Miss Dividends: A NovelGunter, Archibald Clavering
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Miss Dividends: A Novel
Gunter, Archibald Clavering
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction
"If I thought as how R. H. Travenion was ashamed of the holy Church of
our Latter-Day Saints, I'd cut him off root and branch in this world and
the next," he says, the wild gleam of fanaticism coming into his deep
eyes. "I swear it, by the Book of Mormon!" Erma knows this man means his
words, for Lot Kruger is a fanatic, and believes in his creed and in
Joseph Smith, as truly as the Dervish believes in Allah and Mahomet.
"Your daddy is in town," he goes on more calmly, "but I feared he might
be flustered if he knew you had come upon him, as it were, in the
night, and so I kept my mouth shut."
"Will you bring him to me now?"
"Yes, in an hour!"
So, Mr. Kruger departs on his errand, but shortly re-appears, and says,
"We have missed him agin. Your daddy's left for Tintic on the stage this
morning at eight o'clock."
"Very well," answers Miss Travenion shortly. "I'll go to Tintic also."
This suggestion pleases Bishop Kruger so much that he cries, "Right you
are! Ye're true grit, Sissy! You'd better go down by private conveyance.
It'll be much more pleasant for ladies."
"Oh, I am alone now; my maid has left me," answers Miss Travenion; and
this remark delights her auditor more than he would like her to guess.
He goes on happily, "It's only seventy-five or eighty or perhaps ninety
miles from here. You can drive down in a day with a good, tough
bronco-team, but still you had better take it slowly and stop over night
at Milo Johnson's."
"Alone in a Mormon house?" shudders the girl.
"Oh, you'll be as safe thar as if you were in your bed on Fifth Avenue.
You can travel all over here, provided you do not hurt our feelings, as
safe as if you was in Connecticut--more so--we don't have no burglars
around here!" says Lot, reassuringly.
Making inquiries at the hotel office, Miss Travenion finds that the
Mormon bishop's advice has been good. Then, being provided at the hotel
with a private team, she comes down at ten o'clock in the day, to depart
for Tintic, and is surprised to see the attentive Kruger ready to assist
her into the light wagon, which has a top to keep off dust and sun.
"You didn't expect any one to see you off!" he remarks. "But most every
one here would do a heap for Bishop Tranyon's darter." Then he chuckles:
"Ye're kind o' one o' us now!" and drives the iron into Erma's soul.
"Thank you. I suppose you mean it for a compliment," she says,
attempting lightness, though her lip twitches. "But I am a little
different still, to a Mormon girl!" and gets into the carriage before he
can aid her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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