THE CITY OF SAINTS.
Here they are met by Mr. Oliver Livingston, who has a carriage in
waiting. To his anxious questioning as to how they had missed the train,
and had fared during the night in Ogden, Miss Travenion says shortly,
"First my father; is he not here with you?" and looks about the depot
with scrutinizing eyes. A moment after she continues hurriedly, "Your
mother received my telegram?"
"Yes," remarks Ollie. "It arrived just in time to save mamma from a
fainting fit."
"And you did not communicate it to my father?"
"No," returns Mr. Livingston; "that was impossible. He was not at the
station here. At all events, I did not see him, as I would undoubtedly
have, if he had been waiting for you."
"Then he cannot have been in town," cries Erma, her pretty lips pouting
with disappointment, for Mr. Livingston is very well acquainted with Mr.
Travenion by sight, having seen that gentleman on some of his visits to
New York.
While this colloquy has been going on, Ferdie and Harry have been
conversing apart. Miss Travenion now turns to them, and seeing that
Ollie does not recognize her protector of the night before, says,
rapidly, but earnestly, "Mr. Livingston, you must remember Captain
Lawrence on the train. He was very kind to me last night and took good
care of me. You should thank him also."
The latter part of this speech has been made in some embarrassment, for
the young men are looking at each other with by no means kindly eyes.
Its last sentence makes them enemies, for Livingston, who had already
been slightly jealous of the attentions of the Westerner to the young
lady he regards even now as his _fiancee_, becomes very jealous, and
Lawrence, who has somehow formed the shrewd idea that there is some
connection between Miss Travenion and the son of her chaperon,
interprets the "You should thank him also," for indication of engagement
and future marriage between the pair, and from this moment takes that
kind of a liking to Mr. Livingston a man generally has for a rival who
is more blessed by circumstance and position in matters pertaining to
his suit--which generally means envious hate.
Being compelled to social truce, at least in the presence of the young
lady, the two men are obliged to recognize each other and acknowledge
the re-introduction. This Livingston does by a rather snarly "How are
yer?" and Lawrence by a nod of indifference.
Then Miss Travenion gives an additional pang to Mr. Livingston, for she
says: "Captain, another request. You know Salt Lake very well? You are
acquainted with some of the journals?"
"One only," remarks Harry. "The Salt Lake _Tribune_,--the Gentile
newspaper."
"Then you can do me a favor," returns Erma. "My father apparently has
not received my telegram. Would you take care that a notice of my
arrival is inserted prominently in that paper, so that if papa is in
town, he will see it; if in any of the mining camps or settlements
about here, it may reach his eye. The sooner I behold him, the happier I
shall be."
"Any request from you will be a command to me," says Lawrence, eagerly.
"The announcement shall be made in the _Tribune_, but it cannot be until
to-morrow morning. If I can aid you in any other way, please do not fail
to call upon me." To this he adds hurriedly: "I shall leave town early
this afternoon for Tintic Mining District, but shall return in three
days."
"Very well," answers the young lady. "Do not forget that we stop at the
Townsend House, where I shall always be most happy to see you." She
emphasizes her invitation by so cordial a grasp of the hand, and Harry
returns it so heartily, that Mr. Oliver Livingston pulls down his
immaculate shirt-cuffs in anguish and rage.
This is not decreased by Ferdie's admiring remark: "Ain't the Cap a high
stepper!" as the party step into the carriage and drive away.
They are soon at the corner of West Temple and South Second Streets, and
find themselves in front of a rather rambling two-story house with an
attic attachment, at this time the principal hotel in Salt Lake City,
for in 1871 the Walker House is not yet built. It has a generally yellow
appearance, though its windows are protected from the sun by green
Venetian blinds.
Alighting here, Miss Travenion is informed that Mrs. Livingston is not
yet up, and going to her room, lies down, it being still quite early in
the day, while her maid unpacks her trunks and arranges her dresses.
Though fatigued by her long railroad trip, sleep does not come to Erma,
for thoughts of her father are upon her; and after a little, growing
anxious on this subject, she springs up, and says: "I'll look for him!"
So, making a hasty but effective toilet, robed in a dainty summer dress,
the girl stepping to the window, looks out and cries: "How pretty!" for
she is gazing upon Salt Lake City on an October day, which is as
beautiful as any day can be, save a May day, when there is a little less
dust on the streets and a little more water in the rivulets that course
through them.
