He went to the door, then turned around. “Anything you need?”
“No. I’m fine. I’ll be coming over later to help count the new shipment from Kentucky.”
“All right.” He opened the door and was gone. She sat up, pushing the pillow back against the bed’s headboard enough to look out of the window and watch him stride up the street for a few moments. Then she lay back. Without being aware of it, her hand stole up to her belly once more and began to trace the contours of the roundness there.
There was a sharp knock on the door and Nathan looked up from where he was nailing board planks down in the main floor of his cabin.
He set the hammer aside and went to the door. He opened it to find Martin Harris standing there, clutching a newspaper.
“Look at this!” He thrust the newspaper in front of Nathan’s nose. No preliminaries, no handshakes, no “Hello, Nathan, how are you?” His hands were trembling slightly as he held the paper out in one hand.
Nathan took it from him, glancing at the masthead. It was the Wayne Sentinel. Martin’s hand shot out to jab at a spot on the page. Then Nathan felt his own heart leap. There it was, in bold letters: “THE BOOK OF MORMON.” He started to read.
THE BOOK OF MORMON
An account written by the hand of Mormon, upon plates, taken from the plates of Nephi. Wherefore it is an abridgment of the Record of the People of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites; written to the Lamanites, which are a remnant of the House of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile; written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of Prophecy and of Revelation.
“That part’s taken from the title page of the Book of Mormon,” Martin said. He dropped his finger a little further down the page. “Look here.”
The bottom paragraph was short, only three lines long.
The above work, containing about 600 pages, large Duodecimo, is now for sale, wholesale and retail, at the Palmyra Bookstore, by
HOWARD & GRANDIN.
Palmyra, March 26, 1830.
It was yesterday’s date. Nathan looked into the older man’s eyes, which were shining with excitement. “So it’s finished!”
“Yes.” Martin reached inside his coat and pulled out a book he had tucked up under his arm. It was rather small, only about five inches by seven inches, and an inch and a half thick. The cover was of fine leather and a soft, golden brown. There was nothing on the front or back covers, but the spine had a small square of black near the top with gold lettering stamped into it. It read simply, “BOOK OF MORMON.”
“This is one of the very first copies.”
Reverently, almost disbelieving it could really be what it was purported to be, Nathan took it from him. Martin took the newspaper back, watching as Nathan caressed the lettering with his finger and rubbed the leather. He opened it slowly, almost in awe. The first page was the title page, laid out a little differently but containing the very words he had just been reading in the advertisement. He let his eyes skip down to where he had left off.
Written, and sealed up, and hid up unto the LORD, that they might not be destroyed; to come forth by the gift and power of GOD, unto the interpretation thereof; sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the LORD, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile; the interpretation thereof by the gift of GOD.
“I can’t believe it, Martin,” he breathed. “I just can’t believe it.”
“Nor can I,” the older man agreed.
Nathan’s eyes dropped further on the title page.
…which is to shew unto the remnant of the House of Israel how great things the LORD hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the LORD, that they are not cast off forever; and also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that JESUS is the CHRIST, the ETERNAL GOD, manifesting Himself unto all nations. And now if there be fault, it be the mistake of men; wherefore condemn not the things of GOD, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of CHRIST.
Nathan read one phrase again, marveling. “To convince both Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ.” He shook his head. “I can hardly wait to read it.”
“I’ll bet Joseph is beside himself,” Martin went on. “After all these years, it’s finally completed.” He laughed. “I can’t wait to see him.”
Nathan was thumbing through the book, pausing to note the headings. Here were words he recognized from his conversations with Joseph and the nights Joseph had read to them from the manuscript. Nephi, Jacob, Alma. He could not put aside the sense of wondrous awe that lay upon him. This was scripture. The first scripture given to man in almost two thousand years. And here it lay before him, waiting to be read, waiting to be digested.
“I’m going down there now.”
Nathan finally pulled out of his thoughts. “What?”
