“Can we get down and play, Pa?”
Carl turned and looked at his three sons lined up on the wagon bench beside him. Caleb, who, at nearly five, was the youngest, had been the one to ask, but from the excitement in their eyes it was obvious that he spoke for his brothers as well. Then he looked across an open field where a group of boys were playing stickball and rolling metal hoops.
“All right, but you stay off the road.”
“Yes, Pa.” It came in a chorus.
“And keep an eye out. I don’t want to have to come lookin’ for you once I’m unloaded.”
“Yes, Pa.”
He let the sternness in his face soften. “Then why are you standing around here?”
With a whoop they were across the road and gone.
Taking off his hat and wiping his brow with the sleeve of his shirt, Carl looked around. There were plenty of men working at the site today, but he couldn’t see either of the two foremen who usually came out to take the consignment of bricks. But there were three wagons from the quarry ahead of him waiting to unload, so there was no sense getting in a hurry. He put his hat back on and turned to the wagon.
Carl Rogers was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In that, he and his brother-in-law Joshua were alike, but there the similarity ended. After years of hostility, Joshua had come to an uneasy truce with the Church. He married Caroline Mendenhall, who wasn’t a member either. But now Caroline wanted to be baptized. Joshua couldn’t accept that, and so a note of tension had crept into their marriage. Melissa Steed had been a Mormon when Carl married her. Carl’s family had been opposed to the Church and Carl had inherited a little of that attitude for a while. So there had been tension between him and Melissa over religion too, but that was completely gone now. He wasn’t interested at all in the Church, but he respected Melissa’s right to worship as she chose. Though he had not openly admitted this to her, he was actually pleased to be living among the Mormons now. They were a good people, and they made for a strong community for him and his family. Unlike Joshua, he had no residual feelings about Mormonism.
Carl turned to the box beneath the wagon seat and found a large rag and a currycomb. He moved forward and began to rub down his team. He worked slowly and methodically, first drying them off, then taking long strokes with the currycomb, watching the flesh of the horses ripple with pleasure as he worked them over. Carl was donating these bricks to the temple project. It was his third load now. The building committee sent the men down to the kilns to provide the labor, but Carl provided the materials and hauled the bricks up here at no cost. It pleased Melissa greatly that he would do so, and it hadn’t hurt his relationship with her family either.
He finished, slapping the near horse’s rump affectionately as he moved to put the comb away again. Sure, donating the bricks cost him out-of-pocket money, but his kilns were running two shifts a day now trying to keep up with the demand by the Mormons for new housing. He could afford to be a little generous. And besides, his relationship with Melissa was as happy as it had ever been in their ten years of marriage.
His head came up with a jerk.
Ten years?
They had been married on July twenty-sixth, 1831. Today was July twenty-sixth! He groaned and hit his head with his hand. Today was his tenth wedding anniversary and he had totally forgotten. Then almost instantly he felt relieved. He
had
remembered now, before it was too late. He would swing past the woodworking shop where Brigham Young and Matthew Steed worked in partnership and buy her that rocking chair. Melissa had admired it openly more than once and now he understood. That was her way of telling him what he should get her.
“Ho! Carl!”
Carl turned around. Another wagon from the quarry was approaching. He lifted a hand to shade his eyes, then immediately raised a hand to wave. “Afternoon, Israel.”
Israel Barlow pulled his team in behind Carl’s wagon, and jumped down. Carl walked to meet him and they shook hands.
“Another load today, huh?” Barlow commented, eyeing the stacks of bricks in Carl’s wagon.
“Yes. And one more for you too.” Carl turned and looked at the man’s team. Israel Barlow had one of the finest working teams in Nauvoo—a beautifully matched pair of black mares—and often he was at the quarry whether it was his tithing day or not. Barlow had hauled more than one load of brick for Carl Rogers as a way of supplementing his farm income and they had become good friends.
“How are the two lovebirds doing?”
Carl turned. “Lovebirds?”
“Yes. Didn’t I hear your brother-in-law got married on Saturday?”
“Oh.” Carl’s mind hadn’t been thinking in terms of Matthew and Jennifer Jo, and the question had caught him off guard. He smiled. “Yes. Well, it’s a little hard to tell. They’re both off in a world of their own.”
