Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  “I see you haven’t come to your senses and bought yourself a whip for your team yet.”

  Barlow gave him a look reserved for those who had been too long in the sun, and Carl grinned. This was a running gibe between the two of them. Israel also took a lot of joshing from the other teamsters around town for his refusal to carry a whip for his team.

  “Treat an intelligent animal with love and respect and you won’t be needing no whip to make him obey you,” Barlow grunted. “Not that I’d be holding it against a man who can’t control his animals if he bought one.” He gave a meaningful look toward Carl’s wagon, where a long buggy whip stood in its holder.

  Carl laughed easily. You didn’t top Israel Barlow easily in a joshing contest. Carl wasn’t a man to whip his teams either, but a sharp pop of the whip over their ears was sometimes necessary to get a reluctant team to listen to you. He turned and looked at the fine-looking mares harnessed to Barlow’s wagon. “You’re probably right,” he mused. “If I had a couple of high-spirited animals like those, with a mind of their own, I suppose a whip wouldn’t make a lot of difference one way or the other. They’ll just go their own way, no matter what you want them to do.”

  Barlow frowned, and Carl knew he had hit the mark. These two horses were particularly high-spirited, but they were amazingly responsive to Barlow’s every command. He rarely even raised his voice to them. And Israel Barlow took great pride in that. He started a retort, then saw the satisfaction on Carl’s face, and bit it off. “Only a cretin needs a whip to control his animals,” he grumbled.

  Then, happy for a respite, Barlow looked beyond Carl at two approaching men. “Well, there’s a couple of your in-laws. Looks like it’s about your turn to unload.”

  Carl turned in surprise as Benjamin and Nathan came up. “I thought you were working down in the quarry today.”

  “We were,” Nathan grinned, “but Pa looked so plumb tuckered out, they took pity on us and sent us up for some lighter duty.”

  Benjamin ignored that. “Hello, Carl. Hello, Israel.” Then to Carl, “Did Joshua and Will get off?”

  Carl shook his head. “They were catching that noon steamboat, but then Joshua decided he has some business in Warsaw. They’ll leave tonight, then catch a boat on down to St. Louis from there tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” Benjamin said, his mind already caught by something else. He was squinting up at Barlow’s wagon. “I see you haven’t got yourself a whip yet, Israel.”

  There was a low rumble, noncommittal, incomprehensible. Then before Benjamin could pursue it further, Barlow looked at Carl. “Come on, Rogers,” he groused, “get your wagon up in line so I can get out of here and on with my work.”

  Rebecca Steed Ingalls knocked lightly on the door to Nathan and Lydia’s cabin, then opened it up slowly. This was standard procedure along Granger Street. Six Steed homes sat either side by side or facing each other across the street. Anyone in the family was family. One only knocked to give warning in case someone might not be dressed properly inside. Inside, Lydia’s four children were all occupied. Young Joshua had little Josiah on the floor, letting him wrestle him. Emily and Elizabeth Mary were at the table, drawing with a piece of chalk on a slate.

  “Oh, hello, Aunt Rebecca,” Joshua said.

  “Hello, Joshua. Is your mother at home?”

  “No. She just left to go up to the store a few minutes ago. She said she’ll probably stay until closing time.”

  “All right. Thank you. I’ll go over there.”

  A few minutes later, Rebecca stood on the store porch, waiting until the couple inside the store came out. There was a brief exchange of pleasantries—Rebecca knew them only as having recently arrived from Tennessee—then they moved to their carriage. As they drove away, Rebecca peered through the store window just to be sure. It was Monday afternoon, which was usually a slow time at the store, and she hoped there would not be any other customers for a time. Lydia was at the rear shelves, straightening bolts of cloth. Caroline was at the counter, making entries in a ledger. Relieved, Rebecca went inside.

  Lydia and Caroline both looked up, and both spoke at once. “Oh, hello, Rebecca.”

  “Good afternoon.” She moved across the room, looking around to see if Nathan or Jenny was nearby.

  “Where’s Christopher?” Caroline asked.

