“Can I ask you a question, Jenny?”
“Of course.”
“How old were you when you joined the Church?”
If Jenny was surprised, she gave no sign. “I was baptized five days after my seventeenth birthday.”
“That’s when your mother and Kathryn were too?”
“Yes. We were all baptized together.”
“Were you . . .” She colored slightly, but went on, her eyes probing Jenny’s. “Did you join the Church just because your mother was joining?”
Jenny shook her head. “No. In fact, I was the first to know the Church was true. Matthew gave me a Book of Mormon and I read it. I convinced Mama and Kathryn to read it.”
“Oh.”
“You’ve been reading the Book of Mormon too, haven’t you?”
“Yes, like you I got mine as a gift, from Will.”
“You’d better watch out, then,” Jenny teased. “Look what happened to me when I accepted Matthew’s gift.”
Now Alice’s color deepened. “I . . .” Her lashes lowered and her cheeks were absolutely flaming now. “I wouldn’t mind it if it did,” she said.
Jenny reached out and slipped an arm around her waist. “And we would be absolutely delighted.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Our whole family adores you. And Joshua—why, he would do the Virginia reel on the top of a team of horses if he thought you and Will would marry.”
Alice smiled happily. “I know. He tells me that straight out. And Caroline has been wonderful too.”
“Just be patient, and things will develop as the Lord wishes.” And then when Alice merely nodded, Jenny went on. “Now that you’ve read the Book of Mormon, how do you feel about it?”
“Well, some parts I don’t understand very well. But I like how often it teaches about Jesus and also how it teaches what he wants us to do.”
“Have you come to the part where Jesus comes down and visits the people?”
“Yes, I’ve finished the book now. I thought that part was lovely.”
“But you don’t know if it’s true?”
That made her eyebrows narrow. “Well, I don’t feel that it’s not true. That’s what Papa keeps telling me. That it’s a fraud. That it is of the devil. I don’t believe that.”
“Then that’s an important start.”
“Will won’t marry me if I’m not a member of your church, will he?”
That one caught Jenny by surprise and she hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know, Alice. He feels very strongly about the Church. Has he told you about the struggle he had when he was trying to decide whether or not to become a Mormon?”
“Yes. He also told me about Jenny Pottsworth. We met her at the ferry dock while I was here on my last visit. Will told me how angry it made him when she told him she wouldn’t marry him unless he joined the Church, and how furious it made his father. So he’s been very strong about me making up my own mind. In fact, we never talk about it. I asked him not to.”
“Yes, he told Matthew. You know that we’d all love to see you join, but
you
need to know that it’s true for yourself.”
“Carl and Melissa don’t want me to join.”
Jenny stopped dead. “Is that what they said?”
There was a slow nod. “Carl did. Straight out. He said that the Church has many good things about it, but it’s full of tomfoolery, what with all this about plural marriage.”
“And what did Melissa say?” Jenny asked, half holding her breath.
Alice sighed. “She didn’t put it that strongly. At least not until I asked her.”
“You asked her if you should join the Church?”
“Actually, I asked if she believed the Church was true.”
“And?”
“She said she once did. Now she wasn’t sure anymore. She still believes much of it—the Book of Mormon, that Joseph was once a prophet, but . . .” She shrugged.
Jenny sighed. The family had collectively held its breath when Alice had spent the previous evening at Carl and Melissa’s home for supper. And yet Alice had come to ask questions, and they felt she needed to ask them of whomever she wished.
“She talked a lot about what happened when she first learned that Joseph was teaching plural marriage. She said how it really upset her. And how it turned Carl against the Church.”
“Yes, it hit Melissa very hard.”
“But not you?”
They had started to walk again, and though her step momentarily slowed, Jenny did not turn to look at Alice. She was staring out ahead of them now, to the looming mass of the temple. “It would be less than the truth if I said the thought of Matthew taking a second wife doesn’t bother me. A lot! But I believe that God gave the commandment to Joseph, and while I may not fully understand it, if it comes from God, then I have faith that it must be for a wise purpose. I hope that Matthew is never asked to live it. I really hope for that. But if it comes . . .” There was a quick shrug, and then a forced smile. “Well, I’ll ask God to strengthen me.”
