In the bleak December two elders came from Zion, the holy city in Missouri, bringing the history of dire tribulation.
It was a cold night; the first snow was falling upon the wings of a gale. Susannah was sitting alone quietly working out problems in algebra, in which study Smith had desired that her elder pupils should advance. The storm beat upon the window pane, and set the bright logs of the fireplace now flaming and now smoking, the varnished wooden walls dimly reflecting light and shadow.
Halsey had been out to see the newcomers, who were staying at the prophet's house. It was late when she heard his tread, muffled in the drifted snow. He hardly paused to shake it from his clothes before he came near. She saw that he was in a mood of strong grief and excitement.
"Angel," she spoke pityingly, "you have had a hard, hard day; you have stayed so very late at this evening's conference." She held out her hand to him. "Do not tell me to-night if you can rest before telling." Young as she was, her countenance, as she lifted it toward him, was motherly. She remembered what a mere boy he was, fair and hopeful, when she had first seen him three years before, and now strong lines of purpose and endurance were written upon the face that was thin and pale, the paler, it seemed, because of the transient colour that the storm had given a moment since to the clear skin.
"I would that thou didst not need to hear, but it is not for us to turn our eyes from that which the Lord hath written for our instruction in the suffering of our brethren." Then he added, "The elders from Zion have told us all. There was great joy and prosperity among them, and the more foolish boasted of their wealth to the Gentiles, saying also that the Lord had given the whole land to them for an inheritance."
"That, indeed, was very foolish," said Susannah.
"Nay, but it was small blame to them, for that which they said is true. But among the Gentiles the political demagogues began to be afraid that we should rule the country by the number of our votes. The Gentiles gathered together in the town of Independence, and three hundred of them signed a declaration demanding that every one in Zion should sell all that he possessed and leave the country within a certain time, and that none other of us should settle there."
"But forced sale would mean that no fair value would be given for the property; it would be simple robbery," she cried; "and they call this the land of freedom!"
"They appealed to the Governor of Missouri, but they found that the Lieutenant-Governor, a man called Boggs, was among the fiercest of the persecutors. As for the Governor himself, he advised them to resort to the courts for damages."
"What next?" She was impatient at a pause he made.
He knelt down upon the floor in front of her, laying a calming hand upon her shoulder. "Susannah, there is this one great cause for our deep gratitude to heaven, that this time all our elders with one voice called upon our people to bear with patience, to cry to God to cleanse their hearts from all anger and revenge."
"I suppose that was well," she said, but with hesitation.
By the gentle pressure of his hand he still expressed his sympathy for her pain in listening. "Lawyers were engaged to carry the matter through the courts. But no sooner was it known that the thing was to be publicly tried than the Gentiles rose in arms. For three nights they entered the houses of the Saints, beating the men, burning their barns, and in many cases unroofing the houses. Some of our brethren went to Lexington for a peace warrant, but the judge was frightened at the mob, and, moreover, if he had offended them he would have lost much money, so he told the Saints to arm and defend themselves."
Halsey had paused again. The moral question here involved was to him of deep importance.
"If it was only for self-defence, Angel—" she began.
He shook his head. "Nay, it was a fierce temptation, and our people are not yet sanctified, but God in his great mercy withheld them from sinning against him. For they had no sooner obtained arms than Lilburn Boggs, the Lieutenant-Governor, came and disarmed them."
"And then?"
"Our people were driven from their homes. In the cold storms of November, women and little children and wounded men were forced to flee out upon the open prairie, and up and down the banks of the Missouri River. At last they gathered together on the river-side, and many of them have now crossed it, remaining in the opposite county, and the others have dispersed, poor and homeless, into less unfriendly parts of the State. These elders have come here that the prophet may send back some revelation at their hand, and that we may all gather together what we can spare from our abundance for the relief of our fugitive brethren."
His eyes were shining with triumphant faith, even though the close of his narrative seemed to admit of so little hope.
"And will Mr. Smith still teach them that they must not strike a blow for their rights?" she asked.
This was fast becoming the critical question of the hour.
In February the snow lay deep on the land. Susannah, like all her neighbours, spent some days isolated by the drifts, the men only going abroad. On one of these afternoons the prophet tapped at her door. His visit in Halsey's absence was unprecedented.
Without preface he began to make a statement as to the affairs of the Church in Missouri.
"The greater part of our fugitive brethren have at my desire gathered together upon a large tract of uncleared land that lies just across the river from Zion. It is the desire of the Lord that they should there await until it is his will to open the gates of Zion once more."
"It isyourdesire that they should gather and wait there."
She spoke with no rude emphasis, but he understood. This man could read her thought before it was expressed. He pushed his thick hair from his forehead with a heavy hand.
"Understand, Mrs. Halsey, that Ibelievethe voice of the Lord has spoken, but it is also my desire."
"Does the voice of the Lord ever speak but in accordance with your desire?"
The answer burst from him with almost hysterical force, "I would to heaven it did not."
"But in such cases are not your desires divided against themselves? and the word of the Lord comes perhaps in accordance with one desire and in contradiction of another?"
He sat for some time looking absently upon the floor.
"The things of the Lord," he said, "are of vast importance, and require time and experience, as well as deep and solemn thought, to find them out. And if we would bring the world to salvation it requires that our minds should rise to the highest, and also search into and contemplate the lowest abyss"—he paused for a moment, and then added in sad undertone—"that is within our own hearts."
Susannah was silent, wondering what was the true secret of his elusive thought.
He went on with an effort. "Accepting your own words, Mrs. Halsey, that it is at my desire that they are there instead of being scattered among friendly settlements where they could obtain support, it remains true that they are naked, hungry, and cold. When I sleep the vision of their sufferings comes before me." He went on again with more vehemence. "It is also by obeying my doctrine that they are cast out of their own lands and from their own hearths. Whether the Lord hath spoken or no, it is by obeying the doctrines that I have taught that they are in wretchedness." He rose, pacing the room, apparently unconscious of what he did.
"I know that this has been weighing upon you, as it has upon my husband."
He shook his head impatiently, striking his breast suddenly with one hand. "There is but one heart," he said, "in which the pains and sorrows of them all are gathered."
She began to see that he had a plan to unfold.
At length he stopped in his pacing, looking toward her. "We must go to their relief," he said. "We must gather an army and conduct our suffering brethren back to their homes in Zion."
"By force of arms?" she asked.
"If need be."
He left time for the significance of these words to be fully comprehended, and then went on speaking as he paced again. "It may be that we will not need to fight, that if we get ourselves in readiness we shall need but to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord; and in plain language to you, who expect no miracle, Mrs. Halsey, I would be understood to say that if a sufficient number of our strong men, armed for defence, join our brethren in Missouri, the Gentiles will be afraid to attack."
