Читать книгу John Stevens' Courtship - Gates Susa Young - Страница 3

The next morning at daybreak, the party began the long steady climb amidst crags and pine covered hills, up through the rocky windings of "The Stairs," and still up. The party laughed, sang, walked, climbed, or rested for a moment beside the churning, foaming mountain stream or beneath the shadowing pine trees which bordered the newly made road. As the long cavalcade wound in and out between the hills, the two girls in the wagon drawn by John Stevens' spirited horses, sang and laughed in gayest abandon. Aunt Clara's eyes were full of tender gratitude for such happiness, for she had known the sorrows of many mobbings and drivings. This haven of peace and joyous plenty was a foretaste of heaven to the faithful heart which had braved more than the persecution of strangers; for Aunt Clara had left home, parents, and all she held dear for the sake of that Gospel which spelled Truth and Life Everlasting to its faithful votaries.

"Oh, John," cried Diantha at last, "You must let Ellie and me walk; I just can't resist the pleading call of those gorgeous flowers. Bluebells, and red-bells – and oh, the exquisite columbines! Look, Ellie, look! Stop, John, stop! Ellie and I will walk."

John himself was walking beside his team up the heavy, seemingly never-ending grade of that twenty mile ascent, while Tom Allen and Charlie Rose placed an occasional block under the wheels or stood upon them, while the panting horses rested for a moment.

"Here you are," called Charlie, as he heard Dian's plea, "'my waiting arms will hold you,'" and he held out his arms in mock pleading.

"Aunt Clara's lips will scold you," jeered Dian as she climbed safely down on the other side. But Ellen jumped gayly into the grasp of the waiting cavalier, whose modest action in placing her gently on the hillside belied his bombastic appeal.

sang Charlie as he followed the flying girls, gayly improvising his boyish madrigals to meet each incident of the day.

The girls climbed from point to point, always going upward, but keeping out of the way of passing teams. Their arms were soon filled with the blooms of riotous colors and perfume which intoxicated them with the blush and glory of the color song of peak and mountain vale.

Charlie paused to block the wheel, and Diantha finished his doggerel for him,

and Aunt Clara who felt faint herself from the rarified air that they were all conscious of, looked anxiously at the somewhat delicate frame of her foster-daughter.

"Tom, I believe you, too, are uncomfortable."

Tom Allen was almost speechless, for his bulky form was nearly overcome with the constant climbing; but he would not betray the fact to the scorn of Charlie Rose: for Tom dreaded to be teased quite as much as he loved to tease others. So he quieted his panting breath to say, "Aunt Clara, I think I heard some one say you had some doughnuts in one of those baskets; where could we find a better place to eat our frugal meal than beside this purling stream."

"Just a mile or so, more," interposed John Stevens. "We are almost there; can't you exercise patience for another hour?"

At that moment, however, word was passed down the line that all would pause half an hour to rest animals and men.

The cavalcade had passed the two lower sawmills, with the roomy cabins decorated with waving flags. Now they halted beside the third and last mill, nestled in the crevice of the canyon. Its buzzing industry was stilled for this wondrous day, while the workmen and their families gathered in the grassy space to meet and welcome the company. For their pleasure they had not only made the last five miles of that difficult road into the vale of the Silver Lake, just above, but had also erected three spacious boweries with comfortable floors and seats to accommodate the gay revelers.

Everybody seemed moved with a common impulse for "doughnuts;" for the President himself, as he halted at the "saw-mill," stepped up to Aunt Clara Tyler and accepted courteously her offer of fried cakes.

The impatient girls were glad, nevertheless, when the half-hour was over, and they could once more resume their places in the wagon for the final steep climb to the place of destination. When they mounted the last summit of that low northern rim encircling the valley of their desire, both girlish throats were at once filled with excited exclamations of delight, as the fairy scene burst upon their view.

An emerald-tinted valley with a silvery lake empearled on its western rim lay before them, cupped in a circle of embracing hills and snow-covered crags. The summits of the eastern and western hills were crowned with pine, which here and there, like dusky sentinels, traced their lines down, down to the water's edge. That gleaming, brilliant, silent water! Every tree upon its brink was reproduced, and even the clouds above floated again in soft, tremulous pictures beneath the surface of this beautiful mountain mirror. Sheer above the lake on the south towered white granite cliffs, holding here and there a whiter bloom of snow in their pale embrace.