All round her are houses embowered in green foliage, and broad streets,
also planted with trees, and streams of living water, fresh from the
melting snows of the Wahsatch, coursing by their sidewalks where gutters
would be in ordinary towns.
In these streets there is a curious, heterogeneous life, the like of
which she has never seen before. Immediately below her, in front of the
hotel, men of many climes lounge about the unpaved sidewalk, most of
them seated, their feet against the trees that line its side, each man
smoking a cigar, the aromas of which, as they float up to her, seem to
be pleasant.
Most of these are mining speculators from California, the East, and
Europe; as their voices rise to her, she catches tones similar to those
she has heard in Delmonico's from travelling Englishmen. For the Emma
mine is in its glory; and much British capital has floated into this
Territory, to be invested in the silver leads of the great mountains
that cut off her view to the east, and the low ranges that she can see
to the south and west; a good deal of it never to return to London
again; for, of all the speculators of many nations who have invested in
American securities, stocks, bonds, mining properties and beer
interests, none have so rashly and so lavishly squandered their money as
the speculators of merry England. These have sometimes been allured to
financial discomfort by Yankee shrewdness, but more often have been
betrayed by the ignorance or carelessness or rascality of those whom
they have sent from their native isle to represent them, who have judged
America, Western mines and Yankee business methods by England, Cornish
lodes and the financial conditions that prevail in Thread-Needle Street.
Two or three hacks and carriages, such as are seen in the East, stand in
front of the hotel, while in the street before her move some big mule
teams, laden with bars of lead and silver, from some smelter on the
Jordan, and a little further on is a wagon of the prairies, covered with
the mud and dust of long travel, driven by some Mormon who has come up
from the far southern settlements of Manti, or Parowan, or the pretty
oasis towns of Payson or Spanish Fork or some other garden spot by the
side of the fresh waters of Utah Lake, to go through the rites of the
Endowment House, and take unto himself another wife; paying well for the
ceremonies in farm produce.
Looking over this scene, the girl murmurs, "How peaceful--how
beautiful!" and next, "How wonderful," and a moment after, gazing at the
great Mormon Tabernacle, she mutters, "How awful!" for in the two hours
passed upon the train coming from Ogden to Salt Lake, Harry Lawrence has
told her, as delicately as a young man can tell a maiden, of this
peculiar city into which she has just come, and she knows quite well the
peculiar creed of the Church of Latter-Day Saints.
She has learnt how this sect, founded upon the so-called revelation from
the Almighty, made to Joseph Smith, and Hyrum, his brother, in about
1847, driven out from Illinois and afterwards from Missouri, had left
civilization behind them, and passing over a thousand of miles of
prairie and mountain, inhabited only by savage Indians and trappers and
hunters, had come by ox-teams, on horseback, by hand carts and on foot,
enduring for long months all the privations and dangers of the
wilderness, to this far-off valley to build a Mormon empire. For that is
surely what their leaders had hoped.
The civilization of the East seemed to them so far off a hundred years
might not bring it to them, across those boundless rolling prairies and
that five hundred miles of mountain country. To the West were more
deserts, and beyond a land scarcely known at that time, and inhabited
only by Indians, save where some Mexican mission stood surrounded by its
little orchard and vineyard, in that land that is now called California.
In this hope of empire, the Mormon leaders had built up polygamy, which,
having been begun for lust, they now preached, continued, and fostered
to produce the power that numbers give. For this reason the order had
been given, "Increase and multiply, that you may cover the land," and it
was cried out from pulpit and tabernacle "that Utah's best crop was
children;" and missionaries and Mormon propagandists were sent out over
both Europe and America to make converts to the new religion. So, many
Scandinavians, Welsh and English, were taken into the faith and came to
live in the Utah valleys, and thought this religion of Joseph Smith a
very good one--for they were chiefly the scum of Europe--and now had
land to cultivate and plenty with which to fill their stomachs, while in
their native lands they had often hungered.
For the Mormon hierarchy hoped, in the distant future, when the
civilization from the Eastern States had reached them, to be increased
by immigration and multiplication from thousands into millions; and
peopling the whole land, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, to be
strong enough to dominate Mexico if she dared complain of their
occupation of North California, and even to give battle to these United
States of America.
