The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (43 page)

They meant to make this University the finest anywhere, and the handsomest. Kissel pitched in first at a big square given over for an athletic field and equestrian ring. I went out with him the first day, and it was jolly to see how he relished getting back in harness. The sun rose up, so he stripped off his shirt, and how his shoulder and arm muscles rippled and jumped! Removing some pesky root, he’d flash his ax high, which made him look exactly like some old wrestler in one of those Roman or Greek pictures. A number of Mormon men stopped to admire him, and then a couple of women, bringing lunches, but these were hustled right along. Another emigrant working there, a red-bearded Irishman whose family lived in a wagon on the outskirts of town, said he reckoned these were members of a sizable harem, but were likely far down on “the servicing list,” but I didn’t know what he meant. Anyway he was a rough, rude fellow, always spitting, and worse; and once, he relieved himself directly before everybody, not bothering to turn his back. There was grumbling about it, because the women were still there, and pretty curious too.

Oddly, the boss on this job was a Gentile, who had been hired to
come out by Mormon recruiters. They did that right along-rounded up artisans and other skilled men with the promise of high salaries and cheap land to buy—“for two or three shillings an acre.” The boss liked Kissel and told him he could work on the astronomy observatory when they finished the athletic field, if he wanted to. They were erecting an engineering building and a big agricultural department and a school that would teach “the living, spoken languages of all people throughout the earth.”

As I said, this was going to be a show place, and no mistake. They even had plans for a “Parents School,” for the heads of families, and Brigham Young himself had announced he would enroll as an ordinary scholar, which people said showed his true size, because there wasn’t any record in another religion of a Prophet going back to school like a boy in knee-pants. One or two said you’d have waited till Doomsday before Mohammed or Buddha or one of those fellows could have buckled down so. This Parents School struck me as a very good idea. It was what had been needed all along, the one big missing link in the Louisville education, for instance. If parents were obliged to turn up, and sit sweating through all those classes, watching the clock, listening to a group of pea-brained bores dribble on about William the Conqueror, hounded and harried by truant officers if they knocked off to go fishing, they’d likely get their skin full of it quick and tone down the whole system.

The trouble with parents is, their memories get rusty. And as soon as they forget, they change. The truth is that parents are nothing but children gone sour. This school was well advised, because it might yank them back over the years and make them see things clearly again, as children do unless overeducated.

As far as my parent was concerned, the one working at Thomas’ Emporium, he was having a picnic of a time. He was happier than he’d ever been doctoring, because now the responsibility belonged to somebody else. Moreover, he enjoyed meeting the people. He had spruced up his clothes, bought a marked-down vest from the proprietor with a hole in it, laying the cost against his salary, and placed a very splayed-out blue flower in his buttonhole. He was a
sight. And when somebody requested a yard of muslin or half a pound of tea, how he spread himself. No stranger could have told him from the owner. Thomas sort of took a back seat, being entirely willing to do so because my father was a born salesman. He really made things move. He’d peter out on it presently, as I knew from past experience, but-right now it looked as though he might empty the shelves by New Year’s. Before a week was out, he was on speaking terms with practically everyone in the city, Saints
and
Gentiles.

But he simply couldn’t resist pulling old Thomas’ leg about religion. During a lull one morning when I dropped in, he said:

“Brother Thomas,” (all the Mormons called people brethren and sisteren, even outsiders) “I’ve been deep in study on theology, but I’m having trouble with your definition of Gentile. Perhaps you could enlighten me.”

This Thomas was a skinny old buzzard with a turkey-gobbler neck that slid up and down when he talked, which wasn’t often, unless it involved cash.

“In what way, Brother McPheeters? I’m not a priest nor an elder; I’m only a humble Saint.”

“The stickler in my mind is this: what, exactly,
is
a Gentile?”

“Why that’s clear enough, unless I’m mistaken. Anybody who is not a Saint.”

“Does that include Jews? In other words, where do Palestinian Jews fit into the picture?”

Brother Thomas replied with some heat. “Jews, as they call themselves, are not actually Jews. They’re mixed up on that. The Latter-Day Saints of the Church of Jesus Christ are the only true descendants of the Tribe of Israel.”

