The Lions of the Lord Part 38

She looked at him closely, with a quick suspicion, but found his profile uninforming; at least of anything needful at the moment.

"Remember you must have faith," she admonished him, "if you are to win your inheritance; and not question or doubt or find fault, or--or make fun of anything. It says right here on the t.i.tle-page, 'And now if there be faults, it be the mistake of men; wherefore condemn not the things of G.o.d that ye may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ.' There now, remember!"

"Who's finding fault or making fun?" he asked, in tones that seemed to be pained.

"Now I think I'd better read you some verses. I don't know just where to begin."

"Something about that Urim and Thingamajig," he suggested.

"Urim and Thummim," she corrected--"now listen."

Again, had the Gentile remained attentive, he might have learned how the Western Hemisphere was first peopled by the family of one Jared, who, after the confusion of tongues at Babel, set out for the new land; how they grew and multiplied, but waxed sinful, and finally exterminated one another in fierce battles, in one of which two million men were slain.

At this the fallen one sat up.

"'And it came to pa.s.s that when they had all fallen by the sword, save it were Coriantumr and s.h.i.+z, behold s.h.i.+z had fainted with loss of blood.

And it came to pa.s.s when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword and rested a little, he smote off the head of s.h.i.+z. And it came to pa.s.s, after he had smote off the head of s.h.i.+z, that s.h.i.+z raised up on his hands and fell; and after he had struggled for breath he died.'"

The Gentile was animated now.

"Say, that s.h.i.+z was all right,--raised up on his hands and struggled for breath after his head was cut off!"

Hereupon she perceived that his interest was become purely carnal. So she refused to read of any more battles, though he urged her warmly to do it. She returned to the expedition of Jared, while the lost sheep fell resignedly on his back again.

"'And the Lord said, Go to work and build after the manner of barges which ye have hitherto built. And it came to pa.s.s that the brother of Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built barges after the manner which they had built, after the instructions of the Lord. And they were small, and they were light upon the water, like unto the lightness of a fowl upon the water; and they were built like unto a manner that they were exceeding tight, even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish, and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree; and the door thereof when it was shut was tight like unto a dish. And it came to pa.s.s that the brother of Jared cried unto the Lord, saying--'"

She forgot him a little time, in the reading, until it occurred to her that he was singularly quiet. She glanced up, and was horrified to see that he slept. The trials of Jared's brother in building the boats that were about the length of a tree, combined with his broken rest of the night before, had lured him into the dark valley of slumber where his soul could not lave in the waters of truth. But something in the sleeping face softened her, and she smiled, waiting for him to awaken.

He was still only a waymark to the kingdom of folly, but she had made a beginning, and she would persevere. He must be saved into the household of faith. And indeed it was shameful that such as he should depend for their salvation upon a chance meeting with an unskilled girl like herself. She wondered somewhat indignantly how any able-bodied Saint could rest in the valley while this man's like were dying in sin for want of the word. As her eye swept the sleeping figure, she was even conscious of a little wicked resentment against the great plan itself, which could under any circ.u.mstances decree such as he to perdition.

He opened his eyes after awhile to ask her why she had stopped reading, and when she told him, he declared brazenly that he had merely closed his eyes to shut out everything but her words.

"I heard everything," he insisted, again raised upon his elbows. "' It was built like unto a dish, and the length was about as long as a tree--'"

"What was?"

"The Urim and Thummim."

When he saw that she was really distressed, he tried to cheer her.

"Now don't be discouraged," he said, as they started home in the late afternoon. "You can't expect to get me roped and hog-tied the very first day. There's lots of time, and you'll have to keep at it. When I was a kid learning to throw a rope, I used to practise on the skull of a steer that was nailed to a post. At first it didn't look like I could ever do it. I'd forget to let the rope loose from my left hand, or I wouldn't make the loop line out flat around my head, or she'd switch off to one side, or something. But at last I'd get over the horns every time. Then I learned to do it running past the post; and after that I'd go down around the corral and practise on some quiet old heifer, and so on. The only thing is--never give up."

"But what good does it do if you won't pay attention?"

"Oh, well, I can't learn a new religion all at once. It's like riding a new saddle. You put one on and 'drag the cinches up and lash them, and you think it's going to be fine, and you don't see why it isn't. But you find out that you have to ride it a little at a time and break it in.

Now, you take a fresh start with me to-morrow."

"Of course I'm going to try."

"And it isn't as if I was regular out-and-out sinful. My adopted father, Ezra Calkins, _he's_ a good man. But, now I think of it, I don't know what church he ever did belong to. He'll go to any of 'em,--don't make any difference which,--Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic; he says he can get all he's looking for out of any of 'em, and he kind of likes to change off now and then. But he's a good man. He won't hire any one that cusses too bad or is hard on animals, and he won't even let the freighters work on Sunday. He brought me up not to drink or gamble, or go round with low folks and all like that, and not to swear except when you're driving cattle and have to. 'Keep clean inside and out,' he says, 'and then you're safe,' he says. 'Then tie up to some good church for company, if you want to, not thinking bad of the others, just because you didn't happen to join them. Or it don't hurt any to graze a little on all the ranges,' he says. And he sent me to public school and brought me up pretty well, so you can see I'm not plumb wicked. Now after you get me coming, I may be easier than you think."

She resolved to pray for some special gift to meet his needs. If he were not really sinful, there was all the more reason why he should be saved into the Kingdom. The sun went below the western rim of the valley as they walked, and the cooling air was full of the fresh summer scents from field and garden and orchard.

