From the Relief Society Magazine, October 1964 –

The Good Fountain

By Joyce B. Bailey

Don and Rita drove in silence, both of them staring without seeing the shadow and sunlight mixing in dappled green on the trees in the canyon. Rita glanced cautiously at her husband. His jaw was set, and she knew the hurt in his face was real.

If only he weren’t so stubborn. Now he has ruined our vacation right at the beginning, she thought. We’ll be miserable the whole week. Pursing her lips, she turned her head to look out the window.

The mountains reached above them, massive and breathtaking in their cotton-cloud dresses. The road ahead of them curved and twisted in daring fashion against the sides of the jutting rock. Don was driving expertly, as he always did, but she held her breath as he pressed his foot down on the accelerator, whirling them around curves, blurring the thick stands of pine trees, and pressing her against the side of the car.

She opened her mouth to say something to him, but she changed her hind. Let him drive faster if it made him feel better.

She was not going to give in on this thing. Even Don himself had admitted, time and again, that it was risky to stop for hitchhikers along the road.

“You’re just asking for trouble,” Rita had said only last week when Don stopped to pick up a shabbily dressed man on the freeway.

“My car broke down,” the man told them, indicating the fenderless clunk at the side of the road, and Don had given her that “Aren’t you ashamed?” look.

“Well, he could have been a robber!” she argued defensively, after they let the man off at a garage.

“But he wasn’t.” Don grinned at her, then, and they laughed together.

This was different. They were on their vacation. Don only had a week, and Rita didn’t want to spend it picking up hitchhikers. They were going to Lake Dorn, and their two-seater sportscar, Don’s first anniversary surprise, was loaded with camping gear and sleeping bags. There just isn’t room for any extra passengers, she thought, as the little car sped up the canyon to the high mountain lake.

“Honey?” said Don tentatively. He looked at her quickly. “Honey, I know it’s risky to stop for hitchhikers. All I said was ‘What would we do if we had a breakdown or an accident or something? What if no one would stop for us? Isn’t it the charitable thing to stop and offer aid when someone needs it?”

“I just don’t want to talk about it. We aren’t going to break down or have an accident, so it’s pointless to talk about it. Besides,” she said, after a pause.

“We’d never know if the trouble was real or only pretended.”

“Honey, I’m sure the Lord would let us know in some way. You know the scripture in Moroni about the good fountain. It can’t bring forth bitter water.”

“No, I don’t remember it, and I don’t want to discuss it.”

“You’re being very stubborn, Rita,” he said seriously. A smile suddenly erased his frown. “But let’s not let it upset our good time. All right?”

“All right.” Rita smiled back. “I hope we make the lake before dark. I’m starved!”

“Can you cook in the dark?” They both laughed. Everything was fine again, almost. Rita felt her spirits lift, and the feel of the road turning under them and the fresh smell in the air made her want to sing. She started to hum, and soon she and Don were singing a hymn. “Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom; Lead thou me on. . . .”

The afternoon sun through the windshield made Rita drowsy. She slept for awhile, with her head on her arm. A thumping jolt shook her to a sitting position.

“What’s the matter?”

“A bad hole in the road. The car’s all right, but it looks like some rough road ahead — and dusty. Better roll up your window.”

Don slowed the car and eased it into a rugged dirt section. “That sign we saw said there was construction for five miles. We’re in for a hot, bumpy ride.” Don rolled his own window up, and the little car bucked and humped over the roughly graded road. “Don! What’s that?” Rita straightened in the seat. In the swirling dust ahead of them, a figure waved frantic arms. A car was parked by the roadside.

”Somebody’s in trouble.” Don looked at Rita. ”Shall we stop?”

She bit her lip. The figure in the road was a woman dressed in a denim suit. She really did appear to be distressed, but what if it were a trick? Don was slowing down, but still he glanced at her, waiting for some change of expression.

“We have to stop,” said Rita, finally, and Don pulled off the road behind the parked car. The woman ran to Don’s side of the car and leaned against it, breathing heavily. Rita could see that she was an older woman with streaks of white in her hair. She looked very tired.

“Thank you for stopping. My husband’s up there. . . .” She pointed upward to an outcropping of jagged boulders above the line of trees. “He’s hurt, and I can’t drive to go for help.”

At her words, Don looked inquiringly at Rita.

“I’ll stay here,” she said. “I’m not much for climbing.” He got out of the car and started through the brush at the side of the road. The woman followed him.

Rita sat in the car, watching them scramble over loose rocks and gravel, pushing aside clinging brush, until they disappeared down the incline.

“This ought to delay us an hour or more,” she said to herself, feeling the bitterness catch in her throat. “And all because Don has to be charitable! ‘Charity begins at home.'” She said the oft-repeated words aloud. Begins at home. Yes, perhaps it does.

