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Show RIVER Mansion' as a hotel" that was "more comfortable than any other place on the upper Mississippi." The mansion was a two-story frame house built in the Federal style that in its glory could entertain two hundred people and stable seventy-five horses. Its guest wings had disappeared, but it was still an impressive building-and, oh, if its walls could speak. Just to the south of the Mansion House the Nauvoo House stood next to the river. In Mormon scripture the Lord called it "my boarding house which I have commanded you to build for the boarding of strangers." He even directed that the quorum He assigned to build the hotel "shall not receive less than fifty dollars for a share of stock in that house," and should "not be permitted to receive over fifteen thousand dollars stock from any one man." For some odd reason investors failed to seize the opportunity of an eternal lifetime, and when an angry mob murdered Smith three years after this revelation appeared, only the basement and the brick walls of the first story stood beside the Mississippi. To prevent desecration of his grave, his followers secretly buried Smith in the unfinished basement, and eventually his widow built a modest two-story home on the southwest corner of the foundation. The RLDS church now ran it as a youth hostel: such a building, I knew, must have showers. Our RLDS guide was a quiet, middle-aged gentleman who knew a lot more about Nauvoo than his LDS counterpart. At the end our tour I explained our situation, and he generously offered to let Rosie and me use the showers, confirming the Lord's prediction that the Nauvoo House would be "a resting-place for the weary traveler." I walked back up to town. We left Prometheus to the kind care of Starr's Garage; Starr himself had declared the old Chevy dead as a doornail. I think we -75- |