John Stevens' Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon WarGates, Susa Young
General
John Stevens' Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon War
Gates, Susa Young
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction; Utah Expedition (1857-1858) -- Fiction
As Rachel Winthrop laid the child in its cradle and prepared to finish
her ironing of print dresses and blue chambrey sunbonnets, the young
girl, who had pulled down her sleeves and adjusted her collar, went
slowly out at the front door, as if watching for someone. Then, turning
back into the sitting-room, she seated herself at the small melodeon
in the corner, and began to play softly. Her touch upon the tiny ivory
keys was very sympathetic and musical. Waltzes and schottisches poured
out in mellow harmony upon the heated waves of the July evening. Then,
as if filled to the full with the spirit of music that she had invoked,
she lifted up her voice in song. "Shells of the Ocean" and "Rock Me to
Sleep, Mother," betrayed a quality of tenderness in the soul that the
somewhat proud exterior did not warrant.
"Oh, Dian," called her sister-in-law, "why do you sing such mournful
songs? You give me the creeps."
"Do I?" asked the girl. "I wasn't thinking; but someway, I feel sad
tonight, just as if something were going to happen."
"Something is, Dian; we are all invited by President Young to spend the
Twenty-fourth in Big Cottonwood Canyon. And there's lots to do before
we go to bed."
"Just one song then, to cheer us up, Rachel, for the evening's work"
and the gay voice trilled out the rollicking changes of "We All Wear
Cloaks," and ended with the evening hymn, "Come, Come, Ye Saints, No
Toil Nor Labor Fear." Before she had finished the first stanza of the
hymn, her brother, Bishop Winthrop, had added his musical bass, and the
sixteen year old Harvey was putting in a fair tenor and playing the air
as well on his concertina. Rachel herself sang the alto. Then, with a
quiet reverence, the Bishop said, "Let us have prayers."
The quiet of the night closed in with starry radiance upon the little
family, the children asleep, while the women worked, conversing in
subdued voices. Few were the hours of sleep that memorable night in
Great Salt Lake City, for most of its citizens, to the number of three
thousand, had been invited to spend the day at the headwaters of the
Big Cottonwood stream, in the little dell far up in the tops of the
mountains. All the city was astir to assist in the unusual festivity.
In the morning, the Winthrop household was boiling and bubbling in the
excitement and heat of preparation.
"Dian," said the distracted Rachel, "you go out to the wagon and get
the Bishop to put in all those things that I have laid at the side of
the appletree."
Out in the back yard could be heard the frequent small explosions that
preceded such scenes in the Winthrop household.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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