Benjamin pulled out the first spoonful of dust and chips and threw it aside. He reached across and nudged Nathan with his free hand. “Derek sure loves farming, Nathan. Have you noticed that?”
“Uh-huh,” Nathan murmured, concentrating on spooning out his own hole.
“And Carl. Have you watched him down at that brickyard? I’ve never seen a man so happy. Have you?”
“No,” Matthew answered for Nathan. “He loves it down there.”
There was another nudge from Benjamin. “You notice that, Nathan?”
Now all Benjamin got was a grunt in response. He took that to be an affirmative answer.
“And Joshua? What do you think, Derek? You think Joshua likes being a businessman?”
Derek had taken off his hat and was mopping his forehead with a large handkerchief. He stopped, looking down at his father-in-law as he realized this was more than just idle chatter. “He certainly does,” he said cautiously.
Nathan also sensed something behind all this and was giving his father a quizzical look. Benjamin kept right on spooning as if they weren’t there. With three more scoops he was finished and set the spoon aside. After a moment, when he said nothing more, Nathan started his spooning again, finishing after a few moments.
As the two younger men reached for their hammers, Benjamin looked at Matthew. “How are things at the shop with you and Brigham?” he asked casually.
Like the others, Matthew knew there was something going on in his father’s mind. “Good,” he said with a tentative grin.
Benjamin looked positively innocent. “I was just telling your mother last night, I said, ‘You know, that Matthew is as happy as a meadowlark in a field of sunflowers. He sure does love that woodworking shop.’ That’s what I told her.”
There was a long silence; then Nathan laid his spoon down slowly. “All right, Pa, what are you getting at?”
Benjamin looked hurt. “Getting at?”
“You want us to stand up and sing a hymn or something?”
“My, aren’t you the testy one.”
Nathan was feigning irritation, but actually he was amused. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“You know what. Derek’s happy. Carl’s happy. Joshua’s ecstatic. Matthew’s singing in the sunflowers.”
“And Nathan’s a storekeeper,” Benjamin cut in quickly.
“Is that a sin?”
“No, not at all. An honorable profession. If . . .” He let it hang there, unfinished.
Nathan grinned up at Derek. This was Pa, through and through. Having something on his mind but never coming at it straight on, just nibbling around it, moving in on it a blade at a time, until the next thing you knew he was standing squarely in the patch of grass where he wanted to be and there was no budging him off of it. “If what, Pa?”
Benjamin shrugged and picked up the drill bit. He stuck it in the hole and eyed the mark on it. “I’d say we need about another quarter of an inch.” He reached out with both hands again and held the chisel bit firm.
Nathan sighed and picked up his bit. In a moment, the steady hammering was under way again. Two minutes later they stopped to spoon once more, and this time Nathan measured the depth of the hole. “That’s got it,” he said.
They all straightened, and the hammers were again set aside for the moment. Matthew turned to the bucket of slips and wedges a few feet away. He picked it up and brought it over.
Once the rock slab was blasted off the rock face, blasting powder could no longer be used on the slab. Even light charges tended to split the rock in unpredictable ways. This is where the stonecutters came in. Using a simple but ingenious device, they could cut even huge slabs of stone cleanly. That is where the slips and wedges—also called “feathers” and “plugs”—came in. The slip looked like a steel tent peg. Only one side was smooth and flat while the rest was round. The top of the slip was curled over a little to provide a striking surface, creating its resemblance to a tent peg. It also looked somewhat like a feather from the side—thus its other name. Two slips were put into the hole so as to make a V-shape, with the flat sides facing each other. Then
the plug, or wedge, was tapped into the V until it was firmly locked, with its head protruding enough to be struck with a hammer. With each blow, the wedge was driven deeper into the slips, forcing them apart and exerting pressure on the rock. As
the stonecutters did this in sequence along a straight line of holes, constantly increasing pressure was applied until the rock split cleanly into two pieces.
Now, with the feathers and plugs in every hole, the three Steed men and Derek all got sledgehammers. Derek took the front face, Matthew the back. Benjamin and Nathan worked the top. Carefully, not striking with their full strength, but in precise rotation, they moved along the line of holes. On the fourth series, there was a sharp crack and the block split cleanly off the larger slab.
Setting his hammer down, Benjamin leaned over to examine the break. Then he straightened, nodding in satisfaction. “Clean as if we’d used a saw.”
Nathan nodded. That was a slight exaggeration, but it certainly wouldn’t take much work for the stonemasons to shape the rock down for its final placement in the foundation of the temple.
They moved over to the edge of the quarry where there was a large barrel of drinking water beneath the shade of a tree. As they did so, another team moved in behind them. This second team would lift the block enough to get rollers beneath it, then move it to where the boom crane could lift it onto a wagon.
After drinking deeply, they each dipped their bandannas into a bucket of water set aside for this very purpose and began to wipe the dust and sweat from their faces. Benjamin sat down and the others followed suit. It would take the other men a few minutes to get the block out of their way, so they had a brief respite. Then they would start drilling another line of holes for the next block.
