The Work and the Glory

by Gerald N. Lund

  He turned his head and smiled briefly at the upturned faces that watched him. “This is a new experience for me, so I may not do this in the traditional fashion.”

  “Nothing you do is traditional,” Emma said. There were some chuckles from those gathered, but she had not meant it facetiously. It was said with love and tenderness and admiration, and it pleased Joseph.

  He turned back to Nathan and Lydia. “Nathan, please take Lydia’s hand.”

  Mary Ann nodded at Becca. Smiling demurely, Becca stepped around and took the flowers from Lydia’s arms. The room hushed.

  “Do you, Nathan Steed, take this woman, Lydia McBride, to be your wife; to love her and cherish her as though she were your own flesh; to care for her in whatever circumstances you may find yourselves; to stand by her in health and sickness, youth and old age, times of prosperity or times of poverty?”

  Nathan took a breath, turning to look into her eyes. “Yes.”

  “And do you, Lydia McBride, give yourself to this man and take him to be your husband; to love and cherish him above all others; to stand by him in whatever circumstances life chooses to place you in, whether those circumstances be good or bad, pleasant or ill?”

  All thoughts of her father were now gone. She had eyes for only Nathan as she looked up into his face. “Yes,” she answered softly.

  “Then I pronounce you, Nathan, and you, Lydia, married, husband and wife, for the rest of your natural lives. Remember that the covenant you make with each other this day is done in the sight of God. As long as you both honor that covenant, he shall smile down upon you.”

  He took a breath, as though relieved that he had completed the ceremony without major mishap. Then, blue eyes twinkling, he looked at the both of them. “You may now kiss each other as husband and wife.”

  For the next six weeks Lydia McBride Steed set about to win the heart of Benjamin Steed, her hardheaded, New-Englandborn and New-England-stubborn father-in-law.

  From the rest of the Steed family there was immediate and total acceptance. Melissa became like a twin sister, the best friend she could imagine. Often Melissa would come over to their little cabin and they would laugh and giggle like two schoolgirls playing house. Becca and Matthew simply adored her, and Lydia adored them back. They became the younger siblings she had never had. Mary Ann—dear, sweet, warm, totally genuine Mary Ann—had become like the mother Lydia lost. And in fact Lydia felt some shame when she realized that, as much as she had loved her mother, in some ways she had stronger feelings for Nathan’s mother than she had ever had for her own. Each night Mary Ann had scripture reading and prayer with her family, and often Lydia and Nathan would slip across the fields in the evening to join them. It was amazing how such a simple act had bound the family together, Lydia included.

  But Benjamin? Now, he was something else. Though nothing was said openly, she knew of his opposition to her marriage to Nathan and of his fear that Nathan had been saddled with a coddled, spoiled female who could, or would, never adjust to frontier farm life. It had deeply touched her that he had stepped forward to support her, in his own unique way, at that horrible moment on their marriage day when her father tried to destroy everything she wanted. From that day, she determined she would win not only his love but, more important, his respect.

  At first she detected in him some small measure of grudging admiration for her courage in taking a stand against her parents for her beliefs, even if Benjamin did not agree with her beliefs. But she wanted more than that. She knew that feminine wiles were not the way, and so while she treated him with respect and cordiality, she never pushed herself on him.

  Gradually she began to charm him with her quiet determination to make the transition from only-child comfort to the harsh realities of frontier life. The one-room cabin Nathan had built—not much bigger than her bedroom had been previously—quickly sprouted curtains at the windows and flowers around the front door. She took to cooking, tutored by Mary Ann, with childish enthusiasm. She worked the fields alongside Nathan, carried water from the creek, pounded out the wash in an iron tub, and even learned how to lead the mule as Nathan fought to keep the plow in soil that had never before felt the thrust of the blade. It thrilled her to catch Benjamin watching her from time to time, approval written in his eyes. She knew that eventually she would win, and it surprised her how much it had come to mean to her that she did win. Benjamin Steed was quiet, taciturn, often blunt to the point of harshness, but she was coming to understand why Mary Ann loved him so, and was starting to have some of the same feelings herself.

