_The Lute of the Holy Ghost Is Further Chastened_
Listening to Keaton's tale, he had dimly seen the caravan of hunted
creatures crawl past him over the fading green of the prairie; the
wagons with their bowed white covers; a heavy cart, jolting, creaking,
lumbering mysteriously along, a sick driver hidden somewhere back under
its makeshift cover of torn counterpanes; a battered carriage,
reminiscent of past luxury, drawn by oxen; more wagons, some without
covers; a two-wheeled cart, designed in the ingenuity of desperation,
laden with meal-sacks, a bundle of bedding, a sleeping child, and drawn
by a little dry-dugged heifer; then more wagons with stooping figures
trudging doggedly beside them, here a man, there a woman leading a
child. He saw them as shapes floating by in a dream, blurred and
inconsequent. But between himself and the train, more clearly outlined
to his gaze, he saw the worn face of his father tossed on the cold, dark
waters, being swept down by the stream, the weak old hands clutching for
some support in the muddy current, the white head with the chin held up
sinking lower at each failure, then at last going under, gulping, to
leave a little row of bubbles down the stream.
In a craze of rage and grief he turned toward the river, when he heard
the sharp voice of the Bishop calling him back.
"It ain't any use, Joel."
"Couldn't we find his body?"
"Not a chance in a thousand. It was carried down by the current. It
would mean days and mebbe weeks. Besides, we need you here. Here's your
duty. Sakes alive! If we only had about twenty minutes with them cusses
like it was in the old days! When you're ready to be a Son of Dan you'll
know what I mean. But never mind, we'll see the day yet when Israel will
be the head and not the tail."
"My mother? Has any one told her?"
"Wal, now, I'm right sorry about that, but it got out before you come
over. Tarlton McKenny's boy, Nephi, rowed over in a skiff and brought
the news, and some of the women went and tattled it to your ma. I guess
it upset her considerable. You go up and see her."
He ran forward toward the head of the train, hearing as he went words of
sympathy hurried to him by those he passed. Mounting the wagon, he
climbed over the seat to where his mother lay. She seemed to sleep in
spite of the jolting. The driver called back to him:
"She took on terrible for a spell, Brother Rae. She's only jest now got
herself pacified."
He put his hand on her forehead and found it burning. She stirred and
moaned and muttered disjointed sentences. He heard his father's name,
his sister's, and his own, and he knew she was delirious. He eased her
bed as well as he could, and made a place for himself beside her where
he could sit and take one of the pale, thin hands between his own and
try to endow her with some of his abundant life. He stayed by her until
their camping-place was reached.
Once for a moment she opened her eyes with what seemed to him a more
than normal clearness and understanding and memory in them. Though she
looked at him long without speaking, she seemed to say all there was to
say, so that the brief span was full of anguish for him. He sighed with
relief when the consciousness faded again from her look, and she fell to
babbling once more of some long gone day in her girlhood.
When the wagon halted he was called outside by the driver, who wished
instructions regarding the camp to be made. A few moments later he was
back, and raised the side of the wagon cover to let in the light. The
look on her face alarmed him. It seemed to tell unmistakably that the
great change was near. Already she looked moribund. An irregular gasping
for breath, an occasional delirious mutter, were the only signs of life.
She was too weak to show restlessness. Her pinched and faded face was
covered with tiny cold beads. The pupils of her eyes were strangely
dilated, and the eyes themselves were glazed. There was no pulse at her
wrist, and from her heart only the faintest beating could be heard. In
quick terror he called to a boy working at a wagon near by.
"Go for Bishop Wright and tell him to bring that apothecary with him."
The two came up briskly a few moments later, and he stood aside for them
in an agony of suspense. The Bishop turned toward him after a long look
into the wagon.
"She's gone to be with your pa, Joel. You can't do anything--only
remember they're both happy now for bein' together."
It made little stir in the busy encampment. There had been other deaths
while they lay out on the marshy river flats. Others of the sorry band
were now sick unto death, and many more would die on the long march
across the Iowa prairie, dropping out one by one of fever, starvation,
exposure. He stood helpless in this chaos of woe, shut up within
himself, knowing not where to turn.
Some women came presently from the other wagons to prepare the body for
burial. He watched them dumbly, from a maze of incredulity, feeling that
some wretched pretense was being acted before him.
The Bishop and Keaton came up. They brought with them the makeshift
coffin. They had cut a log, split it, and stripped off its bark in two
half-cylinders. They led him to the other side of the wagon, out of
sight. Then they placed the strips of bark around the body, bound them
with hickory withes, and over the rough surface the women made a little
show of black cloth.
