Pillar of Light

by Gerald N. Lund

  “No, I knew nothing about the Church when I first arrived. That was in ’37. I just had a yearning to come out west. I had tried my hand at several things before then—farming, I owned a hotel for a time, my brother-in-law and I tried a cotton mill. I was even postmaster in one town. But I had this restlessness, this desire to go west. I see now that it was the hand of the Lord working on me, but back then I just had itchy feet. Pamelia and I finally came out to St. Louis, bought a small stock of goods, then started up the Illinois River, not sure where we wanted to go or what we wanted to do.”

  “By a stock of goods, do you mean for a store?” Joshua asked.

  “No, more for our own use, something to live on until we got settled.”

  “So where did you go?” Derek asked.

  “Well, I bounced around here and there, but finally in the fall of ’38 I heard that Quincy was an up-and-coming town, so I moved there and started looking for a home.”

  “Fall of ’38,” Nathan broke in. “So that was just when the first of our people started coming to Quincy out of Missouri.”

  “That’s right. I had heard about the Mormons by then, about what a strange people they were, but I didn’t find them that way at all. In fact, as I listened to some of their teachers, and learned about their being driven out of Missouri, I was quite impressed. That winter I boarded with a Latter-day Saint family, and my opinion of them as a people only rose the higher. When they moved north and started turning that swampland into a city, that really impressed me. Then one day, in the summer of ’40, there was a debate held in town. A Mr. Nelson had challenged the Mormons to debate their beliefs with him. He was a minister in the area, as I remember. Anyway, I was curious, and so I went to hear it. Joseph Smith was also there, but others were appointed to speak for the Mormons. I can still remember how much I was impressed with him, though—with his humility, his plainness.”

  “Impressed but not converted?” Joshua inquired, interested now in the story the man was telling.

  “Nope, not then. I thought the Latter-day Saints won the debate handily—as did most of the town—and made Mr. Nelson look foolish. I was convinced that the Mormons were believers in and committed to the principles of the Bible, unlike what their enemies were saying.”

  “So?” Derek prodded as Ezra seemed to retreat into his own thoughts.

  “Well, my wife and I commenced attending the Mormon meetings. Then one day after we had returned from one of those meetings, Pamelia sat me down. I remember this very clearly. She got down the Bible, turned to the book of First Corinthians, and read me a passage from chapter twelve, verse twenty-eight.”

  “Which says?” Derek asked.

  “That God has set apostles and prophets in his church. Pamelia told me she firmly believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I could tell that she was convinced of the truth of the doctrines, and the word went forth that we were believers in Mormonism.

  “And that’s when things got interesting, I’ll tell you. Some of our friends thought that we were about to ‘sell out to the devil,’ as they called it, and they worked like the devil to get me to join another church in hopes that that would persuade us not to become Mormons. Their efforts were to no avail, however.”

  “So that’s when you decided to join the Church?” Derek said.

  “Not quite. I still wasn’t ready. But before long, Pamelia told me that she was going to be baptized.”

  Joshua thought back to those days in Nauvoo when he and Caroline had struggled over the same kind of disparity in their beliefs. “And what did you say?” he finally asked.

  Ezra looked thoughtful. “Well, I was a bit taken aback. But I was not opposed to the idea. I finally told her if she would give me a week, then I thought I could be ready.”

  “And you were?” Nathan said.

  “I prayed a lot and thought about it a lot, and yes, on the following Sunday my wife and I were baptized. That was July nineteenth, eighteen hundred and forty. There was a big gathering that day down on the riverbank. People had come to try and talk us out of it. When we came up out of the water, some of the people started shouting, ‘The Mormons have got them now.’ ” There was a deep, infectious chuckle. “Couldn’t argue with that. We just had different opinions about what being got by the Mormons meant for our eternal salvation.”

  “No regrets?” Nathan asked, glancing at Joshua, who seemed to have lost interest now.

  “No regrets,” came the firm reply. “I always wanted to come west.” Now he laughed aloud. “And look at me now.”

