Miss Dividends Part 14

Looking over this scene, the girl murmurs, "How peaceful--how beautiful!" and next, "How wonderful," and a moment after, gazing at the great Mormon Tabernacle, she mutters, "How awful!" for in the two hours pa.s.sed upon the train coming from Ogden to Salt Lake, Harry Lawrence has told her, as delicately as a young man can tell a maiden, of this peculiar city into which she has just come, and she knows quite well the peculiar creed of the Church of Latter-Day Saints.

She has learnt how this sect, founded upon the so-called revelation from the Almighty, made to Joseph Smith, and Hyrum, his brother, in about 1847, driven out from Illinois and afterwards from Missouri, had left civilization behind them, and pa.s.sing over a thousand of miles of prairie and mountain, inhabited only by savage Indians and trappers and hunters, had come by ox-teams, on horseback, by hand carts and on foot, enduring for long months all the privations and dangers of the wilderness, to this far-off valley to build a Mormon empire. For that is surely what their leaders had hoped.

The civilization of the East seemed to them so far off a hundred years might not bring it to them, across those boundless rolling prairies and that five hundred miles of mountain country. To the West were more deserts, and beyond a land scarcely known at that time, and inhabited only by Indians, save where some Mexican mission stood surrounded by its little orchard and vineyard, in that land that is now called California.

In this hope of empire, the Mormon leaders had built up polygamy, which, having been begun for l.u.s.t, they now preached, continued, and fostered to produce the power that numbers give. For this reason the order had been given, "Increase and multiply, that you may cover the land," and it was cried out from pulpit and tabernacle "that Utah's best crop was children;" and missionaries and Mormon propagandists were sent out over both Europe and America to make converts to the new religion. So, many Scandinavians, Welsh and English, were taken into the faith and came to live in the Utah valleys, and thought this religion of Joseph Smith a very good one--for they were chiefly the sc.u.m of Europe--and now had land to cultivate and plenty with which to fill their stomachs, while in their native lands they had often hungered.

For the Mormon hierarchy hoped, in the distant future, when the civilization from the Eastern States had reached them, to be increased by immigration and multiplication from thousands into millions; and peopling the whole land, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, to be strong enough to dominate Mexico if she dared complain of their occupation of North California, and even to give battle to these United States of America.

And to the eyes of Brigham and his satellites came the dream of a Mormon empire, holding dominion over the Pacific, ruled over by the Priesthood of the faith of Joseph Smith and the Council of Seventies, and above them the President and Vice-President, descendants of Brigham Young and Heber Kimball and others high in rank and power in the theocracy of the so-called Latter-Day Saints.

All of these plans might have borne fruit and have been realized had it not been that one day in 1848 gold was discovered near Sutter's Fort in California, and the rush of adventurers to the western El Dorado peopled its fertile valleys and mineral-bearing mountains and great grain-raising plains with a population who worshipped Jehovah and not Joe Smith. Then the Mexican war having given Arizona and Texas and the Pacific States to the United States, Brigham Young and his emigrants found themselves surrounded and cut off in and about the valley of Salt Lake. But still they continued to increase and multiply and make the desert about them fertile and populated, still hoping to be strong enough to resist foreign domination, for they regarded the United States as such, and treated its laws, if not as null and void, at least as secondary to the commands of their prophet and priesthood, until one day in 1862 Pat Conner and his California Volunteers marched in from the Humboldt, and crossing the Jordan, despite the threats of the Mormon leaders, set up the United States flag at Camp Douglas.

Then Mormon hopes, from that of independent empire, fell to the wish to be simply left alone, to do as they pleased in their own country, as they termed it, and to follow out the revelations of their prophets, taking unto themselves as many wives as they chose, unhindered by the United States laws.

But in 1869, when the Central and Union Pacific Railways were opened, bringing in a horde of Gentiles from all the corners of the world to delve in their mountains for gold, silver and lead, then the struggle of the Mormon theocracy became one not for power, but even for existence.

It is just in this state as Erma gazes at its metropolis.

