Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  Joseph stirred, as if ready to move on, but Benjamin, seeing it, spoke quickly. “May I ask you a question, Joseph?”

  “Of course.”

  Benjamin looked out across the panorama before them. “Is this to be our permanent home?”

  That brought the Prophet’s head around. The blue eyes were level and calm. “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because I remember something you once said back in Kirtland, about the destiny of the Church.” He paused, trying to remember the exact words.

  Joseph knew exactly what he meant. “I said that someday the Church would fill North and South America, and eventually it would fill the world.” He stopped, sobering, realizing now why Benjamin had asked what he did. “And I prophesied that someday there will be tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints gathered in the Rocky Mountains.”

  Nathan didn’t move. He had not thought of that meeting for a long time, but he could clearly remember the little shiver of—what? excitement, anticipation, dread?—that ran through all who were present that night. It was one of those times they had come to recognize, when the spirit of prophecy lay heavily on Joseph. His face would almost transform itself. His skin would seem to glow. His eyes would get a faraway look in them, as though they were gazing on the very breadth of eternity.

  “So this isn’t to be our final stop?” Benjamin asked softly.

  Joseph looked at him for several long seconds; then he just smiled, and started off down the hill. Benjamin gave Nathan a quizzical look, then shrugged, and they moved off to fall into step beside the Prophet. They walked for nearly five minutes in silence before Joseph moved closer to Benjamin and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Benjamin, my friend.”

  “Yes, Joseph?”

  “There’s a favorite passage of mine in one of the revelations. It says simply, ‘Let your hearts be comforted concerning Zion; for all flesh is in my hands. Therefore . . .’” He let it hang, inviting Benjamin to finish it for him.

  Benjamin looked puzzled, but Nathan knew it well. “‘Therefore,’” he said for his father, “‘be still, and know that I am God.’”

  “Exactly,” Joseph said soberly. He was still looking at Benjamin. “I don’t know how long we shall be allowed to stay here in this beautiful place. I do have a strong feeling that this is not our final destiny. But in the meantime?” He smiled, and now any discernible worry in his countenance had disappeared. “It’s a beautiful place. Let’s enjoy it to the fullest.”

  Jenny Pottsworth was busy in the back room of the store, taking inventory of two wagonloads of barrels and boxes brought in from Springfield earlier in the day. She enjoyed being out front behind the counter, visiting with the people and helping them find what they needed, but she found satisfaction in the more menial things as well. Perhaps that was a legacy from being brought up in the slums of Preston, England, the only daughter of a widow who grubbed out a living in the great cotton factories there. There was something innately pleasing to her in the process of tallying things and then organizing them neatly on the shelves and in the bins, having a place for each thing and each thing in its place. That kind of order made it easier to satisfy the needs of the customers, and Jenny took pride in the fact that in this store the needs of their customers were met with efficient and cheerful regularity.

  She reached up and brushed a damp lock of hair back from her forehead. Jenny would turn sixteen in another month. That surprised most people, for she seemed much older than that. Perhaps her maturity was a product of her early life as well. English childhood labor laws allowed children to work in the cotton mills once they turned nine, and Jenny had begun two days after her birthday. Jenny was a woman now, both in body and in mind. She knew that men considered her attractive. Even those with absolutely no romantic interest in her seemed to enjoy being around her and talking with her. She accepted that fact simply and without pride, viewing it as one of the many gifts with which God had blessed her. Her long golden hair, the wide-set eyes, her clear features, and the smile that flashed so quickly and so naturally were no better in her mind than what others were given. But she was also honest enough to know that some men didn’t agree with that assessment.

  She was humming softly to herself as she counted the spools of twine packed neatly in a long, narrow box and then marked the number in her ledger book. Then she smiled. In a way, it was fortunate that she did like this part of the store work. She was the only one who felt this way. Lydia and Caroline didn’t mind it, and would do it simply because they felt guilty if they always left it to Jenny. But Nathan made no bones about it: taking inventory drove him to distraction, and he was constantly and profusely thanking Jenny for taking care of things back here. He didn’t particularly enjoy being behind the counter out front either, but that at least was bearable to him.