At last she asked, not without excited tremor in her voice, "Who? How many? When?"
These were important questions with regard to the organising of an army, but the prophet had in mind a point that must previously be determined.
"Your husband," he began abruptly, "he has still upon him the taint of his Quaker upbringing, for the Lord Christ indeed taught long-suffering, and he sent them out at first, as we also have sent our missionaries, with nothing in their hand save a staff only, but afterwards he said, 'Let him that hath a sword take it,' and they said unto him, 'Lord, here are two swords,' and he said, 'It is enough,' which I take to mean that where one sword is raised there must be another to ward off a blow or to strike in return. But your husband is teaching the people that to bear arms, even in self-defence, is wrong."
Susannah saw that already in Smith's indomitable will the era of armed defence had begun. Her hatred of the persecution caused her sentiments to chime with his. She only said in defence of Halsey's meekness, "My husband would have gone before now to give himself and all that he has to help these poor people if you had not interfered, Mr. Smith."
A change of expression came in a moment over Smith's hulking form, as if a different phase of him came forward to deal with a change of subject. He turned upon her almost sharply, "There is one man in Kirtland who shall not go to Zion till peace is there. If he went, would he not of his own accord rush into the forefront, into the hottest of the battle, not to fight but to receive the sword in his breast and be slain, even as Uriah the Hittite was slain? Wherefore, I say unto you, he shall not go."
Susannah, like all good women, had no keenness of scent for scandals, ancient or modern. She did not remember who Uriah was, and took no offence.
The prophet had tarried in his pacing by the window; with hands clasped behind him he was looking absently out upon the driven snow. Upon his face was an expression which Susannah only sometimes saw, and that in the moments which she felt to be his best. She believed this man to have true moments of humility and high resolve; it was only a question with her how far they permeated his life. In a minute more he turned again and spoke modestly and sadly enough.
"As I have said before, it is not in me to greatly love our brother Halsey's manner of thought, but I perceive his holiness and the Church shall not lack his counsel. I am here to-day to tell you how much it grieves me to set a constraint upon his conscience, yet I am here also to ask you to tell him from me that it is not the will of the Lord that he should continue to preach against the spirit of self-defence."
When he was gone Susannah realised how angry she would have been if she had heard that Smith had rebuked her husband on this subject, yet now that the fiat lay in her own hands to impart with all gentleness, the task, because of her own fierce attitude toward the oppression, was grateful to her.
When the roof had been set on the white walls of the first great Mormon temple upon Kirtland Bluff, a small army, well armed, well provisioned, went out from Kirtland for the deliverance of Zion amid the prayers and huzzahs of the little community. There were many who, like Halsey, bewailed in secret this taking of the sword, but the doctrine of non-resistance was never preached again.
After this Susannah's attention was centred upon the coming of her first child.
"'Tain't lucky to have a child when the leaves are falling," said Elvira Halsey, a certain mist of far-off vision clouding her sparkling eyes.
Susannah had been greatly weighed down by depression, not fearing ill-luck, but regretting for the first time unfeignedly that she had ever joined herself to the sect in which her child must now be nurtured. For herself, feeling often that all religions were equally false, it had mattered little; with strange inconsistency she now perceived that she would greatly prefer another faith for her child. Susannah literally found no place for repentance; to confess her grief to Halsey would only have been to crush out all the domestic joy of his life; she was too courageous to do that when she saw no corresponding good to be gained. Yet when the baby at length lay on her lap, grew and smiled, kicked and crowed, Susannah forgot at times, for hours together, the superstitions of the Latter-Day Saints. The motherly solicitude which she had long exercised over Halsey changed into something more like friendship when she saw him hang over her and her child as they played together.
Susannah had given up her school. The winter was severe, and mother and child hibernated together by the sweet-scented pinewood fires till the stronger sun had melted the frost flowers on the panes. Spring had nearly come before Susannah divined that for the child's sake Halsey had been protecting her for months from the fear of a near disaster that was weighing upon his own heart.
This was the year of what was called in the early Mormon Church "the great apostasy." One evening Halsey came in looking so white and ill that Susannah drew back the baby, which she had held out for his evening kiss.
In a few minutes she understood what had occurred. Some four or five leaders in the Church, with their families and friends, had charged Smith with hypocrisy and fraud.
It was not Susannah's own opinion that such a charge could be maintained. Smith appeared to her to be like a child playing among awful forces—clever enough often to control them, to the amazement of himself and others, but never comprehending the force he used; often naughty; on the whole a well-intentioned child. But she could well see that childishness combined with power is a more difficult conception for the common mind than rank hypocrisy.
Angel had been assisting in a solemn excommunication of the apostates. He looked upon them as having been overcome by the devil.
After this Halsey instituted a series of unusual meetings for prayer and revival preaching, which he held after the ordinary evening classes in the School of the Prophets, which was now removed to the upper chambers of the finished temple. Now, as at other times, his preaching was successful. His power was with men rather than with women; they gathered in excited crowds, and their prayer and praise went up in the midnight hour.
Susannah was not in the habit of going to bed till her husband returned. One night, after twelve had struck, while she sat warming the dimpled feet of her restless babe at the rosy fire-light, she was greatly astonished to hear a tapping, low but distinct, on a window that opened to the back of the house. She lifted her head as mother animals prick their ears above their young at the faint sound of any danger.
After an interval the tap was repeated; it was no accidental noise. Susannah laid the child in its cradle and went nearer the window shutters, hesitating.
She knew only too well that this secrecy was the sign of some one's dire distress. She knew the habits of the people; a neighbour's aid was sought freely and with confidence; doors were open at all times to need or social intercourse.
To her intent listening the accents of a low and guarded tone came in reply to her challenge; the voice was Joseph Smith's.
Susannah looked with anguish toward her child's cradle. Had some army of mad persecutors invested Kirtland? Nothing less than fierce persecution could be thus heralded.
For years Susannah had known Smith as a near neighbour, and the stuff of which the man was at this time made is indicated by the fact that instinctively she opened the window with noiseless haste.
Smith climbed in. "Has Halsey returned?"
The fire gave the only light in the room. Smith did not shut the window, but remained sitting on the sill. A bake-house at the back hid the place from neighbouring eyes.
"It's all up with our bank," said Smith.
"I feared so," said Susannah.
"The apostates took such a lot of money out of it. No bank anywhere in this region could have stood it. You have always been down on our management of the bank, Mrs. Halsey, but if it was not good, why then have so many of the Gentiles put in their money, and why have they taken our notes all over the State?"
