_The Sinner Chastens himself_
How to offer the greatest sacrifice--how to do the greatest
service--these had become his problems. He concerned himself no longer
with his own exaltation either in this world or the world to come.
He resolved to stay south, fearing vaguely that in the North he would be
in conflict with the priesthood. He knew not how; he felt that he was
still sound in his faith, but he felt, too, some undefined antagonism
between himself and those who preached in the tabernacle. For his home
he chose the settlement of Amalon, set in a rich little valley between
the shoulders of the Pine Mountains.
Late in October there was finished for him on the outer edge of the
town, near the bank of a little hill-born stream, a roomy log-house,
mud-chinked, with a water-tight roof of spruce shakes and a floor of
whipsawed plank,--a residence fit for one of the foremost teachers in
the Church, an Elder after the Order of Melchisedek, an eloquent
preacher and one true to the blessed Gods. At one end of the cabin, a
small room was partitioned off and a bunk built in it. A chair and a
water-basin on a block comprised its furniture. This room he reserved
for himself.
As to the rest of the house, his ideas were at first cloudy. He knew
only that he wished to serve. Gradually, however, as his mind worked
over the problem, the answer came with considerable clearness. He
thought about it much on his way north, for he was obliged to make the
trip to Salt Lake City to secure supplies for the winter, some needed
articles of furniture for the house, and his wagons and stock.
He was helped in his thinking on a day early in the journey. Near a
squalid hut on the outskirts of Cedar City he noticed a woman staggering
under an armful of wood. She was bareheaded, with hair disordered, her
cheeks hollowed, and her skin yellow and bloodless. He remembered the
tale he had heard when he came down. He thought she must be that wife of
Bishop Snow who had been put away. He rode up to the cabin as the woman
threw her wood inside. She was weak and wretched-looking in the extreme.
"I am Elder Rae. I want to know if you would care to go to Amalon with
me when I come back. If you do, you can have a home there as long as you
like. It would be easier for you than here."
She had looked up quickly at him in much embarrassment. She smiled a
little when he had finished.
"I'm not much good to work, but I think I'd get stronger if I had
plenty to eat. I used to be right strong and well."
"I shall be along with my wagons in two weeks or a little more. If you
will go with me then I would like to have you. Here, here is money to
buy you food until I come."
"You've heard about me, have you--that I'm a divorced woman?"
"Yes, I know."
She looked down at the ground a moment, pondering, then up at him with
sudden resolution.
"I can't work hard and--I'm not--pretty any longer--why do you want to
marry me?"
Her question made him the more embarrassed of the two, and she saw as
much, but she could not tell why it was.
"Why," he stammered, "why,--you see--but never mind. I must hurry on
now. In about two weeks--" And he put the spurs so viciously to his
horse that he was nearly unseated by the startled animal's leap.
Off on the open road again he thought it out. Marriage had not been in
his mind when he spoke to the woman. He had meant only to give her a
home. But to her the idea had come naturally from his words, and he
began to see that it was, indeed, not an unnatural thing to do. He dwelt
long on this new idea, picturing at intervals the woman's lack of any
charm or beauty, her painful emaciation, her weakness.
Passing through another village later in the day, he saw the youth who
had been so unfortunate as to love this girl in defiance of his Bishop.
Unmolested for the time, the imbecile would go briskly a few steps and
then pause with an important air of the deepest concern, as if he were
engaged on an errand of grave moment. He was thinly clad and shivering
in the chill of the late October afternoon.
Again, still later in the day, he overtook and passed the gaunt, gray
woman who forever sought her husband. She was smiling as he passed her.
Then his mind was made up.
As he entered Brigham's office in Salt Lake City some days later, there
passed out by the same door a woman whom he seemed dimly to remember.
The left half of her face was disfigured by a huge flaming scar, and he
saw that she had but one hand.
"Who was that woman?" he asked Brigham, after they had chatted a little
of other matters.
"That's poor Christina Lund. You ought to remember her. She was in your
hand-cart party. She's having a pretty hard time of it. You see, she
froze off one hand, so now she can't work much, and then she froze her
face, so she ain't much for looks any longer--in fact, I wouldn't say
Christina was much to start with, judging from the half of her face
that's still good--and so, of course, she hasn't been able to marry. The
Church helps her a little now and then, but what troubles her most is
that she'll lose her glory if she ain't married. You see, she ain't a
worker and she ain't handsome, so who's going to have her sealed to
him?"
"I remember her now. She pushed the cart with her father in it from the
Platte crossing, at Fort Laramie, clear over to Echo Canon, when all the
fingers of one hand came off on the bar of the cart one afternoon; and
then her hand had to be amputated. Brother Brigham, she shouldn't be
cheated of her place in the Kingdom."
"Well, she ain't capable, and she ain't a pretty person, so what can she
do?"
"I believe if the Lord is willing I will have her sealed to me."
"It will be your own doings, Brother Rae. I wouldn't take it on myself
to counsel that woman to anybody."
"I feel I must do it, Brother Brigham."
"Well, so be it if you say. She can be sealed to you and be a star in
your crown forever. But I hope, now that you've begun to build up your
kingdom, you'll do a little better, next time. There's a lot of pretty
good-looking young women came in with a party yesterday--"
"All in good time, Brother Brigham! If you're willing, I'll pick up my
second on the way south."
"Well, well, now that's good!" and the broad face of Brigham glowed with
friendly enthusiasm. "You know I'd suspicioned more than once that you
wasn't overly strong on the doctrinal point of celestial marriage. I
hope your second, Brother Joel, is a little fancier than this one."
"She'll be a better worker," he replied.
