A Righteous Woman’s Recompense

By Lella Marler Hoggan

(Previous chapter)

Chapter 4: Redeeming a Pledge

“How is she, doctor,” asked Eugene Gordon, as a dark, heavyset man emerged from the room where Mrs. Barton lay ill.

Dr. Kent shook his head seriously.

“No better — getting weaker all the time.”

“How long do you think she will last?”

“Go before morning, unless some radical change takes place, which is hardly possible.”

“Anything we can do?”

“Nothing.”

“Anything medical skill can do?”

“No. She has lost faith in herself. If she had not let go, as it were, we could probably save her.”

The doctor gave a few directions to the nurse in attendance and left the house just as Ethel Barton entered the room.

“How is mother?” were her first words to Gordon.

“About the same,” he replied.

“And how are you, my girl? I’m afraid you haven’t slept much.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” said Ethel, hurriedly. “Have you succeeded in locating those Latter-day Saint elders, yet?”

“No. They have no permanent headquarters, so far as I can find out. They seem to be here, there, and everywhere. They are holding some sort of meeting in the schoolhouse tonight, I believe.”

“Then you did not see them?”

“No, I did not.”

“Then I must go myself and find them,” she said, decidedly.

“Impossible!” he objected. But Ethel was already in the hall reaching for her coat and scarf.

“You will at least wait until morning,” he urged.

“No. That will be too late,” was her decisive reply.

“Then I shall go with you.”

“If you desire. Miss Hale will remain with mother until we return.”

“Yes, Doctor Kent will call in again in about an hour and Miss Hale is to wait for him.”

“Very well.”

After walking a few steps in silence Eugene Gordon said rather abruptly,

“Ethel, my dear. I wish you would not do this rash thing.”

“Rash?” she ejaculated.

“Yes, indeed. It is late. These men are in meeting. They are complete strangers to all of us. And even should you succeed in securing their service, what have you secured? They are not ministers. I am told they are mere youths, and ignorant youths at that.”

“Mr. Gordon, your speech affirms your own ignorance in regards to the gospel of Christ. These elders may be strangers, as you say, yet they are my brethren in the gospel, and as such I understand them and trust them. They may be ignorant youths as you say, but does not God choose the weak things of the earth to confound the wise. And being endowed by the Spirit and power of God, even the humblest of creatures become strong and great.”

“And you really expect these ‘Mormon’ boys to heal your mother?”

“No. But I expect them to officiate in an ordinance, whereby God shall heal her. Do you not know that as a people we believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelations, visions, healing, etc?”

“Yes, I know. But, Ethel, I do not believe you realize how very ill your mother is.”

“Indeed I do. That is why I know that it is imperative that these elders come tonight. God has said that if any are sick among us, we shall call in his elders, and have them administer unto the sick ones, and if they are not appointed unto death they shall recover.”

“And would not the prayers of any righteous man avail as much as these?”

“No. When a man has received the priesthood of God he is endowed with privileges and power that other righteous men do not possess.”

“Thai you are decided in this matter, and you will not turn back?”

“I am decided. I shall not go back until I speak with these elders.”

They did not say any more until they reached the small schoolhouse. When they entered the building Prof. Gordon motioned Ethel to a seat and whispered that he would speak with the preachers.

“No,” she said, “I had better speak with them.” So walking up one of the side aisles, she nodded to the elder who was seated and quietly waited. He immediately came and offered his hand in greeting.

“I am a Latter-day Saint,” she explained, “My mother is lying at the point of death in this city, and I want you to come and administer to her.”

“Certainly, sister,” he replied. “And what is your name and address?”

She passed him her card.

“Shall we come tonight?”

“Yes, if you will, please. Just as soon as your meeting is closed. You will pardon us for interrupting your meeting but the case is too urgent to wait until morning.”

“All right, Sister Barton, we shall be there in less than an hour.”

“Thank you very much,” she said. And then she joined Prof. Gordon and they walked home in comparative silence.

The doctor and nurse were giving Ethel her last instructions for the night, when the two elders rapped at the door.

She opened the door and greeted them.

Then asking their names, she presented Elders Strong and Hansen, to the doctor, nurse and Eugene Gordon.

“These gentlemen are Latter-day Saint elders,” she explained, who have come at my request, to administer to my mother.”

Dr. Kent looked up with a start, surprised at having his case taken out of his hands so unceremoniously.

Ethel gave the elders seats and went to speak with her mother.

She returned in a moment saying that everything was ready.

