The Mormon Prophet | Page 6

but, in truth, that which she sought
was that both should swear allegiance to her own interpretation of grace.
In this prayer some good came to her, the willingness to sacrifice her
jealousy if need be; but, after the prayer another thought entered into
her mind, which she held to be divine direction; she must focus all her
efforts upon the girl's conversion. In her heart all the time a still small
voice told her that love was the fulfilling of the law, but so still, so
small, so habitual was it that she lost it as we lose the ticking of a clock,
and it was not with increased love for Susannah that she began a course
of redoubled zeal.
The girl became frightened, not so much of her aunt as of God. The
simple child's prayer for the keeping of her soul which she had been in
the habit of repeating morning and evening became a terror to her,
because she did not understand her aunt's phraseology. The "soul" it
dealt with was not herself, her thoughts, feelings, and powers, but a
mysterious something apart from these, for whose welfare these must

all be sacrificed.
Susannah had heard of fairies and ghosts; she inclined to shove this sort
of soul into the same unreal region. The dreary artificial heaven, which
seemed to follow logically if she accepted the basal fact of a soul
separated from all her natural powers, could be dispensed with also.
This was her hope, but she was not sure. How could she be sure when
she was so young and dependent? It was almost her only solace to
interpret Ephraim's silence by her own unbelief, and she rested her
weary mind against her vague notions of Ephraim's support.
One August day Mrs. Croom drove with her husband to a distant
funeral.
In the afternoon when the sunshine was falling upon the fields of maize,
when the wind was busy setting their ribbon-like leaves flapping, and
rocking the tree-tops, Ephraim Croom was disturbed in his private
room by the blustering entrance of Susannah.
The room was an attic; the windows of the gable looked west; slanting
windows in the shingle roof looked north and south. The room was
large and square, spare of furniture, lined with books. At a square table
in the centre sat Ephraim.
When Susannah entered a gust of wind came with her. The
handkerchief folded across her bosom was blown awry. Her sun-bonnet
had slipped back upon her neck; her ringlets were tossed.
"Cousin Ephraim, my aunt has gone; come out and play with me."
Then she added more disconsolately, "I am lonely; I want you to talk to
me, cousin."
The gust had lifted Ephraim's papers and shed them upon the floor. He
looked down at them without moving. Life in a world of thoughts in
which his fellows took no interest, had produced in him a singularly
undemonstrative manner.
Susannah's red lips were pouting. "Come, cousin, I am so tired of

myself."
But Ephraim had been privately accused of amative emotions.
Offended with his mother, mortified he knew not why, uncertain of his
own feeling, as scholars are apt to be, he had no wish then but to retire.
"I am too busy, Susianne."
"Then I will go alone; I will go for a long, long walk by myself." She
gave her foot a defiant stamp upon the floor.
He looked out of his windows north and south; safer district could not
be. "I do not think it will rain," he said.
A suspicion of laughter was lurking in his clear quiet eyes, which were
framed in heavy brown eyebrows and thick lashes. Nature, who had
stinted this man in physical strength, had fitted him out fairly well as to
figure and feature.
Susannah, vexed at his indifference, but fearing that he would retract
his unexpected permission, was again in the draught of the open door.
"Perhaps I will walk away, away into the woods and never come back;
what then?"
"Indians," suggested he, "or starvation, or perhaps wolves, Susianne."
"But I love you for not forbidding me to go, cousin Ephraim."
The smile that repaid him for his indulgence comforted him for an hour;
then a storm arose.
In the meantime Susannah had walked far. A squatter's old log-house
stood by the green roadside; the wood of the roof and walls was
weathered and silver-gray. Before it a clothes-line was stretched,
heaved tent-like by a cleft pole, and a few garments were flapping in
the wind, chiefly white, but one was vivid pink and one tawny yellow.
The nearer aspect of the log-house was squalid. An early apple-tree at

the side had shed part of its fruit, which was left to rot in the grass and
collect flies, and close to