From the Juvenile Instructor, 1897 –

A Story of Four Mormon Girls.

By Sarah E. Pearson

Chapter 1

“So you girls have been up to Brother Gilbert’s to get your patriarchal blessings, have you?” said Chatty Briggs, as she met three of her girl friends on one of the quiet streets of the village of N–– one balmy afternoon in September, 187–.

“Yes,” responded Rintha Rivers, “and they are fine, too. Aren’t you going up to get yours?”

“No, I think not. I don’t much believe in patriarchal blessings; they are all so much alike that I’ll wager I could tell about all he told any of you without looking at them at all.” She deliberately seated herself on a grassy mound under a spreading box elder on the sidewalk, and motioning her companions to do likewise, resumed: “You have to buy them, you know, and papa says that is a good deal like they do in the Catholic Church with their indulgences.”

“Oh, Chatty!” interrupted sweet Jean Stuart, and her strong feeling at her friend’s heresies made her voice tremble. “I hope you do not really mean all you say, for the blessings are free to all, it being the custom only for those who are able to help the patriarch, who is an aged man and has his traveling expenses to pay and himself and wife to support.”

“Oh, I think it would be so much more fun to get one of those wandering gypsies to tell your fortune. They tell you all about your future husband,” and Chatty’s eyes twinkled mischievously.

“One of them stepped up into our door the other evening when Rhoda’s peach-cutting was in full blast. I suppose she was attracted by the racket and clatter of tongues and tin pans. ‘For just one dollah I tell you all about your future husband. Won’t you have your fairchin told, lady? Lady, won’t you have your fairchin told?’ ‘ repeated Chatty, with a sing-song voice, and a perfectly serious face, which set the two Stuart girls off into peals of laughter, but a shadow crept over Rintha’s expressive features.

“Will Holt was there — you know what a six-foot specimen of overgrown boyhood Will is, — and I took him by the arm and sidled bashfully up to where the woman stood.

“She looked from one to the other with a puzzled expression, and finally admitted that the fates had decreed that we two should never marry. She was going on about blasted hopes and blighted lives when Will got even with me by interrupting her with, ‘Never mind, old lady; try to console yourself on my lucky escape. This lady (indicating me) happens to be my aunt.’

“Father and mother smiled and the youngsters simply hooted, and the disgusted fortune-teller beat an angry retreat. “

“Would you have given her a more pleasant reception if your companion had been Fred Loveless instead of Will Holt?” inquired Agnes Stuart, with a roguish glance at Chatty.

“Oh, I don’t know,” and Chatty’s merry face sobered.

“Oh, you don’t believe she could tell you anything about the future?” questioned Rintha.

“They do hit it sometimes.”

“Oh, well, it would be hard for them when they say so much not to hit the truth sometimes. I have heard that the evil one himself can prophesy. The question is whether he will tell you anything that will do you any good. I cannot see what advantage it would be to anyone to be informed that he had a mole on his left arm or a wart on his right ankle, and I think by allowing such people to tell your fortune, even if you did not really believe what they said, it might cause you disagreeable feelings, especially if the fortune-teller predicted anythhing evil.

“On the other hand, your work in life and your destiny can be pronounced upon your head by the spirit of prophecy held by the patriarch through the power of the Priesthood. The very touch of his venerable hands upon your head, will cause such a thrill of belief and joy to prevade your whole being, that is the very opposite of the feeling you have in the presence of those who predict through the black art.

“I wish you had been with us this afternoon. I believe it would have made you feel differently.”

“Why, Rintha,” said Agnes, who had been closely watching her friend, “I never saw you so much in earnest. One would think you had yourself experienced those feelings you describe. You never allowed any fortune-teller to predict your future, did you?”

“No,” and the shadow crossed her face again, “but the greatest fright of my life was brought about through going to a house where a man had agreed to tell the young people’s fortunes. But, to begin at the beginning:

“You know that a few years ago in the wild west, a person did not always have to furnish credentials as to his character or capacity to be installed as teacher in a public school, so one fine morning, not long after mamma died, and before papa moved into this neighborhood, a stranger, out of a job, came into the town and applied to the mayor for the position of public school teacher.

“I do not know whether there were any trustees at that time or not, but if there were they could not have amounted to much, for he obtained the coveted position at once, without a semblance of an examination, and opened school the next Monday morning with about forty little innocents under his charge.

