by Marian Wells
Mark was pulling a chair forward and grinning down at Jenny. “I’ve never before seen you with such rosy cheeks. That’s nice. Shall I bring tea for you? From the looks of you, you intend to let snowflakes melt into your cup.”
Mrs. Barton handed her a towel. “You’d better let me get the cookies.” She disappeared into the pantry and Jenny dared look at Mark. Wordlessly he beamed at her until the cookies were placed between them.
Later Jenny wondered what Mrs. Barton had been saying before she came. But for now she watched Mark eating her spicy raisin cookies as if he were starved.
“I came intending to entice you into ice skating, but I may be snowed in for a week.” He grinned happily.
“Ice skating?” Jenny whispered in panic. “I’ve never even touched a pair of ice skates.”
“Well, you shall now, and I promise I won’t let you fall.”
Mark was snowed in, as was everyone else in town. Clara had gone visiting early in the day, and it was three days before she returned. Mark volunteered to fill in for her.
During the three days, as Mark carried in wood and dried dishes, Jenny’s surprise grew. She was discovering a Mark totally different from her picture of the nice young schoolmaster with his spotless white shirt and shiny boots.
As she watched him roll up his sleeves and scrub pans, she listened to him talk. First law, then books; next he described a hunting trip into the mountains with his father.
Blue-misted mountains, crimson trees, and the mingled scent of woodsmoke and frying bacon lingered in his memories. What he described in detail wasn’t the deer he shot, but the leggy fawn, faltering timid and curious on the edge of the clearing.
They discovered there were books they had both read, and they discussed them eagerly. They shared the poetry he could quote, and the plays he wanted her to see.
When the sky cleared, a dozen eager boys pushed snow from the lake and Mark and Jenny tried out the ice skates.
At first Jenny was shy with this new Mark, but she gradually thawed beneath his genuine warmth. Before the week was over, she knew that she was privy to a secret side of him. She sensed it first when he quoted poetry to her; even more clearly she recognized the difference when Clara walked into the kitchen, and the contained shell of the old Mark settled around him like a protective armor.
As Jenny said good-bye, Mark lifted her warm hand to his cheek and then he was gone.
Jenny watched through the kitchen window as his horse loped down the lane. Secret whispers moved through her heart, reminding her that rich young men married proper girls from proper families. The real Mark, those whispers nagged at her, was the one she watched as he joked around and teased Clara. The casual shell was real, the tenderness inside was a dream.
****
In Kirtland the new year slipped in on snowy feet, nearly unheralded. At Hiram, Joseph Smith and Sidney Ridgon continued to work at the task of writing. But unsettling things were going on. Often the rumbles started at the livery stable in Kirtland, where winter-bound men gathered to talk. But there were winter discontents in Hiram, too.
Ezra Booth, formerly a Methodist minister, then Mormon convert, had turned apostate after the first trip to Zion. Now he was exciting curiosity. Copies of letters written by him and printed in The Ohio Star were read and passed around the stable. The first comment was, “Joe shouldn’t have taken him in to begin with. A preacher in the Methodist church is bound to be a mighty poor follower. Has too many ideas of his own.” Another said, “Some of his complaints were right, like Partridge’s quarrel with Smith.”
A few nodded, and a voice spoke from the back of the group. “Partridge didn’t make no bones. Told Joseph he didn’t like the land and Joseph told him heaven chose it. So then Partridge told him he wished he wouldn’t say he knew things by the spirit when he didn’t, such as that Oliver had raised up a big church when it was plain to see he hadn’t. Joe said if he said it, then it would be.”
“What about Rigdon telling him the vision of Zion was a bad thing?”
There was silence when Tom replied, “Seems it falls in a category of faultin’ the Lord.” He went back to his workbench.
While Tom mended harnesses in front of the sheet iron stove at the rear of the stables, he listened to the talk going on around him. Malcontents, he decided. But some of the men had been on that journey to Missouri. They supported Ezra’s statements in the newspaper.
One thing was certain, a storm of unrest was brewing among the men of the church. Later, when news from Missouri indicated that Zion was suffering the same kind of unrest, Tom decided it was time to visit his friend in Hiram.