  The family—a father and a mother and three young children—had mired in almost to the wagon box. Their two yoke of oxen were up to their bellies and could only swing their heads back and forth and bellow mournfully. Throughout the day others had passed and given the family their sympathy, but no one had stopped to help. Most of those still out on the trail were desperately short on supplies and already had exhausted their teams. They would tell others when they got to Garden Grove, they promised, but if they stopped, all it would mean was that more families would be stranded.

  The four newly arrived men worked for nearly an hour to dig out the oxen, then to clear the thickening mud around the wheels. While Ezra and Nathan hitched the draft horses to the mired wagon, Derek and Joshua waded in and out of the slough, lightening the load by carrying out the family’s heavier possessions. The father wanted to help, but he was fighting a severe cold and was already close to exhaustion, so they made him sit with his wife and children and watch.

  As they brought out the last load and set it down beside the couple, Joshua smiled at them. “That should do it. The rest of the stuff is light enough that it shouldn’t matter.”

  “Thank you so much,” the mother said. “I don’t know how we could ever have done it.”

  Just then Nathan called. Joshua and Derek both turned. The four draft horses were now harnessed to the wagon. In addition, both Nathan and Ezra Benson had ropes tied to the wagon and wrapped around their saddle horns. “We’re ready,” Nathan called.

  “All right,” Joshua said with a wave. Then he turned to Derek. “One more time into the slough, my boy. Do you want to drive the wagon or push it?”

  Derek was poker faced. “You drive. I love the feel of mud between my toes.”

  Joshua grunted, then waded back into the bog, headed for the back of the wagon. “On second thought, you drive. Why should you have all the fun?”

  Derek laughed and waded in too, moving to the front and then climbing up onto the wagon seat. He picked up the reins. “Whenever you’re ready,” he hollered.

  There was a shout and the cracking of chains and harnessing. “Go, boys! Get up!” Derek hollered, snapping the reins. Nathan and Ezra Benson spurred their horses, and the ropes to their saddles snapped taut.

  For a moment it was as though the four horses were trying to pull an oak tree up by the roots, but then suddenly there was a sucking sound and the wagon began to move forward. Out of the corner of one eye, Joshua saw the family on their feet, all of them shouting and hollering in excitement. And then the wagon jerked away from him, nearly pulling him down with it, and it was free.

  Nathan and Derek hitched the couple’s oxen back up to their wagon while Joshua and Ezra Benson reloaded the family’s things on it. When it was ready, they sent the family on their way, promising to catch them once they got the harnessing put away and their own team hitched back to the wagon they had brought with them. It was almost dark now, and there was no sense making the family wait while they got themselves ready.

  “The Lord bless you,” they called back, waving to them as they moved up the rutted, muddy road that led to Garden Grove.

  The four men waved back, then turned to work. As they folded the harnessing and laid it in the wagon, Brother Benson stopped for a moment, watching as the wagon disappeared over the next rise. “I was going to give them my lesson on how to lighten the load until I saw how little they have. They’re practically without any food at all.”


  “I saw,” Joshua said. “And unfortunately, there isn’t going to be a lot of flour waiting for them. Not until this rain stops and the water subsides again.”

  But something Benson had said caught Nathan’s attention. “You have a lesson on how to lighten the load in a wagon?”

  “I do,” he averred. “Works every time. Guaranteed.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Derek said, curious now too.

  “Let’s get loaded and on our way, then I’ll share it with you.”

  They worked swiftly, and in five minutes they were under way again. This time the two extra workhorses were tied on lead ropes to the back of the wagon. Joshua and Nathan drove the wagon, and Derek and Ezra rode the saddle horses.

  “All right,” Nathan said. “Let’s hear it. Teach me how to lighten a load.”

  “Well,” Ezra said with a droll smile, “it’s not really my lesson. I learned it from President Young.”

  “We’re listening.”

  “It happened back at Richardson’s Point. You remember what a miserable time that was?”

