The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West

by Harry Leon Wilson

  CHAPTER XXXVIII.

  _The Mission Service in Box Canon is Suspended_

  Follett waited with a new eagerness next day for their walk to thecanon. But Prudence, looking at him with eyes that sorrow was clouding,said that she could not go. He felt a sharp new resentment against theman who was letting her suffer rather than betray himself, and he againresolved that this man must be made to "toe the mark," to "take hisneedings;" and that, meantime, the deceived girl must be effectuallyreassured. Something must be said to take away the hurt that was tuggingat the corners of her smile to draw them down. To this end he pleadedwith her not to deprive him of the day's lesson, especially as the timewas now at hand when he must leave. And so ably did he word his appealto her sense of duty that at last she consented to go.

  Once in the canon, however, where the pines had stored away the coolgloom of the night against the day's heat, she was glad she had come.For, better than being alone with that strange, new hurt, was it to haveby her side this friendly young man, who somehow made her feel as if itwere right and safe to lean upon him,--despite his unregeneratecondition. And presently there, in the zeal of saving his soul, she wasalmost happy again.

  Yet he seemed to-day to be impatient under the teaching, and more thanonce she felt that he was on the point of interrupting the lesson tosome end of his own.

  He seemed insufficiently impressed even with the knowledge of astronomydisplayed by the prophets of the Book of Mormon, hearing, without aquiver of interest, that when at Joshua's command the sun seemed tostand still upon Gibeon and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, the realfacts were that the earth merely paused in its revolutions upon its ownaxis and about the sun. Without a question he thus heard Ptolemy refutedand the discoveries of Copernicus anticipated two thousand years beforethat investigator was born. He was indeed deplorably inattentive. Shesuspected, from the quick glances she gave him, that he had nounderstanding at all of what she read. Yet in this she did himinjustice, for now she came to the passage, "They all did swear unto himthat whoso should vary from the assistance which Akish desired shouldlose his head; and whoso should divulge whatsoever thing Akish shouldmake known unto them should lose his life." This time he sat up.

  "There it is again--they don't mind losing their heads. They were surethe fightingest men--don't you think so now?"

  As he went on talking she laid the book down and leaned back againstthe trunk of the big pine under which they sat. He seemed to be sayingsomething that he had been revolving in his mind while she read.

  "I'd hate to have you think you been wasting your time on me thissummer, but I'm afraid I'm just too downright unsanctified."

  "Oh, don't say that!" she cried.

  "But I _have_ to. I reckon I'm like the red-roan sorrel Ed Harris gotfor a pinto from old man Beasley. 'They's two bad things about him,'says the old man. 'I'll tell you one now and the other after we swap.''All right,' says Ed. 'Well, first, he's hard to catch,' says Beasley.'That ain't anything,' says Ed,--'just picket him or hobble him with agood side-line.' So then they traded. 'And the other thing,' says theold man, dragging up his cinches on Ed's pinto,--'he ain't any goodafter you get him caught.' So that's like me. I've been hard to teachall summer, and now I'm not any good after you get me taught."

  "Oh, you are! Don't say you're not."

  "I couldn't ever join your Church--"

  Her face became full of alarm.

  "--only for just one thing;--I don't care very much for this having somany wives."

  She was relieved at once. "If _that's_ all--I don't approve of itmyself. You wouldn't have to."

  "Oh, that's what you say _now_"--he spoke with an air of shrewdness andsuspicion,--"but when I got in you'd throw up my duty to me constantabout building up the Kingdom. Oh, I know how it's done! I've heard yourpreachers talk enough."

  "But it _isn't_ necessary. I wouldn't--I don't think it would be at allnice of you."

  He looked at her with warm sympathy. "You poor ignorant girl! Not toknow your own religion! I read in that book there about this marryingbusiness only the other day. Just hand me that one."

  She handed him the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants," from which she hadoccasionally taught him the Lord's word as revealed to Joseph Smith. Therevelation on celestial marriage had never been among her selections. Heturned to it now.

