Because of the Word

By Hazel M. Thomson

Previous Chapter

Chapter 5

Synopsis: Ruth Ann Barker, who lives in the early 1830s in the Naumkeg Valley of New England, dislikes farm life and cannot decide to marry Victor Hall, a neighboring farmer. Ruth’s widowed father has been killed in an accident and Victor helps her take care of the farm. After a second visit with her cousin Claire Mayhew in Boston, Ruth Ann is still undecided about the proposal of Quinton Palmer. She visits her Aunt Marintha in Palmyra, New York, and hears about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. In the spring Ruth Ann returns to Naumkeg and marries Victor. Quinton sends an expensive set of china as a wedding present. Victor tells Ruth Ann that he is going to join the Church, and they travel to Kirtland, Ohio.

Although the weather remained pleasant through the last of the journey, when Vic finally brought the tired horses to a stop in front of the one store in Kirtland, Ruth had had enough of traveling. They sat for a moment, without speaking, looking around at the sleepy little town on the shore of Lake Erie. It had a mixture of houses made of adobe, log, and lumber. A young man, tall and well-built, hurried out of the door, stepped up on the hub of the front wheel and greeted Vic with a hearty handshake.

“Brother Hall! I am Joseph Smith.”

Ruth glanced at Vic and noticed that his face had blanched under its coat of bronze. She noticed in amazement that his hair and eyes were exactly the same as Joseph Smith’s in color. There was something about his eyes. Vic was to say later that the Prophet could pierce eternity or penetrate the heavens with his gaze. While Ruth wasn’t convinced of this, she knew immediately that that serene, steady glance of his eyes could surely penetrate the human heart.

“And Sister Hall.”

He took Ruth’s hand and helped her down from the wagon. “We’ve been expecting you. With your skill as a mason and builder, you are the man we’ve been needing here in Kirtland, to help with the stone work on the temple.”

Inside the little frame home to which the man took them, recently vacated by a family of saints who had moved to Missouri, Ruth turned to Vic as soon as they were alone.

“Vic! How did he know?”

“I can only say, Ruth, that he is indeed a prophet of God.”

“What about this temple, Vic?” asked Ruth. “What do they want of a temple? Why don’t they just build a little church and let it go at that?”

“It seems to me, Ruth, to be one more proof that the true gospel of Christ has been restored. They had a temple then. If this is the same gospel, it stands to reason that there must be a temple now. At last I found out what I was needed for.”

“But, Vic,” protested Ruth, “what about a place for us to live? How will you have any time to build our home if you are working on the temple all the time? We can’t stay on in this small place.”

“We can get along for a while, Ruth, and the temple must be finished. The Prophet told me as he helped me unpack the wagon, that the saints were commanded to build it. I must help on it, now, Ruth. I have a lifetime to build a house for us.”

Yes, thought Ruth, and the way things are going, our lifetime will be over before we ever get around to it.

They heated water over an open fire in the yard and the two of them scrubbed the little house completely. By evening Ruth lay down on the bed, completely exhausted, but Vic was off to see the temple and find out just what his work was to be. This was only the beginning. Ruth was to find herself almost constantly alone in Vic’s everyday absence.

“If I had thought that you would ever let anything come between us, especially a pile of stone, I might have done differently.”

“It hasn’t come between us, Ruth Ann,” said Vic quietly.

“I don’t know what else you could call it. You’re down there early morning and late. I don’t know when we will ever get a place of our own.”

“But, honey, the temple must be finished. We need every able-bodied man we can get.”

“Able-bodied! Even old Mr. Smathers next door is down there day after day, so crippled up with rheumatism that he can hardly walk. What good he can do is more than I know.”

“He can shoot a gun, Ruth,” answered Vic, “and he has stood guard many a day while we cut stone.”

“Well, I think President Smith or someone should send him home where he belongs.”

“And break an old man’s heart? He loves the gospel more than his life. He has one of the strongest testimonies I’ve ever heard. I wish I could make you understand what the opportunity of working on the temple means to him. It isn’t toil to him. It’s his greatest blessing.”

“Come and eat,” said Ruth. “I don’t want to get into an argument again. You must be nearly starved, not even taking time to come home to dinner.”

“It does smell good, Ruth. I don’t know how I was so lucky to marry such a good cook. You’re using the china. It looks like a party. What’s the occasion?”

Ruth’s pent-up resentment flared. “It’s not an occasion! It’s just that I don’t want us to get too back-woodsey. Some people use dishes like this every meal. They even take time to change and clean up for dinner …”

Ruth stopped, knowing she had said too much. Vic looked down at his clothes. The fine dust from cutting the stones was ground into the materials, as it was also into the pores and lines in his hands.

“I am sorry, Ruth Ann,” he said simply.

Knowing how she had hurt him, still Ruth cold not bring herself to make amends. They ate in silence, then Ruth washed the dishes and dried them carefully, placing them high on the top shelf.

She was to see Vic often in this situation during the coming winter, holding the book in his hands, yet aware that his mind was not on it. Occasionally, he would read aloud from it, and Ruth found herself almost unwillingly listening to it. She was coming to realize that this was far from the Indian legend she had first thought it to be.

The year of 1834 dawned bright and clear. The entire month of January was crisp and very cold, but the low temperature did not dampen Vic’s ardor for his work in cutting or helping to lay up the walls. Ruth found her bitterness constant and increasing, so when at last she was certain there was to be a baby, she could not bring herself to tell Vic.