“What do you mean you hope Matthew is never asked to live it? I thought sooner or later every man had to have more than one wife.”
“Good heavens, no,” Jenny laughed in surprise. “Right now there are only a very few. And Brother Brigham once told Matthew that he never foresees the day when every man will be asked to have more than one wife.”
“Hmm, that’s not the impression I got from Melissa. When Carl went up to put Mary Melissa to bed, Melissa told me straight out that’s why she doesn’t want Carl to join the Church. She doesn’t want him to have to live it.”
“I know.”
“And then she started to cry,” Alice continued.
“But that’s not the question for me,” Jenny said. “The real question is, is plural marriage something the Lord asked his people to do? There are lots of things God may ask of us that I don’t like to do.”
“Hmm,” Alice said. She hadn’t looked at it from that perspective. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we got to choose what commandments we had to live?”
“Not really,” Jenny answered immediately.
That caught Alice off guard. She had been speaking it in jest.
“We believe God gives us laws and commandments to bless us,” Jenny explained. “They aren’t something that keeps us from having a good time. They are meant to bring us happiness.”
Alice had to look away, blinking quickly to push back the tears that sprang to her eyes.
Jenny was startled by her reaction. “I’m sorry, did I say something that offends you?”
“No,” Alice answered in a husky voice. “I just wondered . . .” The tears spilled over her eyelids and started down her cheeks. “Can I be happy if I lose my family?”
“What?” Jenny blurted.
“My father says if I join the Mormons, I am no longer welcome in his home.”
There was a soft gasp of astonishment.
“Even my mother, who almost always takes my side, thinks it is a terrible mistake. She stands by my father.”
“Oh, Alice.” Jenny slipped one arm around her. Then after a moment, she had a thought. “Have you told Lydia this?”
“What?”
“About your father?”
“No, why?”
“I want you to go over there tonight and tell her.”
“But why?”
“Because Lydia’s father had even stronger feelings against the Church than yours does. You need to hear her story.”
And with that she gave Alice’s hand a quick pat, then pulled free. “We’d best hurry. When Matthew’s been working all day long, he gets very hungry. And we’ve just been dawdling along. I wouldn’t want him to bark at us for being too late.”
Alice laughed merrily at that image. “I think Matthew’s bark would not be much more frightening than that of a chipmunk.”
“I agree,” Jenny said with a smile, “but you mustn’t let him know that we know that.”
They sat on the ground east of the temple. They had come to get out of the sun, but in the half an hour since Matthew had come outside to eat his supper, the sky had become overcast. The air was still hot and heavy. It felt like a storm was coming. That was not surprising. There had been dry lightning storms the previous three evenings.
The food was gone. Jenny and Alice sat on the grass with their backs up against a large stone that was left over from the stonecutter’s work. Matthew lay flat, his head in Jenny’s lap. His eyes were closed and she ran her fingers slowly through his hair.
“So, Alice,” Matthew said, without opening his eyes, “are you getting all your questions answered?”
“Yes. Everyone in the family has been wonderful.”
“How did it go with Melissa and Carl last night?” he asked easily.
Alice laughed. “It was fine.”
He cracked an eye open. “What is so funny?”
“Your family. Everyone was worried about me asking questions of Carl and Melissa, but no one tried to dissuade me.”
“Oh,” Matthew grunted, and his eye closed again. “Of course we wouldn’t. We are all—”
From behind them, there was a low rumble of thunder. It was loud enough that they felt a slight trembling beneath their bodies. Matthew sat up, turning his head. Jenny had gone very still. In a moment, they heard it again, this time much farther away. Instantly, Matthew was on his feet and pulled Jenny up. He strode to the side of the building and looked to the west. “Uh-oh!” he muttered.
Jenny and Alice followed, and when Jenny cleared the building and looked to the sky, one hand flew to her mouth. Above them the sky was covered with thick overcast, but it held no immediate threat of rain. Out to the west, over the plains of Iowa, it was a very different scene indeed. Huge black thunderheads were massing together, bumping up against one another like battering rams lining up for an assault on the gates of hell itself. Forked lightning flashed downward and again the low rumble was heard.
Matthew took her by the elbow and moved her forward a little. “You’d better go, Jenny. Quickly. Leave the basket. I’ll bring it when I’ve finished work.”
