and commanded the
devils to come out of him."
"And did they come?"
"They left him. Joseph said that it was given to him to see that there
were three of them; but they departed, going out into the darkness."
The wind moaned against the window near which Susannah sat.
"They left Newell very weak, but at peace like an infant sleeping. But
at first I feared that he was as one dead, for I could not see him
breathe; but Joseph's faith was strong, for he lifted up his voice and
began to give praise, and he took Newell by the hand and bade him rise,
but his hand fell back as if there was no life in it. Then Joseph Smith
knelt with us upon the floor, and Newell lay smiling, but his eyes were
closed, and he seemed dead to this world, although the body was warm.
Afterwards he told us that at the time he was seeing a vision of
unspeakable light and glory. And then, as we watched him, I fearing
because my faith was weak, a marvel happened as a sign and seal to our
faith that Joseph is indeed called to be a great prophet. I wish that
thou couldst have seen it, Susannah, for the miracle has given me a
great uplifting in spirit, but I am come to bear witness to it, that
thou, too, mayest rejoice in the marvel."
There was a few moments' pause. "What was it?" she asked.
"Newell began to rise from the bed. He did not sit up or move himself,
but he was raised slowly into the air, still reclining as though upon
his pillow. The invisible hands of angels bore him upwards."
Susannah knit her brows. "Did you see the angels? I don't understand."
And then more vehemently she asked, "What was it that you did see?"
"Nay, friend, it was not vouchsafed to us to see the blessed spirits,
but surely they must have lifted him, for he rose, soaring upwards, as
thou hast seen the thistledown ascend gently, almost as high as the roof
of the room. As we gazed in great astonishment, and the women fainted
for fear, he sank again as slowly till he rested upon his bed, and he
opened his eyes and spoke to us of the wonderful vision of light which
he had seen, and then he arose in perfect health and walked."
Susannah sat silent for a minute or two. Her husband was also silent,
wrapped in contemplation. Then Susannah said, "You are very tired,
Angel. You were overwrought last night, even before you were called to
the Knights'; you had better go to sleep now."
She darkened the window against the coming of the dawn that her husband
might sleep in the day instead of the night. She herself went downstairs
with the earliest stir of footsteps. Because of a whim that seized her,
she helped to prepare the breakfast that was to be served to the
household at sunrise, and then she partook of it heartily, looking out
of a southern window as she ate, watching the red sun ascend behind the
naked boles of the elms. She was glad that the new day had come. Her
heart ached not so much with pure grief now as with mocking laughter.
Her husband was mad, quite mad, or else--and this was the more bitter
belief--he had seen that she was in danger of disaffection, and had told
this lie to dupe her, thinking that because she was a woman she would be
impressed by it. As the sincerity of Angel's look came before her she
said to herself that if that were the case no doubt Joseph Smith had
invented the story, and laid it upon Angel's conscience to tell it. That
or madness was the only explanation.
CHAPTER XII.
It was long after the day of her departure before Ephraim again set out
to find Susannah. An illness to which he was subject first came upon
him, and then, when days were past and he was able to leave his bed,
conflicting reports concerning Susannah had been brought to the house,
and Ephraim's courage failed. Why should he go if by seeing her he could
neither give her pleasure nor do her good? It was natural that report,
dwelling on what it could understand rather than on what was
incomprehensible, should magnify Susannah's love for Halsey. No man in
New Manchester who in the past month had chanced to catch sight of any
maid holding secret parlance with any lover but now swore stoutly that
that maid had been Susannah.
It often happens that schemes least calculated to succeed attain
success. Susannah and Halsey had not gone far, nor had they gone with
great secrecy, yet it had happened that no one had observed them as they
travelled, and as there was at that time of the year little
communication between the towns to the east and west of Geneva Market,
it was long before real news concerning them transpired.
At length, when many days had passed, it was told in Manchester where
Susannah really was; and as if the mischief Rumour was ashamed of being
caught telling the truth, she hastily added a lie, and one that had a
fair show of evidence in its favour. She declared that Susannah had not
been married except by some mystical Mormon ceremony which was void in
law.
When Ephraim heard this circumstantial story, and with it many new tales
concerning wicked mysteries practised by the Mormons in Fayette, he
threw down his books, as long ago the fabled fruit that had turned to
ashes was thrown down, and prepared for the road.
In the first day's journey he reached Geneva, and setting out again
before it was light, he came to John Biery's hotel when the sun was
rising red beyond the gray elm boughs on the morning on which Susannah
breakfasted alone.
Susannah looked up from her breakfast and saw Ephraim standing beside
her. It was his way to look calm outwardly, but she could see that he
was struggling with the nervous untoward beating of his heart, so that
he could not speak. Susannah did not understand why she could not
immediately rise and speak. She was conscious of a red flush that rose
and mantled her face, but she did not understand the emotion from which
it arose. She only knew that she was glad to see Ephraim, more glad than
she could have thought to be of anything upon a day when her heart had
been set mocking.
"You have come at last," she whispered, and only knew when the words
were said that she had hoped to see him before. Her whisper was broken
by rising tears, which she checked in very shame.
"I want to speak to you," said Ephraim briefly.
So she rose and went out with him. She put her shawl over her head and
walked upon the roadside. The day was mild, the first of the Indian
summer. Ephraim had not put up his horse; he led it by the bridle as he
walked.
"Sure as I'm alive, it's her uncle as has come after her at last," said
the wife of John Biery, gazing through the small panes of the kitchen
window. And, in truth, Ephraim did look many years older than Susannah,
for his figure was bowed somewhat for lack of strength.
Susannah did not now think of Ephraim as old, neither did she think of
him as young. To her he was just Ephraim, bearing no more relation of
comparison to any other mortal than if his had been the only soul in the
world beside her own. She was not aware of this; she was only thinking
that if he had not shot Halsey she would have been able to speak freely
to him now. It was so wicked of Ephraim, above all others, to do such a
thing. It was, in fact, unforgivable because of the stain upon Ephraim's
own character more than because of Halsey's blood. But that again she
did not analyse. She only knew that her feeling kept her silent.
"I am here, Susannah"--in his battle to speak Ephraim economised
words--"to ask you to come back with me."
Susannah considered. It would be perhaps the best thing that she could
do after she had spoken her mind to Angel. He would not ask her to
remain to join in a service she loathed. But when she thought of her
aunt, and of the voice of an outraged Puritan neighbourhood, her heart
naturally failed her.
"I cannot."
"Is this man more to you--I do not say than the ties of kindred, for
that is natural--but more to you than the obligation to live a life of
reason and duty?"
"No." Susannah spoke the answer aloud because it arose so simply and
strongly within her. Had she not just come to a crisis in which her
desire to abide by reason proved far stronger than the feeling which
bound her to Halsey? And yet, as she thought of his love and his
tenderness for her, she felt only pity for him, even if he had told a
lie.
Ephraim had grown calmer, but at the clear denial his heart again beat
against the breath he was trying to draw. She did not love Halsey then!
she was not married to him! He could conceive of nothing that could have
brought that word and tone to Susannah's lips if she were bound.
"Does not duty and reason, does not even mere sanity, call upon you to
come back with me, Susannah, and spend your life where you can exercise
the gifts God has given you among those who abide by law and order?"
"Perhaps, Ephraim, it is so; but I am too great a coward. Think of the
shame that I should have to endure from my aunt, and all the world would
taunt me with my folly and madness. I think it would kill what little
good there is in me. For although I should be willing to suffer if I
have done wrong, yet there would be no use in going where my punishment
would be greater than I could bear."
He was shocked to think of the days that had elapsed before he had come
to her. She had suffered much before she could speak in this way, and
when he saw how mild and sad she was, and, above all, rational, he
longed to comfort her as he would comfort a child with caresses and the
promise of future joys. He could give her neither, because he believed
that she cared for neither caress nor joy from his hand. There was
something he could offer--all that he had to give that she could take,
but the offer was so hard to make that he prefaced it.
"A way might be found by which you could return to our house, Susannah,
and be troubled by no spoken reproach, and you could live down that
which was unspoken." He paused a minute, and then said, "But I would
know first that you leave all that pertains to your life here freely.
You have found it true, what is so much reported, that the Mormons
follow wicked practices?"
"No, oh no, Ephraim; that is not true--mad, deluded perhaps, but not
wicked. The stories of wickedness told are malicious even where there is
a colour of truth, and for the most part there is none. In the matter of
daily life they abide by the laws of God and man, and nothing else is
taught."
It was the thought of the sacerdotal deception that she felt had been so
lately practised upon herself that caused her to put in the reserving
words "in the matter of daily life"; but when she remembered the malice
that had instigated report, the unlovely lives of the malicious
fault-finders, the evil stains that lie even upon the best lives, she
burst out, "There is not one in our community, Ephraim, who would stoop
to a cruel act either in word or deed. There is not one of us, even
among those who have recently repented from very wicked lives, who would
try to take the life of a defenceless man when he was, at a great cost
to himself, pursuing what he thought to be the path of duty--as you did,
Ephraim."
Before this he had kept his eyes upon the ground; standing still now, he
looked straight into hers. So for a minute they stood, the horse's head
drooping beside his shoulder, the woman upon the roadside erect,
passionate; around them the leafless wood through which the long
straight road was cut. The long level red beams of the sun struck
through between the gray trunks, burnishing the wet carpet of the fallen
leaf.
"Did you think it was I who fired?" he asked.
Then he went on with the horse, and she at the side.
She was utterly astonished. "Who, Ephraim--who fired?"
He looked straight in front of him again. "It was my mother. She
brandished the gun in his face. She couldn't have intended to shoot."
From Susannah's heart a great cloud was lifted. She felt no confused
need to readjust her thoughts; rather it was that in a moment her
apprehension of Ephraim's character slipped easily from some abnormal
strain into normal pleasure.
She pressed her hands to her breast as if fondling some delight.
"Forgive me," she said, "but I am so glad, oh, so very glad." She drew a
long breath as if inhaling not the autumn but the new sweetness of
spring.
So they went on a little way, he somewhat shy because of her emotion,
she meditating again, and this question pressed.
"And you think," she asked, "that your mother would receive me if I went
back with you? that I could live at peace with her?"
"Do you think that whatever I might do she would ever try to shoot
_me_?" he asked with half a smile. "Do you think that she would ever, by
word or deed, do anything that would hurt _me_?"
"Never." Susannah said the word as a matter of course.
"Or that my father would ever deny me anything that I seriously asked
for, or that he knew my happiness depended upon?"
"No, surely not; but, Ephraim--"
"Oh," he continued, growing distress in his voice, "Susannah, is there
any place else in the whole world that you can go for shelter and
comfort but to our house? You have spoken of this madness and delusion;
you are satisfied that you must leave--" He had meant to say "this man,"
but he was too shy, and he faltered--"that you must leave these people?"
She cast her eyes far in among the trunks of the close-growing trees,
upon one side and then upon another, as if looking for a way of escape.
Yes, surely her faith in Angel's creed had been hurt beyond recovery,
and she must free herself, but how? She dallied with Ephraim's offer of
asylum because she could think of no other.
"Yes," she said mechanically; "yes, but how can I?"
"Oh, my dear cousin, don't you see that it is wrong for you to stay one
day longer here? If you believed at first that the bond that united you
to this man was binding, you do not believe it now. You were so young
when you went, yet the thing cannot be undone on that account. You were
so beautiful that I had hoped a great and prosperous life lay before
you. Now, of course, that cannot be, but--but--at least you can live a
life of peace, live truly and nobly, using your faculties to glorify
God."
She began to see that he was trying to work up to something else that he
had to say. She followed him heedfully, knowing that with Ephraim the
steps in an argument were important. He saw some way out which she did
not see, and her whole mind paused in eager listening.
He turned and faced her again, lifting his eyes, holding out his hand;
his voice, usually weak, was strong. She knew that it was a strong man
who spoke to her.
"Susannah, will you take my name and protection?"
She gazed at him incredulous, and then, beginning to understand what it
was that he thought, and all that he meant, she leaned against one of
the cold gray tree trunks, weeping weakly like a child.
"But I am married," the words came with a long sobbing sigh.
"Not legally?" and then he added, "nor in God's sight."
"Yes, yes, oh! you are making a great mistake, Ephraim. Joseph Smith and
my husband are not like that. A minister came and did it. He had his
license, and we have the paper he signed."
Ephraim set his teeth hard together and kept silence. He said to himself
that he might have known that the rascals would be clever enough to make
the tie secure.
Susannah wept on, not loudly, but with long convulsive sighs that broke
into the tears she was endeavouring to check.
"And, Ephraim, my husband is good--oh, very good, and very kind to me,
and up to last night I thought that what he believed might be true. I
was not sure, but I thought that Joseph Smith might be a prophet. I knew
they were far, far better than the other people who despise them, and so
I was glad to be with them; and up till last night" (she repeated the
words, controlling herself to give them emphasis)--"up till last night I
thought that they at least believed everything they said to be true."
Then, after an interval of unthinking pain, Ephraim perceived that if he
had come under a mistaken belief, he had at least come at the right
moment; if the bond of her marriage held, the bond of her delusion was
broken; she had detected some fraud. His hope, dazed by one blow, now
began to look through the circumstance more clearly. If he could lead
her to renounce the religion in which she had apparently ceased to
believe, and persuade her to return to his father's roof, the Mormon
husband himself might seek the dissolution of the marriage. Therefore
Ephraim made no comment on what had passed, but asked gently, "What of
last night, Susy?"
With a great effort she stood up, brushing away her tears, brushing back
with both hands the hair that had fallen about her face. In the shock
which Ephraim's proposal had given, in the brief interval of her tears,
she had realised as never before that she could not shake off her duty
to Angel as she had thought to shake off his creed. She spoke
tremblingly.
"Ephraim, you are so good that you are above us all. You live in some
higher place. You would have made this great sacrifice to help me." (She
never doubted that Ephraim's proposal had been born in self-abnegation.)
"Surely you can tell me what to do, for I am in great distress; but I
want you first to remember that my husband is good, and that he loves me
more than all the world, more than everything except God, and if he has
told me a lie now, it must have been because he thought to save my soul
by it, but I think--I think that the lie could not have been his. I
think it must have been Joseph Smith's." She spoke very wistfully.
"What was it?" he asked again, tender of the shock she had received, yet
still confident that it would be his part to widen this breach.
Looking down with burning cheeks, she told him what Halsey's story about
Newell Knight's levitation had been. She remembered it quite clearly and
told it baldly.
Before she finished it she heard him mutter below his breath that it was
very strange. She was surprised at his tone of perplexity.
"It is very strange to me," she cried, "because I know my husband, and
up till now he has been so upright and, except that he believed in
Joseph Smith, so sensible and wise."
"And is this all?" asked Ephraim. "If it were not for this, would you be
content to go on as before?"
He had begun to walk slowly on with the horse, and she too walked. After
she had answered him the long silence became oppressive, and she knew
that Ephraim was suffering to a degree that she could not understand. At
length when he did speak his words were most unexpected.
He was looking toward the rising sun, which was still dim and flushed
with the autumn haze. "The Christ whom we all worship," he began
abruptly, "each in our different way, called himself by the sacred name
of Truth. Does he desire, do you think, that we must worship him by
adhering to what we know to be fact, no matter what would seem to be
gained by slighting facts? It is a great temptation to me to conceal
from you, Susannah, a part of my book knowledge which I cannot help
thinking has some bearing upon this case--how much or how little I do
not know."
He walked on for a little way, and at length, with a great sigh, he
began to speak again, answering her first appeal for advice.
"I think that your prophet is mad or false, that his Mormonism is utter
folly, but you knew that I thought that long ago. As to this story your
husband has told you, I am bound to say that it has happened before in
the world's history many times that men have seen, or thought they saw,
a man rise into the air. In my opinion it is not the indication of a
sound mind when men see such things, and I feel sure that such a
phenomenon, fact or delusion, whatever it may be, cannot bear any
relation to the religious life. My advice to you is--ah, Susannah, I can
say it truly in the sight of God and of my own conscience--my advice to
you is to be quit of such men and such scenes, but I dare not keep back
from you the truth that this one story, so far from lessening my
confidence in your husband's probity or in Smith's, has rather increased
it; for, being very ignorant men, they could not have heard of these
stories that I have told you, for I have read them only in rare books;
that they have reproduced the same incident seems rather to prove that
they have by accident stumbled upon the same fact--whether a dizziness
of the eyes, or an affection of the brain, or an actual counteraction of
gravity, I cannot tell."
She listened, drinking in each slow word. After all, then, to-day was
just like yesterday, and that which she had to decide was as to the
reasonableness of the whole new doctrine, as to her willingness to live
among such scenes and such men.
There had been no sudden madness or deceit to give her reason for sudden
revolt (perhaps her heart said excuse instead of reason).
Ephraim had grown very pale. After he had watched her for a while, he
said with a sad smile, "You will not come home with me to-day,
Susannah?"
"I must think over all this again, Ephraim. I don't know how these
things can be, but what you admit is very strange."
He knew from her tone that the die was cast; he had no heart to discuss
the laws that govern marvels.
"If at any time, any hour of the day or night, you should wish to come
to us, Susannah, the door is open."
"You have been very kind, Ephraim. There is not much use in my trying to
say anything about how good you are, but--" She stopped, thinking of her
recovered confidence in his character and her husband's; in this
thought she experienced an elevation of the spirits, a new hopefulness,
which, after the dreary blank of the morning's outlook, was like
sunshine after rain. With this elevation the religious habit of thought
which she had learned from Halsey intermingled. "O Ephraim," she cried,
"I believe that God sent you to give me back my faith."
He had nothing more to say after that. He rode away leaving her standing
upon the tawny carpet of the fallen leaf, standing in the pink sunshine
under naked trees, and looking after him with tears of gratitude in her
eyes. Ephraim looked back once, but not again.
CHAPTER XIII.
When Susannah was returning from her parting with Ephraim Croom, she
found Joseph Smith was walking slowly upon the road not far from John
Biery's hotel. He was holding a small book open before his eyes, conning
a lesson, repeating the words aloud again and again as a schoolboy
might.
"It has been given to me to see that the Lord hath need of the learning
of this world, Mrs. Halsey. When I have got the Latin and the Greek, I
shall try to find some man who can teach me the Egyptian language, that
I may know how far the ancient Egyptian from which I translated the Book
differs therefrom."
Susannah had expected to find him excited after the events of the past
night, but instead he was intent only upon committing a portion of the
Latin grammar to memory, learning by rote as children did in those days.
"My husband told me," she began. She stood in awe of Smith, hardly
knowing how to express herself to him; then she went on, almost roughly,
"I don't see how Newell Knight could have gone up in the air and come
down again; it does not seem to me sensible."
He clasped his hands behind his back, his large thumb holding his place
open in the lesson-book, and walked beside her, his head bent somewhat
forward in reverie.
"I am often much taken aback at what happens to me now, Mrs. Halsey, but
I do declare to ye that that was the greatest wonder I ever saw before
my eyes; and it's given to me to see that ye've got the same sort of
difficulty about him as it's natural for me to have." He began to lapse
in his own dialect. "Ye want to see the reason why of things. Well, I
tell ye, I've just got down to this point, that I've give up tryin' to
see why. If ye come to that, why was I chosen to lead this people? I
tell ye when the words of the interpretation of the Book began to pour
through my mind, and I'd no power to stop them, and I just felt as if I
could cry like a baby when I couldn't get any one to write 'em down--I
tell ye, I used often to ask why. But it ain't no use. What I've got to
do is jest to get hold of the guiding that comes to me as clear as I
can, and jest walk straight along those lines."
She was returning with a heart bruised with the pain of the recent
colloquy at parting, but full too of purpose, feeling that she owed it
to Ephraim to reconsider the evidence for Smith's prophetical claim. She
glanced shrewdly at him as he walked and spoke--young, blue-eyed,
large, and mild. The man seemed to her harder to comprehend if his word
was disbelieved than if it was believed. On either supposition her
understanding faltered.
"It is very hard for me to believe these things, Mr. Smith. It is very
hard for me to believe, for instance, about the gold plates. How could
they appear only to you and vanish again? It doesn't seem to me
reasonable."
"No more is it reasonable, but lots of things in the Bible is as lacking
in reason, like the sheet that appeared to Peter with beasts. But about
the plates, I'll tell you just how it was, even though it's not just the
way other folks has got hold of it. This is the truth, and you can think
how hard it was to put it much straighter to folks who didn't believe in
me then as they do now. The night that the angel came down three times
and stood at the foot of my bed, and told me to go and get the plates
and where they were to be found, my brain just seemed to go on fire. I
could see things I never saw any other time. Why, that night I saw
through the wooden wall and into the next room, just as if there hadn't
been any boards there, and I saw all the air about me full of motes,
just as they are in that sunbeam, and it was dark to other people. I
could hear, too, the cocks crowing and dogs barking for miles round; and
when morning came I got up and looked out, and it was as if I had my
eyes to a telescope. I could see the houses for miles and miles. I ran
up the hill and worked into the hole, and there I saw the plates, just
as the angel had said. I'll never forget to my dying day just what they
looked like, and the sort of writing they had. I took them up and
covered them up as the angel had said, and I carried them home and hid
them, and told my folks. That night I was an awful sick man, and the
sickness was on me for some days, and when I looked again at the plates
they just looked like bricks, but the angel told me that they were
really the gold plates with the writing I remembered on them, but were
changed lest any one should see them and die. And I was to keep them
hidden. I know that it was true they were the plates by these two signs;
firstly, whenever I hid myself and took the bricks in my hand, the words
of the Book of Mormon came pouring through my mind, so I was like to cry
out if I couldn't get some one to write them down; and Cowdery he did it
and believed, and Martin Harris he heard me at the dictation and he
believed, and likewise the Whitmers. And the second proof is that after
I had buried the bricks by command, and we was far away from the place
where they lay, Martin Harris and Cowdery and David Whitmer saw the
plates, the very same as I had told them; they were floating in the air
at the time of prayer."
"But, Mr. Smith, St. Peter saw the sheet in a dream; there isn't
anything in the Bible about things or people floating in the air when
people are awake."
"Well, I don't know, sister, about that. There was Philip when he
finished baptisin' the African. Ye see, in going to Azotus he must have
gone up before he went along, or he'd have struck agen the trees; and
our brother Newell, not being as good as Philip, and not having as much
faith, ye see, he jest began to go and had to come back again. Mebbe
when he's engaged in the work for a year or two he'll become an apostle
too. Did ye never think, Sister Halsey, that Providence might take us
up, intending to do great things with us, and jest have to set us down
because we hadn't learned to have faith enough?"
This spiritual significance of the episode of Newell Knight had not
occurred to Susannah before. It touched her own case.
He went on. "When I think of the future that is opening before us,
Sister Halsey--why, when I think of how all the nations are to be
gathered in--there's persecutions in store, and we must be tried by
fire, but there's riches and honour and blessing for those as shall be
steadfast; and it's borne in upon me that the Kingdom shall be set up in
the west of this land." He turned and looked at her, becoming elevated
in mind and rising again into finer language. "And the men that are like
unto thy husband, and have the single eye to believe and obey the word
of the Lord, shall become as princes, dispensing bread to the hungry,
and the water of life to them that are athirst; and the beautiful women
who fail not but continue faithful, shall be as princesses driving
behind white horses and wearing silken robes, and comforting the sick in
their sickness, and welcoming the women of the nations as they come from
distant lands, teaching them that which is good--" He drew his breath,
as if about to say more and yet larger words, but remained silent,
looking upon the open space of the fields. Then his mien, which had
become enlarged, contracted somewhat, as if the vision were past.
"Why, Mrs. Halsey, when I do think of it, it seems as if one day at a
time were'nt enough, and as if I couldn't just set myself to get the
Latin and the Greek, and preach just to a few folks and help a person
that's needing a bit of help; but it's borne right in here upon me that
what we need is the learning of the world, otherwise called the wisdom
of the serpent. I never was a great hand to learn, and father he didn't
make me, so it comes harder now; but I'll see to it that the young ones
of our folks shall take to learning mighty early; and what we want is to
be faithful in small things, and not stumble in our faith if now and
then a man do rise into the air."
She felt his blue eyes, mild but shrewd, meeting hers as he came to this
last item.
"Sister, 'twas given to me to know the first time as I saw you that
there was a great work for you to do in comforting and establishing the
elect, and it comes to me now that you'd better be getting some more
education, for although I suffer not a woman to teach, yet she may
establish that which is already taught."
Inclined to put some question that would bring out more definite
instruction as to her own special function in the Church, she did not
notice two men who were approaching from the other side in a gig until
they were close upon them.
One of these was a well-to-do farmer, the brother of a woman who had
recently been converted at one of Smith's meetings. Now he was breathing
out revenge. He sprang to the ground, striking at Smith with a heavy
whip. Susannah saw the mildness of the prophet's eye turn into a sharp
glitter. She realised that he was not afraid, although when the other
man also sprang upon him there was not the least doubt but that he must
be worsted in such an assault.
In the minute that Smith was wrestling with the farmer for the
possession of the whip, Susannah wrung her hands in an agony and ran
forward toward the hotel, screaming aloud for help; then, afraid of what
might befall in her absence, she ran back. By this time the two men had
thrown Smith down. Even then he showed his strength, for they struggled
hard to get the whip, which he had seized from them.
In her storm of feeling Susannah for the first time came out from the
habits of girlish timidity. Hardly knowing what she said, what she was
about to say, she heard the words of her own fierce indignation ring out
on the air of the mild autumn morning. The scene--the bare road, the
sere weeds and grasses, the prostrate prophet, the flushed faces of the
two burly countrymen upturned to hers as they stooped, crushing him
down--all was photographed on her mind by excitement.
By the intensity of her upbraiding she arrested the attention of Smith's
enemies for a minute till, as if he revolted against his own weakness,
one of them gave vent to a loud jest, at which the other laughed.
The words meant nothing to Susannah, nothing more than the Latin words
of the lesson-book that lay torn and muddy at her feet, but Smith no
sooner heard them than he hurled himself from the ground with almost
superhuman strength.
Both men were forced in self-defence to close upon him. Smith shouted
aloud, although a hand on his throat almost choked him, "Go to the
hotel, Mrs. Halsey; go in to your husband." Susannah knew now that he
was fighting for her, not for himself; the allegiance of his glance gave
her a thrill of loyalty to him which was wholly new.
Two men ran out from the hotel, and behind them John Biery. When they
neared the place the farmer and his accomplice got into their gig and
called back fierce threats against Smith as they went. John Biery was a
constable, yet, although he saw that Smith had been brutally assaulted,
he made no attempt to pursue and capture the offenders. The other men
contented themselves with picking up his hat and book and remarking that
the men that had run away hadn't had no sort of right, and that Smith
ought to have the law on them. Susannah was the more enraged by this
refusal to interfere.
Smith wiped his face from dust and blood. It pleased Susannah's love of
dignity to observe that when he spoke it was not in impotent wrath.
"Go in to your husband, Mrs. Halsey, and tell him to rejoice that we are
accounted worthy to suffer."
That was not exactly the news that Susannah did bring when she went back
to her husband's room. Her feelings were so upwrought that it was some
time before, in pouring out to Halsey her indignation, she could find
relief. Whatever might or might not be the truth of Smith's heart, it
remained true that in this persecution the many were ranged against the
few, and were lashing each other on by false reports to lawless
brutality. Like the Psalmist, Halsey led her as it were into the house
of the Lord, and pointed out the end of the wicked and the award of the
righteous. He added to the then popular notion of external reward
thoughts which had been working in his own mind under the influence of
that time-spirit which leads such minds as his in the foremost paths. He
spoke to her of the strength of character gained and lost by all that
was done and suffered in the right way or in the wrong.
Susannah was soothed. She knew that the truth was being spoken to her,
and her heart leaped forth to do reverence, not only to it, but to the
man who could find it in the midst of such insults. Ephraim was good. If
he could only know how good Angel was, he would not have asked her to
return. All thought of deserting the new cause now was gone; the blood
that had trickled from Smith's bruised head, the danger that menaced
Halsey, sustained her. She wrote to Ephraim to that effect.
Some days after, when driving past Biery's hotel from a meeting he had
been holding in the town of Geneva, Joseph Smith entered and laid before
Susannah books for the cultivation of her mind--a Latin grammar and
exercise book like his own, a Universal History, and a primer of Natural
Philosophy. He told her that in two weeks, when she had mastered their
contents, he would bring her others. He left hastily, the business of
the Church pressing.
In his idea it seemed that the rudiments of a language would take no
longer to acquire than the contents of an English book written in a
popular style. The man was very ignorant of the things that most men
know, but possibly no other man in the world would have known that
writing Latin exercises would bring contentment to Susannah's heart.
There was nothing in such a request to awake suspicion and antagonism,
and there was much in the regular mental exercise to keep her mind from
brooding on its scepticism or upon Ephraim's kindness. As a child sits
down to an intricate game, she sat down, day after day, to her lesson.
Soon the stimulus of knowing that the prophet had actually mastered his
grammar in two weeks wrought the determination not to lag very far
behind. Her husband, who had had fair schooling, helped her.
There began to be a strange race between the prophet and Susannah for
the acquisition of knowledge. They learned out of all sorts of
lesson-books, not on any sound principle of work, but with avidity.
Susannah was the only woman in the new sect to whom Joseph Smith gave
the commandment to become learned. She was not impervious to this subtle
flattery. Rude and poor as he was, Smith was now spiritual dictator to a
large number of souls, and she saw that from herself he sometimes asked
counsel. Parted from Ephraim, having grown accustomed to a husband with
whom self-repression was one of life's first laws, it was not surprising
that under Smith's suggestion a new phase of life began in which her
understanding, not her heart, developed. "Why believe in Moses and the
prophets if not in Smith--in the miracles of yesterday if not in those
of to-day?" was the question with which Halsey prefaced the sermons he
began to preach. The answer that his logic deduced carried conviction to
many of his hearers, but in Susannah's mind the question alone made
way.
_BOOK II._
CHAPTER I.
In the next year, 1831, the new church was formally organised, and this
was the "revelation" given for her direction by the mouth of Joseph
Smith--"And now, behold, I speak unto the Church; thou shalt not kill;
thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not lie; thou shalt love thy wife,
cleaving unto her and to none else; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou
shalt not speak evil of thy neighbour, nor do him any harm. Let him that
goeth to the East tell them that shall be converted to flee to the
West."
The reports of the first missionaries, who had travelled westward,
preaching both to the Indians (called by the "Saints," Lamanites) and to
white men, were received in the beginning of this year, and the point
designated for the first station of the Church on its way westward was a
place called Kirtland, on the banks of the Chagrin River, in northern
Ohio. Thither Halsey was sent, having commands to preach by the way.
At Halsey's wayside meetings the old hymns and the old tunes were sung.
The new doctrine embraced all that was supposed to be alive in the old;
it repudiated only what was supposed to be dead. It offered that
enlargement of human powers which the belief in wonders implies, a new
form of church government, a new land to live in, a new hope of a
visible and glorious church, and, above all, a living prophet. If the
personality of the prophet seemed more attractive to those who believed,
not having seen him, to Susannah, who knew the baseness of his origin so
well, the sudden increase of his influence over hundreds of people
seemed the greatest of marvels; and it was impossible but that even his
person should gain some added grace from the reflected light of success.
Halsey was only one of a dozen successful Mormon preachers who were
converging with their train of followers upon the first station of the
new church.
There is no spot in northern Ohio more lovely than the five hills or
bluffs that rise from the banks of the Chagrin River and its tributary
brooks twelve miles to the south-east of what is now the city of
Cleveland. On the shores of the river and its streams lie green levels;
from these the bluffs rise steeply for some one or two hundred feet to
tablelands of great fertility.
The site for the first Mormon temple was on the highest of these hills
overlooking the three valleys. Its foundations were quickly laid.
Around it upon the slope and tableland, up and down the valleys, and
upon the opposite hills, the wooden houses of the converts began to
spring up, not unlike in colour to a crop of mushrooms, and very like in
the suddenness of their growth.
Not long after Susannah and Halsey had reached Kirtland, Joseph Smith,
with a convert named Rigdon, went on, with missionaries who were
travelling farther west, in order to find in the wilderness the place
that was appointed for the building of Zion or the New Jerusalem. At the
same time all those men among the converts who were deemed fit were sent
out in couples to preach the new Gospel, some back to the eastern States
whence they had come, some to Canada, some to the south. To Joseph Smith
it was given to know who was to go and who to stay. Halsey was directed
to remain, to receive and establish the new converts who came, to tithe
their property for the building of the temple, and to found, according
to Smith's direction, a school of the prophets.
"And to thy wife, Susannah, it shall be given to teach the children such
worldly learning as she has herself acquired, until it may be possible
for us to appoint for them a more learned male instructor."
Joseph Smith spoke these words in the room which served him as business
office and chapel. He was drawing on his gloves, ready to go forth upon
the journey to Missouri.
Several of the elders and their wives were present, some busy on one
errand and some on another. Susannah, being with Halsey, received the
command in person, although it was not directly addressed to her. She
had observed that since her arrival at Kirtland the prophet never
addressed himself to her directly when in public. In many ways his
manners were becoming gradually more formal, and his relapses into his
native speech less frequent.
Susannah could not criticise keenly, so much she marvelled at the man.
His activities before starting on this journey were almost incredible.
Every hour he had made decisions, for the most part successful,
concerning the adaptability of men whom he had only seen, for labours of
which he knew as little. He had preached continually. He had baptised
newcomers in the icy floods of the April stream. He had advised as to
the choice of lands and their manner of cultivation, as to the size and
form of houses. He had visited the sick and planned merry-makings for
the young. In addition to all this, even while preparing for the long
journey into an unknown region, he was busy learning three languages,
and was laying plans, not only for missionary campaigns that were to
spread over the whole earth, but for a new translation of the Old
Testament. If the better clothes that he had begun to wear sat somewhat
pompously upon him, if his manners now sometimes indicated an attempt
not only to be, but to appear, a prophet, such small affectations sank
out of sight in the light of such extraordinary ability.
After Smith and Sydney Rigdon had started westward, Susannah went over
to console Emma. The prophet's wife was at that time living in a
building of which the front part was the general store whence the
material needs of the growing church were as far as possible provided.
Susannah passed through between bales of cloths, boxes, and barrels of
provisions. It was dusk; a young man who served in the store carried a
candle before her, and the odd-shaped piles of merchandise threw strange
moving shadows upon the low beams of the roof and walls. The young man
held the candle to light the way up a straight staircase. "Mis' Smith,"
he shouted, "here's Mis' Halsey come to see you."
At the top of the staircase Susannah was met by a cooing, creeping baby,
who beat with its little fist upon a wicket gate fencing off the stair.
"It was the last thing he did before setting out, to nail that gate
together and fasten it up with his own hands, so as I wouldn't need
always to be running after the young one, lest he should fall down the
stair." It was Emma Smith who spoke; she emerged dishevelled and tearful
from an upper room. "When he has so much to think about and all, and
Elder Rigdon waiting for him at the office till he'd finished. Mr.
Smith, he's always so kind, and he knew as that would be the thing as
would give me the most help of anything."
Emma subsided again into tears--tears that were the more touching to
Susannah because Emma was not like most women; she seldom wept.
"I don't mean to give way," Emma continued, "but if it was your husband
as had gone, you'd know how it was, and it's the first time I've ever
been separate from him so long."
Susannah sat down with the child in her arms. When the question was
brought home to her she did not believe that temporary separation from
Halsey would cause her tears.
Emma began again with an effort at self-control. "It's a long way to
Jackson County, quite across Missouri. It's all Elder Rigdon's doing,
his going just now."
Susannah found something that she could say here in agreement. "It may
be wrong, but I--I don't like Elder Rigdon."
"Well, of course the way he believed, and all his congregation, when the
word was first preached to them makes Joseph think that he must be full
of grace. Ye know, to see Joseph when he's quite by himself, ye'd be
surprised to see how desponding he is by nature. He's that desponding he
was real surprised, real right down taken by surprise, when he heard
that Mr. Rigdon, so clever a minister as he was, and of the Campbellites
too, had been baptized and a hundred and twenty-seven of his
congregation with him. (That was first off, and ye know how many he's
brought in since.) He could hardly believe it; he says, 'It seems as if
I hadn't any faith at all.' And that night he couldn't sleep, but just
walked up and down, and two revelations came to him before morning, and
one of them addressed to Rigdon, so Joseph knows of course he's got the
right thing in him. Then his education, too; he's got a sight more
education than Cowdery. Joseph thinks a deal of education."
"I don't like him." Susannah sat upright; her hands were busy with the
baby upon her knee.
"Well, I dunno." Emma spoke meditatively. "It said in one of Joseph's
revelations that we should dwell together in love."
Susannah laughed; it was a bright, trilling laugh, and filled the large,
low room with its sudden music. It almost seemed like a light in the
growing darkness.
"I guess I'll light up," said Emma, "it'll be more cheerful."
Susannah was still playing with the baby, and Emma looked at her
critically. "Joseph thinks a great deal of you, Mrs. Halsey; he's told
ye to teach school?"
"I have got more time than most of the women, and my husband can afford
to hire a school-room."
"'Tain't that," said Emma decidedly, "it's the same thing as makes ye
say that you don't talk to any of the other folks except in a civil way.
Ye're a bit above all the rest of us ladies in the way ye hold yerself
and the way ye speak. I guess it comes of yer father's folks having been
somebody, and then being so clever at books--ye see, Joseph sees all
that; there ain't anything that he doesn't see."
Susannah perceived that there was something behind this. "You're not
vexed, are you?"
Emma continued with more hesitation in her tones. "No, I'm not vexed.
Why should I be? And besides I like you and Mr. Halsey better than any
of the folks, although I couldn't let it be known."
"There's something that you are thinking about."
Emma sighed deeply; her mien faltered; she subsided again into her seat
by the wall and into tears. "It's only that I feel that Joseph's getting
to be such a great man. Why, there's more than a thousand folks now
looking to him all the time to be told what to do, and thousands more
drawing in, and Joseph beginning to wear the kid gloves whenever he goes
on the street."
There was an interval of sighs and suppressed sobs.
"Aren't you glad? I thought you were glad about it."
"I declare papa and mamma were just wild when I ran away and married
Joseph, because they said that he was a low fellow, and poor, and not
good enough for me, and now--and now--I begin to feel that I'm not good
enough for him."
Susannah went over and sat beside her, chiding indignantly. "You know
very well that nobody could be the same help to him that you are, and
you know very well that there's nobody in the world that he thinks so
much of as you." She did not say all she thought. She considered Emma to
be Smith's superior, but that opinion would have given acute pain.
The young church worked upon Smith's principles of thrift, temperance,
and co-operation, and Kirtland rapidly assumed the proportions of a
town. Susannah became the mistress of the children's school. Smith was a
good economist; although he helped the needy, nothing that his converts
could pay for was given to them for nothing. Hence it was that
Susannah's private purse was well filled with tuition fees.
She had already in mind what she would do with this money; she would
write to the booksellers in Boston who fulfilled Ephraim's orders, and
obtain from them some of the books whose names she remembered to have
seen on his shelves. She knew nothing of their contents, she hardly
knew whether she wanted them more for the sake of their contents or for
their familiar appearance, but she thought that if she did not
understand them when reading, she could write to Ephraim and ask for an
explanation. She could not think of any other excuse for writing to him
again. It had taken her a good many months to think of this one.
Halsey, who had learned to drop the Quaker forms of speech when speaking
to others, still, moved by the remembrances of his early home, used them
in speech to Susannah. He inquired somewhat anxiously concerning the
proposed purchase.
"Dost think that they will contain what the prophet has called 'sound
learning,' and that there will be nothing in them to distract thy soul?"
"How can I tell when I do not know what is in them?" She did not speak
with impatience.
"Art wise, dear heart, in this longing?" he asked wistfully.
Then he carried away her order and despatched it.
In the meantime Smith had returned from Missouri, his mind filled and,
as it were, enlarged by the new land which he said was appointed by
revelation as the site of the New Jerusalem. Jackson County, on the
south bank of the Missouri River, was the place. He had already gathered
four or five hundred new converts there, and he was now possessed with
the desire for money to build the new city, and for a million proselytes
to dwell in it. In spite of this, after sending out new relays of
missionaries in all directions, he settled down to the most sober
routine of study. Hebrew was the new language he wished to acquire, and
he felt the call to revise the Old Testament.
CHAPTER II.
Only one unusual incident occurred in Susannah's presently peaceful
life. One day in the golden October she set out to walk some distance up
the valley of the Chagrin River. The object of the walk was a visit to
one of the outlying farmhouses occupied by a family of the Saints; but
Susannah, as was her wont, found more joy in the walk than in the visit.
