He leaned forward and kissed her softly. “Well, it’s wonderful. I still can’t believe it. You’re here. Right here.”
She kissed him back, but again it was only a halfhearted effort, and her hesitancy finally registered with him. Nathan stepped back, peering at her closely.
“Let’s go somewhere, Nathan,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “We have to talk.”
The moon, in its last quarter, hung low in the eastern sky. Its faint light made barely a glimmer across the muddy waters of the Erie Canal. The last of the barge traffic was now tied up at the docks for the night, and the waters were still. A bat darted downward, its dark shape momentarily silhouetted against the moon. They sat on a small, grassy knoll a quarter mile east of the village. The silence now lay heavy between them, both of them retreating into their own thoughts when the confrontation had become too intense to continue. Across the water a carriage moved along parallel to the canal. The soft clatter of its wheels and the clip-clopping of the horse’s hooves were muted, as though far away and hidden in mists.
The flowers lay in Lydia’s lap. Nathan gave an ironic smile. Even in the semi-darkness he could see they were already starting to wilt. How appropriate! Her fingers absently picked at the blossoms, letting the petals flutter to the ground. Nathan watched her hands, loving their graceful lines and the gentleness in them, and yet also sensing the tension there, in her hands, in her.
He reached out, putting his hand over hers. She sighed, and finally turned, and he could see her eyes glistening in the faint moonlight. “Lydia,” he began slowly, trying to choose his way carefully, not wanting to drive the wedge between them any deeper. And yet at the same time he was fighting a low undercurrent of anger within himself. People could be so blind, so quick to condemn. “I know how your parents feel about me and about Joseph Smith. But I’m not marrying your mother and you’re not marrying Joseph.”
“Aren’t I, Nathan?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” It came out snappish, more sharply than he had intended. He was instantly contrite. “Lydia, I’ve not asked you to accept Joseph. By the same token, we can’t let how your parents feel about me change how we feel about each other.”
She pulled her hand away slowly. “How do we feel about each other?” she asked, her voice low and husky with emotion.
Frustrated, he shook his head. “I love you, Lydia. I’ve said that over and over.” He leaned forward and gripped her shoulders. “I love you!” he repeated in a fierce whisper.
“Then why didn’t you say anything about this obsession you have with Joseph Smith?” she burst out.
“But I did. That’s why I wrote you the letter.”
“After you had already been baptized.”
“I—”
“And why did I have to learn from my parents that you had returned home to Palmyra? You didn’t say one word in your letter about that. Was it because you knew I would be angry with you for leaving your work with Mr. Knight?”
He took a breath, fighting to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “I already told you. I had no plans to quit work with Mr. Knight. I was planning to stay in Colesville until September as you and I agreed. Then Pa broke his arm. You saw him today. He can’t run a farm. What was I supposed to do?”
She looked away.
“I wrote you again once I got back here,” he said, pleading for her understanding. “You must have left before my letter got to Boston.”
“And the fact that Joseph had come back too had absolutely nothing to do with your coming home?”
He started to shake his head, then dropped his eyes. When Joseph had announced he and Emma and Oliver were moving to Fayette, Nathan was bitterly disappointed. He had thrilled to be close enough to Joseph to hear firsthand how the work was progressing. Then word came of his father’s accident. He would have come home either way, but he was elated to know he would still be close enough to see Joseph from time to time.
She pounced on his hesitancy. “See, Nathan? That’s just it. What is this insane obsession you have with Joseph? Does he take priority over everything we’ve planned, everything we’ve worked for?” Her chin came up, her lips quivering. “Over us?”
“That’s not fair, Lydia. I came home to help Pa.”
“Do I come first before Joseph?” she asked quietly.
“Why do you keep saying Joseph?” he exclaimed. “It’s not just Joseph. He has been called of God. I’ve had that confirmed in my soul. I’m not following after Joseph. I’m doing what God wants me to do.”
