"Prudence--what?"
"I--I lost my mind of it." She looked at him hopefully, to be prompted.
"Prudence Rae."
She repeated the name, doubtingly, "Prudence Rae?"
"Yes--remember now--Prudence Rae. You are my little girl--Prudence Rae."
"But you"re not my really papa--he"s went far off--oh, ten ninety miles far!"
"No, Prudence--G.o.d is your Father in heaven, and I am your father on earth--"
"But not my _papa_!"
"Listen, Prudence--do you know what you are?"
The puzzled look she had worn fled instantly from her face.
"I"m a generation of vipers."
She made the announcement with a palpable ring of elation in her tones, looking at him proudly, and as if waiting to hear expressions of astonishment and delight.
"Child, child, who has told you such things? You are not that!"
She retorted, indignantly now, the lines drawing about her eyes in signal of near-by tears:
"I _am_ a generation of vipers--the Bishop said I was--he told that other mamma, and I _am_ it!"
"Well, well, don"t cry--all right--you shall be it--but I can tell you something much nicer." He a.s.sumed a knowing air, as one who withheld knowledge of overwhelming fascinations.
"Tell me--_what_?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "BUT YOU"RE NOT MY REALLY PAPA!"]
And so, little by little, hardly knowing where to begin, but feeling that any light whatsoever must profit a soul so benighted, he began to teach her. When she had been put to bed at early candle-light, he went to see if she remembered her lesson.
"What is the name of G.o.d in pure language?"
And she answered, with zest, "Ahman."
"What is the name of the Son of G.o.d?"
"Son Ahman,--the greatest of all the parts of G.o.d excepting Ahman."
"What is the name of man?"
"Sons Ahman."
"That is good--my little girl shall be chosen of the Lord."
He waited by her until sleep should come, but her mind had been stirred, and long after he thought she slept she startled him by asking, in a voice of entire wakefulness: "If I am a good little girl, and learn all the _right_ things--_then_ can I be a generation of vipers?" She lingered with relish on the phrase, giving each syllable with distinctness and gusto. When he was sure that she slept, he leaned over very carefully and kissed the pillow beside her head.
In the days that followed he wooed her patiently, seeking constantly to find some favour with her, and grateful beyond words when he succeeded ever so little. At first, he could win but slight notice of any sort from her, and that only at rare and uncertain intervals. But gradually his un.o.btrusive efforts told, and, little by little, she began to take him into her confidence. The first day she invited him to play with her in one of her games was a day of rejoicing for him. She showed him the dolls.
"Now, this is the mother and this is the little baby of it, and we will have a tea-party."
She drew up a chair, placed the two dolls under it, and pointed to the opening between the rungs.
"Here is the house, and here is a little door where to go in at. You must be very, very particulyar when you go in. Now what shall we cook?"
And she clasped her hands, looking up at him with waiting eagerness.
He suggested cake and tea. But this answer proved to be wrong.
"Oh, _no_!"--there was scorn in her tones--"Buffalo-hump and marrowbones and vebshtulls and lemon-coffee."
He received the suggestion cordially, and tried to fall in with it, but she soon detected that his mind was not pliable enough for the game. She was compelled at last to dismiss him, though she accomplished the ungracious thing tactfully.
"Perhaps you have some farming to do out at the barn, because my dollies can"t _be_ very well with you at a tea-party, because you are too much."
But she had shown a purpose of friendliness, and this sufficed him. And that night, before her bed-time, when he sat in front of the fire, she came with a most matter-of-fact unconsciousness to climb into his lap.
He held her a long time, trying to breathe gently and not daring to move lest he make her uncomfortable. Her head pillowed on his arm, she was soon asleep, and he refused to give her up when Martha came to put her to bed.
Though their intimacy grew during the winter, so that she called him her father and came confidingly to him at all times, in tears or in laughter, yet he never ceased to feel an aloofness from her, an awkwardness in her presence, a fear that the mother who looked from her eyes might at any moment call to him.