When she had passed beyond the meeting of the waters, the valley lay
long before her, about a mile in width and quite flat. The stream was
scarcely seen; the ground was covered with flowery weeds, white asters
with their myriad tiny stars, the pale seed feathers of the golden rod,
high grasses, and wild things innumerable which had been turned brown
and gray by the autumn sun, pink clumps of the rice weed, and small
groves of the scarlet stalks of the wild buckwheat. This level sea of
weeds stood so high that when she threaded the narrow path they reached
above her waist. The bees in the white asters were humming as they hum
in apple bloom. The blue jays were calling and flying in low horizontal
flights. The valley stretched to the south-east, then curved; a little
mountain barred the view, upon whose pine-trees the distant air began to
tinge with blue. On the curving bluffs on either side the trees stood in
stately crowds; hardly a leaf had fallen, except from the golden
walnut-trees; the colour of the foliage was for the most part like the
plumage of some green southern bird, iridescence of gold and red shot
through. To her right, where a part of the long hill had been cleared of
trees, the sun shone upon bare gullies in the soap-stone cliffs, making
the colour of that particular brown bit of earth very vivid. Everywhere
a soft autumn haze was lying, and above white clouds were swinging
across the pale blue sky.
After threading the valley path for a mile Susannah was ascending the
bluff to get to the level of the upper farms, when, much to her
surprise, she came, as once before upon the hill Cumorah, upon Joseph
Smith. He was lying under a group of giant walnut-trees, whose boles
were sheltered from the road by a natural hedge of red dogwood and
brambles. He had apparently been occupied at his devotions, but she only
saw him arising hastily. This time there was no peep-stone; it had long
since been discarded. The prophet had a Bible in his hand, and it was
evident that he had been weeping. It was in those lands the habit of
religious men of all sects to make oratories of the woods. Susannah's
only desire was to pass and leave him undisturbed, but he spoke.
He began severely, "Sister Susannah Halsey, it is not meet that a woman
should stray so far from home and without companions."
For a moment Susannah stood abashed. Unaccustomed to censure, she
supposed that she must have done wrong. "I have walked this way before,"
she began meekly, "but if--" She stopped here, her own judgment in the
matter beginning to assert itself.
The prophet had forgotten his reproof. At all times his conversation was
apt to reveal that sudden changes of mental phase took place within him
apparently without conscious volition. He now exclaimed with more modest
mien, "It is, no doubt, by the will of the Lord that you are come, for I
stood in sore need of comfort, for the revelation of the truth is a
trial hard to endure, and at times very bitter."
"Is it?" asked Susannah intently. It was impossible but that her long
curiosity should find some vent, and yet she shrank inwardly from her
own prying.
The prophet leaned against a huge bole. The ground at his feet was
covered with yellow walnut leaves and the olive-coloured nuts. The
sunlight fell upon him in patches of yellow light. He opened the Bible,
turning over the leaves of the Old Testament as if making a rapid survey
of its history in his mind.
"Sister Halsey," he began, "when the favour of the Lord rested chiefly
upon the Jewish nation, at the times of the patriarchs and David, and
when Solomon, arrayed in all his glory and in the greatness of his
wisdom, reigned from Dan to Beersheba, mustn't those have been the times
when the people walked most closely with the Lord?"
"I suppose so, Mr. Smith."
"It is not enough to suppose, Sister Halsey, for it is clearly written
that when the Jews went contrary to the will of the Lord they were given
over into the hands of their enemies."
Susannah endeavoured to give a more unqualified assent.
"Sister Halsey, there has come to my soul in reading this book in these
last days a word, and I know not if it be the word of the Lord or no."
She saw with astonishment that his whole frame was trembling now. She
began to realise that he was truly in trouble, whether because of the
greatness of the revelation or because of private distress she could not
tell. She became more pitiful.
"I hope you are well, Mr. Smith, and that Emma is well. There is nothing
to really distress you, is there?"
In hearing the increased gentleness of her tone he seemed to find a more
easy expression for his pent-up feeling. "It's come upon me in a very
cutting way, truly as the prophets said like a two-edged sword, and at
the time too when I was inquiring of the Lord concerning--" He stopped
here, and she felt that his manner grew more confidential, but he did
not look at her, his eyes sought the ground--"concerning a matter which
has given me no little heart searching." He stopped again, she listening
with a good deal of interest.
"It's come to me to observe that among the chosen people--there ain't no
gainsayin' it, Sister Halsey, though I trust you to be discreet and not
mention the matter, but in the days when the divine favour rested on
Israel each man had more than one wife; and the Lord Himself says He
give them to Solomon, the only objection being to heathen partners."
"Do you mean, Mr. Smith, that I'm not to mention what everybody knows
already, that in the Old Testament times polygamy was practised?"
The now entire lack of sympathy in her tone affected him as an
intentional act of rudeness would affect an ordinary man. The tissue of
his mind, which had relaxed into confidence, grew visibly firmer. He
assumed the teaching tone.
"No, Mrs. Halsey, the only thing that I asked you not to mention was
that I had any light of revelation on a point on which most of our minds
is already made up."
"Mr. Smith, you can't possibly be in the slightest doubt but that it
would be very wicked for any man now to have more than one wife."
"I've heard a great many of the ministers who in times past, in the time
of our bondage we heard and believed, say as it would be very wicked for
any one nowadays to take God at His word and expect Him to do a miracle
or heal the sick; but I've come to the conclusion, Mrs. Halsey, that it
isn't a question of what we in our ignorance and prejudice might think
wicked, but it's a question of what's taught in this book, looked at
without the eye of prejudice and tradition. What we call civilisation is
too often devilisation--_devilisation_, Mrs. Halsey."
He tapped the book. He was becoming oratorical. "The idea of one wife
came in with the Romans. 'Twas no institution of Jehovah, Mrs. Halsey."
Susannah, more accustomed to his oratorical vein than to private
conference, became now more frank and at ease.
"You said you didn't know that the idea was from the Lord, Mr. Smith,
and I don't think it is. I don't think you'll entertain it very long,
and I don't think, if you did, many of the Saints would stay in your
church."
She bade him good-day, and went on up the slope. When she was walking
along the brink of the bluff in the open beyond the nut-trees she heard
him call. He came after her with hastened gait, Bible still in hand. She
was surprised to find that what he had to say was very simple, but not
the less dignified for that.
"I sometimes think, Sister Halsey, that you look down on us all as if we
weren't good enough for you, although you're too kindly to let it be
seen. According to the ways of the world, of course, it's so. If I'm as
rough and uneducated as most of our folks, at least I can think in my
mind what it would be not to be rough, and I can think sometimes how it
all seems to you."
His words appealed directly to strong private feeling which had no
outlet. While she stood seeking a reply the natural power that he had of
working upon the feelings of others, vulgarly called magnetism, so far
worked in connection with his words that tears came to her eyes.
"I don't often think about my old life," she said with brief pathos.
Smith was looking at the ground, as a huge, shy boy might stand when
anxious to express sympathy of which he was somewhat ashamed. "I know it
must be a sort of abiding trial to you." After a moment he added, "I
wouldn't like to make it worse by having you think that I was goin' to
preach any strange doctrine. I'd sometimes give a good deal if the Lord
would raise me up a friend that I could speak to concerning the lights
that come to me that I know that it wouldn't do to speak of in the
public congregations, because of their upsetting nature, and likewise
because I doubt concerning their meaning. And of this matter there was
no thought in my mind to speak in public, for it is for the future to
declare whether it be of the darkness or of the light; but to you I
spoke, almost unwittingly, and perhaps in disobedience to the dictates
of wisdom."
He looked at her wistfully.
Susannah leaned her arm upon the topmost log of the snake fence and
looked down the slope. His insight into her own trials caused her to
sympathise with him in spite of his absurdity. She made an honest effort
to assist him to self-analysis. She said, "A great many things come into
our minds at times, Mr. Smith, that seem important, but, as you say, if
we do not speak about them, afterwards we see that they are silly. Of
course with you, if you think some of your thoughts are revelations, it
must make you often fancy that the others may be very important too, but
it does not follow that they are, and, as you say, time will weed them
out if you are trying to do right." She wondered if he would resent her
_ifs_. She stood looking down the bank in the short silence that
followed, feeling somewhat timorous. The steep ground was covered with
the feathery sprays of asters, seen through a velvety host of gray
teasles which grew to greater height. Through the teasles the white and
purple flowers showed as colours reflected in rippled water--rich, soft,
vague in outline. At one side, by an old stump, there was a splendid
feather, yellow and green, of fading golden rod; yellow butterflies,
that looked as if they had dyed their wings in the light reflected from
this flower, repeated its gold in glint and gleam over all the gray
hillside, shot with the white and the blue. At the foot of the bank lay
the flat valley, and from this vantage ground the river could be seen.
The soft musical chat of its waters ascended to her ears, and among the
huge bronze-leafed nut-trees, whose shelter she had just left, the
woodpeckers were tapping and whistling to one another.
At length Smith sighed deeply, but without affectation. "Yes, I reckon
that's a good deal how it is. It ain't easy, Mrs. Halsey--I hope in your
thoughts when judgin' of me you'll always remember that it ain't easy to
be a prophet."
When he had gone, Susannah found herself laughing, but for Halsey's sake
the laughter was akin to tears.
CHAPTER III.
Ohio was being quickly settled. Within a few miles of Kirtland,
Cleveland and Paynesville were rising on the lake shore, and to the
south there were numerous villages; but the society of the Saints at
Kirtland was especially prosperous, and so sudden had been the increase
of its numbers and its wealth that the wonder of the neighbouring
settlers gave birth to envy, and envy intensified their religious
hatred. Twice before Smith had left Fayette he had been arrested and
brought before a magistrate, accused of committing crimes of which the
courts were unable to convict him. Now the same spirit gave rise to the
same accusations against his followers. About this time webs of cloth
were taken from a woollen mill near Paynesville, and several horses were
also stolen. The Mormons, whether guilty or not, were accused by common
consent of the orthodox and irreligious part of the community. Hatred of
the adherents of the new sect began to rise in all the neighbouring
country, as a ripple rises on the sea when the wind begins to blow; the
growing wave broke here and there in little ebullitions of wrath, and
still gained strength until it bid fair to surge high.
About Christmas time there were a number of cases of illness in
Kirtland. Joseph Smith healed one woman, who appeared to be dying, by
merely taking her by the hand, after praying, and commanding her to get
up. After that he went about with great confidence to others who were
stricken, and in many cases health seemed to return with remarkable
celerity. It is hard to understand why the report of this, going abroad
with such addition as gossip gives, should have greatly added to the
rage of the members of other religious sects. Perhaps they supposed that
the prophet arrogated to himself powers that were even more than
apostolic. They threatened violence to Kirtland on the prophet's
account, so that before the new year he took Emma and the child and
established himself with them in an obscure place called Hiram, some
twenty miles to the south. Sydney Rigdon, who by this time was, under
the prophet, the chief leader of the Saints, went also to Hiram to be
beside him. Smith was toiling night and day to produce a new version of
the Hebrew Scriptures, believing that he was taught by inspiration to
correct errors in them. Rigdon was scribe and reviser. These two being
absent from Kirtland, responsibility and work without limit rested again
with Angel Halsey.
With unsatisfied affections and thoughts wholly perplexed, Susannah
beheld the days of the new year lengthening. Then she fell into the
weakness, to which humanity is prone, of hoping eagerly for some
external circumstance that should lighten the inner darkness. A bit of
stray news one day came to her with the shock of an apparent fulfilment
of her vague expectation. Finney was passing through that part of the
country preaching. Of all human beings she had ever met, this remarkable
evangelist most impressed her as a man who had intimate dealing, awful,
yet friendly, with an unseen power. She had no sooner heard that he was
within reach than her mind leaped to the determination to hear him
preach and speak with him again. She would lay her difficulties before
him; she would hear from him more intelligence concerning the home which
she had left than a thousand letters could convey.
It was March now. The winter's snow was gone. Finney, as it chanced, was
to come as near to Kirtland as the village of Hiram. Susannah spoke to
her husband.
"Did you hear that Mr. Finney was going to preach at Hiram?"
She stood turning from the white spread table in the centre of the room.
The morning light was shining on the satin surface of the planed maple
wood with which walls and ceiling were lined. Halsey was putting on his
boots to go out to his day's round of business and pastoral work. He
knew just as well as if she had explained it to him that a great deal
lay behind what she said. He fell to wondering at once what she could
want. Was it to send a message to the old home by the man whose very
name must recall all its memories?
"I want to go and hear him preach," Susannah went on.
Halsey was disturbed. "Thou canst not really have such a desire," he
said severely.
"Why not? A great deal that he preaches is just the same as what you
preach, Angel."
He saw that she was in a turbulent mood, and that grieved him; but as
for her request, he could not believe it to be serious.
"Thou art speaking idle words," he said with a sigh, and he rose to go
out.
"You have not answered me. Why shouldn't I hear him when you agree that
much that he says is true?"
"He is in the camp of those whom Satan has stirred up to do us injury.
That which thou callest truth in his mouth is but the form of godliness,
for it is clear that if God be with those who fight against us he cannot
be with us."
Something in the expression of her face brought him now a more distinct
feeling of alarm. His nature was singularly direct. He had scarcely
finished his meditative argument ere he sought to clinch its purport,
and, stepping near, he laid his hand gently upon her shoulder.
"Dost thou doubt, Susannah, that God is with us?"
The crimson colour mounted from her cheeks and spread over her white
brow. It was as if Angel had asked what he never had asked, whether she
loved him or not, whether all her thoughts and feelings were loyal. She
knew that for him there was no line of separation between life and love,
and love and religion. She was careful for him always, as a mother is
for a delicate child, as a sick nurse is for a patient. She could not
have endured to give him the pain of hearing her denial, even if such
denial would have expressed her attitude truly.
"Indeed, Angel, I--I know that you--" she faltered.
The trouble in his face was growing. "Has not _God_ made the signs of
his presence clear to us, and even visible before our eyes? If thou
shouldst deny the outward signs, is it not by his grace that we live?
Susannah, dost thou think that it is in me by nature to bear with the
infirmities and murmurings of our people as I bear with them
daily--babes as they are, learning, but not yet having learned, to live
at peace with one another? Or dost thou think that it is in me to
forgive daily the outrageous acts and words of our enemies, trying as
they do to injure our innocent brothers, or even our prophet himself?
Yet, Susannah" (his voice was stirred with emotion), "I would bear
witness to thee that every day, as I pray, the anger is taken out of my
heart, and I can deal with these very men in the spirit of love."
Standing erect before him, confused and distressed, she made another
effort to soothe, even taking his hand from her shoulder and trying to
caress it between her own, but so tense was the question in his mind
that his fingers were limp and unresponsive to her touch.
"I know all that you would say, Angel; I know that you are good; I know
that our people, although they have many faults, are trying to do right,
and I believe that the people in other sects around us are far more
wicked, but--Mr. Finney is not like that."
"Dear heart, thou knowest well that there is no goodness but that which
comes from above, and although this Mr. Finney may have a show of
goodness, as thou or I might have in his place, yet what avail can his
preaching be if God be not with him? So what show of goodness he has
only aideth the devil; for how can it be possible, when two armies are
encamped one against another, that God can fight upon both sides? Is
Christ divided?"
A loud knock came to the outer door; Elder Halsey was late in getting to
his work; men were waiting for him. He let the sound of the raps die
away before he answered them; his searching look was upon her face,
hungering for some assurance that his words had met and slain her
doubts. Then he was forced to leave her.
It was easy for Susannah to obtain a horse to go to the village of
Hiram. When the day of Finney's preaching came, after her husband had
gone to his afternoon work, she rode out of Kirtland.
Since she had made up her mind to disobey she had said nothing further
to Angel. Why inflict upon him the painful attempt to hinder her which
his conscience would demand?
The last snow-wreath had faded, but there was not as yet a bud or blade
of perfect green. The valley of the Chagrin lay almost hueless in the
cold sunshine. A light wind was blowing over its levels of standing
weeds, and whispering in the bare arms of the huge nut-trees upon its
bluffs.
When the sun began to sink, Susannah had reached the low rolling ground
that surrounds Hiram. The landscape here had a less distinctive
character, and there was no vapour in the sky to make the sunset
beautiful. She was weary of her horse's rough trot, and still more so of
its slow plodding, but she felt excitement. She had conquered those
forces, part of her womanhood, which urged compliance with her husband's
desire and her own desire to abide by the homely routine whatever it
might be. The thing that she had done seemed so large that her
imagination told her that the event must justify it.
She had no thought of concealment. She knew only the two families in the
village of Hiram. Her plan was to go first to the Rigdons and ask for
refreshment, thence to the meeting, and after that to ask for the
night's lodging which she knew that Emma Smith would not refuse.
In the village she saw that people were moving about and talking with an
air of excitement. When she turned to a quiet corner and asked an
elderly man for Mrs. Rigdon's house, he stared at her as if at an
apparition.
"Is it Sydney Rigdon's wife that you're wanting?"
Susannah had raised her veil, and he looked at her face with the
greatest curiosity. Flushed with exercise, braced by the sharp air, her
colour was brilliant and her eyes sparkling. Her plain dress and heavy
veil appeared to the man to be a disguise, so surprising to him was the
brilliancy of her face and the modulation of her voice.
"Do you not know where the Rigdons live?" she asked.
He was chewing tobacco, and now he spat upon the ground, not rudely, but
as performing an habitual action in a moment of abstracted thought. "Oh,
I know well enough, but if ye won't mind my saying a word to ye, young
lady, I'd advise ye to put up somewhere else. I've got darters of my
own--in course I don't know who ye may be or what ye may be doing
here." This last was added in an apparent attempt to attain to some
suspicion that he felt to be reasonable.
"You think ill of them because you despise their sect," she said gently,
"but I am the wife of one of the elders."
"Have ye got hold of some news that ye're carrying to them?" He evinced
a sudden interest that appeared to her extraordinary.
"What news?"
"Oh, _I_ don't know. I jest thought 'twas queer, if you'd got hold of
anybody's secrets, that you should be asking where they lived, straight
out and open in the street like this."
His words suggested to her only the idle fancies of prejudice. Some
other people drew near, and, dropping her veil, she was starting in the
direction in which he pointed when he spoke again in a more determined
voice. "You jest tell me one thing, will you?" He even laid his hand
upon her bridle with authority, "Are ye going to stop at Rigdons' all
night?"
"No."
"Sartin?"
When he received her reply he let go the bridle, saying in warning
tones, "Well, see that ye don't do it, that's all."
The incident left a disagreeable impression on Susannah's, mind, but she
did not attach any distinct meaning to it.
Rigdon and his wife were both within. Rigdon locked the door when
Susannah had entered. Then with crossed arms, standing where he could
watch against intruders from the window, he began to tell her news of
import. His mother, who was an old woman, his wife, and some younger
members of the family, gathered round.
The light fell sideways upon his thickset form and large hairy face. His
manner was the result of struggle between effort for heroic pose and an
almost overmastering alarm. His matter was the evil conduct of the
surrounding Gentiles toward the Saints. It seemed that in this and
neighbouring places, evangelistic meetings had been held in which
Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists had joined, and Rigdon averred
that the preachers had used threatening and abusive language with regard
to the Saints. A series of such meetings had begun in Hiram, small as it
was; and Joseph Smith, like a war-horse scenting the battle, had set
aside his arduous task of correcting the Old Testament and gone forth to
preach in the open air. At first he had been greeted only with derision
or pelted with mud, but in the last few days he had made and baptized
converts, and now the fury of the other sects was at white heat.
Susannah's mind swiftly sifted out the improbabilities from Rigdon's
wrathful tale.
"But the people that gather to such meetings as Mr. Finney holds are for
the most part awaked, for the time at least, to a higher Christian
life. It cannot be they who have used the vile language that you
repeat."
She almost felt the disagreeable heat of Rigdon's breath as he threw out
in answer stories of coarse and brutal insult which had been heaped upon
himself and Smith. The large animal nature of this man always annoyed
her. There was much of breath in his words, much of physical sensation
always clinging to his thoughts. At present, however, she was not
inclined to judge him too hardly; although visibly unstrung, unwise in
his sweeping condemnation, coarse in his anger, and somewhat
grandiloquent in his pose, there was still much of real heroism in his
mental attitude. Braced by the fiercest party spirit, he stood staunch
in his loyalty to Smith and the cause, with no thought of yielding an
inch of ground to the oppressors.
"I do not believe," repeated Susannah sturdily, "that it is the more
religious of the Gentiles who have said and done these things. I have
come here to-night to hear and to speak with Mr. Finney, whom I know to
be a very godly and patient man."
"Why has he come here?" demanded Rigdon. "He who by his preaching can
gather thousands in populous places, why should he ride across this
thinly settled parcel of land, preaching to mere handfuls, if it is not
to denounce us? And he has not the courage to go nearer to the place
where the Saints are gathered in numbers. He will teach his hearers
first to ravage the few sheep that are scattered in the wilderness, that
by that they may gain courage even to attack the fold."
Susannah drew upon herself their anger, and so strong was Rigdon's
physical nature that even his transient anger seemed to embody itself in
some sensible influence that went out from him and preyed upon her
nervous force.
The night had fallen. A bell, the rare possession of the largest
meeting-house, had already begun to ring for Finney's preaching.
Susannah went out on foot. The Rigdons, as also the Smiths, were living
some way from the village. She had now a mile of dark road to traverse.
Closely veiled, Susannah stepped onward eagerly. She felt like a child
going home. The scene which she had left showed up vividly the elements
of Mormon life that were most repulsive to her, the broad assumptions of
ignorance, the fierce beliefs born of isolation, and the growth by
indulgence of such animal characteristics as were not kept under by a
literal morality or enforced by privations. She was going to see a man
who could speak with the voice of the sober past, whose tones would
bring back to her the intellectual delicacies of Ephraim's conversation,
the broad, pure vision of life which he beheld, and the dignified
religion of his people.
The meeting-house was of moderate size. It was already filled when
Susannah entered, but she was able to press down one of the passage-ways
between the pews and seat herself near the front, where temporary
benches were being rapidly set up.
Many of the congregation had doubtless come as far as she. Men and women
of all ages, and even children, were there. Some, who it seemed had
followed Finney from his last place of preaching, were talking excitedly
concerning the work of God which he had wrought there. On every face
solemnity was written, and stories were being told of one and another
who in his recent meetings had "fallen under the power of God."
When Finney ascended the pulpit Susannah forgot all else. The chapel was
not well lighted, but the pulpit lamps shone upon him. He had a smooth,
strong face; his complexion was healthy and weather-beaten; his dark
eyes flashed brightly under bushy brows. His manner was calm; his style,
even in prayer, was that of keen, terse argument; he spoke and behaved
like a man who, having spent the emotional side of his nature in some
private gust of passionate prayer, had come forth nerved to cool and
determined action.
With her whole soul Susannah hung upon his every word, unreasonably
expecting to find some new and unforeseen solution to the problems of
her life. He had pointed out a straight path to multitudes; she hoped
that he could now show it to her.
The power of Finney's preaching lay in its close logical reasoning, by
which, accepting certain premises, he built up the conclusion that if a
man would escape eternal punishment he must forsake his sin and accept
salvation by faith in the doctrine of the substitution. He began always
by speaking to the indifferent and the unconvinced; he led them step by
step, until it appeared that there was but one step between them and
destruction, and that faith must make one quick, long leap to gain the
safety of the higher plane, whose joys he depicted in glowing terms.
For the most part there was intense silence in the congregation,
although sometimes an audible whisper of prayer or a groan of suppressed
emotion was heard. The infection of mental excitement was strong.
Susannah was experiencing disappointment. Accustomed as she was to
excitement in the meetings of the Saints, her mind easily resisted the
infectious influence. Finney's teaching had not differed in any respect
from the doctrine which she heard from her husband daily, a doctrine
which she knew by experience did not save men from delusion and rancour.
She still listened eagerly to hear of some provision made in the scheme
of salvation against injustice and folly. Surely Finney would say
something more.
As it happened he did say something more. When for more than an hour he
had explained the great plan of salvation he touched upon the
responsibility that the hearing of such conclusive reasoning imposed.
The sower had sown broadcast; it remained for him to speak with awful
impressiveness of those forces which would be arrayed against the
convicted soul. Under this head he referred at once and with deep
emotion to the devil, who, in the guise of false teachers lying in wait,
caught up the seed.
There could be no doubt that the Mormon leaders were in his mind, as
they were in the mind of his congregation. It became swiftly evident to
Susannah that Finney was stirred by what he believed to be righteous
indignation, and that he was as content to be ignorant concerning the
doctrines and morals of the people against whom he spoke as were the
rudest members of the outside rabble who now pressed with excitement to
the open doors and windows.
The righteous Finney had no thought of unrestrained violence. He spoke
out of that deep well of hatred for evil that is, and ought to be, in
every good man's heart, but he had not humbled himself to gain any real
insight into the mingling of good and evil.
"They are liars, and they know that they are liars," said Finney,
striking the pulpit cushion. "The hypocrisy of their religion is proved
by the lawless habits of their daily lives. Having sold themselves to
the great enemy of souls, they lie in wait for you and for your
children, seeking to beguile the most tender and innocent, that they
may rejoice in their destruction."
He used only such phrases as the thought of the time warranted with
regard to those who had been proved to be workers of iniquity, but to
Susannah it was clear, in one brief moment, what effect his words would
have when heard by, or reported to, more brutal men. She knew now that
Rigdon's words were true. The so-called Christian ministers, even the
noblest of them, stirred up the low spirit of party persecution.
She rose suddenly, sweeping back her veil from her face. "I will go
out." She said the words in a clear voice.
A way was made to a back door by the side of the pulpit. Every one
looked at her. Finney, going on with his preaching, recognised her as
she began to push forward, and he faltered, as if seeing the face of one
who had arisen from the dead. The excited audience felt the tremor that
passed over its leader; it was the first signal for such obvious nervous
affections as frequently befell people under his preaching; before
Susannah had reached the door a stalwart man fell as if dead in her
path.
There was a groan and a whisper of awe all round. This was the "falling"
which was taken by many as an indubitable sign of the divine power.
Susannah had seen it often under Smith's preaching. She waited with
indifference until he was lifted up.
Then the sea of faces around her, the powerful voice of the preacher
resounding above, passed away like a dream, and were exchanged for a
small room and a dim light, where two or three people were gathered
round the form of the insensible man. She escaped unnoticed through a
private door into the fields, where the March wind eddied in the black
night.
CHAPTER IV.
The house in which the Smiths lived was small. Susannah crossed a
field-path, led by a light in their window. In the living room a truckle
bed had already been made up. By the fire Joseph and Emma were both
occupied with two sick children. These children, twins of about a year,
had been taken out of pity at their mother's death, and Susannah was
told as she entered that they had been attacked by measles.
Susannah found that the fact that she had been to the meeting had not
irritated the Smiths, although Mrs. Rigdon had called to make the most
of the story. Emma, absorbed in manifold cares for the children, was
only solicitous on Susannah's account lest a night's rest in that house
should be impossible. Smith, pacing with a child in his arms, seemed to
be head and shoulders above the level whose surface could be ruffled by
life's minor affairs. With the eye of his inner mind he was gazing
either at some lofty scheme of his own imagining, or at heaven or at
vacancy. All of him that was looking at the smaller beings about him was
composed and kind.
One of the twins, less ill than the other, had fallen asleep in Emma's
arms. The other was wailing pitifully upon the prophet's breast.
"Do you and Mrs. Halsey go in and lie down with that young un, Emmar,
and rest now for a bit while ye can."
"I can't leave ye, Joseph, with the child setting out to cry all night
like that."
But he had his way. Long after they had lain down in the inner room
Susannah heard him rocking the wailing babe, or trying to feed it, or
pacing the floor. Emma, worn out, slept beside her. Upstairs the owners
of the house, an old couple named Johnson, and Emma's own child, were at
rest.
Susannah lay rigidly still in the small portion of the bed which fell to
her share. Her mind was up, wandering through waste places, seeking rest
in vain. The wail of the child in the next room at last had ceased. The
prophet had lain down with it on the truckle bed. Long after midnight
Susannah began to hear a low sound as of creeping footsteps in the
field. Some people were passing very near, surely they would go past in
a moment? She heard them brushing against the outer wall, and gleams of
a light carried fell upon the window.
In a minute more the outer door of the house was broken open. Emma woke
with a cry; instinct, even in sleep, made her spring toward the door
that separated her from her husband.
The two women stood in the inner doorway, but the coarse arm of a masked
man was already stretched across it, an impassable barrier. The prophet
lay on the child's bed, so heavy with sleep tardily sought that he did
not awake until four men had laid hold of him. All the light upon the
scene came from a smoking torch which one of the housebreakers held.
Some twenty men might have been there inside the room and out. The women
could barely see that Smith was borne out in the midst of the band. He
struggled fiercely when aroused, but was overpowered by numbers.
The owners of the house came down from above, huddling together and
holding Emma, who would have thrown herself in the midst of the mob.
Susannah had not undressed. She threw her cloak over her head and ran
out, determined to go to the village and demand help in the name of law
and a common humanity. She was in a mood to be reckless in aiding the
cause she had espoused.
By the glow of the torch which the felons held she saw the group close
about the one struggling man as they carried him away. She fled in a
different direction.
She had gone perhaps sixty rods in the darkness out of sight of Smith
and his tormentors when she was stopped by three men and her name and
purpose demanded. When she declared it in breathless voice they laughed
aloud. In the darkness she was deprived of that weapon, her beauty, by
which she habitually, although unconsciously, held men in awe.
"Now, see here, sister, you jest sit quietly on the fence here, and see
which of them's going to get the best of it. Your man's a prophet, you
know; let him call out his miracles now, and give us a good show of them
for once. He's jest got a few ordinary men to deal with; if he and his
miracles can't git the best of them he ain't no prophet. Here's a
flattish log now on top. Git up and sit on the fence, sister."
While she struggled in custody another group of dark figures came
suddenly at a swinging trot round the dark outline of one of the nearer
houses. They brought with them the same kind of lurid torch and a
smoking kettle or cauldron carried between two. The foremost among them
were also carrying the body of a man, whether dead or alive she could
not see. When he was thrown upon the ground he moved and spoke. It was
Rigdon's voice. She perceived that he was helpless with terror. The
prophet had certainly struggled more lustily.
"Now you jest keep still, sister," said the loudest of her three
companions. "Kill him? not if ye don't make a mess of it by interferin'.
It's only boilin' tar they've got in the pot."
Susannah covered her face with her hands; then, too frightened to
abstract her mind, she gazed again, as if her watchfulness might hinder
some outrage. The group was not near enough, the light was too
uncertain, for her to see clearly. The shadows of the men were cast
about upon field and wall as if horrible goblins surrounded and
overshadowed the more material goblins who were at work. They were
taking Rigdon's clothes from him. Their language did not come to her
clearly, but it was of the vilest sort, and she heard enough to make her
heart shiver and sicken. They held over him the constant threat that if
he resisted they would kill him outright. If Smith, too, were exposed to
such treatment she did not believe that he would submit, and perhaps he
was now being done to death not far off.
When they began to beat Rigdon with rods and his screams rang out,
Susannah could endure no longer. She broke madly away from her keepers,
running back along the road towards Emma's house. They essayed to
follow; then with a laugh and a shrug let her go, calling to her to run
quick and see if the prophet had fetched down angels to protect him.
Susannah ran a long way, then, breathless and exhausted, found that she
had missed a turning and gone much too far. Afraid lest she should lose
herself by mistaking even the main direction in which she wanted to go,
and that while out of reach of any respectable house she might again be
assailed by members of the mob, she came back, walking with more
caution. She had no hope now of being the means of bringing help. She
had come farther from the village instead of nearing it, and what few
neighbours there were, having failed to interfere, were evidently
inimical.
When she found the right turning she again heard the shouts of some
assaulting party, and, creeping within the shadow of trees, she waited.
At length they passed her, straggling along the road, shouting and
singing, carrying with them some garments which, in rough horse-play,
they were tearing into fragments. When the last had turned his back to
where she stood she crept out, running again like a hunted thing,
fearing what she might find as the result of their work. To increase her
distress the thought came that it was more than possible that like work
had been going on at Kirtland that night. Tears of unutterable
indignation and pitiful love came to her eyes at the thought that Angel,
too, might be suffering this shameful treatment. Across some acres of
open ground she saw the Smiths' house, doors and windows lit by candles.
Thither she was hastening when, in the black space of the nearer field,
she almost fell upon a whitish form, grotesque and horrible, which was
rising from the ground.
"Who is it?" asked Joseph Smith.
He stood up now, but not steadily; his voice was weak, as if he had
been stunned, and his utterance indistinct because his mouth had
apparently received some injury. She thought of nothing now but that he
was Angel's master, and that Angel might be in like plight.
"What have they done? What is the matter?" she whispered tenderly, tears
in her voice.
"Is it you?" he asked curiously. He said nothing for a minute and then,
"They've covered me with the tar and emptied a feather-bed on me. If
ye'd have the goodness to tell Brother Johnson to come out to me, Mrs.
Halsey--"
"They have hurt you other ways," she said tremulously, "you are
bruised."
"A man don't like to own up to having been flogged, ye see; but Peter
and Paul and all of _them_ had to stand it in their time, so I don't
know why a fellow like me need be shamefaced over it. But if you'd be
good enough, Mrs. Halsey, to go and tell Emmar that I ain't much hurt,
and send Brother Johnson out with some clothes or a blanket--"
He stopped without adding that he would feel obliged. As she went she
heard him say with another sort of unsteadiness in his tone, "It's real
kind of you to care for me that much."
In her excitement she did not know that she was weeping bitterly until
she found herself surrounded by other shuddering and weeping women in
Emma's room; for other of the converts in Hiram, hearing of the violence
abroad, had crept to this house for mutual safety and aid.
It is the low, small details of physical discomfort that make the
bitterest part of the bread of sorrow. Now and afterwards, through all
the persecutions in which she shared, Susannah often felt this. If she
could have stood off and looked at the main issues of the battle she
might have felt, even on the mere earthly plane, exaltation. Yet one
truth her experience confirmed--that no human being who in his time and
way has been hunted as the offscouring of the world--no, not the
noblest--has ever had his martyrdom presented in a form that seemed to
him majestic. It is only those who bear persecution, not in its reality
but in imagination, who can conceive of it thus.
All night the women were crowded together in the small inner room with
the two sick babes, while Emma and two of the brethren performed the
painful operation of taking the tar from Smith's lacerated skin. The
prophet bore himself well. Now and then, through the thin partition the
watchers heard an involuntary groan, but he was firm in his
determination to be clean of the pitch, and to preach as he had
appointed the next day.
At dawn Susannah went to get her horse at Rigdon's house. The animal was
safe. When she had saddled it she inquired after the welfare of those
within the house. Rigdon was raving in delirium. He had, it seemed, been
dragged for some distance by his heels, his head trailing over stony
ground. They had not been able to remove the tar and feathers. He lay
upon a small bed in horrible condition. His wife, with swollen eyes and
pallid face, was sitting helpless upon the foot of the bed, worn out
with vain efforts to soothe him. His mother, a thin and dark old woman,
vibrating with anathemas against his tormentors, led Susannah in and out
of the room silently, as though to say, "This is the work of those whose
virtue you extolled."
The village, the low rolling hills about it, lay still in the glimmer of
dawn. The men of violence were sleeping as soundly, it seemed, as
innocence may sleep. The famous preacher, and all those souls that he
had thrilled through and through for good and evil, were now wrapped in
silence. Susannah rode fast, guiding her horse on the grass by the
roadside lest the sound of his hoofs should arouse some vicious mind to
renewed wrath. Her imagination, possessed by the scenes of the past
night, presented to her lively fear for Halsey's safety. She gave her
horse no peace; she thought nothing of her own fatigue until she had
reached the Chagrin valley, and the walls of the Mormon temple which was
being reared upon Kirtland Bluff were seen glistening in the sunlight,
with the familiar outline of the wooden town surrounded by gray wreaths
of the leafless nut woods. It was high day, and the people were
gathering for morning service when Susannah rode her jaded horse through
the street of the lower village and up the hill of the Bluff.
As she lifted the latch of her own door Angel was about to come out to
preach. His face was very white and sad. Susannah's glad relief,
fatigue, and excitement found vent in tears.
"You are safe!" she cried. "Oh, my dear, I will never leave you again
while danger is near--never, never again!"
In the evening of that day further news came from Hiram. The prophet had
preached long and gloriously in the open air. New converts had been
made, and he himself, scarified and bruised as he was, had gone down
into the icy river and baptized them in sight of all. The mob had
shrieked and jeered, but had been withheld by God, as the messenger
said, from further violence.
Susannah made no further effort to find new life in the old doctrines.
All her sentiments of justice and mercy combined to make her espouse her
husband's cause with renewed ardour.
CHAPTER V.
In the summer of that same year, while the wheat in the Manchester
fields was still green, and the maize had attained but half its growth,
while the ox-eyed daisies still stood a happy crowd in the unmown
meadows, and pink and yellow orchids blazed in unfrequented dells, the
preacher Finney, after long absence, chanced to be again travelling on
the Palmyra road. As was his habit, he sought entertainment at the house
of Deacon Croom in New Manchester.
The preacher remembered always that his citizenship was in heaven. From
the thought he drew great nourishment of peace and hope, but as far as
his earthly affairs were concerned the outlook was at present grievous.
He was returning from a long and dreary religious convention held in an
eastern town, where one, Mr. Lyman Beecher, had stirred up against him
the foremost divines of New York and Boston. They had asserted that
Finney's doctrine, that the Spirit of God could suddenly turn men from
following evil to pursuing good, was false and pernicious; that his
method stirred up the people to unholy excitements which were productive
of great evil. Now the accusations of these divines (who, thinking that
a man's change of mind must needs be so slow a thing, some of them,
gray-haired, had not as yet produced this change in a single sinner)
were in many points wholly false, in many exaggerated, and where the
article of truth remained in the accusation there was much to be said in
defence of work that had resulted, if in some evil, certainly in much
palpable good. To such groups of priests and soldiers and publicans as
came forth to John's baptism of repentance, the godly Finney, travelling
now east and now west, had appealed, and that the wide land was the
better for the crying of his voice no candid person who knew the result
of his labours could deny. He that had two coats had imparted to him
that had none; the extortioner had returned his unfair gains, and some
rough men had become gentle. But in the assembly from which Finney had
just come the larger numbers and the greater power of rhetoric had been
on that side which appeared to show least faith in God and least zeal
for men, and Finney had come out from the combat bruised in spirit.
Some natural comfort the weary man experienced from the sweet charm of
the summer afternoon, from anticipation of the welcome and sympathy
which would soon be his. He heard, but could not see, the Canandaigua
water as it ran under its canopy of willows, over whose foliage the
light wind passed in silver waves. On the height of the hill above the
mill-dam he turned his horse into the yard of the Croom homestead. The
stalwart deacon in overalls, his excitable, slender wife, her
cap-strings flying, came forth, the one from the barn, the other from
her bake-house.
It was not to either of these worthy souls that Finney intended first to
confide the story of his glimpse of Susannah. It said much for the
sterling truth of this man's soul that, accustomed as he was to demand
from himself and others public confession of those experiences most
private to the individual soul, he had not lost delicacy of feeling or
reverence for individual privacy in human relationships. He had not been
at this house since the month after Susannah's departure, when
excitement and wrath still raged concerning her. He judged that in the
hearts of the older members the wound had healed, leaving only the
healthy scar that such sorrows leave in busy lives. He knew, too, that
in Ephraim's heart the blade of this grief had cut deeper.
The supper over, the full moon already gilding the last hour of the
summer daylight, Ephraim donned his hat to take the solitary evening
stroll to which he had become accustomed. He thought to leave the trio
who were in complete accord of sentiment to talk longer over the
persecution which Finney endured, but on the little brick path between
the flower-beds the evangelist came up with him.
Ephraim was but half pleased. It was in this brief evening hour that he
set his thoughts free, like children at playtime. Like other students
forced to live in invalidish habits, he had established a rule of
thought more strict than men of active callings need. At certain hours
he would study his country's social, political needs; at others he would
help in his father's farm management; at others he would study some
exact science. But when the measured hours of his day were over, and
before he lit his student's lamp, for a while he turned his fancies
loose, and they ran all too surely to play about Susannah's charms,
about the circumstances of her life. This was not his happiest hour. The
eternal advantage of love was lost for the time in its present distress.
Hateful thoughts were the results of this self-indulgence, yet he hated
more anything that came as interruption. During these years the lover in
him had not grown what the world calls wise.