There was an awkward pause. Then Brother Strong said
simply,

“Sister Barton tells us that her mother is very ill. It will be necessary for us to have a complete unity of faith in extending our blessing to this sick woman. If any of you present believe in this ordinance of blessing the sick we shall be pleased to have you come in with us.”

Ethel stood aside. Elders Strong and Hansen stepped into the room. Eugene Gordon rose, hesitated a moment, then catching the smile of ridicule that passed between Dr. Kent and the nurse, he walked over to the davenport and calmly sat down.

Ethel waited another moment, pleading, praying, in her heart for him. He did not look up. She closed the door softly and followed the elders to her mother’s bedside.

The clock struck two. Prof. Gordon roused himself and sat up.

“I beg your pardon,” he said sincerely, “I did not intend to fall asleep. Where is Miss Hale?”

“I persuaded her to lie down for a few hours.”

“And your mother?”

“Is still sleeping quietly.”

“Isn’t it time for her medicine?”

“Yes — two hours past.”

They said but little, lest they should awaken the sleeping woman.

When Miss Hale came into the room at four o’clock she was surprised to find the medicine tray just as she had left it. A look of apprehension crossed her face. Seeing it, Prof. Gordon said quickly, “No, not that.”

“My mother has slept quietly ever since you left the room,” Ethel explained.

Dr. Kent was more greatly surprised than Miss Hale, at his patient’s condition when he called that morning.

Mrs. Barton steadily improved in health, and although it was several weeks before she was able to take the journey home, still, all conceded that she had done remarkably well.

The elders called several times, at her request; and more than once they entered into discussions, not only with Prof. Gordon, but also with Miss Hale and Dr. Kent. And several times, after all of the others had gone, Ethel and Prof. Gordon sat and discussed various topics that had not been explained to the latter’s satisfaction. Ethel was much grieved over some of these conversations. One day after a silence of some length had ensued between them she spoke up abruptly.

“Prof. Gordon, do you know that you once told me that you had found the way and that our paths led in the same light.”

“Yes,” he said slowly, “I can never forget that to my dying day. But I did not then know how much your religion included. I begin to see now, that it would take a man some time to learn all of the things that your people include in their religion.”

“I am glad to hear that confession,” Ethel said seriously. “It has often pained me to hear you say ‘your people,’ ‘your faith.’ ‘your religion.’ but that makes it all clear.”

A musical laugh rippled from Prof. Gordon’s lips.

“Thy people shall be my people; and thy God, my God,” he quoted in a babbling tone, almost nonsensical, “Oh, it’s all coming, little girl, after awhile; but you mustn’t expect too much all at once. I’m pluming myself for great flights one of these first years; but you must give me time.”

She did not reply. She was thinking of the devout look on Willard Taylor’s face when he had once reverently quoted that passage to her. That this man should repeat the words so lightly, seemed almost sacrilegious.”

For the second time she experienced a feeling of superiority to this man of learning and worldly experience. She felt that he was lacking in that power and strength of manhood that she needed to depend upon, in her hours of trial. Would it always be so? When she should have to meet pain and sickness, and perhaps death, in her own household, would this hero of hers forever fail in his heroism, as he had done in this late crisis? Would she forever have to stand alone, in the hours of her greatest trials and bereavements? Would Eugene Gordon be always inadequate to meet the big lessons in life — be always unable to remain in the crucible until the finality of the test?

The west bound express train swayed and writhed along in its effort to make up the time lost on account of a slight accident at the last station. The black smoke jutted out into a leaden sky and the engine snorted.

Ethel hovered about Mrs. Barton bestowing numberless little attentions to add to her comfort and convenience.

“Now sit down and rest, Ethel,” commanded her step-mother smiling, “or you’ll be tired out before the journey is begun.”

Ethel’s face glowed with loving gratitude as she sat down beside Aunt Lucy and gently stroked her thin white hands.

“They’ll soon be rough and red again,” smiled Aunt Lucy, “when I get out amongst my flowers and vegetables.”

“I think Ned and I shall curtail your gardening this summer and limit you to one pansy bed and your geraniums,” teased Ethel.

Eugene Gordon’s eyes closed wearily and he leaned back in his seat facing them. The tedious gray prairie swirled past, only to reveal a new stretch of gray no more promising than the last. The dust and smoke sifted into the Pullman car, through the double window screens, and the peanut vender shouted his wares.

“Too bad we did not arrange to cross this desert in the night,” grumbled Eugene Gordon. “It certainly is tiresome going over it while one is awake.”

“My grandfather walked across it,” remarked Ethel, dryly.

“Walked across,” ejaculated Gordon sitting erect.