  So what happened next on that late Monday afternoon came as a substantial surprise to Jenny. The door opened behind her, and when she turned to look, Nathan was standing there. That alone was unexpected. Nathan and Father Steed had gone to work in the quarry, and Lydia said they wouldn’t see Nathan at the store all day. But here he was, obviously come straight from the work site.

  “Hello, Jenny,” he said, surveying the clutter with a faint air of distaste.

  “Hello, Nathan,” she answered. “I didn’t expect to see you today.”

  “I was headed home.” Moving over beside her, he looked around. “Looks like you’re making good progress.”

  She lowered the book to her side and brushed the hair back out of her eyes with the back of one hand. “Yes. It’s been kind of slow this afternoon, so I thought I’d get it done.”

  “Well, I’ll take over now,” he said.

  Her head came up quickly and she couldn’t help but stare at him.

  There was a sheepish grin. “I can do it, Jenny.”

  “I know that,” she started, embarrassed that she had looked so shocked.

  He took the book and pen from her. “I’ll take over now. You go home.”

  “Go home? But Nathan, what about helping Lydia close? I—”

  “Go on now,” he said, giving her a gentle shove toward the door. “I promise not to do too much damage in here.”

  Bewildered, and a little hurt, she surrendered the pen and stepped back. She moved to the door, watching him closely. This wasn’t like Nathan at all. Did he think she might be pilfering something back here?

  “Go on,” he said again, this time with a smile that let her know that it was all right.

  Lydia looked up as she came into the main part of the store and also smiled at her.

  “Nathan—” Jenny looked over her shoulder. “Nathan said I should go home now.”

  “A wonderful idea,” Lydia said, with just a little too much enthusiasm.

  “But—”

  “You’ve put in some long days this week, Jenny. We’ll finish up here.”

  “Are you sure?” It was hard to keep the hurt from her voice.

  “I’m sure.” Lydia waved her toward the door, then went back to her work.

  Jenny stopped once more as she stepped off the porch, looking back at the store, still puzzled and feeling a tiny bit betrayed. But then, reveling in the fresh air, she shrugged it off and started away. She reached up and pulled the comb that held her hair in a bun atop her head. She shook her hair out, letting it fall down her back.

  “Hello.”

  Jenny jumped visibly as Will Steed stepped out from beside the corner of the store.

  “Oh! Will.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine. But—” She stopped. He had really quite startled her. “I thought you and your father went to St. Louis.”

  “In about an hour. Pa needs to take a wagonload of something or other to Warsaw. We’ll catch a boat from there. So I thought I’d come and say good-bye.”

  “What a nice surprise. I—” Jenny stopped short, turning back to peer suspiciously at the store. “How long have you been waiting here?”

  He co
lored slightly. “About fifteen minutes. But I didn’t expect you for another half an hour or more.”

  “Did you talk to Nathan?”

  “When?”

  “Just now.”

  “I said hello as he went by.”

  Now she was smiling and nodding, greatly relieved. “But you didn’t ask him to have me come out?”

  He was surprised at that. “No, of course not. Why?”

  “Never mind.” There was a soft chuckle. Maybe she would end up doing that inventory after all.

  They walked west from the store, to the end of Knight Street, then cut across the open fields, skirting around those few patches of swampland that hadn’t yet been drained. They passed several men working in the fields who called out cheerfully to Jenny. Will smiled, faintly jealous, and yet proud as well. Everyone knew Jenny.

  When they finally reached the river, they walked along the edge of the water, moving slowly. “How long will you be gone?” Jenny finally asked, frowning slightly.

  Will’s shoulders lifted briefly. “Oh, a week or so. Pa thinks five or six days with his business associates in St. Louis should be plenty.”

  “Will you be taking your Book of Mormon?”

  Now it was Will who frowned. “Jenny, I am trying, you know.”

  She was instantly contrite and laid her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Will. I know you are. It’s just that I’m so anxious to have you get an answer.”

  “I read in the scriptures every night, and I pray a lot. But answers are what I’m not getting. Everybody keeps telling me I’ve just got to be patient.”