Down the road behind them, a half-hour later, swung the tall, loose-jointed figure of Seth Wright, his homespun coat across his arm, his bearskin cap in his hand, his heated brow raised to the cooling breeze. His ruffle of neck whiskers, virtuously white, looked in the dying sunlight quite as if a halo he had worn was dropped under his chin. A little past the Rae place he met Joel returning from the village.

"Evening, Brother Rae! You ain't looking right tol'lable."

"It's true, Brother Seth. I've thought lately that I'm standing in the end of my days."

"Peart up, peart up, man! Look at me,--sixty-eight years come December, never an ache nor a pain, and got all my own teeth. Take another wife.

That keeps a man young if he's got jedgment." He glanced back toward the Rae house.

"And I want to speak to you special about something--this young dandy Gentile you're harbouring. Course it's none of my business, but I wouldn't want one of my girls companying with a Gentile--off up in that canon with him, at that--fis.h.i.+ng one day, reading a book the next, walking clost together,--and specially not when Brigham had spoke for her. Oh, I know what I'm talking about! I had my mallet and frow up there two days now, just beyond the lower dry-fork, splitting out shakes for my new addition, and I seen 'em with my own eyes. You know what young folks is, Elder. That reminds me--I'm going to seal up that sandy-haired daughter of Bishop Tanner's next week some time; soon as we get the roof on the new part. But I thought I'd speak to you about this--a word to the wise!"

The Wild Ram of the Mountains pa.s.sed on, whistling a lively air. The little bent man went with slow, troubled steps to his own home. He did know the way of young people, and he felt that he was beginning to know the way of G.o.d. Each day one wall or another of his prison house moved a little in upon him. In the end it would crush. He had given up everything but Prudence; and now, for his wicked clinging to her, she was to be taken from him; if not by Brigham, then by this Gentile, who would of course love her, and who, if he could not make her love him, would be tempted to alienate her by exposing the crime of the man she believed to be her father. The walls were closing about him. When he reached the house, they were sitting on the bench outside.

"Sometimes," Follett was saying, "you can't tell at first whether a thing is right or wrong. You have to take a long squint, like when you're in the woods on a path that ain't been used much lately and has got blind. Put your face right close down to it and you can't see a sign of a trail; it's the same as the ground both sides, covered with leaves the same way and not a footprint or anything. But you stand up and look along it for fifty feet, and there she is so plain you couldn't miss it.

Isn't that so, Mr. Rae?"

Prudence went in, and her father beckoned him a little way from the door.

"You're sure you will never tell her anything about--anything, until I'm gone?--You promised me, you know."

"Well, didn't I promise you?"

"Not under any circ.u.mstances?"

"You don't keep back anything about 'circ.u.mstances' when you make a promise," retorted Mr. Follett.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

_The Gentile Issues an Ultimatum_

June went; July came and went. It was a hot summer below, where the valley widens to let in Amalon; but up in the little-sunned aisle of Box Canon it was always cool. There the pines are straight and reach their heads far into the sky, each a many-wired harp to the winds that come down from the high divide. Their music is never still; now a low, ominous rush, soft but mighty, swelling as it nears, the rush of a winged host, rising swiftly to one fearsome crescendo until the listener cowers instinctively as if under the tread of many feet; then dying away to mutter threats in the distance, and to come again more fiercely; or, it may be, to come with a gentler sweep, as if pacified, even yearning, for the moment. Or, again, the same wind will play quieter airs through the green boughs, a chamber-music of silken rustlings, of feathered fans just stirring, of whisperings, and the sighs of a woman.

It is cool beneath these pines, and pleasant on the couches of brown needles that have fallen through all the years. Here, in the softened light, amid the resinous pungence of the cones and the green boughs, where the wind above played an endless, solemn accompaniment to the careless song of the stream below, the maiden Saint tried to save into the Kingdom a youthful Gentile of whom she discovered almost daily some fresh reason why he should not be lost. The reasons had become so many that they were now heavy upon her. And yet, while the youth submitted meekly to her ministry, appearing even to crave it, he was undeniably either dense or stubborn--in either case of defective spirituality.

She was grieved by the number of times he fell asleep when she read from the Book of Mormon. The times were many because, though she knew it not, he had come to be, in effect, a night-nurse to the little bent man below, who was now living out his days in quiet desperation, and his nights in a fear of something behind him. Some nights Follett would have unbroken rest; but oftener he was awakened by the other's grip on his arm. Then he would get up, put fresh logs on the fire or light a candle and talk with the haunted man until he became quiet again.

After a night like this it was not improbable that he would fall asleep in very sound of the trumpet of truth as blown, by the grace of G.o.d, through the seers.h.i.+p of Joseph Smith. Still he had learned much in the course of the two months. She had taught him between naps that, for fourteen hundred years, to the time of Joseph Smith, there had been a general and awful apostasy from the true faith, so that the world had been without an authorised priesthood. She had also taught him to be ill at ease away from her,--to be content when with her, whether they talked of religion or tried for the big, sulky three-pounder that had his lair at the foot of the upper Cascade.

Again she had taught him that other churches had wickedly done away with immersion for the remission of sins and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost; also that there was a peculiar quality in the satisfaction of being near her that he had never known before,--an astonis.h.i.+ng truth that it was fine to think about when he lay where he could look up at her pretty, serious face.

He fell asleep at night usually with a mind full of confusion,--infant baptism--a slender figure in a pink dress or a blue--the Trinity--a firm little brown hand pointing the finger of admonition at him--the regeneration of man--hair, dark and l.u.s.trous, that fell often half away from what he called its "las.h.i.+ngs"--eternal punishment--earnest eyes--the Urim and Thummim,--and a pleading, earnest voice.