“Yes,” confirmed Ethel. “And out there, somewhere, in the gray sand, my grandfather lies buried. The grave isn’t marked by any stone. At the time of his burial a campfire was built over it, to hide it from the wolves.”

“Yes,” added Aunt Lucy, “my mother left one of her babies out there in the nameless prairie, the same way.”

“Of course, 1 have read of it,” said Prof. Gordon, “but it sounds different on the lips of your friends, than it does from a printed page. It is a terrible tragedy to have taken place in our fair land. But I do think that the men of ‘Mormondom’ could have protected the women more than they did.”

“No,” interrupted Aunt Lucy. “They did all they could. They gave their strength, their ambition, and in many cases, their very lives to the cause. They could not have done more. It was not a time for sentimental gallantry. It was a time for work, and faith, and love; and they gave those in full measure. When men and women go into the wilderness to serve God and build an empire, they have no time nor strength to spare on frivolous conventionalities. Each one shoulders his burden and bears his load, equally with his companions. And each one does the work that God puts into his hands to be done.”

“That may all be true,” consented Prof. Gordon. “But even today in these peaceful, prosperous times, I think the women among your people work too hard. Many of them do not know what a life of ease and comfort means.”

“No,” said Ethel, “We do not, nor do we desire to. We want to do our portion in the work of the world. Besides, you must remember that wherever you find a woman living in ease and luxury, you will also find one or more of her sisters drudging for her. If each woman looked upon her work as a joy and as an essential factor in her development and preparation for life, we should have no idleness and no drudgery.”

“Now you are getting into politics,” laughed Prof. Gordon.

“We have a right to, in Utah,” laughed Ethel. “We western women help to make our own laws you know.”

“And good ones, too,” consented Gordon.

“I suppose you will be telling me next that your prodigious ‘Mormon’ families are a matter of choice and a source of joy to Latter-day Saint mothers.”

“They most certainly are,” smiled Aunt Lucy.

“Do you really mean it?”

“Most assuredly,” reiterated Mrs. Barton.

“Will wonders never cease?” smiled Prof. Gordon. “What do you think of it, Miss Barton, would you be proud of a family often?”

“I certainly would,” replied Ethel, seriously.

“Yes, indeed,” affirmed Aunt Lucy, “I think the one work, above all others, that God sent women into the world to do, is to mother the sons of men. Why Prof. Gordon, I think a woman learns more in bearing and rearing one child than in any other experience she can pass through in life.”

“A woman is probably more charming,” remarked Ethel, “who can paint lilies, and sing at church festivals, and write lyrics, and pose for magazine cover designs, and do a hundred other things that pretty women do. But if she can add to her other graces, some of the big lessons in life she will feel happier and more satisfied when the story is ended.”

“I believe that is true,” consented Prof. Gordon. “It must be rather lonesome all right, to be all by one’s self at the end of the road. But then one doesn’t need a pageant at one’s elbow either.”

“Ten wouldn’t make much of a display,” smiled Ethel. “Now, little girl, that isn’t exactly fair.”

Ethel Barton disposed of the wild flowers she held in her arm, threw her airy summer hat by, and stretched herself in a big rocker on the cool porch to enjoy her letter. However, it was not so full of joy as she had anticipated. She read it through twice, gave a little sigh, and got up uneasily and came into the house.

“Well, he is coming, Aunt Lucy.”

“Coming, is he?”

“Yes, and I can’t tell whether I’m glad or not.”

“Nearly time you were finding out, isn’t it?”

“Do you think this visit will be the official one?” laughed Ethel.

“I certainly do. Don’t you?”

“I— I can’t tell— perhaps.”

Ethel sat by the open window watching two brown birds, as they carried sticks for a next. They flitted about in wild gladness, occasionally alighting on a twig and almost bursting their throats with joy songs.

Their mating and home building looked to be such a perfectly natural, easy affair.

“No questions at all to settle,” thought Ethel. “And my life seems to be nothing but question marks.”

A light breeze scattered the soft scented blossoms on the grass. She caught a few up from the window sill and tore them to bits. Eugene Gordon was coming to see her and she could not tell whether she was glad or not. It was easy enough to love the man while he was in Omaha and she was in Utah. His letters were full of beautiful thoughts and sparkling wit. His diction and rhetoric were faultless. As she glanced over the pages again she could in fancy, hear his deep tender voice. She could hear his rippling laugh, and see his dark smiling eyes. He moved so gracefully and was always so suave and polite. Yet he, somehow, always fell short when it came to meeting a crisis. What would he have to tell her in regards to his faith in the gospel? Would he be the Eugene Gordon she had first known and loved or would he be the skeptic she had worked with so unsatisfactorily in Omaha. She had one certain guide to assist her in her decision. She had made a solemn pledge to live true to herself and God. She would keep that pledge at any cost.