“Auntie, who revered book learning (never having been privileged with much herself) was determined that I should have every opportunity the town afforded for an education, and so, with my books under my arms, I marched off to the school house.

“Well, I don’t know what the other children thought of the teacher, but as for myself, his bold, black eyes and his face scarred as from numerous encounters at fisticuffs, made him perfectly revolting to me. I avoided coming in contact with him as much as possible, and with a child’s natural shrinking from a disagreeable subject, never mentioned my impression of him to my father. I soon discovered that he could not do a simple example in arithmetic which made me dislike him more than ever, and the fierce glare of his black eyes when I innocently attempted to jog his memory made me shudder with mingled fear and repugnance.

“Things went on in a slipshod sort of way for something over a week, when one evening Auntie consented for me to go home with a playmate to stay over night.

“We played along over the hills, and lingered gathering wild flowers until it was almost dark when we reached her home, and when we entered the house we were surprised to find quite a group of young men and women there, who were shortly afterward joined by our teacher. We soon learned that he had been invited to Brother Gordon’s for the express purpose of telling the young people’s fortunes. None of their parents were aware of this, however, and you must know that, though Brother Gordon and family had a name in the Church, they did not care much for its principles. They and the young ladies and gentlemen seemed to think it a fine lark, and of course we two little girls thought it was going to be rare fun, too.

“Just as everything was ready for the teacher to begin, we were horrified by his falling backward on the floor in a fit, writhing terribly. Ugh! I shudder now, when I think of his horrible contortions. Brother Bartch, who had struck up an acquaintance with him on account of both having served in the army, had just come in, and he and Brother Gordon worked over him a long time before he recovered sufficiently to sit up.

“The young folks had all made themselves scarce in a hurry, and when Brother Bartch got ready to go home he tucked my hand under his arm and said: ‘Come to my house and sleep with Maud; it is too far for you to go home tonight.’

“So I went home with him, and thoroughly exhausted after all the excitement I had undergone, slept quietly and soundly.

“The news of that night’s escapade soon reached the ears of the Bishop who speedily conferred with the mayor, and the result was that our teacher was promptly ousted from his position on the grounds of incompetency and general unsuitability, and I never saw him again.

“It was many months before I entirely recovered from the shock I had received. I, who had been such a brave fearless child, and had more than once been all over the town alone at midnight, for help when mamma was sick, was afraid of my shadow. I imagined that the teacher had entertained a malignant hatred toward me, and would do all he could to injure me, because I had so disliked him. Auntie often had to take me in bed with her, and I would wake up in the night, shaking with terror from the dreadful dreams I had had.

“I never fully conquered those feelings until after I had my endowments and I never felt a pang of them afterward, which was a great testimony to me of the goodness of God and the power of the Priesthood.

“There, girls, you have my story, and know now why I so much dislike to hear young people talk of having their fortunes told.”

Impulsive Chatty threw her arms around her neck and exclaimed: “Oh, Rintha, I will never have my fortune told as long as I live!”

“But you will have your patriarchal blessing, will you not, Chatty,” said Jean, whose eyes were full of sympathetic tears at Rintha’s recital. “You know you said that they were all alike, but Brother McBride had no secretary, so Rintha acted as scribe, and she can tell you a very different story from that.”

“Oh, yes,” responded Rintha, “there is nothing at all alike about them excepting that we are all of the lineage of Joseph, while Agnes’s promises her that she shall be a benefactor to humanity, and shall feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Jean’s has the most glorious promises in regard to her children, for her sons shall be prophets, and her daughters prophetesses, and the whole burden of mine is the immense work for me in the temple for the redemption of my father’s house, and tells me that I was set apart for that mission before I was born. And,” continued Rintha, “I shall trust in God for my future, and try to live for the blessings promised me in this,” holding up her roll of manuscript.

“There is another thing that strengthens my faith in the promises of the patriarch, and that is this: I had another blessing given me some years ago and was instantly struck with the similarity between that and the one given me today. They are almost identical, word for word.”

“That is strange,” said Chatty, musingly.

“Do you think you could find two gypsies describing the same young man to you unless they had met and traded yarns on the road?” teasingly asked Agnes.

“Don’t, Aggie. I confess myself converted and I am going to ask papa if I can’t have mine, too,” said Chatty as they all rose to their feet.

“Brother McBride is going to leave town in the morning.”

“Oh, is he? I am sorry for that, but maybe there will be another opportunity before long, and anyway it may take longer to convert papa than it has me. “

To be continued