“But . . .” He held up one finger and he found his place again. “It says that if we organize ourselves, then God’s providence will be with us even through tribulation. Then he continues, ‘That the church may stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world.’ ”
He closed the book and handed it to Lydia. “I’m not sure what that all means. I know that things are starting to look more and more frightening. We are all starting to feel a great deal of concern.”
Rebecca suddenly thought of the liberty pole and the feeling of despair that had settled upon her when she had learned it had been shattered by a bolt of lightning. She reached out and took Derek’s hand. She loved Di-Ahman, but the Saints weren’t as secure in Daviess County. It worried her a great deal.
There was not a sound in the room. Finally, Nathan smiled. It was brief, but it let them know that he was not trying to frighten them. “I don’t know what all’s going to happen, but I do know this: We have a wonderful family. We have a growing family.” He looked around the room and smiled again. “We can barely fit us all in Grandma’s house right now and we have five who are not here with us.” He looked at Rebecca and Derek, and now the smile broadened, and there was a sudden teasing note in his voice. “I expect that the family will grow even larger in the next little while.”
Rebecca blushed deeply as soft chuckles filled the room. Derek just bobbed his head up and down, beaming proudly. There were no announcements yet, but they hoped there would be by the next time they came to Far West.
“And if Matthew would pay even a little bit of attention to that Miller girl who’s just dying to get one of his winning smiles, we might see our family grow even more.”
Matthew didn’t blush easily, but Nathan had caught him totally off guard, and his face flamed. Derek roared and the rest of them hooted. “And before we can turn around,” Nathan went on quickly, “Peter will find him some lovely young lass. And then Will and Olivia will be old enough to marry. Rachel will grow up. Emily will get old enough to break the heart of every young man within a hundred miles.”
“We’re gonna have to rent a livery barn to have our family dinners when we get to that point,” Benjamin said dryly.
“Yes,” Nathan said, as the others laughed. “And then instead of having twenty-three mouths to feed and five different families to house, we’ll have eight or ten families and forty or fifty people to keep fed and clothed.”
Mary Ann looked suddenly depressed. Nathan noticed it immediately. “Mother, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “I was just thinking that there should be six more added to the count. What about Melissa?”
That sobered them all. Melissa and her husband, Carl Rogers, were still in Kirtland. There was very little chance they would ever see them again. Mary Ann looked at Nathan. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do, of course. I was just thinking about them.”
Nathan nodded. Then, brightening again, he turned to his wife. “Lydia, tell them what we’ve been thinking.”
As she stood up, he moved over and sat in her chair. Lydia plunged right in, her dark eyes sparkling with excitement, her black hair bouncing on her shoulders as she began to pace back and forth while she talked. “Nathan read the Lord’s commandment that we not be idle. We are very fortunate that no one in this family is lazy. We don’t have any idlers. John and Jessica are running a good farm in Haun’s Mill, and Jessica teaches school. Derek and Rebecca and Peter are under way with another fine piece of land. Father Steed has wheat and corn. Matthew’s working with Brigham Young. We are all working hard. But . . .” She paused for effect, then lowered her voice. “But are we working as wisely as we could?”
“How do you mean that?” John Griffith asked.
“Well, Benjamin Franklin once said of the American colonies, ‘We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.’ I think the same principle applies to our family. As the children and then the grandchildren grow up and marry and form their own families, we can hang together, or we can go our separate ways.”
“So,” Jessica spoke up, “what are you suggesting?”
“We’re suggesting that we organize ourselves as a family, just like the Lord counseled us to do. Maybe that way we can become independent and care for our own even if hard times do come. Instead of each of us going our separate ways, what if we decided to work together?”
Nathan couldn’t stand it. He was up beside his wife now, his hands waving back and forth as he spoke. “What if we made a covenant as a family, just as we do in the law of consecration, that we will stick together and help each other no matter what? What if we planned out everything?”
“Like what?” Peter said.