Nathan lay back on the softer soil, pulling his hat down over his face. Benjamin watched him for a moment, then looked at Derek. “Speaking of loving to farm, Derek, how do you think Nathan feels about being a storekeeper?”
Nathan pushed his hat up with his thumb just enough to glare at his father. “I don’t mind it,” he said.
“That’s a good answer, don’t you think?” Benjamin said, still talking to Derek as if Nathan weren’t there. “He doesn’t mind it.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“That’s nice.”
Derek and Matthew smiled at each other. There was no question that Nathan was the target of whatever it was Benjamin was driving at, and they were glad to be only observers. As for Nathan, he knew when he was licked. He sat up again. “All right, so it’s not all that wonderful.” Then he grew instantly serious. “Do you know what it is, Pa? I think it was handling the store for Lydia’s father before he died. I know it wasn’t for that long, but there at the last, when he was really sick, it was like it was my store. And with every passing day I felt more and more trapped, like it was closing in on me.”
He turned, looking toward the slab, finding a better analogy. “It was like I was the rock and the store was the feather and plugs. Every day was one more blow with the hammer until I thought I was going to split wide open.”
Benjamin smiled at Matthew and Derek sardonically. “This is why he doesn’t really mind it,” he observed.
“Well, having our own store isn’t that bad,” Nathan admitted begrudgingly. “In fact, I really don’t mind the supply side of it—finding the buyers and getting the merchandise we need, working with Joshua to get it shipped in.” He sighed. “But standing behind that counter all day. Keeping the books. Taking inventory.” He rolled his eyes. “Oh, my. Taking inventory. I’d just as soon be dragged through a corral.”
Benjamin nodded. “I knew something was wrong when you were excited about spending the day at the quarry.”
Nathan looked at him sharply, then had no choice but to laugh. It was true. Nathan really had welcomed the opportunity to break away fr
om the store. That was pretty desperate.
There was no further response from his father, and after almost a full minute, Nathan thought Benjamin had made his point and forgotten about it. Nathan lay back down, and almost immediately learned that he should have known better.
“You been paying attention to what’s happening to the price of building lots lately?”
Surprised a little, Nathan shook his head. “Not really.”
“Not so much in town, because Joseph and the Brethren are controlling the sale of land here so our people are not taken advantage of. But outside of town? Or in the surrounding settlements?”
“No, I haven’t been following that at all.”
“Remember Kirtland?”
Turning fully around to face his father now, Nathan nodded soberly. When a land speculation craze hit the United States in the spring of 1837, land prices went berserk. Lots doubled overnight, then doubled again. Paper fortunes were made—and lost. It had been a major factor in the great apostasy that had nearly ripped the Church apart back then. Yes, Nathan remembered it well. Derek, having heard all about those events after his arrival in America, was nodding too. Matthew had been only sixteen at that time, and while he was aware of what they were talking about, he hadn’t been that much into the crisis.
“It’s nothing like that,” Benjamin went on. “At least not yet.”
“Good.”
“But with hundreds still coming in every month—from the East, from the South, all the British Saints—the pressure for good land is mounting.”
Nathan merely nodded again. He didn’t know where this was all leading to, but he knew that now they were getting to the reason his father had started this whole line of conversation in the first place.
“A couple of people with the right experience and a good head on their shoulders could probably make a living developing land, and not be scalping their brothers and sisters in the process.”
Ahhh! Benjamin Steed had been a farmer in Palmyra. He had made a decent profit when he sold out and brought Mary Ann to Kirtland. He bought another farm in Kirtland, but soon left it for Nathan to work while he turned his attention to land development. He had loved it, and was angered when people used land speculation to ruin everything. And now Nathan understood all the questions. Benjamin wanted to do something that he loved again.
And then it hit Nathan and it hit him hard. Benjamin was offering him a chance to do something he loved as well.
“But you are helping Joseph and the city council with lots here, aren’t you?” Derek asked, before Nathan could speak.
“Yes. But mostly I’m just counseling with them.” He turned and looked at Nathan steadily now. “What I’m talking about is buying land. Getting it developed. Then selling it back to people at a fair price. Maybe even become a force in stopping others from letting things run wild again.”
Nathan was surprised at the sudden excitement racing through him. Now this was something a man could take pride in, use his talents for, sink his teeth into. This was not sitting behind some musty counter filled with bonnets and corsets and pantaloons. He leaned forward. “I agree,” he said. “A man could get to love something like that.”
Benjamin was pleased but didn’t want to show it. “We’d need capital.”
Nathan considered that for a moment. It would take quite a bit of capital. “Joshua?” he finally asked.
There was a quick shake of the head.
Momentarily surprised, Nathan started to ask why, but then almost immediately he understood. Joshua would do it. And be glad for it. They both knew that. But Joshua had helped the family enough and now they were all prospering because of that. It was time to go it on their own. Not be beholden to Joshua’s generosity.
“I was thinking that we might want to go down to Springfield. We’ve got my cabin and yours, if Lydia would agree. I think we could get enough of a mortgage to start buying a couple of pieces of land I’ve got my eye on.”
“We could use our part in the store too,” Nathan said eagerly. “I know Lydia will agree. I don’t know if she knows how I feel, but—”
“She knows!” Benjamin said shortly, cutting him off.