For some minutes Finney, controlling the briskness of his ordinary pace,
walked by Ephraim's side and contented himself with the gracious scene,
passing remarks upon weather and crops. Soon, for the value of time
always pressed upon him, his business-like voice took a softened tone,
and he began preaching a heart-felt sermon to his one listener.
The subject of the sermon was "the fire God gave for other ends," and he
ventured to point out to Ephraim, in his plain, logical way, that it was
wrong to waste on a woman that devotion which God intends only himself.
Ephraim smiled; it was a good-tempered, buoyant smile. "Did it ever
occur to you, Finney, to reflect that, with your opinions, had you been
the Creator, you would never have made the world as it is made? What
time would you ever have thought it worth while to spend in developing
the iridescence on a beetle's wing, in adjusting man's soul till it
responds with storm or calm, gloom or glory, to outer influence, as the
surface of the ocean to weather?"
Finney was puzzled, as he always was, by Ephraim's _bonhomie_ and his
strange ideas. "But what have you to advance against what I have already
said, Ephraim?"
"Advance? I advance nothing. I even withdraw my painted insects and the
storms of emotion by which I had perhaps thought that God did his best
teaching; I withdraw also my exaltation of that strait gate of use
without abuse for the making of which I had almost said Heaven hands us
the most dangerous things. I withdraw all that offends you, Finney, in
order to thank you for having spoken her name. No one else has spoken it
in my hearing since they knew of my last parting with her, and I--I am
fool enough half the days to wish the clouds in their thunder-claps
would name her."
The voice of the whip-poor-will complained over the tops of the woodland
in near and far cadence through the warm moonlit air. Beside this and
the throb of insect voices there was no sound. "I came out this
evening," said Finney, "to tell you that last March in Ohio I saw
_her_." His voice fell at the pronoun in sympathetic sorrow.
"Yes?"
"When I was about to return from Cincinnati I was advised to go
northward to the Erie Canal, in order that I might pass through that
part of the State which has been sorely infected by the cancer of that
hypocrite's teaching."
There was no need in the district of Manchester for Finney to explain
what hypocrite he meant. In his own country Smith was commonly held to
be the arch-hypocrite.
"The devil has surely espoused that cause in earnest, for the number of
deluded souls in that part of Ohio and in southern Missouri, and
scattered as missionaries up and down the country, is, I hear, between
three and four thousand."
"And always among those who worship the letter of the Scripture,"
remarked Ephraim, "for their missionaries give chapter and verse for all
they teach."
"I was told that their customs were peculiarly evil. Even among
themselves they lie and steal and are violent and licentious; and they
teach openly that it is a merit to steal from the Gentiles, as they call
those not of themselves; and, furthermore, they aim at nothing less
than setting up a government of their own in the west."
"Who told you all this?"
"I am sorry to say that I had it on good authority. Some of the western
brethren had it from a poor fellow who had been deluded into entering
the Mormon community, and had barely escaped with his life when he
desired to withdraw."
"Would you consider a pervert from your own sect the best witness of its
tenets? But you say that you saw my cousin?"
Finney told what had led him to the village of Hiram, and said, "When I
spoke of the sins of the Mormons, a young woman seated near the front of
the congregation rose up. It was your cousin. I saw at once by the
pallor of her face that the Lord was having direct dealing with her
soul. The 'power' was indeed very great; a strong man fell as dead near
her, who before the night was over gave testimony of sound conversion.
After he and your cousin had been led out, many others in different
parts of the building cried to God for mercy. When the sermon was over I
sought for your cousin, but when I told who she was, the people of the
place said that no doubt Mormon messengers had come while she was
waiting, and forced her to depart. That night there was a disturbance in
the place; some of the more hot-headed men had the leaders out, and
tarred and feathered them--a dastardly deed! I have been threatened
myself with being rid on a rail and tarred when the devil stirred up the
people against my preaching, but the Lord mercifully preserved me. 'Tis
a shameful practice, but I hear it was done to these men to intimidate
them from the more violent crimes which they had conspired to commit. In
the morning I was forced to go, as I was advertised to preach at many
stations farther on, or I would have denounced the violence from the
pulpit. I could not find out anything more concerning your cousin, but
the Lord has never allowed me to doubt that the many prayers which we
have offered on her behalf were answered that night, for I could see by
the expression of her face that she, like those upon the day of
Pentecost, was cut to the heart."
At the garden gate, under the boughs of the quince-tree, which had
increased its branches since the day in which Susannah had last passed
under them, Ephraim now stood in the moonlight, barring the entrance. At
length with a sigh he said, "Alas! Finney, I believe that there are few
souls under heaven more true and more worthy than your own; but as for
the power of God, 'His way is in the sea and his path in the great
waters, but his footsteps are not known.'"
Out of his breast Ephraim took a thin leather book, and from out of the
book gave Finney a letter much worn with reading.
Finney took the letter reverently, and read it by the light of his
bedroom candle. In those days letters were more formally written; this
one from Susannah to Ephraim began with wishes concerning her aunt and
uncle and the prosperity of the household. The fine flowing writing
filled the large sheet.
"I write to you, my dear cousin, rather than to my aunt, to whom I fear
my letter would not be acceptable, for although I can say that I regret
my wilfulness and the manner of my disobedience, still I can never
regret that, having been forced to choose, I threw in my lot with those
who can suffer wrong rather than with those who have it in their hearts
to inflict wrong, for if there be a God--ah, Ephraim, this is another
reason why I address you, for I am in sore doubt concerning the
knowledge of God, as to whether any knowledge is possible. My husband,
who denies me nothing, has allowed me to send for some of your books
whose names I remembered. I thought at first to write to you about them,
but I distrust now my own understanding too much to venture. I would
like you to know that they have helped me somewhat, for I do not now say
to myself in hard, tearless fashion that I know there is no God, to
which thought I was driven by the reflection that most of those who seek
him most diligently sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
"But the more immediate occasion of this letter is to tell you that a
month since Mr. Finney held a meeting not far from us. I went, thinking
to gain some help from him, and to hear news of you, but I was greatly
disappointed, and made very angry. He preached as my husband and many of
our elders preach, and there were among the crowd the same signs of
excitement and peculiar manifestations that we have constantly among us.
But toward the end of his sermon Mr. Finney spoke of my husband's
Church, and he lent the weight of his influence to very evil slanders
that are constantly repeated about us by those who have not sought to
know the truth. He did us great injury by stirring up the roughest of
the people to violence. Mr. Finney will, I suppose, visit you and repeat
those lies, which no doubt he believes, but is most culpable in
believing, because he has not investigated the scandal against us as he
would have investigated scandal against any who are orthodox. I write
now to tell you that that which he says is not true. For although there
are a few criminals amongst us, as in every community, evil is not
taught or condoned."
As Finney read this letter by his lonely candle he was so far stirred by
what he deemed the merely human side of the incident as to say to
himself, "Poor Ephraim! She has never even known that he loved her." But
next day, in speaking to Ephraim, he pointed out that in the worst
communities there were always pure-minded women who knew little or
nothing of the evil around them, and said he believed that his message
would still be the means of bringing home the truth to Susannah's heart.
CHAPTER VI.
In the meantime an interval of comparative peace had come to Kirtland.
The Gentiles, because they discovered that the town was a good market
for the produce of more fields than the Saints could till, allowed their
religious zeal to slumber.
A female relative of Halsey, having lost her friends by death, came from
the east to Kirtland upon his invitation.
Susannah went down the hill one summer day to meet the travelling
company of new converts which brought Elvira Halsey. That young lady had
seen about twenty-five years of life's vicissitudes, and had sharpened
her wits thereon. Slight, pretty, and dressed with an effort at fashion
that was quite astonishing in the Kirtland settlement, Elvira sprang
from the waggon.
"I've come to be a Mormon. How do you begin?" With these words she
presented to Susannah a new type of character, fresh, and in some ways
delightful.
There was quite a crowd at the stopping place of the waggons. Halsey,
with other elders and Smith, came to welcome the newcomer. Elvira stood
on tip-toe, peeping about, pressing Susannah's arm with whispers.
"Which is Joe Smith, do tell me? Do you go down on your knees to him,
and does he pat your head?"
Guided by keen instinct, Elvira did not make remarks in Halsey's hearing
which would have shocked him, but perhaps by the same instinct she at
once claimed Susannah as a confidante in spite of some feeble
remonstrance.
"Are you not wrong to speak so lightly of our religion?" asked Susannah,
feeling that she was an elder's wife.
"First let me be sure that you have any religion to speak of." She
looked up prettily in Susannah's face. "What a beautiful creature you
are!" she cried. "And is it to please my cousin Angel that you wear a
snuff-coloured dress and a white cap and a neckerchief like an old lady
of seventy?"
As they proceeded together up the white curving road, over the crest of
the verdant bluff, Elvira announced her further intentions.
"I am not going to live with you. I am going to board with the Smiths. I
want to get to the bottom of this business, and see the apparitions
myself."
"There are no apparitions," said Susannah gently.
"Gold books, you know, flying about in the air, and the angel Maroni and
hosts of the slain Lamanites."
"You expect too much. Such visions as Mr. Smith had came but at the
beginning to attest his mission and give him confidence."
"Tut! I should think he had sufficient of that commodity. It is I who
require the confidence, and have I come too late?"
"I would question, if it did not appear unkind, why you have come at
all?"
"Bless you, it's relations, not revelations, that I came after."
"I fear that Angel will not be satisfied with that attitude," Susannah
sighed. She supposed that Elvira represented all too well the attitude
of educated minds in that far-off world whose existence she tried to
forget.
"Therefore," said Elvira, "I will board with the Smiths."
Elvira's whim to be received into the prophet's family could not be
carried out, but by persistency she succeeded in establishing herself in
the household of Hyrum Smith, where she distinguished herself by two
peculiarities--a refusal to marry any of the saintly bachelors who were
proposed to her, and a perpetual good-natured delight in all that she
saw and heard. She resisted baptism, but to Susannah's surprise,
remained on perfectly friendly terms with the leaders of the sect.
The next two years passed quietly in Kirtland. Susannah, imbued, as
indeed were all Smith's friends, with his belief that the peace was but
for a time, cherished her husband as though death were near, and grieved
him by no outward nonconformity to pious practices. Many chance comments
which she made were straws which might have shown him the way the
current of her thought tended underneath her habitual silence, but they
showed him nothing. It was mortifying to her to observe that Smith,
rarely as he saw her, was always cognisant of her mental attitude, while
her husband remained ignorant.
Susannah gave up the girlish habit of fencing with facts that it
appeared modest to ignore. She was perfectly aware that she exercised a
distinct influence over the prophet, of what sort or degree she could
not determine. Little as she desired this influence, she could not
withhold a puzzled admiration for Smith's conduct. He rarely spoke to
her except in the most meagre and formal way, and all his decrees which
tended for her elevation in the eyes of the community or for her
personal comfort were so expressed that no personal bias could be
detected.
She asked herself if Smith practised this self-restraint for conscience'
sake, or from motives of policy, or whether it was that several distinct
selves were living together within him, and that what appeared restraint
was in reality the usual predominance of a part of him to which she bore
little or no relation. There was much else in his character to admire
and much to condemn. He had steadily improved himself in education, in
mental discipline, and in personal appearance and address. He could
hardly now be thought the same man as when he had first preached the new
doctrine in Manchester. This bespoke an intense and unresting ambition,
and yet the selfishness that is the natural result of such ambition was
absent. As far as his arduous work would permit, he gave himself
lavishly to wife and child, to all the brethren, rich and poor, when
they asked for his ministrations. The motherless babies whom he had
helped Emma to nurse through their infancy had gone back to their
father's care, but there was never a time when some poor child or
destitute woman was not a member of his household. On the other hand,
many of the actions of his public life were questionable. He had
established a bank in Kirtland, of which he was the president. Even
Halsey admitted to Susannah that this was a great mistake, that the bank
ought to have been under the control of some one who understood money
matters; the prophet did not. He had also set up a cloth mill, and
undertaken to farm a large tract of land in the public interest. The
prophet showed to much better advantage when instituting new religious
ceremonies, of which there were now many and curious, or when giving
forth "revelations" which had to do with the principles of economy
rather than its practical details. Susannah thought that the voice of
the Gentiles all around them, shouting false accusations of greed and
dishonesty, would sooner or later find much apparent confirmation if no
financier could be found to lay a firm hand upon the prophet's sanguine
tendency toward business speculation.
CHAPTER VII.
In the bleak December two elders came from Zion, the holy city in
Missouri, bringing the history of dire tribulation.
It was a cold night; the first snow was falling upon the wings of a
gale. Susannah was sitting alone quietly working out problems in
algebra, in which study Smith had desired that her elder pupils should
advance. The storm beat upon the window pane, and set the bright logs of
the fireplace now flaming and now smoking, the varnished wooden walls
dimly reflecting light and shadow.
Halsey had been out to see the newcomers, who were staying at the
prophet's house. It was late when she heard his tread, muffled in the
drifted snow. He hardly paused to shake it from his clothes before he
came near. She saw that he was in a mood of strong grief and excitement.
"Angel," she spoke pityingly, "you have had a hard, hard day; you have
stayed so very late at this evening's conference." She held out her hand
to him. "Do not tell me to-night if you can rest before telling." Young
as she was, her countenance, as she lifted it toward him, was motherly.
She remembered what a mere boy he was, fair and hopeful, when she had
first seen him three years before, and now strong lines of purpose and
endurance were written upon the face that was thin and pale, the paler,
it seemed, because of the transient colour that the storm had given a
moment since to the clear skin.
"I would that thou didst not need to hear, but it is not for us to turn
our eyes from that which the Lord hath written for our instruction in
the suffering of our brethren." Then he added, "The elders from Zion
have told us all. There was great joy and prosperity among them, and the
more foolish boasted of their wealth to the Gentiles, saying also that
the Lord had given the whole land to them for an inheritance."
"That, indeed, was very foolish," said Susannah.
"Nay, but it was small blame to them, for that which they said is true.
But among the Gentiles the political demagogues began to be afraid that
we should rule the country by the number of our votes. The Gentiles
gathered together in the town of Independence, and three hundred of them
signed a declaration demanding that every one in Zion should sell all
that he possessed and leave the country within a certain time, and that
none other of us should settle there."
"But forced sale would mean that no fair value would be given for the
property; it would be simple robbery," she cried; "and they call this
the land of freedom!"
"They appealed to the Governor of Missouri, but they found that the
Lieutenant-Governor, a man called Boggs, was among the fiercest of the
persecutors. As for the Governor himself, he advised them to resort to
the courts for damages."
"What next?" She was impatient at a pause he made.
He knelt down upon the floor in front of her, laying a calming hand upon
her shoulder. "Susannah, there is this one great cause for our deep
gratitude to heaven, that this time all our elders with one voice called
upon our people to bear with patience, to cry to God to cleanse their
hearts from all anger and revenge."
"I suppose that was well," she said, but with hesitation.
By the gentle pressure of his hand he still expressed his sympathy for
her pain in listening. "Lawyers were engaged to carry the matter through
the courts. But no sooner was it known that the thing was to be publicly
tried than the Gentiles rose in arms. For three nights they entered the
houses of the Saints, beating the men, burning their barns, and in many
cases unroofing the houses. Some of our brethren went to Lexington for a
peace warrant, but the judge was frightened at the mob, and, moreover,
if he had offended them he would have lost much money, so he told the
Saints to arm and defend themselves."
Halsey had paused again. The moral question here involved was to him of
deep importance.
"If it was only for self-defence, Angel--" she began.
He shook his head. "Nay, it was a fierce temptation, and our people are
not yet sanctified, but God in his great mercy withheld them from
sinning against him. For they had no sooner obtained arms than Lilburn
Boggs, the Lieutenant-Governor, came and disarmed them."
"And then?"
"Our people were driven from their homes. In the cold storms of
November, women and little children and wounded men were forced to flee
out upon the open prairie, and up and down the banks of the Missouri
River. At last they gathered together on the river-side, and many of
them have now crossed it, remaining in the opposite county, and the
others have dispersed, poor and homeless, into less unfriendly parts of
the State. These elders have come here that the prophet may send back
some revelation at their hand, and that we may all gather together what
we can spare from our abundance for the relief of our fugitive
brethren."
His eyes were shining with triumphant faith, even though the close of
his narrative seemed to admit of so little hope.
"And will Mr. Smith still teach them that they must not strike a blow
for their rights?" she asked.
This was fast becoming the critical question of the hour.
In February the snow lay deep on the land. Susannah, like all her
neighbours, spent some days isolated by the drifts, the men only going
abroad. On one of these afternoons the prophet tapped at her door. His
visit in Halsey's absence was unprecedented.
Without preface he began to make a statement as to the affairs of the
Church in Missouri.
"The greater part of our fugitive brethren have at my desire gathered
together upon a large tract of uncleared land that lies just across the
river from Zion. It is the desire of the Lord that they should there
await until it is his will to open the gates of Zion once more."
"It is _your_ desire that they should gather and wait there."
She spoke with no rude emphasis, but he understood. This man could read
her thought before it was expressed. He pushed his thick hair from his
forehead with a heavy hand.
"Understand, Mrs. Halsey, that I _believe_ the voice of the Lord has
spoken, but it is also my desire."
"Does the voice of the Lord ever speak but in accordance with your
desire?"
The answer burst from him with almost hysterical force, "I would to
heaven it did not."
"But in such cases are not your desires divided against themselves? and
the word of the Lord comes perhaps in accordance with one desire and in
contradiction of another?"
He sat for some time looking absently upon the floor.
"The things of the Lord," he said, "are of vast importance, and require
time and experience, as well as deep and solemn thought, to find them
out. And if we would bring the world to salvation it requires that our
minds should rise to the highest, and also search into and contemplate
the lowest abyss"--he paused for a moment, and then added in sad
undertone--"that is within our own hearts."
Susannah was silent, wondering what was the true secret of his elusive
thought.
He went on with an effort. "Accepting your own words, Mrs. Halsey, that
it is at my desire that they are there instead of being scattered among
friendly settlements where they could obtain support, it remains true
that they are naked, hungry, and cold. When I sleep the vision of their
sufferings comes before me." He went on again with more vehemence. "It
is also by obeying my doctrine that they are cast out of their own lands
and from their own hearths. Whether the Lord hath spoken or no, it is by
obeying the doctrines that I have taught that they are in
wretchedness." He rose, pacing the room, apparently unconscious of what
he did.
"I know that this has been weighing upon you, as it has upon my
husband."
He shook his head impatiently, striking his breast suddenly with one
hand. "There is but one heart," he said, "in which the pains and sorrows
of them all are gathered."
She began to see that he had a plan to unfold.
At length he stopped in his pacing, looking toward her. "We must go to
their relief," he said. "We must gather an army and conduct our
suffering brethren back to their homes in Zion."
"By force of arms?" she asked.
"If need be."
He left time for the significance of these words to be fully
comprehended, and then went on speaking as he paced again. "It may be
that we will not need to fight, that if we get ourselves in readiness we
shall need but to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord; and in
plain language to you, who expect no miracle, Mrs. Halsey, I would be
understood to say that if a sufficient number of our strong men, armed
for defence, join our brethren in Missouri, the Gentiles will be afraid
to attack."
At last she asked, not without excited tremor in her voice, "Who? How
many? When?"
These were important questions with regard to the organising of an army,
but the prophet had in mind a point that must previously be determined.
"Your husband," he began abruptly, "he has still upon him the taint of
his Quaker upbringing, for the Lord Christ indeed taught long-suffering,
and he sent them out at first, as we also have sent our missionaries,
with nothing in their hand save a staff only, but afterwards he said,
'Let him that hath a sword take it,' and they said unto him, 'Lord, here
are two swords,' and he said, 'It is enough,' which I take to mean that
where one sword is raised there must be another to ward off a blow or to
strike in return. But your husband is teaching the people that to bear
arms, even in self-defence, is wrong."
Susannah saw that already in Smith's indomitable will the era of armed
defence had begun. Her hatred of the persecution caused her sentiments
to chime with his. She only said in defence of Halsey's meekness, "My
husband would have gone before now to give himself and all that he has
to help these poor people if you had not interfered, Mr. Smith."
A change of expression came in a moment over Smith's hulking form, as if
a different phase of him came forward to deal with a change of subject.
He turned upon her almost sharply, "There is one man in Kirtland who
shall not go to Zion till peace is there. If he went, would he not of
his own accord rush into the forefront, into the hottest of the battle,
not to fight but to receive the sword in his breast and be slain, even
as Uriah the Hittite was slain? Wherefore, I say unto you, he shall not
go."
Susannah, like all good women, had no keenness of scent for scandals,
ancient or modern. She did not remember who Uriah was, and took no
offence.
The prophet had tarried in his pacing by the window; with hands clasped
behind him he was looking absently out upon the driven snow. Upon his
face was an expression which Susannah only sometimes saw, and that in
the moments which she felt to be his best. She believed this man to have
true moments of humility and high resolve; it was only a question with
her how far they permeated his life. In a minute more he turned again
and spoke modestly and sadly enough.
"As I have said before, it is not in me to greatly love our brother
Halsey's manner of thought, but I perceive his holiness and the Church
shall not lack his counsel. I am here to-day to tell you how much it
grieves me to set a constraint upon his conscience, yet I am here also
to ask you to tell him from me that it is not the will of the Lord that
he should continue to preach against the spirit of self-defence."
When he was gone Susannah realised how angry she would have been if she
had heard that Smith had rebuked her husband on this subject, yet now
that the fiat lay in her own hands to impart with all gentleness, the
task, because of her own fierce attitude toward the oppression, was
grateful to her.
When the roof had been set on the white walls of the first great Mormon
temple upon Kirtland Bluff, a small army, well armed, well provisioned,
went out from Kirtland for the deliverance of Zion amid the prayers and
huzzahs of the little community. There were many who, like Halsey,
bewailed in secret this taking of the sword, but the doctrine of
non-resistance was never preached again.
CHAPTER VIII.
After this Susannah's attention was centred upon the coming of her first
child.
"'Tain't lucky to have a child when the leaves are falling," said Elvira
Halsey, a certain mist of far-off vision clouding her sparkling eyes.
Susannah had been greatly weighed down by depression, not fearing
ill-luck, but regretting for the first time unfeignedly that she had
ever joined herself to the sect in which her child must now be nurtured.
For herself, feeling often that all religions were equally false, it had
mattered little; with strange inconsistency she now perceived that she
would greatly prefer another faith for her child. Susannah literally
found no place for repentance; to confess her grief to Halsey would only
have been to crush out all the domestic joy of his life; she was too
courageous to do that when she saw no corresponding good to be gained.
Yet when the baby at length lay on her lap, grew and smiled, kicked and
crowed, Susannah forgot at times, for hours together, the superstitions
of the Latter-Day Saints. The motherly solicitude which she had long
exercised over Halsey changed into something more like friendship when
she saw him hang over her and her child as they played together.
Susannah had given up her school. The winter was severe, and mother and
child hibernated together by the sweet-scented pinewood fires till the
stronger sun had melted the frost flowers on the panes. Spring had
nearly come before Susannah divined that for the child's sake Halsey had
been protecting her for months from the fear of a near disaster that was
weighing upon his own heart.
This was the year of what was called in the early Mormon Church "the
great apostasy." One evening Halsey came in looking so white and ill
that Susannah drew back the baby, which she had held out for his evening
kiss.
In a few minutes she understood what had occurred. Some four or five
leaders in the Church, with their families and friends, had charged
Smith with hypocrisy and fraud.
It was not Susannah's own opinion that such a charge could be
maintained. Smith appeared to her to be like a child playing among awful
forces--clever enough often to control them, to the amazement of himself
and others, but never comprehending the force he used; often naughty; on
the whole a well-intentioned child. But she could well see that
childishness combined with power is a more difficult conception for the
common mind than rank hypocrisy.
Angel had been assisting in a solemn excommunication of the apostates.
He looked upon them as having been overcome by the devil.
After this Halsey instituted a series of unusual meetings for prayer and
revival preaching, which he held after the ordinary evening classes in
the School of the Prophets, which was now removed to the upper chambers
of the finished temple. Now, as at other times, his preaching was
successful. His power was with men rather than with women; they gathered
in excited crowds, and their prayer and praise went up in the midnight
hour.
Susannah was not in the habit of going to bed till her husband returned.
One night, after twelve had struck, while she sat warming the dimpled
feet of her restless babe at the rosy fire-light, she was greatly
astonished to hear a tapping, low but distinct, on a window that opened
to the back of the house. She lifted her head as mother animals prick
their ears above their young at the faint sound of any danger.
After an interval the tap was repeated; it was no accidental noise.
Susannah laid the child in its cradle and went nearer the window
shutters, hesitating.
She knew only too well that this secrecy was the sign of some one's dire
distress. She knew the habits of the people; a neighbour's aid was
sought freely and with confidence; doors were open at all times to need
or social intercourse.
To her intent listening the accents of a low and guarded tone came in
reply to her challenge; the voice was Joseph Smith's.
Susannah looked with anguish toward her child's cradle. Had some army of
mad persecutors invested Kirtland? Nothing less than fierce persecution
could be thus heralded.
For years Susannah had known Smith as a near neighbour, and the stuff of
which the man was at this time made is indicated by the fact that
instinctively she opened the window with noiseless haste.
Smith climbed in. "Has Halsey returned?"
The fire gave the only light in the room. Smith did not shut the window,
but remained sitting on the sill. A bake-house at the back hid the place
from neighbouring eyes.
"It's all up with our bank," said Smith.
"I feared so," said Susannah.
"The apostates took such a lot of money out of it. No bank anywhere in
this region could have stood it. You have always been down on our
management of the bank, Mrs. Halsey, but if it was not good, why then
have so many of the Gentiles put in their money, and why have they taken
our notes all over the State?"
"You never had the capital you advertised."
"We have land that stands for it."
"It is not worth half what you value it at."
Then Susannah became sorry for her sharp recrimination. Punishment had
befallen; it was a time for mutual help, not for reproach. She saw that
although Smith kept himself calm he was greatly stirred.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
Smith's huge frame was poised awkwardly on the window sill. He moved
restlessly and touched one thing and another with nervous hands. Then he
said with a short laugh, "The size of it is, I'm running away, Mrs.
Halsey. Ye may think I feel pretty mean, but ye'll do me the justice
just to think how it is. If they'd shoot me in fair fight, I'd go and,
if it were the Lord's will, be shot to-morrow, and be thankful too; but
ye know the sort of vengeance they'll take. I have been beaten time and
again before now, and covered with pitch, and I've been knocked down and
kicked and ducked in ponds a good many times, as ye know, and I ain't
ashamed to say that I'm afraid of that sort of thing and afraid of the
results on Emmar and the children. If the Lord clearly told that 'twas
his will to stay and stand it, why then I'd have no choice, but I
haven't had no word from the Lord."
His face was livid; in the effort to make his explanation, whether
shaken by the recollections he described or by fear of her contempt,
she saw that his limbs were actually trembling as if with cold.
"There ain't many men, Mrs. Halsey, as would stay and face that sort of
music when they could get away, but if it was to do good to mortal
creature I'd think about staying, but it's t'other way. It's me and
Rigdon as has been advertised as working the bank; it's my blood and his
the Gentiles that have our notes are thirsting for. Suppose we stayed
and they took to mauling us again, wouldn't the Saints here take to
fighting to protect us? I've taught them to fight in self-defence and
they'd fight to defend me. God knows there are better men than we are
that would be killed right and left if we stayed, and 'twould be no use,
for the Gentile numbers would overpower us. 'Tain't no use. When I found
to-day that there wasn't a chance of staving off the bankruptcy I sent
Emmar and the children and Rigdon's folks off in a close waggon after
sundown. Rigdon's rid off by another road, and I've got my horse ready
and ought to be gone. And there ain't a man in Kirtland as will know
which way we've gone by to-morrow, so that no Saint will need to do any
lying on my account."
"You are very sorry for the mistakes you have made about the bank," she
said pityingly.
He gave another short laugh that, like the first, was less like a laugh
than a sob.
"I guess I'm sorry enough, but I don't know whether it's repentance, for
I thought I'd done all just what the Lord told me to do, but at times
like these I'm not so sure of the revelations I hear in my soul, but I
know I thought I was right at the time; but as for being sorry, if ye
had the burden of all these children of Israel in the desert on your
heart, knowing that ye had brought them into the desert, and brought the
hunger and the thirst and the pestilence and the enemy upon them, and
weren't quite sure at times whether the thing that ye saw leading was
the Lord's pillar of cloud or the devil's, and if ye was now being cast
out before the face of men and called a liar and a swindler, and without
a dollar in the world, I guess ye'd know what it felt like to feel
sorry."
The room was a long one; in the fore part the glow from the hearth made
clear the baby's cradle, the table set for Halsey's supper, the close
shutters of the front windows, but the red flame rays were fainter as
they came into this back portion where Susannah stood in dull distress a
few paces from the stricken intruder.
This man had always the power at close quarters of producing strange
disturbance in the emotions of his friends. Susannah was trembling, her
heart heaving, if not with pure compassion, at least with wild
excitement on his account.
With an effort Smith held himself still, but gave again the
heart-broken laugh that appealed more than all else to her woman's
heart. "'Tain't all that neither, that makes me the most 'sorry,' as ye
call it. I tried to go in and out before this people, Mrs. Halsey,
loving and serving all alike as a prophet should, but I wouldn't be
human man, no, nor fit to be chosen by God for the honour he's put upon
me, if I didn't know who amongst us was most worth care and respect, and
it's come to my soul this night, now that I can't no longer stand
between you and all the dangers that beset our people in the wilderness,
that I wasn't right, maybe, to egg on Halsey to take ye away from your
happy home, or to make a point as I did, first off, of getting ye
converted--for I was more set on it than I showed at the time. It's
because 'twas my doing you married, that I've come to say this; and I
see well enough that 'tain't love that is between you and Halsey, though
you are too tender of him to let him see."
She made a movement of the head, an effort to show reproving dignity,
while in fact taken by surprise, her nerves in distressful panic, she
had scarce the power to control herself, none to control him.
He answered her impulse, although he had not looked up to see the
gesture. "Ye haven't got any call to-night to be offended with me, for
I'm worth no more, unless the Lord see fit to lift me up agen, than the
paper our bank-notes is written on; and I have just got one more thing
to say, then I'm gone. If there's any grit in Joseph Smith, and if it
pleases God that he's not going now to his death, he'll not make another
home for himself without providing as good a place for you and the young
one. Ye may depend on it."
He rose up now. "'Tain't no use disguising facts; I'm running away, and
I'm leaving ye to dangers and privations. Your money and Halsey's is
gone the way of all the rest, and without me to stop him Halsey will fly
in the face of the first persecution that's within his reach. If I
hadn't known that there was no chance at all of your coming I'd have
asked you and the child to git into Emmar's waggon; but there's just
this to say, there ain't a tribulation that can come to you that won't
hurt me, living or dead, more than it can hurt you." Then after a pause
he added, "Emmar sent her dear love and good-bye to ye."
He stood still a moment before her in humble attitude, the words of
Emma's tender farewell lingering, as it were, in the air between them.
"Have a care what you do." (He resumed a more dignified manner of
speech.) "It's borne in upon my mind that great dangers will lie round
you. Tell brother Halsey from me that it is the will of the Lord that he
should seek first the safety of his wife and child, and to abide in a
place of safety till the child be grown."
He climbed through the window. His last act was to close the casement
behind him to save her trembling hands the exertion. His movements must
have been very stealthy, for she did not hear the sound of his steps or
the steps of his horse in the silent night.
CHAPTER IX.
After Smith left Kirtland there was a great exodus Missouri-ward of his
more devout followers. The army which had gone out from Kirtland in '34
to the rescue of the fugitives from the city of Zion in Missouri had
failed, through disease and exhaustion, to make warlike demonstration;
but the principle then accepted by the children of Zion of opposing
force to force in self-defence, had been bearing fruit ever since in a
bloody warfare between the hunted Saints of Missouri and their more
powerful neighbours.
Before the Saints took up arms the Missourians had, it would seem, no
real ground of offence against them except the religious faith which led
them to proclaim that the land was to be given to them by the Lord for
an everlasting possession. Now this provocation was still in force,
added to the greater one that the worm had turned.
So futile had been the mad persecutions, so fruitful the blood of the
martyrs, that by this time there were some ten thousand Saints in
Missouri, all heads of families, for although Zion in Jackson County
still lay waste, and the colonies of Clay County had been swept away,
the cities of Far West and Diahman, and numerous villages near them, had
risen like magic, built by the thrift, the organisation, and the
temperance of the Saints.
As for Kirtland, the hope of making it a prosperous city had died with
the failure of the bank. Of the few who remained two distinct parties
were formed--the orthodox, headed by Halsey, and the reformers,
encouraged, if not headed, by the former leaders who were now apostate.
In the camp of the reformers there were those who saw visions and had
revelations. Before this, when Smith was at the helm, it had been
counted unlawful for any but himself to have direct dealings with the
Unseen; but the prophet was distant, directing the sect only through his
published journal, and in this case it were hard indeed if no
authoritative local word were spoken in the orthodox party. Angel
Halsey's mystic soul fell easily into the region of voices and visions.
In his adversity, fasting and praying more than ever before, he heard
voices which gave practical directions not only for himself but for his
neighbours. When the neighbours refused to accept these ghostly
counsels, which all tended toward a more rigorous holiness, there was no
room left for Halsey's work in Kirtland. He determined to fare forth to
Missouri, there to comfort and edify the Saints scattered abroad in the
rural districts.
It was now that Susannah expected the sprightly Elvira Halsey, still
unbaptized, to return to the east. Instead of that she proposed to
travel with them, helping to take care of the child.
"Why should I take the trouble to help you and the young un?" she asked,
sitting on Susannah's doorstep, languid with the heat. "When I was going
along the lane last night I met a spirit, so I held out my hand
according to Joe's latest. You've not heard! My! it's in the Millenial
Star that if any sort of a voice or dream comes to you, the way to know,
whether it's an angel or devil is to shake hands, and if it is an angel
you'll feel a good, firm, solid grip sort of coming out of nowhere, but
if it isn't an angel you'll feel nothing. It's kind of Joe to put it in
a nutshell, necessary nowadays that we're all hard at it having
revelations of our own. He thought that nobody would feel the grip but
himself. Quite mistaken. I shook hands with my angel, tho' I couldn't
see a ghost of him, and when he said, 'You come along now to Missouri,
and carry the child half way,' I had nothing to do but say 'Amen.'"
But Susannah was too much afraid of what the result of private
revelations might be to laugh at them; she expressed her fears.
"Bless you, all the dreams and 'voices' in this hustling world wouldn't
have put any guile into the soul of Nathaniel, and they won't into Angel
Halsey's. Saints are saints, sinners are sinners, middling folks are
middling, just the same whether they have three 'revelations' a day
apiece, or one once a year, or none at all. You're fretting because you
think a righteous man might do something wicked, thinking that the voice
of the Lord had told him. Not a bit of it! The Lord will take care of
his own when they're a little off their heads just as much as at any
other time."
What few worldly goods Susannah chose to keep were packed in two single
waggons, Halsey driving the one, and Elvira and Susannah by turns
driving the other and holding the child. Their long journey through the
month of June was the most perfect pleasure that Susannah and Angel ever
enjoyed together, the long nightmare of the last months at Kirtland left
behind for ever, the stage of the future veiled, and the lineaments of
natural hope painted upon the drop-curtain. A loving fate sent fresh
showers on their behoof during the nights, which laid the dust and
dressed field and forest in their daintiest array. The child, who had
been pining somewhat, affected by the anxiety in the Kirtland home,
became lusty and merry.
"If it wasn't that we are shortly going to be robbed of all we possess
by the Missourians," observed Elvira, "this sort of jog-trot comfort
would become too monotonous, but it adds spice to be saying, so to
speak, 'Hulloa there! we've come to be persecuted too.' Of course we'll
all be killed to begin with, but that's a detail; after that we'll take
our rural mission bespoken for us in the dream."
Susannah actually smiled and called "gee-up" to the horse.
"How very little people know," she observed, "who talk about a
persecution as if it would be a means of grace. There is nothing that so
hardens and degrades as the constant report of barbarities; the more
nearly seen, the more closely inspected, the worse is the moral result."
"Speak for yourself," cooed Elvira, "there's one person out there that
isn't hardened and degraded." She looked with reverent eyes at Angel,
who was walking at the head of the foremost horse, crooning a psalm;
"and, as for me, I still feel myself quite soft, almost pulpy, and on an
elevated plane."
"You could never talk in your irreverent way if you weren't a good deal
hardened and degraded," persisted Susannah affectionately, "and, as for
me, I know that I am. Is there any instance in history of a people
emerging from prolonged persecution with high ideals of love toward
their enemies and candour?"
"'Tis commonly said that faith rises from this fire," said Elvira.
"Faith that gives its body to be burned and has not charity," said
Susannah.
When they reached the vicinity of Diahman and Far West the State
elections were about to be held. It was reported that over all Missouri
the stronger party, that of Lilburn Boggs, was threatening to prevent
by force the Mormon vote.
Before commencing his mission to the outlying Mormon districts, Halsey,
hoping to avoid this contest, stopped in the Gentile town of Gallatin to
rest and obtain a fresh outfit.
"But why don't we pay our respects to 'Joe' now we are within reach?"
inquired Elvira with pensive inflection.
"The prophet is full of cares. A man whom I met at the tavern said that
his activity on behalf of the Saints in Far West is amazing, and since
his public appearance there the Lord has prospered the city exceedingly;
but, as for me, I have been commanded to turn aside to those of our
people who are not encompassed by a shepherd's care."
"If he would but confess it," said Susannah with a sigh, "my husband was
so sorely hurt with the appearances of fraud in connection with the
bank--"
"Suppose you put that appearance of a child down and come and eat this
appearance of your breakfast, and then we'll put on what appear to be
our bonnets, and go for what appears to be a walk." Elvira's sunny
serenity never deserted her. "Say rather," she cried, "that the prophet
did defraud, but has repented."
That day was the 6th of August. The voting for the State legislature had
commenced. The travellers did not know that there was any number of
Mormon landholders in this place, but now they could not extricate
themselves from the very contest that they had hoped to avoid. When the
two women strolled through the streets to see the town they became
involved in a crowd at one of the polling places.
Penniston, a candidate of the Boggs party, standing on a barrel, was
haranguing the crowd, and the two women quickly heard the name of their
sect mentioned with contumely.
"Shall we," cried Penniston, "allow our State to come under the control
of Mormon horse-thieves and robbers by allowing these outlaws the civil
rights that are intended only for good citizens?"
There was a commotion in the crowd near him. Susannah, knowing that her
husband was abroad, felt a sudden heart-sick prophecy of evil. The next
moment she saw Halsey spring into sight upon a low wall at the side of
the crowd.
"Look on this picture and on this," cried Elvira in a voice audible to
many too illiterate to comprehend.
The two men, each standing erect above the heads of the crowd, could not
have showed sharper contrast. Penniston was coarse of limb and feature;
a low grade of moral disorder stamped his face as clearly as inferior
articles are ever stamped; no inspector of goods so relentless as God's
servant Time! Halsey had bared his head to the open sky, as though
invoking the presence of God in his temple. Upon features too thin and
haggard for beauty, patience and love and truth were written by every
line.
Halsey's voice, accustomed to preaching, fell with clear modulations
upon the summer air.
"'Blessed are ye, when men shall persecute you, and shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely, for my name's sake and the gospel's.'
Friends, this evil that is spoken against us whom ye call Mormons is
falsely spoken, and I stand here before you, and before the great Father
of Truth, who is calling his children everywhere to repent, to say that
every Mormon who has a vote has a right to exercise it, for we have
committed none of the crimes of which you accuse us, but you yourselves,
as you well know, are many of you here to try to put into office men who
are undoubted criminals."
In surprise Penniston and his hearers had listened, but now a man,
half-drunk perhaps, sprang upon the low wall upon which Halsey stood,
and struck him savagely.
"He is all alone," cried Susannah, "all alone among so many." She tried
to struggle forward toward her husband through the crowd.
Halsey believed himself to be alone, and it was not in accordance with
his principles to make any attempt to return the violence by which he
had been assailed; but to his astonishment now a stout man leaped to
his assistance, suddenly belabouring his assailant with blows, and from
far and near in the crowd there were shouts of encouragement from burly
Mormon farmers who had only needed the voice of a leader to declare
themselves. Halsey had thrown a spark, unconscious that a mass of powder
lay near. When the men of Penniston's party turned with savage fury upon
the Mormon who was beating their companion, and the Mormons, no less
fierce, rallied round Halsey and his defender, the fight became general.