"You never had the capital you advertised."
"We have land that stands for it."
"It is not worth half what you value it at."
Then Susannah became sorry for her sharp recrimination. Punishment had befallen; it was a time for mutual help, not for reproach. She saw that although Smith kept himself calm he was greatly stirred.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
Smith's huge frame was poised awkwardly on the window sill. He moved restlessly and touched one thing and another with nervous hands. Then he said with a short laugh, "The size of it is, I'm running away, Mrs. Halsey. Ye may think I feel pretty mean, but ye'll do me the justice just to think how it is. If they'd shoot me in fair fight, I'd go and, if it were the Lord's will, be shot to-morrow, and be thankful too; but ye know the sort of vengeance they'll take. I have been beaten time and again before now, and covered with pitch, and I've been knocked down and kicked and ducked in ponds a good many times, as ye know, and I ain't ashamed to say that I'm afraid of that sort of thing and afraid of the results on Emmar and the children. If the Lord clearly told that 'twas his will to stay and stand it, why then I'd have no choice, but I haven't had no word from the Lord."
His face was livid; in the effort to make his explanation, whether shaken by the recollections he described or by fear of her contempt, she saw that his limbs were actually trembling as if with cold.
"There ain't many men, Mrs. Halsey, as would stay and face that sort of music when they could get away, but if it was to do good to mortal creature I'd think about staying, but it's t'other way. It's me and Rigdon as has been advertised as working the bank; it's my blood and his the Gentiles that have our notes are thirsting for. Suppose we stayed and they took to mauling us again, wouldn't the Saints here take to fighting to protect us? I've taught them to fight in self-defence and they'd fight to defend me. God knows there are better men than we are that would be killed right and left if we stayed, and 'twould be no use, for the Gentile numbers would overpower us. 'Tain't no use. When I found to-day that there wasn't a chance of staving off the bankruptcy I sent Emmar and the children and Rigdon's folks off in a close waggon after sundown. Rigdon's rid off by another road, and I've got my horse ready and ought to be gone. And there ain't a man in Kirtland as will know which way we've gone by to-morrow, so that no Saint will need to do any lying on my account."
"You are very sorry for the mistakes you have made about the bank," she said pityingly.
He gave another short laugh that, like the first, was less like a laugh than a sob.
"I guess I'm sorry enough, but I don't know whether it's repentance, for I thought I'd done all just what the Lord told me to do, but at times like these I'm not so sure of the revelations I hear in my soul, but I know I thought I was right at the time; but as for being sorry, if ye had the burden of all these children of Israel in the desert on your heart, knowing that ye had brought them into the desert, and brought the hunger and the thirst and the pestilence and the enemy upon them, and weren't quite sure at times whether the thing that ye saw leading was the Lord's pillar of cloud or the devil's, and if ye was now being cast out before the face of men and called a liar and a swindler, and without a dollar in the world, I guess ye'd know what it felt like to feel sorry."
The room was a long one; in the fore part the glow from the hearth made clear the baby's cradle, the table set for Halsey's supper, the close shutters of the front windows, but the red flame rays were fainter as they came into this back portion where Susannah stood in dull distress a few paces from the stricken intruder.
This man had always the power at close quarters of producing strange disturbance in the emotions of his friends. Susannah was trembling, her heart heaving, if not with pure compassion, at least with wild excitement on his account.
With an effort Smith held himself still, but gave again the heart-broken laugh that appealed more than all else to her woman's heart. "'Tain't all that neither, that makes me the most 'sorry,' as ye call it. I tried to go in and out before this people, Mrs. Halsey, loving and serving all alike as a prophet should, but I wouldn't be human man, no, nor fit to be chosen by God for the honour he's put upon me, if I didn't know who amongst us was most worth care and respect, and it's come to my soul this night, now that I can't no longer stand between you and all the dangers that beset our people in the wilderness, that I wasn't right, maybe, to egg on Halsey to take ye away from your happy home, or to make a point as I did, first off, of getting ye converted—for I was more set on it than I showed at the time. It's because 'twas my doing you married, that I've come to say this; and I see well enough that 'tain't love that is between you and Halsey, though you are too tender of him to let him see."
She made a movement of the head, an effort to show reproving dignity, while in fact taken by surprise, her nerves in distressful panic, she had scarce the power to control herself, none to control him.
He answered her impulse, although he had not looked up to see the gesture. "Ye haven't got any call to-night to be offended with me, for I'm worth no more, unless the Lord see fit to lift me up agen, than the paper our bank-notes is written on; and I have just got one more thing to say, then I'm gone. If there's any grit in Joseph Smith, and if it pleases God that he's not going now to his death, he'll not make another home for himself without providing as good a place for you and the young one. Ye may depend on it."
He rose up now. "'Tain't no use disguising facts; I'm running away, and I'm leaving ye to dangers and privations. Your money and Halsey's is gone the way of all the rest, and without me to stop him Halsey will fly in the face of the first persecution that's within his reach. If I hadn't known that there was no chance at all of your coming I'd have asked you and the child to git into Emmar's waggon; but there's just this to say, there ain't a tribulation that can come to you that won't hurt me, living or dead, more than it can hurt you." Then after a pause he added, "Emmar sent her dear love and good-bye to ye."
He stood still a moment before her in humble attitude, the words of Emma's tender farewell lingering, as it were, in the air between them.
"Have a care what you do." (He resumed a more dignified manner of speech.) "It's borne in upon my mind that great dangers will lie round you. Tell brother Halsey from me that it is the will of the Lord that he should seek first the safety of his wife and child, and to abide in a place of safety till the child be grown."
He climbed through the window. His last act was to close the casement behind him to save her trembling hands the exertion. His movements must have been very stealthy, for she did not hear the sound of his steps or the steps of his horse in the silent night.
After Smith left Kirtland there was a great exodus Missouri-ward of his more devout followers. The army which had gone out from Kirtland in '34 to the rescue of the fugitives from the city of Zion in Missouri had failed, through disease and exhaustion, to make warlike demonstration; but the principle then accepted by the children of Zion of opposing force to force in self-defence, had been bearing fruit ever since in a bloody warfare between the hunted Saints of Missouri and their more powerful neighbours.
Before the Saints took up arms the Missourians had, it would seem, no real ground of offence against them except the religious faith which led them to proclaim that the land was to be given to them by the Lord for an everlasting possession. Now this provocation was still in force, added to the greater one that the worm had turned.
