The next morning, Diantha began at once with housewifely care to clean
and sweep her treasured dwelling. She scrubbed the kitchen floor,
already white and new; she polished the shining brass candlesticks;
she scoured the new tins, and as she worked she sang with gay abandon.
There was song in her heart, and it could not but bubble up to her lips.
These small chores were done all too soon; then she dusted and arranged
her modest belongings in the dainty "front room." After everything was
carefully "put to rights," she looked with the happy eyes of ownership
at the box, a plain, darkly-painted one, which had come clear from New
England to Nauvoo, and which held all her husband's belongings. She
would go through that, she said to herself, and see if there were any
little bits of mending to do, for of course John had no mother to take
care of his things.
She found everything folded with as exquisite neatness and care as
she herself could have given them, and in the small wooden "till" she
discovered many a little treasure. There were his small Bible and Book
of Mormon, which he always carried when out on his trips, with a small
rubber cup, also one of his traveling necessities. There was a box of
needles, pins, and cotton which Dian appropriated gleefully, whispering
to her own happy heart that her dear John should never need to put them
to use again. She carefully brushed and folded away all the modest
stores of clothing, and then she came to a small packet, on the bottom
of the trunk, and wrapped up in a paper which was marked "Private."
It never occurred to Dian, for she was not much of a novel-reader,
that there was anything mysterious in the packet; she knew her lover
husband too well. She laid that out on the stand under the window, for
she wanted John, himself, to show her all its contents, and she knew he
would.
Ah, the happiness of that morning, for that blessed girl! Who could
portray the bliss of her soul! It was a simple thing, the opening of
a homely box, filled with homely articles, but they were the precious
belongings of the one man in all creation to that girl-wife, and she
felt that the little act, simple as it was, represented her taking
formal possession of John and all that he could ever own. He was hers
now, as perfectly as she was his.
John came in and found her on the floor, still dreaming over her future.
"Well?" he asked.
"Oh, John, I have just been looking over all your things; and I am so
happy."
John did not exactly see what there was in so little a thing as that
to give her so much joy, but saying nothing, as usual, he sat down and
held out his arms for her to come to him. Then she brought the little
packet, and with one of his quiet smiles, John unwrapped the little
parcel and showed her his choicest treasures.
"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, as she held up a small, rather indistinct
daguerreotype of herself and Ellen with their arms fixed primly around
each other.
"I remember that," and her eyes streamed with sad tears in memory of
Ellen. "I have one just like it. How did you get one? Aunt Clara has
Ellie's."
"I bought it," laconically answered John.
Dian cried a moment, and then he gave her the four letters he had put
away as the most precious of all his keepsakes. There was one from the
Prophet Joseph Smith to his dead father, one from President Brigham
Young to himself, one from his sainted mother, and a tiny little note
of her own, written when she was only a girl of fourteen.
"Why, John, what on earth have you kept that little scrawling note for?
I can just remember writing it to you in school one day, in answer to
your own written invitation to go to a party."
"It is the only line you ever wrote to me, how can I help keeping it?"
"John," she said, facing him and looking him in the eyes, "do you mean
to tell me that you liked me away long ago, when I was a little girl?"
He had never told her the story which he had confided to Aunt Clara.
So he did not answer at once, but at length said, in his most drawling
fashion:
"Do you think I would ask a girl to go to a party if I did not like
her?"
"Now, John dear, you are not going to bother me in that way. I want
you to tell just how long you have liked me, you know, loved me, in a
really truly way?"
It seemed to cost John a little effort to answer, for he loved silence,
especially when he was put upon the witness stand. However, he answered
at last, taking her face between his hands as he spoke, and kissing
both pink cheeks:
"I think I have loved you, sweetheart, since we sang together with
the morning stars and shouted in unison with our companions when the
foundations of this earth were laid."
"But on this earth, John; what about this earth?"
"Well, I can hardly answer. If you were to ask me when I did not
love you, I could tell you--never. Ever since I saw you, a tiny,
silver-haired tot of a girl, I felt that you were apart and separate
from everything human for me, and I loved you."
John, with his every-day clothes on, was out in the lot daily that
fall, plowing and planting for his little wife. He said little. John
never was a talker; but he proved by his constant labors that no
unnecessary task should be put upon the slender hands of his wife.
