Part 25 (1/2)

”This nation will find that there's a sequel to it that they won't laugh at.” These words of Darling came from some region underneath that of his ordinary conversation, as a man takes a dagger from under his cloak and lets it flash ere he hides it again. ”The government of these United States that has laughed at our sufferings will rue the day.”

”Even your saying that is very droll, but I love you for it.” Elvira lifted both her hands as if testifying to her own sincerity. ”I love you for it.”

The elder thought it needful here to be again jocose. ”Oh, come now, I am married.”

Elvira did not feel herself insulted. ”These United States,” she cried, ”they cackle over the word 'freedom' like so many hens that have each of them laid an egg and go strutting and boasting while the housewife empties their nests. The housewife represents the natural course of events, and in this case her name is 'Mrs. Mobocracy.'”

At other times, after a long period of silence, Elvira would burst forth in excited soliloquy audible to Susannah and others about her. On the last day when they were descending the hills to the Mississippi her increasing excitement culminated in a greater demonstration. The sun was s.h.i.+ning, and a clear frost had hardened the roads. Elvira broke forth thus--

”It is Joe Smith who is conducting this march. We say that he is lying in gaol,” she laughed. ”In gaol is he? Have they got him safe? But it was he who taught all these men to work together, one under the other, and none of them kicking; and it was he who taught these women and children to do as they are bid--a wonderful thing that in the land of the free. It was he who taught one and all of us to be kind to each other, to the poor and the sick and the young, to the very beasts. Do you remember that when they caught our prophet at Hiram and dragged him out to be beaten and insulted, they had first to take from his arms a sick motherless baby that he was sitting up all night to nurse? Do you remember how he gave commandment about the animals? how he said that any man striking a beast in anger was thrown so far back on his road to heaven?” She paused when she had thrown out this question, and the men and women within hearing answered in broken chorus, ”Yes, blessed be the Lord; we do remember.”

”And who was it that taught us to give up the filthy Gentile habits of strong drink and tobacco?” (Again in the pause the chorus of thanksgiving to Heaven was heard.) ”It was Joe Smith,” Elvira cried more loudly. ”And when the Gentiles thought that we would be scattered and separated and ruined, his spirit has gone like a banner before us.

Twice they have taken our lands that we bought with our own money and cleared with our own hands, and the houses that we have built, and cast us out dest.i.tute, but we are not destroyed.”

The enthusiasm of the crowd that now pressed upon her went like wine to her head; her cheeks flamed, her eyes brightened, and she lifted her small hands in fantastic gesture and danced, crying, ”We are cast down, but not destroyed, because G.o.d Almighty has given to us a prophet, and a great prophet.”

And the people around her answered again, ”Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

It was whispered about the camp that the spirit of prophecy had fallen upon Elvira Halsey.

On the afternoon of that day they saw the ice that floated in large cakes on the breast of the Mississippi flash back the sunbeams to their straining eyes. The sight of the limits of the hostile State from which they were flying was a great joy to every one of them. Susannah felt her heart leap; Elvira, with the growing tendency to cling to her which she had displayed since their last meeting, cast her arms around her and sobbed for joy.

After this blessed glimpse of the river they went down through the recesses of a low forest, the frost and the suns.h.i.+ne still inspiriting them. As they went, the melody of a hymn was taken up from one end of the caravan to the other by all those well enough to join in the song.

It was a swinging triumphant air, and Susannah found herself uplifted for the first time since the days of her baptism upon the party spirit of the sect, and singing with them, although she could only catch the words of the refrain often repeated,

”Missouri, In her lawless fury, Without judge or jury, Drove the Saints and spilt their blood.”

Again the mind of Joseph Smith had overmastered Susannah's mind. As Elvira had said, he, lying in a gaol far away, enduring hards.h.i.+p, imminent danger of torturing death, was by his spirit animating this motley crowd, and now at last again his will broke down the barriers of reason that Susannah had raised and fortified even against the love of her child and the long reverence she had yielded to her husband. The true secret of human leaders.h.i.+p is, perhaps, known only to the Divine mind, perhaps also to the Satanic. It would certainly seem that the men who chance upon the power and wield it, have often little understanding of the law by which they work, and their critics less.

CHAPTER XV.

The Mississippi was filled with large cakes of floating ice. Another company which had gone out from Far West some weeks before was still encamped on the Missouri banks of the river. Yet other companies from Far West came up before the main body of the Saints with which Susannah had travelled was able to cross. The surrounding woods were cut down to make shanties; the surrounding country was scoured for food. In the intervening weeks, while they lay encamped on the banks, the last enemy to be vanquished in that region, the malarial fever, grappled with the sect and dealt deadly wounds. Illinois, shocked by the cruelty of her sister State, held out kind hands and fed the fugitives to some extent, and when April came, helped them to cross the river.

Elvira had been ill in one of the women's sheds, now shrieking in hot delirium, now shaken with ague as if by a strong beast that worried its prey. When they at last crossed the river to the city of Quincy, Susannah was established with her charge, the one legacy of relations.h.i.+p Halsey had left her, in a meagre home with some of the Saints who already lived there.

Within a few days Susannah went to the t.i.thing office, which had been swiftly established for the relief of the dest.i.tute Saints, and asked for paper on which she could write a letter. It was her first chance, since leaving her last asylum, of writing the proposed letter to Ephraim Croom. Elder Darling was officiating. She fancied that he looked at her with rude curiosity.

Until this moment she had presented so sad an exterior, had seemed so indifferent to all the ills of their common lot, that Darling and the other men who had dealings with her had stood not a little in awe. As outward physical details of suffering always appeal more largely to common sympathy than inward grief, the manner of her loss had set a temporary crown upon her head, to which the elders had knelt, refusing to admonish her because she took no part in their public services, or because, except for attention to the sick, she did not give much sign of social comrades.h.i.+p.

Now when she asked for the paper, Darling felt that the ice was beginning to break, and gave what seemed to him genial encouragement.

”First time that you've asked for anything but daily rations, Sister Halsey; glad to see you plucking up heart. The living G.o.d giveth us all things richly to enjoy.” He repeated the last words in an unctuous drawl while he was looking for the paper, ”richly to--enjoy. Well now, I was thinking we had some with a black border on it, but you're more than welcome to such as there is.”

The stores indeed were scanty enough; food, cloth, household utensils, a little stationery, a large pile of devotional books, were arranged in meagre order in the shed used as a warehouse. Darling had as yet scarcely respectable clothes to wear, but Susannah was astonished only at the energy that had in a few days collected so much, at the order and patient kindliness which ruled in this poverty-stricken administration.

Already those who could work paid into the common store, and those who had lost all had but to state their needs to have them supplied as well as might be.

”One, two, three--will three sheets be enough, Sister Halsey? You've been hearing, I suppose, that Mr. Smith is going to be moved to the town of Boome, and that he is going to be allowed to get his letters now?

He'd be real cheered to hear from you, although”--he added this with decent haste--”it will be a great grief to him to hear of your loss!”