She brushed it aside with an impatient shake of her head. “Do I come first or don’t I?”
Nathan threw up his hands. “Do I come first before your parents?” he demanded back at her. “Your parents don’t like me. They never have. Joseph is only a small part of it. It’s because I’m not the son of one of the acceptable”—he emphasized the word with heavy sarcasm—“families of the township.”
Lydia looked away quickly, but not before he saw the tears suddenly well up and spill over onto her cheeks. He moved closer, drew her to him, stroking her hair with gentleness. “I’m sorry, Lydia, but you know that’s true. I’m just a dirt farmer, and that will never be good enough for your mother.”
She swung around, the sudden fierceness in her startling him. “You have no idea how deeply my parents feel about Joseph Smith and this madness he has started. If you continue this insanity with Joseph and I marry you, I will be totally rejected by my parents. I will not be welcome in their home. My name will not be spoken in their presence again.”
Nathan’s head rolled back as though he had been struck.
She nodded, her chest rising and falling with the intensity of her emotions. As he stared at her he suddenly realized that this was not just her imagination. She was repeating an ultimatum which had already been delivered to her, probably on this very night. He shook his head, stunned by the revelation. “They wouldn’t—”
Her head jerked up, eyes flashing. “They would!” Instantly her voice dropped to an agonized whisper. “They would, Nathan. They mean every word.”
The breath came out of him in a long, drawn-out sound of bitterness.
“Are you ready to ask that of me? Simply so you can continue to follow after Joseph?”
“It’s just a bluff, Lydia,” he said lamely. “It’s the only thing they can think of to hold over you.”
She gave an impatient shake of her head. “Answer me, Nathan. Are you ready to ask that of me?”
“I love you, Lydia. I want to marry you.”
“And I love you,” she said, brushing angrily at the tears. She pulled away from his grip and stood, turning half away, staring out across the murky waters of the canal. “Don’t you know that? I love you.” She whirled back to face him. “But that’s not the answer. I am ready to tell my parents that if they can’t accept you, then they will lose me.”
She looked down at him, the challenge on her face almost fiery in the darkness. “But I will not do that for Joseph, Nathan. He is a fraud. He has been deceived by some terrible, evil power. And I can’t believe you have allowed him to deceive you too.”
Nathan stood slowly, the pain inside him as real as though he had been struck by a broadside from a cannon. “Lydia, I…” He didn’t know how to finish it. He felt his stomach twisting at the alternatives she was jamming at him.
“That’s what it comes down to, Nathan. I am willing to choose you over my parents. Are you willing to choose me over Joseph?”
“Lydia,” he cried in anguish, “it’s not just Joseph, it’s—”
“No, Nathan!” she flared. “Don’t. Is it me or Joseph Smith, Nathan? Just answer me.”
He stared at her for a moment, his mind churning. The fires of love or the fires of conversion. Which burned the brighter in him? It wasn’t fair to ask that kind of question, to demand that of him. The blindness, the bigotry—it left him wanting to strike out at people like her father. His mind flashed back to that morning when he had
emerged from the waters of the Susquehanna, dripping water and filled with joy and peace. What was so evil that her parents should recoil in horror?
“Is that your answer?” she finally said, in a voice that seared his soul.
“Lydia, I—” The frustration welled up in him like bile. “Those are not fair choices. What if I said I wouldn’t marry you unless you left the Presbyterian church? What has that got to do with our love?”
She stepped forward. Her lips brushed his briefly and he felt the wetness of her tears against his cheek. “Good-bye, Nathan,” she whispered. She turned and walked away swiftly. He stood there, too stunned to move. The night was suddenly rent by one sharp, sobbing cry torn from Lydia’s breast, then she broke into a run and disappeared into the darkness.
“Good night, Mother,” Melissa whispered.
“Good night, Melissa,” Mary Ann smiled into the darkness. “Good Sabbath.”
“Thank you. It was a good Sabbath.”
