The Work and the Glory (295 page)

“Is Mr. McBride in?”

Before the girl could answer, there was a noise from behind a stack of barrels. A head poked around. A hand reached up and pulled the spectacles lower on the nose. Dark eyes peered over them at the new customers. “Yes?”

Lydia was instantly overcome and could not speak. She just reached out and took Emily’s hand and moved forward two steps.

Josiah McBride came out fully from behind the barrels. He had a large book and a pen. He was taking inventory. It was so utterly familiar, so perfectly like she remembered it, that tears sprang to her eyes.

Suddenly the curious look turned to shock. The book lowered slowly, the jaw dropped. “Lydia?” It came out in hoarse amazement. “Is that you?”

“Hello, Papa.”

He came forward slowly, not able to believe what he saw. “It
is
you!”

“Yes, Papa. It’s me.”

He tossed the book aside, not caring where it landed. He looked over his shoulder. “Hannah!” he bellowed. “Hannah, come quick.” He swung back around to the girl. “Go get Mrs. McBride,” he barked. “Hurry!”

The girl darted off, and then Josiah McBride did something that would forever live in Lydia’s mind, and which made all of the effort, all of the sacrifice, all of the cost of getting here worth every penny it took. He stepped forward and put his arm around Lydia and the baby, pulling them close. “Lord in heaven,” he cried, “it’s my Lydia.”

“But didn’t you get my letter?”

Hannah McBride shook her head. “No. We haven’t heard a word since we wrote you almost three months ago. We decided you weren’t going to answer.”

“But I wrote to you and said we would be coming. That was around the first of August.”

“It never came,” her father said. “But it doesn’t matter. Not now. This is better than a hundred letters.” He was sitting down in the chair that customers could use while waiting for orders to be filled. Emily stood beside him, one arm resting on his shoulder. Elizabeth Mary, always shy, still clung to her mother, her head buried against her shoulder.

I can’t believe it,” Hannah was saying, smiling at Emily. “Look at her. She’s not a little girl anymore. She’s a beautiful young lady.”

Josiah reached up and patted the hand on his shoulder. “And so much—” He had to stop. He pulled out a handkerchief, removed his glasses, and wiped at his eyes. “Do you know how much you look like your mother did when she was your age?” he half whispered.

“Everybody says that,” Emily replied, ever the pragmatist.

He laughed, hugging her tightly. “I’ll bet they do.”

Lydia had to force herself not to stare at her father. Her mother had aged, but she still looked much the same. But her father was shockingly different. He had lost twenty or thirty pounds. His shoulders were stooped, his cheekbones protruded sharply, his hair was almost totally white. He looked fifteen or twenty years older than when they had last seen him. She had to fight back the tears every time she looked at him.

“And this one,” Hannah said, moving over to put a hand on Elizabeth Mary’s head. “We’ve been so anxious to see this one.”

“Can’t you even say hello to your grandmother?” Lydia said, reaching up to lift her daughter’s chin. Elizabeth Mary shook her head and ducked down again.

“You said young Joshua is with Nathan,” her mother said. “What about little Nathan?”

Lydia jerked as though she had been struck. She hadn’t made that connection. They hadn’t gotten her letter. They didn’t know. In a low voice, she quickly told them. Thankfully, just as she finished, and before they could begin asking questions, the bell tinkled again and they all turned. Nathan and young Joshua stepped inside, looking around.

“We’re back here, Nathan,” Lydia called.

Josiah McBride pushed to his feet and Hannah turned expectantly. As they came forward, Nathan reached out and laid his hand on young Joshua’s shoulder. They must have talked about what to do on the way over, for he gave him a gentle shove, and Joshua’s face broke into smiles. “Grandma. Grandpa.” He ran forward and threw his arms around his grandmother.

Nathan came forward, hand outstretched. “Hello, Father McBride.”

Then came the second stunning surprise of the day. Josiah McBride ignored the outstretched hand and in one long step had his son-in-law in a bear hug, pounding him on the back. “Welcome, Nathan. Welcome home.”

Chapter Notes

  Wilford Woodruff and John Taylor were the first of the Twelve to leave for England, departing from Nauvoo on 8 August 1839. Wilford was not the only one desperately ill. He left his wife pregnant and so sick they had to leave their first child, a daughter, with another family. John Taylor left his family ill and housed in a single room in Montrose. Wilford’s comment about being more a candidate for dissection than a missionary and Joseph’s reply to him are reported by Wilford himself. (See
Leaves,
pp. 83–84;
MWM,
pp. 67–68, 284–85.)