  But on this morning in late May of 1830, Lydia Steed was not thinking about how to impress her father-in-law. The only thing on Lydia’s mind was the struggle to fight the churning in her stomach that was threatening to erupt at any moment. Nathan had warned her that it might be rough and had offered to call for his father to help instead. He had even blushed a little, hinting around that if she was with child the smells might be more than she could take. She had assured him she wasn’t and had stubbornly refused to back away. So killing a pig was unpleasant—she was learning how to cope with unpleasant things. Now she wished she had not been quite so adamant.

  “Can you hold it steady, Lydia?”

  The first shock had come when Nathan killed the pig. He gave the animal some corn; then while its head was down he hit it a massive blow between the eyes with a sledgehammer. It dropped as if it had been shot, kicking violently in its death struggle. Then they had strung it up by its hind legs with a block and tackle, and Nathan had cut its throat. Lydia, simultaneously fascinated and horrified, leaned too close, and the spray of blood had caught the bottom of her dress before she could leap back. Now Nathan had a long-bladed knife, honed on the grinding wheel until it was as sharp as a straight razor, and was scraping the steel-like hair from the coarse hide. The smell of the animal’s warm body, not yet dead ten minutes, made her sick to her stomach, but she was holding the carcass steady for Nathan and could not do anything but avert her face.

  He peeked around the body and looked at her. “Honey, I’m sorry, but you’ve got to really brace it now. I’m going to open it up and clean it out. If you don’t want to touch where I’ve skinned it, just hang on to its ears.”

  She moved around opposite of Nathan, trying not to look into the massive ears as she grasped them tightly. The tiny pigeyes were now closed, and the ugly snout was still soiled with the slop from the animal’s last breakfast. She knelt down, then closed her eyes, wanting it to be over.

  “Hang on, here goes.” She saw Nathan’s arm flash, the blade of the knife glinting red.

  Suddenly there was a deep plopping sound, a whoosh of air; then in a rush the hogs entrails came spilling out at Nathan’s feet, steaming in the cool morning air. The breeze was blowing from behind Nathan directly into her face. She gagged, not wanting to look, fighting the acrid taste that leaped instantly into her throat. There was a soft sucking noise as the last of what had kept the pig alive pulled free of the stomach cavity.

  Lydia doubled over, hand over her mouth. Her stomach heaved, then heaved again. She flung herself away, teeth clamped together, hugging her stomach in a desperate attempt to stop the inevitable. She didn’t even make it to the corner of the barn before the retching began. Again and again and again it came.

  When she finally straightened and turned back around, weak and pale, Nathan was beside her. He had come behind her without her even being aware of it. He gathered her into his arms, keeping his hands, which were bloody and soiled, away from her. “I’m sorry, Lydia,” he said. “I shouldn’t have made you be here for this.”

  She shook her head, trying to swallow down the awful taste in her mouth. She felt as though she had just had a baby.

  He dabbed at her forehead with his sleeve, pushing back a wisp of hair. “Why don’t you go in the house and wash up. I can finish here.”

  “No!” It came out fiercely, surprising both him and her.

  “Honey, I can—”

&nbs
p; “No, Nathan,” she said, this time more quietly but with no less determination. “I will see this through.”

  He started to protest; then, seeing the look in her eyes, finally shrugged. As they turned, Lydia stopped short. Standing near the rail fence that led from the barn down the lane to the Palmyra road was Benjamin Steed. He had a grub hoe in his hand, and Lydia remembered that he had borrowed it from Nathan a day or two earlier. His eyes were grave as he watched the two of them, and Lydia realized with a sudden lurch of disappointment that he had just witnessed the whole thing.

  He leaned down, crawled between the rails, and then came over to join them.

  “Hello, Pa.”

  “Nathan.” He looked at Lydia, his eyes still inscrutable. “Mornin’, Lydia.”

  “Good morning, Father Steed.” She fought the temptation to wipe at the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “How’s it coming?” he said, turning to look at the pig.