So futile had been the mad persecutions, so fruitful the blood of the martyrs, that by this time there were some ten thousand Saints in Missouri, all heads of families, for although Zion in Jackson County still lay waste, and the colonies of Clay County had been swept away, the cities of Far West and Diahman, and numerous villages near them, had risen like magic, built by the thrift, the organisation, and the temperance of the Saints.
As for Kirtland, the hope of making it a prosperous city had died with the failure of the bank. Of the few who remained two distinct parties were formed—the orthodox, headed by Halsey, and the reformers, encouraged, if not headed, by the former leaders who were now apostate. In the camp of the reformers there were those who saw visions and had revelations. Before this, when Smith was at the helm, it had been counted unlawful for any but himself to have direct dealings with the Unseen; but the prophet was distant, directing the sect only through his published journal, and in this case it were hard indeed if no authoritative local word were spoken in the orthodox party. Angel Halsey's mystic soul fell easily into the region of voices and visions. In his adversity, fasting and praying more than ever before, he heard voices which gave practical directions not only for himself but for his neighbours. When the neighbours refused to accept these ghostly counsels, which all tended toward a more rigorous holiness, there was no room left for Halsey's work in Kirtland. He determined to fare forth to Missouri, there to comfort and edify the Saints scattered abroad in the rural districts.
It was now that Susannah expected the sprightly Elvira Halsey, still unbaptized, to return to the east. Instead of that she proposed to travel with them, helping to take care of the child.
"Why should I take the trouble to help you and the young un?" she asked, sitting on Susannah's doorstep, languid with the heat. "When I was going along the lane last night I met a spirit, so I held out my hand according to Joe's latest. You've not heard! My! it's in the Millenial Star that if any sort of a voice or dream comes to you, the way to know, whether it's an angel or devil is to shake hands, and if it is an angel you'll feel a good, firm, solid grip sort of coming out of nowhere, but if it isn't an angel you'll feel nothing. It's kind of Joe to put it in a nutshell, necessary nowadays that we're all hard at it having revelations of our own. He thought that nobody would feel the grip but himself. Quite mistaken. I shook hands with my angel, tho' I couldn't see a ghost of him, and when he said, 'You come along now to Missouri, and carry the child half way,' I had nothing to do but say 'Amen.'"
But Susannah was too much afraid of what the result of private revelations might be to laugh at them; she expressed her fears.
"Bless you, all the dreams and 'voices' in this hustling world wouldn't have put any guile into the soul of Nathaniel, and they won't into Angel Halsey's. Saints are saints, sinners are sinners, middling folks are middling, just the same whether they have three 'revelations' a day apiece, or one once a year, or none at all. You're fretting because you think a righteous man might do something wicked, thinking that the voice of the Lord had told him. Not a bit of it! The Lord will take care of his own when they're a little off their heads just as much as at any other time."
What few worldly goods Susannah chose to keep were packed in two single waggons, Halsey driving the one, and Elvira and Susannah by turns driving the other and holding the child. Their long journey through the month of June was the most perfect pleasure that Susannah and Angel ever enjoyed together, the long nightmare of the last months at Kirtland left behind for ever, the stage of the future veiled, and the lineaments of natural hope painted upon the drop-curtain. A loving fate sent fresh showers on their behoof during the nights, which laid the dust and dressed field and forest in their daintiest array. The child, who had been pining somewhat, affected by the anxiety in the Kirtland home, became lusty and merry.
"If it wasn't that we are shortly going to be robbed of all we possess by the Missourians," observed Elvira, "this sort of jog-trot comfort would become too monotonous, but it adds spice to be saying, so to speak, 'Hulloa there! we've come to be persecuted too.' Of course we'll all be killed to begin with, but that's a detail; after that we'll take our rural mission bespoken for us in the dream."
Susannah actually smiled and called "gee-up" to the horse.
"How very little people know," she observed, "who talk about a persecution as if it would be a means of grace. There is nothing that so hardens and degrades as the constant report of barbarities; the more nearly seen, the more closely inspected, the worse is the moral result."
"Speak for yourself," cooed Elvira, "there's one person out there that isn't hardened and degraded." She looked with reverent eyes at Angel, who was walking at the head of the foremost horse, crooning a psalm; "and, as for me, I still feel myself quite soft, almost pulpy, and on an elevated plane."
"You could never talk in your irreverent way if you weren't a good deal hardened and degraded," persisted Susannah affectionately, "and, as for me, I know that I am. Is there any instance in history of a people emerging from prolonged persecution with high ideals of love toward their enemies and candour?"
"'Tis commonly said that faith rises from this fire," said Elvira.
"Faith that gives its body to be burned and has not charity," said Susannah.
When they reached the vicinity of Diahman and Far West the State elections were about to be held. It was reported that over all Missouri the stronger party, that of Lilburn Boggs, was threatening to prevent by force the Mormon vote.
Before commencing his mission to the outlying Mormon districts, Halsey, hoping to avoid this contest, stopped in the Gentile town of Gallatin to rest and obtain a fresh outfit.
"But why don't we pay our respects to 'Joe' now we are within reach?" inquired Elvira with pensive inflection.
"The prophet is full of cares. A man whom I met at the tavern said that his activity on behalf of the Saints in Far West is amazing, and since his public appearance there the Lord has prospered the city exceedingly; but, as for me, I have been commanded to turn aside to those of our people who are not encompassed by a shepherd's care."
"If he would but confess it," said Susannah with a sigh, "my husband was so sorely hurt with the appearances of fraud in connection with the bank—"
"Suppose you put that appearance of a child down and come and eat this appearance of your breakfast, and then we'll put on what appear to be our bonnets, and go for what appears to be a walk." Elvira's sunny serenity never deserted her. "Say rather," she cried, "that the prophet did defraud, but has repented."
That day was the 6th of August. The voting for the State legislature had commenced. The travellers did not know that there was any number of Mormon landholders in this place, but now they could not extricate themselves from the very contest that they had hoped to avoid. When the two women strolled through the streets to see the town they became involved in a crowd at one of the polling places.
Penniston, a candidate of the Boggs party, standing on a barrel, was haranguing the crowd, and the two women quickly heard the name of their sect mentioned with contumely.
"Shall we," cried Penniston, "allow our State to come under the control of Mormon horse-thieves and robbers by allowing these outlaws the civil rights that are intended only for good citizens?"
There was a commotion in the crowd near him. Susannah, knowing that her husband was abroad, felt a sudden heart-sick prophecy of evil. The next moment she saw Halsey spring into sight upon a low wall at the side of the crowd.
"Look on this picture and on this," cried Elvira in a voice audible to many too illiterate to comprehend.