She thought of the passage from Moroni Don had mentioned. She did recall it now.

“For behold, a bitter fountain cannot bring forth good water; neither can a good fountain bring forth bitter water.” She remembered, too, Moroni’s message at the end of that chapter. Charity, the pure love of Christ. The bitterness drained away and she thought of the woman — she had such tired, desperate lines in her face.

With sudden decision, Rita opened the car door and went to the edge of the road. There were no cars in sight in either direction, but a thick layer of dust hung in the air, choking her and coating the leaves with a fine covering. The sun pressed hotly on the top of her head.

I can’t wait here, she thought. I’ll roast to death. The man might really need help.

She followed the trail of broken twigs and crushed undergrowth down a steep slope, to the edge of a tiny streamlet. She jumped across it and looked for a sign to tell her where the others had gone. The trees whispered in a delicate, cooling breeze, but she could see no trace of her husband and the woman. She felt a sudden panic and struggled to overcome it. Silly! she thought. If I just look carefully, I’m certain to find where they have gone. She studied her quiet surroundings, straining to see into deep shadows. Perhaps I can see a footprint or something, she thought. The ground beneath her feet was hard and dry, rippled with rock. Then she saw the dangling finger of a bent twig, swaying slightly, as if it were pointing the way.

She went closer to the tree, and in the soft earth beneath it, she could see the imprint of Don’s canvas shoe. Sighing with relief, she pulled her way past the tree and started up the incline.

Above her nearly a hundred feet were the boulders where the injured man lay. Rita could see nothing of her husband or the woman. She began pulling herself up the side of the canyon wall, digging her shoes into the dirt and carefully testing each branch and twig before she allowed it to hold her full weight. Before she had gone ten feet, perspiration was running down her face, and her blouse was smudged and streaked with dirt. She stopped for a moment to wipe her face with her hand. How could that woman have climbed this slope? Rita was young and strong, but her muscles were taut and trembling with exertion. A few feet above her the hillside became more rocky, with less brush, and the going was easier.

Now, above her, she thought she heard Don’s voice. She gazed up, but a large, angled piece of granite obstructed her view. Impatiently, she tried to pull herself up over the rock. Her handhold slipped, and she dropped off the rock and fell heavily on her leg.

Stunned, she sat, not knowing quite what to do. Her ankle throbbed violently and made her gasp with pain.

”What a stupid thing to do!” she said aloud. When the pain subsided a bit, she wiggled her toes. Finding no increase in pain, she moved to get her weight off the leg. She tested her ankle gingerly. It was all right. Thank goodness! She had bruised the outside of her foot on a sharp rock. Her leg was able to hold her up, so she dusted herself off and started upward again.

The voice was louder now, and she called to Don.

“Rita? What are you doing down there? I thought you were going to stay in the car.” She heard him scrambling down the rocks above her. He appeared on the rock from which she had fallen and jumped down to her.

“What are you doing here? You aren’t the hiking kind, remember?”

“I’m not,” she agreed, still feeling the bruise on her ankle. “But I couldn’t just sit there. Besides, I thought I might be able to help.”

“Well, I’d have trouble getting him down alone. I’m going to have to go for help. Can I count on you to look after them? Mrs. Harding doesn’t seem too well, either.” She nodded her head. Go for help? That will take hours, Rita thought. Precious hours of our vacation time. Precious hours of the man’s life, too, she reminded herself, and she climbed after Don’s vanishing figure.

Mr. Harding lay on a ridge of granite, amid piles of loose rocks and earth. Don boosted his wife the last few feet over the ledge, and she felt alarm and fear at the sight of the man’s face. It was covered with dried blood, and bits of dead leaves and dirt clung in hardened clumps. The skin beneath was gray. Mrs. Harding sat at his head with her hand on her husband’s shoulder, looking as if she might faint at any moment. Rita went to her and took her arm.

“Don is going to go for help, Mrs. Harding.” The woman looked up at her, not seeming to understand. “I’ll stay here with you until he brings someone back. Everything will be fine.” As she heard herself say the words, she felt a quiver of uncertainty. Everything will be fine, you hope.

The afternoon sun was rapidly sliding behind the tops of the mountains, the breeze that so gently brought relief from the heat of the road now chilled the waiting women. Shadows reached at them with dark hands. What if Don didn’t return before it grew dark? Rita was not at all sure she could keep calm. Mrs. Harding had not spoken since Don left, and she had given up trying to converse with her.

She jumped at a strange sound. She had been sitting on a rock not far from Mrs. Harding, and now she felt the older woman clawing at her arm.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Harding. Everything’s fine.” But it was not fine. Something in Mrs. Harding’s face told her that. It was Mr. Harding. Rita went over to him. He was moaning. She knelt beside him and touched his face and hands. They were cold, and he was trembling and breathing rapidly.

