For a change we sailed for home cabin passage. Upon arrival at San Francisco we found a telegram awaiting Joseph, requesting him to come home as soon as possible. Bear in mind Joseph was an elder, and a financially poor one at that, as his whole life had been in the mission field and he was the last man on earth to ask for help. What could we do? In council it was thought best for Joseph and William to go by stage, while I with the Burnham family would go by San Bernardino. And now comes the tempter. There were living in San Francisco quite a number of relatives by marriage to the Smith family, and some of them were wealthy. They held a family reunion and invited Joseph to attend. He asked me to accompany him, which I did. We met them at Mr.--'s; some twenty all told; six or eight strong, healthy looking men. A few stories were told, then the conversation drifted into personal experiences and present home conditions. They pitied Joseph and offered to deed him a good home if he would cut loose from the "Utah Mormons" and stay with them, _his true friends_. He declined, and said if they would excuse him he would bid them good night. All rose up, and then the storm broke. Their spokesman said in substance, "Joseph, we are disappointed in you; we thought you were a Smith, but any man who will come and go at the command of Brigham Young, the man who connived at the murder of your father and Uncle Joseph, has not a drop of Smith's blood in his veins." Joseph: "Do I understand you to say that Brigham Young connived at the murder of the Prophet Joseph Smith?" "Yes, and I can prove the assertion." Then there leaped from Joseph's lips the strongest expression that ever I heard come from them. "You are a damned infernal liar! Joseph Smith never had a truer friend than Brigham Young." To me, how grand he looked. He seemed to expand until he towered head and shoulders above his opponents. While their faces scowled with anger, yet like the tempest tossed waves of the ocean, whose fury had been spent at the foot of the boulder, they recede, leaving the beach cleaner and whiter than before the storm. How I loved that man's manliness; he not a Smith? The very tension of the rigid muscles proclaimed him the embodiment of the chivalrous Macks and Smiths. Over forty years ago, while laboring as a missionary in the London Conference, I wrote in my journal: I knew Joseph F. Smith in life's rosy morn, When herding cows and hoeing corn; And though he worked early and late, Yet he never murmured at his fate, But smiled to think that his strong arm Brought wheat and corn to his mother's barn. His first mark made I remember well; 'Twas when he flogged Philander Bell. A champion then, for innocence and youth, As he is now for liberty and truth. If plain his speech, and strong in boyish strife, I doubt if he could mend the history of his life.