At the time of this story (in 1857-8) there stood in Salt Lake City,
in the Thirteenth Ward, a small adobe house of four rooms, with the
tiny square-framed windows, set at regular intervals from a central
brilliantly green door which gayly faced the street. Not only was the
green door rare because of its extremely unconventional color; it was
also unusual in its quick response of welcome to black or white, bond
or free, in a place where welcome grew more lavishly than did the grass
in the streets. There was something so aggressively bright about that
loudly painted door that even the Indians grew to love its restful
color and the atmosphere that it betokened for all who pushed ever so
lightly at its ready portals. The green was such a happy blending of
the dark shades of the cool pine with the yellowed masses of creeping
mosses that one's eyes were rested just to glance at it. None who
passed within could fail to recognize that some one out of the ordinary
lived behind those gaudy yet pleasing door-panels. The poor, the sick,
the halt, the lame and the blind, all learned the ease with which that
bright door opened, and the wealth of gentle welcome which spoke in
the brighter eyes of dear old widowed Aunt Clara Tyler. The Indians,
too, knew where they would receive plenty of "shutcup," and if one had
a bruise or a wound, only Aunt Clara's hand could soothe and dress, to
the complete satisfaction, the injured member.
Dear Aunt Clara! The mind traces in golden light her lovely picture.
Bright and black were her eyes, but never sharp and cruel; she had a
sweet mouth and the blackest of hair. She was short and very stout; but
who ever saw aught but the lovely spirit which was enshrined within her
active body. People used to wonder why Aunt Clara had no enemies, and
why everything animate looked to her for succor and protection. The
secret could all be told in two words--womanly sympathy, such sympathy
as the noblest of women and the purest of angels can bestow; a sympathy
which never encouraged evil because it made a sharp distinction
between sin and sinner, but which drew the whole sting from the wound
before dropping in the needed tonic of wise counsel, and covering all
softly with the vial of loving tenderness. That was the secret of her
popularity with young and old in the whole neighborhood.
She had no children of her own, which enabled her to be mother to the
whole town. But her dead sister's child, Ellen, was as dear to her as
an own child, while she had a deep and abiding love and confidence
in the other motherless girl, Diantha Winthrop. She had no money of
her own, and being a widow, she had few old clothes or supplies to
dispose of; yet, someway, she was a veritable Relief Society. These
organizations were not then in working order; and dozens of mothers
with big broods of children could have told how Aunt Clara's winning
voice and manner drew from them all the half-worn clothes they could
possibly spare; and how such a mother would laugh as she saw some
podgy Lamanite squaw going down the street with her own jean skirt on,
patched by Aunt Clara's thrifty fingers and clean for the last time in
all its final mournful existence. It was quite natural for the Bishop
to send ragged children or newly arrived emigrants to knock at Aunt
Clara's friendly green door, for help, spiritual or temporal.
No wonder, then, that the night after the return from the celebration
in Cottonwood Canyon, a dozen young people sat in the comfortable
rush-bottomed chairs within the opened portals; and while Aunt Clara
moved quietly among them, putting the finishing touches to her evening
work, they talked with excited voices of the impending danger.
Aunt Clara saw that something was necessary to drive away the alarm.
Going into her bedroom, she drew out six large skeins of woolen yarn.
"Here, girls, I have a chore for you to do. I want this yarn wound off
for it is to be knitted up at once. Boys, you can help by holding the
yarn nicely and properly, and the one who is done the soonest shall
have one of the dough-nuts left over from my pic-nic."
"What's this for; to knit stockings for our soldiers?" asked Diantha,
who was, as usual, the center of the group.
"It's to knit socks for the Bishop and the boys; I am sure I don't
know, nor do I care, whether they go out to fight as the defenders of
our country or not. It will be all right whatever they do. Didn't you
hear President Young say that God would fight our battles for us? Let
that be sufficient."
"Don't you think we are going to have a war, Aunt Clara?" ventured
timid Millie Howe, who was one of the group.
"No, I don't. Of course I don't know all the facts of the case, but I
have heard President Young say many times since we entered the Valley
that we should not have to fight any more battles, for God would fight
them for us. I have perfect faith in his word."
"Nevertheless, Aunt Clara," said a voice at the open window, "I want to
borrow your father's old Revolutionary musket, which you keep hanging
up over your bed."
Two or three girls screamed at the suddenness of the sound, and the
young men started in their seats.
"Oh, John Stevens, why do you frighten us like that?" called Ellen.
"Come here and give an account of yourself. Where have you been since
you left us in the canyon, and what did you leave us so unceremoniously
for?"
"Business, business," answered the young man, entering the room as he
spoke. "What are you all doing here, winding yarn as peacefully and
calmly as if there were nothing of more importance on earth."
"Well, is there anything of more importance, John?" asked Tom Allen.
"Think of it, man, holding yarn for the prettiest girl in Salt Lake.
I know what ails you, you have no yarn to hold. Here, Aunt Clara,
give him some yarn to hold, and there is Ellen. She can wind up that
slow-moving tongue of his at the same time."
"The yarn around and round she slung
To make him loose his sluggish tongue,"
cried Charlie Rose, tauntingly.
"Oh, John, do tell us the news. Don't bother with Tom and Charlie; tell
us the news," Ellen persisted.
"If Aunt Clara will give me one of her dough-nuts, I will tell all the
news I have to tell."
"Why don't you say that you will tell all there is to tell, John; you
are so non-committal?" chimed in Diantha, who understood how much and
how little might be expected in the way of telling or talking from John
Stevens.
Aunt Clara went out and brought in a pan of dough-nuts and a pitcher of
milk, which kept the young people too busy for a few minutes to talk
anything but nonsense.