Ethel sat silent so long that Aunt Lucy at last recalled her from her soliloquy with,

“Better let me answer the question for you, my girl.”

Ethel yawned and smiled and came over and kissed her.

“Wish I could.” she smiled, “but it’s another one of those tests, I was sometimes guilty of taking the least little glance at my seatmate’s paper or her open book. But it is different, now. The books are all closed. And my seat mate’s answer wouldn’t answer my question at all. God can show me the path of right and wrong, but I have to do the deciding and abide by my choice.”

“Be sure that he shows you the way, my girl, and then choose the path of right even though it breaks your heart,” was Aunt Lucy’s righteous reply.

It was a day made-to-order full of sunshine and sweet odors and singing birds. They were alone in a shaded nook in the orchard.

“The time — the- — place and the girl,” mused Eugene Gordon to himself, as he sat listlessly watching Ethel arrange a table banquet of spring blossoms.

He had made several attempts to broach the subject nearest his heart but “the girl” had invariably frustrated his sentences, with exasperating little remarks about the weather, and politics, and nonsensical current events.

At last, taking the opportunity firmly in both hands, as it were, he pressed the occasion to its ultimate possibilities.

“Well, little woman,” he said blandly, “I have come to take you home with me this time and I’m wondering how soon you will be ready to go?”

“Prof. Gordon!” And Ethel’s carefully arranged bouquet fell in a heap. It was so unlike the man to be abrupt.

“I did not mean to frighten you,” he laughed. “I beg your pardon, I thought you knew why I had come.”

“How should I know?” she asked quietly. “You have never spoken seriously to me concerning marriage since — since — that night so long ago.”

“When you refused me,” he said slowly.

She did not reply. A look of apprehension crossed his face when he recalled that night and remembered her words. When he spoke again the laughter had gone out of his voice and his tones were almost husky as he said:

“But it was different then. I knew so little of you and of your people, and you knew so little of life. We are both older and wiser now. Then it was merely a question of religion. Now, it is a question of life and love and — and — loneliness.”

“Loneliness? No. Loneliness is always a result, not a cause. Idleness is a cause. But he whose time is employed with good and necessary work need never fear loneliness. As to life and love, they are two of the lessons in our eternal round of progression. The earth life with all its experiences is only a phase of our eternal duration. What we are now, depends partly on what we were before we came to the earth. What we shall do and be questions that can not be answered by any one save myself. When I was a child and could not figure out the answers in the final hereafter, depends largely on what we shall attain to here and now.”

“Religion, my little girl, religion again. Must that word forever stand between us?”

“It is my philosophy of life, Prof. Gordon. It touches the experiences of all time. It explains love and life and death and the life hereafter. It is eternal truth.”

His face was white, but with a forced smile he said,

“One may as well try to shake the everlasting hills as to crumble your faith. It is wrought in the fibre of your being, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps. But why should you wish to alter it?”

He winched. “It is not in the marrow of my bones, I must confess, and there are phases of your religion that are folly to me.”

“Then you really do not believe our religion to be the true philosophy of life?”

“No, not exactly. It contains many true and beautiful principles, but that is true of most philosophies of life. Every cult and creed and school and system contains some central truth or truths. But that is no proof of its divinity. I am willing to accept truth wherever I find it, but I would not care to tie myself to any system.”

“That is your right, if you so choose. But I think I can gain and give more truth if I am substantially located, than I can floating about in a will-o’-the wisp sort of fashion. If we find our places and remain in them the world knows where to find us. I believe with Burroughs:

‘The waters know their own and draw
The stream that springs in yonder heights.
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delights.
‘The stars come nightly to the sky,
The tidal wave comes to the sea.
Nor time nor space nor deep nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.'”

He arose from the grass, laughing, and came over where she stood.

“It is all true, little woman,” he said. “You are mine, by divine right. Your power has drawn me half way across a continent and held me in its magic thrall for ages, it seems to me; No creed, nor dogma, nor religious cult, shall take you from me. So

‘Let us fold away our fears,
And put by our foolish tears.
And through all the coming years,
Just he glad.’ ”

And before she realized what had happened Ethel was held close in his strong arms. For a moment he was the Eugene Gordon she had known and loved so long ago. He had come back. That old love that her heart had been hungering for so long was enveloping her, consuming her. And she reveled in the sweetness of it all. Only for a moment; and then she was back in the shaded nook, in the arms of that other Eugene Gordon, the man of today. Drawing herself quickly away she gasped,

“No, no! You have not the right. I have not yet given you my promise.”

