Carl was soaring. “That’s great, William, thank you.”
“For taking the business away from you?” He grinned. “Any time.” Then he got a little bit of a wistful look in his eyes. “In a way, you know, I envy you.”
Carl blinked. “You do?”
William nodded. “A new start. A real challenge. It does have its appeal.”
“Look,” Carl said eagerly, “let me get out there and get established. I keep telling Pa we can start a livery stable out there too. You could come out—”
“We’ll see,” William drawled lazily, “but right now, we’ve got some chickens that ain’t hatched yet. We’d best not be counting them until they do.”
Melissa was waiting for Carl at the gate. It was full dark, but she saw the dim figure coming down the road toward her and recognized his striding walk. Breathless now, she opened the gate and went out to meet him.
“Carl?” she called while he was still twenty feet away. “What happened?”
He didn’t speak. He just came up to her, shaking his head, his face grave. She felt her heart drop. “Tell me,” she whispered.
Then he couldn’t hold it. He gave a little holler, swooped her off the ground, and twirled her around and around.
She grabbed onto his shoulders, trying to look into his face. “Does that mean . . . ?”
He set her down, laughing joyously. “Yes! He said yes!”
Now she was laughing and crying all at once. “Do you mean it?”
“I surely do,” he crowed. “He didn’t like it, but William and David finally convinced him.” He reached down and kissed her soundly. “We’re going, Melissa. We’re going.”
She couldn’t believe it. “How soon?”
“A week. Maybe ten days. Soon as we can get things ready.”
Now the woman in her took over. “Oh, my! A week.” There were a thousand things to pack. The house to sell. Children to prepare. The reality of it settled in like mud in a sinkhole. They had a long trip to make. What would they need once they got there?
That brought her up with a jolt. They were going to need funds when they got to their new home. Quite a bit of funds. Reluctant to bring him down from his euphoria, she lifted her eyes slightly. “Did you talk about a settlement?” she asked.
“David wants to buy our house,” Carl said, sobering now too. “For a thousand dollars. But Pa said I was to get nothing from the business.”
That hit her hard and she felt sick. “After all you’ve done? That’s not fair, Carl.”
Now he grinned, delighted that he had taken her in. “That’s exactly what Mama said. She got really angry. Papa finally agreed to give us another thousand dollars.”
She slapped his arm. “You!” she scolded. “You’re going to give me heart failure.” It still wasn’t fair. Carl had practically run the business by himself for the last five or six years now. But two thousand dollars! That would make all the difference in the world.
He was watching her face and he nodded quickly. “I know, Melissa,” he said softly. “But it’s enough. It’s enough.” Then he grabbed her hand. “Come on. Let’s go tell Nathan and Lydia.”
Derek reached out and took the woman’s hand and helped her out of the pond. She was smiling and crying all at once. The water poured from her hair and her clothing. “Thank you,” she cried, clasping Derek’s hand. She turned to Wilford, who was still waist deep in the water. “Thank you.”
She moved away, and the next two came up, both women also. “You first, dear,” the older one said, putting her hand on the younger one’s back and helping her into the water. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Beaming with joy, the younger woman moved out to where Wilford waited. He took her by the hand, then turned her around. His right hand came up into the air. All who were on the bank bowed their heads. “Sister Elizabeth Bubb, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Down she went, and then up she came.
“Eight,” Derek said under his breath. That left three more. He watched Wilford with concern. He had been in the water now for almost a quarter of an hour. The sky was overcast and the air was cold. It was early April, but England could still show her harsher side from time to time and this was one of those times. The water was cold enough to shock when one first stepped into it, and Wilford was looking very cold and very tired.
It had been a glorious month but an exhausting one. Each day was much like the other. They would rise and have breakfast, then set out for the next farmhouse or village. The people would be waiting for them. Wilford would preach. Derek or John Benbow or Jane Benbow or some of the others who had been baptized would bear their testimonies. And then they would look for a place to baptize, for invariably someone came up and asked to be baptized.
