_The Coming of the Woman-Child_
The next day he sent across the settlement for the child, waiting for
her with mixed emotions,--a trembling merge of love and fear, with
something, indeed, of awe for this woman-child of her mother, who had
come to him so deviously and with a secret significance so mighty of
portent to his own soul. When they brought her in at last, he had to
brace himself to meet her.
She came and stood before him, one foot a little advanced, several dolls
clutched tightly under one arm, and her bonnet swinging in the other
hand. She looked up at him fearlessly, questioningly, but with no sign
of friendliness. He saw and felt her mother in all her being, in her
eyes and hair, in the lines of her soft little face, and indefinably in
her way of standing or moving. He was seized with a sudden fear that the
mother watched him secretly out of the child's eyes, and with the
child's lips might call to him accusingly, with what wild cries of
anguish and reproach he dared not guess. He strove to say something to
her, but his lips were dry, and he made only some half-articulate sound,
trying to force a smile of assurance.
Then the child spoke, her serious, questioning eyes upon him
unwaveringly.
"Are you a damned Mormon?"
It broke the spell of awe that had lain upon him, so that he felt for
the moment only a pious horror of her speech. He called Christina to
take charge of her, and Martha, the second wife, to put away her little
bundle of clothing, and Tom Potwin to fetch water for her bath. He
himself went to be alone where he could think what must be done for her.
From an entry in the little Bible, written in letters that seemed to
shout to him the accusation of his crime, he had found that she must now
be five years old. It was plainly time that he should begin to supply
her very apparent need of religious instruction.
When she had become a little used to her surroundings later in the day,
he sought to beguile her to this end, beginning diplomatically with
other matters.
"Come, tell me your name, dear."
She allowed her attention to be diverted from her largest doll.
"My name is Prudence--" She hesitated.
"Prudence--what?"
"I--I lost my mind of it." She looked at him hopefully, to be prompted.
"Prudence Rae."
She repeated the name, doubtingly, "Prudence Rae?"
"Yes--remember now--Prudence Rae. You are my little girl--Prudence Rae."
"But you're not my really papa--he's went far off--oh, ten ninety miles
far!"
"No, Prudence--God is your Father in heaven, and I am your father on
earth--"
"But not my _papa_!"
"Listen, Prudence--do you know what you are?"
The puzzled look she had worn fled instantly from her face.
"I'm a generation of vipers."
She made the announcement with a palpable ring of elation in her tones,
looking at him proudly, and as if waiting to hear expressions of
astonishment and delight.
"Child, child, who has told you such things? You are not that!"
She retorted, indignantly now, the lines drawing about her eyes in
signal of near-by tears:
"I _am_ a generation of vipers--the Bishop said I was--he told that
other mamma, and I _am_ it!"
"Well, well, don't cry--all right--you shall be it--but I can tell you
something much nicer." He assumed a knowing air, as one who withheld
knowledge of overwhelming fascinations.
"Tell me--_what_?"
[Illustration: "BUT YOU'RE NOT MY REALLY PAPA!"]
And so, little by little, hardly knowing where to begin, but feeling
that any light whatsoever must profit a soul so benighted, he began to
teach her. When she had been put to bed at early candle-light, he went
to see if she remembered her lesson.
"What is the name of God in pure language?"
And she answered, with zest, "Ahman."
"What is the name of the Son of God?"
"Son Ahman,--the greatest of all the parts of God excepting Ahman."
"What is the name of man?"
"Sons Ahman."
"That is good--my little girl shall be chosen of the Lord."
He waited by her until sleep should come, but her mind had been stirred,
and long after he thought she slept she startled him by asking, in a
voice of entire wakefulness: "If I am a good little girl, and learn all
the _right_ things--_then_ can I be a generation of vipers?" She
lingered with relish on the phrase, giving each syllable with
distinctness and gusto. When he was sure that she slept, he leaned over
very carefully and kissed the pillow beside her head.
In the days that followed he wooed her patiently, seeking constantly to
find some favour with her, and grateful beyond words when he succeeded
ever so little. At first, he could win but slight notice of any sort
from her, and that only at rare and uncertain intervals. But gradually
his unobtrusive efforts told, and, little by little, she began to take
him into her confidence. The first day she invited him to play with her
in one of her games was a day of rejoicing for him. She showed him the
dolls.
"Now, this is the mother and this is the little baby of it, and we will
have a tea-party."
She drew up a chair, placed the two dolls under it, and pointed to the
opening between the rungs.
"Here is the house, and here is a little door where to go in at. You
must be very, very particulyar when you go in. Now what shall we cook?"
And she clasped her hands, looking up at him with waiting eagerness.
He suggested cake and tea. But this answer proved to be wrong.
"Oh, _no_!"--there was scorn in her tones--"Buffalo-hump and marrowbones
and vebshtulls and lemon-coffee."
He received the suggestion cordially, and tried to fall in with it, but
she soon detected that his mind was not pliable enough for the game. She
was compelled at last to dismiss him, though she accomplished the
ungracious thing tactfully.