Lydia whirled to face him. “Planned to do just what you and Jessica are doing now. Jessica has a wonderful ability to be a teacher. So what if we let her teach all of our children?” She spun to face Benjamin. “Father Steed, I know you’ve farmed much of your life, but in Kirtland we saw another side of you. You have a natural ability for business, for managing things. Brother Joseph saw that in you. That’s why he asked you to be on the building committee for the temple.”
“Are you saying I should stop farming?”
“Not at first, Pa?” Nathan answered for her. “Not right away. But John is a natural farmer. I like to farm. Derek, you say you’re thrilled to have your own land to farm. So what if the three of us farm, and Pa, you manage the business end of things for all of us?”
Nathan was getting even more excited now. He turned to Matthew. “As our family keeps growing, we’re going to need houses, furniture, tools. And right here in Matthew we have a natural carpenter. A fine builder. So let’s not only encourage him to take his apprenticeship under Brother Brigham; maybe in a few years we can pool our money and help him start his own carpenter shop. Then not only could he make a living for his family, but he would be a great blessing to all of us.”
“I see what you’re saying,” Mary Ann said. “It’s not just helping each other when there’s a need; it’s planning how to work together as a family to help everyone.”
“That’s right, Mother Steed,” Lydia said. “We decide now what some of our needs will be, and then we go to work to meet those needs in a long-range way.” She stopped to get her breath. Her eyes were alive with excitement. “For example, right now Joshua is probably the best off financially of any of us.”
“That’s for sure,” Rachel sang out. “He’s rich.”
“Yes, he is,” Lydia agreed. “And what if he puts up enough money for us to start our own dry goods store here in Far West?”
As Rebecca made a soft sound of surprise, Lydia turned to face her. “Yes. I grew up in my father’s dry goods store in Palmyra. I worked in Newel Whitney’s store in Kirtland. I know how to run a store. Rebecca has a very quick mind. She could help. Peter is wonderful with books and learning. He could do a lot. Joshua and Will could freight in all our goods and build up their freight business in this part of the state as well.”
Nathan looked at his mother. “I’d be willing to write to Melissa and Carl and tell them what we’re doing, see if they would ever be interested in joining with us. But . . .” He didn’t finish.
“But there’s not much chance of that,” his father finished for him.
“I know,” Mary Ann said, “but I think we need to at least try.”
Emily raised her hand. Lydia turned and smiled down at her daughter. “Yes, sweetheart?”
“Me and Joshua could tend baby Elizabeth while you’re at the store.”
Mary Ann reached over and hugged her granddaughter. “How sweet, Emmy.”
“Emmy’s got the idea,” Lydia rushed on. “Everyone helps. We pull together as a family. We cooperate with each other. We help each other.”
Nathan jumped in again. “Eventually it might mean that we would all move here, so we are closer together.”
“I would like that,” Mary Ann piped in, bringing a smile from her children.
“That doesn’t mean someone gets stuck doing something they don’t want to do,” Nathan continued. “We don’t say to Peter, ‘Peter, you’ll be a cooper because we need someone to make barrels for us.’ We let Peter decide what he wants to do, but then once he decides, we let it bless the whole family and not just his own wife and children.”
Derek punched his brother on the arm. “Congratulations, mate. It’s a fine family you have now already.”
Peter pulled a face at him, but then he turned back to Nathan. “Could I ever do something with writing, Nathan?”
Nathan stopped, thinking quickly. “If that’s what you like. What about a printing shop? Or better yet, how about something like a newspaper? How’d you like to run a newspaper someday, Peter?”
Peter didn’t have to answer that. His face said it all.
Benjamin was slowly nodding. “We organize rather than just let things happen.”
“Exactly.”
Mary Ann looked up at her son and daughter-in-law, her eyes filled with admiration. “I think this is the most wonderful idea. What are families for, if not to help one another?”
“When would all this start?” Rebecca asked.
Nathan and Lydia had talked about that a great deal. Nathan looked first at his wife; then, when she smiled her support, he turned to his sister. “It may take years to get it fully under way, but I think we ought to start right now—by making a covenant and a promise with one another that we are a family, and that we will always work together for the good of the family.”