Ellen jumped excitedly from her seat to lean over and hug her friend Diantha, as the wagon rolled slowly down the smooth road to the spot which John had selected for the Winthrop and Tyler tents, close to the marquee of President Young. Dian put up a caressing hand to the soft cheek of her enthusiastic friend, Ellen, and leaned her own cheek tenderly against the one bending over her shoulder.

"Oh, Dian," breathed the happy girl, "I never thought there was so much beauty in all Utah."

"Utah is the home of beauty and goodness," said Charlie Rose gallantly, and even Dian could not answer this trite compliment saucily, for her heart was melted with rapture at sight of so much grandeur.

The camp was located on a fairy-like spot, overlooking the surrounding meadows and lake. The boweries, President Young's marquee, and President Heber C. Kimball's tent, occupied an open space amid the small copses of pine on the north side of the lake. The tents, carriages and wagons, were soon grouped about these central points. A massive granite rock, fifty-four feet in circumference by fifty-four feet high, stood at the entrance of this lovely, natural bower; from the center of this spot, and apparently without earth to sustain them, grew three pine trees, which were fringed round at the top of the rock with a thick cluster of young pines, about two feet high. A large flag was suspended from these trees, bearing the motto "Clear the Way," with an all seeing eye in the oval of the upper margin, above two clasped hands, under which, inscribed on a scroll, were the words, "Blessings Follow Sacrifices." A representation of the Pioneer company crossing the North Platte River, on rafts, occupied the central space of this great flag. Below was another legend, "The Pioneers of 1847 at the Upper Crossing of the Platte, in Pursuit of the Valleys of the Mountains."

A little farther to the right, and near the northwest corner of the great, central, hundred foot bowery, was a stately pine, from which floated the loveliest flag on earth – the Stars and Stripes – its silken folds now whipping out wide and full now curling in graceful half circles around the unique flagstaff.

Another banner near by, bore the representation of a bundle of sticks, bound together with strong cords, and the inscription, "The Constitution of the United States. Equal Rights! Woe to the Violators!"

From the front of the central bowery hung three great banners, the first having painted thereon a rock in the midst of billowing waves; from the summit of the rock floated the starry flag, and below was the inscription, "The Constitution of the United States! The 'Mormons' will Defend the Rock! Who can Prevail Against it?" The second banner had the picture of a lion, with one paw upon a rock above which was the inscription "Utah Courage," and underneath in golden letters, "The Spirit of '76 is not Dead." The third banner had a lion standing beside the docile figure of a recumbent lamb, with the inscription, "Peace Reigns Here," painted across the silken surface beneath.

On the tallest pines at the crowning point of both eastern and western summits, there floated great flags, the red, white and blue of their glory accentuated by the clear, brilliant blue of the sky, and the deep green of the wooded slopes.

Scattered here and there were massive swings for the youth, while the little ones were well provided with low swings and wide seats.

Major Robert T. Burton, of the Nauvoo and Utah Militia, with a detachment of life-guards, had charge of the swings and the rafts on the lakes, to guard against accidents. John Stevens was detailed to his own full share of this guard duty, and was therefore soon absent from the merry party he had brought so carefully to the camp.

The labor of setting up tents and arranging camp filled the remaining afternoon hours, and Dian was glad when her brother said, "You can go now, my girl; Rachel and I will finish; take this feather bed over to Aunt Clara's tent, for Rachel wants her to be comfortable."

"What a kind thought, Appleton; Aunt Clara does so much sick nursing that she needs to have a good bed. Tell Rachel I think she is pretty good to give up her own bed."

"That's all right. Rachel and I are young, and can sleep on the ground, when we need to. She says Aunt Clara was so anxious to make you young people happy that she gave up all the room she could for your spring seats and yourselves."

"Aunt Clara is good to us, and Rachel is good to her. Pretty good religion that, brother, eh? Rachel is very thoughtful, Appleton."

