Three Mormon Boys

By Homespun [Susa Young Gates]

Chapter 3

We will now diverge a few moments to introduce some other characters.

Very few if any of my little friends have traveled on a ship, especially on a large sailing vessel. You know most of us have a great longing to see those things which we have never seen, and we who are born so far inland are always full of longing to see ships and steamers at sea; to say nothing about crossing the ocean in one of these vessels.

If you were obliged, as was our new friend John Brown, to spend six weeks in a large, crowded, slow-moving sailing vessel, you would be quite willing to spend the rest of your life on shore, sleeping in your own good beds in the quiet and peace of your happy homes.

I used to long to see a ship, and the first feeling I had on being so privileged, was one of disappointment. The pictures I had so often seen of ships and harbors, aided by my naturally vivid imagination, had been so near the actual facts that I felt as if I were just looking at a picture. It is so with nearly every thing else; the excellent description of nearly every place on the earth, together with the thousands of good illustrations in every magazine and book in the country have familiarized us with all places and all things.

John Brown had not seen these hosts of excellent pictures nor read any of the fine descriptive articles describing the sea and its various “houses,” so when he stood on the peer at Liverpool having come from an inland shire, his great, big, round, black eyes were opened to their fullest extent, and John Brown’s stomach was utterly unconscious of all the agony that was in the near future. There was a restless, active and strong spirit under the sharp brown eyes, and it made the sturdy round limbs of John Brown always full of motion and vitality; but as English life and English discipline are not conducive to insubordination and rollicking mischief, as is the exhilarating ozonic air of America, John Brown and John Brown’s family were totally unacquainted with all the possibilities that lay dormant within the tall form and bright mind of the lad.

There were the father, mother, several younger brothers, and one pretty, fair-haired sister belonging to the family of Browns. They were all traveling to Utah under the Presidency of Elder S— and belonged to the —– Conference.

The great big ship lay near the wharf, and the gang plank was full of people rushing up and down. When it came John’s turn to follow his father up the narrow walk, he dutifully caught hold of his younger brother and made the child stumble and fall half a dozen times, trying to keep pace with his own wildly impatient steps.

The steerage was in the forward part of the ship just below the deck. The steerage was one large apartment, with sleeping berths ranged one above another, about three feet apart, and with only room for passage way between the rows of berths. Men and women were compelled to sleep in this apartment, and when they were mixed up with all sorts of people, this was very uncomfortable. But now, there was a large company of Mormon emigrants and they made that part of the ship seem almost like a small village of kinsfolk.

Each family supplied themselves with their own provisions, and as few had a penny more than was absolutely necessary to carry them to Zion, you may be sure the food was such as is warranted not to give people the gout or the indigestion.

For a week, few of the passengers knew or cared much about anything except to inquire anxiously how long this sea-sickness was liable to last. After that, the most of them were so far recovered as to sit on the deck in the sunshine, and wonder feebly what they could eat if they only had it to eat. Our friend John was sick about two days, and then his appetite returned with such force and vigor that it threatened to leave the rest of the family on short rations by the time they were sufficiently recovered to set about their usual work. When everybody was once more able to get up on deck, the time passed slowly and yet pleasantly to those anxious, waiting hearts which were stowed away in the steerage of tne “Vulcan.”

One peaceful Sabbath day, when all the Saints were seated on the deck and listening patiently to the familiar recitation of Brother Miles’ experiences with the “sinners who sought to turn him from the service of the Lord,” there was a smothered exclamatory entreaty from a childish voice hid somewhere behind the great pile of tarred rope near the mast where they were congregated, for some one to “Give over now! “

Again it was repeated, “Give over now,” in the shrill but smothered voice of a little girl.

Sister Brown knew that her eldest born was the cause of that pleading entreaty from his little fair-haired sister; and she fondly hoped that the nearness of the assembly of worshipers, and the fact that he must know she was heard to cry out by them all, would awe the boy into leaving his sister in peace to continue in the quiet of the Sabbath worship. It was no use hoping, however, for it was but a moment before the little voice wailed out a pitiful “Give over,” and the father arose in wrath and taking the culprit below deck, he administered a severe castigation as an assistance to the boy’s capability of “giving over.”

The poor mother was heartsore; for she well knew that when the father considered a whipping was necessary, he spared no strength nor pains in convincing his refractory children that such was really the case. She had spent her breath in vain many times to reprove the boy for so unmercifully tormenting his gentle little sister. All to no avail; the naturally mischievous disposition of the boy found the helpless, quiet nature of his sister a grand field in which to try all sorts of mischief tactics. And so it was, that this Sabbath day the mother’s heart was very sad and sorrowful, and she felt as if she could not bear to go down and see the sullen, insubordinate expression she knew would be on the boy’s countenance, much less the wicked marks of the rope which would surely cover his back. As soon as meeting was over, she could no longer wait to go down, much as she dreaded it, and so leaving all of the company pleasantly chatting over the services and the future with Zion ahead, she hurried down to find her mischievous son.

There he was, lying face downward in his bunk, dry-eyed and rebellious for the severe punishment meted out to him for what he considered a bit of fun; and going softly up to the bunk, the mother was at once the recipient of one of those sweet revelations in government often given to Latter-day Saint mothers and she kneeled down at the side of the low berth and whispered softly to the silent figure within,

“John, I am so sorry and feel so bad that you have had to get such a drubbing from your father; but you know, lad, how often mother has begged and prayed of thee, to let the girl alone; nor yet to fag her with thy teasings. Now then, my lad, as it does no good to whip thee nor yet to scold thee, I am going to kneel down here by the bedside and ask the good Father to help thee to conquer all this wicked, mischievous spirit.”

And forthwith she put up to God a simple but earnest prayer, which had so much Christ love for her naughty son as well as her tortured daughter that the heart of the boy was completely crushed within him, and he then and there resolved that from that moment his sister as well as every one bearing the name of woman should receive from him the tenderest consideration possible for him to bestow.

The rest of the voyage was safely performed with the usual lack of startling incidents and the usual multiplicity of small, and deeply interesting happenings.

You may be sure of one thing, however, every soul on board ship was up long before daylight on the night or morning in which it was expected that the welcome cry and sight of “Land Ahoy” was to be heard and seen. And the crowd of Mormon emigrants were the most anxious and eager of all that ship load of people; for was it not the land of Zion? The haven of all their hopes and the realization of all their bright dreams of earthly glory? To be sure, there were many weary miles between them and the actual land of Zion, or Utah. But it was the land promised to Ephraim, for his seed, the tree whose fruitful bough should hang over the wall with its cluster of human ambitions and human efforts.

And it was with streaming eyes that many of the emigrants first beheld that long streak of dark land lying so far on the horizon in the early dawn of that radient September morning. It was Zion, and the promised land, and they all felt that here was the real home of their hearts, the land of their own inheritance, for were they not of the seed of Ephraim? The chosen people of the Lord?

Perhaps there were a few such thoughts in the mind of friend John, as he stood the very nearest the prow of the vessel and stared at the low lying island before the ship. But at any rate, the thought to which his tongue first gave utterance was,

“The oranges grow in America; a but I’ll ha’ a treat o’ them now.”

(To be continued)