Benjamin stood and walked over to stand beside his son. To everyone’s surprise, he put an arm on Nathan’s shoulder, then reached out and took Lydia’s hand, drawing her to him as well. “As the patriarch of this clan”—he looked around, smiling wryly—“which seems to grow larger every time we get together, I’d like to thank Nathan and Lydia for what they’ve suggested to us today.”
He stopped, and for a long moment the room was silent. When he finally spoke, he spoke in a low voice. “I, for one, think it is an inspired idea. And as patriarch I would like to be the first to make that covenant with all of you.”
* * *
By early October, the situation for the Latter-day Saints was becoming increasingly grim. In DeWitt—a small Missouri river town located about seventy miles southeast of Far West and sixty miles downriver from Independence—the influx of Mormon emigrants began to tip the balance of power in favor of the Mormons. The old settlers reacted with typical alarm. On the twentieth of September, somewhere between a hundred and a hundred and fifty armed men rode into DeWitt and told the Mormons to leave or be killed. The Mormons begged for some semblance of reason. They had property, homes, livestock, and crops. After some discussion, the mob relented and gave them until the first of October—a full ten days to put their affairs in order and be gone. But George M. Hinkle, the leader of the Saints in DeWitt, who was himself a colonel in the Missouri militia, defiantly refused to leave and promised to resist any attempts to force them out. He and the other leaders wrote a hasty letter to the governor, explaining the situation and asking him to intervene.
There was no reply.
With the Mormons refusing to run, the mob element gathered at DeWitt sent out a call for help. The timing could not have been worse. General Atchison had dispersed a whole body of armed Missourians in Daviess County when he found out the Mormons were not in uprising. Now those men were lusting for action. They immediately headed south to join the forces surrounding DeWitt. Terrified now, the Mormons dug in and began to build barricades.
In a matter of days, the mobs ringed the Mormon portion of town. The Saints in DeWitt were under siege.
* * *
In Far West, things also began to deteriorate. Some months earlier Joseph had sent out a call, saying it came by the word of the Lord, for those living in isolated settlements and the smaller communities to come into Far West and Di-Ahman where there were larger bodies of Saints living. When all seemed peaceful, few paid attention to the counsel. But now, as the “Mormon War” began to escalate and reports of depredations against isolated Mormon families circulated almost daily, family after family decided perhaps it was time to heed the voice of their prophet. Refugees poured into Far West, usually fleeing their homes and bringing only the scantiest of provisions—if that—with them. In a short time the resources of the Saints were taxed to the limit. Every home was filled to capacity. Tents and wagons and lean-tos and open campsites lined every street.
And as if that weren’t enough, on October second the Kirtland Camp rolled into Far West.
When Kirtland fell into the control of the enemies of the Church in late 1837 and early 1838, many of the Saints, like the Steeds, immediately left for Missouri. But there were hundreds who were too poor to make the journey on their own. Rather than just leave them to their own devices, the leadership of the First Quorum of the Seventy covenanted to pool what little resources they had and to leave no one behind who wanted to go. On July sixth, the Kirtland Camp, as these Saints called themselves, started west. The roster said there were over five hundred people, twenty-seven tents, fifty-nine wagons, ninety-seven horses, twenty-two oxen, sixty-nine cows, and one bull in the company. Some stopped along the way. One group had pulled out at Haun’s Mill to fix their wagons and let their teams rest. But after nearly three months on the trail, the main body arrived in Far West, exhausted, sick, destitute, and frightened. And suddenly Joseph and the brethren had several hundred additional people requiring food, housing, and medical attention.
* * *
“Brother Joseph!” Benjamin raised his hand and waved to the horseman cantering toward him.
The man on the horse was about thirty or forty yards from where Benjamin was digging the last of the carrots from the garden. He reined up, peering at Benjamin. Then as recognition came, he waved, turned the horse’s head, and trotted forward to where Benjamin was.
Joseph Smith swung down from the saddle. “Brother Benjamin, how are you?” He laughed easily. “I was so preoccupied, I didn’t even see you here.”