“You mean to say, then, that Jews are, in fact, Gentiles?”

Thomas was getting a little rattled, but he said, “You’ve oversimplified things, but I do know this—
all others besides Saints are Gentiles
, so stated in the Book of Mormon.”

“The Saints, then, are the only authentic Jews, is that correct?”

“I’ve never heard it stated in just that way. I don’t believe you
have it right. I don’t think the priests would put it as you have put it. I do know this: there was a trader through here, a very likable and honest man, named Solomon Isaacs, but he got into a dispute with one of our people, not overly popular, who called him a ‘dirty Gentile.’ Isaacs was boiling-mad and took it to the Council on the ground of slander. He said if it was necessary to be cussed, he had a right to be called a ‘dirty Jew,’ according to the traditional view of his race, which he had got used to, whereas the other jangled his nerves. I disremember how it turned out.”

My father leaned over the counter, like a lawyer in court, and said, “Do you, Brother Thomas, consider yourself a Jew?”

“Why, of course not,” he answered indignantly. “There isn’t a drop of Jewish blood on either side of the family. We’re Scotch-Irish, and English, right on back.”

“Then you’re a Gentile?”

“Naturally. Confound it, do I
look
Jewish?”

“So—you’re a what, did you say?”

“Gen—
Saint,”
cried Thomas, turning pale. “See here, Brother McPheeters, I don’t know the purpose of this, but it isn’t healthy talk. Just you get back to work—there’s a customer, so drop the nonsense and get busy.”

“Good morning, madam, good morning,” cried my father, sweeping forward in his most flourishy manner. “What can we do for you? We’re running a special on Gents’ Hose and Gaiters. We’re pushing them, three sets for the quarter. On a somewhat different level, we’ve got a secondhand piano knocked down very reasonable. Two No. 3 steel buttons? Certainly, Sister. That will be three cents. And we thank you. It’s warm for this time of year.” He bowed her out, and I left. I’d heard all I cared to for one day.

Two nights later we went to Service at the Bowery. Emigrants were permitted to attend, but not to take part. It was interesting, though fuzzy in spots. I never saw anything quite like it in the religious line. One of the main Mormon notions was that people should approach worship in a cheerful and happy spirit, so as to let the good thoughts in, and they often told how Joseph Smith, in
Missouri, would greet a pious, long-faced convert by offering to wrestle him in the middle of a public street. In that way he eased the tension and made way for the good fun to follow.

To me, this bunch seemed contradictory. They preached sport and jollity, holding dances, parties, hayrides and all, but for those who broke the rules there was an underlying threat of punishment that was downright scary. They
were
scary, these Mormon leaders: there wasn’t any bluff to them. Several times that winter they sent out posses to overhaul and return, from hundreds of miles off, backsliders who had crossed them in some way, even women.

Anyhow, before this service at the Bowery, they had the Nauvoo Brass Band out, and it played anthems, marches, and waltzes, preparing the minds for the sermon to follow.

When everybody was assembled, the bishops and the elders filed in, and things opened up with a Mormon hymn: my father copied it down:

There were other verses just as ornery, and the people joined in and made the windows rattle. I looked at my father, who had a hymn book open and was braying like a jackass, though why he should have been so eager to jump on the Gentiles, I don’t know. It was unsettling; you could hear him above all the rest. He always sang so back in Louisville, too, in a kind of falsey-strained voice that was supposed to sound pious, I reckon, but he didn’t have the religion of a polecat, as everybody knew.

After the hymn, the people sat down with the rustly stirring they always make at an intermission in church, joggling the books in the slots, fixing their skirts, rearranging their feet, clearing their throats,
and so on. Then Elder Ezra T. Benson gave a report on his committee’s road-work, saying how they’d drawn on the Treasury for the money appropriated, and after that an elder got up and made a long-winded string of announcements, some of them downright curious. He led off by saying that the California Lion had recently been seen, and even killed, in this Valley, according to reports, but he got a general laugh by remarking, “It’s only a rumor; I haven’t saw one myself. I’d be obliged if somebody would show me a stuffed skin.” Some of the Mormons around us—men scrubbed up with their neck skin red and cracked from working in the sun, women in bonnets, twisting and turning to see what their neighbors had on, same as congregations everywhere—laughed so loud they almost busted their sides. They enjoyed a good joke as much as anyone.