  “Derek had to get some tools fixed at the blacksmith’s, so he took him along.” She didn’t add that taking Christopher had been her suggestion.

  “That’s good,” Lydia said. “I’ll bet it feels good to you not to be lugging him around for once. He’s such a little chunk, that one.”

  Rebecca smiled and nodded. Christopher was two now, and built like a stone fence. He also went everywhere on a dead run, letting his body lean forward until he was ready to fall, then making his feet race to keep it from happening. But he still wanted his mother to hold him from time to time, which was enough to make anyone’s arms ache after a few moments.

  Rebecca looked over to the corner, where the potbellied stove sat cold and unused now. In the winter it would glow cherry red and always have two or three persons gathered round it, passing the time or playing this game or that. Almost every store in the western part of the United States had such a corner, often with a small table whose top was an inlaid board and a corncob cut into narrow slices to serve as checker pieces. It was an important gathering place, even in cities the size of Nauvoo. She turned to her two sisters-in-law. “Do you have a minute to sit down?”

  “Of course,” Caroline said, giving Lydia a quick look. They came around from the counter and moved to the wicker chairs by the stove. As they sat down, Rebecca looked around again. “Where’s Jenny?” she asked innocently.

  “Taking inventory on some stuff delivered today,” Lydia said, openly curious now. Rebecca was not a good one at pulling off feigned casualness. “And Nathan is at the quarry today.”

  “So how are you feeling?” Caroline asked, watching Rebecca closely. “Are you still having problems?”

  “Yes.” Rebecca looked up and tried to smile but it was not very convincing. “I . . .” Her face flushed a little and she looked down at her hands again. “I’ve been thinking about going to a doctor.”

  Again a quick look passed between Lydia and Caroline.

  “It’s not that serious,” Rebecca went on in a rush. “Really. It’s just that, well, ever since Christopher was born, it’s just . . .” She was coloring now, even though she was speaking to two women who not only were related to her by marriage but also were as close to her as her own sister. “I don’t know. I just worry a little. Christopher’s weaned now, and now that Derek is home again, he and I are thinking maybe it’s time to have another baby. I . . . I would just like to know that everything is all right, I guess.”

  “Then you should see a doctor,” Lydia said firmly.

  “Absolutely,” Caroline agreed.

  Rebecca finally looked up, first at Caroline and then to Lydia. “I was thinking about Doctor Bennett, but . . .” She let it trail off, watching for their reaction.

  “Mayor Bennett?” Lydia asked in surprise. “But that’s a wonderful idea, Rebecca. They say he is very well trained.”

  “I agree,” Caroline said enthusiastically. “He started a medical college in Ohio, you know. And I’m told he has especially studied in . . . in womanly concerns.”

  “Yes, I’d heard that,” Rebecca murmured. “Actually, I have a time with him tomorrow morning.”

  “Good,” Caroline said. “I’m glad. He’ll probably tell you everything is fine, but you need to find out for sure.”

  But Lydia was still watching Rebecca’s face. “You’re not worried about all those awful rumors, are you?”

  Rebecca’s chin dropped and there was the briefest of nods. “I know I shouldn’t be, Lydia, but what if they’re true?”

  Caroline was suddenly agitated. Joshua Steed was one of Nauvoo’s most prosperous businessmen, and because of that he and Caroline had been invited
on more than one occasion to have dinner with John C. Bennett. She was very impressed with the man. She found him to be witty, urbane, very learned, and a man of great charm. The rumors floating around the city about his past had been bad enough. Now there were the whisperings about questionable behavior.

  “I think it is terrible that anyone would give those wild stories one moment’s thought,” she said. “He’s the temporary Assistant President of the Church, remember. He’s helping out while Sidney Rigdon is sick. Do you think Joseph would allow that if there was anything at all to those stories?”

  That was something Rebecca hadn’t considered, and it cheered her considerably. “No,” she mused, “I suppose not.”

  “Of course not.” Lydia leaned forward. “I agree with Caroline. You need to be sure there’s nothing wrong, Rebecca. And everyone agrees, Doctor Bennett is the best.”