I’ve got to get him warm, she thought. She hadn’t even the sweater she had brought along for cool nights at the lake. The Hardings were both in short sleeves. There was nothing she could use for warmth, and the wind began to billow the trees with its stirring. A fire, she thought suddenly. If I could only build a fire. She carried no matches, and her pockets were empty. Quickly, she went through Mr. Harding’s pockets. A pocket knife, some loose change, a handkerchief . . . no matches. A swift questioning of Mrs. Harding brought forth a lipstick, a pocket comb, and a crumpled tissue.

Well, she thought, if the Indians could do it, there must be a way. She opened the pocket knife, pulling out one of the stiffly sprung blades inexpertly. She searched the ground in the rapidly failing light and found two dry sticks. She stripped their bark with the knife, piling the shavings together on the ground, then she rubbed the two sticks together furiously, until her arms, unused to such activity, would go no more. She felt the sticks. They were barely warm.

Disgusted, she threw them down and sat in the dirt. A hard, frightening lump began in her chest, and she knew the tears were not far behind it.

Oh, dear Lord. Help me! If I don’t find a way to get him warm, he may die, she thought desperately.

I N helpless anger at herself, Rita picked up a handful of the loose rocks and threw them, too, into the darkness. A shower of sparks as the stones struck a larger rock startled her out of her dismay. Sparks! Eagerly, she took up another handful and began striking them on a nearby rock. Each blow caused a tiny spark to fly into the night. She excitedly gathered her shavings together with Mrs. Harding’s tissue, and holding them directly under the rock, she began to strike.

Tensely, she knelt at her work, and in spite of the coolness of the night air, perspiration trickled down her face.

”Maddening little bits of fire,” she muttered when the sparks flew everywhere but onto the shavings. Then, amazingly, one fell into the pile in her hand, and she watched in anxious suspense as the point of redness brightened. With great tenderness, she breathed onto it, and as if she had breathed the breath of life, the point separated and sprang into a circle, igniting the pieces of bark. When she at last saw the healthy yellow flame licking toward her hand, she knew she had succeeded.

She pushed together a ring of stones with her foot and set her growing fire-child in the center. With its small illumination, Rita was able to find more dry sticks, which she shaved into her hungry fire. In the darkness she found some large branches, which she laid crosswise in the fire. She could already feel the heat of the flames warming her. Looking up from her labors, Rita saw Mrs. Harding bending over her husband, pulling him close to the fire. She hurried to help her, and soon they had placed him near the circle, and the older woman had cushioned his head in her lap.

“He’s all right,” Mrs. Harding said after awhile. “The fire has stopped his trembling.”

Wonderful fire, Rita thought. “I think it’s put a little courage in us all,” she said. The older woman nodded, smiling down at her husband.

Rita thought of the hymn she and Don had been singing earlier. “Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom; lead thou me on!”

Rita began to sing the words again, softly to herself, as she poked the fire with a stick. To her surprise, Mrs. Harding’s quavering high voice joined in with hers. “The night is dark and I am far from home; Lead thou me on!”

Suddenly, behind her, she heard a movement among the rocks, and Don’s grinning face came out of the mountain blackness.

“Hi! Did you think I wasn’t coming back?” Rita fell into his open arms and hugged him, happily.

“Oh, Don, you’ve been gone so long. It got cold, and I had to make a fire, and. . . .”

She noticed the men standing behind her husband.

“Sheriff Gunther, Deputy Walsh, this is my wife, Rita. There’s the injured man,” he said pointing to Mr. Harding.

“Thank you, Mr. Gardner. I think Frank and I can get him down all right, if you’ll see that the ladies get down safely.”

“Right,” said Don, gripping Rita’s shoulder. “Hey,” he whispered. “How did you get that fire started? I didn’t know you were a boy scout!”

“There are lots of things you don’t know about me, yet,” Rita replied, laughing.

“If we hadn’t seen that fire and heard you singing, we might not have found you until dawn,” said Sheriff Gunther. “It’s pitch black.”

As the sheriff and Deputy Walsh made Mr. Harding comfortable in the back of the officers’ station wagon, Mrs. Harding
turned to Rita and took her hand.

“We did a foolish thing, climbing alone up there. When James fell and I tried to stop the bleeding, I prayed that God would send someone to help me. He must have led you both to me. God bless you for coming up there with me.”

Say thank you to the good fountain, Rita thought, feeling her emotions swell.

“Good luck,” Don called, as the station wagon pulled out onto the road. Then he took Rita’s hand and opened the car door for her.

“You know,” he said, leaning over her, “that’s some wife I’ve got.” And he kissed her.

“We ought to make Lake Dorn by morning,” he said, climbing into the car.

“In time for breakfast, I hope,” said Rita, snuggling against his shoulder.