Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart (best english novels to read txt) 📖

My dear Friend,—

I have wanted to write you for a long time, but have been so busy. I have had some visitors and have been on a visit; I think you would like to hear about it all, so I will tell you.

I don't think you would have admired my appearance the morning this adventure began: I was in the midst of fall house-cleaning which included some papering. I am no expert at the very best, and papering a wall has difficulties peculiar to itself. I was up on a barrel trying to get a long, sloppy strip of paper to stick to the ceiling instead of to me, when in my visitors trooped, and so surprised me that I stepped off the barrel and into a candy-bucket of paste. At the same time the paper came off the ceiling and fell over mine and Mrs. Louderer's head. It was right aggravating, I can tell you, but my visitors were Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and Mrs. Louderer, and no one could stay discouraged with that pair around.

After we had scraped as much paste as we could off ourselves they explained that they had come to take me somewhere. That sounded good to me, but I could not see how I could get off. However, Mrs. Louderer said she had come to keep house and to take care of the children while I should go with Mrs. O'Shaughnessy to E——. We should have two days' travel by sled and a few hours on a train, then another journey by sled. I wanted to go powerfully, but the paste-smeared room seemed to forbid.

As Mrs. Louderer would stay with the children, Mr. Stewart thought the trip would be good for me. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy knew I wanted to visit Bishop D——, a shining light among the Latter-Day Saints, so she promised we should stay overnight at his house. That settled it; so in the cold, blue light of the early morning, Mr. Beeler, a new neighbor, had driven my friends over in Mrs. Louderer's big sled, to which was hitched a pair of her great horses and his own team. He is a widower and was going out to the road for supplies, so it seemed a splendid time to make my long-planned visit to the Bishop. Deep snow came earlier this year than usual, and the sledding and weather both promised to be good. It was with many happy anticipations that I snuggled down among the blankets and bearskins that morning.

Mr. Beeler is pleasant company, and Mrs. O'Shaughnessy is so jolly and bright, and I could leave home without a single misgiving with Mrs. Louderer in charge.

The evening sky was blazing crimson and gold, and the mountains behind us were growing purple when we entered the little settlement where the Bishop lives. We drove briskly through the scattered, straggling little village, past the store and the meeting-house, and drew up before the dwelling of the Bishop. The houses of the village were for the most part small cabins of two or three rooms, but the Bishop's was more pretentious. It was a frame building and boasted paint and shutters. A tithing-office stood near, and back of the house we could see a large granary and long stacks of hay. A bunch of cattle was destroying one stack, and Mrs. O'Shaughnessy remarked that the tallow from those cattle should be used when the olive oil gave out at their anointings, because it was the Bishop's cattle eating consecrated hay.

We knocked on the door, but got no answer. Mr. Beeler went around to the back, but no one answered, so we concluded we would have to try elsewhere for shelter. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy comforted me by remarking, "Well, there ain't a penny's worth of difference in a Mormon bishop and any other Mormon, and D—— is not the only polygamist by a long shot."

We had just turned out of the gate when a lanky, tow-headed boy about fourteen years of age rode up. We explained our presence there, and the boy explained to us that the Bishop and Aunt Debbie were away. The next best house up the road was his "Maw's," he said; so, as Mr. Beeler expected to stay with a friend of his, Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and I determined to see if "Maw" could accommodate us for the night.

Mr. Beeler offered to help the boy get the cattle out, but he said, "No, Paw said it would not matter if they got into the hay, but that he had to knock off some poles on another part of the stockyard so that some horses could get in to eat."

"But," I asked, "isn't that consecrated hay?—isn't it tithing?"

"Yes," he said, "but that won't hurt a bit, only that old John Ladd always pays his tithe with foxtail hay and it almost ruins Paw's horses' mouths."

I asked him if his father's stock was supposed to get the hay.

"No, I guess not," he said, "but they are always getting in accidental like."

We left him to fix the fence so the horses could get in "accidental like," and drove the short distance to "the next best house."

We were met at the door by a pleasant-faced little woman who hurried us to the fire. We told her our plight. "Why, certainly you must stay with me," she said. "I am glad the Bishop and Deb are away. They keep all the company, and I so seldom have any one come; you see Debbie has no children and can do so much better for any one stopping there than I can, but I like company, too, and I am glad of a chance to keep you. You two can have Maudie's bed. Maud is my oldest girl and she has gone to Ogden to visit, so we have plenty of room."

