"How did you know?"
"I can"t tell you now, but I will soon. Look here, you can believe what I tell you, can"t you?"
"Yes, I can do that."
"Well, then, you listen. Your father and mother were married in the right way, and there wasn"t a single bit of crookedness about it. I wouldn"t tell you if I didn"t know and couldn"t prove it to you in a little while. Say, there"s one of our wagon-trains coming along here toward Salt Lake next Monday. It"s coming out of its way on purpose to pick me up. I"ll promise to have it proved to you by that time. Now, is that fair? Can you believe me?"
She looked up at him, her face bright again.
"Oh, I _do_ believe you! You don"t know how glad you make me. It was an awful thing--oh, you are a dear"--and full upon his lips she kissed the astounded young man, holding him fast with an arm about his neck.
"You"ve made me all over new--I was feeling so wretched--and of course I can"t see how you know anything about it, but I know you are telling the truth." Again she kissed him with the utmost cordiality. Then she stood up to arrange her hair, her face full of the joy of this a.s.surance. The young man saw that she had forgotten both him and his religious perplexities, and he did not wish her to be entirely divested of concern for him at this moment.
"But how about me? Here I am, lost if I do and lost if I don"t. You better sit down here again and see if there isn"t some way I can get that crown of glory."
She sat down by him, instantly sobered from her own joy, and calmly gave him a hand to hold.
"Well, I"ll tell you," she said, frankly. "You wait awhile. Don"t do anything right away. I"ll have to ask father." And then as he reached over to pick up the Book of Mormon,--"No, let"s not read any more to-day. Let"s sit a little while and only think about things." She was so free from embarra.s.sment that he began to doubt if he had been so very deeply clever, after all, in suggesting the relationship between them.
But after she had mused awhile, she seemed to perceive for the first time that he was very earnestly holding both of her hands. She blushed, and suddenly withdrew them. Whereat he was more pleased than when she had pa.s.sively let them lie. He approached the matter of salvation for himself once more.
"Of course I can wait awhile for you to find out the rights of this thing, but I"m afraid I can"t be baptised even if you tell me to be--even if you want me to obey the Lord and marry some pretty little light-complected, yellow-haired thing afterwards--after I"d married my first wife. Fact is, I don"t believe I could. Probably I"d care so much for the first one that I"d have blinders on for all the other women in the world. She"d have me tied down with the red ribbon in her hair"--he touched the red ribbon in her own, by way of ill.u.s.tration--"just like I can tie the biggest steer you ever saw with that little silk rag of mine--hold him, two hind legs and one fore, so he can"t budge an inch.
I"d just like to see some little, short, kind of plump, pretty yellow-haired thing come between us."
For an instant, she looked such warm, almost indignant approval that he believed she was about to express an opinion of her own in the matter, but she stayed silent, looking away instead with a little movement of having swallowed something.
"And you, too, if you were my sister, do you think I"d want you married to a man who"d begin to look around for some one else as soon as he got you? No, sir--you deserve some decent young fellow who"d love you all to pieces day in and day out and never so much as look at this little yellow-haired girl--even if she was almost as pretty as you."
But she was not to be led into rendering any hasty decision which might affect his eternal salvation. Moreover, she was embarra.s.sed and disturbed.
"We must go," she said, rising before he could help her. When they had picked their way down to the mouth of the canon, he walking behind her, she turned back and said, "Of course you could marry that little yellow-haired girl with the blue eyes first, the one you"re thinking so much about--the little short, fat thing with a doll-baby face--"
But he only answered, "Oh, well, if you get me into your Church it wouldn"t make a bit of difference whether I took her first or second."
CHAPTER x.x.xIX.
_A Revelation Concerning the True Order of Marriage_
While matters of theology and consanguinity were being debated in Box Canon, the little bent man down in the first house to the left, in his struggle to free himself, was tightening the meshes of his fate about him. In his harried mind he had formed one great resolution. He believed that a revelation had come to him. It seemed to press upon him as the culmination of all the days of his distress. He could see now that he had felt it years before, when he first met the wife of Elder Tench, the gaunt, gray woman, toiling along the dusty road; and again when he had found the imbecile boy turning upon his tormentors. A hundred times it had quickened within him. And it had gained in force steadily, until to-day, when it was overwhelming him. Now that his flesh was wasted, it seemed that his spirit could see far.
His great discovery was that the revelation upon celestial marriage given to Joseph Smith had been "from beneath,"--a trick of Satan to corrupt them. Not only did it flatly contradict earlier revelations, but the very Book of Mormon itself declared again and again that polygamy was wickedness. Joseph had been duped by the powers of darkness, and all Israel had sinned in consequence. Upon the golden plates delivered to him, concerning the divine source of which there could be no doubt, this order of marriage had been repeatedly condemned and forbidden. But as to the revelation which sanctioned it there could rightly be doubt; for had not Joseph himself once warned them that "some revelations are from G.o.d, some from men, and some from the Devil." Either the Book of Mormon was not inspired, or the revelation was not from G.o.d, since they were fatally in opposition.
