Palmyra

by Susan Evans McCloud

  Leave for your own good. Heathens. Betrayers.

  You no longer have place here.

  The words were handwritten. Georgie recognized the cramped, closely curled handwriting she had seen so often on the bills and invoices of her father’s dry goods store. She sat down in the middle of the wreckage and wept like a child.

  She was lucky to be able to do so. How long would it have taken the two to awaken—if they’d have awakened at all? It happened, oddly enough, that Tillie’s Peter was spending time with a sick friend at a house nearby and thought he saw smoke from one of the windows—stuck his head out and smelled it!—and ran, with his companion, to put out the flames. Did Providence provide him? Was their deliverance due to fate, or to the hand of God? I know what Georgie believed, with no doubt in her mind whatsoever. But I was not able to be so sure.

  As far as the fire was concerned, the damage did not go beyond the front room, but smoke filled and blackened the house. When I thought of the baby! Poor Peter took them to Tillie’s house when it was over, for she had room in plenty. But her husband heard the commotion and turned them away.

  “It may as well be said now,” he announced grandly, in the presence of all of them, “that I desire this friendship to end. Georgeanna’s involvement with the Mormonites has severed all decent relationships.”

  Georgie, still in tears over her own father’s cruelty, could be crushed no further. They were brought to my house and slept in my kitchen that first night. They were all for cleaning the house out the following morning, but we advised against that.

  “Do not play into their hands, do not incite them further,” we kept urging.

  “Let us try Alexander’s,” I suggested. Peter, Georgie’s brother Jack, the little family, and myself all rode out together. When Josephine heard the news she took over at once.

  “I need Georgie for my school,” she reminded her husband. “We must figure out something. I never dreamed it would come to this!”

  At length it was agreed by all that Georgie and Emmeline should take up quarters in the main house, where they could be easily accommodated, while Nathan would scour the adjoining communities in hopes of finding some sort of work. How she hated being parted from him! I had never seen Georgie morose, really miserable, before in her life. It distressed me. Her misery seemed to sap my energy. I felt deflated and weak. Though I had another reason—a reason I had not yet told anyone, even Eugene: I was with child.

  I had waited long enough to have absolutely no doubt of it before even allowing myself to believe it could be true! Now I hung back. It would seem cruel to chirp out good news when all about me were struggling. And Josie! I would do anything to avoid diverting Josephine now! She had thrown herself heart and soul into the reclamation of her orphans—even spending part of each day, for two weeks, at Phoebe’s house learning the fine points of seamstressing. Her boys would dress properly and be able to hold their own around town. Once Georgie was installed she lost no time clearing a room for a schoolhouse, fitting it out with old desks, old McGuffey readers she bullied the school board into giving her, slates, inkwells and lined tablets for the boys to fill in practicing their letters.

  This was a boon for poor Georgie as well. Action. Nothing works better against lethargy and heartache. Under her tutelage the three young boys bloomed. Fresh air and physical labor that was demanding but not grueling; good food; hours of careful recreation; and sleep in decent beds with blankets to cover them. They almost believed they had died and gone to heaven; I think they would have walked to the ends of the earth for Josephine!

  “We can take more,” Josie kept urging Alexander. But he refused to allow her to hurry him. Randolph, as gently as he could, sided with her husband. “All in good time,” he encouraged her. “All in good time.”

  I did tell Eugene about the baby. I could no longer contain myself. I nearly laughed trying to get the words out; it seemed silly, like a fairy tale I was making up for both our sakes. He did not think it a fairy tale, but a miracle. He knelt on the braided rug beside me and put his head in my lap.

  “At last,” he murmured. “It has been a long wait, Esther, long for both of us. Are you as happy as I am?”

  “Oh yes!” I twisted his fine curls around the tip of my little finger and kissed the nape of his neck.

  “Even though you are discontent with me?”

  My heart skipped a beat. What had he said to me? “I am not ‘discontent’ with you.”

  “Yes you are, Esther. And perhaps with good reason.” He lifted his head and sat up on his knees, so his face was nearly level with mine. “I have not meant to be harsh, I have not . . . intended . . .” He sighed. “It is so hard to put my feelings into words.”

  “I understand. It’s all right.”

  We sat together for a long time, and although nothing further was spoken, I felt the distance between us had closed somehow. He seemed once again my husband, and I his wife. I felt a tenderness toward him, a tenderness I remembered from a long time ago, and was amazed how something so precious could become tarnished, pushed into a dark corner and forgotten, as if of no great significance at all.

  Strange, strange things happen that keep life full of interest and wonder!

  One day a gale blew in from the north, such a tempest as October had not seen during my lifetime. When the storm struck, my little brother was playing with his toy horses and wagons—small wooden figures Father carved for him—in one of the ditches that line some of our wheat fields. Here he had constructed elaborate twisting roads, with hills and valleys, with little stick bridges crossing make-believe rivers. Father was working nearby, but he had just taken the mule over to the adjoining field, which was still in pasture, to let him graze for an hour while he and Jonathan sat in the shade of the plane trees and ate their noon meal together.