The two men, each standing erect above the heads of the crowd, could not have showed sharper contrast. Penniston was coarse of limb and feature; a low grade of moral disorder stamped his face as clearly as inferior articles are ever stamped; no inspector of goods so relentless as God's servant Time! Halsey had bared his head to the open sky, as though invoking the presence of God in his temple. Upon features too thin and haggard for beauty, patience and love and truth were written by every line.
Halsey's voice, accustomed to preaching, fell with clear modulations upon the summer air.
"'Blessed are ye, when men shall persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my name's sake and the gospel's.' Friends, this evil that is spoken against us whom ye call Mormons is falsely spoken, and I stand here before you, and before the great Father of Truth, who is calling his children everywhere to repent, to say that every Mormon who has a vote has a right to exercise it, for we have committed none of the crimes of which you accuse us, but you yourselves, as you well know, are many of you here to try to put into office men who are undoubted criminals."
In surprise Penniston and his hearers had listened, but now a man, half-drunk perhaps, sprang upon the low wall upon which Halsey stood, and struck him savagely.
"He is all alone," cried Susannah, "all alone among so many." She tried to struggle forward toward her husband through the crowd.
Halsey believed himself to be alone, and it was not in accordance with his principles to make any attempt to return the violence by which he had been assailed; but to his astonishment now a stout man leaped to his assistance, suddenly belabouring his assailant with blows, and from far and near in the crowd there were shouts of encouragement from burly Mormon farmers who had only needed the voice of a leader to declare themselves. Halsey had thrown a spark, unconscious that a mass of powder lay near. When the men of Penniston's party turned with savage fury upon the Mormon who was beating their companion, and the Mormons, no less fierce, rallied round Halsey and his defender, the fight became general.
Elvira set her quick wits to work to weave a cord that would be strong enough to draw Susannah back to their inn. "They may find out that baby is alone," she said; "they're wicked enough to injure him out of revenge."
Along the wooden pavements of Gallatin, past the gaily-painted wooden houses, through the doors of which whole families were now emerging to ask the cause of disturbance, Susannah fled miserably, her cheeks blanched beneath her veil, her heart within weeping.
The sun was shining brightly on just and unjust; the gardens of Gallatin were brilliant with such flowers as had bloomed in the August when she first met her husband. Susannah felt then that the reason why she desired to clasp and guard the sleeping child she had left was that he was Angel's son; the pity for injured innocence had been from the first until now her strongest passion, and at the thought of Halsey, innocent and gentle, in the midst of the brutal fight she had left, her soul wept as it were the scalding tears that her eyes refused to shed.
The boy lay in rosy sleep, a woman of the inn keeping a kindly eye upon him. Probably nothing but a mother's love could have fancied him of sufficient importance to attract public attention, but Susannah, locking her door, knelt by the bed, and spreading protecting arms above him, listened with strained senses for news of Halsey's injury or death. For years she had feared that the violence she had seen wreaked upon others would touch her husband; violence offered to herself would have seemed a trivial grief in comparison. The fear that has long harped upon sore nerves has a cumulative action upon the pain of its realisation.
Susannah found herself giving forth short ejaculatory whispers of prayer upon the close air of the plain, small room in which she knelt. It was such prayer only as we come at by inheritance, prayer that is one of the habits by which the fittest have survived.
Before two hours were past Halsey had returned. He was bruised and much shaken, but appeared unconscious of injury, and made light of it. The open fight had ended with no decisive victory for either party; the chief result appeared to be that malice on either side was for the hour exhausted. Whether because of this or because Halsey gave himself to prayer on behalf of his brethren, the polls were opened quietly at noon and the Mormons voted with the other citizens.
In the cool of the evening Susannah was sitting beside her husband holding the sleeping child. The window of their humble room was open, not to any broad, fair landscape such as their eyes were accustomed to feast upon, but upon the yard of the small tavern. There is, however, in new countries no crowding; space, like air and sunshine, is the common heritage. Grass grew round the edges of the large yard, and an old white horse was cropping it contentedly. A cool air was blowing, and over the wooden roofs of the town stars were beginning to gather themselves from out the pale dusk. An old negro and two mulatto boys were sitting upon a log at the side of one of the sheds, quarrelling and singing slave melodies by turns.
Angel took the hand of the sleeping child and Susannah's hand and folded them in his own. "Susannah, it has been given to me to see this afternoon more clearly than ever before the material triumph of our people. They will rear high cities; they will lead armies; they will command wealth; but it has also been shown me that Zion will not be, as I had heretofore believed, pure from sin, for evil has already entered into her. Because she has taken the sword her spiritual warfare will not be soon accomplished; the wheat and the tares shall grow together, and I do not yet see the end."
There was a pause. Susannah watched the slaves taking their evening ease so light-heartedly. She looked down at the three hands which Angel had gathered together. The dusk was beginning to make all things indistinct.
Angel went on. "I would have thee teach the child above all things the unspeakable wretchedness of sin, for the least sin closes the eye of the soul by which we see God and the things of God, clogs them with the dust and dirt of the world; and when there is no more any clear vision, selfishness is mistaken for love, malice for righteousness, and folly for truth. So I pray thee, dear heart, be wary, and slay within thyself the evil nature, for though I cannot see it, perchance God does; and teach the child above all things from the first to fear sin more than death."
"You shall teach him, Angel."
"Dear heart, I would not lay upon thee the burden of knowledge of coming sorrow if I dared to withhold it, but I believe, Susannah, that it will soon be given to me to die for the truth and for our people." After a moment's pause he went on, and his tone, which had dropped involuntarily, became again cheerful. "That is why I have to-day determined to change the plan that we have made and to send thee and the child to-morrow with the company who are about to travel to Far West, where the prophet is now dwelling with his wife, for I know he will never see thee want."
Susannah rose up. In the dusk of the low, small room her figure, the child still in her arms, seemed to tower like a misty goddess or Madonna, such as praying men have often seen appearing for their succour; her voice came clear and strong from a heaving breast.
"Angel, I will never leave you, never," and then she added in a voice that faltered, "Send the child if you will."
They did not send the child to Far West, or even insist on Elvira seeking safety there, because that town also became swiftly involved in the flames of the war which had flashed into new life at the Gallatin fight. The whole land was full of threats and terrors, and many open fights at the polling-booths were soon reported. The Mormons and anti-Mormons in various localities entered into mutual bonds to keep the peace, but in many cases these bonds were soon broken.
To the Mormons everywhere had been issued a proclamation, signed by Smith and the elders, commanding that no official tyranny, however unjust, was to be resisted. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers." "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." But when private violence was offered the order was that the men should fight in defence of their families.