  "Here, right in the very first of it--" and she heard with a sinkingheart,--"'Therefore prepare thyself to receive and obey the instructionswhich I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this lawrevealed unto them must obey the same; for behold! I reveal unto you anew and everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant then areye damned, for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enterinto my glory.'

  "There now!"

  "I never read it," she faltered.

  "And don't you know they preach in the tabernacle that anybody whorejects polygamy will be damned?"

  "My father never preached that."

  "Well, he knows it--ask him."

  It was proving to be a hard day for her.

  "Of course," he continued, "a new member coming into the Church mightthink at first he could get along without so many wives. He might say,'Well, now, I'll draw a line in this marrying business. I'll never takemore than two or three wives or maybe four.' He might even be so takenup with one young lady that he'd say, 'I won't even marry a secondwife--not for some time yet, that is--not for two or three years, tillshe begins to get kind of houseworn,' But then after he's taken hissecond, the others would come easy. Say he marries, first time, a tall,slim, dark girl,"--he looked at her musingly while she gazed intentlyinto the stream in front of them.

  "--and then say he meets a little chit of a thing, kind of heavy-setlike, with this light yellow hair and pretty light blue eyes, that hesaw one Sunday at church--"

  Her dark face was flushing now in pained wonder.

  "--why then it's so easy to keep on and marry others, with the preachersall preaching it from the pulpit."

  "But you wouldn't have to."

  "No, you wouldn't have to marry any one after the second--after thislittle blonde--but you'd have to marry her because it says here that you'shall abide the law or ye shall be damned, saith the Lord God.'"

  He pulled himself along the ground closer to her, and went on again inwhat seemed to be an extremity of doubt.

  "Now I don't want to be lost, and yet I don't want to have a whole lotof wives like Brigham or that old coot we see so often on the road. Sowhat am I going to do? I might think I'd get along with three or four,but you never can tell what religion will do to a man when he reallygets it."

  He reached for her small brown hand that still held the Book of Mormonopen on her lap, and took it in both his own. He went on, appealingly:

  "Now you try to tell me right--like as if I was your own brother--tellme as a sister. Try to put yourself in the place of the girl I'd marryfirst--no, don't; it seems more like your sister if I hold it thisway--and try to think how she'd feel when I brought home my second.Would that be doing square by her? Wouldn't it sort of get her on thebark? But if I join your Church and don't do that, I might as well beone of those low-down Freewill Baptists or Episcopals. Come now, tell metrue, letting on that you're my sister."

  She had not looked at him since he began, nor did she now.

  "Oh, I don't know--I don't _know_--it's all so mixed! I thought youcould be saved without that."

  "There's the word of God against me."

  "I wouldn't want you to marry that way,--if I were your sister."

  "That's right now, try to feel like a sister. You wouldn't want me tohave as many wives as those old codgers down there below, would you?"

  "No--I'm sure you shouldn't have but one. Oh, you couldn't marry morethan one, could you?" She turned her eyes for the first time upon him,and he saw that some inward warmth seemed to be melting them.

  "Well, I'd hate to disappoint you if you were my sister, but there's theword of the Lord--"

  "Oh, b
ut could you _anyway_, even if you didn't have a sister, and therewas no one but _her_ to think of?"

  He appeared to debate with himself cautiously.

  "Well, now, I must say your teaching has taken a powerful hold on methis summer--" he reached under her arm and caught her other hand."You've been like a sister to me and made me think about these thingspretty deep and serious. I don't know if I could get what you've taughtme out of my mind or not."

  "But how could you _ever_ marry another wife?"

  "Well, a man don't like to think he's going to the bad place when hedies, all on account of not marrying a few more times. It sort of takesthe ambition all out of him."

  "Oh, it couldn't be right!"

  "Well now, I'll do as you say. Do I forget all these things you've beenteaching me, and settle down with one wife,--or do I come into theKingdom and lash the cinches of my glory good and plenty by marryingwhenever I get time to build a new end on the house, like old manWright does?"

  She was silent.

  "Like a sister would tell a brother," he urged, with a tighter pressureof her two hands. But this seemed to recall another trouble to her mind.