“Yes.” She jerked her head toward Alice. “We have to go, Alice.”
As they hurried back out to the street, Alice had to half run to keep up. “What is it?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
Jenny lifted a hand to point. Even as she did so, the lightning flashed, flickering like the tongue of some great serpent. It flared again, more brightly than before. “One, two, three,” she started beneath her breath. She got to fourteen before the thunder shook the sky, making the air around them seem to shudder.
Alice didn’t need to ask what that meant. Every five seconds meant the lightning had struck about a mile away. Fourteen seconds meant less than three miles, barely across the river. A dark veil hung from beneath the great cumulus clouds, almost black as night and more thick than a heavy fog. It was pouring not far across the river, and the storm was moving visibly toward them.
“This could be a bad one, Jenny,” Alice said with some foreboding. “Perhaps it would be better for us to stay here at the temple.”
“Kathryn,” Jenny said with a sharp shake of her head. “I’ve got to get back and be with Kathryn.”
“Kathryn? But why?”
Jenny’s mouth was tight. “Since her accident, lightning and thunderstorms terrify her. Especially if she’s alone.”
Chapter Notes
The response of the Church to the repeal of the Nauvoo Charter, including the “whistling and whittling brigade,” is described in several places (see
CHFT,
pp. 299–300;
American Moses,
pp. 122–23; Thurmon Dean Moody, “Nauvoo’s Whistling and Whittling Brigade,”
BYU Studies
15 [Summer 1975]: 480–90).
The trial for the murder of Hyrum Smith was scheduled for 24 June 1845, but the prosecuting attorney didn’t bother to show up and so it was never held.
Governor Ford’s letter of “invitation” for the Saints to leave the state is recorded in the official history of the Church (see
HC
7:398). Before his death, Joseph Smith was planning to find a place of refuge for the Saints somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. During the months following the Martyrdom, the Twelve never wavered in their determination to carry out that plan. Lyman Wight, a member of the Twelve, had been sent to Texas by Joseph Smith to explore the possibilities of establishing a colony there. Rather than exploring, however, he established a permanent settlement and called on the Church to come to Texas. When the Twelve asked the Wight group to return to join the main body of Saints, the independent-minded Wight refused. After several tries at reconciliation, he eventually was excommunicated in 1848. (See
CHFT,
p. 305.)
The ongoing progress of the temple construction is reported at various times in the official history (see
HC
7:358, 385–86, 388–89, 401, 407–8, 417–18, 430–31). The British Saints did respond to President Young’s suggestion and sent a bell for the temple steeple. It weighed over fifteen hundred pounds. When the Saints left for the West, the bell was taken down and carried across the plains. (See
Encyclopedia of Mormonism,
s.v. “Nauvoo Temple.”) The “Nauvoo Bell,” as it came to be called, now sits on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.
One of the best indicators of how strongly Brigham Young felt about completing the temple, even though he knew they would abandon it shortly thereafter, is found in a talk he gave on 18 August 1844, just ten days after he and the Twelve were sustained to lead the Church. He said: “There seems to be a disposition by many to leave Nauvoo and go into the wilderness or somewhere else. . . .
“. . . If we should go to the wilderness and ask the Lord to give us an endowment, he might ask us, saying, Did I not give you rock in Nauvoo to build the Temple with? Yes. Did I not through my providence furnish men to quarry and cut the stone and prepare it for the building? Yes. Did I not give you means to build the Temple there? Yes. Very well, had you died in Nauvoo, on the walls of the Temple, or in your fields, I would have taken you to myself and raised up men to officiate for you, and you would have enjoyed the highest glory. . . .
“Such may go away but I want to have the faithful stay here to build the Temple and settle the city.” (
HC
7:256, 257.)
Chapter 15
Kathryn McIntire felt the icy fingers of dread start clutching at her chest a full ten minutes before she heard the first rumblings of thunder. Her hair felt the first prickly sensations of static electricity in the air. Her body seemed to sense that something was changing. She was sitting in her wheelchair, still playing dollhouse with Betsy Jo. Her head came up, and she listened—no, it was more like she felt the air around her, sensing it as a wild animal senses danger long before the first scent of the wolf is in the wind.