It seems to have been this order to fight, and the fact that the Mormons proved themselves sturdy fighters, which alone caused any of the Gentiles to enter into a compact of peace. So mad was their anger against a sect claiming the land as an inheritance from God and voting to a man in obedience to its leader, that the Missouri journals of the day openly taught that to kill a Mormon was no worse than to kill an Indian, and to kill an Indian was tacitly considered as meritorious as killing a wild beast.
"I am just about as safe jogging along in one of your waggons as anywhere in this part of the country," observed Elvira; "and if it was a craving for peace and safety we had, why did we come to Missouri at all? I feel exactly like a rabbit when the men are out trying to thin them; I notice they get very frisky."
There was psychological truth underlying this statement. Stimulated by the excitements of sudden alarms, Susannah also found herself enjoying intervals of temporary security with peculiar zest.
They set forth again upon the country roads. Halsey had the burden of his message upon his spirit; wherever they found a few Mormon households gathered together, he preached to them the high ideals of Christian living and the need of humility and constant prayer. Another theme he had which he considered of equal importance; this was the interpretation of prophecy. He gave long rapt discourses upon the most obscure passages in the books of the prophets, the Revelation of St. John, and the Book of Mormon. These passages were found chiefly to refer to the rise of the Mormon Church, the iniquity of her enemies, and her glorious future. Susannah, who saw the value of his practical teachings, bitterly regretted this use of half his opportunities.
Only once or twice in many weeks did they come upon a Mormon household whose management was not such as the moralist would approve, and in those cases before Halsey's passionate denunciation sins were confessed and repentance promised.
So they journeyed slowly out of the September heats and oppressive shades into the cooler and more open glories of autumn. In that part of the country wild flowers run riot at the approach of winter, painting the land in broad leagues of colour, white and gold and blue, and the trees of the forest hang in red curtains overhead. The air was so light and invigorating that they all felt its tonic properties. Halsey seemed eased of his burden; the child began to talk, babbling wise and wonderful speeches. Elvira was even more frivolous than was her wont, and Susannah almost forgot Halsey's dismal prophecy of martyrdom.
About the middle of October they reached the place called Haun's Mill, where a small Mormon community was settled. Here they thought well to pause, shocked by renewed rumours of warfare. A truce for the whole region, which had been signed by Smith and some of his elders on the one side, and by a magistrate, by name Adam Black, for the Gentiles, had been broken by Gentile mobs in several of the counties near Far West. A number of the saints had been brutally killed, their wives and children driven from their homes at the point of the bayonet. This renewed outrage roused at last the fires of revenge, long smouldering in the breasts of the refugees from the desolate city of Zion, who had themselves known the bitterness of such unmerited wrong. These fires fused religious principle and natural wrath together, till a chain was forged which bound many strong men in a secret society, whose members swore to fight, not only in defence, but especially in vengeance.
It was at Haun's Mill that Halsey first heard of this society, and he was deeply concerned. A young Mormon who had lately come to the place belonged to it, and after one of Halsey's sermons, in which the posts of the Gate of Life were represented as meekness and forgiveness, this young man came to the preacher by night to confess, but also to vindicate his position.
The missionary's little party, with the exception of Elvira, who had accepted hospitality at a neighbouring farm, were camping in a meadow not far from a stream called Shoal Creek, which drove the mill. The logs of their evening fire were still alight. Susannah sat just within the dark opening of a low canvas-covered waggon; the unsteady flame light fell upon her, and sometimes showed a farther interior where the child lay sleeping. Halsey was sitting at the roots of a tree, the utensils of a simple supper at his side. The gentle horses tethered near were to be heard softly cropping the grass, and the sound of the creek came from a farther distance. Above, the poplar boughs, whose yellow foliage had been thinned by the advancing season, let through the rays of the brilliant stars. These were the sights and sounds which met the young man's senses as he came brushing the fallen leaves with his feet.
He leaned against the pole of the farther waggon and looked across the low-glowing fire at the preacher and his wife.
"Look here! I'm a Danite. Do you mean to say that the Lord's not going to accept of me because I can't stand by and see weak men and women and children killed, or worse than killed, without punishing the murderers? Supposing that a hundred of Boggs' men were to come down now and put an end to you, your wife, and your child, would you have me go along with them peaceably afterwards and pray they might be forgiven?"
"What is a Danite?" asked Susannah.
The stranger took off his hat and answered her very respectfully. "We are under an oath, ma'am, not to tell who belong to us, but we've bound ourselves to punish them as take the blood of the helpless and innocent."
He seemed, as far as the light would show, a well-made youth, and his voice was clear and honest.
Halsey had not spoken, and Susannah asked again, this time of her husband, "Can it be wrong to do as this gentleman says?"
The preacher spoke slowly. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."
"But," said the young man eagerly, "the Scripture also says 'There's a time for wrath,' and 'he that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.'"
Halsey rose up. It was a strong moment for him, for he had long seen that the spirit of retaliation, following hard on the spirit of defence, was the coming curse of his beloved church, and had prayed that he might be the means of helping to ward it off. Here was one asking counsel who from the strength of his person and character might have influence among the avengers of blood, yet with his helpless wife and child beside him none felt more keenly than Halsey the force of the Danite's arguments, and none knew better the multitude of Scripture prophecies that could be brought up in support of them. In the strength of his need this man, who had been spending the precious time of many a hardly-won audience in dwelling on obscure poesies in books held sacred, now seemed to step forth into a sudden illumination of truth just as he stepped from the shadow of the poplar bole into the light of the fire.
"Friend, I did wrong to answer you in this matter from any part of Scripture save from the mouth of our most blessed Lord himself, for he alone is the gate by which we must enter into life, and I would have you to consider most carefully his life and words, and find out if there be any promise of blessedness to those who strike back when they are struck, or any command to punish the evil-doer, or any example for such punishment. But if you would be more manly and more gallant than the Saviour of the world, I tell you it must be at your own peril, for he alone is the gate of that road which leads to everlasting life."
There was a silence for some long moments. Embers in the fire broke and fell; the horses cropped the grass; a nut or twig dropped somewhere among the adjacent trees.
"Well," said the young Danite reflectively, "if that's it, I guess I'll have to take my fling first and seek salvation after; but Smith and Rigdon don't only preach that sort of Gospel now; they are all for the Old Testament kind of thing, and the destroying angels in the Revelations."
So near came the rumours of war that the Mormons of Haun's Mill entered into a renewed compact of mutual peace with the Gentiles around them. The place was about twenty miles below the town of Far West, on the same stream of Shoal Creek. Around Far West the roads presently became very dangerous, haunted, it was said, by armed parties of bloodthirsty Gentiles who lay in wait for trains of Mormon emigrants coming from the east to the prophet's city. All travellers became alarmed; Halsey remained where he was; the people of the place accepted his pastoral services gladly. A train of Gentile emigrants also waited at Haun's Mill for the cessation of hostilities.
