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Show in my father's house/ 19 otherwise!" My mother had jerked upright and murmured. "This is the spirit of the Lord?" Tightly-wrung faces surrounded us. A woman at the piano beat her lap with her fists, lips pressed together as though something terrible might fly out of her mouth. Then Brother Musser had stood and the room settled. "Come stand here, at my right hand, Brother Allred." My father stepped forward. Although much taller than Brother Musser, his head and shoulders bowed and tears dripped to the floor. Since that meeting, only part of the group remained loyal to my father, meeting with us in our living room or in my Uncle Arthur's garage. Some people thought the falling away was just as well. My mother said it was wrong how some of the council-men arranged marriages for their young people. "Everyone has a right to fall in love, like I did with your daddy. I know that's not how the brethren in Short Creek believe they think they know what's best for everybody." She was speaking of the small polygamist settlement near the Utah-Arizona border where Brother Musser had married her to my father. Most of the people who stayed away from my father's meetings dressed different from my mothers and aunts, who used some makeup and rolled up their long-sleeved, long-legged temple garments and styled their long hair to match the fashions of the day. |