Elvira set her quick wits to work to weave a cord that would be strong
enough to draw Susannah back to their inn. "They may find out that baby
is alone," she said; "they're wicked enough to injure him out of
revenge."
Along the wooden pavements of Gallatin, past the gaily-painted wooden
houses, through the doors of which whole families were now emerging to
ask the cause of disturbance, Susannah fled miserably, her cheeks
blanched beneath her veil, her heart within weeping.
The sun was shining brightly on just and unjust; the gardens of Gallatin
were brilliant with such flowers as had bloomed in the August when she
first met her husband. Susannah felt then that the reason why she
desired to clasp and guard the sleeping child she had left was that he
was Angel's son; the pity for injured innocence had been from the first
until now her strongest passion, and at the thought of Halsey, innocent
and gentle, in the midst of the brutal fight she had left, her soul wept
as it were the scalding tears that her eyes refused to shed.
The boy lay in rosy sleep, a woman of the inn keeping a kindly eye upon
him. Probably nothing but a mother's love could have fancied him of
sufficient importance to attract public attention, but Susannah, locking
her door, knelt by the bed, and spreading protecting arms above him,
listened with strained senses for news of Halsey's injury or death. For
years she had feared that the violence she had seen wreaked upon others
would touch her husband; violence offered to herself would have seemed a
trivial grief in comparison. The fear that has long harped upon sore
nerves has a cumulative action upon the pain of its realisation.
Susannah found herself giving forth short ejaculatory whispers of prayer
upon the close air of the plain, small room in which she knelt. It was
such prayer only as we come at by inheritance, prayer that is one of the
habits by which the fittest have survived.
Before two hours were past Halsey had returned. He was bruised and much
shaken, but appeared unconscious of injury, and made light of it. The
open fight had ended with no decisive victory for either party; the
chief result appeared to be that malice on either side was for the hour
exhausted. Whether because of this or because Halsey gave himself to
prayer on behalf of his brethren, the polls were opened quietly at noon
and the Mormons voted with the other citizens.
In the cool of the evening Susannah was sitting beside her husband
holding the sleeping child. The window of their humble room was open,
not to any broad, fair landscape such as their eyes were accustomed to
feast upon, but upon the yard of the small tavern. There is, however, in
new countries no crowding; space, like air and sunshine, is the common
heritage. Grass grew round the edges of the large yard, and an old white
horse was cropping it contentedly. A cool air was blowing, and over the
wooden roofs of the town stars were beginning to gather themselves from
out the pale dusk. An old negro and two mulatto boys were sitting upon a
log at the side of one of the sheds, quarrelling and singing slave
melodies by turns.
Angel took the hand of the sleeping child and Susannah's hand and folded
them in his own. "Susannah, it has been given to me to see this
afternoon more clearly than ever before the material triumph of our
people. They will rear high cities; they will lead armies; they will
command wealth; but it has also been shown me that Zion will not be, as
I had heretofore believed, pure from sin, for evil has already entered
into her. Because she has taken the sword her spiritual warfare will not
be soon accomplished; the wheat and the tares shall grow together, and
I do not yet see the end."
There was a pause. Susannah watched the slaves taking their evening ease
so light-heartedly. She looked down at the three hands which Angel had
gathered together. The dusk was beginning to make all things indistinct.
Angel went on. "I would have thee teach the child above all things the
unspeakable wretchedness of sin, for the least sin closes the eye of the
soul by which we see God and the things of God, clogs them with the dust
and dirt of the world; and when there is no more any clear vision,
selfishness is mistaken for love, malice for righteousness, and folly
for truth. So I pray thee, dear heart, be wary, and slay within thyself
the evil nature, for though I cannot see it, perchance God does; and
teach the child above all things from the first to fear sin more than
death."
"You shall teach him, Angel."
"Dear heart, I would not lay upon thee the burden of knowledge of coming
sorrow if I dared to withhold it, but I believe, Susannah, that it will
soon be given to me to die for the truth and for our people." After a
moment's pause he went on, and his tone, which had dropped
involuntarily, became again cheerful. "That is why I have to-day
determined to change the plan that we have made and to send thee and the
child to-morrow with the company who are about to travel to Far West,
where the prophet is now dwelling with his wife, for I know he will
never see thee want."
Susannah rose up. In the dusk of the low, small room her figure, the
child still in her arms, seemed to tower like a misty goddess or
Madonna, such as praying men have often seen appearing for their
succour; her voice came clear and strong from a heaving breast.
"Angel, I will never leave you, never," and then she added in a voice
that faltered, "Send the child if you will."
CHAPTER X.
They did not send the child to Far West, or even insist on Elvira
seeking safety there, because that town also became swiftly involved in
the flames of the war which had flashed into new life at the Gallatin
fight. The whole land was full of threats and terrors, and many open
fights at the polling-booths were soon reported. The Mormons and
anti-Mormons in various localities entered into mutual bonds to keep the
peace, but in many cases these bonds were soon broken.
To the Mormons everywhere had been issued a proclamation, signed by
Smith and the elders, commanding that no official tyranny, however
unjust, was to be resisted. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher
powers." "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's
sake." But when private violence was offered the order was that the men
should fight in defence of their families.
It seems to have been this order to fight, and the fact that the Mormons
proved themselves sturdy fighters, which alone caused any of the
Gentiles to enter into a compact of peace. So mad was their anger
against a sect claiming the land as an inheritance from God and voting
to a man in obedience to its leader, that the Missouri journals of the
day openly taught that to kill a Mormon was no worse than to kill an
Indian, and to kill an Indian was tacitly considered as meritorious as
killing a wild beast.
"I am just about as safe jogging along in one of your waggons as
anywhere in this part of the country," observed Elvira; "and if it was a
craving for peace and safety we had, why did we come to Missouri at all?
I feel exactly like a rabbit when the men are out trying to thin them; I
notice they get very frisky."
There was psychological truth underlying this statement. Stimulated by
the excitements of sudden alarms, Susannah also found herself enjoying
intervals of temporary security with peculiar zest.
They set forth again upon the country roads. Halsey had the burden of
his message upon his spirit; wherever they found a few Mormon households
gathered together, he preached to them the high ideals of Christian
living and the need of humility and constant prayer. Another theme he
had which he considered of equal importance; this was the interpretation
of prophecy. He gave long rapt discourses upon the most obscure passages
in the books of the prophets, the Revelation of St. John, and the Book
of Mormon. These passages were found chiefly to refer to the rise of
the Mormon Church, the iniquity of her enemies, and her glorious future.
Susannah, who saw the value of his practical teachings, bitterly
regretted this use of half his opportunities.
Only once or twice in many weeks did they come upon a Mormon household
whose management was not such as the moralist would approve, and in
those cases before Halsey's passionate denunciation sins were confessed
and repentance promised.
So they journeyed slowly out of the September heats and oppressive
shades into the cooler and more open glories of autumn. In that part of
the country wild flowers run riot at the approach of winter, painting
the land in broad leagues of colour, white and gold and blue, and the
trees of the forest hang in red curtains overhead. The air was so light
and invigorating that they all felt its tonic properties. Halsey seemed
eased of his burden; the child began to talk, babbling wise and
wonderful speeches. Elvira was even more frivolous than was her wont,
and Susannah almost forgot Halsey's dismal prophecy of martyrdom.
About the middle of October they reached the place called Haun's Mill,
where a small Mormon community was settled. Here they thought well to
pause, shocked by renewed rumours of warfare. A truce for the whole
region, which had been signed by Smith and some of his elders on the one
side, and by a magistrate, by name Adam Black, for the Gentiles, had
been broken by Gentile mobs in several of the counties near Far West. A
number of the saints had been brutally killed, their wives and children
driven from their homes at the point of the bayonet. This renewed
outrage roused at last the fires of revenge, long smouldering in the
breasts of the refugees from the desolate city of Zion, who had
themselves known the bitterness of such unmerited wrong. These fires
fused religious principle and natural wrath together, till a chain was
forged which bound many strong men in a secret society, whose members
swore to fight, not only in defence, but especially in vengeance.
It was at Haun's Mill that Halsey first heard of this society, and he
was deeply concerned. A young Mormon who had lately come to the place
belonged to it, and after one of Halsey's sermons, in which the posts of
the Gate of Life were represented as meekness and forgiveness, this
young man came to the preacher by night to confess, but also to
vindicate his position.
The missionary's little party, with the exception of Elvira, who had
accepted hospitality at a neighbouring farm, were camping in a meadow
not far from a stream called Shoal Creek, which drove the mill. The logs
of their evening fire were still alight. Susannah sat just within the
dark opening of a low canvas-covered waggon; the unsteady flame light
fell upon her, and sometimes showed a farther interior where the child
lay sleeping. Halsey was sitting at the roots of a tree, the utensils of
a simple supper at his side. The gentle horses tethered near were to be
heard softly cropping the grass, and the sound of the creek came from a
farther distance. Above, the poplar boughs, whose yellow foliage had
been thinned by the advancing season, let through the rays of the
brilliant stars. These were the sights and sounds which met the young
man's senses as he came brushing the fallen leaves with his feet.
He leaned against the pole of the farther waggon and looked across the
low-glowing fire at the preacher and his wife.
"Look here! I'm a Danite. Do you mean to say that the Lord's not going
to accept of me because I can't stand by and see weak men and women and
children killed, or worse than killed, without punishing the murderers?
Supposing that a hundred of Boggs' men were to come down now and put an
end to you, your wife, and your child, would you have me go along with
them peaceably afterwards and pray they might be forgiven?"
"What is a Danite?" asked Susannah.
The stranger took off his hat and answered her very respectfully. "We
are under an oath, ma'am, not to tell who belong to us, but we've bound
ourselves to punish them as take the blood of the helpless and
innocent."
He seemed, as far as the light would show, a well-made youth, and his
voice was clear and honest.
Halsey had not spoken, and Susannah asked again, this time of her
husband, "Can it be wrong to do as this gentleman says?"
The preacher spoke slowly. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the
Lord."
"But," said the young man eagerly, "the Scripture also says 'There's a
time for wrath,' and 'he that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his
blood be shed.'"
Halsey rose up. It was a strong moment for him, for he had long seen
that the spirit of retaliation, following hard on the spirit of defence,
was the coming curse of his beloved church, and had prayed that he might
be the means of helping to ward it off. Here was one asking counsel who
from the strength of his person and character might have influence among
the avengers of blood, yet with his helpless wife and child beside him
none felt more keenly than Halsey the force of the Danite's arguments,
and none knew better the multitude of Scripture prophecies that could be
brought up in support of them. In the strength of his need this man, who
had been spending the precious time of many a hardly-won audience in
dwelling on obscure poesies in books held sacred, now seemed to step
forth into a sudden illumination of truth just as he stepped from the
shadow of the poplar bole into the light of the fire.
"Friend, I did wrong to answer you in this matter from any part of
Scripture save from the mouth of our most blessed Lord himself, for he
alone is the gate by which we must enter into life, and I would have you
to consider most carefully his life and words, and find out if there be
any promise of blessedness to those who strike back when they are
struck, or any command to punish the evil-doer, or any example for such
punishment. But if you would be more manly and more gallant than the
Saviour of the world, I tell you it must be at your own peril, for he
alone is the gate of that road which leads to everlasting life."
There was a silence for some long moments. Embers in the fire broke and
fell; the horses cropped the grass; a nut or twig dropped somewhere
among the adjacent trees.
"Well," said the young Danite reflectively, "if that's it, I guess I'll
have to take my fling first and seek salvation after; but Smith and
Rigdon don't only preach that sort of Gospel now; they are all for the
Old Testament kind of thing, and the destroying angels in the
Revelations."
CHAPTER XI.
So near came the rumours of war that the Mormons of Haun's Mill entered
into a renewed compact of mutual peace with the Gentiles around them.
The place was about twenty miles below the town of Far West, on the same
stream of Shoal Creek. Around Far West the roads presently became very
dangerous, haunted, it was said, by armed parties of bloodthirsty
Gentiles who lay in wait for trains of Mormon emigrants coming from the
east to the prophet's city. All travellers became alarmed; Halsey
remained where he was; the people of the place accepted his pastoral
services gladly. A train of Gentile emigrants also waited at Haun's Mill
for the cessation of hostilities.
These emigrants were quiet folk and had children with them. Susannah
used to go out upon sunny days with her sturdy yearling, talking to all
mothers, Gentile or Mormon, who carried little children. The beauty of
the season, the cloudless sun, gilded these few peaceful days. Susannah
compared her child with other children, marvelled at the baby
intercourse he held with them, at the likes and dislikes displayed among
these pigmy associates; and the other mothers had like sources of
interest in these interviews.
One among the emigrants, a dark-eyed woman of about forty years of age,
was of better position and education than the others. One morning she
noticed Susannah's child very kindly, speaking of things that did not
lie on the surface of life.
"There is a seeking look in his eyes," the lady said; "he smiles, he
plays with us all, but he looks beyond for something. I have seen that
look in the eyes of children who were in pain, but yours is at ease."
"He has his father's eyes," Susannah sighed. "My husband is always
looking for a virtue that seems to me impossible."
Both women turned toward an open grassy space in the midst of the
clustered houses where Halsey was now standing, Bible in hand, teaching
a little group of children to repeat the beatitudes. Only four children,
one sickly boy and three girls, were willing to stand and repeat the
lesson; others had straggled away and were shouting at their play.
Not far from where Halsey stood some fifteen of the neighbours had
gathered together to put up a new wooden house; piles of sweet-smelling
deal lay about them as they worked.
Just then on the road from Far West a horse bearing an old man was seen
straining itself to the swiftest gallop. The old man began to shout as
he came within hearing. No one could understand what he said. He
shouted more loudly, and many women ran out of their doors to see his
arrival. Before his words were articulate a cloud of dust was seen
rising round a turning of the same road, and a large company of horsemen
came swiftly into view.
The old man's voice was raised in a cry, but only the accent of terror
was intelligible. He threw himself off his horse, brandishing his arms.
Afterwards it was known that he wanted the villagers to take refuge in
their houses, but now they only stared the more at him and at the small
army that was approaching.
Susannah heard a shot; then she was deafened by the sound of a volley of
muskets. Paralysed, she stood staring down the road, unable to believe
that the two or three hundred mounted men had deliberately levelled
their muskets and fired. Then all around her she became aware of shrieks
and sobs and prayers that went up to God. The brown-eyed Gentile lady
who stood beside her had fallen in a curious attitude at her feet.
Susannah darted into the emigrants' tent and, putting down the child,
dragged the lady within. She perceived to her horror that the lady was
shot; the bullet had passed through her neck. Not knowing whether she
was dead or dying, Susannah stretched her on the floor. Then she lifted
her hands above her head, wrung them together in agony of nerve and
thought. She remembered afterwards looking upward in the cave of the
warm tent and saying aloud "O God! O God!" many times.
The first thing she saw was her child standing watching her; both his
little brown fists were full of flowers. Hearing the sound of horses
trampling near, loud voices, and occasional shots, she bethought her
that the canvas of the tent was no protection for the child, and,
snatching him in her arms, she ran madly out into the sunshine and into
the open war.
A large number of the horsemen had already passed on down the road; the
sounds that came from them seemed to be of oaths and laughter. A number
were still galloping in and out among the houses; the ground was strewed
with bodies of the dead and wounded; the able-bodied, it seemed, must
have suddenly huddled within their doors.
Susannah remembered her husband now, remembered where he had been
standing. She forgot all else; she rushed toward the middle of the
green, drawing back only when some of the horsemen dashed across her
path to follow their fellows. They stared at her and, as they went,
called to some who were still behind them.
One of these came on, checked his horse, and looked in Susannah's face
insultingly. No doubt her eyes were dazed, and she looked to him like a
mad woman, but she remembered afterwards that the child showed anger
and babbled that the horseman was a bad man. At this the rider took out
his pistol and pointed it at the child and fired and rode off laughing.
Susannah saw the young Danite bending over her. His words were hoarse
and so sorrowful that she gathered from their tone that she was in great
distress before she understood their purport or memory awoke. "Ma'am,"
he said, "I'll take you down to your own waggon by the creek."
She found herself sitting on the ground, her child in her arms. The
child was dead; she knew that as soon as she looked at him. There was a
little trickle of blood upon the light frock over his heart, but not
much.
As yet no women, only a few men, had ventured forth, and the sound of
the enemy's horses and shouting were still in the air. Susannah rose up,
folding in her arms the body of the child; the momentum of her first
intention was upon her will and muscles; she moved straight on toward
the place where she had last seen Halsey.
The young Danite took hold of her sleeve when he perceived whither she
went.
"'Tisn't no use, ma'am. Some of the brothers have attended to him."
Susannah looked straight in the young man's face with perfect courage.
"Is he dead?"
But the Danite had not courage for this; he turned away and put his arm
over his eyes; she heard him grind his teeth in dumb passion.
Some of the men and women lying on the grass were moaning or screaming
with the pain of their injuries. The thought that Halsey might be in
like pain made Susannah imperative. "Is he dead?" she asked again in
precise repetition of tone and accent. "Is he dead?"
The Danite lifted his head. "He is quite dead, and I marked the man that
did it, and I marked the man that did this too." He touched reverently,
not the child, but the wilting asters that were still grasped in the
baby hand. "If I'd only had a gun--but"--he ground his teeth again and
muttered, "God helping me, they shall both die."
Susannah understood nothing then but the first part of this speech.
By this time many of the women and children had again flocked out of the
houses. It was reported that the horsemen had been a detachment of State
militia, that one of them had taken the trouble to explain to a wounded
man that they had received orders from Governor Boggs to exterminate the
Mormons. Immediately by other frightened tongues it was stated that the
armed company were halting round the turn of the road, intending to
return and shoot again when the people had come out from shelter. At
this the greater number made a stampede for a thicket of poplar and
willow saplings that was near the creek. The Danite still held by
Susannah's sleeve.
"Where is my husband?" she again asked. She had not moved since he last
spoke to her.
Some men were busy laying the dead, of whom there were eighteen, on the
floor of a shed which was not far off. Susannah and the Danite moved
about together and found Halsey lying still on the green, his limbs
decently composed, his eyes for ever shut. The bearers were about to
lift him, but the Danite interposed. He had an excited fancy concerning
Susannah's dead and what must be done for them. He lifted Halsey easily
in both his arms and walked away, Susannah following with the dead
child.
Without a word they went till they came to Halsey's camp. Nothing had
been touched since Susannah left in the morning. The Danite, remembering
the camp as he had seen it a few evenings before, looked about him now
curiously, and laid Halsey down on the very spot where he had stood to
plead for a divine righteousness.
It was not a time for words. Having deposited his burden, he looked to
Susannah, but she had no directions to give. She sat down beside her
husband, as though preparing to remain.
"I thought you'd like to lay them both out here, but I guess I ought to
get you into the bush, ma'am."
"I will stay here," she said; "you had better go to help some one else."
The cries of the wounded were still heard from the vicinity of the
houses. A crowd of the uninjured people were to be seen making their way
through the first bushes of the thicket. They seemed to be carrying the
wounded thither, for men bearing shutters, and doors upon which the sick
were stretched now started in the direction of the bush. There was need
for help, as the Danite well saw; then, too, inactivity was torture. He
left Susannah and ran back to bear his part in the common task.
When almost every other living soul was lost in the close thicket he
came again, approaching the camp with soft footsteps, peering anxiously.
Susannah had laid the child in his father's arms. Their enemies seemed
to have taken aim for the heart, for Halsey's wound was also there. She
had so laid the child within his arms, heart to heart, that no sign of
injury appeared. She sat by them now, sobbing her tearless sobs,
stroking gently, sometimes the hair of the child, more often the thick
locks of light hair that lay above her husband's brow. She was talking
to them between her sobs in rapid phrases exactly as if they were not
dead. The young Danite was sure that she had lost her wits; he leant
against a tree confounded.
Susannah was saying, "I wanted to keep baby, Angel, I wanted so much to
keep him, but I could not have taught him your way; there was no use
telling you that before, for you could not understand. When you told me
that you would go you did not tell me you meant to take baby. You have
the best right to him, dear, he is all yours, but oh! remember--remember
that I will be very lonely--very lonely--O Angel." There were a few
moments of wordless moans and sobs, but she went on clearly enough, "I
want you to know, Angel, that I never was disappointed in you--never
disappointed in you, dear; and about my lack of faith--it would have
been no use to tell you before, would it?"
She took her hand from Halsey's hair and played a moment with the rings
of gold on the baby's head lying on his breast. She laid her hand upon
Halsey's hands that she had clasped together above the child. "It is
better for you to have baby with you. I could not have taught him your
thoughts. It is better, dear, isn't it?"
The earnest inflection of her voice in these interrogations brought so
wild a sense of pathos to the Danite's heart that his eyes filled with
tears and brimmed over, but Susannah's sobs were like a nervous gasping
of which she was scarcely conscious, and no hint of tears.
She lightly touched the baby hand that was lying on its father's
shoulder, still grasping the blue blossoms. "See," she sobbed, "he has
brought his flowers to you; he always loved you best."
There had been a great silence in the air about them, but now there was
again the sound of firing at the distance of about a mile. The Danite's
pulses leaped, but he did not, because of that, allow himself to speak
or move.
Susannah spoke again, resting her hand on Halsey's brow, "You know,
dear, I don't know whether you and baby are anywhere--anywhere"; wildly,
as if the appalling loneliness of its meaning had flashed upon her
dulled brain, she repeated the word.
The Danite's sympathy rose within him; he staggered forward and bent
over her. "Don't, ma'am," he said, "don't go on talking like that. I was
with my own mother when she died, when I was a little chap, and I know
how it is, and you'd much better try to shed tears, ma'am, indeed you
had."
Susannah lifted to him a blank face, disturbed but uncomprehending.
He decided what to do; the thought of action restored him. He ran with
all his might back to the houses, and, finding a pick and spade, came
again. This time, more confident of himself, he had more control over
Susannah.
"We must make the grave right here, ma'am, and do you go and gather some
flowers to put on it, for we must just put them two away out of sight
before the devils come back. It's what he would want, you know." He
pointed to Halsey and repeated the words until she understood.
It even seemed a relief to her then to move about too, and find that
there was something she could do, but she did not obey him blindly.
While in a soft place close by he delved with might and main, displacing
the earth with incredible speed, Susannah, sobbing all the time, but
tearless, went into the waggon and brought out certain things which she
chose with care--a locked box, the best garments belonging to herself,
her husband, and child, and the baby's toys.
It was no neat gravedigger's work that the Danite accomplished; he had
made a deep, large hole, but the cavity sloped at the sides so that they
could step in and out. Susannah brought her little store and lined the
earth first with the garments.
"You may want some of those things of your own, ma'am," said the Danite.
She paid no heed; when she had made the couch to her mind she signed to
him to lay Halsey and the child in it, which he did. She herself stooped
in the grave to clasp the dead man's hands more tightly over the little
one's form, and her last touch was to stroke Halsey's hair from off the
brow. She laid the baby playthings at Halsey's feet; she unlocked the
box and took from it all the household treasures that so far she had
sought to keep--some silver, a few small ornaments, a few books, and
Halsey's Book of Mormon, in which was written their marriage and the
baby's birth. She brought a silken shawl, the one bit of finery that
remained from her girlish days. She covered her dead with it very
carefully, tucking it in as though they slept; then she moved away,
wringing her hands and heaving convulsive sighs. The Danite put back the
earth.
All the grass was strewn pretty thickly with poplar leaves, gold, lined
with white, and after leaning against a tree some minutes looking away
from the grave, Susannah began gathering up these leaves hastily, so
that when he levelled the earth she could strew the top, hiding the
place from the curious eyes of strangers.
"I guess, ma'am, if there's anything you would like to take with you
now, we'd better go into the bush."
"No, there is nothing, but," she cried, "I thank you very much, and if
there is anything that would be of use to you--"
When the Danite had first laid Halsey under the tree he had taken a
white cloth from the tent and wiped the blood from the coat, that
Susannah might not be too much shocked at the sight. He took this cloth
now and tore it till the stained fragment alone remained in his hand. He
thrust it in his breast.
"This will stand for the blood of them both," he said. "I guess that's
all I want." But when he had started towards the thicket he remembered
Susannah's needs, and went back for a blanket.
The poplar saplings that bordered the creek were still holding a thin
gold canopy overhead, and the dogwood was glinting with scarlet. The
other members of the community had gone so far ahead that it was a long
time before, making their toilsome way, they came upon their former
neighbours.
The fugitives had called a halt where a brook which passed through the
bush offered some relief to the pain and fever of those who were
wounded. One of these, a little girl, had already died by the way, and
her frantic mother began to reproach Susannah, wailing that if the child
had not been saying her texts to the elder she would not have been a
mark for the enemy.
The men were cutting down saplings to make place for a camp. It was
their intention to remain, going back under the cover of night to get
food and blankets from the houses, if they were not pillaged and burned,
going back in any case to bury their dead at the first streak of dawn.
The Danite turned to Susannah. "I guess, ma'am, neither you nor I have
got any business to take us back, and there's enough of the brothers
here to do the work."
Susannah went on with the young man through hour after hour of the
afternoon farther and farther into the unknown fastnesses of the wood.
They left behind them the low thicket of second growth, and penetrated
into an uncleared Missouri forest.
CHAPTER XII.
All the powers of the young Danite were strung by excitement into the
fiercest vitality, and he thought that physical fatigue was the best
medicine for Susannah's mind. Why he had accepted the work of saving her
as part of his mission of Mormon defence he did not ask himself. In him,
as in many athletes, thought and action seemed one. He acted because he
acted; he knew no other reason.
In the middle of the night Susannah woke up. The stars glimmered above
the trees; she was lying on a heap of autumn leaves wrapped in the
blanket. Sitting up, she remembered slowly the events of the preceding
day.
Her movement had caused another movement at some distance. The Danite,
sleeping on the alert like soldier or huntsman, was roused by the first
sound she made, and when she continued to sit up he came near in the
glimmering light. She saw his dark form where he tarried a few paces
away.
"You're all safe, ma'am. Can't you go on sleeping?"
A watch of the night often brings to recollection some duty forgotten
during the day. "Do you know where Elvira Halsey is?"
"The young lady with the brown eyes that I have sometimes seen you with,
ma'am?"
"Yes." Then Susannah added with the weak detail of a wretched mind, "She
isn't very young."
"Was she any relation to you, ma'am? Were you very affectionate with
her?"
Susannah explained the relationship.
The Danite thought, "If I tell her she's there she'll think it her duty
to trapse back all the way to find her; she's that sort." Therefore,
judging that a minor grief could not make much difference, he gave it as
his opinion that Elvira was dead. At this Susannah shed tears for the
first time, which eased his anxiety not a little.
Susannah did not know the Danite's name; it never occurred to her to ask
him any question about himself.
At dawn they started again upon their tramp. The man knew the country,
and when the sun was up he brought Susannah out of the forest to a
settler's farm. She was faint now for want of food, walking again, as
she had walked last night, with vacant eyes and dull mechanical tread.
The Danite made her sit down upon a stone near the house, and brought a
woman to her who carried bread and milk. Susannah ate and drank without
speaking.
"My! but she's tired," said the farmer's wife. "It's a cruel shame to
make her walk so far; you're not a good husband to her, I'm thinking."
Having satisfied her need, Susannah turned away dully without a word.
The settler's wife offered the remainder of the bread and milk to the
Danite, who regarded it with famished eyes.
"Where's your husband?" he asked.
"We've enough men about the place."
"Where is your husband?"
"He's away with the militia under Lucas."
"Then I'll not touch his food," said the Danite. With an oath he flung
the cup and plate upon the ground. "Do you see that woman there?" He
pointed to Susannah. "I took the food for her, for she had died without
it. Yesterday devils like your husband shot her child in her arms and
her husband before her eyes, and to Almighty God I pray that when I've
got her to some safe place I may have strength yet to shoot your husband
and your children, shoot them down like dogs, and laugh at you because
you don't like it." The restrained passion of all the long preceding
hours broke out. His face was ashen, his eyes burning; there was foam
about his lips as, with thick utterance, he hurled the words at her.
The woman stepped back in dismay, but she, too, was enraged now, and
courage was the habit of the free life she led. "You are a bloody
Mormon," she cried, "and if I'd known it I'd have let your woman die
before I'd have fed her." She walked backwards, her voice rising higher
with passion. Unable to think connectedly, she shrieked the phrases she
had in mind. "Coming here to spread idolatry in a Christian country!
Teaching superstition in a free Christian land!" She was still shrieking
some jargon about the United States being founded on the Word of God,
and the divine right to exterminate all Mormons, when he, walking fast,
joined Susannah.
They had not gone much further before a large dog which the settler's
wife had evidently let loose, came after them with fierce intent. The
Danite turned, and as the dog sprang, slew it with one stab of his
knife, and, leaving it bleeding upon the road, hurried Susannah into the
forest.
It was a tradition upon that farm for years afterwards that these two
Mormons, after receiving charity, had made an open display of that
wanton wickedness which was habitual to them.
Susannah and the Danite travelled on for many hours. The way was not
easy. Sometimes where the trees were thin their legs were tangled
knee-deep in a plant covered with minute white feathery blossoms,
looking like white swan's-down shot through with green light, that
carpeted miles of the ground; sometimes the trees had fallen so thickly
that they had to clamber from log to log rather than walk; sometimes
their way was a bog, and they were in danger of sinking deeper than was
safe.
Susannah asked no questions. She had heard and understood all the words
that had passed in the incident of the morning. She felt cowed now,
afraid to think what might come next; it was enough that the Danite had
evidently some point in view.
About four in the afternoon they left the forest and came to another and
much larger house. The Danite advanced here with more confidence and
spoke with some men who gathered at their approach. Afterwards three
men, a father and sons, came and one after the other shook hands
respectfully with Susannah. Within the house she found a motherly woman,
the wife of the elder son. When Susannah's misfortunes were related to
her in undertones she cast her apron over her head and groaned as with
pain.
Susannah thought that the concern of this household must arise from fear
on their own account. "Are you Latter-Day Saints?" she asked
mechanically.
The eldest man, with the air of a patriarch, replied, "No, madam, we are
not Saints; the fact is we don't hold by religion of one sort or
another; we just believe in being kind to our neighbours and living,
good lives; so whatsoever your belief may be it is no affair of ours,
and you shall rest here for the sake of our common humanity. We'll look
after you, madam." He made a bow that was a queer mixture of
uncouthness in keeping with his surroundings and a recollection of some
more formal society.
The woman of the house, taking her apron from her head, suddenly
bethought her of the best things that she had to offer. Gently forcing
Susannah into an elbow chair, she ran, and lifting an infant a few weeks
old from its cradle, put it in Susannah's arms.
The next night the young Danite went away.
CHAPTER XIII.
Only the outline of passing events was reported to Susannah in her haven
of peace. The elder man took her into his courtly care, and made a point
of explaining to her what he thought she needed to know. The newspapers
were sedulously kept from her, and so reticent were the other members of
the household on the subject of their contents that her heart constantly
sickened at the thought of what she was not allowed to hear.
"You see, madam," the old man explained, "it was Major-General Atchison
that called out the militia in first defence of your people against
Gilliam's mob. Gilliam had about three hundred men, and they started in
the north of the State. Well, Parks and Doniphan, commanding the militia
called out by Atchison, seem to have set about fighting the mob
sincerely enough." The old man pushed back his spectacles and rubbed his
hair. "Then you see, madam, that didn't please Governor Boggs. Here was
the militia of his State shooting down his own good, honest Christian
voters who keep him in office, that's Gilliam's men, and all the mob; so
Boggs gets a lot of his men in all parts of the country to write him
letters saying what dreadful crimes the Mormons are committing. These
letters will no doubt pass into history as a genuine account of your
people's doings. Well! well! I wouldn't shock your prejudices, but I'd
like just to point out by the way that it's all done in the name of
religion. There's Boggs has got an old mother who spends a lot of her
time praying that the purity of the American religion may not be
corrupted by the awful doctrines of Joe Smith."
The old man shook his head and rubbed his thin gray curly hair again
with a smile of constrained patience. "You see, although I do not wish
to grieve you by saying it, if we could only get rid of religion there
would be a lot of brotherly kindness in the world that so far has never
had a chance to say 'peep' and peck its shell. Well, but here's Boggs
reading his letters, and he turns pale with horror at the thought of the
corruption that has come among his good and pious people, so he writes
off to the commanders of the militia that they are to stop fighting the
mob, to fight against the Mormons, and only against the Mormons. So then
Atchison resigns. He points out, fairly enough, that there hasn't been a
single conviction in any lawful court against the Mormons for the crimes
they are accused of. But what of that if Boggs is Governor? So they have
taken away the arms from the Mormon company of militia, and the other
day they went up to Far West with three or four thousand men, and they
got Smith and his brother Hyrum and three of the elders to come out to
them, and they court-martialled them and ordered them all to be shot the
next day.
"But it wasn't done, madam," he added hastily. "General Doniphan had the
pluck to stand out against it and say he would withdraw his troops, so
they put them in irons and sent them to the gaol in Richmond, and then
at the point of the bayonet they have forced the other leaders to bind
themselves to pay all the expenses of the war and to get every Mormon,
man, woman, and child, out of the State, or else they are all to be
shot. That is how the matter stands at present."
"Do you incur any risk by the hospitality you give to me?" asked
Susannah. She had not as yet had energy, even if she had had
inclination, to explain that the Book of Mormon was not sacred in her
eyes, nor Smith a prophet. "Do you think," she asked the old man
wistfully, "that the Mormons have ever been the aggressors, that they
have committed any of the atrocities they are accused of?"
"In some cases they have pillaged, and burned, and murdered; they
wouldn't be human if some of them hadn't got fierce under the treatment
they have been receiving; but when a man like Atchison, who has been
scouring the country and knows pretty well what has happened, prefers to
resign his honourable office rather than fight against them, you may be
sure they are not very far in the wrong. Injuries, you know, will always
set a few men mad. There is your elder, Rigdon, for instance; when he
got here and heard of some of the things your folks had suffered, he up
and made a wild oration on the 4th of July, and said that if any more
outrages were committed on the Mormons, the Mormons would up and
exterminate all the Gentiles in the State. But it has been well enough
seen by any one who had eyes to see that no such language was ever
countenanced by the real rulers of your sect."
When Susannah thanked the old man for his candour he drove his moral
once more. "You see, madam, I can look at things as they are because I
am not bound by any religion to look at them in any particular way."
Susannah rose up when the old man's story was ended, and stood for some
minutes looking wistfully out through the window panes upon the leafless
and storm-swept fields. They two were together in the long, scantily
furnished living-room at the end of the long table. Her figure was
stronger, more true in its proportions, than when she had been a girl.
Her hair, trained into smooth obedience, was fastened within the muslin
cap she had fashioned for herself, tied Quaker fashion under her chin.
Her face was very white, as if, having blanched with terror in the
tragedy of Haun's Mill, the life-blood had not as yet returned to it.
At last she said simply, "I thank you, sir."
The old man looked most approvingly at her form and at the subtle
witchery which the eagerness of imprisoned thought gave to reticent
features, at the depth of her blue eye. "I wish, my dear, that you could
see your way to give up your religion and remain with us."
"I thank you, sir," she said again, and went back to the household tasks
she had fallen into the habit of performing.
She was not eating the bread of dependence. In such a place, where
woman's work is at a premium, it was easy for her to do what was
reckoned of more value than what she received. The old man had two sons.
The elder and his wife were in the prime of life, having a large family;
the younger son was unmarried. The farm was large and prosperous. The
one woman, even had she been less amiable, would have naturally desired
to keep Susannah as a helper; being the kindly soul she was, she
reserved the more attractive tasks for her, and bade the children call
her endearing names. In her blindness, in her slow recovery from utter
exhaustion of mind and nerve, Susannah never thought of connecting this
long-continued kindness with the fact that the old man's younger son had
as yet no wife.
At first Susannah had fixed her thoughts upon an immediate return to the
east, but weeks went by and she had not written to Ephraim Croom for
the money that she needed. The whole civilised world contained for her
but one friend to whom she would write.
The Canadian farm, the remote country village of Manchester, and the
Mormon sect--these formed her whole experience. Her father, who had
scolded and played with her; Ephraim, who had understood her and had
been the authority to her heart that his parents could not be; her
husband, who had wrapped about her such close protection that she had
tottered when she thought to walk alone--these were her real world, and
of them only Ephraim was left.
It was not in her nature at any time, above all not in these stricken
months, to desire to go out into the world alone to make for herself a
sphere of usefulness and a circle of companions. Hence she thought only
of returning to Ephraim, and by his help obtaining some occupation by
which she could live simply and within his reach. But when she thought
more closely of throwing herself, as it were, penniless and desolate at
the feet of this one prized friendship, doubts arose about her path.
One thing which she had lost in the broken camp by her husband's grave,
one that if she had had greater power of recollection she would not have
left behind in that complete breaking with the past, was a packet of the
few letters which Ephraim had from time to time written to her. She did
not know whether she had thrown them into the grave with her treasure,
or whether they were left a prey to fire and theft, but in her heart she
had carried them beyond the loss of their material existence.
The first had answered her insistent question concerning the vexed
condition of the devotees of prayer. It contained no word of criticism
of the Mormon creed, nothing that if read aloud could have disturbed
Halsey's peace. "Perchance," he had said, "as a medical man applies a
poultice or blister to a diseased body to draw out the evil, so to those
who pray and are too ignorant, _i.e._ opinionated, to follow perfectly
the greatest teacher of prayer, God may apply circumstances to bring all
the evil of heart to the surface, that in this life and the future it
may the more quickly work itself away." Susannah had so conned this
passage that she could now close her eyes and read it as written upon
the red dusk of their lids.
The next letter had been written a year later. He described a great
change in his life. He had gone to spend the winter in Hartford, on the
Connecticut River, to be under a new physician, and had there met with a
preacher called Mr. Horace Bushnell. This acquaintance was evidently
much to Ephraim. Susannah had made some complaint of the harshness of
the divine counsel in which he asked her to believe; his answer was to
send her Bushnell's sermons on the suffering of God. Ephraim had added:
"When you went from us, Susy, would you ever have been satisfied if we
had detained you by force? Yet that is what you ask of God. If you were
right in going, let the circumstance prove it; if we were right, let it
appear by time. So says God; and his friendship has eternity to work in;
so also has every human friendship. Let us wait, but in faith." This
ending, somewhat enigmatical to her, had yet recurred to her heart so
often that she knew the words by heart.
The next letter had been written more recently, after a long interval.
At the end of this letter Ephraim had said, "I am persuaded that what we
need to help our faith is never more knowledge, but always more love. I
cannot interpret this but by telling you of a fact which I feel to be
the key to a great--the greatest--truth. I know a man who believed in
God. He met a woman whom he loved, not as many love, but (I know not
why) with all the loves of his heart, as father, as mother, as brother,
friend, might love; as lover he loved her with all these loves. After
that he knew God with a knowledge that passed belief. He could argue no
more, but he _knew_. This I think is the sort of knowledge which guides
unerringly." Susannah remembered, if not the words, all that this
passage contained. She had wondered at it not a little.
Up to the time of Angel's death she had rejoiced in these letters, not
doubting that Ephraim had remained the same self-sacrificing
friend--ready out of mere but perfect kindness to befriend her to the
uttermost. She had not doubted because she had not questioned. Now
disquieting thoughts intervened, producing a new shyness. She remembered
their last interview, and wondered if Ephraim would feel the same
responsibility for her if she returned destitute. Perhaps the ardour of
his friendship had cooled. Perhaps in the last letter he had intended to
suggest to her that he thought of marriage, and this time for love, not
kindness, the lady being one of his new Hartford friends.
But no doubt the principal reason of Susannah's dalliance with time in
those first weeks of her moral freedom was the mental weakness that
succeeds shock. Every day she thought that she would soon write that
begging letter, until the day came when opportunity ceased.
When the Danite left he had promised the farmer to return as soon as it
was possible to place Susannah in safety with her Mormon friends. When
she began to speak of leaving, her host told her this for the first
time.
"And what is the young man's name?" the old man asked of Susannah. They
were in the long living-room at the mid-day meal. His sons, who were
leaving the table, waited to hear the answer; the mother, the very
children, looked at her with interest.
"I do not know," said Susannah.
There was a pause, and for the first time she was aware that there was
some sentiment in the minds of her hearers which did not appear upon the
surface.
She went on, "I don't know why he should trouble himself to come back
for me except that--I think that he was much touched by some earnest
words my husband said to him that he did not see his way to accept, and
I think also that he is zealous for the Church."
Her surpassing wrongs had so far set her apart and made all that she
said and did sacred. No one questioned her further.
