The Mormon Prophet, Lily Dougall [young adult books to read TXT] 📗

marvelled at the baby intercourse he held with them, at the likes and dislikes displayed among these pigmy associates; and the other mothers had like sources of interest in these interviews.

One among the emigrants, a dark-eyed woman of about forty years of age, was of better position and education than the others. One morning she noticed Susannah's child very kindly, speaking of things that did not lie on the surface of life.

"There is a seeking look in his eyes," the lady said; "he smiles, he plays with us all, but he looks beyond for something. I have seen that look in the eyes of children who were in pain, but yours is at ease."

"He has his father's eyes," Susannah sighed. "My husband is always looking for a virtue that seems to me impossible."

Both women turned toward an open grassy space in the midst of the clustered houses where Halsey was now standing, Bible in hand, teaching a little group of children to repeat the beatitudes. Only four children, one sickly boy and three girls, were willing to stand and repeat the lesson; others had straggled away and were shouting at their play.

Not far from where Halsey stood some fifteen of the neighbours had gathered together to put up a new wooden house; piles of sweet-smelling deal lay about them as they worked.

Just then on the road from Far West a horse bearing an old man was seen straining itself to the swiftest gallop. The old man began to shout as he came within hearing. No one could understand what he said. He shouted more loudly, and many women ran out of their doors to see his arrival. Before his words were articulate a cloud of dust was seen rising round a turning of the same road, and a large company of horsemen came swiftly into view.

The old man's voice was raised in a cry, but only the accent of terror was intelligible. He threw himself off his horse, brandishing his arms. Afterwards it was known that he wanted the villagers to take refuge in their houses, but now they only stared the more at him and at the small army that was approaching.

Susannah heard a shot; then she was deafened by the sound of a volley of muskets. Paralysed, she stood staring down the road, unable to believe that the two or three hundred mounted men had deliberately levelled their muskets and fired. Then all around her she became aware of shrieks and sobs and prayers that went up to God. The brown-eyed Gentile lady who stood beside her had fallen in a curious attitude at her feet.

Susannah darted into the emigrants' tent and, putting down the child, dragged the lady within. She perceived to her horror that the lady was shot; the bullet had passed through her neck. Not knowing whether she was dead or dying, Susannah stretched her on the floor. Then she lifted her hands above her head, wrung them together in agony of nerve and thought. She remembered afterwards looking upward in the cave of the warm tent and saying aloud "O God! O God!" many times.

The first thing she saw was her child standing watching her; both his little brown fists were full of flowers. Hearing the sound of horses trampling near, loud voices, and occasional shots, she bethought her that the canvas of the tent was no protection for the child, and, snatching him in her arms, she ran madly out into the sunshine and into the open war.

A large number of the horsemen had already passed on down the road; the sounds that came from them seemed to be of oaths and laughter. A number were still galloping in and out among the houses; the ground was strewed with bodies of the dead and wounded; the able-bodied, it seemed, must have suddenly huddled within their doors.

Susannah remembered her husband now, remembered where he had been standing. She forgot all else; she rushed toward the middle of the green, drawing back only when some of the horsemen dashed across her path to follow their fellows. They stared at her and, as they went, called to some who were still behind them.

One of these came on, checked his horse, and looked in Susannah's face insultingly. No doubt her eyes were dazed, and she looked to him like a mad woman, but she remembered afterwards that the child showed anger and babbled that the horseman was a bad man. At this the rider took out his pistol and pointed it at the child and fired and rode off laughing.

Susannah saw the young Danite bending over her. His words were hoarse and so sorrowful that she gathered from their tone that she was in great distress before she understood their purport or memory awoke. "Ma'am," he said, "I'll take you down to your own waggon by the creek."

She found herself sitting on the ground, her child in her arms. The child was dead; she knew that as soon as she looked at him. There was a little trickle of blood upon the light frock over his heart, but not much.

As yet no women, only a few men, had ventured forth, and the sound of the enemy's horses and shouting were still in the air. Susannah rose up, folding in her arms the body of the child; the momentum of her first intention was upon her will and muscles; she moved straight on toward the place where she had last seen Halsey.

The young Danite took hold of her sleeve when he perceived whither she went.

"'Tisn't no use, ma'am. Some of the brothers have attended to him."

Susannah looked straight in the young man's face with perfect courage. "Is he dead?"