Wilford had a formal record in the journal he meticulously kept every night, but Derek also kept a mental count. With the eleven they were baptizing this afternoon, that would make one hundred twenty-nine people they had baptized since arriving in Herefordshire. It was a miracle. They were baptizing four and five people a day, sometimes more.
A major factor in that success was John Benbow, of course. He had opened the way. But of ever greater significance was the steady conversion of several United Brethren preachers, fifteen of whom had been baptized between the sixth and the twentieth of March. Then on March twenty-first, Wilford baptized Thomas Kington and his wife. Kington was the superintendent of all the United Brethren congregations. Kington gave the Apostle the “United Brethren Preachers’ Plan,” the schedule of meetings to be held in Herefordshire and the surrounding counties for the next three months. With few exceptions, the preachers on the list were now members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so Kington suggested they just leave the list basically as it was and let the preachers go out and teach these congregations about the restored gospel. And thus the work rolled on at a breathtaking pace.
Finally, the last young woman came out of the water and into the arms of her fellow converts. “That’s the last,” Derek called out to Wilford.
Wilford sighed, then came slowly out of the pond. Jane Benbow was holding a towel for him and wrapped it tightly around him. Wilford raised his hands, and the group fell quiet. “Let’s allow a half hour or so for changing our clothes,” he called. “Then we’ll assemble again for the confirmations.”
They moved away, Jane Benbow and two other sisters leading them toward the nearest member’s house. “You look tired, Brother Woodruff,” John Benbow said with some concern.
“Aye,” Wilford said, not conscious that he was starting to speak a bit like an Englishman. “That I am.” He looked around. “There is so much to do. So many places. So many people wanting us to come and teach them. How can we possibly keep up?”
“Perhaps Brother Richards even now has help on the way,” Derek suggested. Wilford had written to Willard in Preston and begged him for more missionaries.
“Perhaps.” Then he looked up at the darkening sky. He shook his head slowly. “Where are the rest of the Twelve? That is what I want to know. It is the fourth of April. Why haven’t they come from America?”
As the packet ship Patrick Henry approached the mouth of the Mersey River, it struck its sails. A steamer was waiting there which would take her under tow the rest of the way into Liverpool. As the ship moved up the crowded channel, the five Apostles and their two companions crowded around the railing, talking excitedly.
“Well, Matthew, what do you think?” Brigham Young asked.
Matthew was staring at block after block of ships and buildings and warehouses and crowded streets. “It’s . . . it’s . . .” There were no words to describe it. “It’s so big,” he finally said.
“Yes, over two hundred thousand people, according to the captain.”
“Whew!” Matthew said, not even comprehending. New York City hadn’t seemed this big.
“And they say London is
ten times that many,” Heber Kimball said. “Two million people.”
“Two million?” George A. Smith exclaimed. “How can one place hold them all?” At twenty-two, George A. still had a lot of Matthew’s youth and wonder about him. In the past two months his eye affliction had improved considerably and he could now see pretty much near normal, which left him only the more excited, youthful, and exuberant again.
Brigham laughed. “The better question is, how can so few missionaries get to all these people?”
Parley Pratt spoke up now. “It truly is a boundless harvest for the next fifteen or twenty years.”
“At least,” his brother Orson agreed. “How shall we possibly get it all done in a year?”
“We cannot,” Parley replied, with sudden determination. “I shall write to Mary Ann this very day and tell her to pack our things and come over from New York City. I shall stay four or five years and I shall need my family with me.”
Reuben Hedlock, standing beside Parley, looked a little shocked. “That long?”
Brigham laid a hand on his shoulder. “We shall not all stay that long, but we must thrust in our sickles with our might so that we can do the work that is here to do.” He looked around the circle. “Brethren, you know what day it is today?”
They all nodded solemnly.
