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Show THE MORMON LION you're waiting. I've got a boiled dinner on cooking for you." She billowed her fashionable crinolines out through the rear doorway of the room. I sat down on a stiff horsehair sofa and gazed about from the glass-covered ormolu clock on the cluttered mantelpiece to the oval-framed pictures and worsted Bible mottoes on the walls. The wall paper was as expensive and its large patterns as aggressively coloured as the heavy Brussels carpet on the floor. At one end of the room stood a line mahogany piano. Brother Chilcott certainly had prospered since . the clays when he joined the exodus to the Promtsecl Land wtth only one wife and a scant wagon load of worldly goods. Amanda soon came bustling in again with a large tumbler of wine and several slices of pound cake. " Here you are, David," she said. "Guess that'll keep you going till I git things dished up. It's some of Brother Chilcott's port wine that he brought over from France hisself. Needn't tell him I opened a bottle." "I won't-though I'd like to remind him of the days when it would have been cider and gingerbread," I remarked. " The Lord has given increase to His Saints a thousandfold," she said. " Last year we ran short, what with drought burning up the crops and cnckets and hoppers eating them down. 'Most everybody had to dig segos and other Injin roots. But thts year's harvests were better, and Brigham says we won't be caught in another such pinch agin. They're digging more irrigation ditches all the ttme. Only let them pestilent Government officials leave us alo~e, and the Kingdom will overflow like Canaan wtth mtlk and honey." . , "What's the matter with the Federal offictals? I asked. " Isn't Utah one of the Territories? " Her eyes snapped with their old-time lire. " You ought to know better than to make fun of THE MORMON LION me, Dave! Didn't we come here before the Government had a shadow of a claim to the Basin ? Didn't we settle it and turn the desert into a garden in the sweat of our faces? " " It was then Mexican territory. The Government first won it from the Mexicans and then paid them for it. You know that, Amanda." " I don't care what they did. The Lord gave us tlt.is Janel for the establishment of His Kingdom. The world thinks Brigham is only the Governor of Utah Territory. We know he's the President of the independent State of Deseret. When the Federal judges get pert, he sends them packing, one way or 'nether. And you can just count on it, there ain't any more soldiers going to git into the Valley." It was with difficulty that I concealed my astonishment. The woman was talking outright treason. I remarked in a casual tone : " Waller tells me the militia has a muster every week." "Yes, you'll see. We still call 'em the Nauvoo Legion. They ain't much on gold lace and such trumpery, but they can shoot. Wait till the Kingdom grows. You know, and every single Saint in the Kingdom knows, our Church is the only holy God-given Government on earth or in Heaven. Joseph said it, speaking from God. Every other Government is wrong and illegal, he said, just as everx other religion is a sinful lie. You know that, Dave. ' " Well? " I asked, sipping the last of the wine. "You know it, Dave. You're a lawyer. And you know the Kingdom ain't never going to stop growing till it has spread all 'round the world and all people are trampled under the feet of God's Saints or else they acknowledge the truth of the new dispensation and pay tithes to the Prophet. God shall wound the hairy scalps of His enemies ; but He'll be good to them that bow down to Him and obey the counsel of His Prophets and priests." E |
