Pillar of Light, page 223
Jenny saw that they were looking at her and waved.
Matthew waved back. “Careful,” he called. “That spot by the cattails is really soggy.”
Jenny had a large rag in one hand that she constantly waved back and forth in front of her face, trying to ward off the hordes of mosquitoes. As she came up next to where their shoes were, she stopped dead and began to laugh. “I’m sorry,” she started, deadpan, but then she couldn’t hold it and began giggling again. “I thought you were somebody I knew.” She turned away, feigning confusion.
Matthew pulled a face at her and stuck his shovel into the soft mud. “Very funny. The mud keeps the mosquitoes off,” he said, climbing out of the ditch to stand beside her. Without thinking, he reached up and slapped at his cheek. When his hand came away, there was a tiny patch of blood and a squashed mosquito there.
Jenny laughed, then reached out, took his arm, lifted it to his cheek, and wiped the spot off with his sleeve. “I see,” she said soberly.
“What brings you out here?”
She got instantly serious. “Joshua and Caroline are back.”
Nathan, Derek, and Peter had stopped working to watch. “Already?” Nathan asked in surprise. Joshua and Caroline had helped them move up to Commerce, then returned to St. Louis to wrap up affairs there. It was only the first of July. Joshua had talked as though it would take him as long as August to get back.
“Yes. He’s got two wagonloads of lumber and shingles. Father Steed says to come home. He wants to try and get cabins roofed before we get another rainstorm. He says the ditches will have to wait.”
“Two loads,” Derek said, sloshing down the ditch, then jumping out beside Matthew. “That’s great. Joshua has a way, doesn’t he?”
Nathan also climbed out of the ditch, then turned to give Peter a pull up as well. As they all came together, Matthew lifted his left leg and examined it closely, then rolled down the pant leg. He did the same with the other. He moved to Derek and then suddenly stopped, looking at the back of his legs. “Bloodsucker, Derek,” he said. He stepped to him. “Hold still.”
Jenny turned to look and saw the slimy green blob, about an inch and a half long, attached to Derek’s flesh just below the back of the knee joint. It was a swamp leech. She shuddered as Matthew leaned over, pulled it off, and dropped it to the ground. It left a raw spot tinged with blood where it had been. Peter picked up the nearest shoe and crushed the leech beneath the heel.
Matthew wiped his feet off on the grass, then sat down and began to pull his socks on. Peter and Nathan checked each other for leeches as Derek sat beside Matthew. As they put on their shoes, Jenny surveyed their morning’s labors. “Phew!” she said, wrinkling her nose. “This stinks worse than I thought.”
“Yeah,” Derek agreed. “It’s bad enough anytime, but digging into it doesn’t help.”
“Is it going to work?” she asked dubiously.
Matthew’s head bobbed quickly up and down and he pointed to the nearest ditch. “Look. You can see water trickling toward the river. It’s not much, but it’s draining, all right.”
Derek turned and looked too. “Give it two weeks and this land will be ready to plow. And what land it’s gonna be. Look at that soil. Look how black it is.”
Matthew looked at Derek incredulously. “Two weeks? Tell you what. In two weeks, you plow, I’ll watch.”
Derek reconsidered. “All right, maybe two weeks isn’t enough. Let’s give it fourteen days.”
Jenny laughed as Matthew just shook his head. Besting Derek took some doing, even from Matthew. She smiled at this black-faced Englishman. “By the way, Rebecca came down with me. She and Mother Steed are waiting for us by the big tree.”
“Rebecca came?” Derek asked, surprised.
“Yes. She fed Christopher and he went right back to sleep, so she left him with Rachel.”
Derek grinned proudly. “That’s all that boy does is eat and sleep.”
“Be grateful,” Nathan laughed. “Elizabeth Mary is over a year old now, and still sleeps through the night only about half the time.”
Matthew carefully wiped his hand on his pants, then took Jenny’s hand. “Let’s go down to the river first, and we’ll wash this mud off.”