As Barlow nodded and chuckled, Carl squinted into the afternoon sun, looking at Israel’s wagon. As in most wagons, there was a small metal tube fastened to the side of the wagon seat. It was designed to hold the teamster’s whip, easily at hand when needed, but leaving his hands free when it wasn’t. Israel’s wagon had the holder but nothing in it.
“I see you haven’t come to your senses and bought yourself a whip for your team yet.”
Barlow gave him a look reserved for those who had been too long in the sun, and Carl grinned. This was a running gibe between the two of them. Israel also took a lot of joshing from the other teamsters around town for his refusal to carry a whip for his team.
“Treat an intelligent animal with love and respect and you won’t be needing no whip to make him obey you,” Barlow grunted. “Not that I’d be holding it against a man who can’t control his animals if he bought one.” He gave a meaningful look toward Carl’s wagon, where a long buggy whip stood in its holder.
Carl laughed easily. You didn’t top Israel Barlow easily in a joshing contest. Carl wasn’t a man to whip his teams either, but a sharp pop of the whip over their ears was sometimes necessary to get a reluctant team to listen to you. He turned and looked at the fine-looking mares harnessed to Barlow’s wagon. “You’re probably right,” he mused. “If I had a couple of high-spirited animals like those, with a mind of their own, I suppose a whip wouldn’t make a lot of difference one way or the other. They’ll just go their own way, no matter what you want them to do.”
Barlow frowned, and Carl knew he had hit the mark. These two horses were particularly high-spirited, but they were amazingly responsive to Barlow’s every command. He rarely even raised his voice to them. And Israel Barlow took great pride in that. He started a retort, then saw the satisfaction on Carl’s face, and bit it off. “Only a cretin needs a whip to control his animals,” he grumbled.
Then, happy for a respite, Barlow looked beyond Carl at two approaching men. “Well, there’s a couple of your in-laws. Looks like it’s about your turn to unload.”
Carl turned in surprise as Benjamin and Nathan came up. “I thought you were working down in the quarry today.”
“We were,” Nathan grinned, “but Pa looked so plumb tuckered out, they took pity on us and sent us up for some lighter duty.”
Benjamin ignored that. “Hello, Carl. Hello, Israel.” Then to Carl, “Did Joshua and Will get off?”
Carl shook his head. “They were catching that noon steamboat, but then Joshua decided he has some business in Warsaw. They’ll leave tonight, then catch a boat on down to St. Louis from there tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Benjamin said, his mind already caught by something else. He was squinting up at Barlow’s wagon. “I see you haven’t got yourself a whip yet, Israel.”
There was a low rumble, noncommittal, incomprehensible. Then before Benjamin could pursue it further, Barlow looked at Carl. “Come on, Rogers,” he groused, “get your wagon up in line so I can get out of here and on with my work.”
Rebecca Steed Ingalls knocked lightly on the door to Nathan and Lydia’s cabin, then opened it up slowly. This was standard procedure along Granger Street. Six Steed homes sat either side by side or facing each other across the street. Anyone in the family was family. One only knocked to give warning in case someone might not be dressed properly inside. Inside, Lydia’s four children were all occupied. Young Joshua had little Josiah on the floor, letting him wrestle him. Emily and Elizabeth Mary were at the table, drawing with a piece of chalk on a slate.
“Oh, hello, Aunt Rebecca,” Joshua said.
“Hello, Joshua. Is your mother at home?”
“No. She just left to go up to the store a few minutes ago. She said she’ll probably stay until closing time.”
“All right. Thank you. I’ll go over there.”
A few minutes later, Rebecca stood on the store porch, waiting until the couple inside the store came out. There was a brief exchange of pleasantries—Rebecca knew them only as having recently arrived from Tennessee—then they moved to their carriage. As they drove away, Rebecca peered through the store window just to be sure. It was Monday afternoon, which was usually a slow time at the store, and she hoped there would not be any other customers for a time. Lydia was at the rear shelves, straightening bolts of cloth. Caroline was at the counter, making entries in a ledger. Relieved, Rebecca went inside.
Lydia and Caroline both looked up, and both spoke at once. “Oh, hello, Rebecca.”
“Good afternoon.” She moved across the room, looking around to see if Nathan or Jenny was nearby.
