A Story of Four Mormon Girls.

By Sarah E. Pearson

(Previous chapter)

Chapter 3

“Oh, Jean, my bonny Jean. Come to your laddie once again,” trilled a merry voice as, an hour later, Agnes sped here and there through the old orchard in search of her sister.

“Jeannie, Jeannie! where are you. Its time for choir practice, and the girls are at the gate waiting for us.”

She had reached the gnarled old apple tree over which hung festoons of wild grape vine, making an ideal retreat.

The brilliant harvest moon rose over the trees, casting here and there a fleck of brightness through the leafy enclosure into which Agnes peered in search of her sister.

“Hush, Aggie!” and Douglas’s voice sounded so close to her that she was startled.

“Never mind Jean. She doesn’t wish to go to choir practice tonight. Please make an excuse for her to the girls,” and he gently pushed her away. Her swift eyes noted the attitude of dejection in the bowed form of her sister, as she sat on the little rustic seat they two had occupied so many times together. A stray moonbeam shot across the beautiful face, revealing the mournful droop of the mouth, and the sad, though tearless blue eyes uplifted to her face, but she instantly turned in obedience to her brother’s request and walked thoughtfully back to where Rintha and Chatty stood waiting.

“I wonder what ails Jean” she repeated to herself, but she well knew the dear sister would confide in her when the proper time came, so tried to dismiss the subject from her mind and appear cheerful in the presence of her friends.

“The sly minx has a gentleman down there,” she said in answer to Chatty’s inquiries, “I don’t think she cares for our company this evening,” and Chatty supposing that Howard had come down for a flying visit said no more.

Douglas, at a hint from his father, who placed a great deal of confidence in his son’s tact and wisdom, had gone in search of Jean and had found her in the little arbor, sobs shaking her slender frame.

He stooped and gently drew her to a seat on the low bench beside him, supporting her with his arm, and waited silently for her grief to subside. Finally he said: “What is it Jeannie? Tell your brother, who has himself known the bitterness of disappointment in the dearest wish of his heart, and who knows so well how to sympathize with you.” He had touched the right chord. Her generosity caused her to forget her own sorrow in surprise at the vehemence of this usually calm and self-contained brother, and sympathy for his trouble.

“Then Chatty has refused you?”

It was his turn to look surprised.

“Why, how did you know I cared anything for Charity?” Douglas always gave her her proper name, though others clung to the pronunciation of it by her little brother as too appropriate to be discarded.

“No, she is much too true to allow me to go that far only to be disappointed. She forestalled me with the confidence that she intended to marry Fred if he would reform.”

“Oh, the blind, foolish girl! How could she prefer him to you. I feel like I could shake her.”

“Love goes where it’s sent, I suppose,” he replied, “and you are partial to your big, ugly brother.” She gave him a squeeze.

There was doubtless considerable wounded pride, at being set aside for such an unworthy rival, as well as wounded love, mixed up in his feelings, and he became anxious to change the subject.

“You have had a letter from Howard?”

“Yes,” with a sigh that was something akin to a gasp, as her own troubles rolled back upon her mind. “You know Gowan and Agnes have asked papa if he is willing for them to be married at Christmas and he said yes, if they were married in the proper way. Then Howard wrote me asking if there might not be a double wedding, but when we came to go into details regarding the matter, I found, to my astonishment, that he is utterly opposed to being married according to the rite of our Church. I thought at first that he wrote thus to try me, but this letter confirms what he said before. Here it is.”

“It is too dark to read it here, and the night air is growing too chilly for you. Come, let us go in.”

They found the big cheery kitchen deserted, as Sister Stuart had retired early, and Brother Stuart had gone to an irrigation meeting. He turned the lamp higher and drew the armchair into a comfortable position for Jean, and she sank wearily into it, rocking slowly to and fro and shielding her aching eyes with her hand, while he drew his own chair close to the table and read :

“Salt Lake City,

Sep. 14th, 187–.

“My Darling Jean: I am in receipt of your letter dated the 10th and I cannot make myself believe that my little Jean can really mean all she says in it. If you truly loved me you could let no paltry question of religion stand between us and our happiness; and you do love me, do you not?”

“When you questioned me as to my belief in the religion of my parents, I did not dream that my honesty and candor would jeopardize my possession of the only woman I have ever loved and wanted for my wife.

“I cannot understand how it is that you place so much importance in religion anyway.

“Haven’t you noticed that, as a rule, people care little for religion when they have youth, and health, and love, and life before them? It is they who have outlived all these who seek the consolation they hope to find in religion. Is there not plenty of time in the future for us to think of that?

“We love each other, darling; is not that enough to fill your pretty head for the present?

“Write me a comforting letter and tell me that you love me, as I do you, better than anything else in the world! Let us be married by the law of the land. It has been good enough for our grandfathers and grandmothers, why is it not good enough for us? I swear I will be true to you; I will devote my life to your happiness, but I do not feel that I can take upon myself the obligations embodied in the Mormon rite of marriage, which 1 do not understand and am not in sympathy with.