And to the eyes of Brigham and his satellites came the dream of a Mormon
empire, holding dominion over the Pacific, ruled over by the Priesthood
of the faith of Joseph Smith and the Council of Seventies, and above
them the President and Vice-President, descendants of Brigham Young and
Heber Kimball and others high in rank and power in the theocracy of the
so-called Latter-Day Saints.
All of these plans might have borne fruit and have been realized had it
not been that one day in 1848 gold was discovered near Sutter's Fort in
California, and the rush of adventurers to the western El Dorado peopled
its fertile valleys and mineral-bearing mountains and great
grain-raising plains with a population who worshipped Jehovah and not
Joe Smith. Then the Mexican war having given Arizona and Texas and the
Pacific States to the United States, Brigham Young and his emigrants
found themselves surrounded and cut off in and about the valley of Salt
Lake. But still they continued to increase and multiply and make the
desert about them fertile and populated, still hoping to be strong
enough to resist foreign domination, for they regarded the United States
as such, and treated its laws, if not as null and void, at least as
secondary to the commands of their prophet and priesthood, until one day
in 1862 Pat Conner and his California Volunteers marched in from the
Humboldt, and crossing the Jordan, despite the threats of the Mormon
leaders, set up the United States flag at Camp Douglas.
Then Mormon hopes, from that of independent empire, fell to the wish to
be simply left alone, to do as they pleased in their own country, as
they termed it, and to follow out the revelations of their prophets,
taking unto themselves as many wives as they chose, unhindered by the
United States laws.
But in 1869, when the Central and Union Pacific Railways were opened,
bringing in a horde of Gentiles from all the corners of the world to
delve in their mountains for gold, silver and lead, then the struggle of
the Mormon theocracy became one not for power, but even for existence.
It is just in this state as Erma gazes at its metropolis.
This last great fight of the Mormon Church is being made without the
sacrifice and the cutting off from the face of the earth of their
enemies, for though the prophets of Zion would preach "blood atonement"
to their followers with as much gusto in 1871 as they did twenty years
before, when they cut off the Morrisites, root and branch, or in 1857,
when, headed by John D. Lee, they massacred one hundred and thirty-three
emigrants, men, women and children, or in 1866, when they assassinated
Dr. Robinson, luring him from his own door on a professional errand of
mercy to a wounded man, as well as many other murders, "cuttings off
behind the ears" and "usings up," done in the name of the Lord and in
pursuit of mammon, lust and power, at such various times and places as
seemed good, safe and convenient to the Apostles; still, even before
1871 the rush of Gentile immigration and the United States troops at
Camp Douglas had taught them caution in their slaughterings.
Most of this has been explained to Miss Travenion by her escort and
mentor of the morning, but he has not descanted very minutely upon
Celestial Marriage, which permits a man to take wives not only for this
world, but also to have any number of others sealed to him for eternity;
the doctrine that woman takes her rank in Heaven according to the
station and glory of her husband. That under these theories, men have
often taken two sisters to wife, and sometimes even mother and daughter.
That a great part of the theory, as also the practice, of the Saints of
Latter Days, is founded upon the social degradation of woman. All these
things she does not know, though she will perchance some day learn more
fully concerning them.
But the day is too sunny and bright for meditation, and the soft breeze
from the Wahsatch incites Erma to action. Just then there is a light
feminine knock on her door, and Louise's voice cries merrily: "Hurry,
Erma; mamma is down-stairs at breakfast and wants to see you. She has so
many questions to ask. Ferdie has just told her about his being saved
from death by Captain Lawrence, and is singing his praises."
Being perhaps anxious to sing the young Western man's praises herself,
Miss Travenion, with a happy laugh, trips out and kisses Louise, and the
two girls run down to the dining-room, where they find Mrs. Livingston
still pale and palpitating over Ferdie's escape, though apparently with
a very good appetite, notwithstanding Mr. Chauncey has made his
narrative very highly colored, stating that he had knocked the desperado
down and would have done him up if it had not been for his bowie-knife.
"All the same," he adds, just as Erma seats herself at the table, "that
Lawrence is a regular thoroughbred--a Western hero, and saved my life in
that barroom."
"I should think you would be ashamed of yourself," says Mr. Livingston,
airily, during pauses in his breakfast, "to admit associating with
barroom loafers!"
"Barroom loafers?" cries Erma. "Whom do you mean?" and she looks at
Ollie in so resolute and defiant a manner that he hesitates to take up
the cudgels with her.
