Children of the Promise

by Dean Hughes

  “You’ll be safe here,” Bobbi had told Beverly, but Bev had looked up with tears in her round eyes and said, “Maybe bombs will fall on us. At school we have to practice getting under our desks—in case the Japs come.”

  This was not a good time—not for anyone. But right now Bobbi felt more concern for Beverly than anyone else in the family.

  When the food was finally distributed and everyone had settled into eating, Dad said, “I do want to say a few things to you today.” He grinned. “But I won’t talk very long.”

  Bobbi knew what he meant. He had become aware of his reputation for preaching too much.

  “First of all,” he said, “I want Bobbi to know how proud we are of her. I’m happy that she wants to serve her country—now that I’ve gotten used to the idea.”

  Everyone laughed. They all knew how hard Dad had resisted the idea of Bobbi’s going into the navy.

  “I’m also proud of Alex—even though he’s fool enough to think he wants to jump out of airplanes.”

  “Alex,” Gene said, “be sure to use a parachute.”

  “I’ll flap my wings,” Alex said.

  LaRue giggled. “He’s an angel,” she said. “Didn’t you know that, Gene?”

  Dad cleared his throat with exaggerated volume. “Now come on; I’m serious,” he said. He waited, took a bite of his chicken, chewed for a moment, and let everyone get ready. Then he set the chicken down, wiped his hands on his napkin, and said, “There are different kinds of missions in life, and I hope before too many years Gene will have the chance to serve a proselyting mission, just as Alex did. But for now, we have a mission to stop what’s happening in the world. Elder Widtsoe, at this last general conference, told us that the Lord allows Satan to go only so far in creating human misery—and then he puts a stop to it. But God can only work through good people. We, the members of the Church, have to help lead the world back to purity.”

  General conference had been strange this year. To cut back on travel, only leaders had been invited. The conference talks, however, had appeared in the Church section of the Deseret News, and Bobbi had read the one by Elder Widtsoe. It had given her some hope that evil would not win out—even though it seemed to be prospering so well at the moment.

  “Your mother and I are doing our part by running the plant,” Dad said, “and Bobbi is going to care for the wounded. Alex will probably see action in battle. But we’re all, in different ways, going to do our share.”

  “Me and Bev are collecting scrap metal again this Saturday,” LaRue said.

  “That’s right.” Dad dabbed at his potatoes but didn’t actually eat any. When he looked up, Bobbi saw the emotion that had come into his eyes. “What I want, no matter where we are, or what happens—is for all of us to keep the faith. I know what war does to people. We have to keep close to each other in whatever way we can, and we have to rely on the Lord.”

  Everyone had stopped eating. Bobbi found herself wondering what heartaches might be coming to the family.

  “I want to say something to you that may be obvious, but I want all of you to think back on it when you need to. I know the gospel is true. And I know God will not abandon us, no matter what. If at some time you find yourself doubting, will you remember that I know?” He looked to the other end of the table. “Your mother knows too. Just as surely as I do.”

  “I do,” Mom said, and she took the chance to make eye contact with each of her children.

  Bobbi was seeing something new in her mother these days. She was stepping forward, taking her place alongside her husband.

  She seemed to be offering her testimony with a new sort of authority, and even though Dad may have called on her as an afterthought, he at least had called on her. He hadn’t always done that.

  “Dad,” Bobbi said, “will you give us a father’s blessing before we go?”

  “You know I will.” He looked at her steadily for a time. “Are you a little scared?”

  “Not for my life. It’s just . . . a big change.”

  “I’m scared,” Alex said. “Not exactly for my life either—but you know—I feel like I have a lot to lose.”

  Everyone knew what he meant. Alex had baptized a family named Stoltz in Germany, and he had fallen in love with the daughter, Anna. He hadn’t told her that while he was there, but he had written to her since then, and the two had promised to wait out the war and marry each other. He obviously didn’t want to lose the chance to do that.