In the beginning of February the Danite reappeared. He came under the
cover of night, but showed himself only when the household was awake. He
was much thinner, more gaunt than before, but in frankness and quietude
the same. His first words to Susannah had an import she did not expect.
"That young lady you mentioned to me--I said she was dead because you
were half crazy, and would have gone back to her, but I worked round
till I found her; she got to the city of Far West right enough."
After a while he said, "That young lady and some other of our folks have
got horses and they're going into Illinois now. Most of our folks are
walking. It's about as bad as can be, but I guess you'll have to go.
We'll be safe enough, for as long as we go straight on the Gentiles are
bound to let us pass. I tried to get some better sort of a way for you
and her, but there ain't no way unless we would have sworn we weren't
Saints and gone pretending to be Gentiles, but even then we haven't got
the money."
Susannah was thrilled with excited distress. She was not prepared to
make an abrupt decision, and it appeared that if she desired to join
this company she must go that evening or not at all.
During the hours of the morning her mind cowered, dismayed. Should she
now renounce her husband's sect, refusing to suffer with them? She had
not as yet fortitude to do this. Halsey's eyes, the touch of his hand,
her baby's voice lisping the tenets of their faith in repetition of his
father's solemn tones, these were sights and sounds as yet too near her.
To her shocked fancy the child and his father were only gone out of
sight, but near enough to be cruelly hurt by her public perversion. And,
moreover, if she should take this course she must write to Ephraim at
once, for she could not well remain where she was without definite
purpose in view.
Susannah had sought seclusion in which to think, and the younger son of
the house intruded himself. He was perhaps about thirty years of age, a
burly man, resolute and passionate. He spoke fairly enough. The Danite
himself had said that the journey to which she was haled by her friends
was one of untold hardship, its end uncertain; he offered her all that
an honest and prosperous man could offer, but went on to urge on his own
behalf the strength of those sentiments which he had learned to
entertain for her--his admiration (Susannah sickened at the word), his
love (she shrank in fear).
She rose up with the moan of a hunted thing. She did not pause to make
excuses for the hunter, to consider the pioneer life that wots little of
sentiment in proportion to utility; she only saw again the grave at
Haun's Mill and the white faces of her dead upturned to hers. It seemed
that this man, with the consent of his people, was urging his suit as it
were beside the very corpse of her husband. The Danite had shown Angel
reverence, had shown by his every word and glance that he counted her as
belonging to the dead man whose blood he carried at his heart.
Susannah rode out from that temporary home at nightfall upon the
Danite's horse.
CHAPTER XIV.
It was the season of rain and sleet, of rude northerly winds. The roads,
across a tract of flat fields and in among the low woods that fringed
the rivers, were heavy with mud.
After riding half the night on a pillion behind the Danite, Susannah
entered the Mormon camp. Up and down the sides of a dirty road, in
waggons, in small tents, and in the open, men, women, and children were
lying huddled in family groups. How far these crowds extended she could
not see. Watch-fires were burning here and there, and in the fields on
either side a patrol of Missouri militia were heard scoffing and
shouting in the darkness. The Danite answered the challenge of one of
these men with apparent meekness; Susannah perceived that he had gained
in self-control. When they had entered the road, along the sides of
which the forlorn multitude lay, they travelled for some way upon it,
the Danite speaking in low tones now and then to the Mormon watchers. At
length they came to a place where a few waggons of better description
were standing and a number of horses were tied; here he lifted Susannah
from the horse. Three of the Mormon leaders came up; they evidently
knew her and her story. The eldest took her hand and spoke in broken
tones of the crown which Halsey had won in the unseen city of God.
These were the first words that Susannah had heard in unison with
Halsey's own thoughts, and for his sake they endeared the whole wretched
Mormon encampment to her.
A woman, her head and shoulders wrapped in a shawl, sprang down from one
of the waggons, and Elvira encountered Susannah.
"You expect me to say that I am sorry for you," she said hurriedly; "I
will not. It is not a time for grief. We each of us have just so much
power of being sorry and no more, and the well has gone dry. I am glad
you have come. There are a great many things that one can yet be a
little glad for; but you must make haste to lie down, for we shall soon
enough be called to the march."
The beds shaken down on the floor of the waggon were covered with
reclining women. Some of them squeezed themselves together to make the
place Elvira had vacated large enough for two. Susannah stretched
herself out, loathing with her senses the crowded bed, but with a tender
heart for her fellow-sufferers. After the long dumb weeks of her stern
sorrow, after that day's revolt of injured sentiment, she felt that it
was worth while to have come here if only to have made some one else, as
Elvira had said, "a little glad."
The dawn came sighing fitfully, long sighs that rose in the distant
fields to the east meeting them in their pilgrimage and dying away
westward; the dawn wept also, scattering her tears upon them in like
transient showers.
Elvira found her own horse. The Danite had used yesterday the animal he
had provided for Susannah.
"But what right have I to his horse?" Susannah began her question
impetuously, but Elvira silenced her.
"Hush! Don't let the other women know that it isn't yours. Poor things,
they will begin to ask why it isn't theirs. Do you think that we are
living on bowing terms, curtseying to each other and saying, 'After you,
madam, if you please'?"
Elvira was changed. Terror had at last done its work. Her pretty
features were drawn with anxiety; her eye glittered.
"I have been baptized," she said to Susannah in hard tones. "When I saw
the water red with blood I went down into it."
Eastward, facing the gusty sobs of the winter morning, they went. The
road was soft, and hundreds of feet treading in front of them had
kneaded water and earth together into a slippery mass. As far as could
be seen in front and behind, the line of the pilgrimage stretched, women
and children plodding with burdens on their backs, men pushing
hand-carts before them, only here and there a waggon or a group of
horses.
Elvira took up several children on her horse, and pointed out to
Susannah a sickly woman to whom she could give a turn upon the pillion
that she herself had ridden during the night. So they began one of many
weary days.
To the good the necessities of compassion are as strong as are the
necessities of selfishness to the wicked. Within a day or two both
Susannah and Elvira had given up their horses entirely to women who had
been taken ill by the way. At first they plodded arm in arm, thinking
that merely to walk was all that their strength could endure; but there
were other women who had children to carry, women even who must push
hand-carts before them, and there were little children who sank one by
one exhausted on the winter road, as lambs fall when their mothers are
driven far.
After the march had continued for a few days there was much illness. All
clothing and bedding was wet with the winter rain, chilled and stiff
with the frosts. On the faces of many the unnatural flush and excitement
of fever were seen, and other faces grew pallid, the lips blue or dark,
and the eyes sunken. To all who retained the natural hue and pulses of
health a heavier burden was added every day because of the help they
must needs give if they would not bury too many of their comrades by the
wayside. In that sad caravan souls were born into the world or freed
from it by death almost every hour.
Susannah was greatly struck by the meek manner of the boldest and
roughest of the Mormon leaders in their dealings with the parties of
Missouri militia who, with the ostensible purpose of defending Missouri
homesteads from Mormon violence, drove the stricken multitude as with
goads. She had learned from her husband what the strength of true
meekness could be, the lightness of heart which commits itself to God,
who judgeth righteously, the glance of love that has no reserve of
hatred, the infinite force that can afford to be gentle. Such a spirit
had upheld Angel Halsey, but his widow looked in vain among the leaders
of this band for a face that bespoke the same upholding. She soon
perceived that there was among them a free-masonry of understanding, and
that their mildness was assumed to serve the temporary purpose. By many
a prayer she heard breathed, which was in truth, though not in form, a
curse, she knew that in the souls of Halsey's successors there was no
forgiveness, yet her heart went out in sympathy to men who were
sacrificing their own sense of honour, holding in check their most
delicious impulses of revenge, for the sake of being worthy shepherds to
the weak.
"Do you love them the less because they are not angels?" asked Elvira.
"Have you forgiven?"
Susannah shuddered at the intensity of the hard low tones, the passion
in the word "love," the sneer in the word "forgive." Yet she knew that
the rage against injustice which in youth had driven her forth upon this
journey had, since the death of her child, changed into such fierce
hatred of the persecutors that she could, except for very fear of
herself, have taken upon her own soul the Danite's vow. In these days
the pain of bodily suffering or heart-felt grief was as nothing compared
with her agony when at times waves of this hatred passed over her heart.
The two friends were walking together, pushing before them a small cart
in which, on the top of the bundles of household goods, a wretched woman
and her newborn child were lying, covered under a scanty tarpauling from
the driving sleet. The mud splashed beneath their feet; Susannah had
little breath or strength for speech. Elvira, more slightly made, in
every way more fragile, had seemed to develop, with every new phase of
suffering, more strength of muscle and hatred and love.
They passed now two of the leaders. It was the custom for a certain
number of these men to go forward and station themselves in pairs at
intervals upon the road, cheering each group as it passed them, noting
with careful eyes if any ill could be remedied by change of posture or
exchange of burdens. One of them now, seeing the work to which Susannah
had set herself, interfered. He was about sixty years of age, coarse in
appearance, an elder whose wife and family Susannah knew by reputation.
He and his fellows called a halt, looking for some man who might push
the cart, but there was none within sight who was not already
overburdened, nor was there a waggon that was not already overfilled
with the sick and exhausted. The elder, whose name happened to be
Darling, found in this particular instance reason to swerve from his
position of guard. He left the post in charge of his fellow and pushed
the cart. It was a habit with many of these leaders to seek to lighten
the way by jocularities, and Susannah had before observed that, whether
the jests arose with ease or effort from the heavy hearts of those who
made them, a large proportion of the people were evidently cheered
thereby. She could put aside her own tastes for the public good; she
could even excuse when this rough comfort was offered to herself.
Darling, labouring behind the cart, made light of the service he
rendered.
He said first that the newborn babe must be called after him, and when
he learned its sex he gave permission to the ladies to decide between
them which should share this honour.
"Shall it be 'darling Susannah'?" he asked, making gentle his tone as he
addressed the stately widow, "or shall it be 'Elvira darling'?" This
time he turned his head with a broader smile toward Elvira's sharp
little features.
Susannah felt that her hypersensitive nerves could almost have called
his smile a leer; but she looked at the man's broad face, whose lines
told of no resources of thought, no great natural capacity for heroism,
and yet were furrowed by the sharpness of this persecution. The face
would have been fat had it not been half-starved. It was pale now under
the ill-kempt hair, and the set purpose of helpfulness was stamped upon
it. She took back the word "leer" out of mere respect. Darling had given
away his shoes; he was walking barefoot; he had given away coat and vest
also, and the rotund lines of his figure were unpleasantly obvious under
the wet shirt, and yet Susannah knew and bowed to the fact that some
sick man or little child was wrapped in the garments that were gone.
But Elvira was expressing with hysterical warmth the same sentiments.
"I guess I'll feel it an honour to have my name joined with yours. I
haven't got the length of taking off my shoes yet."
Darling began to sing one of the inspiriting Mormon hymns.
"When Joseph to Cumorah came."
"Poor Joe!" Elvira spoke to the elder in a confidential whisper, "when
he cheated over the bank I thought some fiend had put a ring in his
nose, and was leading him out to dance, and that I should be able to sit
and laugh. Now he's lying upon straw in the gaol. What will they do to
him if they lynch him?"
"Tear him limb from limb," whispered Darling, also under his breath. He
was probably shrewd enough to know the force of Smith's suffering in
stimulating the piety of the faithful, but truth, and grief concerning
the truth, were in his words also. He sighed a big sincere sigh, and
repeated sadly, "Tear him limb from limb, or burn him to death by a slow
fire." Such atrocities, as practised upon criminal negroes, were not
unknown in the locality, which gave the elder's words a graphic power,
but Elvira's answer was wholly unexpected.
"How droll!" she returned.
The elder was annoyed. He had not refined susceptibilities which sought
immediate relief from the dreadful pictures he had suggested, nor did he
at all comprehend that her rippling smile was hysterical. "I don't see
anything droll about it, sister," he said sulkily.
"Don't you? Now, it all seems to me very droll--you splashing along
there barefoot, why" (she drew back a little to get the better view,
laughing excitedly), "you've no idea how ridiculous you look; and Mrs.
Halsey stalking along like a dignified ghost, afraid that you and I will
kiss one another if we take to whispering, and this woman dying here
with her head resting on a sack of potatoes, and the impudent little
person you've just christened intruding herself upon the world only to
go out of it again, and all these fine people in Missouri rubbing their
hands and thinking they have done such a noble deed. I think," she
added, laughing more loudly, "that they are the drollest part of it
all."
"This nation will find that there's a sequel to it that they won't laugh
at." These words of Darling came from some region underneath that of his
ordinary conversation, as a man takes a dagger from under his cloak and
lets it flash ere he hides it again. "The government of these United
States that has laughed at our sufferings will rue the day."
"Even your saying that is very droll, but I love you for it." Elvira
lifted both her hands as if testifying to her own sincerity. "I love you
for it."
The elder thought it needful here to be again jocose. "Oh, come now, I
am married."
Elvira did not feel herself insulted. "These United States," she cried,
"they cackle over the word 'freedom' like so many hens that have each of
them laid an egg and go strutting and boasting while the housewife
empties their nests. The housewife represents the natural course of
events, and in this case her name is 'Mrs. Mobocracy.'"
At other times, after a long period of silence, Elvira would burst forth
in excited soliloquy audible to Susannah and others about her. On the
last day when they were descending the hills to the Mississippi her
increasing excitement culminated in a greater demonstration. The sun was
shining, and a clear frost had hardened the roads. Elvira broke forth
thus--
"It is Joe Smith who is conducting this march. We say that he is lying
in gaol," she laughed. "In gaol is he? Have they got him safe? But it
was he who taught all these men to work together, one under the other,
and none of them kicking; and it was he who taught these women and
children to do as they are bid--a wonderful thing that in the land of
the free. It was he who taught one and all of us to be kind to each
other, to the poor and the sick and the young, to the very beasts. Do
you remember that when they caught our prophet at Hiram and dragged him
out to be beaten and insulted, they had first to take from his arms a
sick motherless baby that he was sitting up all night to nurse? Do you
remember how he gave commandment about the animals? how he said that any
man striking a beast in anger was thrown so far back on his road to
heaven?" She paused when she had thrown out this question, and the men
and women within hearing answered in broken chorus, "Yes, blessed be the
Lord; we do remember."
"And who was it that taught us to give up the filthy Gentile habits of
strong drink and tobacco?" (Again in the pause the chorus of
thanksgiving to Heaven was heard.) "It was Joe Smith," Elvira cried more
loudly. "And when the Gentiles thought that we would be scattered and
separated and ruined, his spirit has gone like a banner before us.
Twice they have taken our lands that we bought with our own money and
cleared with our own hands, and the houses that we have built, and cast
us out destitute, but we are not destroyed."
The enthusiasm of the crowd that now pressed upon her went like wine to
her head; her cheeks flamed, her eyes brightened, and she lifted her
small hands in fantastic gesture and danced, crying, "We are cast down,
but not destroyed, because God Almighty has given to us a prophet, and a
great prophet."
And the people around her answered again, "Blessed be the name of the
Lord."
It was whispered about the camp that the spirit of prophecy had fallen
upon Elvira Halsey.
On the afternoon of that day they saw the ice that floated in large
cakes on the breast of the Mississippi flash back the sunbeams to their
straining eyes. The sight of the limits of the hostile State from which
they were flying was a great joy to every one of them. Susannah felt her
heart leap; Elvira, with the growing tendency to cling to her which she
had displayed since their last meeting, cast her arms around her and
sobbed for joy.
After this blessed glimpse of the river they went down through the
recesses of a low forest, the frost and the sunshine still inspiriting
them. As they went, the melody of a hymn was taken up from one end of
the caravan to the other by all those well enough to join in the song.
It was a swinging triumphant air, and Susannah found herself uplifted
for the first time since the days of her baptism upon the party spirit
of the sect, and singing with them, although she could only catch the
words of the refrain often repeated,
"Missouri,
In her lawless fury,
Without judge or jury,
Drove the Saints and spilt their blood."
Again the mind of Joseph Smith had overmastered Susannah's mind. As
Elvira had said, he, lying in a gaol far away, enduring hardship,
imminent danger of torturing death, was by his spirit animating this
motley crowd, and now at last again his will broke down the barriers of
reason that Susannah had raised and fortified even against the love of
her child and the long reverence she had yielded to her husband. The
true secret of human leadership is, perhaps, known only to the Divine
mind, perhaps also to the Satanic. It would certainly seem that the men
who chance upon the power and wield it, have often little understanding
of the law by which they work, and their critics less.
CHAPTER XV.
The Mississippi was filled with large cakes of floating ice. Another
company which had gone out from Far West some weeks before was still
encamped on the Missouri banks of the river. Yet other companies from
Far West came up before the main body of the Saints with which Susannah
had travelled was able to cross. The surrounding woods were cut down to
make shanties; the surrounding country was scoured for food. In the
intervening weeks, while they lay encamped on the banks, the last enemy
to be vanquished in that region, the malarial fever, grappled with the
sect and dealt deadly wounds. Illinois, shocked by the cruelty of her
sister State, held out kind hands and fed the fugitives to some extent,
and when April came, helped them to cross the river.
Elvira had been ill in one of the women's sheds, now shrieking in hot
delirium, now shaken with ague as if by a strong beast that worried its
prey. When they at last crossed the river to the city of Quincy,
Susannah was established with her charge, the one legacy of relationship
Halsey had left her, in a meagre home with some of the Saints who
already lived there.
Within a few days Susannah went to the tithing office, which had been
swiftly established for the relief of the destitute Saints, and asked
for paper on which she could write a letter. It was her first chance,
since leaving her last asylum, of writing the proposed letter to Ephraim
Croom. Elder Darling was officiating. She fancied that he looked at her
with rude curiosity.
Until this moment she had presented so sad an exterior, had seemed so
indifferent to all the ills of their common lot, that Darling and the
other men who had dealings with her had stood not a little in awe. As
outward physical details of suffering always appeal more largely to
common sympathy than inward grief, the manner of her loss had set a
temporary crown upon her head, to which the elders had knelt, refusing
to admonish her because she took no part in their public services, or
because, except for attention to the sick, she did not give much sign of
social comradeship.
Now when she asked for the paper, Darling felt that the ice was
beginning to break, and gave what seemed to him genial encouragement.
"First time that you've asked for anything but daily rations, Sister
Halsey; glad to see you plucking up heart. The living God giveth us all
things richly to enjoy." He repeated the last words in an unctuous
drawl while he was looking for the paper, "richly to--enjoy. Well now, I
was thinking we had some with a black border on it, but you're more than
welcome to such as there is."
The stores indeed were scanty enough; food, cloth, household utensils, a
little stationery, a large pile of devotional books, were arranged in
meagre order in the shed used as a warehouse. Darling had as yet
scarcely respectable clothes to wear, but Susannah was astonished only
at the energy that had in a few days collected so much, at the order and
patient kindliness which ruled in this poverty-stricken administration.
Already those who could work paid into the common store, and those who
had lost all had but to state their needs to have them supplied as well
as might be.
"One, two, three--will three sheets be enough, Sister Halsey? You've
been hearing, I suppose, that Mr. Smith is going to be moved to the town
of Boome, and that he is going to be allowed to get his letters now?
He'd be real cheered to hear from you, although"--he added this with
decent haste--"it will be a great grief to him to hear of your loss!"
"Is he well?" she asked.
"The State authorities are in a fine to-do about him, I suppose you
know, sister, for they can't find a single charge to bring him to trial
on. You bet the trial would have been on long ago if they'd had a
single leg to stand on. Anything else that I can serve you with to-day?
We've got some new women's shawls and hats come in. Won't you just step
here and have a look at them? No? Well, next time; but there ain't one
of our women as doesn't want one of them new bonnets."
Susannah went out into the spring on the outskirts of the town. The
birds were singing; everywhere the dandelions swelled out their happy
tufted breasts to the sunshine; even a long worm that she noticed
crawling lazily in the heat spoke to her of enjoyment of some sort. Her
own heart leaped, and she thought it was in answer to the spring. She
forgot the dire fates with which she had been grappling, forgot to hate
and to grieve.
In the small wooden room that she shared with Elvira, while the invalid
slept, she wrote to Ephraim, telling him all that had befallen her. She
confessed to Ephraim the passion of hatred which had long tormented her,
but she added, "To-day I do not feel it; to-day, with the sweet voices
of the birds everywhere in my ears, I feel that if I could be beside you
again you could teach me to forgive as my husband forgave, for I do know
to-day that in forgiveness alone is the true triumph, the only healing.
I am more one with my husband's sect now than I ever was in heart and
hope. I long to see it triumphant; I long to see its enemies abashed;
but I will leave this people and come back to you, if you will have me,
for with regard to their religious faith my life with them is a lie."
The writing took so long that when she carried the letter again to the
tithing office to be stamped and sent, the post-bag of that day had
already gone. Later, when the office was closed to the public and Elder
Darling was alone, he took up the letter which Susannah had brought and
looked at it curiously. His eyes had caught the address. He was not sure
that he would have put it in the bag even if it had been in time, and
now it was clearly his duty to consider. His was a mind in which there
was no place for platonic friendship, and Susannah was obviously a most
desirable piece of property to the struggling Church. The Church had
provided the paper for this letter, must needs provide the stamp; he was
officially responsible to the Church. The elder had been an honest man
according to the average notions of honesty until within the last weeks,
when stress of circumstance had made him reconsider, not for himself but
for others, more than one rule of life, and obtain larger latitude. The
building up of the Church in her present sore strait was surely an end
to override small scruples. He acted now as an official, as a priest,
when, after a good many painful qualms of conscience, he opened the
letter. After having read its contents, he became convinced that it was
for the good of Susannah's own soul that it should not go.
The ground about Quincy had been drained; the town was comparatively
healthy; in a few days more some two thousand of the fugitives felt
again the pulse of life in their veins. Then they looked abroad and
clasped every man the hand of his neighbour, and said "Thanks be to
God," and even embraced one another in the joy of relief. History often
shows how exuberant is the joy of human nature at escape, and that the
impulse of joy is almost one with the impulse of affection. At the
abatement of the London plague we see Britons kiss each other in the
streets, and at the relief of besieged towns, in our own day, staid
persons have caressed one another, unmindful of what they did. So it was
now with the members of this driven sect. The spirit of joy and a closer
bond of affection went infectiously through the gathering Church. Upon
the first Sunday they met together in the open air, and sang words that
they verily believed had been written in particular prophecy for
themselves at this very hour.
"If it had not been the Lord that was on our side."
The psalm rose from every throat with the swelling tide of joy.
"If it had not been the Lord that was on our side when men rose up
against us."
Susannah, advancing, a little belated, to the rural preaching which was
held in a dip of the plain, heard the lusty chant of irrepressible
gladness rising to the blue heavens, and quickened her steps. In spite
of herself she was carried into song by the enthusiasm which seemed to
dart like a flame from the assembled multitude and enveloped her.
"Blessed be the Lord who hath not given us as a prey to their
teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the
fowler: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the
name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth."
While she was exalted by the song she saw the face of her friend the
Danite for the first time since the night on which they had ridden so
far together. He was standing now upon the outskirts of the crowd as one
who had newly come from a solitary journey. When he met Susannah's eye
his solitary look passed into one of lofty and intense comradeship. He
ran to her and embraced her, and emptied an inner pocket of a purse of
money which he thrust eagerly into her possession.
"I have killed one of them," he said, speaking eagerly, as a child tells
of some exploit. "His pockets were fat with money, and it is yours."
"See!" He took the fragment of linen upon which the stain of Halsey's
blood had turned dark with time, and showed her a new and brighter stain
upon its edges.
All around them were men and women, who now, for the first time since
the hour of some terrible parting, spied kindred or comrades. By a
common impulse these moved toward one another, and there was an
interlude in the service for sobs of joy and frantic embracings, and
many men and women clasped one another who could claim no kindred, and
none forbade, for tears of mutual love were in all eyes.
After that, in the streets or in chance meetings in the houses, the
remembrance of this festival of rapturous comradeship gave a new
standard to the manners of private life. The Saints had, as it were,
passed from death unto life; former things had passed away; the praises
of God were ever upon their lips; they entered with joy into a kingdom
of love which they doubted not God had ordained for his elect; many a
command of Scripture became illumined with a new practical meaning.
"Greet _all_ the brethren with a holy kiss." "Greet ye one another with
a kiss of charity."
Susannah was not much abroad, but she saw the new customs inaugurated.
Believing that they must be transient, knowing, too, that the fierce
undercurrent that they expressed must have outlet, and was not of that
range of emotions which had to do with the common relationships of life,
she felt no shock of offended sentiment. But in a short space of time,
as Elvira grew better, Susannah perceived that the experimental nature
of the new life was a dissipation to weaker minds. This grieved her
because of the sacred memory of her husband's efforts for these people,
and because, attuned by party spirit, she entertained a nervous
personal desire that they should acquit themselves well. Just here she
found occupation; she gathered the young girls about her in a temporary
school, and set herself to soothe and calm the excitement of the women.
The work was intended to last but a few weeks, until Ephraim's answer
came.
To the unspeakable joy of his followers, Joseph Smith appeared suddenly
in Quincy. It appeared to be true, as Darling said, that the Missouri
authorities could in fact find no charge on which to try him.
Smith, with his brother Hyrum and their fellows, had suffered severely,
but later their confinement had been more easy, and the news of the
triumphant gathering of his people, together with the excitement of the
escape, had induced in Smith a mood which spurned past failures with a
foot that sped to a new goal. The acclamation, the sincere and touching
joy, with which Smith was received by men and women and children, were
enough to raise any man in his own esteem, and to set free the ambition
which had been perhaps drooping in confinement.
Smith had not been in Quincy twenty-four hours before he mastered the
situation there in all its details. He promptly sent out a decree
against the new doctrine of what he called "lax manners." He preached a
great sermon in the open air that night. "A man shall kiss his own wife
and daughters and no other women," said Smith. The elders who had
preached from St. Paul's texts on the subject were accused of error and
called upon to recant. Smith commanded that the women should work and
the children should study, and he publicly pronounced Susannah to be a
fitting model for the women and a fitting teacher for the young.
Susannah had not as yet met Smith face to face when she found herself
made, as it were, an object of licensed admiration.
CHAPTER XVI.
It was that same evening, after Smith's commendation of Susannah, that
Darling decided to lay the destruction of her letter before the prophet,
hoping for approval.
Smith was looking over Darling's accounts in the tithing office, giving
voluminous and minute directions. The May night had closed in. The men
were in a corner of the large shed in which the stores were kept, a
corner fenced off for an office by a low wooden partition. The candle
flickered on the table between them.
The business side of Smith's soul was uppermost. He had power to keep in
mind a huge number of details, and to classify them, and he estimated
the relative importance of the classes as no other man would have
estimated it.
Darling interrupted before Smith's interest in business began to wane.
He prefaced his communication concerning Susannah by speaking of the
much shepherding needed by the sheep. Some, he said, had done worse than
be lax in manners; some had presumed to have revelations; some had
doubted the faith.
Here Darling paused, feeling sure of rousing Smith to the mood he
desired.
At the mention of revelations Smith's soul took a turn, like a ball on
its axis; the plain speech that he had been using about business and
stores and accounts changed into phraseology of a Scriptural cast, and
the shrewd glance of his blue eye into a more distraught and distant
look. Heretofore, as Darling well knew, heresy had been a greater evil
in his eyes than any other; but Smith had come now out of long months of
prison; days and nights in which a horrible death had faced him closely
had not passed over this particular soul of his dreams without moulding
it. It is noticed by all his historians that after this period he spoke
little "by revelation," in comparison with his former full habit in this
respect. At Darling's abrupt speech he sighed heavily. He looked, not at
Darling as before, but at some vague object beyond him.
"There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy," he said
wearily, and then, gathering himself up with more pompous unction, he
asked of the surprised Darling, "Who art thou that judgest another?"
Darling had grown fatter since he came to Quincy; the lines of haggard
care were still upon his face, but were modified by dimples of good
cheer. Much taken aback by the unexpected rebuff, he rubbed his head.
"But, Mr. Smith, if they are all going to be allowed to think whatever
they like--"
The obvious difficulty of church government under these conditions
confronted the nobler impulse of humility in the visionary's mind. "When
have I said, Brother Darling, that they all should think what they like?
But, behold, I say unto thee, it is not with the Lord to save with many
or with few, but by whom he will send."
This was a little vague as to grammar and as to sense, but Darling had
not the ability to criticise. He only perceived that to secure
commendation he must be tactful in the setting forth of his act.
"It was in the case of Sister Susannah Halsey--" he began again
apologetically.
A more eager look came into Smith's eyes; still a third phase of his
character there was, the soul of his personal affections, and this began
to merge now with his religious self. "Hath she prophesied? Hath any
revelation been granted to her?"
If Darling had not understood the prophetical vein, he did understand a
certain vibration in this tone. "Ha!" thought he, "if the prophet ain't
a bit soft on her himself I'm out." He had lowered his eyes, and now he
said evasively, "It is our sister Elvira on whom the spirit of prophecy
has fallen; you will have heard how she gave praise concerning you
before the Saints upon the road and was moved to dance before the Lord."
Smith saw through the evasion, but by shrewd reading of the
sanctimonious face, saw also the inward suspicion as clearly as if
Darling had spoken it. His tone and manner betrayed him no more.
"The head of our sister Elvira is not always set firmly on her
shoulders," he remarked, "but I am glad if the Lord has given her
grace."
"I've been hoping that he'd give grace to our sister Susannah, for she's
been writing a letter to say as how she was without faith and wanting to
leave us."
Smith answered him now only with a cool silence that puzzled his coarser
understanding.
"'Twas in our first days here, when a good many of the women were
flighty, and Elvira Halsey, she was ill enough to have worked the
patience out of any one as they work the milk out of butter, and Sister
Susannah came with a letter. She gave it to me unsealed."
"Was she without wax to seal it?" interrupted Smith in a casual tone.
Darling could not know that the thought of such poverty wrung Smith's
heart.
"Waal, I dunno" (which was a lie). "Mebbe she had no wax--I didn't think
of that, but anyhow she gave me the letter. 'Twas too late for the mail;
'twas too heavy for one stamp. An' I didn't like to tell her, poor
thing, that we'd mighty little to spend on stamps. So after she'd gone I
just had a look to see who it was to."
"The address would be on the outside?" Smith rose, hat in hand, as if to
depart, but fixed his eyes on the candle till Darling should have done.
"The name gave me very little hint as to whether the matter was worth
the two stamps, so I just had a glance inside. Thought it might be but a
line asking money of her friends, which, under the sad circumstances, of
course I knew you'd rather the Church would supply."
This drew the first spark of the approval he was expecting. "Certainly,
certainly, the widows and the orphans of those who have perished for the
truth must ever be our most tender care."
"Exactly so, prophet; I knew that would be your opinion; so when I saw
that our sister had felt drove to asking for money from some fellow--I
guess there must have been some sweethearting between him and her before
she married Halsey. She said in this letter that she'd go to him if he'd
send her cash. She said as how she thought the religion of the
Latter-Day Saints was a lie; but of course I could see it was not her
right judgment, that she was awful lonesome."
"It was taking a great liberty, Mr. Darling." Smith tapped his stick
upon the floor. He was far more angry than he showed, for policy had
laid a soft hand of reminder on his shoulder. "Our sister, Mrs. Halsey,
is not--" he coughed slightly, and sought by prophetical phrases to
explain that Susannah was not upon the level of Darling and his
kind--"is not, as it would be said in the Scriptures, among those who
deck themselves with crisping pins or are busybodies, but she is as that
lady to whom John wrote (and the letter is preserved unto the
edification of the Church unto this day); for it was revealed unto me in
the beginning that she was the elect sister, and to sit as one who
judges--as one who judges Israel." He was just going to add in the flow
of his phrases "upon twelve thrones," but the words died because even he
perceived the lack of sense.
Darling grew testy. "Waal, I dunno, but it seems to me that if she'd
gone off by now to be Mrs. Ephraim Croom somewheres in the East there
wouldn't be much more elect sister about her."
"The gentleman whose name you have just been mentioning, Mr. Darling, is
the lady's uncle. I was reared alongside them, and I know." He knew that
he fibbed between uncle and cousin, but the slip was so slight and the
end so worthy--to silence Darling.
"'Twas no uncle that she wrote that 'ere letter to," said Darling hotly.
He stuck out his legs and leant back in his chair, the picture of
offence.
"You are mistaken concerning the meaning of the letter, Brother Darling,
and it appears to me that in casting your eyes upon it you have gone
beyond what is written concerning the duty of an elder; but as to your
duty in destroying it--considering that our sister asked for money,
which it is our duty and privilege to supply--But I promised Emmar to be
back soon. I will consult the Lord, Brother Darling, and have a word
with you in the morning."
Smith tramped with dignity over the long wooden floor of the darkened
shed and let himself out with decisive clatter of the latch.
To his right lay the wooden town with twinkling lights, to his left the
black prairie, and above the crystal vast a moonless night, so clear
that the upward glance almost saw the perspective between nearer and
farther stars innumerable.
This man was at all times possessed with the sense of otherness, sense
of a presence around and above. He was no sooner beneath the stars than
he hung his head as if some one saw him. With shame and pain written in
the attitude of his hulking figure, he skulked out into the black
fields.
Later that night, a lad, not of the Mormon brotherhood, making his way
home in the dark to the town of Quincy, a little afraid of the dark, as
lads are apt to be, was terrified by hearing a voice in the darkness, by
dimly descrying a man's figure prostrate upon the ground. The lad shrank
back to a recess of the snake fence. There, trembling, he listened.
The voice in the hoarse whisper of intensity repeated, "Give me--this
woman--give--give." The breathing, like command rather than prayer, set
the words grating on the air again and again. "This woman--this
woman--give! give! give!"
The cause of the lad's terror was a strange conviction that the writhing
creature on the earth was certainly conversing with something not of
earth, whether God, or angel, or devil he did not ask. He was
encompassed by the dreadful belief that the other saw and heard what he
could not.
The prostrate man clenched his fists and struck the black ground on
which he lay. There was an intense silence, and then again the grating
breath of a hoarse throat that lay among the grass blades babbled forth
a multitude of confessions and fiercely-worded supplications which the
little lad could neither understand nor remember.
There was a sudden change of attitude and voice. The lad saw that the
man on the grass sat up, and as if he had received an answer, spoke in
reply, not now in wailing supplication, but in quick whispered argument.
The lad cowered with a fresh thrill of ghostly terror which burned the
mad words into his memory.
"The loss would be to thee of the fairest of thine handmaids, and to her
of her own soul, and to me--" but here the words of irritable contention
failed in deep choking sobs. Then, to the lad's perfect dismay, the
black figure bounded to its feet and the arms were flung about in the
darkness as if wrestling with an unseen enemy. Now, being desperate, the
lad darted forth from his nook; passing in tip-toe rush at the back of
this struggling figure, he sped home in his gust of fear, and, with the
fantastic secrecy of youth, did not tell what he had heard and seen till
years had come and gone.
CHAPTER XVII.
The May morning was wreathing itself with opening flowers to meet the
first hour of sunlight when Susannah was startled by hearing that the
prophet inquired for her. There was in the house where she lived an
empty chamber, unfurnished because of poverty; it was in this that the
prophet, who demanded a private audience, awaited her.
So vexed was she at the public advertisement which he had made of her,
that she forgot the bereavement she had suffered since she last saw him;
but when she looked up she saw that Smith's face wore signs of emotion
that he was not trying to conceal.
At first he made an attempt at some unctuous form of address, an effort
at formality, a mechanical tribute to habit. Failing to finish his
phrase, he stood before her, not as the lauded leader, not as the
interesting martyr, but claiming recognition merely as a man, a large,
coarse man feeling his own coarseness in her presence, a sinful man
feeling his own sinfulness, but at the same time a man with a warm
heart, which was now so beating with emotions of shame and pity and glad
recognition that at first he could not speak, could not raise his eyes
to hers until the warmth of his feeling rid him of self-consciousness.
Susannah had not expected to awake this emotion. She desired nothing
less than condolence; and yet she was touched by seeing his huge
strength broken down for the moment by her appearing. When he spoke his
voice was hoarse.
"I--I told him--it was my earnest command to him not to go where there
was danger."
Halsey's name was not spoken, but all through that interview Smith
appeared to be haunted by his presence. "He was the best man amongst
us," he said.
"My husband is gone." Susannah hoped by the reticence of her tone to
ward off further excess of sympathy. "I am no longer bound to your
Church, Mr. Smith. I should not be honest if I did not tell you that I
hold myself free."
He faced her frankly, but with a glance of searching pain. "It must seem
a rather poor trade I've chosen if there ain't no truth in it."
"But I did not accuse you of not believing it, Mr. Smith."
"Do you think I do?"
She remembered the day that he had first shown her his peep-stone with
simple, childlike importance. How young they had both been! The sunshine
on the hill, the voice of the golden woodpecker, the scent of the fallen
beech leaves, came back to her. A decade of terrible years had passed
over them both, and he stood seeking her faith just as simply.
"I have tried very hard to understand you, Mr. Smith, but I do not. I
think you must believe most of what you claim for yourself, if not all.
If you had made your story up for the love of power you wouldn't always
be wanting the people to get a better education; you would, as they say
of the Roman Catholic priests, want to keep the people ignorant."
"Go on," he said. She found that he was looking at her with intense
sadness, but there was not a shadow of evasion in the eager look that
met her steadily.
She went on, looking gravely into his face. "I do not believe that your
story was false, Mr. Smith, but it seems to me that you must suspect now
that your visions and the gold plates were hallucination, not reality."
She paused, eager question in tone and look, but the question was of the
head, not of the heart.
He knew that; he knew that it did not matter greatly to this thoughtful
and beautiful woman whether he had sunk to the deepest degradation or
not. Suddenly he answered her, but not as one who stood at her judgment
bar.
"Where is your heart? Didn't you see how that man Angel--angel of purity
if ever one walked in human form--kissed every day the ground you
walked upon? And you did not love him. The child--you thought you cared
for the child: I tell you if I had had a child like that, with eyes like
the stars and a little mind so untainted, I had laid myself down on his
grave and died there. There's Emmar and me, we'd be in more trouble if
you lost one of your pretty fingers than you would have been in if they
had taken and killed us over there in Missouri." He added, "If you were
another woman, and had not the power to do more than just have a little
shallow caring for one and another, where would be your sin?"
Something that she had dimly suspected of herself flashed into apparent
truth. Ephraim, too, had perhaps intended to tell her this when he had
said that love, not knowledge, was needed. She had not loved Halsey and
his child as she might have loved.
Susannah had always recognised a certain bigness in Smith's character
because of the power he had of giving himself to man, woman, and child;
now she felt her own inferiority. Was she to stand babbling to him about
hallucinations and gold plates? The man in him had flashed out at her,
and because she was not without the heart whose whereabouts he had
demanded, the flash awakened an answering fire. Her cheeks flushed, not
with self-consciousness, but with the slow gathering of heart-stricken
tears.
"And you," she said slowly, "you have poured out blood and soul for us
all freely, but why?" The imperious need of truth awoke again. "Why have
you let yourself be beaten and shot at and imprisoned and horribly
threatened, to lead us all to this new Zion, wherever it may be?" She
repeated the question. "If it was ambition, why did you hold to it when
there did not seem to be the slightest chance that your sect could
survive, or that you would escape death?"
She was asking with more heart in her tone now that she had been made to
realise what she had of respect and friendship for this man.
"I hain't got the courage most people think I have," he replied sadly;
"I am scared enough; I am scared sometimes of the very water I go into
to baptize in, let alone men that want to murder me; but I am more
afraid to go against my revelations, for I know if I went against them
there would be nothing for me but the pit and eternal fire. I don't say
that it would be the same for any of you. I used to preach that it
would, but in prison, when I thought of my folks standing up to be
killed, I thought perhaps I had gone beyond what was told me in
preaching that way; but as for me, I've seen and I've heard."
He did not turn or take restless steps upon the floor. It would have
been a relief to her if he had moved; but he remained just where he
first stood, strong enough to have this colloquy over without
restlessness.
"I am no saint," he said, "as you know very well, and there's a lot of
things I've done, thinking that my revelations told me, which I don't
know whether they told me or not, for in prison I saw that the things
were bad things, like that mess of the bank, and running away as I did.
I guess I could not have been living right, and the devil gulled me. But
that hain't got nothing to do with the times I know that the Lord spoke.
You don't believe it was the Lord at all. Well, then, who was it? For
it's the same as has told me not to do the lots of wicked things I might
have done and didn't. As to them plates, I told you before I didn't have
them as much in my hands as I said I did. I got wrong a bit there too,
maybe, but it isn't easy to keep quite straight between the thing you
see and the words you say it in, when you are trying to talk to people
about what they don't understand. It isn't easy to do just only what is
perfectly right about anything at any time, at least, if it is to you,
it isn't to me; but I often thought I was born worse than most people."
