The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana) (44 page)

After this, they came to the best part of the service. These Mormons believed that when the spirit moved a person, they were apt to burst out in an “unknown tongue.” So a period was set aside toward the end when one after another could get up and make whatever noises came natural. Sometimes it was perfectly straightaway, in English, and concerned with misdoing or temptation or sin. But often all hell broke loose, so to speak. This evening a young farmer sprang to his feet, was recognized by the chair as Hiram Snow, and told (did it very well, too) how he had been on a hay-ride and the younger sister of a friend of his wife’s had persisted in tickling his nose with a straw, lying there against him in the hay, and as they rode along, he had a very strong notion to slip his hand inside her shift. But did he do it? “I did not,” he said. “Only once, and not very far. At the eleventh hour, the dear blessed Jesus whispered
in my ear—‘Leave that virgin be. She can get you into a peck of trouble.’ ”

It was noticeable from the people nodding their heads that they approved of his upright behavior under stress, and he sat down looking self-satisfied and noble. This airing of people’s secrets may have been healthy; you could just feel the room crackle with excitement. Then a stout woman in an outlandish feathered bonnet jumped up, lay back her head like a chicken’s and began to holler, “Whoodledee whoodledee whoodledee geezledee geezledee gum.” It was outlandish. It gave me the goose-pimples. I commenced to look around for the exit, because it seemed like a pretty good chance they’d wind things up in a general free-for-all. But presently she tuckered out, and with a dying cackle or two, which sounded like “Goozoo, goozoo,” she flopped down, and her neighbors began to fan her, very anxious and kind.

Right here we found that any other member of the congregation, hearing this kind of uproar, was legally entitled to get up and claim that God had made him that person’s “interpreter,” and sure enough, a fellow did just so. “Sister Crenshaw was trying to convey that the dear Lord visited her in a dream last night and told her to forgive Sister Whitesides for calling her a big-mouthed frump,” he said. “Praise be for the glorious revelation.” Everybody baaed “?-men!” then another woman rose up, weaving from side to side, and said exactly as follows—both Lieutenant Gunnison and my father wrote it down:

“Melai, meli, melo, melooey.”

But as soon as she fell back, a very waggish-looking young man that I’d noticed before, because of his mischievous eyes, got up straightaway to cry:

“Dear me, dear me. I don’t interpret it fully, but Sister Burkhardt has just said, ‘My leg, my knee, my thigh, my—’ ”

There was a shocked gasp from the audience, not at the word itself, because anybody was apt to say that around here, but because her mind was straying in such coarse regions whilst in church.

The general feeling was that this young fellow had made up his
translation in the interest of sport. And afterward we heard he was hauled up before the Council to be punished. But he stuck to his story, insisting that his interpretation was “in the spirit,” and they let him off with a rebuke.

No matter how you viewed it, this was a bang-up meeting, full of surprises. I don’t recall when I ever enjoyed church quite so much. If you buckled down on this Mormonism, it seemed like a very good thing. If it didn’t do anything else, it kept people from getting overly bored.

It was now so late in the year that Mr. Kissel decided to let the farm job go. He continued working at the University while my father helped Brother Thomas tend store and Mr. Coe got a good jump on his book. Late one night, when I was supposed to be asleep, I heard them talking about sending me to school, and my heart skipped three or four beats.

“It isn’t as though the boy were usefully engaged,” said my father. “He and the Indian girl go fishing, and he helps Othello with chores, but the bald truth is that he hasn’t nearly enough to keep him busy.”

I didn’t waste a minute next day, but went down and got a job on Brigham Young’s pet project, his silkworm nursery, where they’d had a sign out: “Boy Wanted.” This scheme didn’t figure to break my back, either. It was nothing but a big room that had a lot of wire cages with imported silkworms in them, chewing away on mulberry leaves. It wasn’t fit work for a man, so they’d decided to hire a boy instead. All I had to do was feed the leaves to the worms. In other words, keep a sharp eye out, so that when a bunch gnawed its way clear—throw in some more leaves.

Eventually this way they were supposed to come up with silk. But somehow they never did. The Prophet dropped in now and then to check—it was his favorite place, almost. He’d look at me pretty sour, as though
I’d
misfired on the silk. It was annoysome. I didn’t have anything to do with it; I couldn’t
make
them give silk, and I told him so, said, “You can drive a horse to water, sir, but you can’t make him drink.”