“Oh,” Nathan replied, a little crestfallen. “Has she talked to you?”
Before Benjamin could reply there was a shout from behind them.
“Hey! Nathan Steed!”
Nathan swung around to see who was calling. It was the foreman. He was pointing up to the crest of the quarry where a small figure was waving his arms back and forth. “Isn’t that your son?” he called.
Nathan stood, lifting a hand to shade his eyes. It was. It was young Joshua. He looked toward the foreman. “Yes, it is,” he called back. “Thank you.”
Benjamin was up too, looking suddenly worried.
“I’ll be right back.” Nathan broke into a trot, crossing the quarry to reach the path that led to the small ridge above them. Breathing heavily, he slowed as he came to his son. “What is it, Joshua? What’s the matter?”
Young Joshua looked up at his father, his face grave. “Mama said I’d better come tell you, Papa. Brother Don Carlos Smith died early this morning.”
“Oh, no!”
“We just heard,” Joshua went on. “Mama wants you and Grandpa to quit an hour early so you can go over and pay your respects.”
Nathan’s shoulders lifted and fell. Joseph always came by the quarry, usually first thing in the morning. He hadn’t come today. Now Nathan understood why. He laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “All right, Joshua. Thank you for coming. Tell Mama we’ll be home by five o’clock.”
Chapter 9
In the end, it was decided that only Nathan, Lydia, Benjamin, and Mary Ann would go to pay their respects to the Smith family that evening. Even though it would be the Sabbath tomorrow, the Smiths had decided to have the funeral following the morning worship services. There would be time enough then for the rest of the Steed family to offer their respects.
They stopped first at the home of Don Carlos Smith to give their condolences to Agnes, thirty years old and now widowed with three small children. As it turned out, all the Smith women—Mother Smith and all of her daughters and daughters-in-law—were there. So Lydia and Mary Ann simply stayed there while Nathan and Benjamin went to see Joseph.
When they reached the Homestead, Hyrum was there with the Prophet, and so was George Albert Smith, or George A., as everyone called him. George A. was cousin to the Smiths and, being of about the same age, had been especially close to Don Carlos. In fact, Don Carlos had performed the marriage of
George A. to Bathsheba Bigler just two weeks before.
The three Smiths were out in the yard, taking advantage of the coolness of the night air, and warmly welcomed their visitors. They sat out on the grass, touched by the lamplight from the windows. All of Joseph’s children were asleep except for young Joseph, who would be nine in a few months. He sat beside his father, content to listen to the adults without speaking, somehow sure that if he continued to hold his father’s hand, it would help to comfort his father in his loss. Quite naturally, the conversation focused on the man for whom the family and the city now mourned. In addition to being Joseph’s brother, Don Carlos Smith had been editor of the Times and Seasons. He was well known to the Saints, and news of his death had spread a pall over Nauvoo.
Joseph’s face was somber but filled more with pride than with sorrow as he spoke of him. “Almost everyone knows that my brother Samuel was the first called missionary in the Church,” he said, not really speaking to any one of them in particular, “but most people don’t know that Don Carlos also went out to preach just a short time later.” He looked at his brother. “Do you remember, Hyrum? We ordained him to the priesthood when he was only fourteen.”
“I remember it well,” Hyrum answered. “He was the one who convinced that Baptist preacher that the Church had been restored.”
Joseph smiled, warmed by the memory. “Yes.” He turned toward Benjamin and Natha
n. “Father went to St. Lawrence County in New York to see my grandfather Asael Smith. Let’s see, that would have been in August of 1830, so just four months after the Church was organized. Don Carlos had only turned fourteen in March of that year, but he went with my father. From the very beginning, he knew the work was true. And he was absolutely fearless in wanting to bear testimony of the work. Can you imagine a fourteen-year-old bearing witness to a licensed Baptist minister and converting him?”
“I can imagine that easily of Don Carlos,” George A. said slowly. “Remember that experience on the boat?”
“Yes, yes,” Joseph said quickly. “That’s another great example of his courage.”
“I guess I don’t know about that,” Benjamin broke in. “What happened?”
“You were there, George A.,” Hyrum said. “You tell them.”
George A. leaned back, his eyes half closing. “We—meaning me, Don Carlos, and two other brethren—were heading for Tennessee and Kentucky to see if we could raise some funds for the Church. This would have been in September 1838, right at the height of the tension in Missouri. Well, we got on a riverboat down on the Missouri River and then found to our dismay that it was filled with a whole group of men from Jackson County—Moses Wilson, Samuel Lucas, Colonel Thompson.” There was a flash of anger now in his eyes. “A viler group of black hearts would be hard to find.”
He paused, totally lost in his memories now. “They were cursing the Mormons up one side and down the other. We were forced to listen to the most hideous oaths and threats. Then somehow, they learned we were Mormons. Wilson was especially ugly. He got a whole big crowd around us, then started in. He was swearing and cussing, railing on about how terrible the Mormons were. He was taunting us, trying to goad us into doing something so they’d have some excuse to take action against us.”
Young Joseph’s eyes were large and round now. “What happened?”
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