“You say you honor me for my candor in showing you my true feelings where I might have deceived you, but that is poor consolation in the face of losing you.

“What would it avail me to subvert my honor and loose my self-respect when you would surely discover my true feelings sooner or later and then — No, no! I want you to love me always, and that I could not expect if I had deceived you.

“I can say no more but anxiously await your reply. You have my happiness or misery in your hands.

“Be loving and merciful to me, Jean.

“Your ever devoted,

“Howard.”

He folded and returned the letter to her, and then sat for some time bowed in thought.

“I will have a talk with father in the morning,” he finally said, and we will arrange everything so you will have no awkward explanations to make to any one. —“

He had formed a plan for her, but it must bear the stamp of his father’s approval before he mentioned it to her.

“Now go to bed, little sister. I think I hear the girls coming. Don’t fret nor worry, but try to get to sleep as soon as you can, and have faith that everything will turn out all right.”

She affectionately kissed him goodnight, feeling that she had never before so fully understood or appreciated this kind and noble brother of hers, and hastened up stairs before the girls should catch a glimpse of her.

“Sleep! Oh, I feel as though I could never sleep again,” she exclaimed to herself, as she cautiously turned the key in the door so Agnes would think she had retired, for she felt she could not talk with anyone tonight.

A happy girlish laugh and the sound of retiring footsteps echoed in the distance, and then died away and, finally as the last loiterers from the choir practice sauntered by, the familiar words of the anthem they had been practicing floated up to her in Rintha’s clear bird-like treble, joined by a deep bass she knew to be Jamie’s:

“For the Lord shall comfort thee.
He shall comfort thee in every danger,
He shall defend thee in the day of trouble.”

For the first time in her life she seemed to comprehend the full significance of the beautiful words of comfort and promise, and sinking upon her knees by her bedside, she poured forth her whole soul in a cry to God to guide her in this bitter crisis of her life, and the answer burst upon her mental vision in the vivid remembrance of the glorious promises so lately pronounced upon her head by the inspired servant of God, the solemn words seeming to stamp themselves upon her brain in letters of living flame:

“If thou wilt give heed thereunto this blessing shall prove a guide unto thee throughout thy future life. Thou art greatly beloved of God and He has chosen for thee a companion from among His very elect and thy sons shall be prophets and thy daughters prophetesses. And if thy faith fail not these words shall not, for I seal them upon thee in the name of Jesus Christ.”

The utter impossibility of a man like Howard Latimer with his avowed disbelief in revelation and prophecy rearing sons and daughters to be prophets and prophetesses, was borne in upon her mind with convincing force.

She knew that to marry this man in the face of the testimony she had received would be to sin against light and knowledge.

“Father I am convinced. Into Thy hands do I surrender myself. Give me faith and strength to do my duty.”

With a comforted heart she arose to her feet, and not yet feeling that she could sleep, arranged her writing materials and indited her last letter to Howard; for contrary to his method of reasoning, she had in her youth sought and found the consolation of religion, and he was weighed and found wanting.

Douglas met her the next morning with a beaming face, for his conference with his father had proved successful to his plan. He understood the exalted ideal she had of her future companion in life, and knew that, though Howard possessed considerable nobility of character from a worldly standpoint, the glimpse she had had of the true inwardness of his thoughts and belief, had raised a barrier between them which nothing except a thorough change of heart in him could ever remove. He remembered her natural aptitude for the profession her mother had followed and her devotion to and phenomenal control over little children.

“Jean, what do you say to a normal course of training at the Brigham Young Academy at Provo, so as to fit yourself for a teacher?”

The proposition fitted so exactly into her own thoughts and desires that she impulsively clasped her hands, exclaiming, “Oh, Douglas, it is an inspiration! But will father be willing?”

“Indeed, father is always willing for anything which will advance the happiness and usefulness of his children,” replied Brother Stuart, advancing from the sitting room where she had not yet seen him; and there was a suspicion of tears in his eyes as he clasped his heroic little daughter in his arms. So the upshot of the matter was that two days later found our bonny Jean aboard the train and speeding toward Provo, with new hopes and aspirations already kindling in her heart, while the train steaming in the opposite direction bore her reply to Howard’s letter. It ran thus:

“Dear Friend Howard:

“Now that I know the true state of your feelings in relation to the religion I hold dearer than my earthly happiness, there could never be other than the one answer from me.

“I have faithfully searched my own heart, and I am sure that I could never know a moment’s peace if 1 proved recreant to the faith my dear angel mother sacrificed so much for. To love the Gospel seems born in me and to believe its principles as natural to me as to breathe, and for us to link ourselves together, differing as we do upon this vital point, could only result in disappointment and misery to both.

“I cannot imagine a lasting love without the sure foundation of faith and duty. What suffering this decision has caused me you will never know, but I recognize that it is a necessity and try to bravely face the inevitable. Sometime, dear Howard, you will recognize the wisdom of my decision and thank me for it, and in the meantime, believe me,

“Ever your true friend,

“JEAN.”

And he did, for though it was a sore disappointment to him at first, he grew in time to acknowledge that, for him, she was “too religious by half.”

To be continued