The day was sunny, but the temperature was hovering in the mid-forties, and both men wore coats against the chill. Joseph’s cheeks were touched with color, but as usual his eyes were filled with cheer and good humor.
He stamped his feet for a moment, then looked down. “You got a good crop of carrots this year, Ben.”
“I did. And some fine potatoes as well. Maybe not all we need to get us through the winter, but every bit helps.”
A quick shadow passed over Joseph’s face. “I fear that with all the mouths we have to feed now none of us are going to have enough to see us through the winter.”
Benjamin’s face was grave. “Was that what you were preoccupied with?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, then a long sigh. “I ride a lot these days, Brother Ben. It seems like that is the only time I have to myself to wrestle with the problems that beset us like flies around spoiled meat.”
Benjamin laughed. “Who are the flies and who is the spoiled meat?”
Joseph looked startled for just a moment, then laughed heartily. “Ah, Ben, it is good to be with a man who can make me laugh. You are a good friend.”
“And I treasure your friendship, Brother Joseph.”
There was a sound behind them, and they both turned. Mary Ann was coming from the house, wrapping a shawl around her shoulders. “Hello, Brother Joseph.”
“Good afternoon, Mary Ann. How good to see you.”
“I saw you ride up. We just finished some soup and there’s hot bread out of the oven. Would you come in and partake?”
He shook his head. “No, thank you kindly anyway. But I promised Emma I’d be coming home hungry.” He shook his head again, looking duly contrite. “My wife says every time I go out, someone invites me in to eat. She never knows when I’ll be home for supper. So I promised her today—no food except at Emma’s table.”
Mary Ann smiled. Emma was a wonderfully patient wife. She had to be. Joseph was beloved of his people, but that worked considerable hardship on his wife. When he was not gone off to supervise this task or that, or visit some branch of the Church here or there, his home was the center of constant activity: people with problems, newcomers wanting to meet the Prophet, priesthood leaders seeking counsel, overnight guests—there were few times when Joseph and Emma had the luxury of time alone.
“Are these problems we can help with?” Benjamin asked. “We’d be happy to do whatever we can.”
“How thoughtful of you to ask,” Joseph said warmly. “But no. I’m afraid with some of these things, there’s not much that anyone can do.”
“Well, we stand ready if you need us.”
Joseph reached out and laid a hand on Benjamin’s arm. “I know, Brother Ben. I know.” As his hand dropped to his side again, he got a faraway look in his eyes. “You know, it’s not the huge problems that trouble me as much. It’s when . . .” He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s the little things which prove to be of greatest consequence.”
“How true,” Mary Ann said. “Even in our own lives.”
Joseph had seemed about to change the subject, but Mary Ann’s response spurred him on. “The writer of Proverbs summed up one of the most common of human weaknesses. ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.’ ” There was a soft sound of discouragement. “Human nature can be a thing of such tenderness—and a thing of such unbending toughness! And pride has a way of nursing the totally unimportant into something unbearably significant.”
Benjamin was watching him closely, listening, yet was not sure what Joseph meant. But with that natural intuition which was part of her gift, Mary Ann took a shrewd guess. “Thomas B. Marsh?” she asked softly.
Joseph nodded, the pain now darkening the clearness of those blue eyes. And then Benjamin understood. While the fires of war were raging across the countryside, a smaller battle had erupted in Far West. At first it went unnoticed by any except the principals involved. Two women were neighbors to each other. One was a Sister Harris. Benjamin knew her only very slightly. The other was the wife of Thomas B. Marsh, who was President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. She and Sister Harris were desirous of making cheese, but since neither of them possessed the requisite number of cows, they agreed to exchange milk. To be sure to have justice done, it was agreed that they should not save the strippings—the milk that comes at the end of a milking and that is richer in cream—but that the milk and strippings should all go together. Small matters to talk about in a time of war, to be sure, two women’s exchanging milk to make cheese. But things don’t often work as reason would suggest.
