CHAPTER I.

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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.