“I’m going down to see Joseph now. He’s at his parents’ home. This is a great day and I wish to be with him.”
There was a quick stab of pain. A week ago he had promised Lydia he would break off his association with Joseph Smith. But the offer had been flatly rejected. The void it had left in his life still gaped before him like some immense, bottomless chasm. But his compromise had been spurned. There was no longer any such commitment. He felt a leap of relief even in the midst of the pain. He untied the carpenter’s apron he wore and tossed it onto a bench. “I’m coming with you, Martin.”
The older man clapped him on the shoulders. “Good.”
“And we’ll stop in the village at the Palmyra Bookstore. I must purchase my own copy.” His eyes lit up. “No!” he exclaimed. “I shall purchase three. Mother must have one too.”
Martin looked puzzled. “But that’s only two.”
“Yes, I know. But I think I know what to do with the third copy.”
“It has been a monumental work.” Oliver Cowdery sat on the sofa next to Joseph, looking at Nathan. “Seven months just for the printing.”
Joseph nodded soberly. “And Satan’s hand has not slackened for one moment as we sought to bring it forth.”
“But it is finished,” Martin said fervently. “It is finished.”
Martin and Nathan had arrived at the Smith home about two that afternoon and had, for a time, worked with Oliver, Joseph, Samuel, Hyrum, and Father Smith in getting some old dead wood culled from the woodlot. After a warm supper prepared by Emma and Mother Smith, they retired to the Smiths’ parlor to talk. The other Smith children—Sophronia, William, Catherine, Don Carlos, and little Lucy—had also joined them. The younger ones sat on the floor to watch and listen as the adults talked. It was a warm gathering, filled with excitement and exhilaration.
Samuel Smith chuckled a little. “It was a big job for old Egbert B. Grandin. Even the big book printers in New York City usually only do one or two thousand copies.”
“What do you mean old Egbert B. Grandin?” Emma chided. “He’s younger than Joseph.”
“I know, I know,” Samuel continued. “But when Joseph wanted five thousand copies…” He laughed. “And him barely hung his shingle out for book printing!”
“It was a massive amount of work,” Oliver said soberly. “He was right in feeling a little overwhelmed.” He turned to Nathan. “Have you ever watched a printer at work, Nathan?”
“No.”
“Well, of course, every letter has to be set in place by hand. One at a time.”
Joseph laughed easily. “Oliver ought to know. He set some of the type himself. In fact, he was at Grandin’s shop enough that he could be a printer himself now.”
“Yes,” Oliver agreed, “I was beginning to feel as if printer’s ink was the milk on which I had been nursed. But when you think that each sheet has to be printed by hand, even with sixteen book pages on a sheet, with five thousand copies that’s over a hundred and eighty thousand sheets Grandin had to print.”
There were low whistles and some oohs and aahs.
“And that doesn’t count the folding, trimming, stitching, and binding,” Joseph added.
“No w
onder it took him seven months!” Sophronia said.
“It was certainly not without it’s challenges,” Father Smith said.
Joseph was nodding vigorously. “That’s what I said, Satan did not slack his hand.”
“What do you mean?” Nathan asked.
“You haven’t heard about Abner Cole?” Emma said with faint bitterness.
“No.”
Joseph looked weary. “Well, after we lost the first manuscript”—several glanced quickly at Martin Harris, who dropped his head slightly, but Joseph had not looked at him, nor did he notice the reaction—“I was not willing to take any more chances. I had to return with Emma to Harmony, so I left Hyrum and Oliver in charge of the project. I instructed them to take every precaution.”
“First we wrote a complete copy of the manuscript for the printer,” Hyrum said. “Then each day I would take only a portion of the manuscript to Grandin’s shop. At night I would return and pick it up again.”