  The sky emptied rain and wind and lightning all together. By the time he reached Jonathan the ditches were flowing with water, mud, and debris. The first impact must have knocked the boy over, or at least made him lose his footing. He had struck his forehead on some sharp object and, as he fell, his foot had caught in the twistings of an old root, and held fast. Father extricated him at once and carried him to the house, but they could not shake him into consciousness. The bump on his head was swelling; one whole side of his face had turned black and blue.

  My mother screamed and lunged for the child when she saw him. Father had to hold her back forcibly, bully her into coming to fetch me and the doctor, while he cleaned the mud and blood from his son, and watched over him.

  I am amazed she did as he bid her. Perhaps she was, indeed, afraid to be left alone with him, horrified and helpless. I agreed to go in search of Doctor Ensworth, while she turned back at once to the farm. When we arrived, there had been no change. Jonathan’s head had swollen considerably, so that the discolored portion looked frightening, even grotesque. Mother sat slumped by the side of the bed, weeping piteously. The three of us together were not sufficient to drag her away.

  “You’ll do him no good with that sound,” the old doctor told her harshly. “If you love him truly, Rachel, then for pity’s sake grieve in silence! He may very well be able to hear you, though he cannot respond. And you will terrify his senses, I tell you.”

  She put her hand to her mouth and pressed hard, willing her terror to turn inward. I turned away from the sight.

  “Will you stay with her, Esther?”

  “You know I won’t leave her.”

  “Don’t overdo, though. I do not want that.” The doctor patted my head, as though I were a child still. The gesture brought tears to my eyes. He was the only person, besides Eugene, who knew of my secret, this lovely secret I carried inside.

  He walked to the farthest reaches of the kitchen with me and my father. He was not hopeful about the boy. “His fever is high. There is most likely swelling on the brain, as well as this contusion on the outside. If I knew more—if I could see inside that little head.”

  It was then I real
ized my brother might die! I realized it, but like some far, distant fact that cannot possibly have relevance for us. My mind thought, in the same cool, detached manner: If Jonathan dies, my mother will die with him. Or else go mad.

  The doctor gave us instructions. I let my father do the listening. I could not pull my mind back from this fog.

  It is a long night. Father brings in the rocker and places it as close to the bed as possible. Mother sits, her eyes fixed on the distorted face. She eats nothing. She says nothing. She sits with her hands in her lap and stares.

  A little past midnight I get her to take a few sips of the tea I have brewed for her. I do not know what she sees, what she is aware of. I see the feeble flame of my brother’s spirit flicker and wane. I see something gentle and other-worldly flit across his features—and am reminded of that other night, in this very room, years ago, when the same things happened with another child, fighting desperately for his chance at life. When the strange colorless light remains, when it settles over his frozen features, then he will die.

  I doze. I slip in and out of a troubled slumber, starting at noises, aware that my feet are cold and my neck is cramped. Almost imperceptibly dawn has poured her glow into the darkness; these first gray filterings of light assure me that morning is on her way.

  He may not make it through the night. I must tell you—Had Doctor Ensworth said that?

  I think my mother is sleeping, staring straight ahead, with her eyes open. I cannot sit still another minute. I rise and slip out into the chilly duskiness of daybreak, so that the fresh air might clear my head. A few stars, faint and lusterless, cling to the pearly curtain that stretches over the earth. I am so weary! I am so frightened! In my heart, for the first time in a long time, I start to pray.

  I do not see him at first, this man who is walking toward me, cutting through fields, with his trousers soaked halfway to his knees. I look up because I sense him—something about his presence. He pauses. He has come quite near. His eyes are more gentle than the dawn that is breaking, and as flooded with light.

  “What is the matter, Esther? How can I help you?” Why does his voice, offering assistance, give me a sensation of hope, and of peace?

  “What are you doing here, Joseph—at this hour?”

  A sad smile, a smile as old as the earth, touches his face for a moment. “I am eluding those who would seek me, who would take pleasure in harming me.”

  Yes. And not only you, I think.

  “Your friends suffer for the truth’s sake, and they suffer gladly,” he says. How does he know what I am thinking? “They will fare well, Esther. Do not worry about them. They will raise a good family, in a home far finer than they have ever hoped for.” He is smiling still. “But I am here to help you and your little brother.”

  “You have heard, then.” A shudder passes through my body. “My brother is dying,” I say.

  “Would you like me to go in to him, to administer a blessing to heal him?”

  “My mother would never permit it.”

  “Then let us pray together out here.”

  He kneels beside me in the rough grass. He calls upon God as I have never imagined. He calls upon Him in power, yet speaks to Him as a child speaks to a tender, loving parent whom he adores. His words are more than my mind can contain and remember. They pass into my spirit like light. I have no doubt of their power to lift and to heal.

  “Your brother will live. He will recover and live a long, useful life, Esther.”

  Joseph rises and brushes the pieces of grass and loose dirt from his knees. “Good-bye, Esther. God bless you.” He begins to walk away from me. I have not even thanked him—thanked him!

  I hurry back inside. Fear and pain settle over me like a fog as soon as I enter the house. As I approach the sickroom I hear a sound. It is my father weeping. “Your brother is gone, Esther!” he chokes, groping for my hand.