“”Ethel Barton, you love me as you did in the old days. By your own heart, by the law of nature, by the law of life, I claim you as my own.”

She was pale and trembling. She did not speak. She was praying for God’s help. Bits of her life’s experience falling upon her heart, like high lights on the painting of a master.

“You will be true to your birth right?” “You shall be a mother in Israel,” “God’s hand shall be over you for good,” “No matter what it may cost, promise me that you will be true to yourself and God,” “Choose the right path even though it break your heart.”

A little sigh parted her lips. She was saved.

“Putting religion aside,” she said, “there are a few general truths that will forever guide me in accepting or rejecting an offer of marriage.”

“And they are?”

“An undivided affection, a marriage altar on which there is no shadow of a divorce court, and a companion whose moral standard of life is as clean and pure as my own.”

He winced. She was watching him closely and it did not escape her. When he did not reply she continued.

“It is what you, yourself, would demand of the woman you marry. Can you not meet it?”

He evaded the question with,

“Say, girl of mine, do you still cherish fond memories of that big fellow who tried to take you away from me?”

“I shall always remember him as one of my very best friends.”

“Do you hear from him often?”

“I have never had even a message from him since he told me good-bye and went away, more than a year ago.”

“Is he coming home soon?”

“I hope not; at least not for another ear or two. I should like
to see him finish his work successfully. Why do you ask?”

“Because I dislike the fellow. And it would pain me to
know that he is trying to come between us, again.”

“Rest assured, he is not. I am acting on my own responsibility in the demands I make.”

“Let me go over the list again,” he smiled, “and see if I can make it first,” he enumerated. “There must be undivided affection — that puts polygamy off the list, doesn’t it?”

“We are not discussing religious principles,” she said, coolly.

“Secondly, there must be no chance for divorce,” he continued, in a light strain, as if he had not heard her remark.

“Prof. Gordon, this is no trivial affair. I am in earnest in what I ask of you. You will please not treat it as a joke.”

“My girl,” he said, seriously, “do you realize that you are nurturing an impossible ideal? You surely do not expect to find a man of the world, cultured, educated, experienced, who has lived with his fellows, won his honors, and paid his way; and who at the same time, has kept clean, morally. Why such a thing were a miracle. Even the courts of heaven would scarcely demand an equal moral standard for men and women, in this age of the world. Why should you demand it?”

“Because, as a virtuous woman, it is my right.”

“A right which, if you are foolish enough to claim it, will rob you of your life’s happiness.”

“Those who are back of me have surrendered prosperity, happiness, and even life itself, in the cause of righteousness. The mantle of their honor is upon my shoulders. I am not afraid to pay the price it will cost to keep it spotless, for those who shall come after me.”

In vain did Eugene Gordon plead his cause. His pretty sentences and plausible arguments were lost on Ethel. Barton. It was like bombarding a mountain of adamant. She enfolded her cloak of honor about her and sat calmly by until he had exhausted his fund of data on the subject.

“I am sorry to tell you,” she said, at last, her face white with emotion, “but we stand just where we did once before; and what I then told you is still true — we are treading two different paths, and they are paths that will never meet.”

“Then you mean to tell me that it is all over. That all of our bright dreams of the future, must be surrendered for this?”

“Yes, I see no other way,” she said, huskily.

“Oh, Ethel, girl of my heart, surely you will not send me away again. You certainly will not permit a mere difference in our belief and standard of life to come between us?”

“It is enough,” she said, controlling her voice with an effort. “To multiply words is merely to prolong that which is painful to both of us. I see no method by which we can bring our lives to a unity. We have been trying for several years, now, and have failed miserably. To take an oath of fidelity to each other, where there is no unity of purpose nor of heart, would be blasphemous, and it could not possibly end in any thing but unhappiness.”

“Perhaps you are right,” he said coldly. “It may as well be good-bye, forever, this time.”

“Just as well,” she said.

He arose and pulled himself together with an effort. “Eugene Gordon’s exit must be gentlemanly, at least,” he mused to himself. And bowing low, he possessed himself of her trembling hands.

“It is a long good-bye,” the deep voice said, sweetly. “I wish you God speed and a safe and happy journey.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “God’s peace and blessing be with you.”

He touched her hands with his lips, and then his soft foot fall died away in the shady lane.

Ethel Barton had redeemed her pledge.

(To be continued)