Mother Smith, who was in the rocking chair, leaned forward. Nathan had come to admire this plucky woman, barely five feet tall. She was a fierce defender of her son. “We had a chest under the bed where we kept it,” she said. “The chest was just high enough that when we placed it under the bed, the whole weight of the bed rested upon it. Once we had returned the manuscript to the chest, we could sleep in peace.”
Little Lucy, nine years old and named for her mother, piped up. “But remember, Peter Whitmer would stand guard too.”
“Yes,” Hyrum said. “We didn’t take any chances.”
“And still we almost had the work stopped.” Joseph turned to Nathan again. “This Abner Cole publishes a small paper called the Reflector under the fictitious name of Obediah Dogberry.”
“Oh yes,” Nathan said. “I’ve seen it.”
“Yes. Well, unbeknownst to us, Cole comes in on evenings and the weekend and uses Grandin’s equipment. When he learned that Grandin was printing the Book of Mormon, he promised his subscribers that he would print excerpts of it in his paper and save them the cost of buying the book from us.”
“One Sunday,” Hyrum went on, speaking quietly now, “this was in December, both Oliver and I felt very uneasy about the project. We went into town and found Cole working like a madman on his next issue. It was not just the Book of Mormon though. Mingled with the scriptural passages, he had thrown together a parcel of the most vulgar, disgusting collection of prose you have ever laid your eyes on. It was a tremendous shock to us.”
“So what did you do?”
“I told him we held a legal copyright on the book and that he was violating that copyright. We demanded that he cease.”
“He absolutely refused,” Oliver broke in. “He was arrogant and haughty. He believed the Book of Mormon was rubbish and planned to discredit it in this manner. He said he had permission from Grandin to use the press and that gave him right to the Book of Mormon too.”
Father Smith stirred in his chair. “When Cole went right ahead and started to publish the excerpts, Hyrum and Oliver asked me what ought to be done. I thought Joseph needed to know about it, so I went to Harmony to fetch him.”
Joseph smiled ruefully. “We got back on a Sunday. Father and I nearly froze to death. The weather was bitter cold. But as soon as I had recovered a little, I went to Palmyra. There was Cole working on his paper, just as on the previous Sunday when Hyrum and Oliver found him. When I saw what he was doing, I told him the book belonged to me and I forbade him from meddling with it further.”
“What did he say?” Nathan asked.
Joseph seemed amused. “He threw off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and came towards me, smacking his fists together. ‘Do you want to fight, sir?’ he bellowed. ‘Do you want to fight? I will publish whatever I please. So if you want to fight, just come on.’”
Nathan smiled, remembering when Joseph had nearly yanked his arms out of their sockets in a stick pull.
“I told him to put his coat back on. It was cold and I told him I would not fight with him. But I told him I knew my rights and he would certainly stop printing my book or I would exercise them. ‘Sir,’ he bawled, ‘if you think you are the best man, take off your coat and try it.’”
Joseph laughed. “He really looked quite ridiculous. I told him again I would not fight him, but I reminded him of the law, and told him I would invoke it. He finally cooled down a little and agreed to take the matter to arbitration. Of course, it was settled in my favor, and that was the end of it.”
“Well, only the end of Cole’s dishonesty,” Oliver corrected him. “But harm had been done.”
“That’s right,” Martin Harris broke in, speaking for the first time in several minutes. “When word spread there’d be no getting the book in the Reflector, a group of the townspeople got together and made a resolution that they would not purchase the book when it was completed, and also that they would try to influence all they knew to stay away from it too.”
Nathan gave a weary sigh. “Yes, I heard about that. Lydia’s father was one of the primary forces behind the meeting.”
Mother Smith stirred. “He was also the one who influenced the Presbyterian church to bring charges against us.”
“Really?” Nathan asked in surprise.
“Yes. Back before Joseph had his first vision, I, along with three of my children, had joined the Presbyterian church. We haven’t been involved with them of late, of course, but we were notified this month that they were charging us with neglect of public worship.”