The announcements droned on. On Tuesday, two gardens had been damaged by emigrants’ cattle, which cost the owners seventy-four dollars in fines. Would the emigrants kindly camp a little further from the city, “thereby saving their money and leaving the vegetables to grow? Thank you.” An Elder Bullock had married a young couple named Throgmorton during the week, and afterward supped on green peas. The Council of Health would meet Wednesdays hereafter, and give advice gratis, from 3 to 4
P.M
. The Utes were getting uppity again and had attacked a Snake village nearby, burning six lodges. It looked as if they might have to be punished some more. The Stake of Zion in the Sandwich Islands was prospering, according to the latest report of Apostle Parley B. Pratt there, and soon would be sending Hawaiian converts to Salt Lake City. As to the Stakes in Europe, converts were piled up in those countries—specially England and Wales—by the hundreds of thousands, waiting to come to America. Thirty-five thousand were said to be collected at Liverpool alone. The slave trade on the African coast was very brisk just now, the average price of souls on the current market being thirty-two dollars. Thursday evening a concert would be held at the Tithing and Post
Onice
, “when we shall endeavor to introduce a variety of sentimental and comic pieces which will be new to the people of Deseret generally, together with some
original pieces. Those who love music will have the privilege of enjoying it for a few hours, at a small cost.”

And so on.

While all the talk went on, a Welsh interpreter, a squatty little man with a bald head and black-rimmed eyes, from maybe not yet getting all the coal dust out, stood in the left-hand aisle and interpreted. There were several hundred Welsh Mormons in Salt Lake, and more in other settlements of America, not yet arrived out here, and most of these couldn’t speak English, made noises that sounded like somebody plucking the strings of a bass violin, with a lot of
“lud wud duds,”
and such like. So they had this Welsh interpreter in church.

After the announcements, they said we were in for a treat, in addition to the regular sermon that evening, which was by an Elder Griggs. Brigham Young himself was going to say a few words. This was always enjoyable, because he
was
a good speaker—exciting, and what Coe described as “occasionally eloquent,” and because of his superior profanity. All of these Mormons used words that other people would consider scandalous, but Brigham Young had the widest vocabulary. He could make the best swearers among them sound dull. People envied him, but they weren’t jealous. A thing like that is a gift, and, to give them credit, these Mormons were open-minded enough to recognize it.

This evening the Prophet’s remarks were about “the new fornication pants,” which buttoned up the front. A lot of us didn’t entirely get his drift, though I saw some women turn red, but his way of stating it was enjoyed by all. “The Church is against these pants,” he said, but I won’t tell everything he said. “They’re an invention of the devil. They make things too easy; it’s a temptation, and takes your mind off your work. I heard of a case in San Francisco where a man’s hardly had his buttoned up since he got them. If I can help it, the Latter-Day Saints of the Church of Jesus Christ will wear pants that open on the sides; they’re plenty good enough, and speedy enough, for us in Salt Lake City. And I hope the women don’t encourage things to the contrary.”

It’s hard to get the religious flavor of his address into a book meant for family use, but he
was
, as stated, an uncommonly interesting speaker. My father put some exact phrases into his Journals, but he marked that section “Private and Personal,” and later we met a Lieutenant Gunnison, of the Army Engineers, who planned to write a complete, honest book on the Mormons, but he said he would only “mention the profanity in salvo, and not do any sharp-shooting.” Still and all, he
did
put in some pretty raw stuff about Joseph Smith, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, but I’ll tell all that in good time.

Elder Griggs now arose and bored everybody half-witted with a windy discourse on “doctrine.” I don’t think a soul understood it, least of all Griggs. It was about the so-called Melchizedek priesthood, and somebody named Michael, who had hair made out of wool, which sounds likely, and the Noachian deluge, in the days of Peleg, and a place called Beulah Land, which I searched for in a geography book, but couldn’t find anything closer than Bolivia, so I reckon that’s what he meant. Altogether, it was as sapping an ordeal as I could remember. Neither was I able to get in position to snooze; the seats were too hard.