“Very apt,” he remarked, not amused.

I said, “I’ll tell you what I suggest, if you don’t mind—I suggest prayer. If one or two of the leading elders got down on their knees and worked with these chaps, same as with a convert, it might get them over the hump.”

“Confine your attentions to the leaves,” he said, and left.

Even with this job, which took six hours a day, I failed to get off scot-free on the schooling. Mr. Coe volunteered to my father that he’d tutor Po-Povi and me awhile each evening before supper “in English literature and the classics.”

“That’s handsome of you, Coe,” said my father. “It’s like you. But I’d better warn you what you’re up against. The boy’s basically fine, plenty of common sense, good bone structure, but he hasn’t an ounce of learning capacity. Head’s solid concrete, more like a gorilla than a human.”

“Oh, come, doctor. He seems perfectly intelligent to me. The fact is,” said Coe, his eyes twinkling, “I’ve noticed that there are times when he appears to outwit us all.”

“After an hour’s Latin he had the impression that Julius Caesar was a handy man in a Louisville feed store. To give you a rough idea.”

“Let’s try him, if it suits you, and the Indian child, too. It would give me pleasure.”

I was so blue, I’d have jumped in Salt Lake—if there’d been any chance to sink. I talked it over with Po-Povi, and right there I found what she was really like. I’d had the feeling all along there was something treacherous about this Indian; now I knew it.

“Yes,” she said. “I wish to. I speak in the white man’s tongue as a bird flies with a broken wing.”

“You
want
to go to school? On
purpose?
If I had time,” I said, “I’d tell you what they tried to do to me back in Louisville.”

But it didn’t do any good. We had the first lesson that afternoon, and I hate to admit it, but it was fun. This Coe was a born teacher. With him, it wasn’t a duty; he enjoyed what he was telling. He read about a man named Robinson Crusoe, who got lodged on a
ripping good island, then spent all his time trying to get off, like a lunatic, and then he told us about the green English countryside, and a big house named Blandford Hall, and finally he read us a poem called
St. Agnes Eve.
It was beautiful. I never realized about that sort of thing before. In Louisville they missed the whole point of these poems. They picked them to pieces. Count the similes, rake out the metaphors, how many feet in a line? It hadn’t anything to do with literature; it was more like carving up a pig.

“That’s all for today, Jaimie, my lad. You got on splendidly.”

I felt embarrassed; I didn’t know what to say. Finally I blurted out, “It wasn’t as bad as I thought—nowhere near.”

“Same time tomorrow. Cheerio for now.”

He kept Po-Povi after school, so to speak, because he said he would teach her to read. Her face was shining when I closed the door. I’d never seen her so happy. A man old enough to be her father.

A month or so ran by. Winter came early to the valley of the Great Salt Lake that year. In November we had our first snowfall, a dry, white powdery dust driven by a chill north wind. Our adobe house was warm and snug, we were saving up our money; the mules and Spot had been hired out to a farmer; and the wagons stashed in a safe place. Our impatience to wait for spring was almost forgotten. In fact, we would have been content except for Mrs. Kissel. She couldn’t seem to get her strength back. But it was practically by force that my father managed to keep her in bed.

On November fifteenth we had a short note from Bridger, delivered by an Indian boy who stole a silver candlestick before he left: “Hoping this finds your party well and harmonious with the Saints. You will never meet an abler or friendlier people, but they’re notiony.
It would not do to cross them.
I am making a winter trip to Salt Lake City, exact time undecided. Trading here good, especially in gray wolf pelts. I have twenty-five hanging outside the house. It may be you heard about our cloudburst of October. No
serious damage, but the island washed thirty yards down the river. Both wives seasick during the trip.”

Then this curious addition: “By now, you may be visited for proselyting purposes. Be firm but courteous. If possible, strike an attitude of permanent indecision. If things develop that you need advice, send word by Brother Hugh Marlowe.
Brother Hugh Marlowe. Don’t fail to do it fast.
When read, destroy this note.”

And a final P.S.: “Messenger bringing this is a brother of my younger wife. He has established some local reputation as a pickpocket and sneak. Generally thought to have a bright future. He should go far, unless plugged. Undersigned will replace what he steals. Kindly prepare inventory. J.B.”