It was late that March evening before Tom could leave the livery stable to go to Hiram. Even in the small town of Kirtland, Saturday night revelry added to the chores that must be done before the Sabbath.
Tom rode his horse toward Joseph’s home, grateful for March’s softening wind. He was nearly to the outskirts of Hiram when he met a group of riders coming toward him.
Thinking that he recognized one of them, he called, “Hello, is that you, Williams?” No answer came, but the riders veered away. Slowly he rode on, pondering the strange event.
As he reached the Johnson farm where Joseph Smith was living, Tom noticed light spilling out the open door; but until he stood in Joseph’s parlor staring at the spectacle, he didn’t understand. Slowly he walked across the room.
Emma was already digging at the mess of tar and feathers which covered her husband. “What happened?”
Joseph could only mutter, while Emma answered shortly, “Busted in here, the whole lot of them, and dragged him out into the night. This is the way he came back.”
Throughout the night, Tom and Emma dug at the mess that covered Joseph’s body. It was nearly morning when Joseph picked up a quilt and handed it to Tom. “Here, my friend and bodyguard, stretch out in front of the fire. You’ll need a little sleep to stay awake during my sermon this morning.”
“Joseph!” Emma exclaimed in horror. “Surely you don’t intend to stand before the church and preach!”
But he did, and Tom was there to watch and listen and gain new admiration for his friend. The sermon, delivered in quiet dignity, made no reference to the incident of the previous evening. And if the culprits were in the crowd, they were wearing the robes of righteousness this Sabbath.
The Monday morning crowd at the livery stable seemed to know the details of Saturday night.
“They say he had it coming . . . Word’s going round that Eli Johnson got the mob together . . . Said it was ’cause Joseph has been too intimate with his sister, Nancy Marinda . . . Eli wanted to castrate Joe, but the doc chickened out.”
Five days after the tarring and feathering, one of the twins adopted by Joe and Emma died. Tom was there afterward to help move Emma back to Kirtland to live while Joseph and Rigdon journeyed to Missouri.
****
Mrs. Barton came into the kitchen as Jenny was finishing the dishes. She picked up the dish towel and a handful of spoons. Jenny shook off her dreamy mood and reached for another pot. When Mrs. Barton reached for the forks, she said, “Jenny, you’ve had your eighteenth birthday. Have you given any thought to your future? Young ladies your age have married. And as for school, you’re educated enough to teach. I’m afraid there’s little more they can offer you.”
“Oh,” Jenny sighed, abruptly realizing she hadn’t given a thought to life as Mrs. Barton was seeing it. She shivered, thinking how horrified that good woman would be if she were to tell her what she had in mind for the future.
“Jenny, don’t misunderstand,” Mrs. Barton continued. “I’m not at all anxious to have you leave us; you’ll have a position here as long as you wish.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Jenny replied meekly, still wondering what she could say.
“Also,” Mrs. Barton continued, wiping more slowly now, “I’m concerned about Clara. Not that I think you’re easily led astray, but there’s strange going’s on in her life.” S
he hung the towel on its rack. “If you’re troubled and need to talk about it, please—”
Jenny widened her eyes. “Clara is strange, Mrs. Barton, but she doesn’t trouble me.”
“That’s good. Now, Mark is coming tonight, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” Jenny looked at Mrs. Barton, wondering if she could sense the churning inside her.
“He’s a fine young man. I’ve met his mother and think well of her.”
Without planning, the words burst from Jenny, “Fine young men don’t marry kitchen maids!”
“I have a feeling that young man is looking beyond the kitchen,” Mrs. Barton responded gently. She watched Jenny carefully empty the dishwater into the pail beside the door, and just as carefully Jenny avoided Mrs. Barton’s eyes. She didn’t want to talk about Mark; she didn’t even want to think about the confusion of her emotions every time he came to visit.
Jenny looked at the floor, fearful her eyes would reveal her thoughts, thoughts about what she and Clara had been studying together. They just didn’t fit into the picture with Mark.