  “I wish I could make guarantees,” President Thomas said. “I do feel that in the end we’ll hold strong, but I can’t say that nothing bad is going to happen to any of us. I read just the other day that Elder Hugh Brown’s boy—a pilot—was shot down. He’s missing in action, maybe dead. If it can happen to the Browns, it can happen to us.”

  “If something bad happens to any of us, it happens to all of us,” Bobbi said. “Like with Wally.”

  “That’s right.” Dad nodded. “And excuse me for bringing up our heritage just one more time, but remember that the Thomases and the Snows are a noble, good people. When hardship visited them in the early days of the Church, they got stronger, not weaker, and they passed their strength on to the next generation. I hope you’ll never forget who you are: like the hymn says, you are children of the promise.”

  It certainly was Dad’s old tune, but it had a new ring to it now. For the first time the family understood something about the “refiner’s fire” Dad always talked of. Their pioneer forefathers had gotten through some tough times in Missouri and Illinois—and on the trek west—but maybe this war was going to be as hard as any of that.

  “We just have to—” Dad stopped. “Well, let’s eat. You know what I have to say. I’ve said it a thousand times. I know how tiresome I can get.”

  Wally had always teased his dad about his endless preaching, but Bobbi had never minded so much, and she didn’t mind now. She suspected Wally might not either. But they ate, and Bobbi was sure everyone was thinking about the change that was about to come, and about the possible dangers.

  “Have you seen Lorraine Gardner lately?” Alex asked. Lorraine was the girl Wally had dated before he left for the air corps. The two had broken up before he left, but Bobbi knew that Wally had never really gotten over her.

  Mom said, “She calls me every few days. She’s as anxious to hear about Wally as we are.”

  “I wish Wally could know that,” Bobbi said.

  “I know,” Mom said. “I told him in the letters I sent, but I have no idea whether they will get to him.”

  “If he had something to hope for it might help him.”

  “That’s true. But I didn’t feel I could make that kind of promise.”

  Bobbi felt the sadness of it. Lorraine had had plenty of good reasons for breaking up with Wally—and who could tell?—this experience in the war might make him a worse person, not a better one. It put Lorraine in a bad position.

  “She wants to write to him herself,” Mom said. “I think that’s the best thing.”

  Dad said, “We offered her a job this summer, at the plant. She turned us down at first, but when she called the other day, she told Bea she might take us up on the offer after all. I guess she’s tired of the place where she’s been working.”

  Bobbi wasn’t sure how good that would be, but she was happy to know that Lorraine was going to write to Wally. If he were to get the letter, it would surely be a help to him. Lorraine had always been a good influence in his life.

  “A Jap came to our house yesterday,” Bev said.

  There was an awkward silence for a moment, and then Mom said, “Honey, that was our friend Mat Nakashima. He’s lived here all his life.”

  “I know. But he’s a Jap. LaRue said he was.”

  “His family came from Japan a long time ago,” Bobbi said. “We don’t have anything against Japanese people—just the ones who . . .” But Bobbi couldn’t think how to finish her sentence.

  Mom said, “Mat is a wonderful man. He has a nice
family.” But she sounded unnatural, and no one else seemed to know what to say.

  It was Alex who changed the subject just a little. “What’s happened to Mat’s brother?” he asked. “Have you been able to do anything for him?”

  “No,” Dad said. “Everyone just tells me that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. All the Japanese on the coast are being held, and the government is moving them to inland relocation camps. One of them is going to be down in central Utah, west of Delta. The fact that Ike is from here doesn’t seem to matter to anyone.”

  “Can’t they figure out which ones are really spies and just put them in jail?” Gene asked.

  Alex said, “I don’t think they have proof that any of them are spies.”

  “That may be true, Alex,” Dad said. “But how can they know? And if you leave a lot of Japanese in the same neighborhood with white people, I’m not sure what might happen. I’m afraid people will take out their anger on them. They’ll be better off in these camps.”