Sister Harris, it appeared from the reports Benjamin had heard, was faithful to the agreement and carried to Sister Marsh the milk and strippings; but Sister Marsh, wishing to make some extra-good cheese, saved a pint of strippings from each cow and sent Sister Harris the milk without the strippings. Understandably upset, Sister Harris confronted her neighbor and asked that she stop the practice. Sister Marsh angrily and haughtily denied the accusations and refused to make any change or reparation.
Sister Harris decided to follow the counsel given by the Lord. She went to the priesthood quorum where her husband was a member and asked them to help her settle the matter. By now, of course, the matter had become public knowledge, and people began to take sides. But after a careful examination of the matter, it was determined that Sister Marsh had saved the strippings, contrary to her promise not to do so, and consequently had cheated Sister Harris. Thomas B. Marsh’s wife was asked to make restitution.
“Is that matter still not settled?” Benjamin asked Joseph.
There was a slow shake of his head.
“I spoke with Sister Marsh last week,” Mary Ann said. “She is a proud woman. She absolutely refused to admit that she had done anything wrong and said she will not pay Sister Harris anything. And she was really angry at the quorum leaders. She said she is the wife of the President of the Twelve. As Aaronic Priesthood holders, she says, they have no right to rule on her actions.”
Joseph was quiet for a moment. “It’s not just Sister Marsh. Thomas was furious. As you know, Brother Benjamin, from meetings you’ve sat in, he already thinks that I do not pay sufficient attention to his counsel or treat him with the respect his office deserves.”
“Is it true that they appealed the case to Bishop Partridge?” Benjamin asked.
“Yes. Like his wife, Thomas said the teachers quorum had no right to sit in judgment on an Apostle. So the bishopric heard the case. A regular Church trial was held. After listening to both sides, the bishopric upheld the decision of the quorum leaders. Thomas did not consider that the bishop had done him and his lady justice. He immediately appealed to the high council. ‘Surely they would side with an Apostle,’ he said.” There was a faint irony in Joseph’s voice now. “Especially with the senior Apostle! He made a desperate defense of his wife and her character, but the high council finally confirmed the bishop’s decision. Sister Marsh was in the wrong.”
Benjamin was staring at Joseph in disbelief. “And he won’t accept that counsel?”
“No.” For a long moment Joseph looked out across the prairie, which was dry and bleak now that the cold weather had come. “Brother Marsh said he had been betrayed. He demanded that the case be brought before the First Presidency.”
“No!” Mary Ann said, deeply shocked now.
“Yes. That does seem a little ironic, doesn’t it? Here we are in the midst of a war. The last word we got from DeWitt is that the Saints are being increasingly threatened. Closer to home, men are being taken out and whipped. Women are driven from their homes in the middle of the night. Haystacks are burned. Cattle stolen or shot. The whole of Missouri is howling for our blood.” There was a soft laugh of derision. “And with all that, the First Presidency has to stop and sit in judgment over a pint of milk strippings.”
“And how did you rule?” Benjamin asked after the silence had stretched on for a time.
Joseph looked up. “Oh, there was no question. Sister Marsh was in the wrong. Sister Harris had to be made right.” He looked at Benjamin, his eyes filled with a great sadness. “What would common sense dictate in such a case? Does one who is called as an Apostle—a supposed model of spiritual justice and commitment to gospel principles—stand by his wife, or does he accept the correction and counsel of the First Presidency?”
“What will he do?” Mary Ann asked, almost whispering.
Joseph turned to her. “I don’t know. It is a hard choice for a proud man. But I fear that it will prove to have lasting and terrible consequences for him.” He looked away. “And for the rest of us.”
* * *
On the fifth of October, Joseph Smith and some of the other brethren rode to the southern part of Caldwell County to look for a site for a new settlement. To their surprise they were met by a rider from DeWitt on his way to Far West to summon help. The report was not good. The Saints in DeWitt were under siege. They were greatly outnumbered. Provisions were low, and any incoming or outgoing was prohibited by the mob. Movement of anyone inside the barricades was drawing fire. One of the attacking groups had sent to Jackson County for a small cannon and powder and shot. Petitions had been sent to the governor, but there had been no answer.