“I know.” Mary Ann was sitting on the edge of Melissa’s bed. There was only one small window in her bedroom, and the light from the quarter moon was so faint that she could barely make out the dark shape of the bed. Matthew and Rebecca were both exhausted from the day’s activity and the six-hour wagon ride home from Fayette. They had fallen asleep before their mother had fully tucked them in. Mary Ann had then slipped into Melissa’s room and they had begun to talk quietly of the day’s events.
“And what of the Book of Mormon, Melissa?”
She heard her daughter’s breath rise and fall wearily. “I don’t know, Mama,” she finally said. “In some ways I was deeply stirred. The story of Jesus coming to the people was wonderful.”
“Yes, it was.”
“But it still seems so…” Her voice trailed off.
“So impossible?” her mother furnished. She moved back and sat on the bed again.
“Yes.” Melissa’s hand stole across the bed and touched her mother’s. “Does that make you feel bad, Mama?”
That surprised Mary Ann. “Not at all, Melissa. This is something each person must come to on his or her own.”
She sensed Melissa’s nod and the relief. “Are you praying about it?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Then that’s enough for now.”
There was a long pause, then a squeeze from the hand on hers. “Thank you, Mama.”
She smiled. This was so like Melissa. Being the oldest daughter in the family was never an easy thing. With two older brothers and a father who could be gruff and filled with New England stubbornness, Melissa had learned to move carefully, walking all around an issue so as to examine its implications before deciding which way to go. If Joshua had only had a small part of her caution…
She patted her hand, then stood up. “I love you, Melissa. You’re a daughter that makes a mother proud.”
“Thank you, Mama. I love you too.”
She groped her way carefully to the stairs and started down. She had removed her shoes so as to move as quietly as possible. Benjamin had been in the barn when they arrived just after sundown. He had grunted a muffled greeting, passed on the message to a stunned Nathan about Lydia’s visit, brushed aside Mary Ann’s inquiries about his arm, and stomped back into the barn. He had not come into the cabin until a half hour ago while she was upstairs with the children. To her relief, he had immediately gone to bed, and now, as she paused to listen, she could hear his heavy breathing.
She heaved a sigh of relief. Tomorrow they would have to talk, but for tonight she wanted to savor the experiences of the day without facing Ben’s skeptical barbs.
She undressed slowly, slipped on her nightdress, then knelt at the large oak chest against the far wall. She stayed there for some time, her lips barely moving. First there was a great outpouring of gratitude. It had been a joyous two days and she had gotten the confirmation she sought. But it was much broader than that. God’s work was unfolding, and astonishing things were happening. It left her humbled to think of the fortuitous set of circumstances that had brought them to Palmyra just as Joseph was being directed to begin the work of restoring God’s truth to the earth.
Then her thanks turned to the children. Each in turn was mentioned—Matthew, the joy of her life; Becca, so sweet and filled with fun; Melissa, steady as a rock and now a lovely young woman; Nathan, dear Nathan, who saw and believed and felt as she did. And Joshua. As they did every night, tears welled up as she pleaded with the Lord to watch over her oldest offspring, to keep him from harm and evil, to soften his heart so he would someday return and be reconciled to his father.
And then her thoughts turned to the man in the bed just behind her, and her pleading became all the more earnest. As a young girl she had once come across a puzzling reference in the Old Testament. It said a man should not plow with an ox and an ass together. She had asked her father why such a small thing would matter to God. As he often did, instead of answering her directly he took her to where the men were working on a section of turnpike. A yoke of oxen was hooked to a scraper, clearing and smoothing right-of-way. He stopped the animals long enough for her to take a close look at the yoke. He pointed out how each yoke was shaped and fitted to the particular animals who wore it so the pulling weight of both animals was evenly distributed to the load. Then he brought over the mule they used for lighter work. He made it stand beside the oxen. It stood at least two hands higher at the shoulder. He had said no more, but Mary Ann had never forgotten the lesson.