"The men who were your witnesses as to the reality of the plates are
apostate," she said gently.
"They are apostate," he said gloomily, "and why? Because I would not let
them live upon the Lord's tithes without labouring as we all laboured."
He spoke again after a moment. "The Gentiles have spread abroad a story
about one Solomon Spalding, who they say wrote the Book of Mormon, which
Rigdon stole, but you know--you who have been with us from the
beginning--that neither I nor your husband nor any one of us saw Rigdon
until we came to Kirtland, and if his word is to be believed he never
saw this Spalding or his book."
She made an impatient movement of her head. "I know," she said, "that
there is no truth in that story." She moved a little away from him; she
was becoming oppressed by his still earnestness.
"Isn't it any proof to you that I hadn't the wits nor the education to
make the book?" His words were wistful.
She sat down on the sill of the open window, the only seat in the room,
and looked out on the moist earth.
"I guess you want to get rid of me," he said, "but I can't go till I
know how it is with you, for I've been wrestling in prayer this night
concerning you." Then after a minute he said, "Our brother gave you the
money that he found on the person of your husband's murderer?"
"I paid it into the treasury."
"But if you don't believe, maybe you are thinking of going east?"
"Do you think I could use the price of my husband's blood for that? It
is not for me to know whether the avengers of blood are right or wrong
in a land where there is no law, but the money belonged to your Church."
He looked at her as one who has made a study of a certain class of
objects looks at a fine specimen, as a jeweller looks at a gem of the
first water. This man, with the genius for priesthood, was a connoisseur
in souls. "Emmar wouldn't have thought it no harm to keep the money the
Danites gave her," and he added more reflectively, "nor would I." There
was admiration in his tones.
He came a step nearer now. "If you went east who have you to go to? Your
uncle, he's dead."
Susannah started. "How do you know?"
His manner was pitying. "I saw it last night in the way I see things, in
my visions, but Emmar she heard from some of the Saints that came from
Palmyra that your uncle was sick unto death, and last night the Lord
told me he was dead."
She rose up suddenly. She had known too many instances of this man's
curious knowledge of distant events to think of doubting. Her first
thought was that if Ephraim was in this trouble she must go to him at
once.
"Your aunt will be awful jealous of your cousin now she's only got him."
Then under Smith's pitying glance Susannah shrank from the first impulse
to go. She felt that there was something within her that merited his
pity. She could not rush to Ephraim without invitation, because it was
not for his sake but for her own she wanted to go. She believed that
Smith knew it. She felt thankful, as he had dared to accuse her of not
loving her husband, that he had the kindness not to accuse her of this.
A certain awe of Smith came over her; he could be violent with those who
were violent, coarse and jocular with his public who could be worked
upon thus, but to her he spoke delicately, and he had shown her at times
before this that he knew her better than she knew herself.
"Sister Susannah," said Smith humbly, "it's my fault that you've become
the brainy woman that you are, for I encouraged you at book learning
(knowing as how when you found your heart 'twould shine with the more
lustre), but if you were to go and live along side of a man as is a
bookworm you'd lose your chance of this life (let alone your soul's
salvation by the apostasy which you think lightly of now). Anyhow I'd
wait if I was you till his mother asks you, for she'd be in an awful
taking if you and he were talk, talk, talking of what she didn't
understand. And he is her only son, and she is a widow."
With this last phrase, which had a good and Scriptural sound, Smith had
done.
Susannah gave him her hand in farewell, and listened gently while again
he told her, as on the night of his flight from Kirtland, that his
friendship and the friendship of his Church were always at her service.
The prophet walked down the street. A crowd of the Saints and a group
of elders were waiting for him with impatience. Darling eyed his coming
with looks gloomy and furtive, but the prophet was no longer, as on the
previous night, wrathful and pompous. He spoke aside to Darling.
"I thought it right to tell our sister Susannah Halsey that her Gentile
home had suffered bereavement. The uncle who has been as a father unto
her is dead. I have been greatly exercised in grief for her," continued
Smith, briefly and truly; and then he added, also with truth, but with
subtle suggestion, "I cannot think that further dealing with that
household could be of advantage to her, but having laid the matter
before the Lord, I was made aware that we must seek the good of all our
sisters not with regard to outward appearance or inclination of the
eyes; therefore, Brother Darling, let your motive be lowly, not having
respect unto persons," and he added with the simplicity of a child, "as
mine is."
Susannah was left with the bad picture in her mind which Smith had
sketched there. She saw herself cold to her husband, lacking in
passionate motherliness to his child, eager for the society of another
man not out of love but intellectual vanity, and cavilling also at all
religion because faith had no good soil to rest in. She sat long on the
window-sill of the empty room, looking at an uncultivated patch of
ground that even in May had no beauty save for here and there the
stirring of a weed in the damp scented earth. She was stunned to see her
life limned in such lines, and the truth in the drawing made it at first
seem wholly true.
But Fate had another messenger that morning more potent than the
prophet. A girl came by on the road, stopped, looked at her window, and
by some impulse such as moved the buds and birds, tripped nearer in the
sunshine and offered a flower. It was a sprig of quince blossom, and the
girl stood laughing on the threshold of life just as Susannah had stood
when Ephraim first showed her the flower of the quince. The false lines
in the picture drawn by Smith faded at the touch of the pink winged
flowers. Her heart sprang into the truth.
The girl looked up to see the face of the schoolmistress flushed and
shining with sudden tears.
"My dear," said Susannah gently, "when I was your age flowers were given
to me, but I did not love them half enough."
The maiden tripped away, resolving at heart to heed the admonition,
although she understood it very vaguely.
Susannah knelt down upon the floor behind the sill, pressing both hands
upon her breast lest she should cry aloud.
"No! No! No!" she whispered, "I loved Ephraim, and it was because I left
him that my heart closed up--because in insufferable pride and
impatience I left him. Oh, my love, now I know that you loved me too."
She rocked herself in a passionate desire for Ephraim's presence. The
scene in the cold autumn wood at Fayette came back to her eyes and ears.
She felt the very touch of his hand when he went. "Fool! fool!" she
said, "foolish and wicked. If I Had not been proud, if I had not thought
myself better than you and yours, I should have understood." For some
unexplained reason her mind reverted now to Halsey and the child, and
she wept for them as she had never wept before.
After these tears she stood up and stretched out her arms as if
embracing a new life. Alas! around her were only the ugly walls of the
poor unfurnished room. Susannah, rousing herself from the warm scenes of
quickened memory, felt the contrast.
The hope of Ephraim's reply to her letter came to her smiling each
morning, and, as the days passed, retired from her heart with a sigh
each night.
When six weeks had gone and no reply came Susannah wrote again. This
time she addressed the letter to the care of Mr. Horace Bushnell in
Hartford, thinking that perhaps by some extraordinary chance Ephraim's
whereabouts might not be known in Manchester. This letter was, unlike
all those that had preceded it, more brief, more reserved, and more
gentle. It expressed interest only in his affairs, telling little of her
own except the fact that she desired to return. Autumn came, and
Susannah's faith in man was tested to the utmost by the dreariness of
daily disappointment.
If Ephraim were dead surely his mother or his friend would return her
letters. If Ephraim were not dead what could be the explanation of this
silence? Many vicissitudes of life occurred to her as possibly producing
a change in him, and only one explanation of his silence was
possible--that he was changed. That was a terrible belief to face. Her
faith took the bit in its teeth and refused to be guided by
intelligence. The whole strength of her volition abetted the revolt of
faith. Anything, everything, might be true rather than that the
essentials of character which went to make up Ephraim's personality
should be blurred or decomposed.
Susannah wrote again to Ephraim, to his mother and to Mr.
Bushnell--three separate letters. She worked with the more zeal at her
self-appointed task. So cheerful and energetic was she that she appeared
to her pupils and acquaintance as a radiant being, and received the most
genuine honour and affection from the Mormon settlement in Quincy.
CHAPTER XVIII.
With the jubilant Saints at Quincy the prophet could not remain long. He
journeyed up the banks of the Mississippi. Here and there communities of
his people welcomed him with touching joy; their numbers and their
faithfulness must have raised his heart. He came at last to a poor,
sickly locality, around which the great river took a majestic sweep, and
here the prophet saw what no one else had seen--a site of great beauty
and advantage. The inhabitants were dying of malarial fever. Smith
bought their lands at a low price and drained them. Thus arose the
beautiful city of Nauvoo.
In the Illinois State Legislature two parties were nearly equal in
strength, and both coveted the Mormon vote. When Smith applied for the
city charter, for charters also for a university and a force of militia
to be called "The Nauvoo Legion," they were granted, and worded to his
will.
White limestone, found in great abundance near the surface of the earth,
served as material for the public buildings and the better houses.
Wooden houses, and even log huts, were washed with white lime. On three
sides of the town the air of the beautiful river blew fresh and cool
from its rippling tide; the surrounding land was fertile. Fortune
certainly smiled upon the sect that had borne itself so sturdily under
persecution. The prophet's laws had much to do with the prosperity;
neither strong drink nor tobacco were admitted within the city limit;
cleanliness and thrift were enforced.
The Saints in settlement in the town of Quincy and other places remained
while they could obtain lucrative employment and thus transmit the
larger tithes for the building up of their future home; but from the
poorer settlements artisans and farmers flocked to Nauvoo. Thither also
the missionaries scattered in the eastern States, in England, and in
further Europe sent the bands of converts who had been kept waiting till
a city of refuge was founded. It was not long, not many months, before
fifteen thousand people were hurrying up and down the broad streets of
the new city.
During the rise of Nauvoo, Emma Smith was living at Quincy in a small
house with her three children. She was Susannah's best neighbour. The
prophet's enormous activity was fully occupied with the new city and the
care of the scattered Church, so that he could not visit his wife often.
Each time he came he sent for Susannah to listen with Emma to the
triumphant accounts that he gave of his present successes. He was all
aglow with the resurrection of his Church, tender towards its renewed
enthusiasm for himself, compassionate more than ever for the pains it
had endured; fixed in purpose to establish his suffering and loyal
people in such a manner as might reward them for all that they had
undergone. His spirit of revenge against the Gentiles, and especially
against the perverts from his own sect who had sought to trample it
down, was also increased; the prayers of the Hebrew Psalmist against the
enemies of Israel were constantly upon his lips. More than once when at
Quincy he preached to the little flock there with great effect from the
blessings and cursings conditionally delivered to Israel in the Book of
Deuteronomy, arguing that evils of a very material kind were to befall
apostates, and blessings of a like kind were to be given to the faithful
in the new city.
"It is not true," Susannah said to him defiantly. "There is no
righteousness in desiring the downfall of your enemies, and earthly
wealth can never have any fixed connection with spiritual blessing."
"Do I understand you, my sister, to say that the prophet Moses did not
teach a true religion?" As he spoke he laid his hand upon a huge copy of
the Bible, bound in velvet and gold, which lay as the only ornament upon
Emma's centre table.
In these days Susannah began to have some fear of the word "apostate."
Contrary to the freedom which had existed in the Kirtland community,
the present Church, with its dogmas cast into iron moulds from the
furnace of persecution, had begun to authorise a sentiment against
perverts which differed not only in degree, but in kind, from the purely
spiritual anathemas which had formerly fallen upon them. Personally she
had no fear. The prophet knew of her unbelief, and his conduct was
increasingly kind and deferential, but for others she disliked
exceedingly the new symptoms of tyranny. Yet it was but natural, she
admitted; men who had offered their own lives in sacrifice for a creed
were likely to think it of more worth to the soul of another than his
liberty. The sin, she thought, lay chiefly with the persecutors.
Sometimes during these visits Smith came and sat beside her in her own
small room and talked to her about his plans, about new revelations
which had come to him, about the future of the Church, just as if he
were trying to persuade himself that she at last believed in the solemn
importance of these things. He said to her that her judgment would
always weigh greatly with him, that he was reserving a portion for her
in the new city such as would have belonged to her husband and child if
they had lived. He spoke of his pleasure in seeing the companionship
between herself and Emma. He spoke also of Emma's worthiness, and of her
devotion to himself.
His words about Emma were kind, but it was not thus that he had spoken
of her in the first years. Susannah perceived a change analogous to
that which she could not deny had taken place in Emma herself. In the
beginning Emma had been slim, with a spiritual look in her eyes, giving
herself to absorbed pondering over all Smith's words and ways. Now she
was stout, and was given much to the practical care of her children,
and, devoted as she was to her husband, she assumed often a tone of
remonstrance, setting aside many of Smith's vagaries as unworthy of
attention. She thought to please him and his Church by dressing well and
appearing to be a person of some figure and consequence, but in private
she grumbled at his personal extravagance. At both these changes
Susannah smiled, but to her heart, ever weighing the chances in favour
of Ephraim's constancy, they seemed an ill omen. It was because she was
absorbed in the personal application of all things to her own secret
case that she paid less attention to the prophet's remarks.
Once, passing through the street, when she saw him standing with Darling
at the door of the tithing office, through which the mail for the Mormon
settlement still went and came, she observed the two men were noticing
and speaking of her; she received a disagreeable impression from their
manner.
She supposed that she had found a complete explanation of this sinister
parley when, the next time Smith came, he brought with him an elderly
and foolish man, a new convert who had brought great wealth to the new
city, whom he proposed as a suitor for Elvira's hand. Susannah was very
angry.
Elvira had continued for many months in the lassitude that malarial
fever leaves behind it. Susannah had need to support her, as well as
herself, by the small fees which her day-scholars could afford. She had
had the satisfaction of seeing Elvira restored in a great degree to
health, but so capricious and fantastic were the bright little lady's
words and actions that it was impossible to say whether or not she had
slipped across the wavering line that separates the sane from the
insane.
Susannah stood now in her small sitting-room fiercely facing Smith and
his new satellite. She still adhered to the plain Quaker-like garb that
her husband had liked, and the muslin kerchief crossed upon her breast
was a quaint pearl-like frame to the beauty of feature which had slowly
but surely, in spite of adverse circumstance, come to its prime. Smith's
stalwart figure and the decrepit form of his friend were both clad in
sleek broadcloth. They wore the high white collar and stock of the
period. In Smith's light hair there was not a gray thread, nor were
there many wrinkles in his smooth forceful face. The old man was gray
and wrinkled; he cringed and leered as Susannah rated them for the
proposition they had made.
But the answer to this proposition did not lie in her hands; before she
could compel Smith to withdraw it, or know if his mind was tending
towards that obedience, Elvira, curious to see the strangers, entered.
Elvira raised a coquettish finger and told Smith that he was a very
naughty man. This was a new freak in her conduct toward the prophet.
Light and frivolous as she had become, the title of prophetess, coveted
among Mormon women, had been conferred upon her because some strange
power of divination governed her freaks.
"A very naughty man." With her delicate prettiness, decked in what
gewgaws she could afford, Elvira stood shaking her forefinger. "You
don't know why? Oh, fie! you know very well, naughty, naughty creature."
Smith had the air of some unwieldy animal trying to adapt itself to the
unexpected gambols of a light one. The first supposition was that Elvira
had in some way learnt the object of his mission, so he began to declare
it with a reproachful look at Susannah. "Our sister Halsey," he said,
"does not wish you to wear jewels and beautiful clothes, and yet it is
said in the Scripture that the clothing of ladies should be even of
wrought gold."
"Naughty creature," she cried, "don't quote the Scriptures to me. I am
not the lady you are thinking about. I am not the lady that you come
here to see."
So intent they all were upon her and her affairs that this statement was
somewhat puzzling. The only sign that Smith gave that he gathered any
sense out of the vivacious nonsense she was pleased to talk was that he
precipitated his explanation.
The brother by his side was very rich; it had been foretold him in a
vision of the night that when he had professed the Mormon faith a pretty
wife would be his reward. Smith had had it borne in upon his mind that
Elvira was the lady designed by the vision. "For," said he unctuously;
"the Holy Scripture saith that the solitary shall be set in families."
Elvira laughed. "How very amusing," she cried. "And into what family
shall our sister Susannah be set?"
Smith frowned. "Our sister Susannah," he said, "is not solitary, but is
surrounded by her spiritual children, to whom she imparts her own
learning and goodness, to the great benefit of the Church; and I cannot
but think, Sister Elvira"--the severity in his voice was growing--"that
you are a great care to her, for she toils hard to give you even such
poor raiment as you are now wearing, not wishing to accept of the bounty
of the Church, while she would be an example of industry to others."
The hard truth of this statement, combined with the commanding voice and
manner he now assumed, controlled Elvira. She stood for some minutes
meekly contemplating her senile and smirking suitor. Susannah protested
and warned her, but in caprice, as sudden as it was unexpected, Elvira
decided to comply with the prophet's request without further persuasion
or command.
When left alone with Susannah she only shrugged her shoulders and said,
"I saw that I should lose my soul if I didn't; the prophet was so
determined. Why should we bicker and consider, and why should I fly
round and round, like a bird round the green eyes of a cat, or try to
escape half a dozen times like a mouse when it is once caught, when I
know from the beginning that Joe Smith will curse me if I don't do his
will?"
"You are quite mistaken. He was not determined; he told me that he only
wished to lay the matter before you and let you decide for yourself."
Elvira let her white eyelids droop until but a narrow slit of the dark
eye was visible. "La! child," she said.
"And you cannot seriously think that Smith's curse, even if he were
barbarous enough to denounce you, could make the slightest difference to
your soul's salvation. You often talk that way, but you cannot seriously
think it, Elvira."
But here Susannah struck against a vein of darkness in her companion's
mind which it seemed to her had lain there like a black incomprehensible
streak since the awful day of anguish and massacre at Haun's Mill.
"Don't speak of it," cried Elvira with a shudder. "Don't you know that
Joe Smith is our prophet, and that he holds the keys of life and death?
Didn't Angel Halsey die to teach us that? Weren't we baptized into it by
being dipped in blood?"
She sat shuddering in the dusk and repeating at intervals "dipped in
blood," "dipped in blood."
Whether Elvira was mad or not, Susannah had no power to stop this
nefarious marriage. The prophet had departed hastily out of reach of her
indignant appeals, and there was no one whose interference she could
seek. In vain she besought Elvira, using both argument and passionate
entreaty. With precipitate waywardness the strange girl was married by
Elder Darling, in the shed of the tithing house.
No letter came from Ephraim Croom or from his friends.
After Elvira's departure Susannah began to save out of her little
income, trying to put by enough dollars not only for the eastern
journey, but to give her respectable support afterwards until she could
obtain employment. She had little heart for the object of her saving;
she might, she knew, be going to ignominy and starvation, for with the
stigma of Mormonism upon her, she felt that it was unlikely that she
would be received with credit in any town where she was friendless and
unknown.
Although the community prospered greatly, Smith did not again interfere
to increase Susannah's school fees. Emma began to talk largely of the
splendour of Nauvoo, reading from her husband's letters of the Nauvoo
House, a huge hotel, which was being rapidly and grandly built for the
perpetual occupation of himself and family and the entertainment of all
such as the Church of the Saints should delight to honour.
Susannah found it hard to understand why Emma was not taken to Nauvoo
even before the great house was built for her reception. It was indeed
commonly reported among the Gentiles at this time that the prophet had
secretly espoused other wives; but a malignant report of this nature,
together with accusations of drunkenness and rank dishonesty, had
persistently followed the sect from its beginning, and, as far as
Susannah knew, were now, as before, totally untrue. This special report,
however, reached Emma in an hour of depression, and she came to Susannah
for sympathy, shaken with grief and indignation.
"What does it mean that they always say that of him when the one thing
that he's done has been to excommunicate any of the brethren that taught
any such thing? And there's just been an awful row on in the Council of
Nauvoo against Sydney Rigdon and some pamphlet he's written on a
doctrine he calls 'Spiritual Wives,' and Joseph has risen up and cast
him out, even though he was his best friend."
The reason of the calumny seemed to Susannah clear enough; it was a
natural one for low-minded politicians who hated Smith to formulate, and
the religious world outside thought they were doing God service by
believing any ill of a blasphemer; but this charge was an old one, and
she probed further to-day for the real cause of Emma's excitement. She
was first given a letter in which Smith told of Rigdon's
excommunication.
"Rigdon's doctrine," wrote Smith, "is a vile one because it is held by
the whole sect of Perfectionists which are now scattered through the
Churches of the eastern States, and is a proof that the glory of the
Lord is departed from them, for they say that a man may be married to
one wife in an earthly manner, and she who is to be his in a spiritual
and eternal manner may be another woman, and this is vile; therefore
I've cast out Sydney Rigdon and called him apostate. But it seems to me
in this matter and in the perpetual slander of the Gentiles it may be
that it is being shown to us, even as things were shown by outward signs
at times to the ancient prophets, that there is somewhat concerning the
existing form of marriage that it would be well to reconsider, for I
perceive that the more my revelations cause a difference to be set
between our people and the Gentiles, the more shall we be bound closely
together, which unity is undoubtedly of the Lord."
Susannah always found it difficult to gather much information from the
prophet's vague and incoherent style. "Has he ever written anything else
about this affair of Rigdon's?" she asked.
Then it transpired that another letter had that day arrived, giving
another and more graphic account of Rigdon's rebellion and overthrow,
after which Joseph inconsistently wrote:
"Yet with regard to the matter of his heresy it remains undoubtedly true
for men who are called to some great and special work one woman may be
needed as a bride upon earth and another woman may be called as a
spiritual bride" (this word "bride" was crossed out, though left legible
enough, and "guide" written above it) "to lead him into higher and
heavenly places prepared of the Lord for this purpose."
After perusing this passage carefully, and with inward laughter at its
inconsistency, she gave the letter back, endeavouring to render some
help.
"Have you not observed that your husband's mind is very peculiar? When
any idea is forcibly suggested to him, all his thoughts seem to eddy
round it until he thinks that the whole world is to be revolutionised by
it, and then when diverted to something else he forgets all about it
like a child, and never thinks of it again perhaps for years."
Emma, unable to comprehend the analysis, drew back offended.
"Joseph has a great deal finer mind than any person I know." The last
words were levelled with a nettled glance at Susannah.
On Emma's behalf Susannah confidently hoped that the prophet would
forget this theory, as he had apparently forgotten the many theories
which had ere now proposed themselves to his excitable brain, and which
he had found unworkable. His practical shrewdness acted as a critic on
his visionary notions--never in thought, for he did not seem able to
exercise the two phases of his mind at once, but always in practice--and
Susannah could not conceive that a new order of marriage would appear
feasible, even though it would certainly raise a new barrier around the
fold, and in consequence draw its votaries closer together.
Soon after this Emma was greatly comforted by a summons to Nauvoo. She
could now enter in triumph upon the more glorious stage of her chequered
career.
For a few days Susannah worked on still with a sense of mission towards
her pupils, but of necessity also, for her work meant daily bread. It
produced little more than that.
But at Nauvoo new schools in emulation of the State schools of other
towns had been set up, and now a teacher with certificates of the latest
style of education arrived in the Mormon settlement at Quincy,
commissioned by the prophet to gather all the Mormon youth there into a
new school under the direction of the Church. Susannah's mission and
her means of livelihood were alike gone.
The change was made. It was not until Susannah had passed the first
desolate day of her dethronement that Darling came to her, sent with
profuse apologies from the prophet and the explanation that the chief
motive of the change had been to relieve her from labour now that the
Church was in a position to offer her adequate support. The message was
accompanied by many compliments upon her work and her fidelity, and a
document officially signed, in which it was set forth that the part and
lot which would have pertained to Halsey in the Holy City was considered
as hers; rooms and entertainment at the Nauvoo House were offered. It
was handsomely done. Smith in his poverty had been no niggard, and of
his wealth he was lavish. The documents explained what rooms, size and
position given, should be hers, what furniture at her disposal, what
ailment, what allowance from the Treasury for clothing and charity. The
scale was magnificent. Darling was also commissioned to offer her a
ticket on one of the river boats to Nauvoo, and his own escort. He urged
her instant acceptance. Darling had been promoted from his post at
Quincy to that of postmaster at Nauvoo, and he could not delay his
journey.
Susannah sat long into the night and counted her little hoard, and
figured to herself what the long-eastward journey, then a matter of
great expense, would cost. Since Elvira left her she had with all her
efforts saved hardly fifty dollars. No course lay open to her but to go
first to Nauvoo, and there compound with Smith for a sum of money to be
given in return for the relinquishment of all further claim upon the
Church.
_Book III._
CHAPTER I.
In a suite in the pretentious Nauvoo House Susannah found herself
established.
She stood at her windows and looked east and west upon the fair white
city, and more immediately upon the broad public square in which
well-dressed people and handsome equipages were constantly seen. In this
square a man called Bennet drilled the Nauvoo Legion in the cool of the
evenings. This man had served in the regular army and had a native
genius for soldiery. Smith, alive always to the educational importance
of shows, now provided money lavishly for uniforms, horses, and
accoutrements, and the Nauvoo Legion formed a much grander spectacle
than any body of State militia.
Twice a day under Susannah's windows Smith's carriage drew up, a pair of
fine gray horses carrying the prophet to and fro upon the affairs of
Church and State. When he took Emma with him Susannah observed that she
was always richly attired, and the other members of the Mormon
hierarchy resident in Nauvoo, "bishops," "elders," "apostles,"
"prophets," passed constantly in and out of the house, positively
shining in broadcloth and silken hats, their wives and daughters also in
brilliant array.
Externally the success appeared to be complete, and beyond even the
visionary's most glorious dreams. In the whole of the city no one was
poor, no one ignorant of such knowledge as school-books could afford, no
one drunken. Every one was uplifted and animated beyond their ordinary
capacity for effort and enjoyment by this material fulfilment of
prophecy and the more glorious future hope which it involved. Susannah
was not well rested after her journey when Emma descended upon her with
lavish gifts of silks and fine feathers. Emma, grown patronising with
prosperity, always plain and maternal, displayed her gifts and argued
for their acceptance with broad satisfaction.
"Joseph says now that the Lord has given us freedom as touching wealth
and plenty, it looks real mean, when your husband gave all he had to the
Church in her tribulation, for you to be wearing plain clothes when
you're riding out with us. What will the folks say? Joseph says it looks
to him as if you were real offended at being left so long up to Quincy
when he was only waiting to get your rooms finished."
Carried away, as was only natural, by her husband's doctrine that the
era of indulgence was ordained and not to be rejected, there was
temporary deterioration in the fibre of Emma's character.
Susannah would gladly have walked out and seen the beauty of the city
and its surroundings alone, but she did not think it kind or polite to
resist the good-natured importunity of her friends. She was invited to
drive with Smith to a grand review of the Nauvoo Legion which was to
take place outside the town; then, finding that Emma and the children
were to occupy another carriage, she made objection. It ended in
Susannah being driven alone in a very fine carriage. Smith, resplendent
in uniform and seated upon a very fine charger, rode in his capacity of
Commander-in-Chief. Several other men whom she had known first in
homespun, and latterly in cloth, were also riding in bedizened uniforms.
The scene was very perplexing to Susannah. Elvira, with great display of
dress and equipage, was not far from her, and waved her hand with
patronising encouragement. The coach in which were Emma and her children
presented also a very smart appearance. All the town drove to the scene
of the review in what splendour they could afford.
Susannah was greatly occupied in looking from face to face, striving, to
recognise some of her husband's friends of earlier days. She fully
expected to see Smith or some of his friends fall from their saddles,
as they could be little accustomed to manoeuvring such light-footed
steeds, but she was forced to admit that Smith rode well and his
officers kept their seats. She had so much to observe, so much to think
about, she hardly noticed that Smith rode constantly by her carriage,
pointing out the beauties of the road.
When they stopped at the place of parade, many of the gentlemen in
uniform approached her, and as this was her first appearance in public,
Smith performed the introductions. Among them was the Rev. General John
Bennet, a man who had "knave" written on his countenance, but who
appeared to have duped Smith, for, as Lieutenant-General of the forces,
he was actually in command. Her old friend the Danite also came, older
than when she had seen him last by the hardships of an arduous
missionary journey. He passed now by the name of "Apostle Heber."
Susannah was so glad to be able to inquire concerning his welfare, so
curious to speak with him again and judge of his development, that her
manner gained the appearance of animation.
After some time Susannah perceived that she was, as it were, holding
court. In their carriages the other women sat comparatively neglected.
It was in vain that she tried to put a quick end to this curious and
undesirable state of things. Smith continued to bring to her side all
those whom he delighted to honour.
And this was only one of several fêtes which took place in rapid
succession, to all of which Susannah was by some persuasion taken. At
each she found herself an object of public attention. She was told that
this occurred because she was a stranger, or out of respect to her
husband's memory, and she placed more trust at first in these statements
than a less modest or more worldly-wise woman would have done.
Soon her credulity ceased. She despised her own beauty because it was
made a gazing stock. An article in the Nauvoo newspaper, officially
inspired, spoke of her as a "Venus in appearance and an angel at heart."
She was elsewhere publicly mentioned as the "Venus of Nauvoo."
It was indeed a strange experience, a strange time and place for the
social _début_ of this beautiful woman. Smith had calculated well when
in her youth he had told her that her beauty would not diminish but
increase until her prime was past, but she very modestly inferred that
she might have passed, as heretofore, without much notice, if an
agitation concerning her had not urged to admiration a band of men who
were fast growing luxurious and pleasure-loving, and she knew that Smith
was the author of that agitation.
It appeared to Susannah more dignified to ignore than to upbraid. She
secretly laughed, she secretly cried with vexation, but she desired to
leave the place without betraying her recognition of the homage offered.
She sought to discuss her plan for departure with Emma, but Emma's
manner had changed to her. It was not jealousy so much as constraint
that she showed, as if secretly persuaded into unusual reticence.
Susannah then asked Smith for such a sum of money as he should consider
to be a right acknowledgment of the property Halsey had given to the
Church. At this Smith looked greatly aggrieved, and withdrew muttering
that he would consider her request.
The only sign of this consideration which she immediately received was a
gift of showily-bound books, and a rich shawl which he had fetched from
New York.
Susannah's career as the queen of Nauvoo society came to a swift end,
for she determinedly retired into seclusion. This was not because the
men who paid court to her were all ignoble. Among the officers of the
Church or of the Legion there were not few who were wholesome and
friendly companions, or who, like her early Danite friend, the Apostle
Heber, had frank modest eyes, incapable of any enthusiasms that were not
religious. But in her long companionship with Angel Halsey Susannah had
had her soul deep dyed in a delicate hue of Quaker sentiment. She could
not admit for a moment that conscious display of personal charm was
consonant with dignity.
She again sought friendly intercourse with Emma.
"There ain't no use in opposing the Lord," said Emma excitedly. "If the
Lord, as Joseph says, has given you beauty and wants to set you to be a
star, or a Venus; or whatever he calls it, in Nauvoo, I don't see that
there's any good your talking of going away. I guess the Lord'll have
his own way."
Susannah remembered how before her marriage the bigness of the authority
quoted had confused her as to the truth of the message. "Ah! Emma,
Emma," she cried, taking the fat, comfortable hand in her own, "if in
the first days I had offered a little more humility, a little more love,
to those to whom I owed duty, I should never have believed what you told
me about the 'Lord's way,' but I have learned by hard experience, and I
do not believe you now, Emma." She spoke the name in quicker tone, as if
recalling her companion to common sense. "Emma," she repeated the name
with all the tenderness she could muster, "don't you know that it is
better for me to go away--better for you, better for _us all_?"
But Emma was obstinately evasive. She seemed almost like one possessed
by a hardened spirit, not her own. On the afternoon of that same day she
bustled cheerfully into Susannah's room asking the loan of what money
she had to meet a temporary call.
Susannah never had the slightest reason to suspect Emma's good faith and
good nature. She gave her money without a thought.
CHAPTER II.
The parlour which Joseph Smith had provided for Susannah was large and
high. On its Brussels carpet immense vases of flowers and peacock's
feathers sprawled; stiff and gaudy furniture was ranged round the
painted walls; stiff window curtains fell from stiff borders of
tasteless upholstery. Susannah, long ignorant of anything but deal and
rag carpets, knew hardly more than Smith how to criticise, and her taste
was only above his in the fact that she did not admire.
Smith came to reason with the rebellious woman.
Susannah no sooner saw him than she knew that he had come braced to try
the conclusion with her. He sat himself before her in silence. His
waistcoat was white, his neck-cloth white, his collar starched and high;
his thick light hair was carefully oiled according to the fashion of the
day, and brushed with curling locks upon the sides of the brow. At this
critical hour Susannah observed him more narrowly than ever before. His
smooth-shaven face, in spite of all his prosperity, was not so stout now
as she had seen it in more troublous years; the accentuated arch of the
eyebrows was more distinct, the beak line of the nose cut more finely.
She noted certain lines of thickness about the nape of the neck and the
jaw which in former years had always spoken to her of the
self-indulgence of which she now accused him; yet she could not see that
they were more accentuated. She had been schooling her heart to remember
that Smith had been her husband's friend; Angel Halsey had loved him,
had daily prayed for his faults and failings, and thanked God for his
every virtue and success. Through the medium of these memories now
Susannah looked upon him with the clearness of insight which the more
divine attitude of mind will always give, the insight which penetrates
through the evil and is focussed only on the good.
The prophet's breath came quickly, making his words a little thick.
"Emmar tells me that you have some thoughts of wanting to leave us."
"You know that very well, for I have told you so myself. I want you to
give me money for my journey. If I can I will repay it, as you well
know; if not, I will take it instead of all this finery you offer."
He had folded a newspaper in his hand, and now he unfolded it. She was
surprised to see that his hands trembled slightly as he did so, for she
had seen him act in many a tragic scene with iron nerve.
"'Tain't often that the Gentile newspapers have a word of justice to
say about us," he observed. "This is a number of the St. Louis Atlas. It
seems there's one man on it can speak the truth." He gave forth the name
of the newspaper as if expecting her to be duly impressed by its
importance, and she looked at the outspread sheet amazed.
He went on, "There's an article here entitled, 'The City of Nauvoo. The
Holy City. The City of Joseph.' I'd like to read it to you if you don't
object, Sister Halsey."
The pronunciation of the last title seemed to inflate him; his hands
ceased to tremble. A flicker of amusement lighted the gravity of
Susannah's mind.
Joseph read, "'The city is laid out in streets of convenient width,
along which are built good houses, and around every good-sized house are
grounds and gardens. It is incorporated by charter, and contains the
best institutions of the latest civilisation.'" He gave this the
emphasis of pause. "Is that true. Sister Halsey, or is it not?"
She smiled as upon a child. "Yes, Mr. Smith, it is true."
"'Most conspicuous among the buildings of the Holy City is the temple
built of white stone upon the hill-top. It is intended as a shrine in
the western wilderness whereat all nations of the earth may worship, for
on March 1, 1841, the prophet gave it as an ordinance that people of all
sects and religions should live and worship in the City if they would,
and that any person guilty of ridiculing or otherwise deprecating
another in consequence of his religion should be imprisoned.' Is that
true?" Smith inquired again. His questions came in the tone of a pompous
refrain.
"Except in the case of those who have joined you and gone back from your
doctrine," she said, but not thinking of herself.
He read on: "'Here, as elsewhere, Mr. Smith has attended first to the
education of his people. The president of the Nauvoo University is
Professor James Kelly, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and a ripe
scholar; the professor of English literature is Professor Orson Pratte,
a man of pure mind and high order of ability, who without early
advantages has had to educate himself amid great difficulties and has
achieved learning. The professor of languages is Professor Orson
Spencer, graduate of Union College, New York, and of the Baptist
theological seminary of that city. No expense has been spared upon
school buildings for the youth of both sexes, and the curriculum is
good.' Is that true?"
"Yes," she replied.
He read on: "'The population is made up chiefly from the labouring
classes of the United States and the manufacturing districts of England.
They have been grossly misunderstood and shamefully libelled. They are
at least quite as honest as the rest of us, in this part of the world or
any other. Ardent spirits as a drink; are not in use among them;
tobacco is a weed which they almost universally despise. There is not an
oath to be heard in the city; everywhere the people are cheerful and
polite; there is not a lounger in the streets. Industry is insisted
upon, and with the hum of industry the voice of innocent merriment is
everywhere heard. Now, as to their morality, if you should throw cold
water upon melted iron, the scene would be terrific because the contrast
would be so great; so it is with the Saints; if a small portion of
wickedness happens among them, the contrast between the spirit of
holiness, and the spirit of darkness is so great that it makes a great
up-stir and excitement. In other communities the same amount of crime
would hardly be noticed.'" Again he asked, "Sister Halsey, does this
evidence of an impartial witness coincide with your observation?"
"Of the people it is undoubtedly true," she said. There was a
reservation in her mind concerning certain leaders in the Church, but
she did not make it in words.
He read on: "'With a shrewd head like that of the prophet to direct,
with a spiritual power like his to say "do" and it is done, what wonder
that this thrifty and virtuous people should have made Nauvoo that which
its name denotes--the Beautiful City, the home of peace and joy.'"
He laid down the newspaper upon the marble-topped table, his large hand
outspread upon it. "My sister, why do you wish to leave this beautiful
city? It is a place where each may have home and part and lot in its
delights, but to you _all_ its wealth and power and beauty is offered.
Did I not say unto you, when as a beautiful damsel you gave up home and
kindred for the sake of the Church, that you should be as a queen among
its elect women, riding as in a carriage drawn by white horses and
receiving the elect from among the nations?"
The recollection of the prophecy which he had delivered concerning her
upon the desolate autumn road at Fayette brought with it another
recollection--that of her parting with Ephraim the same morning--so
vividly that her eyes filled with tears. Yet she marvelled too, with
inquisitive recognition of the miracle, that the words of the visionary,
then a beggar, should have been so nearly fulfilled.
"It is quite true, Mr. Smith, and very marvellous that what you promised
me should almost be literally fulfilled. We have come to it, as you also
foretold, by a path most terrible, and now we arrive at the
consummation. We live in a palace, and at its doors pilgrims from
England and all parts of Europe are arriving every day, and the richest
of gowns, the grandest of carriages, and the whitest of horses are truly
at my disposal. But there is one discrepancy between your vision and the
fact--I will not wear the silk robes, nor welcome the pilgrims with the
assurance that they have here reached the City of God. I will not
because I cannot. I refuse to accept from the hand of God such paltry
things as money and display, or even the honest affluence of our people,
as compensation for the fire and blood through which we have waded. If
there be a God who is the shepherd of those who seek him, this is not
the sort of table that he spreads, this is not the cup which he causes
to run over"--she had begun lightly, but her voice became more earnest.
"Mr. Smith, we have walked through the shadow of death together; if you
would be exalted in the presence of your enemies, have done with your
childish delight in such toys."
Smith moved uneasily on his velvet-covered chair, and it, being of a
rather cheap sort, creaked under his bulk.
"What says it in the end of the Book of Job, Sister Halsey? and what
compensation did the Lord give for the sore temptations with which he
had allowed the devil to tempt his servant? As I read, it was fourteen
thousand sheep and six thousand camels, and--"
She gave him credit for knowing the passage by heart; she had the
rudeness to interrupt. She rose and stood before him. All the long
latent defiance which her heart had treasured against him found vent in
her tone, "Very well, Mr. Smith, if that satisfied Job, it will not
satisfy me."
Smith, cast out of all his shrewd calculations as to what would win
this woman, fell back upon the inner genius of that priestcraft which so
often surpassed his conscious intelligence.
"_What would satisfy you?_" It was a simple question, and he asked it
with overwhelming force. "By the hand of trust and affection which your
husband gave me; by the memory of the beautiful babe that he brought
first to me for my blessing (and I laid my hand on its little warm head
and blessed it); by these I claim the right to ask, Sister Halsey, what
is it that in Nauvoo or in any other city would satisfy you?"
She was humiliated in her own eyes. Alas! she had strong evidence that
Ephraim's affection, on which she had staked all earthly hope of
happiness, had in some way failed. Now under Smith's eye all courage to
hold the unrealised ideal was lost; as the fixed stars twinkle, so her
faith went out for the moment of his interrogation. Her head sank in a
shame she could not confess.
While she hesitated he was looking at her shrewdly. "You know not what.
Shall I tell you? There is but one thing, and that is love--the love
that works, for those who are in need. Work for the needy is love to God
and man, my sister."
He paused, looking at her with a glow of enthusiasm. Whatever he might
be to others, this man, coarse in his outer nature, but liable always to
eruptions of the sensitive inward soul of the visionary, was in this
woman's presence often merely what she compelled him to be. If she had
known that this was the secret of his power over her, the spell might
have been less.