True to the prediction, we had two visitors one evening soon—a Brother Muller, a heavy, pimpled, loutish fellow with stained and jagged teeth set in a wet, half-opened mouth, and Elder Beasely, a church leader. They dropped in, took chairs stiffly, holding their black hats in their laps, and talked in an aimless, dull way about crops, building, and Indian troubles for half an hour. We knew about this Beasely, who was dark and smug-looking, though dour, as if he had a stomach-ache, but nothing about Muller. Beasely was the one who’d tried to destroy the Utes’ food supply during the middle of summer. In the driest season, the Utes commonly burn off the untilled fields of the Valley, along with the mountain slopes that have cover, to roast the millions of crickets there. These they gather up, then mix them into a thick, gummy, purplish paste, and eat it all winter. For a delicacy, Major Bridger said, this paste had it over the yellow-juicy grubs that the Worm Eater Indians favor. Beasely’s idea was to punish the few hostiles by burning off the fields and starving the whole tribe to death. But Brigham Young called the plan “inhumane, indoctrinaire, and generally unworthy.” Beasely was the leader of a very nasty faction among these Mormons, which recommended harshness, and even violence, whenever possible. He was also thought by some to be the leader of a secret and terrible society of Mormons that was organized in Missouri, called the Big Fan. The object of this bloodthirsty bunch, which
had recognition signs and private words, called Key Words, was to hunt down and murder all backsliders: converts who got sick of Mormonismi and left the Church. The boy that told me this said if I ever peached on him, he’d likely be killed. He said the society was now known as the Danites and that the persons they did away with, including some Gentiles, too, for one reason or another, were said to have “slipped their breath.” This boy’s mother and father were against such goings-on, but they never said so outside the house.

Twice, to our knowledge, Beasely had insisted on the full church punishment, decapitation, for plural-marriage brides who had been caught misbehaving. But he didn’t win out on this, either. Nobody was decapitated during our stay, though a few women were stripped entirely nude and lashed with a cat-of-nine-tails, by their husbands, in view of Beasely’s committee. Somebody said he seemed to relish it, being uncommonly religious even for a Mormon, and would grow flushed and sweaty, while shouting prayer aloud in a kind of frenzy as the naked women twisted and screamed. But when it was over, he was limp and loose, as if he had really driven the devil out. Most everybody was afraid of him, he was so religious.

Anyway, here he sat and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. It took him a tiresome while to get to the point, but Brother Muller, who was a German-Swiss, said little or nothing at all. Except for John and Shep, I don’t know when I ever took a heartier dislike to anybody.

“Brother McPheeters, Brother Coe, Brother Kissel,” said Beasely, “we have welcomed you all, we have opened our gates and our hearts. You have asked for work, and the Prophet has given you work. Won’t you, now, open your hearts to us? You say you seek gold—where is a richer lode than the strength in these sweet, well-watered fields? Acres and acres—a valley of five hundred miles—and ready for tillage, practically without cost, for any and all converts to the true faith.”

Brother Muller leaned over and tugged at Beasely’s coat. “Say it about the girl.”

“After the baptismal immersion, Brother Muller has expressed his willingness to have the widow”—he waved toward Jennie, whose eyes began snapping with anger—“sealed to him in wedlock.” In view of the difference in their condition—Brother Muller part owner of a thriving brewery on the one hand, and on the other a husbandless pauper—his gesture is generous; it’s more than that—it’s Saintly. It is typical of Brother Muller.”

“I like ones with something to get a-hold of,” said Brother Muller, showing us his bad teeth. He didn’t address anything directly to Jennie, but that was in line with the Mormons’ feeling about women. Women were considered inferior by the Church. If there was only one seat available, nobody would dream of giving it to a woman. She must get up and turn it over to a man. And she must never try to go through a door ahead of a man, otherwise the last part of her through was apt to get a whack. Women were only “child-tenders,” and should not be made the objects of “Gentile gallantry and fashion.”

I could see Jennie starting to get up and explode, but my father made a soothing gesture, and said, “We are honored, greatly honored, Elder Beasely, by your invitation to join the Church. But I feel that you, one of the intellectual heralds of your faith, will appreciate that this step should not be taken lightly. You would never respect us if we changed our devotion as casually as we change our garments. We view Salt Lake City with admiration, but we need time for study. To be converted to a new faith is to be reborn; some of us have not, ah, shed the old skin.”