For the burial they could do no more than consign the body to one of the
waves in the great billowy land sea about them. They had no tombstone,
nor were there even rocks to make a simple cairn. He saw them bury her,
and thought there was little to choose between hers and the grave of his
father, whose body was being now carried noiselessly down in the bed of
the river. The general locality would be kept by landmarks, by the
bearing of valley bends, headlands, or the fork and angles of constant
streams. But the spot itself would in a few weeks be lost.
When the last office had been performed, the prayer said, a psalm sung,
and the black dirt thrown in, they waited by him in sympathy. His
feeling was that they had done a monstrous thing; that the mother he had
known was somewhere alive and well. He stood a moment so, watching the
sun sink below the far rim of the prairie while the white moon swung
into sight in the east. Then the Bishop led him gently by the arm to his
own camp.
There cheer abounded. They had a huge camp-fire tended by the Bishop's
numerous children. Near by was a smaller fire over which the good man's
four wives, able-bodied, glowing, and cordial, cooked the supper. In
little ways they sought to lighten his sorrow or to put his mind away
from it. To this end the Bishop contributed by pouring him drink from a
large brown jug.
"Not that I approve of it, boy, but it'll hearten you,--some of the best
peach brandy I ever sniffed. I got it at the still-house last week for
use in time of trouble,--and this here time is _it_."
He drank the fiery stuff from the gourd in which it was given him, and
choked until they brought him water. But presently the warmth stole
along his cold, dead nerves so that he became intensely alive from head
to foot, and strangely exalted. And when they offered him food he ate
eagerly and talked. It seemed to him there had been a thousand matters
that he had long wished to speak of; matters of moment in which he felt
deeply; yet on which he had strangely neglected to touch till now.
He talked long with the Bishop when the women had climbed into their
wagon for the night. He amazed that good man by asking him if the Lord
would not be pleased to have them, now, as they were, go back to Nauvoo
and descend upon the Gentiles to smite them. The Bishop counselled him
to have patience.
"What could we do how with these few old fusees and cheap arms that we
managed to smuggle across--to say nothing of half of us being down
sick?"
"But we are Israel, and surely Israel's God--"
"The Lord had His chance the other day if He'd wanted it, when they
took the town. No, Joel, He means us to gether out and become strong
enough to beat 'em in our own might. But you _wait_; our day will come,
and all the more credit to us then for doin' it ourselves. Then we'll
consecrate the herds and flocks of the Gentile and his store and basket,
his gold and silver, and his myrrh and frankincense. But for the
present--well, we got to be politic and kind of modest about such
doin's. The big Fan, the Sons of Dan, done good work in Missouri and
better in Nauvoo, and it'll do still better where we're goin'. But we
must be patient. Only next time we'll get to work quicker. If the
Gentiles had been seen to quicker in Nauvoo, Joseph would be with us
now. We learned our lesson there. Now the Lord has unfurled a Standard
of Zion for the gathering of Israel, and this time we'll fix the
Gentiles early."
"Amen! Brother Seth."
A look of deep hatred had clouded the older man's face as he spoke. He
continued.
"Let the wrath of God abide upon 'em, and remember that we're bein'
tried and proved for a purpose. And we got to be more practical. You
been too theoretical yourself and too high-flyin' in your notions. The
Kingdom ain't to be set up on earth by faith alone. The Lord has got to
have _works_, like I told you about the other day."
"You were right, Bishop, I need to be more practical. The olive-branch
and not the sword would Ephraim extend to Japheth, but if--"
"If Japheth don't toe the mark the Lord's will must be worked upon
him."
"So be it, Brother Seth! I am ready now to be a Son of Dan."
The Bishop rose from in front of their fire and looked about. No one was
near. Here and there a fire blazed, and the embers of many more could be
seen dying out in the distance. The nearest camp was that of the
fever-stricken man who had fled on to the boat that morning with his
child in his arms. They could see his shaven head in the firelight, and
a woman hovering over him as he lay on the ground with a tattered quilt
fixed over him in lieu of a tent. From another group came the strains of
an accordion and the chorus of a hymn.
"That's right," said the Bishop. "I knew you'd come to it. I saw that
long ago. Brother Brigham saw it, too. We knew you could be relied on.
You want the oath, do you?"
"Yes, yes, Brother Seth. I was ready for it this morning when they told
me about father."
"Hold up your right hand and repeat after me:
"'In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I do covenant and agree
to support the first Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, in all things right or wrong; I will faithfully guard
them and report to them the acts of all men as far as in my power lies;
I will assist in executing all the decrees of the first President,
Patriarch, or President of the Twelve, and I will cause all who speak
evil of the Presidency or Heads of the Church to die the death of
dissenters or apostates, unless they speedily confess and repent, for
pestilence, persecution, and death shall follow the enemies of Zion. I
will be a swift herald of salvation and messenger of peace to the
Saints, and I will never make known the secret purposes of this Society
called the Sons of Dan, my life being the forfeiture in a fire of
burning tar and brimstone. So help me God and keep me steadfast.'"