  Rebecca sat back in her chair, greatly relieved. This was why she had come to talk to them. “You’re right,” she said. “It wouldn’t be fair to act on the basis of backyard gossip.”

  Alpheus Cutler set down his mason’s hammer and looked out west over the river to where the sun hung low in the sky. He reached in the vest pocket of his leather apron and pulled out a watch. Flipping the lid of it open, he saw that it was nearly six o’clock.

  He turned and looked around with satisfaction. They had made good progress today. Ten more blocks, maybe twelve, and the next course of the basement level would be done. Yes, Cutler thought, they were making good progress, and the Lord’s commandments would be fulfilled.

  In January, Joseph Smith had received a revelation concerning work for the dead and the importance of the temple. It had been published in the Church newspaper, the Times and Seasons, just last month. The Lord had been most specific. The building committee, chaired by Cutler, Elias Higbee, and Reynolds Cahoon, had committed one particular passage to memory and referred to it often so as to motivate them continually to make their best efforts. He half closed his eyes, letting the words sweep through his mind once again:

  Build a house to my name, for the Most High to dwell therein; for there is not place found on earth, that he may come and restore again that which was lost unto you, or, which he hath taken away, even the fulness of the priesthood; for a baptismal font there is not upon the earth; that they, my saints, may be baptized for those who are dead.

  It would be many months before the temple was completed, but Joseph had asked William Weeks, the temple architect, to draw up plans for the font, which would go in the basement. Brother Weeks had now presented that draft to the Prophet and the Twelve. Joseph was pleased, and Cutler and the others who led the building committee knew that there was a very good chance that within a few days the formal approval would be given and work on the font would begin. That meant the building committee had to have the basement ready or there would be no place for the font to go.

  But he was no longer worried. Today was the twenty-sixth day of July. He guessed it would take a month or two to build the font, once it was approved. With the cellar walls within a few feet of ground level around the whole perimeter of the temple and a third of the basement floor now laid with brick, Cutler knew that they could be ready for the font in another three or four weeks, maybe five at the most.

  Glancing at his watch again, Cutler saw that it was now six o’clock straight up. He turned and looked across the work site. He tipped his head back. “Brethren!” he shouted. “It’s six o’clock. That’s all for today. Thank you, one and all.”

  As the men laid aside their tools and started for home, Nathan walked over to the well, filled the dipper from the bucket, removed his hat, and dumped the water squarely on top of his head. He got another dipperful and did it again. A little shudder of pleasure ran through him as the water cascaded down his neck and across his face. Sunset was only a couple of hours away now, but the afternoon heat was still fierce and draining.

  Suddenly he felt a hand clapped on his shoulder. “Hot enough for you, Brother Nathan?”

  “It sure is.” Nathan turned, wiping the water from his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. It was Joseph. He had his hat off as well. His normally fair hair was plastered to his forehead. He had been assigned to work with the stonemasons today, and his clothes, face, arms, and hands were covered with gray dust. Sweat had trickled down his face, leaving him with streaks through the layers of dirt.

  Nathan turned and got a fresh dipper of water. He held it out with a mischievous look. “You ready for a drink?” Without waiting for an answer, Nathan drank it down.

  Joseph’s eyes narrowed. “Ah,” he said softly, “now there’s a real Christian for you. Thank you, Brother Nathan.”

  “Most assuredly,” Nathan said, handing him the empty dipper.

  Joseph’s head came up a bit. “Well,” he said, looking on past Nathan, “here comes your father.”

  Nathan swung around. To his surprise, Benjamin was still bent over, holding a plumb line against the side of the stone for one of the masons. Nathan turned back, about to make a comment about Joseph’s eyesight, just in time to catch a blur out of the corner of his eye. He ducked, but Joseph had anticipated it. The full force of the bucket of water caught Nathan squarely in the face, knocking him back a step and leaving him gasping.

  Joseph dropped the bucket back. “There you go,” he said with satisfaction. “One good Christian turn deserves another, don’t you think?”