Therefore he mutters rather sulkily, "Oh, if you are going to make this
Lawrence your hero I have nothing more to say," and glumly pitches into
the beefsteak that is in front of him; but, all the same, hates Harry a
little more than he has ever done.
Anxious to put an end to a discussion which does her son no good in the
eyes of the young lady she regards as his _fiancee_, Mrs. Livingston
proposes a sight-seeing drive about the city.
"You will come with us, Erma?" she adds.
"With pleasure," answers the girl. "Perhaps on the main street I may see
papa."
"By Jove," laughs Ferdie. "You're always thinking of papa now. But you
forgot him a _little_--last night at Ogden, eh?"
To this insinuation Erma answers nothing, but rises from the table with
a heightened color on her cheeks.
Noticing this, Mrs. Livingston thinks it just as well that her
_protegee_ sees no more of the Western mining man, and is rather
relieved when Mr. Chauncey informs her Captain Lawrence has departed for
Tintic, and will not return for several days.
Then they take a long drive about the city, the hackman condescendingly
acting as _cicerone_ to the party, and pointing out the Tabernacle and
the proposed Temple, the foundations of which have just been laid, and
the Endowment House and the Tithing Office, and the Beehive and Lion
House, in which Brigham Young, the president of the Latter-Day Saints,
keeps the major portion of his harem; though he has houses and wives
almost all over the Territory.
Next, coming down from Eagle Gate, they pass the Mormon theatre with its
peculiar classic front made up of two different kinds of Greek
architecture, and so on to East Temple Street, by Godby's drug store,
and the great block of Zion's Mercantile Co-operative Institution, till
they come to Warden Bussey's Bank, upon which Erma and Mr. Livingston
have letters of credit.
So they enter here, draw some money, and are kindly received by Mr.
Bussey himself, their letters from the East bringing them favor in this
Gentile banker's eyes, who has just made a large fortune by speculating
in Emma stock. He shows them over the new banking-house he has just
erected, and tells them he is going to open it with a grand ball, and
hopes they will come to the same; remarking that Mrs. Bussey will call
upon them and do all she can for their entertainment during their stay
in this Western city.
Then they return to the Townsend House, but during all this drive,
though Erma Travenion's eyes, which are quite far-sighted, have searched
the passing crowd of speculators, Mormons and Western business men,
seeking for one form and one face--her father's--she has not seen it. As
the afternoon passes she becomes more impatient, and says, "I have lost
a day in which his dear face might have been beside me."
Then an idea coming to her, she mutters: "Why did I not think of it
before? I will go where I address my father's letters; there they will
know where he is." And calling a hack, says to the driver, "The Deseret
Co-operative Bank!"
Arriving there, shortly before the hour of closing, three o'clock, she
hurriedly asks the paying-teller if he can tell her the address of Mr.
Ralph Travenion.
To her astonishment, the man answers quite politely that he does not
know the individual.
"Why, I have directed a hundred letters to him here," she says
hurriedly, surprise in her voice, and a moment after asks: "Can I see
the cashier or the president?"
"Certainly. The president is in."
In an inner office, she meets the head of the bank, and to her question
as to whether he knows the address of Ralph Travenion, he hesitates a
moment--then answers that they frequently have letters addressed to
their care, though they do not always keep run of the parties who call
for them.
"Very well," replies the young lady. "Would you be kind enough to give
orders to this effect, that in case Mr. Travenion calls, or sends for
his letters, that he is to be informed that Mr. Travenion's daughter is
at present at the Townsend House waiting anxiously to see him?"
"Ah, you are Mr. Travenion's daughter," replies the official, as he
shows her politely to the door and puts her in her carriage, a rather
curious expression coming over his face as he gazes after the beautiful
girl as she is driven away; for this bank is a Mormon one, and its
president is well up in the Church of Zion, and knows a good deal of the
counsels and doings of its leaders and nearly every one else in Salt
Lake City.
Then the evening comes, and the whole party go to the old Salt Lake
Theatre, where Mr. Ollie's dress-coat makes a great sensation, such
costume not being usual in the Mormon temple of Thespis; this
gentleman's entrance being greeted by a very audible buzz from the
female portion of the audience.