"Yes, she is the best woman on earth, Dolly. I appreciate her, if I am cross at times. Hark! That's the bugle call for prayers. Run along with your bed, Dian."

"Allow me to assist in this operation," and merry Charlie Rose appeared just in time to carry the bulky bed into Aunt Clara's tent.

The camp gathered in the central bowery, at the cool sunset hour, and the choir sang "Come, Come Ye Saints."

After the song, the attention of the assembly was riveted upon the dignified form of Brigham Young as he advanced to the edge of the raised platform and said:

"We unite, my friends and brothers, and sisters, in gratitude to that Father who has permitted us to enjoy this festal occasion. Tomorrow morning, at seven o'clock, the bugle will call you here to morning devotions, except those who are detained at their wagons. We wish those who have children here to see that they are in the tents, and not have the cry go forth that this, that and the other child is lost. I also wish to give a word of caution to all who may visit this lake or the ones in the hidden vales above us. I would rather have stayed at home than to have it said that a child has been lost, or any person drowned through visiting this place.

"Suppose a child was lost in the woods and could not be found; suppose you should lose a sister, a daughter, or a companion on this lake; you would always think of your visit to Big Cottonwood Canyon with bitter regret. A circumstance of this kind would mar the peace of everyone. I wish the sisters and children to keep away from these rafts, unless they have some person in their company capable of taking care of them; if they know enough to do so as they should, they will listen to this counsel.

"Here are swings and boweries prepared for your enjoyment; here are most beautiful groves, meandering streams, and lovely sheets of water, amid the towering peaks of the Wasatch mountains. Here are the stupendous works of the God of Nature, though all do not appreciate His wisdom, manifested in His works, but are tempted to recklessness through the buoyant feelings of youth and health, and without caution, are liable to run into danger.

"Some, if they had the power, would be on the other side of those loftly peaks in ten minutes, instead of calmly meditating upon the wonderful works of God, and His kind providence that has watched over us and provided for us, more especially in the last fifteen years of our history. I could sit here for a month and reflect on the mercies of our God, and humble myself in thankfulness because of His favors to myself as an individual, and to all this great people.

"What do you think the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, the Patriarch, would have given to have seen this day in the flesh, and to have been here instead of being taken to Carthage, like lambs to their slaughter, and butchered by their enemies? We are hid up in the Lord's secret chambers, according to His promise, where none can molest us, or make us afraid."

Diantha's whole body shivered in an inner resistance as the President uttered this joyful challenge to fate. But she listened attentively as the further quiet words fell from his lips:

"Here is a good floor which we have prepared expressly for your enjoyment, there are two other boweries for the mothers and their children, and here are three bands of musicians, together with our Nauvoo Brass Band and Brother Huntington's Martial Band. The Springville band and the Ogden band will both assist Professor Ballo who has charge of the great orchestra provided for dancing. Before we have our evening prayers, Professor Ballo will favor us with one of his classical selections, – 'what do you call it, Brother Ballo?'" asked the President calmly, across the pavilion, and the musician flushed slightly as he responded from the opposite platform:

"It is the Overture to Tancreda," profusely bowing in his embarrassment.

And with that the band struck up the exquisite strains of that tuneful offering to youth and courage, while the people listened with well placed musical sympathy, to this unusual burst of melody, in the virgin solitudes of this sylvan vale. The very hills took up the theme of that lovely opera by Rosinni, and echoed and re-echoed the fine harmony with all the Silver Lake's famous echo.

As the massive form of the President's Counselor, Heber C. Kimball, stepped out to offer the evening prayer for that happy camp, sweet Ellen's soul sang and sang the words of the prayer into the straining melody of the Overture to Tancreda, but alas, Ellen's music was hidden in her soul and had not been taught to find expression on her lips, or from her finger-tips.

After prayers, the people dispersed to their tents to finish preparations for rest, or to join in dance and song around camp fires or in the great boweries.

At the Winthrop tent, Rachel was completing her camp arrangements.

"Just see 'Enry B'yle 'ang 'round Di," muttered Dian's brother Harvey to his chums as they carried bundles and boxes from the wagons to the tents, "He is too fine to chop and dig; he leaves that to John and father."