This last great fight of the Mormon Church is being made without the sacrifice and the cutting off from the face of the earth of their enemies, for though the prophets of Zion would preach "blood atonement"

to their followers with as much gusto in 1871 as they did twenty years before, when they cut off the Morrisites, root and branch, or in 1857, when, headed by John D. Lee, they ma.s.sacred one hundred and thirty-three emigrants, men, women and children, or in 1866, when they a.s.sa.s.sinated Dr. Robinson, luring him from his own door on a professional errand of mercy to a wounded man, as well as many other murders, "cuttings off behind the ears" and "usings up," done in the name of the Lord and in pursuit of mammon, l.u.s.t and power, at such various times and places as seemed good, safe and convenient to the Apostles; still, even before 1871 the rush of Gentile immigration and the United States troops at Camp Douglas had taught them caution in their slaughterings.

Most of this has been explained to Miss Travenion by her escort and mentor of the morning, but he has not descanted very minutely upon Celestial Marriage, which permits a man to take wives not only for this world, but also to have any number of others sealed to him for eternity; the doctrine that woman takes her rank in Heaven according to the station and glory of her husband. That under these theories, men have often taken two sisters to wife, and sometimes even mother and daughter.

That a great part of the theory, as also the practice, of the Saints of Latter Days, is founded upon the social degradation of woman. All these things she does not know, though she will perchance some day learn more fully concerning them.

But the day is too sunny and bright for meditation, and the soft breeze from the Wahsatch incites Erma to action. Just then there is a light feminine knock on her door, and Louise's voice cries merrily: "Hurry, Erma; mamma is down-stairs at breakfast and wants to see you. She has so many questions to ask. Ferdie has just told her about his being saved from death by Captain Lawrence, and is singing his praises."

Being perhaps anxious to sing the young Western man's praises herself, Miss Travenion, with a happy laugh, trips out and kisses Louise, and the two girls run down to the dining-room, where they find Mrs. Livingston still pale and palpitating over Ferdie's escape, though apparently with a very good appet.i.te, notwithstanding Mr. Chauncey has made his narrative very highly colored, stating that he had knocked the desperado down and would have done him up if it had not been for his bowie-knife.

"All the same," he adds, just as Erma seats herself at the table, "that Lawrence is a regular thoroughbred--a Western hero, and saved my life in that barroom."

"I should think you would be ashamed of yourself," says Mr. Livingston, airily, during pauses in his breakfast, "to admit a.s.sociating with barroom loafers!"

"Barroom loafers?" cries Erma. "Whom do you mean?" and she looks at Ollie in so resolute and defiant a manner that he hesitates to take up the cudgels with her.

Therefore he mutters rather sulkily, "Oh, if you are going to make this Lawrence your hero I have nothing more to say," and glumly pitches into the beefsteak that is in front of him; but, all the same, hates Harry a little more than he has ever done.

Anxious to put an end to a discussion which does her son no good in the eyes of the young lady she regards as his _fiancee_, Mrs. Livingston proposes a sight-seeing drive about the city.

"You will come with us, Erma?" she adds.

"With pleasure," answers the girl. "Perhaps on the main street I may see papa."

"By Jove," laughs Ferdie. "You're always thinking of papa now. But you forgot him a _little_--last night at Ogden, eh?"

To this insinuation Erma answers nothing, but rises from the table with a heightened color on her cheeks.

Noticing this, Mrs. Livingston thinks it just as well that her _protegee_ sees no more of the Western mining man, and is rather relieved when Mr. Chauncey informs her Captain Lawrence has departed for Tintic, and will not return for several days.

Then they take a long drive about the city, the hackman condescendingly acting as _cicerone_ to the party, and pointing out the Tabernacle and the proposed Temple, the foundations of which have just been laid, and the Endowment House and the t.i.thing Office, and the Beehive and Lion House, in which Brigham Young, the president of the Latter-Day Saints, keeps the major portion of his harem; though he has houses and wives almost all over the Territory.

Next, coming down from Eagle Gate, they pa.s.s the Mormon theatre with its peculiar cla.s.sic front made up of two different kinds of Greek architecture, and so on to East Temple Street, by G.o.dby's drug store, and the great block of Zion's Mercantile Co-operative Inst.i.tution, till they come to Warden Bussey's Bank, upon which Erma and Mr. Livingston have letters of credit.

So they enter here, draw some money, and are kindly received by Mr.