“Yes,” Martin said. “That would be Josiah McBride, all right. Well, anyway, after the town meeting, Egbert began to worry. Here he was with five thousand copies of a book nearly done and the whole town saying they were not going to buy one copy of it.”
Joseph looked at Martin and smiled warmly. “By then I had returned to Harmony, so I had to come back again and try to assure Grandin he would not lose his money.”
Martin was shaking his head. “Joseph also had to convince Martin Harris, faithless Martin Harris, that he wasn’t going to lose his farm over this either.” He looked pained. “When suddenly it looked like no one would buy the books I got worried. Remember, it was my mortgage that convinced Egbert to take the job in the first place.”
“I inquired of the Lord,” Joseph said softly. “He gave a special revelation to Martin.”
This came as a surprise, not only to Nathan, but to some of Joseph’s family as well.
Martin was obviously chagrined and yet too honest to spare himself. “The Lord told me I was not to covet my own property, that I was to be concerned about the needs of my family, but otherwise I was to impart of my property and pay the debt which I had contracted with Egbert so the work could continue.”
“There were also some other wonderful things the Lord told Martin,” Joseph said, pleased with Martin’s obvious contrition. “Some night when there is more time, we shall read it together.”
“There was one beautiful line,” Martin said softly. “I have committed it to memory, for it is exactly the counsel needed most in my life.”
“What does it say?” Mother Smith asked.
Martin took a quick breath, glancing around the room at them. “It says, ‘Learn of me, and listen to my words; walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me.’”
There were quiet murmurs as the others considered that.
“So I talked with Egbert,” Martin went on, with more assurance now. “I told him I would stand behind the project. He had no need to fear that he would lose his money. So he finally agreed to continue.”
“And the Lord is pleased, Martin,” Joseph said. “Very pleased.”
The group lapsed into a comfortable silence for several moments, each lost in his own thoughts, then suddenly Joseph slapped his leg. “But Nathan, I have forgotten the most important thing.”
“What?”
“What are you doing Tuesday next? Not this coming Tuesday, but a week from. April sixth to be precise.”
Nathan shrugged. “I’ll be starting into spring plowing if the weather holds. Why?”
Joseph’s eyes were shining, and there was a radiant sense of excitement about him. “The Lord has made it known that we are to organize his kingdom again upon the earth.”
Again he had caught several in the room completely by surprise. Samuel leaned forward eagerly. “You mean a church?”
“Yes, Samuel. The Lord’s church.”
“But—” Nathan stopped, overwhelmed. “And it’s to be done on that day?”
“Yes. The Lord has specified it.”
“The exact day is to be April sixth,” Oliver said.
“A church,” Samuel said again in awe. “We’ll have a church.”
Joseph smiled. “Now the Book of Mormon is finished, the Lord wants us to move on. There is a great work yet to do.”
“Will it be done here, Joseph?” Nathan asked.
“No. It will be at the Whitmers’ in Fayette. We have much less opposition there. Can you come? Will you come?”
Nathan looked into the blue eyes that seemed as deep as eternity. “Even as strong as you are, Joseph, I don’t think you could keep me away. May I bring Mother?”
“Of course. Melissa too.” He paused. “How will your father feel about it? Will he let them come?”
Nathan frowned, and once again his thoughts leaped backwards to his last meeting with Lydia. “He’d better,” he finally said in a low voice. “I’m getting a little tired of people telling others what they can or cannot believe.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Nathan finished shaving in the icy water of the watering trough, without benefit of mirror, then toweled himself dry and walked back inside the barn. Since the interior of the cabin was yet to be finished, Nathan had been sleeping in a pile of meadow hay he had cut, dried, and put in the barn last fall. Above his bed he had tacked a rough set of shelves where he kept most of his personal belongings. He set the straight razor and the shaving mug on one end, then turned to the other. There sat two of the books he had purchased the previous day in Palmyra. The top one had a bookmark at page 54, the spot where Nathan had stopped reading the previous night. The second one lay new and unopened as yet.
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