Chapter Fourteen

A very ill Brigham Young left Montrose, Iowa, and crossed the Mississippi River to Nauvoo on September fourteenth. Mary Ann Young, also sick, was left with a ten-day-old daughter and with the rest of their children so ill that none of the family could even go to the well for a pail of water. Brigham had lost nearly everything in Missouri and was so destitute that each member of his family had only one set of clothes. One of the brethren helped Brigham make it the thirty or so rods to the riverbank and rowed the Apostle across in a boat. By the time they reached the other side, Brigham could barely move. Another Church member, Israel Barlow, put him on a horse and carried him to Heber Kimball’s house, where he totally collapsed again.

The Kimball family were in about the same straits as the Youngs. Heber was violently ill. On August twenty-third, Vilate Kimball gave birth to David Patten Kimball. Still weak from childbirth, she was no better than her husband. The only one well enough to help fetch food and drink for the rest of his family was little four-year-old Heber Parley Kimball.

Learning that Brigham had not made it any farther than across the river to Nauvoo, Mary Ann Young, leaving all but the baby in the care of friends, crossed the river on the seventeenth of September and persuaded a boy to take her to the Kimballs’. Her intent was to come over and help nurse Brigham, but just as it had done to him, the effort of getting that far exhausted her, and she simply joined her husband and the Kimballs in their sickbeds.

It had been almost six months since Brigham had led his fellow Apostles to the square at Far West, Missouri, and there, shortly after midnight, fulfilled the commandment of the Lord. Six months! It had been over a month since Wilford Woodruff and John Taylor had left. And he and Heber, the two senior Apostles, still lay languishing in Nauvoo. In Brigham’s mind, it was long enough. Sickbed or not, it was time to leave. That night, he sent a girl to the Steeds with a message for Matthew. It was time to pack. They would leave in the morning.

Matthew slowed his step, looking around. The yard was filled with evidence that Heber had just recently completed this log cabin—wood chips, tree limbs, logs that had split in the wrong place. The door to the cabin was shut, and no one was in sight. A wagon and a team of mules were standing in the yard. A boy, about fifteen, stood beside the wagon, holding the reins. “Mornin’,” Matthew said.

“Mornin’,” the boy replied cheerfully.

“Where’s Brother Brigham?”

“Inside. Said they’ll be out in a minute.”

Matthew felt his hopes rise. The girl who brought the note had said the two Apostles were too sick to even get out of bed. So along with packing, Matthew spent a good part of the night worrying about how they were going to make a journey of a thousand miles or more when they couldn’t even walk. Matthew himself was still a little wobbly in the knees from his own illness, so the sight of the wagon was a welcome one indeed.

“You gonna fetch us on down the road?” he asked.

“Yep. Pa says I’m to take the brethren as far south as Brother Duel’s house.” The boy’s eyes dropped to see Matthew’s suitcase. When he looked up, there was new respect in them. “You goin’ with them?”

“Yep,” Matthew said, trying not to look too proud.

Behind them the door opened. They turned and saw Brigham standing there, leaning heavily on the door frame. He raised one hand and waved feebly. “We’re coming, brethren. Hold on.”

Matthew walked quickly toward the door as Brigham gave one last wave to someone inside and shuffled out. In two steps Matthew reached him and was giving him his arm. From inside, he could hear children crying and the weeping of women. Brigham stopped, turning his head. Matthew looked back too. In the light from the doorway, he could see partly inside the cabin. Vilate Kimball was lying on a bed, her newborn at her side. Heber was kneeling beside her, gripping her hand, and weeping along with her.

Matthew looked away, feeling again the pain of his final farewell with Jenny this morning. And
they
weren’t married yet. He could only imagine what it must be costing these brethren to leave wives and children in such desperate circumstances.

“You’ll have to help me up,” Brigham said as they came around to the back of the wagon. “I can’t do it.”

The boy had the tailgate of the wagon down, and together he and Matthew helped Brigham up onto the wagon bed. The boy’s mother or father had laid out some blankets, and Brigham collapsed gratefully upon them, breathing heavily, his face grimacing with the pain. “Help Heber,” he gasped.