When they reached the river, Jenny stood beside them and talked as they splashed water on their faces and arms. “Caroline said they’ve found them a house to rent in Quincy and that Joshua has already started work on a corral and stable so he can bring his teams up. They brought the girls with them.”
Matthew half frowned as he stood up. “So Olivia’s here too?”
Jenny laughed merrily and slipped her arm through his. “Yes. So there’ll be no holding hands when she’s around.”
The others laughed, but Matthew didn’t find it that amusing. He blew out his breath in a little expression of frustration. “Jennifer Jo, Olivia is just going to have to get used to the idea of you and me. She’s not even twelve yet, for heaven’s sake. Does she really think I can wait that long for her to grow up?”
She shook her head, giving him a chiding look. “Don’t be too hard on her, Matthew. When you’re almost twelve and deeply in love, reality seems far away.”
Matthew pulled a face, but Jenny just laughed again. “Come, your mother and Rebecca are waiting for us.”
Nathan and his mother walked along, arm in arm. The July sun was hot and the air heavy and still. Beads of moisture stood out on Nathan’s forehead, and the back of his shirt was dark with sweat. Jenny, Matthew, and Peter—still young and full of energy—had gone on ahead and were almost to the homesite. Derek and Rebecca were a few paces behind Nathan and his mother. Christopher Joseph Ingalls had been born only three weeks before and Rebecca wasn’t back up to full strength yet. Equally weighty in slowing her step was the knowledge that Derek would soon be leaving her. Joseph Smith had called a meeting for the morrow so that he could give the Apostles their instructions before they departed. Derek would leave with them, which meant Rebecca’s time with him was very limited now. So she savored every opportunity to be with him alone.
The leisurely pace was fine with Mary Ann. They were moving up a slight rise, and the long, sweeping curve of the Mississippi was visible behind them. She loved the view from here. On the far side of the river—the Iowa side—she could see evidence of settlement there. Commerce had only one stone house and a scattering of cabins when the Saints began to arrive, so many of them had crossed the river to Montrose. Old Fort Des Moines was there, and they found temporary shelter in the deserted barracks. Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff lived in Montrose, along with some of the other leaders. Joseph had purchased large tracts of land on that side of the river too and encouraged the Saints to build a settlement there as well.
She lowered her gaze again. In every direction, the landscape was verdant and lush. Willows and cottonwoods formed a darker line near the water. Elsewhere a hundred different shades of green caressed the eye. And through it, just starting to really take form, were the dark black slashes of the drainage ditches—dozens of them—that the men were digging.
Directly ahead of them was the Steed homesite. Land in Commerce had been divided into building lots large enough to have a home and an ample garden plot, perhaps even an animal or two. Each able-bodied Saint was charged five hundred dollars for a lot. Under Joseph’s direction, those who had suffered the most in Missouri were given their lots free of charge. Joshua had purchased six lots for the Steeds; Caroline had acquired an additional one for the store, two blocks away from where the houses would be. Cabins, waiting now only for the roofs to be shingled, occupied four of the six lots.
The smallest would be Benjamin and Mary Ann’s. It had one main room with a stone fireplace on one end; and then off the back wall there was a small room, barely big enough for two beds, where Peter and Matthew slept. It wasn’t much, but it was sufficient to begin with. Next to it on the south was Nathan and Lydia’s home. Since they had four children, it was almost twice as big, but still had only two rooms and an attic loft. Across the street from that one was Derek and Rebecca’s. It was closer to the size of Benjamin’s, but they had built it in such a way that it could be easily expanded as Christopher got additional brothers and sisters.
Jessica’s cabin was the largest of the four. Like Nathan and Lydia, she too had four children, but—over her protests about getting special treatment—the family had decided to add an extra room on the back. It would be a place to hold school when fall came. At night it also served as Jenny and Kathryn’s bedroom. Nancy McIntire was a proud woman, and though the Steeds begged her to come north with them, she refused to do so until she could get enough money to make her own way. She did agree to let the girls come, for they could earn their board and room by helping Jessica and Lydia care for the children, but she herself remained behind in Quincy for now.