"Perhaps you have some farming to do out at the barn, because my dollies
can't _be_ very well with you at a tea-party, because you are too much."
But she had shown a purpose of friendliness, and this sufficed him. And
that night, before her bed-time, when he sat in front of the fire, she
came with a most matter-of-fact unconsciousness to climb into his lap.
He held her a long time, trying to breathe gently and not daring to move
lest he make her uncomfortable. Her head pillowed on his arm, she was
soon asleep, and he refused to give her up when Martha came to put her
to bed.
Though their intimacy grew during the winter, so that she called him her
father and came confidingly to him at all times, in tears or in
laughter, yet he never ceased to feel an aloofness from her, an
awkwardness in her presence, a fear that the mother who looked from her
eyes might at any moment call to him.
That winter was also a time for the other members of the household to
adapt themselves to their new life. The two wives attended capably to
the house. The imbecile boy, who had once loved one of them to his own
undoing, but who no longer knew her, helped them a little with the work,
though for the most part he busied himself by darting off upon
mysterious and important errands which he would appear to recall
suddenly, but which, to his bewilderment, he seemed never able to
finish. The other member of the household, Delight Tench, the gaunt,
gray woman, still made sallies out to the main road to search for her
deceived husband; but they taught her after a little never to go far
from the settlement, and to come back to her home each night.
During the winter evenings, when they sat about the big fireplace, the
master of the house taught them the mysteries of the Kingdom as revealed
by God to Joseph, and then to Brigham, who had been chosen by Joseph as
was Joshua by Moses to be a prophet and leader.
In time Brigham would be gathered to his Father, and in the celestial
Kingdom, his wives having been sealed to him for eternity, he would
beget millions and myriads of spirits. During this period of increase he
would grow in the knowledge of the Gods, learning how to make matter
take the form he desired. Noting the vast increase in his family, he
would then say: "Let us go and make a world upon which my family of
spirits may live in bodies of grosser matter, and so gain valuable
experience."
At the word of command, thereupon spoken by Brigham, the elements would
come together in a new world. This he would beautify, planting seeds
upon it, telling the waters where to flow, placing fishes in them,
putting fowls in the air and beasts in the field. Then, calling it all
good, he would say to his favourite wife: "Let us go down and inhabit
this new home." And they would go down, to be called Adam and Eve by
some future Moses.
Eve would presently be tempted by Satan to eat fruit from the one tree
they had been forbidden to touch, and Brigham as Adam would then partake
of it, too, so she should not have to suffer alone. In a thousand years
they would die, after raising many tabernacles of flesh into which their
spirit children from the celestial world would have come to find abode.
Brigham, going back to the celestial world, would keep watch over these
earthly children of his. Yet in their fallen nature they would in time
forget their father Brigham, the world whence they came, and the world
whither they were going. Sometimes he would send messages to the purest
of them, and at all times he would keep as near to them as they would
let him. At last he would lay a plan to bring them all again into his
presence. For he would now have become the God they should worship. He
would send to these children of earth his oldest son, entrusted with the
mission of redeeming them, and only faith in the name of this son would
secure the favour of the father.
Joel Rae instructed his wondering household, further, that such glory as
this would be reserved, not for Brigham alone, but for the least of the
Saints. Each Saint would progress to Godhead, and go down with his Eve
to make and people worlds without end. This, he explained, was why God
had made space to be infinite, since nothing less could have room for
the numberless seed of man. In conclusion, he gave them the words of the
Heaven-gifted Brigham: "Let all who hear these doctrines pause before
they make light of them or treat them with indifference, for they will
prove your salvation or your damnation."
Yet often during that winter while he talked these doctrines he would
find his mind wandering, and there would come before his eyes a little
printed page with a wash of blood across it, and he would be forced to
read in spite of himself the verses that were magnified before his eyes.
The priesthood of which he was a product dealt but little with the New
Testament. They taught from the Old almost wholly, when they went
outside the Book of Mormon and the revelations to Joseph Smith--of the
God of Israel who was a God of Battle, loving the reek of blood and the
smell of burnt flesh on an altar--rather than of the God of the
Nazarene.
He found himself turning to this New Testament, therefore, with a
curious feeling of interest and surprise, dwelling long at a time upon
its few, simple, forthright teachings, being moved by them in ways he
did not comprehend, and finding certain of the dogmas of his Church
sounding strangely in his ears even when his own lips were teaching
them.
One of the verses he especially dreaded to see come before him: "But
whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he
were drowned in the depth of the sea." He taught the child to pray, "O
God, let my father have due punishment for all his sins, but teach him
never to offend any little child from this day forth."
He used to listen for this and to be soothed when he heard it. Sometimes
the words would come to him when he was shut in his room; for if neither
of the women was by her when she prayed, it was her custom to raise her
voice as high as she could, in the belief that otherwise her prayer
would not be heard by the Power she addressed. In high, piping tones
this petition for himself would come through his door, following always
after the request that the Lord would bless Brigham Young in his basket
and in his store, multiplying and increasing him in wives, children,
flocks and herds, houses and lands.