by Dean Hughes
Elder Smith was about ten years older than President Thomas. He was a slight man with white hair, receding a little, and wire-rimmed glasses. He had a way of looking closely at a person, as though he could see inside. President Thomas knew that Elder Smith’s crustiness was all on the surface, that he was actually a kindly man; all the same, the president was a little nervous around him. “That’s one reason I’m going to Europe,” Elder Smith said. “President Grant wants me to review the whole situation. Right now, I don’t know what to expect.”
And that seemed the end of it. President Thomas rolled his hat around in his fingers. “Well, thanks. I’m worried, to tell you the truth. I know we want to keep the missionaries there if we can, but it looks dangerous to me, the way things are going.”
“It is dangerous, President. But we have to preach the gospel—and we can’t do that by pulling all our missionaries home every time there’s some trouble.”
“I know.”
“But it’s another matter to have your own son there, isn’t it?” Elder Smith smiled again. “I know about that. Switzerland is safe for now, I suppose, but I still worry about my son Lewis. With Hitler after Poland and Mussolini grabbing up Albania, I wonder what’s to stop one of them from going after Switzerland?”
“Someone is going to stand up to them somewhere.”
“Yes, and when that happens, our missionaries could get caught in the middle. We understand that. But the Brethren pray about this every day. We’ll do the right thing, and we won’t wait until it’s too late. You just have to trust us on that.”
“Oh, I do. I was just wondering what you had heard.”
“What’s wrong, Al? You seem a little down in the mouth.”
President Thomas set his hat on the chair next to him. “I do have some other things on my mind. I guess I feel that a stake president’s family ought to set the right example. And my family has me worried.”
Elder Smith got up and walked around to the other side of his desk. Several chairs were arranged in a half circle, and Elder Smith sat down in one that faced President Thomas. “What’s the trouble?” he said. “I know Alex is doing well, and I heard that Bobbi is marrying the Clark boy. He’s a fine young man.”
President Thomas decided he wouldn’t bring up his concerns about Bobbi. “It’s Wally I’m worried about,” he said.
“Is he the one who played ball with my son Reynolds?”
“Yes. He’s a year younger. He graduates in June.”
“He’s a nice boy. Reyn always liked him. What’s he been doing? Breaking the Word of Wisdom? Missing church?”
“Oh, no. It hasn’t gone that far. But I don’t think the Church means much to him.”
Elder Smith chuckled. He had taken his coat off and was wearing a gray vest. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave the knot of his tie a little pull. “He’s not serious and devoted the way you and I were at that age. Right?”
“I was pretty serious, Elder Smith.”
“We all were. And the older we get, the better we were.”
President Thomas laughed. “Maybe so,” he said. “But you haven’t had much to worry about with your kids.”
“I worry about all of them, and that’s one reason I married again. I felt like my younger kids needed to have a mother in the home.”
Less than a year before, Elder Smith had married Jessie Evans, an attractive, rather flamboyant woman, much younger than he was. She was a trained opera singer, known throughout the valley for her music, but she seemed the last person a quiet, scholarly man like Elder Smith would marry. President Thomas had seen the two together many times since then, however, and they seemed very happy.
“Wally works for you down at the dealership, doesn’t he?”
“Yes. In the summers.”
“Has he ever worked for anyone else?”
“No. But he’s lazy. The only way I can get him to work at all is to hire him myself.”
“I’d let him get out from under your thumb. Give him some room. These sons of stake presidents and bishops get tired of trying to live up to their fathers’ expectations. They need to take on some responsibility of their own.”
“I doubt he’ll look for a job if I don’t hire him again.”
“Find him a job. Get someone to make him an offer.”
“I guess I could do that.”
“And show that boy some love and patience. Growing up isn’t easy these days.”
“All right. I know that’s true.”
“Well, fine. And don’t worry so much. Are you all right? Your church work isn’t getting you down, is it?” Elder Smith had slid toward the front of his seat, and President Thomas knew it was time to go.
“No. I’m fine.”
“Are you making a living?”
President Thomas smiled. “We manage to eat.”
“You drive a new car every year, I notice.”
“I know where I can get a good deal. Come down and I’ll make you one, too.” The two laughed, and President Thomas felt some of the load lift from his shoulders. The two stood up.
“Just between you and me, President, I don’t think Alex will be in Germany much longer. Many of the people of Europe have hardened their hearts to the gospel. We try to teach them, but very few listen. Now they’re going to reap the consequences of their pride. I see some terrible times ahead for them.”
“It looks that way to me, too.”
“We’ve got plenty of problems in this country, too, and I fear we’re going to be drawn into the troubles in Europe. President Roosevelt keeps asking everyone to pray for peace. What he ought to tell people is to repent and then pray. That’s the only course that’s going to save us now. It’s all in the Book of Mormon. The Lord will only prosper us and protect us when we’re righteous.”
President Thomas had not thought of it that way before, but it all rang true to him. “So what can we do?”
“The only thing I know is to call the members to repentance. Too many of our leaders want to soft-pedal everything.” Elder Smith smiled. “I know what the members think of me: I’m the crankiest old buzzard in the Church. But I read the scriptures, and they tell me to cry repentance unceasingly.”