"I'm going to tell mother to set him to work, said Lucy, who at once ran to put her threat into execution.

"Miss Diantha, what can I do to help you?" asked the gallant young man, on receiving the hint from frank Rachel Willis. Thereupon he took bundles and parcels from the girl, she laughing again and again at his awkward attempts to be useful around a camp fire.

The camp-fires, now began to shoot steady flames into the darkening sky; the squeak, squeak of the fiddles was answered by the toot of the brass horns, and martial and stringed bands united their forces in loud, triumphant invitations to "dance."

And how they danced! Old and young, short and tall, fat and slim – the temporary floor groaning and shivering beneath the hundreds of merry, flying, stamping feet.

Huge camp fires, all over the valley, flung dancing flames and sparks high into the fleecy evening clouds, while at each corner of the pavilion, great pine trees, brought from the hills and set upright for the purpose, burned a spicy, fragrant glowing radiance into every crevice and corner of the bowered halls.

"Are you going to dance with me?" drawled John Stevens, through his long beard, as he suddenly appeared at Diantha's side. She stood in the brilliant light of the burning pine tree, near the bowery, her tall, graceful figure melting into divine curves under the simple, white frock she wore, her arms uncovered to the elbow and her lovely neck just bared to show the proud lines which dipped in smooth beauty from ear-tips to shoulders. Her columned throat pulsated with bounding life under the snowy skin, as she moved her pretty head from side to side, while the crown of her yellow hair which was coronaded in heavy braids around and around the shapely head, broke into tiny curls on her temples and at the white nape of the neck, and was a glittering mass of spun gold in the dancing flames which heightened both color and quality of that mass of silken charm.

"Why, of course, I am, if you ask me to," Dian replied frankly.

She knew John was not much of a dancer, being very tall, and not very fond of gyrating around as rapidly as the swift music demanded. However, she took his arm and they walked out upon the floor; a waltz was called, and then the girl looked up in her companion's face with a dismayed glance, and he gazed at her with a quizzical response to her misgiving. Of all dances, he was least at home in a waltz.

Once, – twice, – they tried to turn around but without much success. They stumbled over other couples on the floor. In spite of Dian's heroic efforts to keep her giant upright and in time with the step, he stopped suddenly and exclaimed: "I think we shall have to call that a failure."

She looked up quickly to see if there was not a shade of disappointment on his face, and she rejoiced with a wicked joy, when dapper young Henry Boyle came up immediately and carried her off to dance, with all the grace and rhythm that was so necessary a part of a perfect waltz.

They passed John once or twice, as he stood under the blazing pine, stroking his beard and watching the dancers with an inscrutable expression.

Diantha forgot him by and by, and did not again think of him, for her time was so filled with calls for dances that she had no time to think of anybody or anything but her own excited self.

After a few hours of dancing, the girl accepted Henry Boyle's invitation to walk out around camp awhile, and together they traversed the small valley. As they passed their own camp-fire, where sat her sister-in-law, Rachel Winthrop, chatting with Aunt Clara, she suddenly wondered where John Stevens had been all the evening.

"Have you seen John, this evening?" she asked Rachel.

"Yes, he has been here, once or twice, getting some cakes and milk for himself and partner, I guess, for he took two plates."

"I thought I was his partner up here," said Diantha, in a somewhat injured tone.

"Haven't you seen him this evening?" queried Aunt Clara Tyler.

"Oh, yes, but I have been dancing so hard, I forgot all about him."

"You may find some day, Dian, that two can play at the forgetting game," said Aunt Clara, with a tenderness that robbed the speech of any bitterness.

"I wish they would," answered the girl indifferently.

Nevertheless her vanity was touched, a few moments after, when she and her companion passed a rustic bower of boughs, twined and twisted into a lovely green retreat, where there was a small camp-fire smouldering in front, and a low couch inside, covered with softest buffalo robes, whereon sat her dearest friend, Ellen Tyler; and stretched out with his long legs to the fire, his arm supporting his head, and his face turned very intently to the young girl near him, was that recreant, John Stevens, who ought just now to be suffering all the torments of a discarded lover.