  “The last I heard, they were Americans. Maybe it’s the people who bother them who ought to be put away—and not the other way around.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you something, Alex. There are very few people who feel that way. After talking to Mat, I have a lot of sympathy for him and his people. But I still think this might be the best answer for now. I just don’t know why they won’t let Ike come home. A few Utah Japanese were arrested, but only those with connections to the old country. Ike doesn’t have that.”

  Alex let it go. He glanced at Bobbi and seemed to seek some agreement. Bobbi looked away. She liked Mat Nakashima, but she didn’t really think of him as Japanese. Japs were the people holding her brother in a prison camp, the ones causing this war and killing young American boys. That’s what she had wanted to tell Beverly.

  “Is this lettuce from the garden?” Bobbi asked. And now she was the one changing the subject, on purpose.

  “Yes. From our new, expanded ‘Victory garden,’” Gene said. “Can’t you tell how sour the stuff is?”

  “We all have to produce more of our own food,” Mom said.

  “I know, I know,” Gene said, and he laughed. “But that doesn’t make the lettuce taste any better.”

  “Those peas are wonderful,” Mom said. “Lettuce is just a little trickier. We’re going to get better. We haven’t done enough with our garden the past couple of years, but there’s nothing better than fresh vegetables.”

  “Now tell me how much Wally would like to have some right now.” But like the Wally everyone remembered, Gene had gone a little too far, and the silence made that obvious. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just kidding.”

  But even the apology reminded Bobbi of Wally, and she suddenly ached to see the boy—just to know how he was doing.

  When everyone had finished, Mom brought out the little cake. It had no icing, but mom brought a big pitcher of milk with it. At least dairy products weren’t in short supply.

  Everyone was in the middle of dessert when a knock came on the front door. “That’s my gang,” Gene said, and he got up from the table. “We’re going swimming out at Wasatch Springs.”

  “What’s this?” Dad said. “I thought we were all going to be together tonight.”

  “Al, I think I told you about this. Gene made plans before we decided to get everyone together.”

  “Can’t you—”

  Gene got up and walked toward the front door. “I won’t be gone too long, Dad,” he called back. “Bobbi and I can stay up late and talk about how much she loves me and all that stuff.”

  Bobbi smiled at him. “It’ll take me hours to stop missing you. Or at least minutes.”

  “Tell the truth. You—”

  But Dad obviously didn’t like this. “How are you getting there?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry. No cars involved. We’re taking the trolley.”

  Gene opened the door. “Come on in for a minute,” he shouted. “You can all watch me finish my cake. None for you, though. Sorry.”

  Sister Thomas glanced at Bobbi and shook her head. Then she stood up and turned to look at the kids who were filing in through the front door: three girls and three boys. They were all kids from Sugar House, some of them from their ward. Bobbi was sort of glad to see that the count would be uneven when Gene joined them. That meant the little excursion wasn’t exactly divided up into couples. Somehow Bobbi hated to think her little brother was old enough to get attached to any one girl.

  “Kids, I’m sorry,” Mom said. “I baked a little cake, but we’ve eaten almost all of it.”

  One of the girls, Millie Ellertson, walked forward and touched Sister Thomas’s arm. “Don’t worry. Gene was just smarting off, as usual.” But then she did something surprising. She took hold of Gene’s arm and looked up at him, into his eyes. Gene claimed to be the tallest in the family—by half an inch—and he looked it right now.

  Millie was a girl from the ward. Bobbi had known her forever. She was wearing a straight skirt with saddle shoes—the outfit all the girls in high school were wearing these days—but she seemed to be wearing a touch of lipstick, and she had, suddenly it seemed, taken on the shape of a woman. She had also taken a very firm grip on little brother Gene.

  Bobbi glanced at her father, and she saw that he had noticed too. He stood up, slowly. “How are you kids doing?” he asked, but he was staring at Millie.

  “Hello, President,” Millie said, and so did the others. He was stake president to all of them.