"If I could find a girl that could make as good dough-nuts as you can,
Aunt Clara," said Tom Allen, with his mouth half-full of cake, "I would
marry her tomorrow."
"Would you, indeed," cried Ellen Tyler. "Then you must learn that
catching comes before hanging. I made those dough-nuts myself, young
impudence, while Aunt Clara was fitting my dress to wear up in the
canyon."
"Ellie, I shall certainly have to take you as my wife. You know that
I have already been engaged several times. But you shall have the
privilege of being my very last sweetheart. The last is best, you know,
of all the game. You are second to none in the matter of dough-nuts.
Please, Ellie, give me another fried cake."
"Another plate-full, you mean. I certainly shall not accept your offer,
for if I did I should have nothing else to do the rest of my life but
fry dough-nuts for you."
"Ellie, haven't you heard that the nearest way to a man's heart is--"
"Oh, don't say such horrid things. We all know where your heart lies,
Tom, so don't bother to tell us," said Dian, with a disgusted air.
"What on earth is the matter with me," began Tom, rising in mock
indignation from his chair, but the girls cried out in dismay, and John
Stevens, who sat nearest the offending youth, pulled him down into
his seat again, and growled at him in so low a voice that no one but
Tom could hear him, "There is nothing the matter with you, only you
make yourself a little too prominent." And John indicated his friend's
adipose with a slight blow. Tom was so tickled with the joke that he
determined to repeat it even if the girls should be more shocked than
ever, but Aunt Clara came in and asked John to tell them the news of
the army.
"Yes, there is really an army en route for Utah, but they will forever
be en route, either to Utah," after a pause, he added under his breath,
"or to hell."
"What are they coming here for?" asked Aunt Clara, again.
"No one knows, unless it is to rob and murder us again, as mobs have
tried to do so often before."
"And will they do it?" breathlessly asked Ellen.
"Not this year," grimly answered John. "There is only one entrance into
this valley, through the canyon. And forty men could hold an army at
bay for a year in our canyons."
"But, John, where are they? and how many are there of them? and when
will they get here? and who is going out to meet them and fight them,
and--"
"Well, Ellie, we shall give you the credit of asking more questions in
a minute than even President Young could answer in a day. Say, boys,
where is Henry Boyle?"
"Henry Boyle, did you say, Henry Boyle?" and Tom Allen, who had thus
repeated the question, began to laugh, and as he laughed he fairly
tumbled off his chair in his efforts to control his merriment. The
others smiled and some even laughed aloud to see fat Tom laugh, for his
merriment was always as contagious as a clown's.
"Do tell us what is the matter with Henry Boyle?" snapped Diantha, at
last, worn out by his long continued, mysterious laughter.
"Oh, dear, I forget all about it, this war talk drove it all out of
my head. But it is too ridiculous for anything," and he went off into
another peal of laughter and exhausted himself, before they could calm
him down to tell his story.
"You see, early this morning, far too early, it could not have been
more than half an hour after sunrise, I was just taking my last beauty
sleep, when a little boy rapped at my door; and when I succeeded in
tearing myself from the arms of Morpheus sufficiently to find out what
he wanted, he said Brother Boyle wanted to see me. I got myself over
to Henry's and on entering the room," here another burst of laughter
rendered Tom speechless for a moment, "there lay Henry on his bed, his
legs stretched out and covered with his hard shrunken buckskin pants.
I don't know where he got those pants, but they were not half tanned,
and yesterday after that fall in the lake with them, fringes and all,
he slept in them, for he said he could not get them off; and he had to
let Charlie Rose drive the folks down in the wagon, while he coaxed
another family to let him travel down in the bottom of their wagon, for
he couldn't bend his knees. He got on to his bed someway, and there he
lies. He wanted me to help him out of his scrape, for he says he can
not afford to lose his precious pants; they cost him too much."
"What did you tell him to do?" asked Ellen.
"Oh, I ordered him to live on fresh air and cold water for three days,
so his legs would shrink, and then left him to time and fate."
"I am ashamed of you, Tom Allen, for treating anybody so, especially
one who is a comparative stranger to these mountains and our customs."
"Oh, Dian, if you are going to lecture me, I shall have to have another
of Aunt Clara's dough-nuts."
"Come, my dears," said Aunt Clara, "sing me a hymn. Here is Harvey with
his concertina, and he will help you. Sing 'O, ye mountains high',"
and then, gradually quieting down, the young people joined in that
thrilling hymnal of Mormon independence. Strange people they were, with
strange notions of life and destiny.
"Well, I am going home," announced Diantha, at last, and she arose at
once to get her hat.
John Stevens took up his own hat quietly at her words, and she was
pleased that he did so, for she wanted to ask him more about the coming
trouble, and she knew that he would say nothing of importance in that
crowd.
"You asked me to stay all night with you, Dian, do you want me to come
home with you now?" queried Ellen Tyler.
Half annoyed that Ellen had thus rendered it impossible for her to
speak alone with John, Dian was yet too courteous to let her friend
know of her feelings. As soon as Ellen started out Tom Allen snatched
up his hat, and so Dian had to accept the double interruption of her
anticipated confidential talk.
There was no such a thing as quiet or sensible talk with Tom Allen and
Ellie along; but just before they reached her gate, Dian managed to ask
John quietly to go down to Henry Boyle and release him from the effects
of Tom Allen's cruel fun.
John parted with them all, and after a brief visit with Henry Boyle,
wended his way to President Young's office, where he was soon deep
in council with his leaders and the associated friends of the Nauvoo
Legion.
The middle of August found John Stevens enlisted as one of a small,
trusty band of Utah mountaineers under Colonel Robert T. Burton, with
faces set to the east, where they were soon out of sight and sound of
civilization, riding toward the coming troops.