Heber was down on his knees on the front step, his arms around his four-year-old son. “Young Heber,” he said, stroking the boy’s cheek with the back of his hand, “be my brave little man and care for your mommy and your brothers and your sister.”

The boy was stoic, his eyes large and round but not filled with tears. “I will, Papa.”

“God bless you,” Heber said. He tried to stand, but couldn’t. Matthew jumped to his side and put a hand around his waist. The boy took his other arm, and they helped him hobble to the wagon, then climb up to lie beside Brigham. Matthew closed the tailgate carefully, watching anxiously as the two of them lay there, totally drained even by what it had taken to get into the wagon. He shook his head.
A thousand miles? This is insane.

He climbed up onto the wagon seat alongside the driver and nodded grimly to him. The boy, greatly sobered by the condition of his passengers, flipped the reins lightly. “Hee yaw!” he called softly. “Giddyap there, mules.” The team lunged forward and the wagon began to roll.

They had gone no more than ten rods when there was a croak from the wagon box behind them. “Stop!” It was Heber who had called out.

As the boy reined up, Matthew looked back in alarm. Heber’s face was twisted in agony. He looked as though death itself had come to ride with them. Had they discovered so quickly that they couldn’t bear the journey?

But Heber wasn’t looking at Matthew. He wasn’t looking for help. He was looking at Brigham. And when he spoke, Matthew realized it was a different kind of agony he was feeling.

“What is it, Heber?” Brigham managed. “What’s the matter?”

“This is pretty tough, isn’t it? I feel as though my very heart is going to melt within me.”

Brigham’s head had been turned away from his companion. Now he turned to face him. His eyes were filled with tears and his cheeks were wet. He had turned away to hide his weeping. “I don’t know if I can endure it,” he whispered.

Heber nodded; then his shoulders lifted and fell and a certain determination touched his mouth. “This is no way to leave our families, us stretched out in a wagon bed, them too sick to even bid us farewell. Let us rise up and give them a cheer.”

“Of course,” Brigham said instantly. “Yes, let’s do it.”

He came up on one elbow, then reached out and grabbed the side of the wagon to steady himself. He grunted, panting heavily with the effort. Matthew was on his feet and starting to lean over to help, but Brigham waved him off with a shake of his head. He staggered upwards, teeth clenched together, until he was standing. Heber got to his knees, then had to stop. His head dropped and he gasped for air. But like Brigham he refused any help, and finally lurched to his feet.

Heber’s cabin was on a small hillock, and the wagon had just reached the bottom. Its back end faced the cabin. Clutching each other to steady themselves, the two Apostles swept off their hats. Waving them in great circles over their heads, they shouted as loudly as they could, which wasn’t much more than a hoarse croak. “Hurrah! Hurrah for Israel! Hurrah! Hurrah for Israel!”

After a moment, the door of the cabin opened and Vilate Kimball was standing there in her nightdress, blinking at the bright sunlight. In another moment, Mary Ann Young stood beside her. Like their husbands, they clung to each other in a desperate attempt to steady themselves.

“Hurrah!” the men shouted one last time. “Hurrah for Israel!” The hats made one last circle.

Matthew was staring, hardly believing what he was seeing. The women were likewise stunned. But then Vilate’s arm came up and a broad smile broke out across her face. Mary Ann began to wave, at first slowly, then enthusiastically. “Good-bye!” they cried. “God bless you.”

“And God bless you!” Brigham said. His arm fell, all strength to keep it up completely gone. “God be with you.”

The two men sank back down heavily, first to their knees, then rolling over onto their backs, drawing breath like men saved from the depths of the sea. “All right,” Brigham said haltingly to Matthew and the boy. “You may drive on.”

With the departure of the Twelve for England and the coming of fall, things in Nauvoo began to settle down. The cooler weather brought a respite from the ague, as it usually did, and life returned somewhat back to normal. Building continued at a rapid pace as the Saints continued to pour into Hancock County, Illinois, and its surrounding areas.

Things settled in for the Steed family as well. Melissa wrote and told the family of the reaction of Carl’s father to the suggestion that Carl and Melissa and their children move west. That came as a major disappointment, especially to Mary Ann. But other than that, the plan devised by Nathan and Lydia for a family cooperative moved ahead steadily.