"Well, they're the most satisfactory in the long run. I've found that
out myself. At any rate, it's best to lay the foundations of your
kingdom with workers, the plainer the better. After that, a man can
afford something in the ornamental line now and then. Now, I'll send for
Christina and tell her what luck she's in. She hasn't had her endowments
yet, so you might as well go through those with her. Be at the
endowment-house at five in the morning."
And so it befell that Joel Rae, Elder after the Order of Melchisedek,
and Christina Lund, spinster, native of Denmark, were on the following
day, after the endowment-rites had been administered, married for time
and eternity.
At the door of the endowment-house they were separated and taken to
rooms, where each was bathed and anointed with oil poured from a horn. A
priest then ordained them to be king and queen in time and eternity.
After this, they were conducted to a large apartment, and left in
silence for some moments. Then voices were heard, the voice of Elohim in
converse with Jehovah. They were heard to declare their intention of
visiting the earth, and this they did, pronouncing it good, but deciding
that one of a higher order was needed to govern the brutes. Michael, the
Archangel, was then called and placed on earth under the name of Adam,
receiving power over the beasts, and being made free to eat of the fruit
of every tree but one. This tree was a small evergreen, with bunches of
raisins tied to its branches.
Discovering that it was not good for man to be alone, Brigham, as God,
then caused a sleep to fall upon Adam, and fashioned Eve from one of his
ribs. Then the Devil entered, in black silk knee-breeches, approaching
with many blandishments the woman who was enacting the role of Eve. The
sin followed, and the expulsion from the garden.
After this impressive spectacle, Joel and the rapturous Christina were
taught many signs, grips, and passwords, without which one may not pass
by the gatekeepers of heaven. They were sworn also to avenge the murder
of Joseph Smith upon the Gentiles who had done it, and to teach their
children to do the same; to obey without questioning or murmur the
commands of the priesthood; and never to reveal these secret rites under
penalty of having their throats cut from ear to ear and their hearts and
tongues cut out.
When this oath had been taken, they passed into a room containing a
long, low altar covered with red velvet. At one end, in an armchair, sat
Brigham, no longer in the role of God, but in his proper person of
Prophet, Seer, and Revelator. They knelt on either side of this altar,
and, with hands clasped above it in the secret grip last given to them,
they were sealed for time and eternity.
From the altar they went to the wagons and began their journey south.
Christina came out of the endowment-house, glowing, as to one side of
her face. She was, also, in a state of daze that left her able to say
but little. Proud and happy and silent, her sole remark, the first day
of the trip, was: "Brigham--now--he make such a lovely, _bee-yoo-tiful_
God in heaven!"
Nor, it soon appeared, was she ever talkative. The second day, too, she
spoke but once, which was when a sudden heavy shower swept down from the
hills and caught her some distance from the wagons, helping to drive the
cattle. Then, although she was drenched, she only said: "It make down
somet'ing, I t'ink!"
For this taciturnity her husband was devoutly thankful. He had married
her to secure her place in the Kingdom and a temporal home, and not
otherwise did he wish to be concerned about her. He was glad to note,
however, that she seemed to be of a happy disposition; which he did at
certain times when her eyes beamed upon him from a face radiant with
gratitude.
But his work of service had only begun. As they went farther south he
began to make inquiries for the wandering wife of Elder Tench. He came
upon her at length as she was starting north from Beaver at dusk. He
prevailed upon her to stop with his party.
"I don't mind to-night, sir, but I must be off betimes in the morning."
But in the morning he persuaded her to stay with them.
"Your husband is out of the country now, but he's coming back soon, and
he will stop first at my house when he does come. So stay with me there
and wait for him."
She was troubled by this at first, but at last agreed.
"If you're sure he will come there first--"
She refused to ride in the wagon, however, preferring to walk, and
strode briskly all day in the wake of the cattle.
At Parowan he made inquiries for Tom Potwin, that other derelict, and
was told that he had gone south. Him, too, they overtook on the road
next day, and persuaded to go with them to a home.
When they reached Cedar City a halt was made while he went for the other
woman--not without some misgiving, for he remembered that she was still
young. But his second view of her reassured him--the sallow, anemic
face, the skin drawn tightly over the cheek-bones, the drooping
shoulders, the thin, forlorn figure. Even the certainty that her life of
hardship was ended, that she was at least sure not to die of privation,
had failed to call out any radiance upon her. They were married by a
local Bishop, Joel's first wife placing the hand of the second in his
own, as the ceremony required. Then with his wives, his charges, his
wagons, and his cattle he continued on to the home he had made at the
edge of Amalon.
Among the women there was no awkwardness or inharmony; they had all
suffered; and the two wives tactfully humoured the whims of the insane
woman. On the day they reached home, the husband took them to the door
of his own little room.
"All that out there is yours," he said. "Make the best arrangements you
can. This is my place; neither of you must ever come in here."
They busied themselves in unpacking the supplies that had been brought,
and making the house home-like. The big gray woman had already gone down
the road toward the settlement to watch for her husband, promising,
however, to return at nightfall. The other derelict helped the women in
their work, doing with a childish pleasure the things they told him to
do. The second wife occasionally paused in her tasks to look at him from
eyes that were lighted to strange depths; but he had for her only the
unconcerned, unknowing look that he had for the others.
At night the master of the house, when they had assembled, instructed
them briefly in the threefold character of the Godhead. Then, when he
had made a short prayer, he bade them good night and went to his room.
Here he permitted himself a long look at the fair young face set in the
little gilt oval of the rubber case. Then, as if he had forgotten
himself, he fell contritely to his knees beside the bunk and prayed that
this face might never remind him of aught but his sin; that he might
have cross after cross added to his burden until the weight should crush
him; and that this might atone, not for his own sins, which must be
punished everlastingly, but in some measure for the sins of his
misguided people.
In the outer room his wives, sitting together before the big fireplace,
were agreeing that he was a good man.