| OCR Text |
Show 192 Family life alike at the Senbys' and the Chilcotts' flowed smoothly along. We all prayed and sang hymns and read the devotional books and penod1cals of the Church every evening. No less regularly we attended the Tabernacle services, where Brother Sen by sat in patriarchal dignity with one wife on his right hand and two on h1s left. Between us we had onlY. two causes of annoyance. Mine was Jake Waller. 'I he httle rascal would msist ur.on coming to !ny office half mtox1cated w1th the vile whiskey distilled by the Saints, and would h~ng about me with maudlin assertiOns of h1s undymg friendship. . The Senbys had to face the more senous matter of Helga's growing inclination to assert her wifely rights. The girl was naturally good, but she w~s ignorant and orthodox, and the Teachers and Bishops Counsellors and the Bishop of the w~rd were constantly seeking to pry into the most mt1mate relations of the famtly. It was their duty to learn and report to their superiors in the pnesthood all the facts of marital life that elsewhere are considered mvwlate. For this purpose they were provided with an official catechism. . To my vast relief, Lucy was no longer questioned except perfunctorily by the mquiSitors. They had undoubtedly received orders from Bngham to cease worrying her. Thanks to my position as. a member of Chilcott's family, I escaped the attentions of the spies though occasionally a high Church d1gmtary, overflowing with the "spirit," would catechize me in my office. . During the Spring the hatred of the Samts for all Gentiles had been deepened by the k1lhng 111 Arkansas of Parley P. Pratt, the Apostle who had converted my mother. He was shot by a man whose wife h~d run off with the Apostle to become one of hiS spmtuals. Later on the woman had abducted the children of her first husband. The killing had followed. THE MORMON LION 193 In June, Brigham and Heber Kimball were still harder hit by a notice from Washington that the Government declined to execute its contract with Kimball for carrying the mails between Missouri and Salt Lake City. Early in the spring, Brigham and his partners had organized a mail and express carrying company. At great difficulty and expense, they had gathered together a large outfit of stock and wagons and had established stations through the mountains all the way to Fort Laramie. As they had expected large profits from the mail contract, the blow was a hard one for a man of Brigham's grasping disposition. The Fourth of July was honoured with no display of patriotism by the Saints. A few of the Gentile merchants ventured to hoist the glorious stars-andstripes. Otherwise the great Day of Independence passed unobserved in Zion. Even lacking the added hatred engendered by the Reformation, there would have been nothing remarkable about this failure to celebrate. More than half the Saints were unnaturalized foreigners, mostly of the ignorant classes. There were many Scotch, English and Welsh; then came Germans, Scandinavians, Poles, and Russians, Swiss, French, and Italians. Of the Americans, the greater number had suffered personally from the riots and outrages and wars that had resulted in their expulsion from State to State and from Nauvoo to the wilderness. ,. A far different occasion was the Twenty-fourth of July, the anniversary of the first arrival of the Saints m the Valley. This was the holiday of holidays in the Great Basin. All the faithful who could find means of transportation were invited by Brigham to join him in a grand picnic and jollification at Great Cottonwood Lake, twenty-four miles from the city. Mr. Senby at once suggested the expediency of taking part with his family in the jubilee. Conveyances were in such demand that he was unable to hire one. But thanks to the good offices of Amanda, I N |