  Chapter Notes

  The stone quarry, which became the primary source of building material for the Nauvoo Temple, was located near the river on the northwest end of the city, a few blocks north of the current LDS visitors’ center. It yielded a fine whitish-gray to light tan limestone that was easily worked by stonemasons. After being blasted off, the blocks were usually shaped to a uniform size at the quarry and then were taken by wagon to the temple site, where they were given their final chiseling and polishing. Working in the quarry was the most grueling and dangerous work done in connection with the building of the temple, but also the most interesting. Often townspeople and visitors would come to watch the blasting and the other work there. At the height of the construction project about a hundred men were employed at the quarry, and in a period of three and a half years over a hundred casks of blasting powder were used. (See Encyclopedia of Mormonism, s.v. “Nauvoo Temple”; In Old Nauvoo, pp. 150–51.)

  The scripture recalled by Alpheus Cutler is now D&C 124:27–29. It was received by Joseph on 19 January 1841.

  Chapter 2

  Come, old friends,” Joseph said as Benjamin finished drinking deeply from the dipper, “I’ll walk with you back down the hill.”

  Other than Alpheus Cutler and Reynolds Cahoon, who were still over in the stonecutting yard, the two Steeds and the Prophet Joseph were the last men at the site.

  They moved off slowly, feeling the weariness of a day’s hard labor. They had gone only half a block before they reached the edge of the bluff that overlooked the city proper. Joseph stopped and his two companions followed suit. Nathan often did the same thing whenever he was at this spot. It provided one of the loveliest of views in all of Hancock County. The main part of Nauvoo lay below them in a grand panorama. The Mississippi River encircled the city on three sides like some vast, protective arm. Across it, the green plains of Iowa stretched to the horizon. Through the summer’s haze they could make out the buildings that marked the site of Zarahemla on the other side of the river. Near to Montrose, the Saints had named it after the great capital city of the Nephites, mentioned so often in the Book of Mormon.

  Nathan let his eyes drop slightly. The land below them was marked off into squares by the neat pattern of streets. To the south, just coming into view, a riverboat was churning the water behind it white. To the southwest, the ferry, carrying a wagon and team and several standing passengers, was in midriver, coming back from the Iowa side. They could see the tiny figures of two men, pulling mightily on the rope to move the ferry against the current.

  “
Nauvoo the Beautiful,” Joseph said softly.

  They both looked at him, then Benjamin nodded. “You were inspired to call it that, Joseph.” He chuckled. “Though at the time, I must admit, I had some questions about the appropriateness of the name.”

  Nathan laughed too. Nauvoo was a Hebrew word, according to Joseph. It meant a “beautiful location or place of rest.” At that point back in the summer of 1839, Commerce hardly seemed up to the name. Now no one denied the prophetic nature of the title.

  Nathan let his mind go back. He remembered the almost impassable swampland, the hordes of mosquitoes, the unseen chiggers in the grass that always managed to work their way above a man’s boot line and dig in under the skin, driving any normal person insane with the itching. There was the “Nauvoo fly,” as the Saints now called it, which was a particularly troublesome mothlike insect peculiar to this place and which plagued the city every summer. There were snakes and muskrats and gophers and mice and all sorts of creeping things that left the men frustrated trying to control them and the women squeamish about their presence.

  Two years ago, there hadn’t been much that was beautiful. Now, the changes were dramatic. The swamps, with few exceptions, were now neat checkerboards of corn and rye, sorghum and barley, tomatoes, beans, melons, squash, and half a dozen other crops. The land below them was crisscrossed with streets running straight as an arrow north and south, and east and west. Houses, barns, stores, shops, and sheds were going up everywhere. There were still the cabins and a few shanties down by the river, but there were also the spacious frame homes, handsome cottages with picket fences and richly colored flower gardens, two-story brick houses that would hold their own nicely in New York City or Philadelphia. There were three thriving brickyards, at least half a dozen stores in addition to the Steeds’, two blacksmith shops, a gunsmith shop, two printing establishments, and several woodworking shops, including the recent one begun in partnership between Brigham Young and Matthew Steed.