Bussey himself, their letters from the East bringing them favor in this Gentile banker's eyes, who has just made a large fortune by speculating in Emma stock. He shows them over the new banking-house he has just erected, and tells them he is going to open it with a grand ball, and hopes they will come to the same; remarking that Mrs. Bussey will call upon them and do all she can for their entertainment during their stay in this Western city.

Then they return to the Townsend House, but during all this drive, though Erma Travenion's eyes, which are quite far-sighted, have searched the pa.s.sing crowd of speculators, Mormons and Western business men, seeking for one form and one face--her father's--she has not seen it. As the afternoon pa.s.ses she becomes more impatient, and says, "I have lost a day in which his dear face might have been beside me."

Then an idea coming to her, she mutters: "Why did I not think of it before? I will go where I address my father's letters; there they will know where he is." And calling a hack, says to the driver, "The Deseret Co-operative Bank!"

Arriving there, shortly before the hour of closing, three o'clock, she hurriedly asks the paying-teller if he can tell her the address of Mr.

Ralph Travenion.

To her astonishment, the man answers quite politely that he does not know the individual.

"Why, I have directed a hundred letters to him here," she says hurriedly, surprise in her voice, and a moment after asks: "Can I see the cashier or the president?"

"Certainly. The president is in."

In an inner office, she meets the head of the bank, and to her question as to whether he knows the address of Ralph Travenion, he hesitates a moment--then answers that they frequently have letters addressed to their care, though they do not always keep run of the parties who call for them.

"Very well," replies the young lady. "Would you be kind enough to give orders to this effect, that in case Mr. Travenion calls, or sends for his letters, that he is to be informed that Mr. Travenion's daughter is at present at the Townsend House waiting anxiously to see him?"

"Ah, you are Mr. Travenion's daughter," replies the official, as he shows her politely to the door and puts her in her carriage, a rather curious expression coming over his face as he gazes after the beautiful girl as she is driven away; for this bank is a Mormon one, and its president is well up in the Church of Zion, and knows a good deal of the counsels and doings of its leaders and nearly every one else in Salt Lake City.

Then the evening comes, and the whole party go to the old Salt Lake Theatre, where Mr. Ollie's dress-coat makes a great sensation, such costume not being usual in the Mormon temple of Thespis; this gentleman's entrance being greeted by a very audible buzz from the female portion of the audience.

Here they see the arm-chair that is placed conspicuously in the orchestra, for the use of the President of the Mormon Church; likewise, a third of the dress circle, which is his family's private box. This portion of the auditorium is pretty well occupied by some of his wives and his numerous progeny, as well as a number of the daughters and plural help-mates of other leaders and prophets of Zion, who drop in upon them and pa.s.s the compliments of the season and talk of the crops and Bishop Jenkins's last wife.

The performance on the stage is composed of a couple of light comedies, very pa.s.sably given by a Mormon stock company, several of them being members of President Young's family, one or two of whom have since emigrated to the Gentile stage and secured recognition upon the boards of New York and San Francisco.

But this visit to the theatre is not altogether an evening of delight to Erma; to her astonishment, Mr. Livingston has suddenly changed from the complacent, pa.s.sive suitor of former times, to as impetuous a lover as such a man can make, and his attentions embarra.s.s her. This Romeo business has partly been brought about by Mr. Ollie's jealousy and partly by the remarks of his diplomatic mother.

This lady has had an interview with her son, caused chiefly by Miss Travenion's adventures in Ogden, and has given her offspring the following advice: "If you do not settle your marriage with Erma during this trip, she will probably marry somebody else."

"Impossible! She is as good as engaged to me," cries out Ollie, hotly.

"Engaged! Why? Because her father and your father came to some understanding when you were children?"

"Because Mr. Travenion has settled a million dollars on his daughter!

Why did he put that big sum apart for her sole use and benefit? He wishes his daughter to take the position that I can give her in New York."

"Because he has settled a million dollars on her," answers his mother, "she is all the more difficult to win. It is a marvel to me that she, the belle of New York last season and of Newport this summer, has kept herself apart from entangling alliances with other men. Two months ago, if she had loved that young Polo Blazer, you would have lost her then."

"You don't mean to say she loves that Vigilante--that mining fellow?"

says Oliver, turning pale at his mother's suggestion.

"If she doesn't love him she will love some man," returns his mother grimly. "Don't you know that a girl with her beauty and her money is bound to be sought after and will be won by somebody?"