“That’s what I find in the scriptures too.”
“I’m glad to know that. I was starting to think I was using a different set from everyone else.”
President Thomas laughed.
“President, our missionaries have been preaching the gospel abroad for a hundred years. And we’ve come a long way: three quarters of a million members, more than a hundred stakes, thirty-five missions. But we’ve got a long way to go. I see too many of our members slacking off. I walk down the streets here in Salt Lake, and it seems like half the people are smoking cigarettes. Our sacrament meeting attendance is terrible. I don’t understand what’s happening, but maybe the Lord has to get our attention—so he can carry out his purposes.”
President Thomas nodded solemnly, but Elder Smith seemed to sense that he had gone on a bit of a tirade. He laughed. “Anyway,” he said, “how’s Bea doing? I haven’t even asked you about her.”
“Fine. The only problem with her is that she thinks she’s right all the time. And it turns out most of the time that she is.”
Elder Smith laughed and slapped his friend on the back. “Well, I’ll tell you this. When Ethel died, I thought my heart would break. But Jessie has brought me back to life. And my kids love her. So I’m not grouchy all the time.”
“I heard you and Jessie sing a duet. I had no idea you could sing like that.”
“It’s not a duet. It’s a ‘do-it.’ She makes me do it whether I want to or not.”
They laughed and shook hands.
***
Early in June Wally graduated from high school and took a summer job on Mat Nakashima’s farm. Brother Nakashima had called and asked whether he wanted to work for him, and for Wally the chance to get away from the dealership had been welcome. So far, the work had actually been
rather fun, too. Wally got to act like a boss at times, and he worked mostly alone—without anyone watching over him. He was outside, too, not cooped up in a hot showroom or a stuffy garage.
Wally did the plowing to keep the weeds down between the rows of trees, and he hauled bins of cherries to waiting trucks. After work each day he helped figure the earnings of the pickers—mostly local boys and some itinerant laborers. He paid them in cash from a metal box, and he joked with them when they complained about being tired.
When the last picker was paid one afternoon, Mat asked Wally to move the empty bins back to the orchard, ready for the next day’s work. As Wally climbed onto the tractor, Brother Nakashima said, “Wally, you’re doing a good job for me. I appreciate it.”
“Thanks. I never drove a tractor before in my life, but I’m getting the hang of it. I like this work. Maybe I’ll run an orchard of my own someday.”
“And not sell cars?”
“That’s one thing I don’t want to do.”
Mat was young, in his thirties, but he was more formal than any man Wally had worked around. He sounded more like a professor than a farmer. “Well, I was a little bit the same,” he said, “but I didn’t stray too far from my father’s business. He raised vegetables, so when I was growing up, I always had my back bent and my nose in the dirt. Maybe that’s why I decided on an orchard. I can look up, not down.” He laughed.
“It’s a good business, I would think.”
“Some years it is.” Mat gripped the shoulder straps of his overalls and smiled. He was strongly built, with powerful shoulders and a stout neck. “We get a late frost as often as not, and then we do more worrying than picking. Sometimes I wish I had chosen something else.”
At the dealership, the employees had treated Wally like the “owner’s boy.” No one had ever carried on a man-to-man conversation with him. Mat had seemed rather quiet at first, but he was opening up a little more each day, and Wally liked that.
“All in all, I’ve done all right,” Mat said. “I have to save from year to year, but Sharon and I don’t spend much, so I don’t need to get rich. We plant a garden, we keep some chickens and a milk cow, and we raise a couple of calves each year. So we don’t worry about going hungry.”
The Nakashimas lived beyond Twenty-Seventh South, where there were lots of orchards and farms. They had a nice little house, three sons, and a baby daughter. Wally ate lunch with the family every day, so he was getting to be friends with the boys. Sharon was much more outgoing than Mat, and she seemed to like Wally. She had teased him about being “every schoolgirl’s dream” until Wally finally admitted that the one girl he really liked only wanted to be friends with him. No one else—not even Mel—knew how much he cared about Lorraine.
“Personally,” Wally told Mat, “I think I’d like to be rich. You know—live in a fancy house and drive nice cars.” He pulled off his old hat and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.
“Then maybe you should stay with your father’s business.”
“No. My dad and I don’t get along well enough. I want to do something on my own.”
Wally had hinted about this before, but Mat had never commented. Now, however, he said, “Things aren’t always easy between fathers and sons. I had my difficulties, too.”
“What kind of difficulties?”
“Mainly, my father stayed with the old ways from Japan, and that bothered me. For one thing, he never would call me Mat.” He smiled. “He called me Matoshi, my real name, even in front of my friends. I hated that. But I learned from him—and then he died quite young. I wish I had him around now.”
“Did you two argue?”
“Not a lot. Japanese sons aren’t supposed to do that. But I was always caught in the middle. I was the only Japanese boy in my high school, and I wanted to be like everyone else. I
didn’t want my friends to meet my family—since my parents spoke so little English and were . . . you know . . . so different. There for a while, I wasn’t very respectful to my father.”
“But it sounds like you worked things out.”