But the Danite had not courage for this; he turned away and put his arm over his eyes; she heard him grind his teeth in dumb passion.

Some of the men and women lying on the grass were moaning or screaming with the pain of their injuries. The thought that Halsey might be in like pain made Susannah imperative. "Is he dead?" she asked again in precise repetition of tone and accent. "Is he dead?"

The Danite lifted his head. "He is quite dead, and I marked the man that did it, and I marked the man that did this too." He touched reverently, not the child, but the wilting asters that were still grasped in the baby hand. "If I'd only had a gun--but"--he ground his teeth again and muttered, "God helping me, they shall both die."

Susannah understood nothing then but the first part of this speech.

By this time many of the women and children had again flocked out of the houses. It was reported that the horsemen had been a detachment of State militia, that one of them had taken the trouble to explain to a wounded man that they had received orders from Governor Boggs to exterminate the Mormons. Immediately by other frightened tongues it was stated that the armed company were halting round the turn of the road, intending to return and shoot again when the people had come out from shelter. At this the greater number made a stampede for a thicket of poplar and willow saplings that was near the creek. The Danite still held by Susannah's sleeve.

"Where is my husband?" she again asked. She had not moved since he last spoke to her.

Some men were busy laying the dead, of whom there were eighteen, on the floor of a shed which was not far off. Susannah and the Danite moved about together and found Halsey lying still on the green, his limbs decently composed, his eyes for ever shut. The bearers were about to lift him, but the Danite interposed. He had an excited fancy concerning Susannah's dead and what must be done for them. He lifted Halsey easily in both his arms and walked away, Susannah following with the dead child.

Without a word they went till they came to Halsey's camp. Nothing had been touched since Susannah left in the morning. The Danite, remembering the camp as he had seen it a few evenings before, looked about him now curiously, and laid Halsey down on the very spot where he had stood to plead for a divine righteousness.

It was not a time for words. Having deposited his burden, he looked to Susannah, but she had no directions to give. She sat down beside her husband, as though preparing to remain.

"I thought you'd like to lay them both out here, but I guess I ought to get you into the bush, ma'am."

"I will stay here," she said; "you had better go to help some one else."

The cries of the wounded were still heard from the vicinity of the houses. A crowd of the uninjured people were to be seen making their way through the first bushes of the thicket. They seemed to be carrying the wounded thither, for men bearing shutters, and doors upon which the sick were stretched now started in the direction of the bush. There was need for help, as the Danite well saw; then, too, inactivity was torture. He left Susannah and ran back to bear his part in the common task.

When almost every other living soul was lost in the close thicket he came again, approaching the camp with soft footsteps, peering anxiously. Susannah had laid the child in his father's arms. Their enemies seemed to have taken aim for the heart, for Halsey's wound was also there. She had so laid the child within his arms, heart to heart, that no sign of injury appeared. She sat by them now, sobbing her tearless sobs, stroking gently, sometimes the hair of the child, more often the thick locks of light hair that lay above her husband's brow. She was talking to them between her sobs in rapid phrases exactly as if they were not dead. The young Danite was sure that she had lost her wits; he leant against a tree confounded.

Susannah was saying, "I wanted to keep baby, Angel, I wanted so much to keep him, but I could not have taught him your way; there was no use telling you that before, for you could not understand. When you told me that you would go you did not tell me you meant to take baby. You have the best right to him, dear, he is all yours, but oh! remember--remember that I will be very lonely--very lonely--O Angel." There were a few moments of wordless moans and sobs, but she went on clearly enough, "I want you to know, Angel, that I never was disappointed in you--never disappointed in you, dear; and about my lack of faith--it would have been no use to tell you before, would it?"

She took her hand from Halsey's hair and played a moment with the rings of gold on the baby's head lying on his breast. She laid her hand upon Halsey's hands that she had clasped together above the child. "It is better for you to have baby with you. I could not have taught him your thoughts. It is better, dear, isn't it?"

The earnest inflection of her voice in these interrogations brought so wild a sense of pathos to the Danite's heart that his eyes filled with tears and brimmed over, but Susannah's sobs were like a nervous gasping of which she was scarcely conscious, and no hint of tears.

She lightly touched the baby hand that was lying on its father's shoulder, still grasping the blue blossoms. "See," she sobbed, "he has brought his flowers to you; he always