  "I--I'm not fit to be your sister--don't talk of it--you don't know--"Her voice broke, and he had to release her hand. Whereupon he put hisown back up against the pine-tree, reached his arm about her, and hadher head upon his shoulder.

  "There, there now!"

  "But you don't know."

  "Well, I _do_ know--so just you straighten out that face. I do know, Itell you. Now don't cry and I'll fix it all right, I promise you."

  "But you don't even know what the trouble is."

  "I do--it's about your father and mother--when they were married."

  "How did you know?"

  "I can't tell you now, but I will soon. Look here, you can believe whatI tell you, can't you?"

  "Yes, I can do that."

  "Well, then, you listen. Your father and mother were married in theright way, and there wasn't a single bit of crookedness about it. Iwouldn't tell you if I didn't know and couldn't prove it to you in alittle while. Say, there's one of our wagon-trains coming along heretoward Salt Lake next Monday. It's coming out of its way on purpose topick me up. I'll promise to have it proved to you by that time. Now, isthat fair? Can you believe me?"

  She looked up at him, her face bright again.

  "Oh, I _do_ believe you! You don't know how glad you make me. It was anawful thing--oh, you are a dear"--and full upon his lips she kissed theastounded young man, holding him fast with an arm about his neck."You've made me all over new--I was feeling so wretched--and of course Ican't see how you know anything about it, but I know you are telling thetruth." Again she kissed him with the utmost cordiality. Then she stoodup to arrange her hair, her face full of the joy of this assurance. Theyoung man saw that she had forgotten both him and his religiousperplexities, and he did not wish her to be entirely divested of concernfor him at this moment.

  "But how about me? Here I am, lost if I do and lost if I don't. Youbetter sit down here again and see if there isn't some way I can getthat crown of glory."

  She sat down by him, instantly sobered from her own joy, and calmly gavehim a hand to hold.

  "Well, I'll tell you," she said, frankly. "You wait awhile. Don't doanything right away. I'll have to ask father." And then as he reachedover to pick up the Book of Mormon,--"No, let's not read any moreto-day. Let's sit a little while and only think about things." She wasso free from embarrassment that he began to doubt if he had been so verydeeply clever, after all, in suggesting the relationship between them.But after she had mused awhile, she seemed to perceive for the firsttime that he was very earnestly holding both of her hands. She blushed,and suddenly withdrew them. Whereat he was more pleased than when shehad passively let them lie. He approached the matter of salvation forhimself once more.

  "Of course I can wait awhile for you to find out the rights of thisthing, but I'm afraid I can't be baptised even if you tell me tobe--even if you want me to obey the Lord and marry some pretty littlelight-complected, yellow-haired thing afterwards--after I'd married myfirst wife. Fact is, I don't believe I could. Probably I'd care so muchfor the first one that I'd have blinders on for all the other women inthe world. She'd have me tied down with the red ribbon in her hair"--hetouched the red ribbon in her own, by way of illustration--"just like Ican tie the biggest steer you ever saw with that little silk rag ofmine--hold him, two hind legs and one fore, so he can't budge an inch.I'd just like to see some little, short, kind of plump, prettyyellow-haired thing come between us."

  For an instant, she looked such warm, almost indignant approval that hebelieved she was about to express an opinion of her own in the matter,but she stayed silent, looking away instead with a little movement ofhaving swallowed something.

  "And you, too, if you were my sister, do you think I'd want you marriedto a man who'd begin to look around for some one else as soon as he gotyou? No, sir--you deserve some decent young fellow who'd love you allto pieces day in and day out and never so much as look at this littleyellow-haired girl--even if she was almost as pretty as you."

  But she was not to be led into rendering any hasty decision which mightaffect his eternal salvation. Moreover, she was embarrassed anddisturbed.

  "We must go," she said, rising before he could help her. When they hadpicked their way down to the mouth of the canon, he walking behind her,she turned back and said, "Of course you could marry that littleyellow-haired girl with the blue eyes first, the one you're thinking somuch about--the little short, fat thing with a doll-baby face--"

  But he only answered, "Oh, well, if you get me into your Church itwouldn't make a bit of difference whether I took her first or second."