  Nathan glanced quickly at Lydia, then away. “Good. I’m just about to tie it down so I can finish cleaning it out.”

  Lydia shook her head and walked back to the hog. She embraced it with both arms, averting her eyes from the steaming mass on the ground, holding her mouth open so she wouldn’t have to breathe through her nose.

  “Lydia—,” Nathan started, but she shook her head fiercely, cutting him off. He looked at his father, then with a sigh came back and picked up the knife.

  Benjamin set down the grub hoe and came over to Lydia. Gently he took her by both shoulders and pulled her away from the hog. “No, Father Steed, I—”

  He put a finger to her lips, cutting her off. Then he looked deep into her eyes. His were filled with respect and affection. “You know those little cinnamon cakes you make that I like so much?”

  “Yes.” It came out almost as a whisper.

  “You go make me a batch of those, and I’ll help Nathan finish up here.”

  She started to shake her head, but he swung around quickly so that he stood by her side. Wordlessly, he put his arm around her, and walked her toward the porch of the cabin. She tried for a moment to resist, but his grip was firm and his pace steady. He shook his head at her, pulling her tight against his shoulder for a moment. When they reached the porch, he set her free, gave her a gentle shove toward the cabin door, and turned and walked back to Nathan without a word.

  It was the first day of June when Joseph Knight, Sr., walked up the narrow lane that led to the Nathan Steed cabin. He had come directly from the Benjamin Steed farm, where he had gotten directions to Nathan’s house.

  When Nathan opened the door and saw who it was standing there, his mouth dropped open. “Mr. Knight?”

  “Hello, Nathan.”

  “But...I can’t believe my eyes. What are you doing in Palmyra?”

  “You remember Josiah Stowell?”

  “Of course.”

  “Josiah come up this way to buy some grain. I decided I’d come with him.”

  Joseph Knight and Josiah Stowell lived down in the Colesville-South Bainbridge area of the state, just a few miles north of the Pennsylvania state line. It was while working for Josiah Stowell that Joseph Smith had met and courted Emma Hale from Harmony, Pennsylvania. Joseph had eventually told both Knight and Stowell of his experience with the angel Moroni and the gold plates. They had believed him. In September of 1827 they had come to Palmyra to be there when Joseph finally received the plates. That was the night when Nathan had first met the two men. Later Nathan went to Colesville to work for Joseph Knight in order to earn money to pay off the mortgage on the small farm he had bought. He had grown very close to Joseph Knight and his family, but it had been several weeks since he had last seen them.

  He pulled out of his thoughts, realizing that the older man was looking at him with a bit of a strange look. “What?” Nathan said.

  “I also came because I’m looking for a dependable, hardworking young man who might be interested in earning some more good cash wages.”

  Later, long after Joseph Knight had gone back to the village, Nathan held Lydia close and felt her tears against his cheek. “Lydia, I won’t go. I need to stay and take care of our farm. Pa can’t handle his and mine both.”

  She sniffed, shaking her head. “He said he could. And I’ll be here to care for the animals.”

  “I know, but—”

  Reaching up, she laid a hand on his cheek. “No, Nathan, what Mr. Knight is offering is too generous. We can pay off the rest of our mortgage on the land by the end of the summer.”

  “I know, but—”

  She came up on one elbow and kissed him. “No more buts,” she said, smiling at him in the darkness. “You know and I know that this is too good an opportunity to let go. Now, just be quiet and let me have a good cry.”

  He laughed softly and pulled her close. She couldn’t help it. The thought of three months without him was like a piercing pain in her chest. The tears started again as she buried her head against his shoulder.

  For a long time Nathan didn’t speak, just held her close and stroked her hair over and over. He only let her go finally when she dropped off into a troubled sleep. Then he lay back and stared at the ceiling until after midnight.

  Chapter Two

  In western Missouri the sky was overcast and gray, and there was a stiff southerly breeze blowing. To the west it was much blacker, and there would be rain—if not hail—by afternoon. This was not untypical weather for Jackson County in mid-June, but Jessica Roundy Steed did not mind it at all. After several days of heat and humidity the cool felt good, and she had always enjoyed having the wind blow in her face and tousle her hair.