These emigrants were quiet folk and had children with them. Susannah used to go out upon sunny days with her sturdy yearling, talking to all mothers, Gentile or Mormon, who carried little children. The beauty of the season, the cloudless sun, gilded these few peaceful days. Susannah compared her child with other children, marvelled at the baby intercourse he held with them, at the likes and dislikes displayed among these pigmy associates; and the other mothers had like sources of interest in these interviews.
One among the emigrants, a dark-eyed woman of about forty years of age, was of better position and education than the others. One morning she noticed Susannah's child very kindly, speaking of things that did not lie on the surface of life.
"There is a seeking look in his eyes," the lady said; "he smiles, he plays with us all, but he looks beyond for something. I have seen that look in the eyes of children who were in pain, but yours is at ease."
"He has his father's eyes," Susannah sighed. "My husband is always looking for a virtue that seems to me impossible."
Both women turned toward an open grassy space in the midst of the clustered houses where Halsey was now standing, Bible in hand, teaching a little group of children to repeat the beatitudes. Only four children, one sickly boy and three girls, were willing to stand and repeat the lesson; others had straggled away and were shouting at their play.
Not far from where Halsey stood some fifteen of the neighbours had gathered together to put up a new wooden house; piles of sweet-smelling deal lay about them as they worked.
Just then on the road from Far West a horse bearing an old man was seen straining itself to the swiftest gallop. The old man began to shout as he came within hearing. No one could understand what he said. He shouted more loudly, and many women ran out of their doors to see his arrival. Before his words were articulate a cloud of dust was seen rising round a turning of the same road, and a large company of horsemen came swiftly into view.
The old man's voice was raised in a cry, but only the accent of terror was intelligible. He threw himself off his horse, brandishing his arms. Afterwards it was known that he wanted the villagers to take refuge in their houses, but now they only stared the more at him and at the small army that was approaching.
Susannah heard a shot; then she was deafened by the sound of a volley of muskets. Paralysed, she stood staring down the road, unable to believe that the two or three hundred mounted men had deliberately levelled their muskets and fired. Then all around her she became aware of shrieks and sobs and prayers that went up to God. The brown-eyed Gentile lady who stood beside her had fallen in a curious attitude at her feet.
Susannah darted into the emigrants' tent and, putting down the child, dragged the lady within. She perceived to her horror that the lady was shot; the bullet had passed through her neck. Not knowing whether she was dead or dying, Susannah stretched her on the floor. Then she lifted her hands above her head, wrung them together in agony of nerve and thought. She remembered afterwards looking upward in the cave of the warm tent and saying aloud "O God! O God!" many times.
The first thing she saw was her child standing watching her; both his little brown fists were full of flowers. Hearing the sound of horses trampling near, loud voices, and occasional shots, she bethought her that the canvas of the tent was no protection for the child, and, snatching him in her arms, she ran madly out into the sunshine and into the open war.
A large number of the horsemen had already passed on down the road; the sounds that came from them seemed to be of oaths and laughter. A number were still galloping in and out among the houses; the ground was strewed with bodies of the dead and wounded; the able-bodied, it seemed, must have suddenly huddled within their doors.
Susannah remembered her husband now, remembered where he had been standing. She forgot all else; she rushed toward the middle of the green, drawing back only when some of the horsemen dashed across her path to follow their fellows. They stared at her and, as they went, called to some who were still behind them.
One of these came on, checked his horse, and looked in Susannah's face insultingly. No doubt her eyes were dazed, and she looked to him like a mad woman, but she remembered afterwards that the child showed anger and babbled that the horseman was a bad man. At this the rider took out his pistol and pointed it at the child and fired and rode off laughing.
Susannah saw the young Danite bending over her. His words were hoarse and so sorrowful that she gathered from their tone that she was in great distress before she understood their purport or memory awoke. "Ma'am," he said, "I'll take you down to your own waggon by the creek."
She found herself sitting on the ground, her child in her arms. The child was dead; she knew that as soon as she looked at him. There was a little trickle of blood upon the light frock over his heart, but not much.
As yet no women, only a few men, had ventured forth, and the sound of the enemy's horses and shouting were still in the air. Susannah rose up, folding in her arms the body of the child; the momentum of her first intention was upon her will and muscles; she moved straight on toward the place where she had last seen Halsey.
The young Danite took hold of her sleeve when he perceived whither she went.
"'Tisn't no use, ma'am. Some of the brothers have attended to him."
Susannah looked straight in the young man's face with perfect courage. "Is he dead?"
But the Danite had not courage for this; he turned away and put his arm over his eyes; she heard him grind his teeth in dumb passion.
Some of the men and women lying on the grass were moaning or screaming with the pain of their injuries. The thought that Halsey might be in like pain made Susannah imperative. "Is he dead?" she asked again in precise repetition of tone and accent. "Is he dead?"
The Danite lifted his head. "He is quite dead, and I marked the man that did it, and I marked the man that did this too." He touched reverently, not the child, but the wilting asters that were still grasped in the baby hand. "If I'd only had a gun—but"—he ground his teeth again and muttered, "God helping me, they shall both die."
Susannah understood nothing then but the first part of this speech.
By this time many of the women and children had again flocked out of the houses. It was reported that the horsemen had been a detachment of State militia, that one of them had taken the trouble to explain to a wounded man that they had received orders from Governor Boggs to exterminate the Mormons. Immediately by other frightened tongues it was stated that the armed company were halting round the turn of the road, intending to return and shoot again when the people had come out from shelter. At this the greater number made a stampede for a thicket of poplar and willow saplings that was near the creek. The Danite still held by Susannah's sleeve.
"Where is my husband?" she again asked. She had not moved since he last spoke to her.
Some men were busy laying the dead, of whom there were eighteen, on the floor of a shed which was not far off. Susannah and the Danite moved about together and found Halsey lying still on the green, his limbs decently composed, his eyes for ever shut. The bearers were about to lift him, but the Danite interposed. He had an excited fancy concerning Susannah's dead and what must be done for them. He lifted Halsey easily in both his arms and walked away, Susannah following with the dead child.
Without a word they went till they came to Halsey's camp. Nothing had been touched since Susannah left in the morning. The Danite, remembering the camp as he had seen it a few evenings before, looked about him now curiously, and laid Halsey down on the very spot where he had stood to plead for a divine righteousness.