  “That we do,” Joshua said fervently. It was getting harder to separate out one place of misery from another, but Richardson’s Point was quite memorable.

  “It was the ninth day of March. Pamelia was heavy with child and had been having a difficult time. That night she finally gave birth.” He frowned deeply. “I’ll never forget that night. There was so much rain and mud. We had nothing but a tent as a place of refuge. We finally had to cut piles of brush and bring them into the tent and make a bed so we could keep her dry.” Now the corners of his mouth smoothed and his eyes softened. “Thank the Lord, all went well and she brought forth our little Isabella.

  “Anyway, when it came time to move out again, the ground was so soft and miry that the wagons were sinking up to their hubs.”

  “We remember,” Nathan said. “We remember it well.”

  “Well, I had six hundred pounds of flour in my wagon, along with a few bushels of meal.”

  “Six hundred pounds?” Joshua blurted.

  He shrugged. “That’s what we were told to bring. I was fortunate in that I had sufficient money to purchase that much flour and a wagon to carry it in.”

  “So you were really loaded,” Derek suggested.

  “Yes. But the roads were so bad, my teams could make no progress at all. Finally, I went to Brother Brigham. I told him I would have to tarry there until the weather improved and I could get on further. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He said I mustn’t stop. He wanted me to stay with him and the rest of the camp. Then he asked me what I had in my wagon. When I told him, he got that funny little look he sometimes gets and said, ‘Brother Ezra, I have just the solution for you. Bring your flour and meal to me, and I will lighten you up.’ ”

  “Did he take some of it in his own wagons?” Derek asked in surprise. Brigham Young had a large group traveling with him, and Derek couldn’t picture him having much extra room.

  “Well, not exactly,” Ezra drawled. “When I got the flour over there, Brother Brigham called John D. Lee over—he was in charge of supplies—and he says, ‘Brother John, Brother Benson here needs some help in lightening his load. So I’d like you to take this six hundred pounds of flour and the bushels of meal and divide it among the camps. If my calculations are correct, that should be about fifty pounds of flour and a half bushel of meal for each camp.’ ”

  “He didn’t!” Joshua said, staring at Benson to see if he was joshing them.

  “He did,” Ezra laughed. “I just stood there with my mouth open for a moment or two.”

  Derek was nodding. “So that’s where that came from. You remember, Nathan? We got it that night. Fifty pounds of flour and a half bushel of meal. It was a godsend.”

  “I do remember.” Nathan was smiling too.

  “Well, you can thank good old Ezra T. Benson for it,” Ezra said with a grand bow.

  “Did he leave you with anything?” Joshua asked, his voice filled with disbelief.

  “Yep. Me and Pamelia and the children got fifty pounds of flour and a half bushel of meal for our sojourn in the wilderness, just like everybody else.”

  “And you let him do it?” Joshua cried.

  “Of course.” And there it was. Simple statement. No anger. No resentment. No recriminations. And what was just as astonishing, neither was there any pride, any sense of great sacrifice for the cause. Benson was simply telling them what had happened to his flour.

  “And you know what?” Ezra went on, sobering now. “I got back in my wagon and we rolled along like there was nothing to it. And every time Pamelia and me would come up on some wagon stuck in the mud, we’d just sing out and say, ‘Go see Brother Brigham. He’ll lighten your load.’ ”

  It was nearing eleven o’clock when Nathan pulled off his boots, lifted the flap to his tent, and slipped inside. It was pitch- black, and he stood there for a moment, listening to the soft sounds of children sleeping. Hoping that no one had moved anything since he had been in here earlier in the day, he stepped carefully to the side, sat down, and pushed his boots into the corner where they would be out of the way. He undressed swiftly, then crawled slowly along the bed, taking care not to bump Lydia’s sleeping form, which he sensed more than saw. As he lifted the covers and slipped beneath them, there was a soft “Hi.”

  He reached out and found her hand. “Why are you still awake?” he whispered. “Is the baby all right?”