That winter was also a time for the other members of the household to adapt themselves to their new life. The two wives attended capably to the house. The imbecile boy, who had once loved one of them to his own undoing, but who no longer knew her, helped them a little with the work, though for the most part he busied himself by darting off upon mysterious and important errands which he would appear to recall suddenly, but which, to his bewilderment, he seemed never able to finish. The other member of the household, Delight Tench, the gaunt, gray woman, still made sallies out to the main road to search for her deceived husband; but they taught her after a little never to go far from the settlement, and to come back to her home each night.
During the winter evenings, when they sat about the big fireplace, the master of the house taught them the mysteries of the Kingdom as revealed by G.o.d to Joseph, and then to Brigham, who had been chosen by Joseph as was Joshua by Moses to be a prophet and leader.
In time Brigham would be gathered to his Father, and in the celestial Kingdom, his wives having been sealed to him for eternity, he would beget millions and myriads of spirits. During this period of increase he would grow in the knowledge of the G.o.ds, learning how to make matter take the form he desired. Noting the vast increase in his family, he would then say: "Let us go and make a world upon which my family of spirits may live in bodies of grosser matter, and so gain valuable experience."
At the word of command, thereupon spoken by Brigham, the elements would come together in a new world. This he would beautify, planting seeds upon it, telling the waters where to flow, placing fishes in them, putting fowls in the air and beasts in the field. Then, calling it all good, he would say to his favourite wife: "Let us go down and inhabit this new home." And they would go down, to be called Adam and Eve by some future Moses.
Eve would presently be tempted by Satan to eat fruit from the one tree they had been forbidden to touch, and Brigham as Adam would then partake of it, too, so she should not have to suffer alone. In a thousand years they would die, after raising many tabernacles of flesh into which their spirit children from the celestial world would have come to find abode.
Brigham, going back to the celestial world, would keep watch over these earthly children of his. Yet in their fallen nature they would in time forget their father Brigham, the world whence they came, and the world whither they were going. Sometimes he would send messages to the purest of them, and at all times he would keep as near to them as they would let him. At last he would lay a plan to bring them all again into his presence. For he would now have become the G.o.d they should worship. He would send to these children of earth his oldest son, entrusted with the mission of redeeming them, and only faith in the name of this son would secure the favour of the father.
Joel Rae instructed his wondering household, further, that such glory as this would be reserved, not for Brigham alone, but for the least of the Saints. Each Saint would progress to G.o.dhead, and go down with his Eve to make and people worlds without end. This, he explained, was why G.o.d had made s.p.a.ce to be infinite, since nothing less could have room for the numberless seed of man. In conclusion, he gave them the words of the Heaven-gifted Brigham: "Let all who hear these doctrines pause before they make light of them or treat them with indifference, for they will prove your salvation or your d.a.m.nation."
Yet often during that winter while he talked these doctrines he would find his mind wandering, and there would come before his eyes a little printed page with a wash of blood across it, and he would be forced to read in spite of himself the verses that were magnified before his eyes.
The priesthood of which he was a product dealt but little with the New Testament. They taught from the Old almost wholly, when they went outside the Book of Mormon and the revelations to Joseph Smith--of the G.o.d of Israel who was a G.o.d of Battle, loving the reek of blood and the smell of burnt flesh on an altar--rather than of the G.o.d of the Nazarene.
He found himself turning to this New Testament, therefore, with a curious feeling of interest and surprise, dwelling long at a time upon its few, simple, forthright teachings, being moved by them in ways he did not comprehend, and finding certain of the dogmas of his Church sounding strangely in his ears even when his own lips were teaching them.
One of the verses he especially dreaded to see come before him: "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." He taught the child to pray, "O G.o.d, let my father have due punishment for all his sins, but teach him never to offend any little child from this day forth."
He used to listen for this and to be soothed when he heard it. Sometimes the words would come to him when he was shut in his room; for if neither of the women was by her when she prayed, it was her custom to raise her voice as high as she could, in the belief that otherwise her prayer would not be heard by the Power she addressed. In high, piping tones this pet.i.tion for himself would come through his door, following always after the request that the Lord would bless Brigham Young in his basket and in his store, multiplying and increasing him in wives, children, flocks and herds, houses and lands.