"Is it not true, Sister Susannah?" he asked.
She gave the admission mechanically.
He went on, "I don't take it at all hard that you should feel that we
are none of us up to you, but feel as you do that we are beneath you,
for there isn't a lady in the place that's equal to you in delicate ways
and sense and a mind to study books; but it seems to me that that's a
reason why you should love us, Sister Halsey. There is work for you to
do; we need your guiding hand. You say to me that I am content with
horses and sumptuous living and fine raiment; and knowest thou not that
there is upon my soul a great burden, even the burden of this great
people, to go in and out before them and guide them aright? I have need
of thy counsel, my sister; there's that which at this time is greatly
agitating my own mind and the minds of our bishops and apostles, Sister
Halsey, and it is of such nature that we cannot proclaim it openly until
we know the mind of the Lord. On all other matters we have accepted the
teaching of the Scriptures. For, behold, we have now the priesthood of
Aaron in our midst, and the priesthood of Melchizedek, and the rites of
the temple, save only the spilling of the blood of bulls and goats,
which has been done away with by the Gospel. We have gone back to the
first things, as is well known to you, Sister Susannah, and even here in
the wilderness we have set up our theocracy, and for its civil law we
have sought where alone such law can be found, in the command given unto
the children of Israel before they desired a king, just as for all
spiritual law we have accepted the commands given to the apostles in the
new dispensation, taking them as they were, without whittling them away
as a boy whittles a stick with a knife, as all those sects which will
not hear our voice have done. Now, Sister Susannah, is this true?" He
put his head a little on one side and looked at her with his eyes
partially closed.
"You need not take very long to explain that you worship the letter of
the Scriptures, for I know it already, Mr. Smith."
But he was in full tide, and went on, "When the Book says, 'Heal the
sick,' we don't say that that means something else, but we set about and
heal 'em." He slapped his knee with the palm of his hand. "When it says,
'Cast out devils,' we don't stare round like the other sects and say,
'There ain't no devils,' but we cast 'em out; and in the same way, when
the Book says that the priesthood of Aaron and the priesthood after the
order of Melchizedek shall be serving always in the church and in the
temple, then we say, 'Amen, so shall it be'; and the same way with
regard to tithing, for the Lord's tithes are recognised among us, and
the first-fruits, and the Sabbath day, and all such ordinances, no
picking and choosing as others."
Then he explained to her again, as in Kirtland, that he was in doubt
concerning the marriage laws of the State. He said that, having searched
the Scriptures, and learned what he could from other books, he was fully
convinced that it was the modern so-called "orthodox" Christian Church
(in which little else but signs of deadness and lack of faith appeared)
that alone condemned the ancient usage of the patriarchs, which in the
Bible was nowhere condemned. He had read in a book that many of the Jews
and most of the Asiatics had more than one wife at the time of the
apostles, and yet they had not preached against this as an evil.
"They did not preach against slavery," said Susannah.
"They did not," he said, "and I would say parenthetically, my sister,
that it may be that our views on that subject, coming from the northern
States as you and I have done, have not been according to the mind of
the Lord. I would have no man a slave because of misfortune, but if a
man proved himself unfit to rule himself, I'm not sure about his being
free."
"Do you intend to revive slavery in our own race? Will your own people
when they fail in business be sold, with their wives and children, as
in the Old Testament?"
"I can't see but that it would be a deal less mean to arrange it that
way than to bring a race of free blacks from their own country and make
every child they have a slave because he happens to be a nigger." She
remarked that his mild blue eye lit up with the true flash of the
indignation of contemplative justice. "There's one thing certain,"
continued he, "in my Church of the Latter-Day Saints no man shall be a
slave to his brother because he happens to have a black skin, for, as
the Scripture says, 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin?'"
Surrounded as they were by the atmosphere of slavery, there was the
resonance of true heroism, of true insight into the right, in his tone,
but the reason he gave--could it be possible that he thought that the
text he quoted was an authority for his instinctive justice? It was
obvious to her that he was only a fool who walked by the light of sundry
flashes of genius, but there was still the chance that the sum of idiocy
and the genius might prove greater than the intelligence of common men.
He went on, "But, anyhow, it isn't the institootion of slavery that's
come up for me to decide just here and now. Since we have been blessed
with peace and prosperity, the female converts that our missionaries
have been making all over the world (whom they have kept back from
coming to us, letting no unmarried female come whilst the fires of
persecution were passing over us) have arrived in great numbers, and the
question is, Sister Susannah, how are we to steady 'em?"
What seemed so impossible to achieve in a pioneer State had in Nauvoo
actually been achieved--the women were in excess of the men. He had, in
sober truth, a social problem to solve, and the responsibility rested
alone upon him. Brotherly love having been inculcated, the manners of
the Saints were cheerful and familiar, more familiar, he said, than he
desired; but after all that they had endured he was fain to lay upon
them no greater burden than need be. He appealed to her, asking if on
his first release from imprisonment he had not been strict in his
injunctions.
"But now," he said, "who am I that I should be able to take care of all
the young women that the Lord is sending to us from all parts of the
world? or am I to deny to them the privilege of coming to live among the
Lord's people? Am I to say to them that unless they have learning and
wisdom and are perfect they shall not come? I guess that if it had been
required of me to be perfect before I came to seek salvation, I wouldn't
have come at all. But it's just like this--here they are! and they are
nothing but poor ignorant working girls from England and Ireland and all
parts of Europe. And am I to make nunneries to put them into?"
He confessed with some delicacy of language and words of bitter regret
that there had been of late some cases in Nauvoo such as were common
enough, alas! in Gentile society, but whose occurrence among the Saints
had caused excitement. Joseph Smith paced Susannah's room; his
harassment and distress on behalf of his people were either deeply felt
or well feigned, and Susannah had no doubt that his feeling was true,
that phase of him being for the time uppermost. When he came to sit down
beside her again, it was to sketch the misery to men and women and
children which existed in Gentile society from this evil, which he
affirmed to run riot through the warp and woof of so-called orthodox
communities.
Her ignorance of the world was so great that she assumed this accusation
to be of the same stuff as the anathemas he constantly cast against the
integrity of the orthodox clergy. The point that she grasped was that he
believed the thing that he said. She had at first assumed that should he
propose to institute polygamy she would know then, once for all, that he
was a villain; but now this test deserted her. He was meditating this
step, and it seemed that his arguments, if the facts on which he based
them were admitted, had some value.
"There's that for one thing, Sister Susannah," Smith went on in a broken
voice; "it has been a mean sort of thing to have to tell you, but it
had to be said, and now there's another thing to be considered. Among
the Gentiles who is it that has the most children? Is it your man that's
high up in the ranks of society, who has money enough to give them a
good education, to feed and clothe 'em? or is it your poor man, whose
children run over one another like little pigs in a sty, and he caring
nothing for them, and they have rickety bones and are half starved and
grow up to be idle and steal? I have noticed that a good man is apt to
have good children, and a clever man is apt to have clever children, and
a worthless man is apt to have worthless children. Ain't that so? And
what sort of children do we want the most of? Well, in this way we
wouldn't let your worthless fellow have any wife at all until he had
brought forth fruit meet for repentance, and your common man only one;
but I don't see but that it would be a real benefit to the State if your
good, all-round man, as would be apt to have pious and clever children,
had two or three or four families agrowing up to be an honour to him and
to the Church, if it ain't against the command of the Lord; and in Holy
Writ the Lord himself says to Solomon that he would have given him as
many wives as he wanted, barring them being Gentiles."
"I will not argue about the Bible; you and I interpret it very
differently," she cried. "Your social argument might be well enough if
it were not that your good man when he had more than one wife _would
cease to be a good man_"--her voice was vibrating with faith--"and his
children would therefore have the poorest chance from inheritance or
training."
He was again pacing, but paused in his ponderous walk, struck by a flaw
in his argument which he had not before seen. "But if it were commanded
by the Lord, Sister Susannah?"
"God does not command this wickedness. What you command in his name is
at your own peril, Mr. Smith."
He paused before her, asking with reflective curiosity, "Why are you so
sure that it would be wickedness, sister?"
She had not arguments at command; she held fast to her assurance with
the same dogged unreasoning faith with which Ephraim's mother had of old
held her belief that this Smith must be an arch-villain; she had put the
whole power of her volitionary nature upon the side of faith in the
ideal marriage, although she was painfully conscious that she had come
across no particle of evidence for the existence of such a state. Out of
faith, out of mere instinct of heart, which had not worked itself out in
intelligent thought, she gave her unhesitating judgment. "I say that it
would be wicked because I _feel_ that it would be wicked; and any good
woman," she paused and looked him straight in the eyes, "and any good
man, would know its wickedness without arguments, and without weighing
all possible considerations."
His eyes fell before hers. He looked not angry, but grieved. As for
Susannah, in the heat of her indignation she did not know that her own
long effort to resist the unreasoning acceptance of cut-and-dried
doctrines and any dogmatic insistance upon opinion had here failed.
Smith stood for some moments before her, and her fire cooled. He sighed
at her dictum. Then he said gently, "But your judgment in this matter
has great weight with me, sister, and if I accept it you will perceive
that you are indeed the elect lady, and that by living in the light of
your countenance I shall obtain peace."
It was difficult for her not to suppose that her influence was
beneficial. She thought at the moment that when she had left this place
she might still correspond with Smith if he desired it. If it was part
of his eccentricity to be willing to listen to her, why should she not
be willing to speak, and thus keep his madness under control?
Smith, regarding her, caught the gracious look upon her face which had
opposed to him so often only a mask of reserve. His imaginative hopes
were always ready to magnify by many dimensions the smallest fact which
favoured them. His unsteady mind was fired by the presumption of some
triumph.
"Have not I, even the prophet of this great people, waited with great
patience? As the apostle saith, 'Let patience have her perfect work.'"
Susannah started and wondered.
"For behold I did not desire that our dear brother, Angel Halsey, should
go into the forefront of the battle, nor would I trouble the first grief
of thy widowhood, but behold I have waited."
"For what?" Her question came sharply. His tone had changed her mood
suddenly; a memory flashed on her of the ill-written letter which Emma
had shown her of the phrases concerning the spiritual "bride" or "guide"
who, even if all licence were denied to humbler folk, was to be a
prophet's special perquisite. "What have you been waiting for, Mr.
Smith?
"Nay, but I have waited, sister, until, having eyes, you should see, and
ears, you should hear, till you should understand that, going in and out
before this great people, it is necessary for me to seek wisdom in
counsel, and, above all, of a woman who hath a finer sense than man. And
it has been revealed to me, sister, that this may only be if thou
shouldst give the counsels of thy mind and the smile of thy beauty to me
alone and to none other, for that which is divided is not to be accepted
for the building up of the Church."
"You would have me believe that you have waited many years with the
virtue of patience before you say this? Understand yourself better. It
was not patience; it was fear. You have known perfectly well always that
I would never have listened to such a proposal for a moment. It has been
fear and prudence that have hitherto kept you silent. What is it that
has made you speak now?"
With sharp decisive tones she chid him as children are chidden in anger,
but childish as he often was, he had yet other elements in his
character; his blue eyes gave an answering flash that was ominous; the
droop of his attitude stiffened.
"That which is ordained by the Lord is ordained, sister, and it causeth
me grief to know that this revelation, which I told thee many years
since, is yet to be received of thee as a grievous thing,
nevertheless--"
"Nevertheless," she repeated in a mocking tone, as one weary of
foolishness, "what nevertheless? Let us talk on some better subject, Mr.
Smith, and after this be kind enough to have no dreams or revelations
about me. Dream of your Church, if you like. I cannot hinder your
people's credulity, and I hope that you will continue, as you have
begun, to lead them in the main by righteous paths. And have your dreams
and visions about yourself, if you must, for I sometimes think that you
cannot be much madder than you are now, but be kind enough to leave me
out of them, for I am going away."
She had now made him very angry. He was standing with flushed face,
quivering with uncertain impulses of rising wrath, yet he still
struggled for self-control.
"Sister Susannah Halsey, it is not meet that you should make a mock of
that which is sacred"--he gave a gasp here of stifled anger, and there
was a perceptible note of wounded affection beside the louder one of
offended vanity--"of that which is above all sacred," he stuttered, "it
is not meet--meet--to mock--to mock." The veins on his forehead were
standing out and growing purple.
She had often heard of Joseph Smith's power of rage, before which all
the Saints quailed. She saw it now for the first time.
She rose up, trying now a tone of gentle severity. "I spoke lightly
because your words appeared to me childish and silly, but the more in
earnest you were, Mr. Smith, the more need there is you should have done
with a thought that could lead to no good. I am no elect lady. Why do
you deceive yourself? I have told you before that I do not even believe
in your religion."
As she spoke she became more and more amazed at the thought of what his
self-deception must have been, for in his ever-shifting mind he knew her
infidelity perfectly, and yet had persuaded himself that she would
accept some fantastic position as prophetess-in-chief.
"How mad you are," she said pityingly, "to know a thing and yet to
pretend to yourself you do not know it. Go and get your supper, Mr.
Smith. Emma will be waiting to give it to you. And when you have
thought quietly over what I have said, you are quite clever enough to
see that my way of looking at it is more sensible than yours."
She had perhaps supposed that the mention of the domestic supper would
be punitive rather than soothing, but she was not prepared to find that
she had displayed scarlet to the blood-shot eyes of a bull.
"Woman," his voice, deep and hoarse, was like thunder about her ears,
"woman, is it not enough that the Lord has spoken?"
She saw by his purple face and parched lip, by the hard shudder that
went through his frame, that his fury was stronger than he. She quailed
inwardly.
"It is not enough for me that you say the Lord has spoken."
His lips worked as if in the effort to form anathemas his dry throat
refused to utter. Then, regaining his loud hoarse speech, with a choking
noise he lifted his hand in a gesture of sacerdotal menace.
"Woman, it is the last time. Choose ye this day between blessing and
cursing, for the Lord shall send the cursing until thou be destroyed and
perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings whereby thou
hast forsaken me."
She cried in answering excitement, "I choose your curse rather than your
blessing under the conditions you propose. You are mad; go and calm
yourself."
Then, having exhausted her physical courage in this last defiance, she
went into her inner room, locking the door, leaving him in the manifest
suffering of an almost unendurable rage.
CHAPTER III.
That night Susannah packed her possessions in the smallest possible
compass. The money she had lent to Emma would be sufficient for the
journey to Carthage, which was the nearest Gentile town, and thither she
was determined to go without an hour's delay, ready now to work or beg
her way on the journey farther eastward.
As soon as the business of the next day was fairly started she went to
the suite of rooms inhabited by the Smiths, confident that Joseph's
excess of fury had been transient. Emma was surrounded by her children,
to whom she had just given breakfast. The prophet was about to descend
to his business office. They both received Susannah with moderate
kindness.
The March sun shone in through the large windows upon the garish
furniture of the apartment, upon Emma's gay attire, and upon the shining
faces of the three children, who stood gazing upward at Susannah, quick,
as children always are, to perceive signs of suppressed excitement.
Susannah explained that she had determined to go to Carthage that day,
where she hoped soon to find some party of travellers in whose escort
she could travel farther; she hoped that it would be quite convenient
for Emma to return the money that morning.
Smith gazed at Susannah intently, but only for a few moments. It seemed
that his mood had changed entirely, that he was now too much absorbed in
the business of the day, whatever it might be, to care whether she went
or stayed. He left them, saying that he would send money to Emma as soon
as he could, that the trifling debt might be paid.
Money flowed in such easy streams through the hands of the leading men
of Nauvoo, that Susannah supposed that a messenger with the required
amount would come up the stairs in a few minutes. She sat with Emma in
this expectation.
"You are offended with me for going?" she asked, for Emma's mask of
indifference was worn obviously.
"You wish to destroy your soul," said Emma.
"Ah, but you know, you have long known, that I do not believe that
salvation in this world or the next depends on the rites of Mr. Smith's
Church."
"If I told this child that he would be dashed to pieces if he walked out
of the window, and he did not believe me, would that save him?"
Emma made this inquiry with triumphant scorn; then she rose and began to
attend to the wants of her children in a bustling manner.
Susannah sighed and smiled. "I have at least the right to reject your
faith at my own peril, for there is not in the wide world, as far as I
know, man or woman who cares whether I save my soul or not."
"And whose fault?" cried Emma, coarse now in her discomposure. "If you
are so stuck-up that you think you can read your books and look down on
us all, just because you are a beauty and the gentlemen bow down to you,
'tisn't likely that you'd have any friends acting that way. You can't
even behave civil to the gentlemen when they offer you the best that's
going."
It was evident that some version of Smith's interviews with her had been
given to his wife. Susannah wondered how much truth, how much fiction,
had been in the relation. It did not matter much to her now, since she
had resolved to go at once. The whole of her life with that troublous
sect seemed to be dropping from her like a dream.
Leaving word that she would receive the money on her return or else call
at Smith's office for it when she was ready, she went down into the
cheerful noise of the street and bargained with a man who had horses and
vehicles for hire. Having arranged that he should come for her at noon,
she went about to make the few farewells she felt to be desirable.
Darling was now postmaster of Nauvoo and one of the first presidency. To
him she went first. She shrank from him because of his coarseness and
the jocular admiration which he sometimes had the audacity to express
for her, but she could not forget how assiduous his kindness had been in
the days of Elvira's illness. She found him sitting, his heels on the
upper part of a chimney-piece with a fireless grate, reading the
Millenial Star. The hot April sun, streaming through the windows of his
office, had caused him to take off his coat, which was no longer
thread-bare. His shirt sleeves were fine enough and white; the high hat
that was pushed far on the back of his head was highly polished.
Opulence, self-indulgence, good-nature, and a certain element of
fanatical fire mingled in the atmosphere of the postmaster's office, and
made it somewhat turgid.
When Darling heard Susannah's errand he became serious enough. An
apoplectic sort of breathlessness came over him, expressing a degree of
interest which she could not understand. He settled his hat more firmly
upon his head. "Does the prophet know?"
"He knows. I have said good-bye to him and to Mrs. Smith. It is sad to
part with friends that I have known for so many years."
"And the prophet's going to let you go, is he?"
Darling, clumsy at all times, in this speech conveyed to Susannah the
first faint suspicion that Smith might dream of detaining her by force.
Darling's youngest daughter, who had been an affectionate pupil to
Susannah at Quincy, waylaid her as she came out, and clasped her about
the waist with the ardour of an indulged child. She was a blithesome
girl of about fourteen.
"I heard you tell father that you are going away. Is it true?" she asked
impetuously.
Susannah tried to release herself from the embrace. "Yes, it is true.
Never mind, you like your new teacher, you know, just as well as you
used to like me."
"I just guess I don't," cried the child defiantly. "But anyhow, if you
are going away, I'm going to tell you something."
Whether the childish love of telling a secret, the girlish love of
mischief, or a dawning sense of womanly responsibility was uppermost, it
would be hard to tell. There, in the open square, while worthy Saints
hurried to and fro on the pavement beside them, while horses jangled
their harness and drivers shouted and exchanged their morning greetings,
Darling's youngest daughter drew Susannah's head downward and hastily
whispered to her the fate of her letters to Ephraim Croom.
"I know, for one day since we came here I heard father talking to the
prophet. He said you'd written lately while you were at Quincy, and all
your letters had been burned. Now that's the truth; and I said to myself
'twas a sin and a shame, and that you ought to know. Now don't go and
tell tales of me, or father will be mad--at least, as mad as he ever can
be with _me_." A toss of the pretty head accompanied these words, a
flash of conscious power in the bright eyes, the spoilt child knowing
that her father was in her toils now, as truly as any future lover would
ever be. The school bell was ringing. The girl, her bag of books hanging
from her arm, ran with the crowd of belated children.
Susannah walked on, almost stunned at first by the throb of intense
anger that came with this surprise. Then the anger was suddenly
superseded, hidden and crushed down by a rush of joy. Ephraim had not
neglected her; Ephraim had given her up for dead; but she had no reason
to suppose that he was dead, no reason to doubt his faithfulness.
Susannah trod the common street in love with motion as some happy
woodland creature treads the dells in the hour of dawn and spring.
When Elvira looked up to see Susannah enter her gate she saw her friend
transfigured in a glow of returning youth and hope. Elvira looked at her
timidly; this Susannah she had never seen before. Elvira's husband was
not present. The interior of the house was fantastic almost as its
mistress, but sultry with luxury.
"Well now, you think you are going," said Elvira. "Who'd have thought
it? And only last week General Bennet said to the prophet that if he'd
marry you to him he'd send to New York for diamonds both for you and
Emma Smith. He said he'd get a thousand dollars' worth of diamonds
apiece for each of you; but Mr. Darling said that you ought to be
married to Mr. Heber, who has just been elected an apostle, because--"
She stopped suddenly, nodding her head. "You know why--blood is blood,
and we have seen it run in rivers, but we don't mention it here in
Nauvoo."
Elvira set the French heel of her slipper in the centre of a rose upon
her carpet and spun round upon it till her flounces stood out.
"We don't mention it here in Nauvoo."
She sang as if it were the refrain to a song.
Susannah felt from within her shield of new delight an immense pity.
Here again was a revelation of the coarse and frivolous talk that went
on at the church meetings, and Elvira was privy to it through that old
fool, her husband. How could she endure him!
"O Elvira, in the last few days I have realised as I did not before that
riches are making fools of these men. How glad I am that my husband died
before he knew that this was to be the reward of his lifework and his
prayers!"
Elvira stopped dancing. The mystical side of her character now, as
ever, came forward suddenly in the midst of her other interests. The
sunshine was bright in the gaudy room. A tiny spaniel, which Elvira's
senile slave had procured for her, lay on a red cushion in its full
beam, looking more like a toy than a living thing. When Elvira stopped
dancing her flounces settled themselves with an audible rustle, and her
thin delicately-cut face looked at Susannah from out its frame of curled
hair and gold ornaments like the face of a spirit imprisoned in some
unseemly place.
"Heaven help us, Susannah," she cried shrilly, "if you call Nauvoo the
reward of Angel's prayers. Look!" she cried, pointing out of the window,
"see how the new temple rises; how its white walls shine in the sun! We
are putting thousands upon thousands of dollars into it. It will be the
grandest building this side of the Alleghany mountains." She let her
small jewelled hand, with its pointing finger, fall suddenly, "and there
shall not be left one stone of it upon another, for the House of God is
not made with hands."
"I see little signs of its foundations here." Susannah spoke with fire.
"Treachery and tyranny are poor bricks."
"Child, its foundations are in the whole earth, here and everywhere, in
every nation and kindred. Men like Angel Halsey sow wheat; other people
have sown tares. The tares happen to be in blossom just now here in
Nauvoo." She seemed to forget her seriousness as suddenly, for again
she spun round upon the centre of her rose, singing her little musical
refrain.
Susannah made one more appeal of the sort that she had made so often
before Elvira's marriage.
"You will not come away with me, Elvira? I do not like to leave you
here; you have not been yourself since Angel died. You are not bound to
this man because you were not sane enough to make a valid choice."
It was plain speaking, but it did not ruffle Elvira's composure in the
slightest. She laughed and began to caress her spaniel. "Mad. Oh yes, we
are all mad, and growing madder, but it is because they have huddled us
together at the point of the sword, until now to be a Mormon means to be
shut out from the world and shut in to--to what? To the prophet's
dreams; and some of them are good, and some of them are bad, and some of
them are mad; and let us thank Heaven that they are as good as they are,
for to go back to the Gentiles who shot down Angel and the children he
was teaching to pray, and your child in your arms, that would be the
baddest and maddest act of life." She rose up suddenly again. "Go!" she
cried. There was a flame of real anger in her eyes. "Since the wish is
in your heart, go! We believe now in strange doctrines. Two new
doctrines we have learned at Nauvoo. Do you know what they are? One is
'baptism of the dead.' If you get off safely, Susannah, and die in your
sins, one of us must be baptized again for you, so that you will be
saved in spite of yourself. But the _other_ doctrine is '_salvation by
the shedding of blood_.' Do you understand _that_ doctrine?"
"Indeed I do not."
"And you speak with a tone that says that you neither know nor care what
new things we have been learning. But you may have reason to care before
many hours are over."
She came near and whispered, "They teach us now that if a _man_ sin
wilfully and will not repent, it is better that a minister of the church
should slay him, for then his blood will make atonement for his soul."
She ceased to speak until she had thrust Susannah out of her door, and
her last words were in a whisper of awesome import. "Perhaps _a woman's
soul can be saved in the same way_."
Susannah was out again in the cheerful busy street. She made haste to
fulfil the one remaining call before she met her chaise at the hotel.
She felt that her last word was due to the member of the Danite band who
had saved her in her hour of need and who had avenged her husband's
blood.
To each of those who had made sacrifice for the sect, a lot of land in
the best part of the city had been awarded. Heber, Danite and apostle,
had built upon his lot, and there she found him at the back of the
cottage feeding a mare and foal which were tied in a small plot of
ragged grass. He was much older now than when she had first seen him;
daring and danger can lengthen time. He had the same indomitable
frankness in his dark eyes, but his face was hardened and fanaticism was
stamped thereon. It was a homely precinct, with utensils of house and
stable-work lying about. The mare was drinking from a bucket, her gentle
head so near his shoulder that her love for him was easily seen.
"I am going away," Susannah said. "I have come to thank you for the last
time for all your kindness to me and to say good-bye."
"You shall not go," he said harshly.
It was the echo of something which she had heard twice before this
morning. This time it began to enter her mind with some sharpness.
"Why not?"
"If you saw a friend hastening to destruction would you not stop her? It
is well known amongst us that you desire to go, and at the meeting of
the presidency last night the prophet told us that you sought to
apostatise. Go home, Sister Halsey, and repent, and obtain forgiveness
from the Lord and from his prophet for your unbelief."
She was able to stand for a moment quietly and watch him still busy
watering the mare, admiring the skill and gentleness with which he did
it, thinking sadly enough that she would never see this remarkable man
again, nor know to what the mingled fierceness and gentleness of his
nature would grow. Then she offered him her hand in farewell without
further argument.
He shook the mare's head from his shoulder and, taking her hand, held it
in an iron grasp. "As your friend, and for the sake of that good man,
your husband, I beseech you to repent; but if you will not repent, for
his sake and for our sakes, because we have prayed for you, you shall
still be saved."
Although beginning to be apprehensive of some coming evil, she smiled;
and even rallied him upon one of the new doctrines to which Elvira had
alluded.
"Do you believe that if I go away some one else will have to be baptized
over again for me?"
He looked at her with the same steadfast glance. "It could do no good.
Such salvation is for those who die in ignorance of the truth. But for
you, who have been baptized into the truth and have fallen away, there
is no hope except repentance or the shedding of blood."
Over the low paling she heard the neighbours' children at their play.
Upon the other side was an open lot across which she saw the passers in
the street. She withdrew her hand from his now, but with a sinking at
heart which did not appear to her reasonable because the surroundings
were so tranquil.
He let her go, accompanying her, as any gentleman might, to the gate of
his ground. As he opened it he had taken something from his coat, and he
showed it to her. It was a knife, very bright and sharp. Its blade when
drawn out had a double edge. "It will be better for you," he said
mournfully, "to die than to go"; and then he hid the thing again and
went back.
This time the idea that had been forcing itself into her mind took
possession. For a moment all her strength forsook her; she held to the
post of the gate, looking after him as he disappeared up the narrow
passage between the paling and the house, and then, hurrying onward, she
found that it was only by the greatest effort she could walk with
outward composure.
CHAPTER IV.
Susannah found her rooms as she had left them. Emma was not there to bid
her good-bye, nor did any messenger wait with the money. She set her
parcels ready for the driver to lift and waited until after the hour,
but the chaise did not come.
At last she went down again to the livery stable, hoping, as against
vague but almost overpowering fears, that mere delay was the cause. The
man told her that he understood that she had countermanded her order.
She gave the order again, but now he said that he could not go for the
price named, and when she offered a larger sum, he assured her that his
horses were all out. She knew now that her order had indeed been
countermanded, and by an authority higher than hers. She went back and
boldly entered the prophet's public office.
There were five men in the office. Joseph Smith sat in an elbow-chair
before a central table. His secretary, a middle-aged man, sat at a small
table beside him. Two of the leaders of the Church happened to be
waiting upon some business, and a fresh convert was standing with them,
a well-dressed English artisan but newly arrived. Susannah walked up to
the table and addressed Smith.
"Will you go down to the stable and bring me up a travelling-chaise?"
Smith rose with mechanical politeness, or perhaps with a feint of
politeness. "My dear madam," he expostulated, "I must say--"
"I am sorry," she replied, "that I have not time to hear what you would
like to say. I must ask you to be quick and get me the chaise."
By this time she perceived that his companions were looking at her with
ill-concealed curiosity and excitement, which proved to her that she was
a marked woman. Her bosom dilated with a wilder anger as she looked at
Smith expectantly; he returned the gaze sheepishly, as if dazzled by the
audacity of her command. His face after last night's passion had an
exhausted look like that of a man recovering from an illness.
"You also owe me money," she proclaimed clearly. "Your wife borrowed all
that I had of the money I earned by my school. When you have brought the
chaise you can give me the money."
One of the elders, a sleek man, thinking the prophet at a loss, now made
a wily comment. "Has Sister Halsey paid anything for living in the House
this month back?"
At the insinuation that her money might be justly kept in payment of
this debt if she spurned the Church's hospitality, Susannah's heart
sank. She admitted its justice. It was part of her character to admit
all possible claim against her.
The sleek elder, following his advantage, spoke again. "The money given
for tuition was given because of the ordinance of the prophet, and
should in any case hardly belong to this lady if she is apostate."
Smith had the tact to see his opportunity, and, moreover, it hurt him
sharply, hurt him far more than it hurt Susannah, to hear her right to
the privileges of the place called in question, to hear the opprobrious
term "apostate" cast at her. There were unbelievers in his community
with whose hypocrisy or apostasy he could trifle, but he still had his
faith and his inner circle of affections. Susannah, standing friendless
and penniless, appealed to all that was sacred in the memory of early
days, while her beauty, her courage, her unbounded wrath, stimulated his
love of power. He spoke to the sleek elder in what was commonly called
the prophet's "awful voice," rising, his blue eyes becoming black in
their authoritative flash.
"Our sister Susannah Halsey, because of faithfulness when the Church was
yet poor and unknown, and because of the faithfulness of her husband,
who wears the martyr's crown--our sister Susannah Halsey, I say, is
welcome to the hospitality of the Nauvoo House as long as she has
remained and shall remain; and the money which has been given to her
for the school shall be returned to her, and more shall be added to it,
for she laboured faithfully."
He had left behind his moment of sheepish distress; with the return of
his formal phrases he assumed full prophetical state and escorted
Susannah out of the office with a manner of pompous deference. When they
two stood alone together Susannah was aware that, although circumstances
had not altered in the slightest, although she had just as much reason
for extreme anger as a minute before, yet she could not summon the same
haughty air of command.
"Will you get me the chaise and the money and let me go?"
"But in Carthage," he asked kindly, "who will attend to your wants there
and protect you? I guess, sister, you haven't much notion how difficult
a lady like yourself travelling alone might find it to get along. It
isn't among the Gentiles as with the Saints, where brotherly-kindness is
the rule. I guess you'd better go back to your room and think it over a
day or two longer," he said soothingly. "I'd be very glad to take you
and Emma out for a ride this afternoon if you'd be willing to go--"
"Be quiet." Her words fell sharp and quick in the midst of his gentle
tones. "Make arrangements at once for me to go peaceably, or I will go
out, if need be, to the middle of the Square and proclaim my wrongs, so
that every woman and child in Nauvoo shall know what comes of trusting
to you."
She had chosen her threat carefully. She knew well that he understood
the force of object lessons, and that to have even a suspicion against
his kindness, bred in the minds of the children would be exquisite pain
to him.
"You know that I wouldn't like that, Sister Halsey; but when you come to
think of it you'll see that it wouldn't serve your turn neither. It
would only need for a few of us to say you was crazy and the whole town
'ud see the more reason for not letting you go. Moreover, it would be a
monstrous injustice to me. When have I failed to do anything that I ever
promised you? Did I ever promise to let you apostatise? I guess, Sister
Halsey, that you're excited, and if you just think over things for a day
or two you would see that we're not so bad as you think. But, anyway,
this ain't just the place for us to have a talk together."
When Smith moved on to lead her back to her own rooms, she followed
quietly until they stood together in her parlour, the scene of their
last quarrel.
"And now," said Susannah, "you understand very well that it is no sudden
intention of mine to go, that it is my irrevocable decision. I have this
morning had my very life threatened; and I see now that unless you
command that it should be respected I should very possibly be in danger
if I went away alone. You have offered again and again to drive me in
your carriage; I will accept the offer now. Get out your own horses, and
drive me yourself to Carthage."
She saw a look of faint pleasure steal over his face. He liked to stand
there in the quiet room listening while she spoke with some evidence of
trust. The pleasure faded into embarrassment, but she had seen it.
"You have a good and a bad nature struggling within you, Mr. Smith. By
all that we have suffered, you and I, since the day that by some
mysterious power you forced me to come to your baptism" (she stammered
in her eagerness), "by all that we have suffered, by that sympathy which
we have at times felt for one another, assert yourself now. Do this one
right thing for me, and in all the future I will try to remember only
the good in your life and not the bad."
But he stood so long still looking steadfastly before him that she began
to fear that, unnerved by his last night's fit of fury, he was ready to
pass into one of those visionary trances which had been common in his
younger days.
She touched the sleeve of his coat. "I do not know if Mr. Heber's threat
could be serious, but it frightened me, and I know that I shall be safe
on the road to Carthage if you take me. Go, get your horses and take me
away yourself."
He looked at her pitifully, slipping into the style of his religious
moods. "Thou sayest truly, sister, that there is none but I who could do
this thing, for since in mine anger last night, fearing that I had no
strength of my own to keep thee by me, I denounced thee to the council,
there is no safety for thy life beyond the boundary of Nauvoo." He
winced here, as if seeing what he suggested.
Noting how the idea of her violent death wrung his heart, she went on
pleading with him. She quoted the exalted character of his early
visions, reminding him of the hour when the angel had shown him the dark
furnace of temptations through which he must pass. At this he was
visibly stirred; the angelic vision of warning seemed to be again before
his eyes. He roused himself, speaking in that tone of voice in which,
when he rarely used it, she recognised his best spirit. "Sister, thou
hast always been to me as Isaac to Abraham; for in the beginning when I
was poor and alone and had nought in the world save the revelation which
the Lord had given, and was tempted to doubt, then I saw thee and prayed
that thou shouldst be given me for a sign; and behold when I put forth
my whole strength to desire thee, thou didst come as a moth to the
light, burning thy beautiful wings of youth and joy. But I said, 'It is
well, for that which she has lost shall be restored to her with usury,'
and I knew in my heart that our brother Angel Halsey would not live
long, and that thou wouldst forget thy sorrow for him. But I swear unto
thee that thou hast never been to me as other women, but, as I said unto
thee just now, like the voice of the angel."
She never knew how far he was entirely under his own control when the
tendency to a state of trance was upon him, but she was anxious to take
advantage of the better mood.
She said, "And now what is required of you is that you should give me
up. No blessing" (she spoke strongly), "no blessing can come to you or
to your people until you do this one right thing."
He was again looking not at her but at the blank space of the shadowed
wall, and as if the wall was not there and his look went far beyond it.
"You have loosened the bloodhounds and set them on my track," she cried.
He did not speak.
"You--you alone will be guilty of my murder, for, I tell you, if you do
not take me, I will go alone and meet my death."
His head sank upon his breast with a groan such as a dumb creature in
the utmost pain might give. Almost immediately, to her surprise, he went
out.
She was left alone. She was under the impression that Smith had gone to
do her bidding, but she could not be sure. No faith in angelic vision,
no spell of psychic warfare, relieved the situation for her. The
external evidences of some crisis which he had undergone only produced
in her repulsion. Now, as ever since the temporary delusion that
accompanied her baptism, Susannah endeavoured to possess her soul free
from that sense of touch with mysterious powers which had worked such
havoc with the sanity of the members of this sect.
From the window she saw the prophet crossing the road in the direction
of his stables. He went, it was true, with slow, dreamy gait, but
steadily. Strange mixture that he was of sanity and shrewdness,
mysticism and grosser evil, he was at that moment her only star of hope.
She paced the room unable to forecast the happenings of the next hour,
yet supposing that her very life depended upon its content. The sudden
joy that had come to her this morning joined with her fear, and produced
panic of heart.
She computed the time it might take to harness the gay steeds, and tried
to give the rein of her expectation the utmost length. To her delight
she saw the prophet's horses and the light vehicle he drove upon long
journeys emerge into the square. A servant led them up and down. At
length she saw Smith returning, not with hasty steps, but as if against
his will, walking again through the crowded place like a man in a dream.
Men greeted him, but for once he gave no sign of seeing them. She heard
his footstep on the stair. When he reached her door he almost fell
against it in the opening, and staggered as he entered the room as if
his self-control had just lasted so far. He knelt down by one of the
fashionable marble-topped tables with which he had graced her room, and,
like an ill-conditioned soul, burst into tears and broken complaints.
"But I cannot do it," he gasped. "I cannot."
In her hour of miserable waiting Susannah had thought of many things
that might occur, and nerved herself to meet them, but this distemper of
soul, this failure of will in the man who had been undaunted through
years of persecuting torture, was so wholly unexpected that she stood
aghast.
He clenched his hands as they lay helpless on the white table. "O Lord!"
he cried, and she could not tell from the tone whether the words were
oath or prayer. "O Lord, I cannot let her go." His thick tears muffled
his voice, and still again and again during the paroxysm she caught the
words as if reiterated in choking anger, "O Lord, I cannot."
His tears, however evil their source, laid hold of her woman's
sensibility; she was no longer a critical observer. She no longer set
aside his strange inward conflict as a delusion of madness. She
participated in his consciousness so far as to think that she was
actually witnessing the despair of a soul repulsing an opportunity of
righteousness, and yet not so far dead as not to know its worth. She
tried to speak, but found herself, as at other times, so affected by
his overlapping emotion that she was trembling and had neither courage
nor voice.
Smith lifted his head, looking with terror into vacant spaces of the dim
room, as if following with his eyes some menacing form. He whined
piteously. "I have purposed to be faithful"; he put up his hand as if to
ward off a blow. "Thou knowest! thou knowest!" His voice was like a
whispering shriek. The terror of his face and gestures was appalling to
see.
Susannah was infected with fear of an apparition so evidently visible to
him. Her mind swung, as it were, out of material limitations. She was
overcome with the belief that a third person was with them, and her
heart went out in gratitude to that mysterious other for taking her
part.
But the gilt clock on the marble mantelshelf ticked on; Susannah felt
herself aware that the person of Smith's vision was withdrawing,
repulsed. She almost cried aloud to the invisible, but checked the
prayer, holding on, as it were, to her own sanity with both hands. Smith
writhed continually, moaning.
When at length she succeeded in telling him faintly that if he refused
this opportunity he must fall lower and lower and lose even the desire
for good, she found that her words had no longer any power to influence.
He had passed beyond into some region of outer darkness, where the
things of sense did not seem to penetrate, and where, if the actions of
his body were the expression of his soul, there was literally "wailing
and gnashing of teeth."
But Susannah hovered over him, not so much angry as pitiful, her own
agony of mere physical sympathy increasing. Terrified to be near him,
too compassionate to withdraw, she watched till at last the veins in his
hands and his face became swollen and knotted. She was unwilling to lose
the hope of her sole influence over him, and yet was about to call for
help, when almost suddenly he seemed to become conscious of his
surroundings again and shake himself free from the distress.
In a little while he was sitting on one of the chairs, wiping his purple
face and swollen eyes with the large silken pocket-handkerchief that was
one of the signs of his recent opulence. She saw the large ring on his
swollen finger gradually loosen, and the hand return to its normal shape
and colour. She felt convinced that his pulses had gone back to their
common flow, because his whole volition had returned peacefully to its
low ambitions and self-indulgence. She knew instinctively that it was
not thus opulent and fierce that he would have looked had he come out on
the other side of his temptation. She stood, outwardly patient, waiting
helpless till he should speak.
"Sit down, sister," he panted condescendingly. He was fanning himself
with the handkerchief now, as a man might who felt injured by undue
heat in the atmosphere.
Her refusal was concise and severe.
He looked at her boldly, with no apprehension now in his eyes, not even
the former conciliatory desire to receive her with fair words. She felt
appalled. Could it be that his angel in deserting him had deserted her?