Wood, kindlings--why, Diantha used to laugh and say that John was
getting in a supply to last five years. Gentle assistance also he often
silently rendered in her many household tasks. She used to order him
away, but he knew the feet must get weary, after a hard day's work;
and Diantha had much to do, to spin, weave, color and prepare their
clothes for the coming winter. Outside her door, the yard was packed,
and wetted down, and swept, until Diantha declared she could trail her
wedding dress over it without harm.
It was amusing to see him out at his work, driving his team across and
around the lot; and then, when Diantha came out, as she very often
did, singing as she came, he would stop and look over at her with a
gleam of rapturous love in his eyes, while he would wait until she
threw the dainty kiss she was sure to toss before she went inside the
house. Sometimes he could not resist the spell, and tying up his team
he would saunter after her, and once at the door, stand wiping his brow
meditatively.
"John Stevens," she would cry, "what have you left your work for, and
what do you want, sir?"
And then he would go up, and putting his hand under her chin, he would
draw up her face to his own bent lips and kiss her saucy red lips,
while he said sometimes, in answer to her mocking question, "I only
want to look at my wife."
Then she would be silenced, for that sweet word "wife" always poured
over her soul such a flood of happiness that she could not speak for a
time. At other times John would beg his wife to sing him one song, or
to thread a tune on the mystic ivory keys, and he would let his soul go
out to God and his wife on the sound-waves that beat upon his throbbing
breast. Ah, John had much to thank God for, and he knew it!
One Sabbath day, as usual, they both dressed in their simple, homely
best, and together walked up to the Tabernacle; Diantha felt as if
she were walking upon air. She looked up at her big, sober, gentle,
masterful and yet tender husband, and she knew there was not his
superior in all Zion. How proudly she sat in the congregation while
John paced his slow way to the stand, for he had lately been appointed
to an important position in the Church. Her heart echoed every word of
the ringing homely hymn, "Do What Is Right," and she thanked God that
she had been helped by His matchless power to follow the simple but
noble advice.
Elder Orson Pratt, who spoke, dwelt upon some of the peculiar beliefs
of the Saints, and then launched out upon the great topic of marriage,
and spoke with mighty power upon the eternity of the marriage covenant.
Diantha's heart swelled with rapture to know that she and John had been
sealed by the power and authority of the Priesthood for time and for
all eternity. And to think that three short months ago she had been so
full of grave misgivings as to whether John would ever seek her again,
for he had made no sign for the two whole years of his missionary life!
How she had grown in these two years, to love the sound of his slow,
drawling voice, the glance of his keen, beautiful, yet gentle eyes.
How ardently she listened to the mere mention of his name by others.
She would sit with her heart all a-tremble if his name were being
discussed. And now to think he was all her own! For time and for all
eternity! Oh, God, what bliss divine!
The speaker touched upon the privileges of parents who bear children
under the new and everlasting covenant. What a thrill of joy swept
over her as she thought that she would some day be mother to John's
children! Her heart almost ceased its beating for a moment, it was so
new and so beautiful to think of. She looked up at John as the thought
came, and he must have been led to the same reflection, for he had
turned from the speaker and was looking at her with a love in his eyes
which she could see from where he sat; and she colored, half with joy,
half with modest shrinking, as she dropped her eyes and sat still for a
moment.
"John," she said, as they were walking home at noon, "what a beautiful
sermon Brother Pratt preached this morning."
"Yes," assented John.
"And, John, what a happy thought, that I--that we--that--I, that--"
John could not speak, he was too full of emotion to say a word; but
when they had entered their own door, and closed themselves from the
gaze of the public, he took her in his arms and held her close to his
own throbbing heart, and said in her ear, "The mother of my children.
For time and in all eternity."
* * * * *
Let us leave them now. We like the last view of our friends to be the
brightest and best. This much, however, must be told, that John and
Diantha are as happy today, although in the whitened years of old age
and long experience, as they were in those early days of their newly
wedded love.
One day when I asked John to tell me about his courting days, he
answered gravely, putting his arms around the motherly shoulders of his
wife:
"Why, I have just begun to court my wife. It takes a man a long time to
get ready, and then the courting, to be well done, must never end, but
continue throughout the long eternities."
Transcriber's Note:
Some obvious printer's errors have been corrected as seemed reasonable,
such as certain punctuation errors (like omitted periods, periods to
commas or semi-colons to commas, and some mismatched quotation marks).
Some inconsistent or obvious spelling errors or typos within the text
were also corrected (e. g. merily to merrily, cariages to carriages,
we'l to we'll, acording to according, Stevvens to Stevens, Govenor to
Governor, Congresss to Congress, cheeful to cheerful, rythm to rhythm,
etc.).