By now it was quite dark. She lighted a lamp and bustled about, preparing supper. We sat by the stove and, as Mrs. O'Shaughnessy said, "noticed."

Two little boys were getting in wood for the night. They appeared to be about eight years old; they were twins and were the youngest of the family. Two girls, about ten and twelve years old, were assisting our hostess; then the boy Orson, whom we met at the gate, and Maud, the daughter who was away, made up the family. They seemed a happy, contented family, if one judged by appearance alone. After supper the children gathered around the table to prepare next day's lessons. They were bright little folks, but they mingled a great deal of talk with their studies and some of what they talked was family history.

"Mamma," said Kittie, the largest of the little girls, "if Aunt Deb does buy a new coat and you get her old one, then can I have yours?"

"I don't know," her mother replied; "I should have to make it over if you did take it. Maybe we can have a new one."

"No, we can't have a new one, I know, for Aunt Deb said so, but she is going to give me her brown dress and you her gray one; she said so the day I helped her iron. We'll have those to make over."

For the first time I noticed the discontented lines on our hostess's face, and it suddenly occurred to me that we were in the house of the Bishop's second wife. Before I knew I was coming on this journey I thought of a dozen questions I wanted to ask the Bishop, but I could never ask that care-worn little woman anything concerning their peculiar belief. However, I was spared the trouble, for soon the children retired and the conversation drifted around to Mormonism and polygamy; and our hostess seemed to want to talk, so I just listened, for Mrs. O'Shaughnessy rather likes to "argufy"; but she had no argument that night, only her questions started our hostess's story.

She had been married to the Bishop not long before the manifesto, and he had been married several years then to Debbie. But Debbie had no children, and all the money the Bishop had to start with had been his first wife's; so when it became necessary for him to discard a wife it was a pretty hard question for him because a little child was coming to the second wife and he had nothing to provide for her with except what his first wife's money paid for. The first wife said she would consent to him starting the second, if she filed on land and paid her back a small sum every year until it was all paid back. So he took the poor "second," after formally renouncing her, and helped her to file on the land she now lives on. He built her a small cabin, and so she started her career as a "second." I suppose the "first" thought she would be rid of the second, who had never really been welcome, although the Bishop could never have married a "second" without her consent.

"I would never consent," said Mrs. O'Shaughnessy.

"Oh, yes, you would if you had been raised a Mormon," said our hostess. "You see, we were all of us children of polygamous parents. We have been used to plural marriages all our lives. We believe that such experience fits us for our after-life, as we are only preparing for life beyond while here."

"Do you expect to go to heaven, and do you think the man who married you and then discarded you will go to heaven too?" asked Mrs. O'Shaughnessy.

"Of course I do," she replied.

"Then," said Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, "I am afraid if it had been mysilf I'd have been after raising a little hell here intirely."

Our hostess was not offended, and there followed a long recital of earlier-day hard times that you would scarcely believe any one could live through. It seems the first wife in such families is boss, and while they do not live in the same homes, still she can very materially affect the other's comfort.

Mrs. O'Shaughnessy asked her if she had married again.

She said, "No."

"Then," said Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, "whose children are these?"

"My own," she replied.

Mrs. O'Shaughnessy was relentless. "Who is their father?" she asked.

I was right sorry for the poor little woman as she stammered, "I—I don't know."

Then she went on, "Of course I do know, and I don't believe you are spying to try to stir up trouble for my husband. Bishop D—— is their father, as he is still my husband, although he had to cast me off to save himself and me. I love him and I see no wrong in him. All the Gentiles have against him is he is a little too smart for them. 'T was their foolish law that made him wrong the children and me, and not his wishes."

"But," Mrs. O'Shaughnessy said, "it places your children in such a plight; they can't inherit, they can't even claim his name, they have no status legally."

"Oh, but the Bishop will see to that," the little woman answered.

Mrs. O'Shaughnessy asked her if she had still to work as hard as she used to.

"No, I don't believe I do," she said, "for since Mr. D—— has been Bishop, things come easier. He built this house with his own money, so Deb has nothing