Beside Derek’s home, one of the two additional lots would be for Joshua and Caroline, and—if all went as planned—the other would be for Melissa and Carl. The lot for the store was on the corner of what promised to become a major intersection in the town. With cash at a premium, the land allocation committee had been so pleased with Joshua and Caroline’s cash purchase, they had insisted on giving them that lot for the store.
As Mary Ann let her eyes come all the way around to the east where the land rose to form gentle bluffs, she was struck again with the activity that was everywhere present. There was an amazing number of structures under construction. Log cabins, sod huts, frame homes, stone houses, barns, sheds, stables—they dotted the landscape everywhere one looked.
Mary Ann marveled at how quickly things were happening. Today was the first day of July. It had not yet been a full two months since they had sat in general conference and heard Brother Joseph ask them to come north. Ever one to set the example, less than a week later Joseph, along with Emma and their children, moved into one of the few standing cabins at Commerce, which was quickly dubbed the “Old Homestead.” That settled it for most of the members. If Brother Joseph moved north, they would follow. And for the past six weeks they had streamed upriver.
It had been a busy time for the Steeds as well. In addition to clearing and draining Derek’s acreage, and building four cabins, they had been blessed with the arrival of a new family member: on the tenth day of June, Rebecca Steed Ingalls had given birth to a healthy son, the first baby from a Latter-day Saint family to be born in the settlement of Commerce.
“It’s really something, isn’t it?” Nathan said.
Mary Ann looked up and saw that he too was looking at the frenzy of activity going on around them. “It really is,” she said. That reminded her of something. “By the way, did you hear what Joseph is thinking of calling our new city?”
“No, what?”
Rebecca and Derek had closed the gap between them and were right behind them. Rebecca heard her question and was interested too. “I thought it already had a name.”
Mary Ann shook her head. “Joseph says Commerce is all right for a small river settlement, but he wants a name fitting for a city of the Saints.”
“So what is it?” Derek asked.
“Nauvoo.”
“Nauvoo?” Rebecca echoed, repeating the name slowly.
“Yes. N-A-U-V-O-O. Nah-vuh.” She exaggerated the pronunciation a little to cement it into their minds. “It’s a Hebrew word, he says. He says it means ‘beautiful.’ It also, according to him, carries with it the idea of rest.”
“Nauvoo,” Rebecca mused. “Yes, I like it.”
Nathan slapped at the back of his neck but missed the mosquito. “Well, it is beautiful except for the unclean air.”
Mary Ann frowned. “Speaking of unclean air, the sickness has started.”
Derek and Rebecca moved up to walk beside them. “The shakes?” Derek asked softly.
Mary Ann nodded dolefully.
“Who?” Nathan demanded, the concern clear in his voice.
“I saw Emma this morning. Father Smith has it. He was up most of the night with the chills and fever. One of the Whitney children has come down with it. Emma says there are others. It just seems to be starting.”
An air of gloom settled over them with that news. The shakes—or ague, as it was more commonly named (pronounced egg-yoo by the settlers across America)—was something to be dreaded. So called because of the violent shaking that often occurred during the intermittent chills and fever, the sickness was found throughout the continent, but was especially prevalent in warmer climates and in areas which contained substantial wetlands. The fact that tiny protozoa which attacked the red blood cells and caused the debilitating infection were passed to humans from the bite of the female anopheles mosquito would not be discovered for another sixty years. People attributed the ailment to the musty, foul-smelling odor caused by the rotting vegetation so common to swamps and marshes. Thus came its formal name—malaria—from two Italian words meaning, literally, “bad air.”
They walked on in silence, and Nathan brushed absently at the mud caked on his pants. The mud carried the odor of the swamp too. Was he bringing that bad air back to his own family each day? He shook his head, determined that he would be more careful about bathing in the river after each day of digging.
As they neared their homesite, Mary Ann lifted her head. Up ahead she could see her family. They were clustered in a tight circle around Joshua and Caroline and talking loudly. “What is it?” she exclaimed to Nathan, feeling her heart drop. Was it bad news?