It came to him with the effect of a blinding light, yet seemed to endow him with a new vigour, so that he felt strong and eager to be up, to spread his truth abroad. Some remnant of that old fire of inspiration flamed up within him as he lay on the hard bed in his little room, with the summer scents floating in and the out-of-doors sounds,--a woman"s voice calling a child afar off, the lowing of cattle, the rhythmic whetting of a scythe-blade, the echoing strokes of an axe, the mellow fluting of a robin,--all coming to him a little muted, as if he were no longer in the world.
He raised upon his elbow, glowing with the flush of old memories when his heart had been perfect with the Lord; when he had wrought miracles in the face of the people; when he had besought Heaven fearlessly for signs of its favour; when he had dreamed of being a pillar of fire to his people in their march across the desert, and another Lion of the Lord to fight their just battles. The little bent man of sorrows had again become the Lute of the Holy Ghost.
He knew it must be a true revelation. And, while he might not now have strength to preach it as it should be preached, there were other mighty men to spread its tidings. Even his simple announcement of it must work a revolution. Others would see it when he had once declared it. Others would spread it with power until the Saints were again become a purified people. But he would have been the prophet, seer, and revelator, to whom the truth was given, and so his suffering would not have been in vain; perhaps that suffering had been ordained to the end that his vision should be cleared for this truth.
He remembered the day was Sat.u.r.day, and he began at once to word the phrases in which he would tell his revelation on the morrow. He knew that this must be done tactfully, in spite of its divine source. It would be a momentous thing to the people and to the priesthood. It was conceivable, indeed, that members of the latter might dispute it and argue with him, or even denounce him for a heretic. But only at first; the thing was too simply true to be long questioned. In any event, his duty was plain; with righteousness as the girdle of his loins he must go forth on the morrow and magnify his office in the sight of Heaven.
When the decision had been taken he lay in an ecstasy of antic.i.p.ation, feeling new pulses in all his frame and the blood warm in his face. It would mean a new dawn for Israel. There would, however, be a vexing difficulty in the matter of the present wives of the Saints. The song of Lorena came in to him now:--
"I was riding out this morning With my cousin by my side; She was telling her intentions For to soon become a bride."
The accent fell upon the first and third syllables with an upward surge of melody that seemed to make the house vibrate. He thought perhaps some of the Saints would find it well to put away all but the one rightful wife, making due provision, of course, for their support. Lorena"s never-ending ballad came like the horns that blew before the walls of Jericho, bringing down the ramparts of his old belief. Some of the Saints would doubtless put away the false wives as a penance. He might even bring himself to do it, since, in the light of his wondrous new revelation, it would be obeying the Lord"s will.
When Prudence came softly in to him, like a cool little breath of fragrance from the canon, he smiled up to her with a fulness of delight she had never seen in his face before.
There was a new light in her own eyes, new decisions presaged, a new desire imperfectly suppressed. He stroked her hand as she sat beside him on the bed, wondering if she had at last learned her own secret. But she became grave, and was diverted from her own affairs when she observed him more closely.
"Why, you"re sick--you"re burning up with fever! You must be covered up at once and have sage tea."
He laughed at her, a free, full laugh, such as she had never heard from him in all the years.
"It"s no fever, child. It"s new life come to me. I"m strong again. My face burns, but it must be the fire of health. I have a work given to me--G.o.d has not wholly put me aside."
"But I believe you _are_ sick. Your hands are so hot, and your eyes look so unnatural. You must let me--"
"Now, now--haven"t I learned to tell sickness from the glow of a holy purpose?"
"You"re sure you are well?"
"Better than for fifteen years."
She let herself be convinced for the moment.
"Then please tell me something. Must a man who comes into our faith, if he is baptised rightly, also marry more than one wife if he is to be saved? Can"t he be sure of his glory with one if he loves her--oh, very, _very_ much?"
He was moved at first to answer her out of the fulness of his heart, telling her of the wonderful new revelation. But there came the impulse to guard it jealously in his own breast a little longer, to glory secretly in it; half-fearful, too, that some virtue would go out of it should he impart it too soon to another.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Ruel Follett would join our Church if he didn"t have to marry more than one wife. If he loved some one very much, I"m afraid he would find it hard to marry another girl--oh, he simply _couldn"t_--no matter how pretty she was. He never could do it." Here she pulled one of the scarlet ribbons from her broad hat. She gave a little exclamation of relief as if she had really meant to detach it.
"Tell him to wait a little."
"That"s what I did tell him, but it seems hardly right to let him join believing that is necessary. I think some one ought to find out that one wife is all G.o.d wants a man ever to have, and to tell Mr. Follett so very plainly. His mind is really open to truth, and you know he might do something reckless--he shouldn"t be made to wait too long."
"Tell him to wait till to-morrow. I shall speak of this in meeting then.
It will be all right--all right, dear. Everything will be all right!"
"Only I am sure you are sick in spite of what you say. I know how to prove it, too--can you eat?"
"I"m too busy thinking of great things to be hungry."
"There--you would be hungry if you were well."