  She read clearly the silent rebuke. How like his father he was in so many ways. Even though they were not natural father and son, they were so similar. Will’s hair was not as dark as Joshua’s and had touches of auburn in it—a legacy from his mother—but they both had the same thick, dark eyebrows, the same brown eyes, the same muscular build, though Will was just slightly taller than his father. They were much alike in temperament too—deep thinkers but seldom letting the thoughts come out, quick sense of humor but often as not sober and reflective.

  There was one thing that Will and Joshua Steed did not share in common, however, and that was affection for Jenny Pottsworth. From the moment the Pottsworths had arrived in Nauvoo, his father had sensed Will’s feelings toward the English girl and made little pretense of hiding his disapproval of that. He had been very kind to her mother, providing the small cabin where they lived now, but he was only barely polite to Jenny. She had tried hard to change that, but—

  “You’re a long ways away,” Will said, watching her with a faint smile. “Care to tell me about it?”

  She waved one hand airily. “Oh, I was just thinking about your leaving. Come on,” she said, “let’s not talk about that anymore. Let’s see who can skip a rock across the water the farthest.”

  When Will finally woke up, the first thing he saw was that the sun was up fully, backlighting the drapes that covered the one window in their hotel room. Outside, he heard the rattle of a wagon, and someone was yelling at a child to come home. He lay there for a moment, staring at the drapes, letting his mind start to focus. Will and his father had left Nauvoo later than they had planned the previous evening, and by the time they covered the fifteen or so miles to Warsaw, the next river town south of Nauvoo, it had been well after midnight before they got to bed. He turned his head and saw that his father was not lying beside him any longer. With a low groan, he came up on one elbow. Last night his father’s clothes had been laid across the one chair in the room; they were gone too, which meant Joshua wasn’t just down the hall shaving.

  Will rolled over and sat up, wanting to stay where he was but knowing he’d better not. He didn’t have a watch of his own, and there was no clock in the room. Their boat was scheduled to leave at 11:30 this morning, and if the hour was very late there would be no getting breakfast, and he was ravenous. With a reluctant sigh, he hauled himself up and moved to the rod where his clothes hung. It was then he saw the note on the dressing table.

  W—

  Have to take care of that wagonload of freight. Back by ten. Then we’ll have breakfast. If it weren’t for that English girl, the night would have been longer for the both of us.

  —Pa

  Will shook his head as he pulled on his shirt. Even in a note Joshua couldn’t pass up an opportunity to take another swipe at her. “Her name is Jenny,” Will muttered at the small mirror above the dressing table. “She’s not ‘that English girl.’” Will had lingered a little too long with Jenny down by the river, and by the time he got to the freight office, he was fifteen minutes late. His father was fuming. Even though the team wasn’t yet hitched to the wagon, even though Joshua lingered another ten minutes after Will’s arrival checking details and leaving instructions with his foreman, Will still got all the credit for their late departure.

  Ten minutes later, freshly shaved and washed, Will came down into the lobby of the hotel and looked at the clock on the wall. He frowned, his irritation deepening. It was only five minutes to nine. He knew his grumpiness was mostly a product of the short night and long wagon ride, but his father could have left his watch for him. Then Will could have slept almost another full hour. His stomach was like a hollow drum, and it would be three-quarters of an hour before his father returned. Frowning even more deeply, he thought of the note, now lying crumpled on the floor in one corner of the room upstairs, and turned to the desk. “Where can I get some breakfast?” he asked the desk clerk.

  The man smiled broadly. “Callahan’s. Just three doors up from the newspaper office.”

  “And where’s that?” Will asked.

  “Straight up the street,” he answered, pointing to show the direction.

  Will turned and went out without another word.

  “Appreciate you waitin’ for me,” his father grunted as he sat down in the chair across the table from Will.

  “Sorry,” Will mumbled, glancing up, then looking back down at what little was left of his plate of ham, eggs, biscuits, and fried potatoes. “I was real hungry. You said you wouldn’t be back till ten.” It was barely nine-thirty now.