It was annoying to say the least. Dian acted as if she did not see them at all, and whispered with much animation to her companion, as they passed the light of the fire.

She hurried at once to the bowery and none were more sprightly and gay until the ten o'clock bugle sounded throughout the valley, and then she allowed Henry Boyle to accompany her to the tent where the elder ones still sat chatting and enjoying themselves.

Diantha Winthrop was pre-eminently sensible. She was sometimes annoyed with the frequent compliments she received as to this trait of her character. She was rarely angry with people; she never gossiped about anybody, and if she had nothing good to say, she rarely said anything at all. She was not impulsive, nor was she unduly swayed by her emotions, deep as they sometimes were. She acted upon mature thought, and only the few who were her intimate friends, really knew the value of her sterling character.

Henry begged his companion to stroll up the hill-side a little, just fairly out of range of the jokers by the camp-fire, and the girl was the more willing because of that other couple under the pines across the tiny valley.

"Here you are, Dian," cried out Rachel. "I was just wondering if you would not like to get that pop-corn and pop some for the crowd."

But Henry was still begging under his breath, for her to come up in the shadow of the pines, and away from the crowd.

"Can't Lucy and Josephine pop the corn, Rachel?" asked Dian, at last.

Both children protested their utter weariness.

"Ah, child," said young Boyle, patronizingly to little Lucy, "just pop the corn, like the leddy you are."

"I'm not a 'leddy'," flashed the child back, "and I don't think it's fair, so there."

"Don't cry," still teased the young fellow; "do be a good girl," then joking in his rather clumsy fashion, he added, "Come and kiss yoo papa."

"Never mind, youngsters," sang out Tom Allen, "I'll help you," while Harvey and Josephine both flew to assist Lucy Winthrop.

Lucy sprang into the tent in an angry flame, while her mother followed, herself too annoyed at the liberty the young man had taken to answer at all. But she soothed the two little girls, and they all came out and finished the corn. Rachel herself carried some up to Henry and Dian, who now sat cozily far up on the hill-side, under the dense shadow of the trees.

The younger ones slipped away from the fire, and the laughter and song there died down; but the young couple still sat under the dark shadow, far up on the hill-side.

Henry was entertaining Dian with long tales about his former home in the British Isles. He gave glowing pictures of the castle belonging to a distant relative in Staffordshire. The girl listened with increasing interest; for who could fail to sympathize with the neglected cousin, even if a third one, of a real lord and earl. The narrator's allusions to himself were a little broad and fulsome, but Dian was inexperienced, if shrewd by nature. A feeling of deeper respect for this good looking and highly connected youth was growing momentarily in her breast – he certainly was such a fine dancer, and he always picked up a handkerchief so gracefully! She could but feel flattered by these confidential revelations of superior virtues and titled relations. The sounds were hushed from tree to tree, and the canopy of silence was unfolding in all the majesty of the mid-night hour.

Suddenly there was a pounding crash and roar above them on the hill-crest, and down through the brush and trees came bounding some terrible wild animal.

Dian screamed, and Henry jumped wildly in the air, yelling at the top of his voice.

"Run, run; it's a bear."

He took his own advice so quickly that the girl was barely on her feet before he was half-way down to the camp fire, still yelling, "Run, Run!"

As the young man reached the full blaze of the fire, a quick chorus of childish voices, above them on the hill-side from which he had fled, high falsettos, trebels, and one deep bass voice, united in a blasting sing-song:

"Come and kiss yoo papa; come and kiss yoo papa."

And the children, in one derisive row of merciless tormentors, stood just in the upper shadow line, repeating the refrain with painful insistence, until Boyle himself was glad to retreat into the silence of his own tent for the night. There were sounds of laughter from every near-by tent. What Dian thought of this absurd adventure could only be conjectured from the scornful expression of her rosy lips, as she gathered the two little girls in her arms and drove the still jeering boy, Harvey, and Tom Allen in the darkened back-ground, away into the far seclusion of their own tent.

But even as she fled, she heard in the near distance another shrill cat-call, "Come and kiss yoo papa." And she joined with one smothered hysterical burst of laughter, the two girls, who were still in her arms, in laughing at their discomfited enemy.