The King of Beaver, and Beaver Lights

The King Of Beaver, and Beaver
Lights, by

Mary Hartwell Catherwood This eBook is for the use of anyone
anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You
may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
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Title: The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights From "Mackinac And
Lake Stories", 1899
Author: Mary Hartwell Catherwood
Release Date: October 30, 2007 [EBook #23256]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEAVER
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Produced by David Widger

THE KING OF BEAVER AND BEAVER LIGHTS
From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899

By Mary Hartwell Catherwood

THE KING OF BEAVER
Success was the word most used by the King of Beaver. Though he
stood before his people as a prophet assuming to speak revelations,
executive power breathed from him. He was a tall, golden-tinted man
with a head like a dome, hair curling over his ears, and soft beard and
mustache which did not conceal a mouth cut thin and straight. He had
student hands, long and well kept. It was not his dress, though that was
careful as a girl's, which set him apart from farmers listening on the
benches around him, but the keen light of his blue eyes, wherein shone
the master.
Emeline thought she had never before seen such a man. He had an
attraction which she felt loathsome, and the more so because it drew
some part of her irresistibly to him. Her spirit was kin to his, and she
resented that kinship, trying to lose herself among farmers' wives and
daughters, who listened to their Prophet stolidly, and were in no danger
of being naturally selected by him. This moral terror Emeline could not
have expressed in words, and she hid it like a shame. She also resented
the subservience of her kinspeople to one no greater than herself. Her
stock had been masters of men.
As the King of Beaver slowly turned about the circle he encountered
this rebel defying his assumption, and paused in his speaking a full
minute, the drowsy farmers seeing merely that notes were being shifted
and rearranged on the table. Then he began again, the dictatorial key
transposed into melody. His covert message was to the new maid in the
congregation. She might struggle like a fly in a web. He wrapped her
around and around with beautiful sentences. As Speaker of the State
Legislature he had learned well how to handle men in the mass, but
nature had doubly endowed him for entrancing women. The spiritual
part of James Strang, King and Prophet of a peculiar sect, appealed to
the one best calculated to appreciate him during the remainder of his
exhortation.

The Tabernacle, to which Beaver Island Mormons gathered every
Saturday instead of every Sunday, was yet unfinished. Its circular shape
and vaulted ceiling, panelled in the hard woods of the island, had been
planned by the man who stood in the centre. Many openings under the
eaves gaped windowless; but the congregation, sheltered from a July
sun, enjoyed freely the lake air, bringing fragrance from their own
fields and gardens. They seemed a bovine, honest people, in homespun
and hickory; and youth, bright-eyed and fresh-cheeked, was not lacking.
They sat on benches arranged in circles around a central platform
which held the Prophet's chair and table. This was his simple plan for
making his world revolve around him.
Roxy Cheeseman, Emeline's cousin, was stirred to restlessness by the
Prophet's unusual manner, and shifted uneasily on the bench. Her short,
scarlet-cheeked face made her a favorite among the young men. She
had besides this attraction a small waist and foot, and a father who was
very well off indeed for a Beaver Island farmer. Roxy's black eyes,
with the round and unwinking stare of a bird's, were fixed on King
Strang, as if she instinctively warded off a gaze which by swerving a
little could smite her.
But the Prophet paid no attention to any one when the meeting was
over, his custom being to crush his notes in one hand at the end of his
peroration, and to retire like a priest, leaving the dispersing
congregation awed by his rapt face.
The two cousins walked sedately along the street of St. James village,
while their elders lingered about the Tabernacle door shaking hands.
That primitive settlement of the early '50's consisted of a few houses
and log stores, a mill, the Tabernacle, and long docks, at which
steamers touched perhaps once a week. The forest partially encircled it.
A few Gentiles, making Saturday purchases in a shop kept by one of
their own kind, glanced with dislike at the separating Mormons. The
shouts