  “She’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “Just couldn’t sleep?”

  There was a soft chuckle in the darkness. “No, I wanted to stay awake until you got back.”

  He hadn’t expected that. Nursing the baby two or three times a night took a lot out of her, and usually she was asleep within minutes after the lights were blown out. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Oh, yes, I should.”

  “Why?”

  “Who else would there be to wish you happy birthday.”

  There was silence for a moment, then an answering chuckle. “It’s not my birthday.”

  “Today is April thirtieth.”

  “It is?” He hadn’t thought about what calendar day it was for some time now. It was Thursday, and it was April. Out here that about sufficed.

  She slid over closer to him and touched his face. He lifted one arm and she slid into his embrace. “I’m sorry I didn’t think about it until after you had gone.”

  “You thought about it before I did.”

  “But I’ve never forgotten your birthday before.”

  “We’ve never been in quite this kind of situation before.” Then he groaned. “Our anniversary was on the thirteenth.”

  “I know,” she said sweetly.

  “Oh, Lydia, I’m sorry.”

  “You had a few things on your mind that day.”

  “I did. What was going on?”

  “The same thing as the day before and the day after and every day since.”

  “Why didn’t you say something, Lydia? I would have felt bad, but not as awful as I feel now some three weeks later.”

  There was a muffled laugh. “Tricia was just five days old that day. We were preparing to leave Locust Creek, as I remember. To be honest, I didn’t realize that it had passed until two days later myself.”

  He caressed her cheek gently. “Not quite the glamorous life I promised to give you, is it?”

  She came up on one elbow and kissed him softly. “It’s not what you promised, but it’s everything I hoped for.”

  Chapter Notes

  Ezra Taft Benson, commonly called Ezra T. Benson, was the great-grandfather of Ezra Taft Benson, thirteenth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Details of his life as given here are taken from published biographical information (see MHBY, pp. 246–50; LDSBE 1:99–102; and Ivan J. Barrett, Joseph Smith and the Restoration: A History of the Church to 1846 [Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1973], p. 468). While serving as a counselor to William Huntington a
t Mount Pisgah, he received a letter from President Young appointing him to the Quorum of the Twelve. He was ordained to the apostleship on 16 July 1846 at Council Bluffs, Iowa.

  The story of Brother Brigham lightening Ezra T. Benson’s load by giving away his flour as told here is based on Brother Benson’s own words (see MHBY, p. 258).

  Chapter 16

  Alice slipped an arm around Will’s waist and leaned against him. She shivered momentarily as the wind caught her hair and tugged at her woolen bonnet. He smiled and opened his coat, pulling it around her. “Cold?”

  “Not really. Just a brief shiver. With the baby, I’m always either too hot or too cold.”

  He reached out and laid a hand on the roundness of her stomach. “So,” he said with great solemnity, “would you say that means it’s a boy or a girl?”

  She laughed. He asked that question no matter what the comment she had made. (“I’m tired tonight, Will.” “Does that mean it’s a boy?” “I don’t feel very hungry right now.” “So is that how it is with girls?”)

  She loved it that he was so excited about the life that she could now feel within her. There had been days when she had not done so well, especially coming around the Cape when the seas had gotten very rough, but all in all she was doing fine.

  “Well?” he pressed.

  “Well, what?” Her mind was on to other things.

  “If you’re cold, is it a boy or a girl?”

  “Definitely,” she answered. Actually, though she was glad for a coat at the moment, it was not as cold as it had been. Tomorrow would be the first of May, which in the Southern Hemisphere meant that winter was coming. But they were sailing north again, up the western coast of the continent, and the weather that was just coming was softening as they moved into a more temperate climate.

  She turned and peered into the darkness, looking off the starboard side, or eastward. Above them, the sky was thickly overcast and they could see no stars or moon. Up or out—there was nothing to see but endless darkness. She laid her head against his chest and snuggled in against him. The chill had passed, but she wasn’t going to let him know that. He put his arms around her.