XXIVA MORMON WOMAN
Newly created Mormon settlements came occasionally into view, the long, low, ashy-white adobe houses of the Latter-Day Saints proclaiming, by the front doors to be counted in their dwellings, the number of wives each patriarch possessed.
One cold, blustering evening a lone woman, middle-aged, swarthy, sinewy, and tall, came into the camp afoot. A bundle of bedding strapped to her back gave her an uncanny appearance as she shrank into the shadows. A reticule of generous dimensions depended from her neck in front and reached below her waist-line, containing her little stock of clothing and provisions.
“I am making my way to the Northern Oregon country,”she said, meaning the great expanse of territory which at that time embraced the present States of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, with a large slice of the present State of Montana included. “President Young saw I was going crazy,” she added, throwing aside her reticence after being warmed and fed. “I wasn’t the least mite dangerous to have around, as I wasn’t violent; but I cried and took on so, after I had to give my husband away in marriage to another woman, that I scared the hull church into a fear that I’d upset polygamy. So President Young said I might have a permit to leave the country.”
“Do you mind telling us all about it?” asked Sally O’Dowd.
“It can all be summed up in one word,—polygamy,” she exclaimed, glancing furtively around. “Are there any Mormons about?”
“No, madam,” said the Captain. “The boss of this combination is a pagan, and he wouldn’t hurt a Christian. You have no cause to be afraid. But you’d better not tell us any secrets. The proper way to keep a secret is to keep it to one’s self, unless you want to keep it going.”
“I am a Mormon, good and true,” she began again, rising to her feet and spreading her thin hands to the blaze; “but when my husband went into polygamy, which it was his Christian duty to do, according to the Scripture (and I’m not blaming him), the Devil got the upper hand of me, and I couldn’t stand it. You see, they made me go to the Endowment House and give my own husband away in marriage to another woman; and that, too, after we had stood together at the altar, in the little church in my father’s parish, ever so long before, and swore before God and a score of witnesses that we would forsake all others and keep ourselves only to each other as long as we both should live. Polygamy may be all right for people who haven’t made such vows; but I know it was not right for us. What do you think, Mr. Captain?”
“I think that women have had their hearts cultivated at the expense of their heads quite long enough,” was his emphatic response.
“I thought the Mormons didn’t compel any woman to give her husband away in marriage against her will,” said Jean.
The woman uttered a sharp, rasping, staccato laugh that betokened incipient insanity.
“There are other ways to kill a dog besides choking him to death on butter!” she cried, throwing her arms wildly about, and casting grotesque shadows upon those sitting behind her. “They told me that as a good Mormon I was bound to obey the mandates of the Church; that my eternal salvation, and my husband’s also, depended upon obedience. And they said it so often, and prayed over me so long and hard, that at last I said I’d do it. Then they held me to my promise. But my heart would beat, and the world would move; so in spite of what I did in the Endowment House, I would go about and tell my woes to everybody that would listen. And I was getting to be a scandal in Zion, so that by-and-by, when a lot of Gentiles got to making a fuss about it,—they made it hot for polygamy through my story,—the elders took it up. But they couldn’t tie my tongue, for the Devil had hold of it, and he just kept it wagging. The cases of Abraham and Jacob and David didn’t fit my case at all, for they hadn’t made any such vows.”
The woman, as if suddenly recollecting herself, stopped speaking, and glared at her awe-stricken listeners with an insane gleam in her fiery eyes.
“Oh, my head, my head!” she cried, clasping her hands tightly over her temples. “The Devil has caught me again!”
“You’d better not talk any more to-night,” said the Little Doctor, soothingly. “And you cannot go on till morning. I’ll make a warm, snug bed for you in one ofthe wagons. After you’ve had a sound sleep and a good breakfast, you can go on your way refreshed.”
“But I’ve got to talk it out. You’re like all the rest! You want me to be quiet, when the rocks and stones would cry out against me if I did!”
“You’ll take a drink of our ‘Number Six,’ won’t you?” asked the Little Doctor. “Here it is. I’ve mixed and sweetened it for you.”
She grasped the decoction and gulped it eagerly.
“Thanks,” she said, returning the cup. “I must be going now. I’ve stayed too long already. The Danites will be after me. Do you think any of them are in hearing now? President Young put me under their surveillance before they’d let me start. He put his hands on my head and blessed me, too. Talk about your popes! Why, Brigham Young can discount a ten-acre field full of Apostolic successors, and be the father of a whole regiment of American progeny in the bargain. I know you think I’m crazy, but there’s plenty of method in my madness. I’m not half as crazy as I act and talk.”
“Will the Danites protect you till you reach the end of your journey?” asked Jean. “Are you sure?”
“Not if they catch me among Gentiles. President Young took precautions to prevent me from talking to outsiders, he thought. I mustn’t be seen here. But I must tell you before I go that his blessing came direct from God. It filled my very marrow-bones with light. It was like phosphorus in the dark, or diamonds in the sunlight. I felt like a bird! No man can do these things that President Young is doing unless God be with him.”
“Do you believe that Brigham Young is really inspired of God?” asked Mary, incredulously.
“It is by their fruits that we know them, miss. Zion has been greatly blessed under the ministrations and guidance of President Young.”
“Then why do you wish to escape from his kingdom?” asked Marjorie.
“Because I was not good enough to endure polygamy; I was too great a sinner. I couldn’t obey the gospel and keep my senses.”
“Did the thought never strike you that the fault might be in the gospel, instead of your heart or head?” asked Hal.
“The High and Holy One of Israel cannot err,” she replied, shaking her head, and again waving her long arms to and fro in the smoky air. “There are disbelievers in this camp, and I cannot tarry. May Heaven guide and protect you all, and bring you into the holy faith of the Latter-Day Saints! O blessed Lord, direct these souls into Thy kingdom before it is everlastingly too late!”