By the time Mark arrived, the evening was cooling and the primroses were slowly unfolding their tight buds. Jenny was sitting on the side porch, thinking of nothing except the evening calm spreading itself across the land.
Then Mark was there, offering her a yellow primrose. “Jenny,” he whispered with a teasing grin, “tell me your secret. Does it take the mysterious night to bring you into full bloom? Most times I find you a tight little bud like an evening primrose at high noon.”
“I think it takes the moonlight to bring me to life,” she whispered back. “I need to follow the creek until it disappears into the moon. I need to walk the pasture fence until it falls off the earth.”
“Walk the pasture fence!” he exclaimed, dropping down beside her. “That is a very different thing to do.”
“See there—” She pointed to the line of fence that rose and fell with the contours of the earth. She knew that at the point of disappearance, it followed the slip of the hill.
“It does fall off the earth,” he whispered. “But maybe it tunnels under the haystack; then where would you be?”
“Why, I’d be obligated to tunnel, too.”
“Then let’s go!” He took her hand and pulled her to her feet, toward the pasture. When they reached the fence, he lifted her to the top rung. Gathering her skirt in a tight wad that threatened her knees with exposure, Jenny ran lightly along the rail, slowing only to step gingerly across the posts before she ran on again.
At the end of it, when the fence plunged down the hill, Jenny jumped lightly to the ground. With a thud, Mark landed beside her. “You did it, too!” she exclaimed in delight. “Mark, the lawyer! You must be good to me, or I will tell all your clients that you are addlepated. That I know, because you walk fence rails in the moonlight!”
“Oh, my dear Jenny!” In mock horror he threw himself to his knees beside her. “I implore you, marry me, marry me so that I can keep you silenced forever. With trinkets and baubles and all of my gold, I pledge my heart as long as I may have your vow of silence.” And they both laughed in joyful merriment.
Much later Jenny ran lightly up the backstairs to her room, still chuckling her enjoyment over Mark’s foolishness. Clara was sitting on Jenny’s bed, in the center of the patch of bright moonlight. “I needed to do my thinking, and there wasn’t moonlight in my room.”
Silently Jenny took her place beside Clara. Crossing her legs, she folded her arms and waited. She heard the faint sound of a horse trotting down the lane—Mark’s. In the renewed silence the crickets took up their chirping and from the creek the frogs answered. The heavy night air wrapped scent and sound about the two.
Finally, Jenny asked, “What are you thinking?”
“You were very joyful and happy, laughing your way up the stairs.”
Jenny thought back and then whispered, “I was. I hadn’t thought of it that way. It was the night, the moon, and—”
“Mark?” Clara whispered. “Jenny, where does he fit into all this?” Her gesture swept only the room, but Jenny knew what she was thinking.
“He doesn’t.” Slowly pulling the pins from her hair, Jenny began to put into words all that she had avoided thinking about before. “Mark wouldn’t approve; I’m sure of that. He is my good friend, but he wouldn’t be if he were to know. He mustn’t find out.”
Out of a long, dreamy silence, Clara finally spoke. “Jenny it’s gettin’ near the solstice. If you are serious about learning more, you’ll need to go to the sabbat.”
For a moment Jenny closed her eyes against the bright moonlight; almost against her will she whispered, “Power! If only I could have it all.”
Clara was whispering too, “Mark or the craft, Jenny? You must choose. I’m feelin’ there’s much you are unwilling to tell me. So be it; decide alone then what’s important. I’m feelin’ he won’t allow Mark in your life.”
Although the night air was heavy and warm, Jenny shivered as if a winter wind had chilled her. Clara had just said “he,” but the unnamed one struck terror in Jenny. How much longer could she avoid facing that he?
Chapter 17
In May of 1832 Kirtland seethed with excitement. Not for more than a moment could the young church forget these were the days of gathering. Very soon Jesus Christ would be returning to claim His own, and the Mormon people had been chosen to prepare Zion for His dwelling place.
Tom was well aware of the excitement as he walked into the assembly hall on that first Sabbath day following Joseph’s return from Missouri. Beside him was his friend Aaron Seamond.