Here they see the arm-chair that is placed conspicuously in the
orchestra, for the use of the President of the Mormon Church; likewise,
a third of the dress circle, which is his family's private box. This
portion of the auditorium is pretty well occupied by some of his wives
and his numerous progeny, as well as a number of the daughters and
plural help-mates of other leaders and prophets of Zion, who drop in
upon them and pass the compliments of the season and talk of the crops
and Bishop Jenkins's last wife.
The performance on the stage is composed of a couple of light comedies,
very passably given by a Mormon stock company, several of them being
members of President Young's family, one or two of whom have since
emigrated to the Gentile stage and secured recognition upon the boards
of New York and San Francisco.
But this visit to the theatre is not altogether an evening of delight to
Erma; to her astonishment, Mr. Livingston has suddenly changed from the
complacent, passive suitor of former times, to as impetuous a lover as
such a man can make, and his attentions embarrass her. This Romeo
business has partly been brought about by Mr. Ollie's jealousy and
partly by the remarks of his diplomatic mother.
This lady has had an interview with her son, caused chiefly by Miss
Travenion's adventures in Ogden, and has given her offspring the
following advice: "If you do not settle your marriage with Erma during
this trip, she will probably marry somebody else."
"Impossible! She is as good as engaged to me," cries out Ollie, hotly.
"Engaged! Why? Because her father and your father came to some
understanding when you were children?"
"Because Mr. Travenion has settled a million dollars on his daughter!
Why did he put that big sum apart for her sole use and benefit? He
wishes his daughter to take the position that I can give her in New
York."
"Because he has settled a million dollars on her," answers his mother,
"she is all the more difficult to win. It is a marvel to me that she,
the belle of New York last season and of Newport this summer, has kept
herself apart from entangling alliances with other men. Two months ago,
if she had loved that young Polo Blazer, you would have lost her then."
"You don't mean to say she loves that Vigilante--that mining fellow?"
says Oliver, turning pale at his mother's suggestion.
"If she doesn't love him she will love some man," returns his mother
grimly. "Don't you know that a girl with her beauty and her money is
bound to be sought after and will be won by somebody?"
"By me!" cries Ollie hotly. "Hang me if she shall marry any other man!"
Then he says plaintively, "I have considered her my own for a year."
"Very well," replies Mrs. Livingston; "you had better act as if you
did. Miss Travenion's attitude to you has been one of indifference. She
saw no one whom she liked better. Besides, girls enjoy being made love
to. Perhaps Captain Lawrence last night in Ogden in the moonlight was
more of a Romeo than you have been. He looks as if he might be."
"Does he?" cries Ollie. "I'll show him that I can play the romantic as
well as he," and going out, he, for the first time in his life--for he
is a good young man--says to himself, "Damn!" and then becomes
frightened and soliloquizes: "Oh gracious, that is the first time I ever
swore."
So going to the theatre and coming therefrom he assists Erma into the
carriage with squeezes of her hand that make her wince, and little
amatory ogles of the eyes that make her blush.
Coming from the theatre, they go to "Happy Jack's," the swell restaurant
of the city in 1871, where they have a very pretty little room prepared
for them, and trout caught fresh in a mountain stream that day, and
chickens done to a turn, and the freshest of lettuce and some lovely
pears and grapes from Payson gardens and vineyards, and a bottle of
champagne from sunny France, some of which gets into Mr. Ollie's head
and makes him so devoted in his attentions to the young lady who sits
beside him, that, getting a chance, he surreptitiously squeezes her hand
under the table, which makes Erma think him tipsy with wine, not love.
From this they return to the Townsend House, where the party separating,
Miss Travenion finds herself alone at the door of her own room; but just
before she enters, Mr. Oliver comes along the hallway, and walking up to
her, says, with eyes that have grown fiery: "Erma, how can you treat me
so coldly when I love you?"
"Why, when did that love idea come into your head?" returns the young
lady with a jeering laugh.
Next her voice grows haughty, and she says, coldly, "Stop!" for Ollie is
about to put his arm around her fairy waist. A second after, however,
she laughs again and says: "What nonsense! Good-night, Mr. Oliver," and
sweeps past him into her room, where, closing the door, Miss Changeable
suddenly cries: "If he had dared!" then mutters: "A few days ago I
looked upon his suit complacently and indifferently;" next pants: "Now
what is the matter with me? What kind of a railroad journey is it that
makes a girl--" and, checking herself here, cries: "Pshaw! what
nonsense!" and so goes to bed in the City of the Saints.