She waved her arms over their heads once more, and turning suddenly, vanished like a deer into the darkness.
“That poor misguided creature has the spirit of a martyr,” said Captain Ranger, after a painful silence.
“It is a good deal easier for some folks to preach than to practise,” exclaimed Sally O’Dowd.
“There are kernels of truth in all ’ologies,” said Scotty.
“As a man thinketh, so is he,” exclaimed Mary.
“She is striving to save her immortal soul. All religions have their origin in human selfishness,” remarked the Captain, dryly.
“Better say they originate in human needs,” replied Jean; “but selfishness is universal, all the same.”
“Yes. Selfishness is a necessary attribute of human existence,” said the Little Doctor, punching the dying fire into a blaze. “Don’t you think so, Mr. Burns?”
“I quite agree with you, madam. Selfishness belongs to human environment, and is as much a part of us as hunger, thirst, love, or ambition. Nothing is made in vain.”
“Not even sin?” asked Mary.
“Not even sin!” echoed Jean. “This would have been a very useless world if there had been no wrongs to set right in it, and no suffering to relieve. Nobody couldappreciate heat if it were not for cold, or light if there were no darkness. Hunger compels us to search for food; thirst seeks satisfaction in drink, and ambition in the search for personal advancement. It often unconsciously assists the weak by its efforts, when it intends to help nothing but the personal selfishness that inspires it. Everything, both good and evil, is a part of the eternal programme.”
“Where did you imbibe such ideas as you often express on this subject?” asked her father, a great pride in her springing afresh in his heart.
“From the stars, I guess, or from the angels. Or maybe they were born within me. I never could reconcile myself to the generally accepted idea of gratitude. To thank God for blessings we enjoy that are not accessible to others, to me is nothing else but blasphemy.”
“Then you cannot say with the poet,—
“‘Some hae meat, and canna eat,And some would eat that want it;But we hae meat, and we can eat,Sae let the Lord be thankit!’”
“‘Some hae meat, and canna eat,And some would eat that want it;But we hae meat, and we can eat,Sae let the Lord be thankit!’”
“‘Some hae meat, and canna eat,And some would eat that want it;But we hae meat, and we can eat,Sae let the Lord be thankit!’”
“‘Some hae meat, and canna eat,
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit!’”
said Mrs. Benson, who had been looking on in silence.
“Indeed I can’t!” exclaimed Jean. “But we’ve all heard just such prayers and praises through all our lives.”
“Nobody in normal health has any right to be thankful for anything unless he earns it,” said the Captain; “and then he has nobody to thank but himself.”
“He ought to be thankful for health, at least,” suggested Marjorie.
“If you’d follow your logic to its natural sequence, Captain, my occupation would be gone,” laughed the Little Doctor. “It is as unnatural and unscientific to be sick as to be hungry; therefore there should be no doctors.”
“I can see no analogy between your conclusions and my observations,” said the Captain.
“I can,” cried Jean.
“Every error under the sun is mixed with good, or it couldn’t exist at all,” said Scotty. “But the truth remains that the Universe with all that it contains exemplifies the Divine Idea. God IS.
“‘All are but parts of one stupendous whole,WhosemotherNature is, and God the soul.’
“‘All are but parts of one stupendous whole,WhosemotherNature is, and God the soul.’
“‘All are but parts of one stupendous whole,WhosemotherNature is, and God the soul.’
“‘All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
WhosemotherNature is, and God the soul.’
“You see, I’ve altered the thought a little, Mrs. McAlpin; but I look to the shade of Pope for pardon. If he were with us to-day, he would doubtless accept my amendment. We can’t know much about the mystery we call God. It makes little difference to the humanity of the various nations of the earth, all of whom must worship the Divine Idea, whether it be called Vishnu, Chrishna, Isis, Allah, Jehovah—”
“These learned disquisitions over things unknown make me very weary,” yawned Jean.
“And border on blasphemy,” added Mary.
“We had better go to bed,” exclaimed the Captain, rising. “These questions have taken a wide range, and we’ve all followed that poor Mormon devotee beyond her depth and our own.”
“But such discussions relieve the monotony of travel and sometimes lead to independent thought,” said Lengthy, who had sat squat upon his heels and haunches, a silent listener.
“God be with our Mormon sister,” said Scotty, rising and adjusting his crutches. “Let us hope for her a safe journey to some friendly spot where polygamy ceases from troubling, and the saints are at rest!”
“That’s from the Bible,” cried Hal.
“Nobody can conceive of a better method of expressing an idea than that modelled after the language of the Bible,” was the ready retort. “If I were as pronounced an agnostic as our Captain pretends to be, which I am not, I’d read my Bible daily, if for no other reason than toimprove my vocabulary. Read it, Hal; study its precepts; imitate its language; revere its antiquity; emulate the example of its good men; shun the sins of its Davids and Solomons; fill your mind with the wisdom of its Isaiahs and Deborahs; and, above all, obey its Ten Commandments and follow the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule.”
“I’ll see spooks to-night!” cried Jean.
As these chronicles will have no further dealings with the Mormon refugee, it is well to add, in closing the incident, that twenty years after the episode had passed and was almost forgotten, some of the members of the long disbanded Ranger train, who were passing through eastern Oregon, on their way to the mines of northern Idaho, found her keeping a “Travellers’ Rest” in the bunchgrass country, where, as cook, chambermaid, waiter, and general scullion, she was supporting her repentant consort, who dutifully received the cash given by her guests in exchange for such food for man and beast as her unique hostelry afforded.