Aaron had been one of Sidney Rigdon’s followers when Kirtland’s people had belonged to the Campbellite group. At times Tom had been prone to charge Aaron with cynicism, but today his fervor was as high as Tom’s as they listened eagerly. Joseph was giving the details of his trip.
“Brothers and sisters, I know the Lord has chosen you to bear the gospel in this generation. The Lord has blessed us mightily; He has let us know by revelation all He commands us to do. Brethren, we must be about the Lord’s business.
“On every hand we see these are the last days. Very soon the Lord will be walking the earth, His footstool. This whole continent is sacred ground!
“Now, I will tell you what transpired on my journey. By the Lord’s direction we have combined the United Order under one governing body. Presently we are negotiating for a $15,000 loan. This has been a glorious year in Jackson County, Missouri! The church has grown; we have a membership of three hundred. Many more will be coming.
“Now, let me tell you about the remnant of Jacob. Bless the Lord! The federal government is cooperating with the Lord. Thousands of these people are being moved through Independence. Shawnees, Kickapoos, and Pattawattamies—all are being moved from lands in Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois.
“Old Andrew Jackson doesn’t know it, but he’s a tool in the hands of the Almighty, helping Him prepare for the gathering of Israel!” Joseph leaned forward, his voice dropping nearly to a whisper. “I’m predicting the Second Coming is less than nine years away!”
The high tide of excitement which greeted Joseph Smith’s prediction that Sabbath morning lingered with the people of Kirtland and colored their lives.
Tom didn’t see much of Joe Smith that summer, but then, that was to be expected. Both arms of the church, as well as the heavy writing schedule, demanded most of his time. Tom was aware of the new mood of confidence in the people. In Kirtland the unrest of the winter was given a passing salute of apology by the church members as they began working doubly hard. With renewed enthusiasm they scurried about the country with the message of the church and the Book of Mormon.
It was nearly October when the Prophet came into the livery stable. “Let me guess!” Tom exclaimed. “You want shoes on that filly right this minute.”
“Wrong. I’m taking the stage to New York City. I intend to negotiate loans in the name of the Kirtland United Order.”
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br /> Tom thought he detected a slight swagger as Joe paced the room, saying, “The way we’re growing, this church will stand with the best of them, and we might as well put ourselves on the map by growing as fast in our business dealings as the Lord indicates we should.”
“We’ll be anxious to hear what’s goin’ on.”
Joseph’s brilliant smile lighted his face. “You shall, my friend and bodyguard. When I get back, I’ll take time to sit down with you and tell it all. I’m not forgetting your faithfulness to me, and the next trip I make to Missouri, you will be going too.”
On November 6, 1832, Emma gave birth to a son, and to the relief of all, the child survived and was named Joseph after his father. The whole community rejoiced at the news, and Tom felt much like a proud uncle.
The child was two weeks old when Tom rode out to the farm for his first peek at little Joseph. He had his brief glimpse and heaped his awkward congratulations on Joe and Emma. Taking his arm, Joseph said, “I don’t think we’re wanted in here. I’m headed for the woods to split a couple of logs; want to give a hand?”
“You’ve grown pretty soft pushing that pen; guess I’d better,” Tom joshed, following the Prophet out the door.
They worked most of the afternoon. When Tom paused to wipe the sweat from his face, he said, “My, the smell of that pine puts me in mind of splitting logs in Manchester. I like the feel of an axe in my hands.”
“Hello there! Is Joseph with you?” The hail came faintly through the trees.
“Right here!” Joseph bellowed back, saying to Tom, “From the sound of the horses, it’s a battalion. Did you bring your gun?” Tom looked at him in astonishment and Joe threw back his head and laughed.
The men burst through the trees and John Whitmer threw himself off his horse. “Have a fella here who wants to meet you. This here is Brigham Young.”
Tom watched the stocky older man slowly dismount. There was an air about him that caught Tom’s attention. Without a doubt, this was a man of action and authority. Joseph must have felt it, too. Tom watched the two men, now deep in conversation. Young was talking about reading the Book of Mormon as he and Joseph wandered toward the edge of the clearing.