  “No, he is alive, Father,” I hear myself saying. “He is alive.”

  How can he believe me? He bends over the small, limp body. Jonathan stirs. His fingers move across the surface of the coverlet. He opens his eyes.

  My mother moans. Thank heaven she does not scream at him! I turn to her—I have never looked upon anything so beautiful as the expression I see in her eyes.

  Morning trembles against the cold glass of the little window above our heads. I stand and pull back the curtains to let the warm light come in. In the distance I see a tall solitary figure walking across the fields. The sun plays about his head like a benediction as the sunrise, in all her glory, floods over the earth.

  Chapter 22

  Palmyra: March 1831

  Jane Foster held out through Christmas, but hers was the last death the old year claimed. It was hard to place in the ground one whose efforts and skills had saved the lives of so many. I was not surprised at the number who braved the bitter day to stand before her grave and pay tribute to the life she had led.

  My father was sorely hit. I had no idea what his feelings were for her or how deep they went. But he had helped her, and when a man serves a woman he develops a tenderness for her, as Randolph for Josephine; that is just how it is.

  My mother did not go to the cemetery. These past months she had redoubled her vigilance over her son. It took more than a week for the swelling on Jonathan’s face to subside, several more for the terrible bruising to noticeably fade. Doctor Ensworth would shake his head and say, “He shouldn’t have made it. I don’t understand, Esther, he shouldn’t have lived.” If it were not for that, I would still wonder if I dreamed my encounter in the morning stillness with the young man whom Georgie and so many others call a prophet of God.

  What a Christmas we kept, though! With Jonathan well, and Josephine’s orphans to fuss over, as well as our crop of babies—and now everyone knowing my good news and sharing my excitement with me.

  Nathan found work to do in Fayette, not very far from here. Another converted “Mormonite” hired him to do building and carpentry work. It was not teaching, but it was money in their pockets. Josephine begged, beguiled, and bullied them into extending their stay at the mill house so that Georgie could keep on teaching. That meant no expenses for housing or food, so how could they refuse her? And, as a holiday bonus, Alexander agreed to the addition of two more orphan boys to their brood.

  “He is a clever man,” Josie informed me one frosty morning as we walked the streets of Palmyra in search of Christmas surprises. “He has found places for two of the older boys as apprentices in the village. No one else could have talked these haughty merchants into taking orphan boys—certainly I never could!”

  “It is because Alexander has a reputation for being conservative and trustworthy. They respect his opinion and his judgment. They know they can count on whatever he tells them as being true.”

  Josie beamed. “You put it very nicely,” she said.

  “Give your sister another year and she’ll have the entire canal company down upon her, mad as hornets,” Randolph teased. “She will rob them of all their cheap labor. They shall wake up one morning and find the dock sides deserted, and no one to drive the animals or tend to them—”

  “For she will have stolen every one of their orphans away!” I laughed with him. It was good to laugh with Randolph. It was even better to see Josephine with a purpose in life.

  So, by and large, the year 1830 ended well for us. We were both grateful and hopeful as we looked to the new days ahead.

  The “Mormonites”—the whole lot of them, under Joseph Smith’s direction—are moving to a place in Ohio called Kirtland. Georgie came over especially to give us the news.

  “How long have you known?” I demanded, without thinking.

  “This cannot be happening to us,” Josephine wailed.

  Georgeanna explained patiently, over and over again, because each time we heard the words aloud we liked them less!

  “There are many converts in that area,” she told us.

  “That is the reason for going?”
/>   “Not exactly.” She hesitated, playing for time by securing a toy kitten little Emmeline was reaching for. “It is a commandment of the Lord, through revelation. Ohio is where he wants his people to be.”

  “I have never heard of anything so unreasonable,” Tillie fumed. “Really, Georgie, do you think God cares where a person lives? Do you believe He tells Joseph Smith—not the rest of us, but Joseph Smith—every move he should make, every thing he should do?”

  “I believe many things you do not understand, Tillie,” Georgie answered in a low voice; humble, unirritated.

  “Well, I wish that you didn’t. And you are right; I do not understand it one bit.”

  We were all vexed, devastated at the prospect of Georgie going—of the five of us being separated for the first time in our lives.

  “You will not even be here to see Esther’s baby,” Tillie continued.

  “And how will my poor motherless boys get along without you?” Josie chimed in.

  “Stop it,” I said, for Georgie had put her hands over her ears to shut out their voices, and the tears ran down her cheeks. Then we all flocked round her, cooing and murmuring and petting, and begging her forgiveness.

  “It is Georgie, after all, who has the hardest to shoulder,” I reminded. “We will all be together still.”

  It was really too much to bear. We could not pretend we were not devastated and irreconcilable in the face of our unthinkable loss.

  “Jack and Peter are going with us. I wanted to tell you first, Esther—before I try to break the news to Tillie.”

  How many more surprises would we be expected to handle? “Going with you—you do not mean to Ohio!”

  “Yes, to Ohio.”

  “Why? Oh, Georgie, what is going on here?”

  “They have both been baptized. They have both accepted the Prophet’s teachings.”