Was there a devil strong enough to give her to him? It was perhaps only
his belief which overshadowed hers, it was perhaps only, as she thought,
a sickness of nerve but the impression that unseen personalities had
been contending here was stronger upon her even than her anger and fear.
Smith got up and went to the window. His horses and buggy were still
parading.
"I guess I've changed my mind," he said. He did not care, it seemed, to
delude her, but he must still deceive himself. "I couldn't go against
the voice of the church council to that extent; it wouldn't be safe for
you or me; and besides, 'tisn't the Lord's will that you should go."
She recoiled, looking at him in steady reproach.
"Well, as I said before, I guess you can think it over for a few days."
This was his easy answer to her look, and he went out, slamming the
door.
CHAPTER V.
When that day began to wane Susannah was still sitting in the empty
curtained room. No plan which offered even a fair hope of escape had
occurred to her mind. Although in pictures of adventure her imagination
had been fertile, throwing out suggestions unbidden, her judgment would
have none of them. No one disturbed her. She was left in isolation, a
prey to dismal thoughts.
She saw the happy crowds dispersing in the Square from evening
recreation. There was nothing to hinder her from joining them. Sometimes
her sense of imprisonment seemed only a morbid dream, for on all sides
of the fair white city there was open ingress and egress for the
faithful and the stranger. It was hard to believe that at wharfs and on
the high roads fanatics watched for her, and yet after Smith's reluctant
avowal she dare not doubt it.
She saw evening fade over the broad semi-circle of the river, over the
multitude of cheerful homes that sloped to its edge. When darkness came
she found herself more than ever pressed and tormented by the grim
shapes of fear and remorse and despair. She had terrible reason to
fear, and felt as never before that she had brought this horrid
situation upon herself by joining and rejoining the prophet's following.
She had no hope now that Smith would relent.
Beyond the city, eastward toward the sun-rising, lay the home of
Ephraim's friendship, whither in the morning she had thought to bend her
steps. She saw it through the glad glamour of her recent knowledge that
he had not neglected her letters. All her desires fled to this thought
of his friendship, like birds flying home. All her fancies clustered
round it, like climbing flowers that caress and kiss the object they
enfold when some rude wind disturbs. Whenever she withdrew her mind from
its contemplation, the circumstances on which she looked were the more
revolting.
Ever since Smith left she had been more or less under the impression
that an unseen person there in that very room had contended with him.
Again and again she had swept it aside as an infectious madness that she
was catching from the fanatics about her, but it had recurred; and now
as, not caring to light her lamps, she sat alone in the darkness by the
very table against which Smith had writhed and wailed, she felt pressed
upon by a spiritual life external to her own.
Within her soul from some unknown depth the word arose distinctly as if
spoken, "Pray. You cannot save yourself. Pray."
"I am going mad." Susannah whispered the words audibly. It was a
comfort to her even to hear her own voice. But when her whisper was past
she again listened involuntarily.
The words within her rose again. "Even so. Pray. If you are going mad,
you have the more need."
Susannah had come to class all search for definite and material answer
to prayer as one of the superstitions of false religion. In this
category stood also the hearing of voices and obedience to monitions
from the unseen. Now she reproached herself because she could not
immediately silence this fancy of disturbed nerves.
Long sad thoughts of all her reasons against prayer, strongest among
them the futility of her husband's prayers, passed through her mind with
their train of haunting memories, but in the cessation from argument
which these pictures of the past produced, the words arose again dearly
within her soul, like airdrops rising from the depths of a well and
expanding into momentary iridescence on the surface, "Pray for help. If
you have no faith in God's arm, you have the more need to seek it."
Stung by the fear that she was losing her mind, she rose as she would
have faced a human antagonist.
"God's arm!" she said aloud, "my husband prayed such prayers, but I will
ask nothing till I see his request fulfilled."
She spoke the quick words with an almost reckless sense of experiment.
Her thought was that before she could honestly think of such prayer she
must see some fruit of Angel's petitions for this man Smith and for her
own safety.
"Save Smith from further degradation," she said, her breath coming
sharply. "Save me now, if that sort of prayer is right. Do this in
answer to my husband's prayers. Remember his prayers."
She had begun recklessly, supposing that she was contending only with
her own sick fancy; she was astonished that a few swift moments had
involved her in an increasing sense of personal contact, and she became
awed by the strength of the encounter.
"My husband prayed for my safety," she repeated with softened attitude;
then, as if seeking for the protection which had died with him, she
repeated again and again, "Remember his prayers."
She left the challenge at last apparently to die where she had breathed
it in the dark cold air of her lonely room. The tension of her mind
relaxed.
She sat down again, not knowing whether anything had occurred, but a
crisis in the morbid working of her strained nerves had in some way
relieved her.
She was curiously unable to go back to her former agonised anxieties.
Natural fatigue, even sleepiness, came over her, but not her fears,
even though she wooed them.
"Ah, well," she said within herself, "it is quite true that it is
useless to consider when I can give myself no help."
The habits of the Saints were early. When she heard silence fall upon
the great house she went into her sleeping-room and lay down upon the
bed. Sleep came quickly.
With the early dawn she opened her eyes. In the first moments of
half-awaked consciousness she was aware that one thought lay alone in
the empty horizon of her mind, like a trace left by a dream that had
passed, as a wisp of cloud may be left in an empty sky.
This thought was that she would at once go down to the river bank upon
the southwest of the town.
When other thoughts awoke and crowded within her ken this thought
appeared foolish, and still more so the strong influence it had left
upon her will, for in the momentum of this influence she had risen
without debating the point.
She was not aware that she had moved in her sleep or dreamed. She was
greatly refreshed and again unreasonably light-hearted. She opened her
shutters and saw that the dawn was calm and fair. As yet the sleeping
town had scarcely stirred.
"It is better to go out than to stay in," she said to herself as she
remembered that this hour would be her one chance of taking air and
exercise unobserved. She heard the main door of the house open and,
looking over the banister, saw a slattern with bucket and mop passing
into some back passage. She went lightly down and out into the fresh
frosty air.
What had that dream been concerning the river bank on the south-western
side? She could not recall it, nor had she ever explored the streets of
white wooden villas and cottages that lay upon that side. She went
thither now. There was no reason why she should not go, no reason to go
elsewhere. It was a pleasant walk. When she had passed the last house,
the bank sloped in open uncared-for grass where cows were grazing. Only
here and there she had seen a house-door open, and as yet in this place
no one was abroad except a boy who was playing idly in a boat, which was
drawn half up on the muddy bank.
The broad river, milk-white under a dappled sky, stretched south and
west. The other side was dim and blue in the faint vapour of the
relaxing frost. The air was sweet and still. The sunbeams, imprisoned in
eastern vapour, shone through the white veil with soft glow that cast no
shadow but comforted the earth with hope.
Susannah had a further thought in her mind now, but she felt no haste or
impatience of excitement.
The boy was of an active, restless disposition or he would hardly have
been out so early. Lithe and idle, he sat see-sawing in the floating
end of the boat, uncertain how to amuse himself. He returned Susannah's
greeting with a lively flow of talk.
"You don't know how to row," said Susannah.
She showed no eagerness, for she felt none. The hope she had just formed
was most uncertain, for it appeared not at all likely that she could
escape in this way without being molested.
"I bet I can row," said the boy, "as well as any man in town."
"That isn't saying much," said Susannah. "The men about here have very
few boats, and they are most of them afraid to go on anything smaller
than the steamer."
"I could row t'other side and back," bragged the boy. "I could row
t'other side and back three times in the day."
"You couldn't."
"I couldn't! What will you bet?"
"I suppose your father wouldn't allow you to go, anyway."
He was a fresh-faced, mischievous, eager young rascal, and he found
Susannah's manner pleasant and provoking.
"Will you lay five dollars on it?" he cried. "Pap is away down to
Quincy. If you'll lay five dollars on it I'll do it."
"But I won't."
The gambling spirit of the young pioneer was aroused.
"What will you lay on it, then?"
"I don't believe you could row once to the other side."
He bragged loudly and with much exaggeration of what he had done and
what he could do, and began pushing off the boat to show her his speed.
The boat was a rude craft, unpainted, flat-bottomed, but light enough,
and not badly formed for speed. Susannah stepped into it without much
hope, scarcely caring what she did, but still provoking the young
boatman to attempt the crossing.
"I shan't give you any money," she said, "but you can row me a bit if
you like till I see how fast you can go. You don't understand the
currents, I am sure."
"Currents!" said the boy, "I guess I understand all there is to know
about them."
Talking thus in light banter, they actually proceeded out onto the bosom
of the milky flood without hearing any cry from the shore or seeing any
one who took note of their departure. The pellucid and comforting light
of the blinded sun grew warmer; the hum of industry in the town behind
rose cheerfully upon the quiet air, and as the calling of the April
bluebird in the fields grew more faint, the splash of the oars and the
whirr of the gray water-fowl began to be accompanied by a low distant
sound as of a watermill.
"It's the excursion steamer," said the boy. "We'll get in her waves and
you'll be scared. Ladies is always scared of waves."
She asked if the steam-boat would stop at the Nauvoo wharf, but he
explained, with the knowledge that boys are apt to have of such details,
that this steamer was coming from Fort Madison, and would keep to the
Missouri side, that he had heard that there were some State officials on
board her, escorting the Governor of Kentucky, who was prospecting for a
Land Company.
They saw the white hulk of the steam-boat looming upon the water to the
north. Her side paddle-wheels churned the flood. A strong purpose took
possession of Susannah; she knew what she was going to do.
She said to the boy, "No one could stop a steamer when she once starts
until she gets to her next port."
"I bet the engineman could stop her just as easy as that." The boy
backed water with his oars suddenly.
"But no one on the river could make him stop and get aboard."
"Yes, they could. My pap stopped one once. We was living down near
Cairo, but not near a wharf."
"How did he do it?" she asked, and her interest was intense.
"Why, you just put up your hands like a trumpet and yell through them as
loud as you can, and you go on waving and hollering. My pap said the
best plan was to call out 'Runaway nigger! Large reward!' They'd be sure
to stop then to know all about it, and when they'd once stopped they
don't mind your clambering up, if you can pay the fare."
Susannah felt herself wholly unequal to the loud task described.
"They would never stop for you," she, said. "You are only a boy, and
they would know 'twas only mischief."
His reply was as before. He would lay five dollars on it that he could
stop the boat.
She incited him to do this thing also. What faculty of caution the boy
possessed was not as yet developed; he left the care for consequences to
the sedate lady in the stern, and forgetting his quest of the Missouri
shore, lay in the path of the steam-boat and howled unmusically, and
marred the peace of the placid morning by shouting concerning a runaway
slave and a fabulous reward that was offered for him taken alive or
dead.
It is probable that what he said never rightly reached the ears of the
men on the deck, but that they regarded the lady as a possible
passenger; the engine was stopped.
"We'd better cut now as fast as we can," said the boy, somewhat
frightened. He seized his oars excitedly. "Or shall I tell them a big
yarn about the nigger?"
They were but slightly to one side. The prow of the steam-boat, which
drew but little water, had already passed below them. A small crowd on
the vessel's deck leaned over the paddle-box. Standing up in the boat,
Susannah searched the faces of the men looking down. They all looked at
her.
She singled out the captain by some sign in his dress, and pleaded
urgent necessity for travelling with him.
"Look here," said the boy, looking up at her from beneath, "I call that
a low-down, mean sort of thing to do. Why didn't you tell me square? I'd
have brought you if you wanted do come."
She pleaded with the boy too. "It was better for you not to know my
secrets. If they ask you in the city you can say that you didn't know."
A dozen hands were held out to help her to climb the ladder on the
shelving paddle-box. "Keep off," they cried to the boy, and he swung
away from the churning wheel.
Susannah stood upon the deck pale and trembling. The magnitude of the
step came upon her, and she was beset by natural timidity and the
painfulness of her dependence. The men who stood around her with the
right to question were not of a low class. The captain, brawny and
respectable, spoke for the group. Behind him was a short but dignified
gray-haired gentleman whom she took to be the present or former Governor
of the State of Kentucky, of whom the boy had spoken. With him were
several men who appeared to have some fair title to gentility. Other
passengers pressed in an outer circle.
She would fain have explained herself more privately, but she could not
endure to accept the privileges of the boat without explaining first
that she was not able to pay for them. "Gentlemen, I have no money. I am
entirely unprotected. I have escaped in fear of my life from Nauvoo."
She spoke instinctively, only desiring to set herself right, but when
the words were said she knew that she had helped to heap opprobrium on
the sect in whose cause so short a time ago she would have died. The
passengers were Missourians, as was the captain. Among them went a
whisper of chivalrous pity for her and of execration for the prophet and
his followers.
"Madam," said the captain, "any lady as is escaping from those devils
has the freedom of this boat, and no ticket required, as long as I'm in
command. Isn't that so?" he asked of the crowd.
The murmur broke into an open chorus of enthusiastic speech.
Wild and deep as was her panting anger against Smith's oppression,
Susannah shrank. The thought of profiting by this spirit of partisan
hatred scorched her heart.
The Kentucky Governor, a dapper man, who had been regarding her with a
temperate and critical eye, now, urged by her obvious distressed
timidity, came forward.
"How did you get among the Mormons, may I ask?"
"My husband," faltered Susannah, "but he is dead."
It would appear that her words tallied with some conclusion he had been
drawing concerning her, for without further parley Susannah found
herself being led in a formal manner down the companion-way. The brief
report which she had given of herself had preceded her through the boat.
She heard the passengers whom she left on the deck making sentimental
remarks. Two coloured girls who were washing dishes in a pantry came to
its door and gasped with emotion as they stared at her. In the saloon
the coloured waiters gaped.
At the farther end of the saloon a stout and magnificent lady in silk
and diamonds was seated before innumerable viands which were spread in
circles around her plate. She stopped eating while her husband presented
Susannah. She alone of all upon the boat seemed to be overburdened by no
surge of sentiment or curiosity. She was a most comfortable person.
Seated in safety beside her, Susannah could indulge the pent-up
indignation of her outraged spirit in silent musings upon Smith's
degradation and, the certain downfall of all righteousness under the new
tyranny. And yet--and yet--the shock of the last few days, forcibly as
it vibrated through all her nature, could not eradicate the sympathy of
years--the memories of Hiram and Kirtland, Haun's Mill and the
desperate winter's march. Justice, her old friend, now her inquisitor,
said sternly, "It was in these scenes in which some lost life and some
reason that these men lost their moral standards." But her heart cried,
"Now that _I_ am insulted, I cannot forgive."
The words of the Governor's wife, cheerful, continuous, and not without
diverting sparkle, were an unspeakable rest to Susannah, weary above all
things of herself. Whether because of a strong undercurrent of tactful
kindness, or in mere garrulity, the good lady's talk for some time
flowed on concerning all things small, and nothing great, like the
lapping of the river against the vessel's bows.
But at last her companion's situation grew upon her; she enlarged more
than once upon her surprise at Susannah's advent, and her feelings of
extreme relief that she was safely there.
"What a mercy!" she sighed comfortably. "Such awful people! Why, I hear
that when any child among them is weak or deformed they just murder it."
Like one who is enraged with his own kin but cannot hear them falsely
accused, Susannah contradicted this statement.
"It is perfectly true," the Governor's wife declared. "I have heard it
several times. How long have you been at Nauvoo?"
"Three weeks."
"And in that time they offered to kill you! Well, I assure you if you
had been a sickly child they wouldn't have let you live three days. And
they say that that monster they call the prophet has at least a dozen
wives."
"Oh, no."
"Ten or eleven, at any rate."
"He has only one, and he has always been very kind to her."
"How they have imposed upon you! Where have you been living that you
have not heard more of their iniquitous doings than that?"
Susannah was faint and ill with the conflict within her own breast when
the dapper Kentucky Governor, on business intent, came to them from a
group of the smoking men.
"James," cried his wife, with an edge of sharpness in her low voice,
"this lady doesn't even know a tithe of the enormities that are
practised in Nauvoo."
He shook his head, and said that it was a compliment to Susannah's heart
and mind that the tenth part had been sufficient to alarm.
His manner was stiff and formal, but his disposition seemed very kind.
He asked Susannah if the Mormons had retained all her property, and what
destination she now proposed for herself; and then with great delicacy
informed her that there was a proposition among the passengers to make
a collection, to defray the expenses of her whole journey.
Susannah's cheek paled again.
"How could I return it if it came from so many?" she asked. Her white
hands were clasping and unclasping themselves. Must it indeed be by
means of such humiliation that she saved herself from Angel's Church?
The Governor determined upon further generosity. "If you would prefer,
take it from me as a loan," he said.
She gave him Ephraim's address. It was so long since she had spoken her
cousin's name to any one that tears came when she felt herself bound to
explain that she was not certain that he was alive.
"He is probably alive. Ill news travels fast."
She blessed the dapper gentleman for this unfounded opinion, for the
kindness that prompted it, more than for all else that he had done.
His advice was that Susannah should continue upon that boat with them as
far south as Cairo, in order to take advantage of the steam-boats now
plying on the Ohio River, so that the expense and weariness of the land
journey would be diminished to the small space between the uppermost
point on the Ohio and the western entrance of the Erie Canal. There were
several men upon the boat, he said, who could commend her to the care of
every captain on the Ohio.
Susannah felt too weak and weary to say more in defence of the morals of
Nauvoo. She could not struggle against the fact that her claim to the
generosity of which she stood in such helpless need was recognised and
satisfied by the hatred of these Gentiles.
When in the succeeding days she had time to meditate, while she spent
many a long hour on the decks of river-boats watching the shimmering
lights and shades that pass upon open river surfaces, the perplexing and
contrasting aspects of her situation played in like manner upon her
heart.
She had suffered so much, such long and deadly ill, as a member of this
almost innocent sect, suffered bravely in protest against the vile
injustice of the persecution, and now that she was escaping from
miseries inflicted by this same sect, she was wrapped in the kindly
reverse side of the persecuting spirit, and carried home in it, with all
the deference that would be accorded to a lost child. She was too tired
and helpless now to defy the good thus given. Did all her former
suffering go for nothing as a protest against the wrong?
With more curious feelings, more involved sentiments, she regarded the
history of her more inward life. With what strong protest against the
obvious evils attendant upon unreasoning faith had she resisted through
many years the infectious influences of belief in an interfering
spiritual world. Now she had defied Smith with a faith in the ideal
marriage unsupported by any conscious reason, and when she had looked
to the interference of Providence, not even in meekness, but in
desperate challenge, she had strong impression of being encompassed by
invisible power and protection. In vain she said to herself that the
simple and unlooked-for method of her escape was one of those
coincidences which only appear to support faith, that her deliverance
had been of no unearthly sort, but brought about by means doubtfully
righteous--consent to trick the boy and to say little on hearing the
Mormons falsely accused. When she had told herself this, the impression
that underneath her folly a guiding hand had impelled and saved her, in
spite of her small marring of the work, remained. Even while her bosom
was swelling with shame at hearing her husband's sect derided, and
eating the bread of that derision, and still greater shame at knowing
that condemnation was merited, she would find herself resting in the
assurance that beyond and beneath all this confusion of pain there was
for her and for all men an eternal and beneficent purpose.
CHAPTER VI.
Susannah left the canal boat at Rochester. She had borrowed as small a
sum as might be, and was now penniless, possessing only her travel-worn
garments; she had no choice but to start toward Manchester on foot. Food
was easily to be had; such a woman as Susannah had but to enter any
house and state her need. She got a long lift on her way from a farmer
driving to Canandaigua. Of the farmer she asked, while her pulses almost
stopped, some information about Ephraim.
"He's kep up the place to a wonderful degree like his father," said the
farmer.
From this she gathered that Ephraim was alive and in better health.
She asked no more; her lips refused to form his name again.
"The old lady, she was took off with a stroke; she and the old gentleman
is laying together in the graveyard." The farmer volunteered this
information, and Susannah, who had nerved herself to meet Ephraim's
mother with humility, now wept for her loss.
From the town of Canandaigua she walked beside the winding river and
entered Manchester from the west at the hour when the May dusk was
melting into moonlight.
The public road, then as now, was lined with elms and many an
apple-tree. The dusk of the elm branches was flecked with half-grown
fluttering leaves, and the outline of the apple branches was heavy with
blossom. The air was sweet in the shade of the night-folded petals, the
perfume bringing involuntarily the thought of the hum of bees which had
gone to rest. There were some new houses on the road, but the tide of
progress had here ebbed, leaving the once ambitious village like a rock
pool, beautified only by those ornaments of nature which thrive in
stillness. There was more on the road of gable and shrub and tree which
was familiar than of objects strange to her eye. The few people who were
abroad gave her scarcely a glance, the half light veiling all that was
foreign in her garb. The round moon hung above the willows of the river.
When she came in sight of the white Baptist meeting-house she scanned
its homely appearance as one looks at the face of an old friend. The
yellow light within was put out as she approached. Out of the door a
group of men were issuing as if from some evening service.
What vivid memories the scene brought her!--memories of her uncle
singing psalms with slow and solemn demeanour, of her aunt's high and
more emotional voice, of the pew in which as a girl she had sat between
them, listless and impatient, wondering at times why Ephraim remained at
home.
Her uncle and aunt were now lying in the graveyard. She paused a moment
at the thought, looking at the small host of modest headstones
surrounded by wild-flowers and half-fledged shrubs. It has never been
the custom in Manchester to cultivate God's acre. Above, the branches of
the nut-trees stretched themselves in the sweet spring air--they too
were just leafing.
Standing by the low, unpainted rail, Susannah wondered in what part of
the yard her aunt and uncle lay.
She observed that the small coterie of deacons had passed on to the road
and dispersed, leaving only one of their number, who was locking the
main door with an air of responsibility. Susannah did not look twice;
she knew that this man was Ephraim. He stooped slightly to fit the key
in the lock; then, evidently having forgotten something, pushed the door
again and went inside.
Susannah did not wait; she went up the graveyard path and in where the
great square windows cast each a strip of light athwart the dark pews.
Ephraim turned from his errand and met her in the aisle.
"Ephraim."
Ephraim Croom fell back a step or two, as if his breath was set too
quick by joy or fear.
Susannah could not speak again.
At length Ephraim stretched out his hands and grasped her arms gently,
then more strongly, making sure that she was not a trick of light and
shade. Then, not knowing at all what he did, he clasped her in sudden
haste to his breast.
Susannah felt his arms wrap about her as if she had been a little child.
She had never felt, never conceived, of closeness and tenderness like
this. Ephraim, his breast heaving and his arms folding closer and
closer, was out of himself. There was no conscious meaning expressed by
him, but she knew, knew at once without shadow of doubt that he himself
had been the dreamer of whom he wrote to her, who had learned so much by
yielding all the loves of his heart to one, and that she was that woman.
It was a long moment; at last, as if waking from a dream, Ephraim
relinquished his hold. He leaned against the side of a pew, and his
eager look seemed to hold and fold her still. In the dim light she could
not see his eye, but she felt the delight of his glance falling upon
her, a brighter, softer influence than the mantle of the moonlight.
She laid a hand lightly on his shoulder with a motherly touch.
"I have startled you, dear Ephraim; I hope I have done you no harm."
He made as yet no answer but to take her hand, grasping it with rough
heartiness as if this was the first moment of their meeting.
Susannah laughed as women sometimes laugh over their cherished ones for
very joy, not amusement. "Speak to me," she coaxed. "I have come back to
you. Do you think we are in a dream?" She let herself kneel on the old
floor of the old aisle, and, clasping both his hands, laid them against
her cheek.
With his returning self, something of his habitual formality of manner
would have returned had she remained in any common attitude, but to this
coaxing, kneeling queen Ephraim (although his whole life had passed
without caresses) could not behave with reticence.
One thing he did not do. He did not hint that it was unseemly that she
should kneel at his feet. Chivalry was the very substance of the soul of
this son of New England, and no outward seeming could disturb his serene
reverence for the woman he loved. He stooped over her, now stroking her
hair, how holding her hands close against his heart, now whispering
words that in their audible passion were new and strange to his
unaccustomed lips.
"I am all alone, Ephraim. I have no money, no clothes. I have walked
most of the way from Rochester to-day."
"Are you very tired?"--as if the fact that she had been walking that day
was all that needed his immediate attention.
"I was forced to come suddenly. I only escaped with my life. But I have
long been wearying to come to you, for since my husband and the child
died I have been quite alone."
"We heard that they were dead, but that was long ago." There was no tone
of reproach in his voice, only curiosity. "You never wrote, and I--I
supposed that if you were alive you--you preferred to remain, Susy."
She did not enter into explanation then. After a while, when he had
raised her to her feet and embraced her again, she whispered, "Why are
you in the meeting-house, Ephraim?"
"We have been having a prayer meeting," he answered. "And I keep the key
because--because my father used to." He gave the reason with an
intonation half playful. "I do many a thing now because he did."
"I thought that you at least would never become like the others. Are
they less foolish" (she made a gesture toward the pews to denote their
late inmates), "less unjust than they used to be?"
As they went toward the Croom homestead he answered her words in his
manner of meditative good-humour which she knew so well. "I don't know
that they are less unjust and less foolish than they used to be, or that
I am either, Susy, but--it is not good to worship God alone."
She pressed close to his side and looked up through the honied blossom
of the apple-boughs; the violet gulfs of heaven seemed to be made more
homelike by his tones.
"The sun, they say, is ninety-three millions of miles away from the
earth's surface, Susy; and think you that if some of us climb the
mountains we are much nearer light than those in the vales?"
She remembered sentences which she had conned from his letters which ran
like this, and her thought on its way was arrested for a moment by the
memory of the spot where she had lost those letters, the thought of the
grave by the creek at Haun's Mill and of her husband's steadfast faith.
So they walked in silence, but as they stood by the garden gate under
the quince tree, she detained him a moment with a child's desire to hear
a story that she knew by heart.
"Ephraim, you wrote once that you knew a man who loved--"
When he had given the answer she wanted, they went up the little brick
path, and Susannah noticed that the folded tulips and waxen hyacinths
flanked it in orderly ranks. Their light forms glimmered in the branch
shadows of the budding quince. It was true, what people said, that
Ephraim had not let his father's home decay. The door stood open, as
country doors are apt to do.
There was a lack of something in the dark appointments of the
sitting-room. The traces of busy domestic life were not there, and
sadness filled the place of the parents whom she had unfeignedly longed
to see again. Through a door ajar she saw light in the large kitchens. A
candle was upon a table, and an old woman, unknown to her, sat sewing
beside it. Ephraim, holding a burning match in clumsy fingers, lit a
student lamp--the fire of a new hearth.
CHAPTER VII.
Two years after that, Ephraim, returning one day from the field, brought
with him a poor wayfarer whom he had met upon the road.
The stranger was of middle age, with hair already gray and face deeply
furrowed. In ragged garments, resting his bandaged feet, he sat propped
in the sitting-room. The warm air blowing from rich harvest fields came
in at open door and windows. Attentive before him, Ephraim and Susannah
sat.
"You are one of the Latter-Day Saints?" Susannah asked.
"I am, ma'am, and it's real strange to hear you say them words, for it's
'Mormons' the Gentiles calls us."
Then to her questioning he told the story of the downfall of Nauvoo.
"There was two causes for the persecution; we had got too powerful and
too great for the folks in Illinois, just as we had done in Missouri;
but there was another thing, and that was that wickedness crept in
amongst us. 'Twasn't as bad as was reported, though, but 'twas
there--I'm afraid 'twas there."
The man sighed.
"It's twelve years now since I joined the Saints in Missouri and when we
were driven out there I went with them to Illinois; and I can never
believe other but that the Latter-Day Saints has the truth, for the
power of it is always to be seen among them; and now that I've lost
everything a second time, and know that I have a sickness that I'll
never get the better of, I have come east to see my folks once more and
to testify to them of the truth."
He was going on into Vermont, passing by that way that he might refresh
his eyes with a view of the sacred hill, and had only remained at
Ephraim's request to relate his tidings to Susannah.
"After coming out of Missouri I never lived at Nauvoo. I had a farm
midways, between Nauvoo and Quincy. As near as I can make out, the
scandal they've got agen us, which they've always had agen us because of
the wickedness of the Gentile mind, began to have some truth in it when
Rigdon came out with his teaching concerning the nonsense of spiritual
wives, which wasn't new with him, for I hear that it's held among all
the folks as call themselves 'Perfectionists.' Well, our prophet made
pretty quick work of that doctrine, and he rebuked Rigdon in public and
private, and packed him out of the place, and no one can say that our
prophet has ever done otherwise with any one as has had notions about
marriage."
Susannah sighed. "I have heard that he has acted the same way in several
other instances."
"You have, ma'am? Well, it's strange, too, to hear a Gentile say a good
word for our prophet, but perhaps, as he came from here, ma'am, you may
be some relation of his; and I ask you, is it likely, as he's always
acted so severe in that matter, that he should have taught a false
doctrine himself? But even some of the Saints do say nowadays that he
was led away by some strange doctrines before he died; but, for my own
part, I believe that the tales have arisen from the sinful natures of
many of the men that he trusted; for he was too trustful, and there's
apostles and bishops and elders amongst us that are servants of hell.
There's been evil work since our prophet's martyrdom, for there's
thousands of our people now deluded by them and going out after Mr.
Brigham Young and his crew.
"You want to know how the prophet's death came about, and I can tell
you; for when my disease came on, and the doctor told me 'twas fatal, I
started to go up to Nauvoo to ask the prophet to lay his hands upon me
and heal me. But when I got there the city was all in a buzz, for the
cause that some of the elders had got out a paper accusing the prophet
of having a lot of ladies for wives. Well now, I can tell you how that
came about. When our prophet first got the charter for the Nauvoo Legion
there was a man called Bennet, who had been general in the American
army, and who was steeped in unbelief and ambition, and who came and
offered his services to the prophet, and was allowed to build up the
Nauvoo Legion. He was a most sinful man, and the prophet, he knew his
sinfulness, but thought that he ought to take any help to build up an
army to preserve his people from the fearful persecutions. Bennet got
hold of the worst side of the worst men we had in the Church, among
which was the new usurper." He paused here with ire in his eye. "I would
be understood to mean Mr. Brigham Young, who has falsely usurped the
prophet's place; but there are many of us who will not follow him, no,
not one step. The Lord will requite him and his confederates, and will
establish his true servants."
"I fear, my good friend," said Ephraim, "that although it is true that
the Lord will establish his true servants, it is also true that their
kingdom is not of this world."
"Well, sir, tramping along as I've done many a day, with no companion
but the disease that's prevailing against me, I've thought that that may
be true; but, whichever way it is, Bennet set himself to work iniquity,
and they say that when the prophet could endure him no longer and gave
him the sack, he had the vileness to dress himself up in the prophet's
clothes and go about in disguise, talking Sydney Rigdon's rank
spiritual-wife doctrine to the ladies and some of them were such fools
that they thought it was the prophet, and that he disguised his voice
and kept something over his face in order to work the iniquity in
secret. That's what a gentleman who knew very well about it told me. But
anyway, when Bennet was gone out he wrote awful things to the Gentile
newspapers concerning the domestic iniquities of Nauvoo; and he had his
own party in the sacred city, and they up and put their scandals in the
public print in the prophet's own city.
"But the prophet he rose up and shook himself, like Samson when his arms
were tied with the withes, and he denounced the wickedness, and went to
the house where the paper was published, and kicked the printing press
down himself, and burned the paper. And that day he preached most
powerful in the Nauvoo Temple."
"We heard that it was on account of the illegality of his action in the
printing office that the people of Illinois arrested him."
The stranger did not answer directly. His mind had passed on to scenes
which had stirred him more personally.
"I was in the city all the time. The Government of Illinois sent to
arrest Mr. Smith, but his people rallied round him, and said that in
consequence of the lawless persecutions that had passed in Missouri they
had a right to mistrust the justice of the State. They called out the
Nauvoo Legion, and sent back the constables that had come from
Carthage. That made the Gentiles terribly angry. The Illinois
militiamen went about saying openly that they would burn down the town
and kill every man, woman, and child in it. So then Governor Ford
himself advised our prophet to keep the Legion under arms, for he said
the Gentiles were so furious; but he asked the prophet to go to Carthage
and pledge himself to appear for the trial when it came on, for it was a
civil suit, and no harm could come to him and his. Governor Ford pledged
his honour as the Governor of the State.
"I had been waiting about the town until the prophet should be less
bothered before asking him to heal my sickness, but when I heard that he
was going away, then I misdoubted that it would be long before he came
back. I thought I'd make a push for it, so I went and hung round the
door of the prophet's house. I was only a poor man and I did not like to
go in, for the bishops and elders and all the grand folks were going in
and out all that day. I heard the things they said, and most of them
were saying that the prophet had had a vision, and that if he went to
Carthage he would never come back alive. They said too that if he
stayed, the town would be sacked, and I understood that they were asking
him to run away. Towards evening I saw a buggy draw up at the back door
of the hotel, and all the elders seemed to be holding a meeting, for
they were singing hymns; so then it just come to me that they were going
to get the prophet off, and I ran down the road to the ferry, for I
knew he would have to go that way. I waited in the boat, and the same
buggy came down to it, and a man with a cloak on and his hat over his
eyes came out and sat in the corner of the boat, and we all knew that it
was the prophet, and none of us durst speak to him. But I went over in
the boat, for I hoped I'd get up courage to ask him when we came to the
other side. When he stood on the shore he seemed like a man that didn't
know what to do, although there was horses there for him to take, and he
turned round and went off the road up on to a little hill; and I went
after him a bit of the way behind, and I came and found him just
standing looking at the city, for the river swept round two sides of it
so noble like, and blue as the sky above, and the city stood all white,
and the temple stood high in the middle, and all of it glistened in the
sun. The prophet had taken off his hat, and he stood with his hands
folded on the stick he carried, and he just looked and looked at the
city. I had never seen a man look like that but once before, and then it
was a man I knew whose wife died, and he looked at her face just
steadfast like that. I couldn't think to speak to him about myself just
then, although I'd got him alone, for my heart was just broke to see how
sad he looked, and him just in the prime of life; for it was his own
city, and the sound of all its work came over to us as we stood there,
and the thousands and thousands of happy homes in it belonged to his
own people.
"But when I moved a bit he saw me, and he started at first as if I'd
been going to shoot him, thinking no doubt that I was an enemy spying on
him. At that, because my disease had weakened me, and because I seemed
to feel nothing all through me but the grief that he was bearing, I
began to cry like a child.
"Then he stretched out his hands towards the city and I heard him say,
'My Lord, thou hast given me this people, and if I leave them without a
shepherd they will be stricken and scattered and robbed by the
destroyer.'
"So then in a few minutes he held out his hand to me, so gentlemanlike,
as if I was as good as him, and he said, 'Come, my friend, let us go
back, and let God determine what we shall do or suffer.' So we went and
got on the ferry-boat and went back, and I never spoke to him; but I
went with him all the way to his house.
"The next morning I heard that he and Mr. Hyrum were going to set off
for Carthage to be tried. So I got a horse and went to Carthage before
them, for I felt then that I cared for nothing but to see the prophet
again. But I heard tell how, as they went along, their wives and their
friends went with them part way, and they turned back two or three times
as they were parting from them, for the prophet said that they would
never see his face again.
"Governor Ford he met them at Carthage with a great to-do. He pledged
the honour of the State that they should be safe, and he had the troops
drawn upon either side, and he passed down between them with the prophet
and Mr. Hyrum and showed them himself into the gaol. The prophet said
that it was illegal to put them in the gaol, for it was a civil matter,
and Governor Ford said, for I heard him, that it was because they would
be safer there. I was standing just behind the line of soldiers jostling
up with the crowd, and I heard the Governor say, 'I pledge you my
honour, and the faith and honour of this State, that no harm shall come
to you while undergoing this imprisonment.' So then they were shut in;
but the crowd and the soldiers remained in the streets, and I heard
enough to know that harm would come.
"The next morning the Governor went away from Carthage, to be out of it,
and that day, in the afternoon, a mob of men with faces painted like
Indians came out with guns, and we knew that their purpose was to murder
the prophet. I went to the gaol and sat upon the steps, and the militia,
which was called the Carthage Greys, came out, and halted, about eight
rods from the gaol, and I thought at first that they would fire on the
mob when they came, but they never moved, but stood and looked on. So
the murder was done by them all in cold blood as well as by the mob."
"Did you see him die?" asked Susannah with white lips.
"If he was a relation of yours, ma'am, I can tell you that he died like
a man. First I thought that I would spend what little strength I had
left in fighting the mob at the door, and that they should not go in
except over my body; but the gaoler opened the door in pretence of
finding out what was the matter, for he was in the plot; so I thought
that I would run up and give warning. But by the time I got to the door
of the upper room where the prophet was, the mob was up behind me, so I
never rightly knew what I did, for they knocked me down just within the
room. There were four or five men with the prophet and Mr. Hyrum, and
these kept the mob back for a few minutes at the door, but a bullet hit
Mr. Hyrum in the head, and I saw the prophet leaning over him, and he
said in a voice that was very sad, 'My dear, dear brother!'
"Then the prophet stood up quite calmly and pulled out a pistol and shot
at the mob until all its barrels were discharged. His firing made the
men hold back, for a good number of the mob were struck. Then they came
on again until the door was literally full with muskets and rifles, but
I was lying on the floor below the shots, so I saw them pass over my
head. The very walls were riddled with them, and the prophet stood in
the midst of the shots and threw up his hands towards heaven and cried,
'O Lord, my God.' Then, not knowing what he did, he staggered to the
window, dying from his wounds, and he fell outside the window, and I
heard that the mob out there propped up his body and used it for a
target."
Susannah rose up with clenched hands and pitiful face, but she went out
of the room, leaving the two men together. "Were you injured?" asked
Ephraim of the stranger.
"Well, sir, I was bruised by being trampled on, but the gaoler got hold
of me and dragged me into an iron cell and locked me in, and the next
morning he came and let me out."
"That was a year ago," said Ephraim. "Have you been in Nauvoo since
then?"
"Yes, I went back. I wanted to know, sir, what would come, and take my
share of the suffering after seeing the prophet die so courageous; but,
sir, the Church is sorely divided. I didn't like to say it before your
lady, for I see that she's got some one she cares for amongst us, but
there's a strong party among the apostles and elders that are
worshippers of Baal, and are most evil in their conduct and practice,
and are apostate, though they call themselves followers of the prophet.
And Mr. Brigham Young is at the head of them. It's a bad thing that the
Illinois militia is set out to fight against us and turn us out of the
city without mercy, but it's a sorer thing that the greater part of our
people, being ignorant, will follow Mr. Brigham Young; and he's bent on
going west, sir, into the heart of the Rocky Mountains, where he can set
up a kingdom of his own. His teaching is against good doctrine in two
respects; he says that they will wax strong there until they can avenge
the blood of their brethren who have been hunted and slain, and that the
elders and apostles will live like the patriarchs of old, and have many
wives, in order to build up the Church."
"And has the other party in your sect no strength to resist?"
"Very little strength, sir, except that God is on the side of the
righteous; but Mrs. Smith, the prophet's widow, with his sons and many
hundreds of us, will not give in to the evil, but will stay in Illinois
and Missouri in face of the worst that persecution can do, for it was
thereabouts that the prophet said that the Holy City should be, and he
gave us no word to kill and destroy our fellow-men; and although perhaps
he was led away and sinned sometimes as other men do, it is a scandalous
lie to say that he thought to teach wickedness and falsehood to his
Church."
"I wonder," asked Ephraim within himself, "if that is true, or what
strange secret that troubled soul took with him to the other side of
death?"
In the evening after the stranger was gone Susannah sat with Ephraim in
the old doorway. Before them, mid the harvest fields, winding over hill
and dale, lay the long white road which led to the hill of Smith's early
visions--the road on which Susannah had set forth with Angel Halsey on
her wedding journey.
"You are a-weary, wife, to-night," said Ephraim. He smoothed the hair
upon her brow. "You have exhausted yourself with long weeping, and
yet--"
He did not say, "Have you reason to bemoan this man's tragic end?" for
he knew that more sacred memories had caused the tears; of these some
faint jealousy rose in his breast and kindness sealed his lips.
She told him the truth in very simple words such as loving women use.
"To-day I seemed to see" (she laid her hand across her knit brows) "all
the passion of it again, the wrong, the right, the misery--from the day
that Angel and I went out with such young passionate desire to divide
the right from the wrong. I could see Angel and my baby shot before my
eyes as Joseph Smith was shot. It is terrible to see death come that
way. But they are all three lying now in the perfect peace of death."
She put her hand in his. "Then, dear, my mind came back, from the rage
and terror of war. I thought of their peace and of you--how God has
healed my life by your love, and given me such joy. Is he not able to
provide for the healing of the nations?"
THE END.
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