  Joshua shook his head and turned to look for the girl waiting on the tables. It was his way of saying, “It’s not worth a battle.” Which was a relief to Will. With some breakfast and a little time walking around, he was feeling just a bit guilty for being so mulish.

  As the girl came over, Joshua laid a folded-up newspaper on the table. The masthead was partially visible and Will saw that it was the Warsaw Signal. That brought the corners of his mouth down. This paper, though a local one, was well known in Nauvoo. In fact, it had been the topic of more than one conversation in the Steed family. The editor, a man by the name of Thomas Sharp, had moved to Warsaw just last September. Two months later he and a partner had bought Warsaw’s newspaper, the Western World, Sharp thus becoming its editor. This past May, the paper’s name had been changed to the Warsaw Signal. From the issues making their way north, it was clear that Thomas Sharp had two very strong biases. The paper was obviously pro-Whig and violently anti-Mormon.

  Will pulled his eyes away from the paper as Joshua finished ordering and the girl walked away. Will put his fork down. “So, did you get things taken care of?”

  “Yes. The wagon is down at the warehouse being unloaded right now. They’re expecting that consignment of tools from Pittsburgh in the next day or two, so they should have everything ready for us by the time we return.”

  “Good. Anything else you have to do before we leave, then?”

  His father grinned. “Nope. We’ve got time to walk around town a bit, see if there are any young fillies worth looking at.”

  Will’s head came up sharply. He knew his father wasn’t talking about horses. “Don’t, Pa.”

  “Ah, come on, Will,” Joshua said, keeping his voice light. “It isn’t like you’re promised to that English girl or—”

  “Pa!” Will cut in, sharply enough that he sa
w the two men at the next table turn to look at him. He lowered his voice, then went on tightly. “Her name is Jenny, Pa. Not ‘that English girl.’”

  “All right, Jenny, then,” Joshua said. He was still trying to smile, but his brows were lowering in warning. “You’re not promised to her, are you?”

  “You know I’m not,” Will said wearily.

  “Then it’ll do you good to look around. I’m just joking about here in Warsaw. But one of my partners in St. Louis has got

  a daughter who is three times the young woman this Jenny is and—”

  Will pushed his plate back and stood abruptly. “I’ll be outside, Pa.”

  “Will!” Joshua said, looking up at his son. He was half-surprised, and more than half-annoyed. “You’re more tender than a pig with sunburn. Just sit down.”

  Will shook his head, taking a half-dollar from his pocket and setting it beside his plate.

  “Sit down, Will!” Joshua hissed, mindful that more than one person was watching them now.

  “I’ll be at the boat landing by eleven,” Will said, and walked away.

  Chapter Notes

  The description given here of Nauvoo at this time (summer of 1841) is an accurate one. On his return from England, Heber C. Kimball said that he had left when Nauvoo had no more than thirty buildings and returned to twelve hundred, with hundreds more under construction. He also noted that at the Independence Day celebration of 1841 there were about eight thousand people in attendance, which gives some indication of the incredible growth that was taking place in the city. (See LHCK, pp. 313–15.)

  Joseph’s reference to the Rocky Mountains was given in April 1834 (see Restoration, p. 278).

  Thomas C. Sharp and the Warsaw Signal were to play an important role in events in Illinois. In a move to promote goodwill, the Saints invited Thomas Sharp to Nauvoo for the laying of the cornerstones of the temple in April 1841. Listening to the Church leaders speak about the prospects for continuing growth of Nauvoo and the kingdom of God probably awakened concern in Sharp. Eventually he became convinced that Mormonism was far more than a religion. He saw it as a political movement ultimately designed to create a vast empire. Soon, in the pages of the Warsaw Signal he launched a bitter campaign against the Church, claiming it was Joseph Smith’s intent, contrary to Constitutional principles, to unite church and state together in a powerful political organization. In the mind of the fiery young newspaperman, the liberal Nauvoo Charter and the creation of the Nauvoo Legion were proof of this. In June, Sharp helped to form a new anti-Mormon political party in Hancock County and began a relentless campaign against the Church and Joseph Smith. (See CHFT, p. 265.)