The Mormon Prophet | Page 3

substantial wooden residence, and of many acres of land. He was as rich as he had intended to be; his ideal of righteousness, being of the obtainable sort, had been realised and strictly adhered to. The one disappointment of his life was the lack of those sturdy sons and daughters who, to his mind, should have surrounded the virtuous man in his old age. They had not come into the world. His wife, a good woman and energetic helpmeet, had brought him but the one studious son.
Ephraim was thirty-two years of age when a young girl, strong, beautiful, impetuous, entered under the sloping eaves of his father's huge gray shingle roof. The girl was a niece on the maternal side. Her New England mother had, by freak of love, married a reckless young Englishman of gentle blood who was settled on a Canadian farm. Pining for her puritan home, she died early. The father made a toy of his daughter till he too died in the fortified town of Kingston, on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. No other relatives coming forward to assume his debts or to claim his child, their duty in the matter was clear to the minds of the Croom household, and the girl was sent for. Her name was Susannah, but she herself gave it the softer form that she had been accustomed to hear; when she first entered the sitting-room of the grave Croom family trio, like a sunbeam striking suddenly through the clouds on a dark day, she held out her hand and her lips to each in turn, saying, "I am Susianne."
That first time Ephraim kissed her. It was done in surprise and embarrassed formality. He knew, when the moment was past that his parents had perceived that Susannah needed more decorous training. He concurred in believing this to be desirable, for the manners that had surrounded him were very stiff. Yet the memory of the greeting remained with him, a thing to be wondered at while he turned the whispering leaves of his great books.
Susannah had travelled from the Canadian fort in the care of the preacher Finney. He was a revivalist of great renown, possessing a lawyer-like keenness of intellect, much rhetorical power, and Pauline singleness of purpose. That night he ate and slept in the house.
The original Calvinism of the Croom household had already been modified by the waves of Methodist revival from the Eastern States. Finney was an Independent, but Martha Croom had an abounding respect for him; his occasional visits were epochs in her life. She had prepared many baked meats for his entertainment before the evening of his arrival with Susannah, but while he was present she devoted herself wholly to his conversation.
The feast was spread in the inner kitchen. In the square brick fireplace burning pine sticks crackled, bidding the chill of the April evening retire to its own place beyond the dark window pane. The paint upon the walls and floor glistened but faintly to the fire and the small flames of two candles that stood among the viands upon the table.
The elder Croom sat in his place. He was burly and ruddy, a wholesome man, very silent, very strong, a person to be feared and relied on. Ephraim believed that force went forth from his father's presence like perfume from a flower. There were many kinds of flowers whose perfume was too strong for Ephraim, but he felt that to be a proof of his own weakness.
Martha Croom, also of New England stock, was of a different type. At fifty years she was still as slender as a girl--tall and too slender, but the small shapely head was set gracefully on the neck as a flower upon its stalk. Her hair, which was wholly silvered, was still abundant and glossily brushed. Her mind was not judicial. She was more quick to decide than to comprehend, full of intense activities and emotions.
"I have heard," said the preacher slowly, "certain distressing rumours concerning--"
Mrs. Croom gave an upward bridling motion of her head, and a red spot of indignant fire came in each of her cheeks. "Joe Smith?", she cried. "A blasphemous wretch! And there is nothing, Mr. Finney, that so well indicates the luke-warmishness into which so many have fallen as that his blasphemy is made a jest of."
Ephraim moved uneasily in his chair.
Mr. Croom made a remark brief and judicial. "The Smiths are a low family."
Mrs. Croom answered the tone. "If the dirt beneath our feet were to begin using profane language, I don't suppose it would be beneath our dignity to put a stop to it."
"It is the Inquisition that my mother wishes to reinstate," said Ephraim.
The master of the house again spoke with the _na?vet��_ of unquestioning bias. "No, Ephraim; for your