Joseph immediately changed his plans and accompanied the harried messenger back to DeWitt. It was not an easy task. It took them the rest of that day and most of the night to slip inside the city. The main roads were heavily guarded, and only by traveling the least-frequented paths and forging through wooded areas did they make it through the siege lines. They arrived early the next morning.
The reports had not been exaggerated. The Saints were desperate. They had few arms. Food supplies were critically low. Small children were on the verge of collapse. Men and women walked around in a stupor, faint from hunger. The weather was turning colder now, and many of the Saints were emigrants who had stopped in DeWitt, contrary to Joseph’s counsel, and made temporary camp. They were living out of wagons or tents or nothing at all.
Joseph immediately called on some of DeWitt’s more respectable citizens and asked for their help. None were Latter-day Saints, but being honorable men, they deplored the actions of the mobs and agreed to write affidavits attesting to the perilous situation and the mistreatment that the Saints were receiving. A Mr. Caldwell volunteered to take the documents to Jefferson City and present them to Governor Boggs. Joseph and the Saints hunkered down to wait for relief.
Three days later, Caldwell returned. The governor’s answer was short, blunt, and unmistakably final. “The quarrel is between the Mormons and the mob,” he said. “Let them fight it out.”
Joseph was not willing to do that. On October eleventh, the Mormons gathered up about seventy wagons, loaded them with what little goods had not been consumed in the siege or looted by the mobs, and moved out. Though the Missourians had promised to let them go in peace, as the wagon train moved slowly northwestward, the Mormons were continually harassed and occasionally fired upon.
That night, camped in a grove of trees a short distance off the road, the Saints huddled together for protection and against the cold. The sisters hovered around a woman who had given birth to a baby earlier in the day. Their ministerings were not sufficient. The next morning, she was buried in the soft dirt beneath the trees—there was no lumber for a coffin—and the company moved out again. Weakened by starvation, exposure to cold, and a week of relentless terror, several more brethren died that day and were buried along the wayside.
On the afternoon of October twelfth, the ragged, tragic company from DeWitt came slowly into Far West.
Chapter Notes
The details concerning DeWitt and the deteriorating situation in Far West are taken from Joseph’s record and other contemporary sources (see
HC
3:77–86, 149–60;
Persecutions
, pp. 202–12; and
CHFT
, pp. 195–97).
The story of the Kirtland Camp is filled with many accounts of faith and sacrifice and dedication, but a full treatment of it was not within the scope of this novel. For those wishing to read the full account, Joseph Smith’s history includes the daily journal of the company’s travels (see
HC
3:87–148).
The story of the problem between Sister Harris and the wife of Thomas B. Marsh, including the response to the rulings of the various Church courts, is told by Joseph in the novel. But the details, and much of the exact wording, are taken from the account given by George A. Smith in general conference after the Saints arrived in Utah (see
JD
3:283–84).
Chapter 12
Joshua reined in and stood up in the stirrups, staring at the silent barricades and the ragged buildings behind them that marked the outskirts of DeWitt. His hand rested on the butt of his pistol as his eyes darted here and there, searching for trouble. But there was no one hiding behind the wall and no one out in front preparing to assault it.
Which was probably just as well, he thought. The wall was obviously hastily built. Boxes and crates were the mainstay, buttressed with nothing more substantial than a plank here, a broken chair there. It wouldn’t have taken much to breach it.
His eyes dropped. The grass was heavily trampled, and the dirt of the road was a mass of hoof and boot prints where man and animal had crossed and crisscrossed a hundred times. He lifted his head a little, letting his gaze take in a wider arc. Even without the barricades, it was obvious that an army had camped here. And not a very tidy one. Charred scars in the prairie sod marked the sites of now cold campfires. The place was littered with trash. Pieces of paper, empty boxes, wet and chewed cigar butts, scraps of food, stripped chicken bones, piles of horse droppings thick with buzzing flies—it was as though a glacier had swept through the garbage dump of a large town, then left its detritus here when it finally melted.
So the siege was over. The Mormons were gone. Joshua felt a tremendous sense of relief. As he nudged his horse forward and passed around the barricades, he kept scanning the ground for any signs of blood. He saw none, and felt the relief even more keenly than before. He kicked his horse into a trot and entered the main street of DeWitt.