Not that she felt he would be disappointed, quite the contrary. She could imagine how happy the news would make him, but she found it impossible to brighten his days when he persisted in making them so uncomfortable for himself. So she kept the news to herself as long as she could. When she did mention it, she managed to convey her reluctance to be so far away from the doctors in Boston.

“Honey,” said Vic, “I’ll talk to Brother Joseph and find the best help that there is to be had in Kirtland.”

Though this was little consolation, Ruth said no more.

She began going to the meetings, mainly, at first, in want of anywhere else to wear one of her pretty dresses. Most of the sisters were in homespun and wore the same dresses with monotonous regularity. While Ruth knew that a great deal of cloth had been spun and woven in Kirtland during the winter, she noticed little of it being used for new dresses. Most of it was given for clothes needed by the workmen on the temple.

She knew she was causing some talk among the ladies, and even Vic seemed a little embarrassed at the lavishness of her dress. With a shawl around her shoulders, she sometimes wore the blue dress and noticed that the women could hardly take their eyes from it.

Ruth was surprised to learn that there were even more saints in Missouri than here in Kirtland.

“That’s to be the center stake of Zion,” Vic explained to her, “but the people there don’t seem to appreciate the saints buying their land and moving in. There have been house burnings, tarring and feathering, and all sorts of outrages.”

“Why don’t they just move away and get out of the trouble?” asked Ruth.

“When the Lord has commanded,” said Vic, “you don’t just run away, even though it may mean danger. Brother Joseph fears that things may get worse. He is leaving tomorrow for New York to get volunteers for an expedition to send them supplies.”

“Well,” answered Ruth, “I hope he gets them and doesn’t get any strange ideas about you going off to Missouri to help protect people you have never seen.”

“He will be going through Boston, and I have asked him to stop at the arm on the way back and pick up the money Mrs. Walker wrote that she had for us,” said Vic.

“Oh, good,” said Ruth. “The money will come in right handy, now.”

Even before Ruth had the money in her possession, she had her plans all made about how to use it. With the saints giving every possible cent toward the construction of the temple or the relief to the saints in Missouri, money in Kirtland was extremely scarce. Ruth had had her eye on a frame house near enough to give a good view of the lake. Somehow she had in mind that it would remind her of Boston, if she could just live in it. She well knew what Vic would do with his money, but hers should be ample to handle the transaction.

Ruth did not make many friends in Kirtland among the women. She felt her role as an outsider more strongly among a group of them all intend on some problem of their close-knit society, but a strong attachment grew between herself and Mary Bailey, a young convert living in the Smith household and engaged to the Prophet’s younger brother, Samuel.

One afternoon, late in March, the two were busily engaged in finishing some cloth for the girl’s hope chest.

“Look at it, Ruth,” cried Mary in dismay. “Is this any material for a wedding dress?”

“It isn’t exactly what a girl dreams of,” agreed Ruth. She thought of the blue that she had worn at her own wedding. Suddenly she had an idea.

“Mary, will you trade this material to me?”

“To you? You never wear homespun. Why do you want it?”

“I must admit that it is getting so I can scarcely get into my dresses. Trade this to me and I will give you my blue one that you like so well.”

“Your blue dress? Ruth, you can’t mean it!”

“But I do. Here, help me fit it and get it cut out. We can get started on it right now. But first you must try on the blue. I’m only a little taller, otherwise it should be a perfect fit.”

Ruth found her enthusiasm rising in the prospect of making the dress. She put it on the day it was finished, and the look in Vic’s eyes was recompense for the loss of the blue. Then, behind him on the little porch, Ruth noticed the young Prophet.

She could not deny that she enjoyed a visit from this man Vic loved so fervently. She greeted Joseph cordially, offering him a chair. Again she looked at Vic, wondering why he had come home so early. He stood close to her, his hand on her shoulder, and she knew that she had never pleased him so well, even in her finest clothes.

The Prophet’s words caught her ear. “Mob action is at a new high. Why, last week alone, many houses belonging to the saints in Jackson County were burned. Many people are destitute.”

Vic’s grip tightened on Ruth’s shoulder. “What do you wish me to do, Brother Joseph? What about the temple? You know I will go where you ask.”

Go? thought Ruth. Vic go right now when the baby is so near! He couldn’t possible mean it. Again she heard the Prophet’s voice.

“The work will go forward on the temple. You have trained others well, and there is a sizable stockpile of stone at present. We need men in Zion’s Camp who have your faith, Brother Victor.”

“How long will we be gone?” asked Vic.

“Two months, perhaps three. Some of the men took the first four supply wagons and left this morning. We will join them in a few days.”

“Two months – three at the most,” echoed Vic. “That means we will be back well before September. You see, the baby …”

“Of course,” said Joseph. “I understand what it means to be away from your wife right now. The Lord will bless you, Brother Victor, and you, too, Sister Hall.”

“September …” began Ruth, and the word caught in her throat. She knew the baby would be born before September. Why hadn’t she told Vic the truth when he had assumed it would be in the autumn?

Three days later she stood with the group of women in the road and waved goodbye to Vic and the last of the twenty supply wagons. Heartbroken and angry that he had left her at this time, Ruth turned again to the little house.

(To Be Continued)