  “You’re going swimming, I understand.”

  “Yes, but I’m a terrible swimmer,” Millie said. “Your sport-star son might have to save my life.”

  “I don’t see how I can,” Alex said. “I’m not going.”

  Gene laughed. “Don’t even start with that,” he said. “This year I’m going to break all your records.”

  “Hope springs eternal,” Alex said, and he grinned at his little brother.

  Gene had already pulled loose from Millie, and he walked to the table, where he swallowed the rest of his cake and gulped down his milk. Then he walked back through the living room into the parlor and toward the stairs. “Just let me get my stuff,” he told his friends.

  A red-haired boy named Ralph Nielson took up the kidding with Alex. “East will have its best football team ever this fall,” he said.

  Alex argued that the team he had played on could come back and whoop them, even now, but Bobbi was again surprised when Millie, whom Bobbi remembered as being rather quiet, said, “I doubt that, Alex. Gene could probably handle you guys by himself.”

  “Oh, really? I didn’t know my little brother was Superman.”

  “Well, he is. Unless you know where you can get some kryptonite, you’d better not try to duke it out with him.” She doubled up her fists as though ready to fight.

  Just then Gene charged down the stairs, two steps at a time, and he herded everyone out the door. As the door shut, Sister Thomas sat down and said, “Well, a person doesn’t have to have x-ray vision to know what that girl has on her mind.”

  Everyone laughed, and LaRue said, “You and Dad are always the last to know about everything. Millie’s had a crush on Gene since junior high.”

  “And what about Gene?” Dad said. “What does he think about her?”

  “Oh, you know Gene,” LaRue said. “He doesn’t care that much about girls.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard today,” Dad said.

  Suddenly the door flew open and Gene charged back in and hurried to the table. “Sis,” he said, “you’ll be up packing tonight, won’t you? And staying up late?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure I will.”

  “Okay. I do want to talk to you, or . . . you know . . . have some time to say good-bye.”

  “Aren’t you going with us to the train in the morning?”

  “Sure. But, I want to have a little time with you. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to miss you, Bobbi. I was just j
oking about that.”

  “I know.”

  He tried to say, “Alex is the one I won’t miss,” but the words failed him halfway through, and tears came into his eyes. “See you later,” he said, softly, and he hurried away.

  No one spoke for quite some time after he was gone. Beverly had begun to cry.

  But Dad said, “Now might be a good time to do those father’s blessings—before anyone else leaves.”

  So the family moved into the living room, and Dad brought a chair from the table. He blessed Bobbi first. He rested his big hands on her head, the warmth pressing through her hair, and he told her how much he—and the Lord—loved her. He blessed her that she would be kept safe. He also said something that struck Bobbi as rather ominous. “May you learn the things you are supposed to learn,” he said. “May you use the trials that will come to you as means to further growth.”

  When Alex took the chair, President Thomas placed his hands on his son’s head, but he didn’t speak for a long time. His words seemed carefully considered. Bobbi knew that her father feared he would lose this firstborn son. She heard the concern in his voice, which was much softer than usual, even tremulous at times. At one point he said, “I bless you that you might remember Moroni’s rent coat, the Title of Liberty for which he fought. Defend your God, your religion, your freedom and peace, and your family, but like Moroni and Helaman and the stripling warriors, never give way to hatred. Keep a spirit of peace, of love, of goodness, in your heart. Be a noble warrior, a fierce fighter if need be, but keep the spirit of Christ with you all along the way.”

  And then, finally, President Thomas said, “Helaman called the stripling warriors his little sons. And Alex, you are still my little son. I hold all the images of your wonderful childhood close to my heart.” His voice broke, and he began to shake. “I would rather keep you here, as you know, rather cling to you selfishly, but these times demand that our fine young sons defend us as the armies of Helaman once defended their parents. I give you therefore to the Lord, and to our country, and I ask only that you honor both, no matter where you are called to serve.”