Twelve Mormon Homes : Twelve Mormon homes visited in succession on a journey through Utah to Arizona.

Twelve Mormon Homes, page 060

a seat, nor the draught of water I had to ask for, and help my- self to; merely remarking that she "hadn't no kind of a place for folks to come into. Her girl had left the place three weeks ago, and she warn? going to stay among the Mormons, if she could get her husband to quit, and go among Christian folks." She supposed, of course, that she was rude to a Mormon woman in me, and I confess that I did not claim her as a Christian sister. Of course it would be as unfair to select such a wife as a speci- men of "Gentile" pioneer females, as the energetic and active Mrs. Thompson of the average of Mormon women. Ill-health or indolence and cheerful activity, are peculiar to neither orthodoxy nor heterodoxy. But a religious faith that animates the whole being, enabling a woman to be cheerful in spite of adverse cir- cumstances, industrious in spite of sickness, loving God and her neighbor; and showing it by charity in word and deed; this faith above doctrine I have found quite as often among Mormon as among other Christian women. We parted with Mrs. Young at the crossing of the river the morning after, and as we looked back upon the group just set- ting out over the snowy plain for their remote settlement, I felt profoundly sad. The refined-looking young creature, with her baby clasped in her arms, seemed no less proud of it than her husband was of her. Yet it seemed a desolate prospect for her to journey over that lonely country to a rough new settlement among the savages. Her ladylike manner and quiet tones made the life before her seem doubly incongruous. Poor child, she has had to take her part in life decidedly, too, and is isolated from her people and kindred in more than mere geographical dis- 60