He repeated the words without hesitation, with fervour in his voice, and
the light of a holy and implacable zeal in his face.
"Now I'll give you the blessing, too. Wait till I get my bottle of oil."
He stepped to the nearest wagon, felt under the cover, and came back
with a small bottle in his hand.
"Stand jest here--so--now!"
They stood at the edge of the wavering firelight, and he put his hand on
the other's head.
"'In the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and by the authority of
the Holy Priesthood, the first President, Patriarch, and High Priest of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, representing the first,
second, and third Gods in Heaven, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I do
now anoint you with holy consecrated oil, and by the imposition of my
hands do ordain and set you apart for the holy calling whereunto you are
called; that you may consecrate the riches of the Gentiles to the House
of Israel, bring swift destruction upon apostate sinners, and execute
the decrees of Heaven without fear of what man can do with you. So mote
it be. Amen.'
"There, boy, if I ain't mistaken, that's the best work for Zion that I
done for some time. Now be off to your rest!"
"Good night, Bishop, and thank you for being kind to me! The Church Poet
called me the Lute of the Holy Ghost, but I feel to-night, that I must
be another Lion of the Lord. Good night!"
He went out of the firelight and stumbled through the dark to his own
wagons. But when he came to them he could not stop. Under all the
exhilaration he had been conscious of the great pain within him, drugged
for the moment, but never wholly stifled. Now the stimulus of the drink
had gone, and the pain had awakened to be his master.
He went past the wagons and out on to the prairie that stretched away, a
sea of silvery gray in the moonlight. As he walked, the whole stupendous
load of sorrow settled upon him. His breath caught and his eyes burned
with the tears that lay behind them. He walked faster to flee from it,
but it came upon him more heavily until it made a breaking load,--the
loss of his sister by worse than death, his father and mother driven out
at night and their home burned, his father killed by a mob whose aim had
lacked even the dignity of the murderer's--for they had seemingly
intended but a brutal piece of horse-play; his mother dead from
exposure due to Gentile persecutions; the girl he had loved taken from
him by Gentile persuasions. If only she had been left him so that now he
could put his head down upon her shoulder, slight as that shoulder was,
and feel the supreme soothing of a woman's touch; if only the hurts had
not all come at once! The pain sickened him. He was far out on the
prairie now, away from the sleeping encampment, and he threw himself
down to give way to his grief. Almost silently he wept, yet with sobs
that choked him and cramped him from head to foot. He called to his
mother and to his father and to the sister who had gone before them,
crying their names over and over in the night. But under all his sorrow
he felt as great a rage against the Gentile nation that had driven them
into the wilderness.
When the spasm of grief had passed, he still lay there a long time. Then
becoming chilled he walked again over the prairie, watching the moon go
down and darkness come to make the stars brighter, and then the day show
gray in the east. And as he walked against his sorrow, the burden of his
thought came to be: "God has tried me more than most men; therefore he
expects more of me; and my reward shall be greater. New visions shall be
given to me, and a new power, and this poor, hunted, plundered remnant
of Israel shall find me their staff. Much has been taken from me, but
much will be given unto me."
And under this ran a minor strain born of the rage that still burned
within him:
"But, oh, the day of wrath that shall dawn on yonder Gentiles!"
So did he chasten himself through the night; and when the morning came
he took his place in the train, strangely exalted by this new sense of
the singular favour that was to be conferred upon him.
For seven weeks the little caravan crept over the prairies of Iowa, and
day after day his conviction strengthened that he had been chosen for
large works. In this fervour he cheered the sick and the weak of the
party by picturing for them a great day to come when the Lord should
exalt the valleys of humility and abase the mountains of Gentile pride;
when the Saints should have their reward, and retribution should descend
upon the wicked nation they were leaving behind. Scourges, afflictions,
and depredations by fire, famine, and the tyrant's hand he besought them
to regard as marks of Heaven's especial favour.
The company came to look upon him as its cloud by day and its pillar of
fire by night. Old women--mothers in Israel--lavished attentions upon
him as a motherless boy; young women smiled at him with soft pity, and
were meek and hushed when he spoke. And the men believed that the things
he told them concerning their great day to come were true revelations
from God. They did not hesitate to agree with the good Bishop Wright,
who declared in words of pointed admiration, "When that young man gets
all het up with the Holy Ghost, the Angel of the Lord jest _has_ to give
down!"