Mat thought for a time, the way he often did, before he responded. “Mostly, I just grew up,” he said. “But I made one choice that was hard on my folks. When I joined the Church, I went against my father’s will. He couldn’t understand that.”
“What religion was he?”
“Buddhist. He didn’t mind so much that I added something to my faith. It was rejecting all the old ways that bothered him.”
“Didn’t you live in our neighborhood back then?”
“That’s right. My father’s farm wasn’t too far from you. It’s all filled with houses now. When I first joined the Church, your dad was my bishop. He got me through some hard times.”
“My dad did?”
“I’ll say.” Mat stepped closer to the tractor and looked up at Wally. “Some of the members didn’t want a Japanese boy in the ward. I think they were afraid I might want to date their daughters. But I’ll never forget; your dad stood up in sacrament meeting one night. He never mentioned me by name, but he told the ward what it meant to be a Christian. Everybody in that chapel knew what he meant, too. And they responded.” Mat looked away and blinked, took a few seconds, and then added, “There’s no man on this earth I love more than your father.”
Wally was amazed.
“You probably don’t know this, but your father performed my marriage. Sharon is from Brigham City. I met her through a cousin of mine who used to live up there. Your dad always told me I’d be wise to find a Japanese girl if I could, and when I met Sharon, who’s Nisei like me—born in America—I went crazy over her. She joined the Church, but she had to go against her parents, the same as I had done, and her family pretty much disowned her. During those first couple of years we were married, your dad spent hours and hours with us—and especially with Sharon—just getting us through all that. Sharon never says your dad’s name without reverence. You must have noticed that.”
“Mat, all that’s hard for me to imagine. The sermon you said he gave in sacrament meeting—that I can picture. But whenever he talks with me, he just ends up telling me what to do. I know he spends a lot of time with members of the stake, but I can’t visualize him being patient with people—and listening.”
Mat smiled. “I don’t know, Wally. You and I don’t seem to be talking about the same man.”
“I think you’re right,” Wally said. He pulled his work gloves from his back pocket and put them on. He got ready to start the tractor, but he could see that Mat was still watching him, that he had something more to say.
“Someday you’ll be a father yourself, and you’ll see everything from the other side. Your father is trying hard to do what’s best for you. Sometimes he has to lay down the law.”
“I know that. But he could talk things out with me. I’m not a little kid anymore.”
Mat nodded. “No, you’re not,” he said, and he let the matter go. But Wally could tell that Mat was holding back. As Wally drove the tractor away, he tried to think what Mat might have said. Maybe, “But you’re not as grown up as you think you are, either.” And somehow those words cut deep, even deeper than if Mat had actually said them.
The following Sunday was stake conference. Sitting all morning on the hard benches of the Granite Stake Tabernacle was bad enough for Wally, but returning in the afternoon, when the building was blazing hot, seemed enough to kill him off. So he wasn’t in a good mood when his father got up to give the closing sermon. President Thomas told some good stories in the beginning and was rather funny, but then he began to hammer away at the “iniquity” in the Salt Lake Valley. “Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith recently told me never to stop crying repentance to this people,” he told the congregation, “and I never will.”
He had begun to speak with almost an hour left in the meeting. Wally held out a little hope that he might stop a few minutes early. But with four o’clock coming up, he was still going strong.
“I believe,” h
e said in conclusion, “and I am not alone in this belief, that Church members may soon face the greatest test we have ever known. The pioneers faced hardships. And the depression has been a challenge. But this next great trial will tear our families apart and thrust our children into danger and temptation. This valley will deal firsthand with the depravity of a wicked world. It is time, my brothers and sisters, to gather our families about us and to seek repentance for our sins, that we might be prepared for a very dark time.”
Wally was surprised by all this. He knew his father believed that war was coming soon in Europe, but what was this about a test for the members in Salt Lake? Dad, as usual, was taking himself too seriously. Wally tried to picture his dad comforting Sharon Nakashima. He was amazed that the man hadn’t said, “Don’t feel so sorry for yourself. Look how many pioneers had to leave their families behind when they joined the Church.”
After, as the stake members filed out, many of them stopped the Thomases. “My goodness, Bea,” people would say, “that husband of yours outdid himself today. That’s one of the finest sermons I’ve ever heard.”
One man even told Bobbi, “Your father ought to be an apostle, if you ask me. He can preach with the best of ‘em.”
Beverly had fallen asleep on her mother’s lap, and now she was sleep-walking her way up the aisle. LaRue looked little better, the curl gone from her hair and her eyes glazed. Gene seemed lost inside himself. But Mom and Bobbi were willing to talk to everyone, and Bobbi kept saying, “It was a wonderful conference—one of the best we’ve had.” Wally wondered whether she could possibly mean it. Had all these people actually liked his father’s talk—or did they just think they had to say so?
Wally had almost made it to the door when his bishop, Morgan Evans, took hold of his arm. “I want to speak with you for a minute,” he said. He pulled Wally into one of the pews. “I’ve been worried about you lately, Wally. How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
“You haven’t been coming to MIA or playing baseball with the Junior M-Men. Is there a reason for that?”
“Did my dad ask you to talk to me?”