“It is the sixth day of April. I do not think it accidental that we are arriving on the anniversary of the organization of the Church. Ten years ago today, the kingdom was set up on the earth for the last time. We have seen great things happen in this first decade. Now we begin the second on the shores of another land. Let it not be said of us that we did not do our best to make this next decade as significant as the first.”
It was incredible, and Matthew could barely drink it all in. He and Heber and George A. were together, waiting for Brigham and the others to return from the customs house with information on when they could clear their luggage. Heber, who had been here before, decided to take his two young charges in hand and expand their horizons a little. So he walked them a few blocks into the city, and there they came upon the marketplace.
It was huge, covering almost two complete city blocks. There were stalls and carts and wagons containing fruits and vegetables and nuts and spices. Coming from all over the world, they presented a bewildering variety, and Matthew hadn’t, in his wildest dreams, imagined there was such a thing anywhere under the sun. They pushed their way slowly along, gawking like kids at a carnival. Heber could identify several varieties, but even he was stumped on some things if there was no identifying sign. Many of them Matthew had never heard of. There were oranges, tangerines, lemons, limes, kumquats, papaya, pineapples, bananas, avocados, figs, grapes, olives, currants, half a dozen kinds of berries. Down another row were the vegetables in the same incredible variety—potatoes, yams, carrots, beets, something that looked like huge parsnips, turnips, tomatoes, taro, artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, okra, Chinese cabbage, cucumbers. There was one whole corner where spices were sold. Another half a row of stalls sold nothing but nuts of every kind.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” George A. said in wonder. “I would have called anyone an outright liar if they told me about this and I hadn’t seen it for myself.”
Heber laughed. “Tell you what. I’ll buy each of you one thing of whatever you want. You choose.” As they looked at him dubiously, he handed them a couple of shillings each. “Go on, pick whatever you want.”
Matthew was in a jubilant mood anyway, having just ended their four-week-long voyage at sea, so he decided to be bold and go for something exotic. A man had some pineapples stacked up on a two-wheeled cart, with one sliced in thick pieces. Matthew handed him a shilling and picked the largest piece. He was startled, then delighted by its tart sweetness. He reached up and caught the juice dripping out of his mouth with his fingers, then licked them clean.
Curious now, he looked around for George A., wondering what he had picked. He saw him and Heber in the vegetable area and walked over to join them.
“What did you have?” Heber asked.
“Pineapple. It was delicious. What did you have, George A.?” He stopped, staring at the young Apostle. Tears were streaming down George A.’s cheeks and he was blinking rapidly. “What’s the matter?” Matthew asked in alarm.
Heber roared. “Nothing’s the matter.” He looked at George A. “Show Matthew what you chose.”
George A., weeping like a desolate child, held up his hand. In it was a huge onion, easily as big as a man’s fist. Three bites had been taken from it already, and even as Matthew watched, George A. took another big bite, just as though he were eating an apple.
Heber shook his head. “Which just goes to show, there’s no explaining a man’s tastes.”
Chapter Notes
The last five of the Twelve—Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Parley and Orson Pratt, and George A. Smith—arrived in Liverpool on 6 April 1840. Matthew, of course, is a fictional character, but the incident with George A. Smith and the onion is true (see MWM, p. 133).
The results of the Herefordshire mission were astounding. Eventually all but one of the six hundred members of the United Brethren joined the Church, as well as hundreds of others in the area (see CHFT, p. 230).
Chapter Twenty-One
Willard Richards strode steadily along in the April sunshine, his walking stick swinging back and forth as he covered the last mile or two to Preston. He was humming softly to himself, his mood as buoyant as it had been for several months. Two things were responsible for that. First, Jennetta seemed in much better health, something remarkable for someone as frail as she had been of recent months. It had been so poor recently that three weeks before, Willard sent her to live with her parents while he traveled for the Church. Second, just last evening her father had invited Willard to stay the night with them. Jennetta’s father was a minister and bitterly opposed to the Mormons, so this was indeed something worth celebrating. It was the first time it had happened since their marriage.