Years later, after her marriage, she was reading in the Apostle Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians. The words had leaped out at her from the page. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?” The lesson of so many years earlier came flooding back and it had troubled her for some time. She had finally concluded that while she and Benjamin, spiritually speaking, were not a well-matched span, they still pulled well together.
Now, in the past few months, she was no longer sure but what she and Benjamin had not become ox and mule—or mule and ox, she thought, momentarily taken with the wry question of whether she was ox or mule. But instantly she sobered. Had it come to this now? The thought frightened her, and so, as in all things that troubled her, she took it to the Lord in prayer. “O God,” she supplicated, “wilt thou touch the eyes of his understanding that he may see and know for himself. And if that be not possible, if he cannot accept thy servant Joseph and the work thou hast given him to do, then wilt thou at least touch his heart so it may be softened towards the work. He is a good and gentle man, O Lord, and I seek not to bring contention and difference between us. And yet, dear Father, thou hast shown unto me these things are true—”
She stopped, suddenly realizing there had been a change in the breathing behind her. She had not spoken aloud. She had cried only in her heart, but now she felt Benjamin’s wakefulness and his awareness of her presence. She offered a quick amen and slipped into bed as quietly as possible. She did not look at him. It was too dark to see anyway, but she didn’t have to. There was no movement, no change in the steady breathing, but after nearly a quarter of a century of sharing the same bed she knew full well he was wide awake.
For several moments the silence stretched on, then he stirred slightly. “Is Nathan back yet?” he asked. His voice was too soft to reveal if there was any kind of emotion behind it.
“I thought I heard him ride in about half an hour ago,” she answered, “but he hasn’t come in.”
There was no answer, and after a moment she turned onto her side to face him. “How is your arm?”
She felt him shrug in the darkness. “Martin Harris brought some kind of tea from his wife. That helps.”
“Oh?” she said in surprise. “That was nice of him.”
“Did you tell him to come and see me?” His voice was suddenly blunt and confrontational.
She tensed. “No.”
“You didn’t tell him to come tell me that ridiculous story about the
angel appearing to him?”
Mary Ann turned back over and stared up at the ceiling, fighting back a deep melancholy that swept over her. “No, Benjamin, I had no idea he was coming.”
“Well, he did.”
“And you don’t believe it?”
He snorted in derision.
“It wasn’t just him, Ben,” she said slowly. “Oliver Cowdery and-”
“Don’t!” he snapped. “I heard it all.”
“You think he’s lying?” she said incredulously. If there was one thing Benjamin felt about Martin Harris, it was that his integrity was rock solid.
“No, not lying. I think he’s been deluded. I don’t know how Joseph has done it, but it’s an evil thing, Mary Ann, and I want no part of it.”
She couldn’t repress the sorrow which rose from the depths of her soul.
“Did you know he’s going to mortgage his farm and give Joseph three thousand dollars?”
“He’s not giving it to Joseph,” she answered wearily. “He’s giving it to the printer to print the Book of Mormon. Joseph won’t get one bit of that money.”
“Three thousand dollars!” he repeated, as though she hadn’t spoken. “It’s insane.”
“If you would just come and listen to Joseph, Benjamin,” she began, her voice soft with its pleading, “if you would read some of the things he has translated from the gold plates…”
He came up on one elbow with a sharp jerk, and she could feel him glaring at her in the darkness. “You just get that out of your head, woman,” he cried in a hoarse whisper.
“But you won’t even try to—”
He slammed his open palm against the bed. “It’s gone too far, Mary Ann. I shoulda put an end to it before now. I’ll not have you and Nathan bewitched by this man like Mr. Harris has been.”
“Bewitched?” she cried. “Is that your explanation for all this?”
He ignored the question. “I’ve put up with it till now because I’ve always believed a person’s religion was their business, but now you’re bringing the children in on it as well. Well, I won’t have it destroying my family. I won’t!”
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