  She looked up. Two young children were approaching on the boardwalk. They smiled at her. “Good mornin’, Mrs. Steed.”

  Jessica nodded and smiled. “Good mornin’, Miss Lou. Mornin’, Walter.” The girl was about sixteen, her brother three or four years younger. They were the children of the new Baptist preacher and his wife, come to Independence just a few months before. The girl curtsied slightly as she spoke.

  “Right blustery, ain’t it?” Walter said.

  Jessie glanced upward. “More rain comin’ for sure.”

  The two nodded solemnly, then moved on.

  Jessie watched them for a moment, marveling. How swiftly things changed! Just a year ago when she walked down the street, respectable folk—of which there weren’t a lot in Independence—either passed her by without a flicker of recognition or, worse, averted their eyes. Jessica was the daughter of Clinton Roundy, who owned two of western Missouri’s more raucous saloons, one in partnership with his son-in-law, Jessica’s husband. She would see their shocked glares or hear the whispered comments: “Ain’t that the barmaid?” “Imagine a father keeping a girl in a saloon. Shameless!”

  That had been then. Now she was the wife of Joshua Steed, largest hauler of freight in Independence and fast on his way to becoming one of the leading men of Jackson County. They lived in a large cabin down near the far end of town, south of the courthouse. By Eastern standards it wasn’t much; but compared to the sod huts, tiny cabins, or, in some cases, lean-tos and tents that many lived in, it was palatial.

  Her status had changed overnight, though it made little outward difference to Jessie, who was still shy to the point of pain, especially around other women. It was one thing to take the girl out of the saloon, but...Her mind slipped back to that day a few months ago when Joshua had stunned her at breakfast one morning. “No wife of mine is going to tend bar for a bunch of Missouri wildcats,” he abruptly announced. “I don’t want you working in your father’s saloons no more.” She still marveled at it, but had gladly complied with his wishes, touched that it mattered to him. She had not stepped foot inside a tavern or saloon since that day.

  Unfortunately it wasn’t nearly that easy to change her nature. For almost twenty years she had lived in a setting almost totally devoid of women, at least women of any repute. To sit in a parlor with a circle of ladies, chatt
ing, sipping tea, and sharing the local gossip over their knitting, was as foreign to Jessie as standing behind the bar serving beer or whiskey to an unending stream of unshaven and foulmouthed ruffians would have been to them.

  But Jessica didn’t really mind being alone. In a way, she always had been, even in the midst of a tavern full of bawdy men. She tried knitting, crochet, needlepoint, and all the other things women supposedly did, but her hands were hands that drew beer or polished glasses or mopped up tobacco juice from around the spittoons. She had no patience for tedious work. Mostly she read—a skill acquired just a year or so earlier—or took long walks into the countryside. She also thought a great deal about getting pregnant for the second time, and tried to push back the dread she felt whenever she thought about that. She had already lost one child. Would she be able to carry another?

  “Mrs. Steed! Mrs. Steed!”

  Jessica turned around. Running toward her was nine-year-old Thomas Jefferson Thompson. Thomas was the son of the Negro slave who belonged to Joshua’s yard foreman. He had brought the family with him when they came from Georgia. Thomas often helped his father and Mr. Cornwell around the stables and barns, and Jessica had spoken with him often. He was a bright boy, always grinning and with skin like polished ebony.

  He pulled to a stop and dipped slightly, executing something between a bow and a curtsy. “Afternoon, Mrs. Steed.” He grabbed his hat off his head and started twisting it round and round as he looked up at her.

  “What is it, Thomas?” She smiled down at him.

  That banished any vestiges of his natural shyness. “The wagons, they’re comin’, ma’am.”

  Jessie’s head jerked sharply and she stared down the street. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes’m. My pa rode out two days ago to see if he could find them. He just got back. Mr. Steed’s in the lead Conestoga. They should be here by late afternoon tomorrow, my pa says.”