It was not a time for words. Having deposited his burden, he looked to Susannah, but she had no directions to give. She sat down beside her husband, as though preparing to remain.
"I thought you'd like to lay them both out here, but I guess I ought to get you into the bush, ma'am."
"I will stay here," she said; "you had better go to help some one else."
The cries of the wounded were still heard from the vicinity of the houses. A crowd of the uninjured people were to be seen making their way through the first bushes of the thicket. They seemed to be carrying the wounded thither, for men bearing shutters, and doors upon which the sick were stretched now started in the direction of the bush. There was need for help, as the Danite well saw; then, too, inactivity was torture. He left Susannah and ran back to bear his part in the common task.
When almost every other living soul was lost in the close thicket he came again, approaching the camp with soft footsteps, peering anxiously. Susannah had laid the child in his father's arms. Their enemies seemed to have taken aim for the heart, for Halsey's wound was also there. She had so laid the child within his arms, heart to heart, that no sign of injury appeared. She sat by them now, sobbing her tearless sobs, stroking gently, sometimes the hair of the child, more often the thick locks of light hair that lay above her husband's brow. She was talking to them between her sobs in rapid phrases exactly as if they were not dead. The young Danite was sure that she had lost her wits; he leant against a tree confounded.
Susannah was saying, "I wanted to keep baby, Angel, I wanted so much to keep him, but I could not have taught him your way; there was no use telling you that before, for you could not understand. When you told me that you would go you did not tell me you meant to take baby. You have the best right to him, dear, he is all yours, but oh! remember—remember that I will be very lonely—very lonely—O Angel." There were a few moments of wordless moans and sobs, but she went on clearly enough, "I want you to know, Angel, that I never was disappointed in you—never disappointed in you, dear; and about my lack of faith—it would have been no use to tell you before, would it?"
She took her hand from Halsey's hair and played a moment with the rings of gold on the baby's head lying on his breast. She laid her hand upon Halsey's hands that she had clasped together above the child. "It is better for you to have baby with you. I could not have taught him your thoughts. It is better, dear, isn't it?"
The earnest inflection of her voice in these interrogations brought so wild a sense of pathos to the Danite's heart that his eyes filled with tears and brimmed over, but Susannah's sobs were like a nervous gasping of which she was scarcely conscious, and no hint of tears.
She lightly touched the baby hand that was lying on its father's shoulder, still grasping the blue blossoms. "See," she sobbed, "he has brought his flowers to you; he always loved you best."
There had been a great silence in the air about them, but now there was again the sound of firing at the distance of about a mile. The Danite's pulses leaped, but he did not, because of that, allow himself to speak or move.
Susannah spoke again, resting her hand on Halsey's brow, "You know, dear, I don't know whether you and baby are anywhere—anywhere"; wildly, as if the appalling loneliness of its meaning had flashed upon her dulled brain, she repeated the word.
The Danite's sympathy rose within him; he staggered forward and bent over her. "Don't, ma'am," he said, "don't go on talking like that. I was with my own mother when she died, when I was a little chap, and I know how it is, and you'd much better try to shed tears, ma'am, indeed you had."
Susannah lifted to him a blank face, disturbed but uncomprehending.
He decided what to do; the thought of action restored him. He ran with all his might back to the houses, and, finding a pick and spade, came again. This time, more confident of himself, he had more control over Susannah.
"We must make the grave right here, ma'am, and do you go and gather some flowers to put on it, for we must just put them two away out of sight before the devils come back. It's what he would want, you know." He pointed to Halsey and repeated the words until she understood.
It even seemed a relief to her then to move about too, and find that there was something she could do, but she did not obey him blindly. While in a soft place close by he delved with might and main, displacing the earth with incredible speed, Susannah, sobbing all the time, but tearless, went into the waggon and brought out certain things which she chose with care—a locked box, the best garments belonging to herself, her husband, and child, and the baby's toys.
It was no neat gravedigger's work that the Danite accomplished; he had made a deep, large hole, but the cavity sloped at the sides so that they could step in and out. Susannah brought her little store and lined the earth first with the garments.
"You may want some of those things of your own, ma'am," said the Danite.
She paid no heed; when she had made the couch to her mind she signed to him to lay Halsey and the child in it, which he did. She herself stooped in the grave to clasp the dead man's hands more tightly over the little one's form, and her last touch was to stroke Halsey's hair from off the brow. She laid the baby playthings at Halsey's feet; she unlocked the box and took from it all the household treasures that so far she had sought to keep—some silver, a few small ornaments, a few books, and Halsey's Book of Mormon, in which was written their marriage and the baby's birth. She brought a silken shawl, the one bit of finery that remained from her girlish days. She covered her dead with it very carefully, tucking it in as though they slept; then she moved away, wringing her hands and heaving convulsive sighs. The Danite put back the earth.
All the grass was strewn pretty thickly with poplar leaves, gold, lined with white, and after leaning against a tree some minutes looking away from the grave, Susannah began gathering up these leaves hastily, so that when he levelled the earth she could strew the top, hiding the place from the curious eyes of strangers.
"I guess, ma'am, if there's anything you would like to take with you now, we'd better go into the bush."
"No, there is nothing, but," she cried, "I thank you very much, and if there is anything that would be of use to you—"
When the Danite had first laid Halsey under the tree he had taken a white cloth from the tent and wiped the blood from the coat, that Susannah might not be too much shocked at the sight. He took this cloth now and tore it till the stained fragment alone remained in his hand. He thrust it in his breast.
"This will stand for the blood of them both," he said. "I guess that's all I want." But when he had started towards the thicket he remembered Susannah's needs, and went back for a blanket.
The poplar saplings that bordered the creek were still holding a thin gold canopy overhead, and the dogwood was glinting with scarlet. The other members of the community had gone so far ahead that it was a long time before, making their toilsome way, they came upon their former neighbours.
The fugitives had called a halt where a brook which passed through the bush offered some relief to the pain and fever of those who were wounded. One of these, a little girl, had already died by the way, and her frantic mother began to reproach Susannah, wailing that if the child had not been saying her texts to the elder she would not have been a mark for the enemy.
The men were cutting down saplings to make place for a camp. It was their intention to remain, going back under the cover of night to get food and blankets from the houses, if they were not pillaged and burned, going back in any case to bury their dead at the first streak of dawn.
The Danite turned to Susannah. "I guess, ma'am, neither you nor I have got any business to take us back, and there's enough of the brothers here to do the work."
Susannah went on with the young man through hour after hour of the afternoon farther and farther into the unknown fastnesses of the wood. They left behind them the low thicket of second growth, and penetrated into an uncleared Missouri forest.