“Where’s Christopher?” Caroline asked.
“Derek had to get some tools fixed at the blacksmith’s, so he took him along.” She didn’t add that taking Christopher had been her suggestion.
“That’s good,” Lydia said. “I’ll bet it feels good to you not to be lugging him around for once. He’s such a little chunk, that one.”
Rebecca smiled and nodded. Christopher was two now, and built like a stone fence. He also went everywhere on a dead run, letting his body lean forward until he was ready to fall, then making his feet race to keep it from happening. But he still wanted his mother to hold him from time to time, which was enough to make anyone’s arms ache after a few moments.
Rebecca looked over to the corner, where the potbellied stove sat cold and unused now. In the winter it would glow cherry red and always have two or three persons gathered round it, passing the time or playing this game or that. Almost every store in the western part of the United States had such a corner, often with a small table whose top was an inlaid board and a corncob cut into narrow slices to serve as checker pieces. It was an important gathering place, even in cities the size of Nauvoo. She turned to her two sisters-in-law. “Do you have a minute to sit down?”
“Of course,” Caroline said, giving Lydia a quick look. They came around from the counter and moved to the wicker chairs by the stove. As they sat down, Rebecca looked around again. “Where’s Jenny?” she asked innocently.
“Taking inventory on some stuff delivered today,” Lydia said, openly curious now. Rebecca was not a good one at pulling off feigned casualness. “And Nathan is at the quarry today.”
“So how are you feeling?” Caroline asked, watching Rebecca closely. “Are you still having problems?”
“Yes.” Rebecca looked up and tried to smile but it was not very convincing. “I . . .” Her face flushed a little and she looked down at her hands again. “I’ve been thinking about going to a doctor.”
Again a quick look passed between Lydia and Caroline.
“It’s not that serious,” Rebecca went on in a rush. “Really. It’s just that, well, ever since Christopher was born, it’s just . . .” She was coloring now, even though she was speaking to two women who not only were related to her by marriage but also were as close to her as her own sister. “I don’t know. I just worry a little. Christopher’s weaned now, and now that Derek is home again, he and I are thinking maybe it’s time to have another baby. I . . . I would just like to know that everything is all right, I guess.”
“Then you should see a doctor,” Lydia said firmly.
“Absolutely,” Caroline agreed.
Rebecca finally looked up, first at Caroline and then to Lydia. “I was thinking about Doctor Bennett, but . . .” She let it trail off, watching for their reaction.
“Mayor Bennett?” Lydia asked in surprise. “But that’s a wonderful idea, Rebecca. They say he is very well trained.”
“I agree,” Caroline said enthusiastically. “He started a medical college in Ohio, you know. And I’m told he has especially studied in . . . in womanly concerns.”
“Yes, I’d heard that,” Rebecca murmured. “Actually, I have a time with him tomorrow morning.”
“Good,” Caroline said. “I’m glad. He’ll probably tell you everything is fine, but you need to find out for sure.”
But Lydia was still watching Rebecca’s face. “You’re not worried about all those awful rumors, are you?”
Rebecca’s chin dropped and there was the briefest of nods. “I know I shouldn’t be, Lydia, but what if they’re true?”
Caroline was suddenly agitated. Joshua Steed was one of Nauvoo’s most prosperous businessmen, and because of that he and Caroline had been invited on more than one occasion to have dinner with John C. Bennett. She was very impressed with the man. She found him to be witty, urbane, very learned, and a man of great charm. The rumors floating around the city about his past had been bad enough. Now there were the whisperings about questionable behavior.
“I think it is terrible that anyone would give those wild stories one moment’s thought,” she said. “He’s the temporary Assistant President of the Church, remember. He’s helping out while Sidney Rigdon is sick. Do you think Joseph would allow that if there was anything at all to those stories?”
That was something Rebecca hadn’t considered, and it cheered her considerably. “No,” she mused, “I suppose not.”
“Of course not.” Lydia leaned forward. “I agree with Caroline. You need to be sure there’s nothing wrong, Rebecca. And everyone agrees, Doctor Bennett is the best.”
Rebecca sat back in her chair, greatly relieved. This was why she had come to talk to them. “You’re right,” she said. “It wouldn’t be fair to act on the basis of backyard gossip.”