As he rounded the corner of his street, he looked up. Jenny Pottsworth was coming out of the door to his home.
She reached the street and turned the other direction, walking swiftly. “Jenny?” he called.
She swung back around. Instantly she began to wave, and then broke into a trot toward him, her long hair bouncing on her shoulders. “Oh, Brother Richards! You’re back.”
“Hello, Jenny. What brings you out this way?”
To his utter amazement, she grabbed his hand and started dragging him toward his house. “Come on, Brother Richards, I have a surprise for you.”
“What? What is it, child?”
“Just never you mind,” she laughed. “You must see this for yourself.” They had reached the front gate, and she pulled him through it and up to the front door. “All right,” she commanded. “Close your eyes.”
“What is it?” he asked again. He was weary and not in much of a mood for girlish games.
“Close your eyes.”
Exasperated, he finally complied. He heard the door open and then Jenny had him by the elbow. “Don’t open them. Not yet.”
He felt for the step with his foot, then was inside.
“Now!” she said.
He opened his eyes and looked around, then he gasped. Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young were standing by the small fireplace, grinning at him like bankers looking at a pot of gold. “Brother Richards, I presume,” Heber said, stepping forward and holding out his hand.
About a hundred miles south, a very different kind of welcome was starting to transpire. As they approached the small pool that would be their baptismal site here in Hawcross, Derek felt the hair on the back of his neck start to rise. The men were waiting for them, and they were muttering angrily as they saw the Mormons coming. Derek looked around, hoping to see a constable, but conveniently, none was around. That was partly due to the lateness of the hour—it was near midnight—but Derek also suspected that the constable didn’t want to know
what was going on. It was easier that way. The rowdies could make trouble for a constable too.
The fantastic success Wilford Woodruff was having in Herefordshire and the surrounding areas was not without its attendant problems. Anglican ministers railed against the Mormon missionaries Sunday after Sunday. There was talk that one group of ministers were even thinking about writing the archbishop of Canterbury and asking him to go to Parliament and have laws passed making it illegal for the Mormons to preach in England.
All of that was to be expected, and Wilford and Derek went about their business, ignoring it as much as possible. But as it often had in America, the invective and bitterness being spewed from the pulpits stirred up a different kind of problem. Young toughs—“rowdies,” as the locals called them—began appearing at the preaching meetings, and more especially the baptisms. The missionaries had come a week ago to Leigh, a small village a few miles out of the town of Gloucester, and had worked there and in the surrounding areas. As usual they had great success, and on Sunday they prepared to baptize ten people. One of the members offered the use of a pool on his property as the baptismal site. But as the preliminary services were drawing to a close, a mob of about a hundred people showed up. Hollering, jeering, threatening violence—they succeeded in frightening the member to the point that he withdrew permission to use the site.
As Derek and Wilford moved off, looking for another place to do the baptisms, the mob followed them, elated with their success. “Where you gonna wash your sheep now, Mormons?” they yelled.
Finally, the mob broke up, and the member, a little chagrined at his previous loss of courage, relented and offered his pool again. Before they were able to finish, the rowdies were back, pouring out a constant tirade of sneers, taunting gibes, and catcalls, but Wilford ignored them and went ahead and was able to baptize nine people, stopping only briefly when the mob threw a yelping dog into the pool.
After continuing their labors in Leigh and the neighboring areas for another three days, Wilford and Derek had moved on and arrived in the village of Hawcross earlier this evening. But the same spirit of opposition followed them. Only here, if anything, the mood was darker, uglier. At the preaching service where the missionaries had spoken upon their arrival, a mob had done what they could to break up the meeting, preventing the people who wanted to be baptized from receiving the ordinance. But among those who believed in Wilford’s words, there were some who wanted baptism so badly that Wilford finally agreed to meet them just before midnight. There had been no general announcements. They came as quietly as they could. But somehow, as it always did, word got out, and the rowdies were waiting for them.
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