“I don’t know,” Nathan said grimly. He took her elbow and they increased their step.
Matthew saw them first and spun away from the group to run to her. “Mama, come quick. There’s news.”
“What?”
The rest of the family instantly fell quiet, stepping back. Joshua and Caroline were in the center of the crowd. Caroline was weeping. Olivia was holding her mother with one hand and patting her back with the other.
Alarmed, Mary Ann stepped forward quickly. “Joshua? What is it?”
He looked up at the sound of her voice. Quickly he came forward, leaning heavily on his cane, and took one hand. “One of my teamsters just brought us a letter from St. Louis. My business partner sent it up to us.”
“A letter?” Mary Ann said. Turning, she saw the letter in Caroline’s hand. “Is it from Melissa? Are they coming?”
“No,” Caroline whispered. “Our friends the Montagues forwarded it on to us from Savannah.” She was smiling and crying all at once. “It’s not from Melissa. It’s from Will. Will is alive!”
Mary Ann was staring into the fire, almost mesmerized by the dancing flames. With the urgency to get the cabins shingled, there hadn’t been much chance to talk about the news of Will’s whereabouts. But now supper was done, and the children were bedded down. “China,” she mused, almost to herself. “So there is no way to even write to him.” It wasn’t a question.
“No,” Caroline said, jabbing at the coals with a stick. “He wrote this to Savannah. He still thinks I’m there with the Montagues.” Sudden tears welled up, shining in the light of the fire. “He still thinks Joshua is dead.”
Joshua reached out and put an arm around her. “But at least we know that he’s all right.”
“All right?” she cried. “He’s fifteen years old and on a boat sailing for China. It will be next fall before we can see him.”
Lydia was near tears too, but she jumped in quickly. “Joshua’s right, Caroline. At least you know. And he is well. This is what we’ve all been praying for. That we could know where he is and that he would be all right.”
Nathan nodded in surprise. He hadn’t thought about the prayers that were part of the Steed family life every night and morning. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins—for the past six months, everyone had been praying for Will Steed. That he would be found. That he would be safe.
“Will is going to do fine,” Benjamin broke in. “It’s a real loss to not be able to see him for a time, but that sea captain knows what kind of boy you’ve raised. I’m not surprised he wants to take him under his wing.”
“But another year!” Caroline exclaimed. “It’s already been so long. Now another year and more. And out there with all those men. You forget. I lived in Savannah. I know what kind of men sailors are.”
Benjamin straightened. “Caroline,” he said softly.
She looked over at him.
“It’s not just the captain who’s taken him under his wing,” he said.
Her eyes widened, slightly puzzled.
“The Lord is looking out for your son,” he finished. “And he’ll bring him back to you in his own good time.”
Chapter Notes
John Deere invented the first steel plow in 1837. Along with Cyrus McCormick’s grain reaper, this was a major factor in opening the Great Plains to the sodbusting farmers who would eventually make it into one of the greatest food baskets in the entire world.
The first use of the name “Nauvoo” found in print does not occur until August 1839, more than a month later than shown in the novel. It is not known how soon before the August 1839 instance Joseph chose the name. The meaning of the word is as given here (see HC 4:268).
Chapter Ten
On the third of July, 1839, the men of the Steed family finished nailing the last of the split-cedar shingles on the back room that would become Jessica’s school. It was the last of the four cabins to be done. They paused for several moments to survey with satisfaction their handiwork, then immediately set about moving their meager belongings from the tents and wagons into the four cabins. That night, for the first time in nearly ten months, they slept under their own roofs again without fear.
The next morning, they joined others living nearby for a brief celebration of their country’s birthday. One year before in Far West, they had erected a liberty pole as part of their Independence Day celebration, and then saw it struck by lightning a few days later. It proved to be a grim omen of things to come. So while there was rejoicing on this day—they were out of Missouri, they had a new home, and their prophet was free—it was tempered by concern about what the future might once again hold.
