The Mormon Prophet | Page 7

the road, under a juniper bush, the rind of
melons and potato peelings had been thrown. There was no fence; the
grass was uncut. Upon the door-step sat a tall woman, unkempt-looking,
almost ragged. She had short gray hair that curled about her temples;
her face was handsome, clever-looking too, but, above all, eager. This
eagerness amounted to hunger. She was looking toward the sky,
nodding and smiling to herself.
Susannah stopped upon the road a few feet from the juniper bush. It
occurred to her that this was Joseph Smith's mother, who had the
reputation of being a speywife. The sky-gazer did not look at her.
"Are you Lucy Smith?"
The woman clapped her hands suddenly together and laughed aloud.
Then she rose, but, only glancing a moment at the visitor, she turned
her smiling face again toward the sky.
Into Susannah's still defiant mood darted the thought of a new
adventure. "Will you tell my fortune?"
"Who am I to tell fortunes when my son Joseph has come home?"
Again came the excited laugh. "It's the grace of God that's fallen on this
house, and Lucy Smith, like Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias, is the
mother of a prophet."
"He isn't a prophet," said Susannah, taking a step backward.
"Seven years ago was his first vision, and all the people trampling upon
him since to make him gainsay it, but he stood steadfast. I dreamed
it--when he was a little child I dreamed it, and it has come true." Then,
seeming to return into herself, her gaze wandered again to the sky, and
she murmured, "The mother of a prophet, the mother of a prophet!"
On the other side of the road a few acres of ground were lying under
disorderly cultivation. In one patch the stalks of sweet maize had been
fastened together in high stooks, disclosing the pumpkin vines, which

beneath them had plentifully borne their huge fruit, green as yet. At the
back of this cultivated portion an old man, the elder Joseph Smith, was
digging potatoes; his torn shirt fluttered like the dress of a scarecrow.
Behind him and all around was the green wood, close-growing bushes
hedging in the short trees of a second growth which covered a long low
hill. Above the hill ominous clouds like smoking censers were being
rolled up from the east; the waving beards of the corn stooks rustled
and streamed in wind which was growing colder. Susannah's dress and
bonnet were roughly blown, and the clothes on the line flapped again
around the tall figure of the witch in the doorway.
Susannah contradicted again with the scornful superiority of youth. "I
don't believe that your son is a prophet."
Lucy Smith, having the sensitive receptive power of an hysteric, was
sobered now by the determination of Susannah's aspect. She looked
almost repentant for a moment, and then said humbly, "If you'll come
in and see Emmar--Joseph and Emmar have come home--Emmar will
tell you the same."
A gray vaporous tint was being spread over the heavens, folding this
portion of earth in its shadow and darkening the interior of the cabin
which Susannah entered.
Upon a decent bedstead reclined a young woman. Everything near her
was orderly and clean. She belonged, it would seem, to a better class of
the social order than the other, certainly to a higher type of
womanhood.
"What have you got? Is it a kitten?" asked Susannah. Advancing across
the dark uneven floor, she perceived that the reclining woman was
caressing some small creature beneath her shawl.
"Emmar, Emmar," said Lucy Smith, "tell Miss from the mill about the
angel that appeared to Joseph."
Emma Smith was a nobly made, dignified young creature. She looked
at Susannah's beautiful and open countenance, and straightway drew

forth the young thing she was nursing for her inspection. It was an
infant but a few days old. Surprised, reverent, and delighted, Susannah
bent over it. The child made them all akin--the squalid old hysteric, the
respectable young mother, the beautiful girl in her silken shawl.
Some minutes elapsed.
"Emmar, Miss here doesn't know nothing about Joseph. She says it ain't
true."
The young mother smiled frankly. "I suppose it seems very hard for
you to believe," she said, "but it's quite true, and the Lord told Joseph
where to find the new part of the Bible that he's going now to make
known to the world. Shall I tell you about it?"
Susannah looked at her dazed; she had heretofore heard of the Smiths'
doctrines as of the ravings of the mad. It had not occurred to her that a
sane mind could regard them seriously.
"It was seven years ago," said Emma, "at the time the big revival was
here and Joseph was converted; but he heard