Dear little Ephraim with its great heart and democratic aspirations,
its keen love for its own inhabitants and "The stranger within the
gates," its rich and poor living side by side in brotherly sympathy!
This quaint little city seems to cuddle up to the great Rocky Mountains
as if for protection from the outer and larger cities of Utah, where
the world has crept in and has somewhat changed the spirit of fifty
years ago.
"We are simple country-folks," said one of Ephraim's leading citizens,
addressing a new-comer as he took her bags, "but you're welcome to our
home as long as you care to stay and share it with us."
"O, thank you so much!" exclaimed the Eastern lady, as she patted the
light fluffy hair of the ten-year-old girl, clinging to her mother's
skirts.
"I love little girls. We'll be good friends, won't we dear?" she asked
the child.
"Yes, ma'am," answered Betty Emmit, as she furtively scanned the lady
from head to foot. Mentally she was saying, "By heck! a real New-Yorker
in Ephraim!"
"The New-Yorker," was amply supplied with bags--so many in fact, that
Mrs. Emmit had to relieve her husband of one, big and heavy.
"The New-Yorker" made an attempt to take it from her.
"Oh, no, Mrs. Catt," exclaimed the good wife; "you must be so tired. We
haven't far to go. Any trunk to see to?"
"No, I travel so much that I don't bother with trunks."
So, with this easy acquiescence, Mrs. Webster Catt walked beside her
heavy-laden companions.
Betty attempted to give her mother a lift, but was shaken off kindly.
"You're too young and skinny to carry loads yet," explained Mrs. Emmit,
who was herself not a great deal taller, nor stouter, than Betty.
Betty flushed furiously. She always felt it an accusation to be called
"young and skinny."
"Better to be young and skinny than to be old and fat, ain't it,
honey?" Mr. Emmit suggested.
Then he turned to his wife.
"You're tired, aren't you?" he asked, eyeing her keenly. "Bag heavy, eh?"
But his straight, slim, little wife ignored his question and began
talking to Mrs. Catt as quickly as possible.
"So you're here to preach temperance, are you?" she asked in a pleasant
tone. "I'm mighty glad someone's taking it up. But to think it should
be an outsider! Here's the Church preaching the 'Word of Wisdom' all
these years, and telling the people not to drink and smoke, and you've
come to tell them to obey the Church!"
Mr. Emmit laughed and there was a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
"You'll be disappointing yourself, if you try to deprive Ephraim of
its home brewed ale. It's the one small sin that gives us a big lot of
pleasure here."
"Do you think that any sin is small?" asked the reformer sweetly, with
her direct gaze compelling honest Ford Emmit to answer squarely.
"Well, no, if you put it that way, but--"
"There's no 'but' about it," interrupted his good wife; "sin is sin."
Betty's brown eyes gazed with open admiration at Mrs. Catt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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