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XXX
DIAN IS TRUE TO HER RESOLVE

It happened that when she came out of her home to attend her Sabbath services the next Sunday, she found tall, silent John Stevens on her doorstep, with a peculiar look in his eyes and a very fine new suit of homespun gray clothing his tall form.

"Oh," she gasped. Then as with a sudden impulse, "Come on, I am going to get Ellie as I go along. She must go to meeting with us this morning."

Now, as John had not seen Diantha since the memorable ball, and as he had certainly expected to get a greeting all his own without the mention of anybody else, he saw occasion to be very much surprised, if not a little annoyed. But as usual he said nothing, and they walked along, Diantha laughing with a quick, metallic sound, as if she were very happy or as if she were trying to conceal some undercurrent of emotion. John chose to interpret her looks and her manner to mean a rebuff to him, but he was slow to anger, and not easily disconcerted, so they strode merrily along the frozen path.

Ellen was very much surprised to see them enter her door, and she refused at first to go with them to church, as she had not made ready therefor, nor did she care to go. Diantha would not hear any excuses, and carried Ellen upstairs, to prepare hurriedly for the services.

As they approached the old – but then new – Tabernacle in the southwest corner of the Temple block, they could hear the organ's strains, accompanied by the united voices of the choir, as they sang the opening hymn. They were too late to enter till after the prayer, and so they stood outside on the step, and, as they stood there, they saw several officers approaching the door as if to enter the sacred building.

John at once stepped up to them and inquired casually:

"Can I be of any service to you, gentlemen?"

"We wish to attend your divine service this morning," replied Colonel Saxey, "and we presume it will not be offensive, as we wish merely to listen to your beautiful choir, of which we have heard so many complimentary things."

"Certainly, sir, you will be welcome." But out of John's eyes there flashed a gleam of hatred and suspicion toward one of the officers who lingered in the background. It was none other than Captain Sherwood. Sherwood caught the look and at once was on his guard; with consummate skill he directed his glances and his whole attention to Diantha. She returned his looks of admiration with cold, proud contempt, and she even went so far as to force herself between him and Ellen as they all passed up the aisle.

John saw Captain Sherwood cast glances of admiration towards Diantha Winthrop, and he saw, too, that she forced herself in between Ellen and Sherwood, but he failed to see the expression on Diantha's face. What wonder, then, that he drew a wrong conclusion? After this, his whole thought was centered upon watching the soldier, and he heard nothing of the eloquent sermon preached by Elder Heber C. Kimball. And very little did he hear of the really fine singing by the splendid choir of fifty voices led by Prof. C. J. Thomas, accompanied as it was by the tender, tuneful playing of that most beautiful and accomplished of all President Young's pretty daughters, Fanny Young.

Before the services were half over the officers withdrew, and John quietly took up his hat and followed them out. He never lost sight of them until they were mounted on their horses and well out of town. John wondered what they had come to town for, but he was sure of one thing, and that was that Diantha Winthrop had once more changed her fickle mind. Well, John was as proud as he was silent, and he stroked his beard with long, gentle passes, as he reflected upon life and its uncertain meaning for him.

The weeks flew by, filled with excitement, parties, false rumors of danger, and then again a few days' quiet would give the city a needed rest and comparative peace.

Diantha kept so firmly to her resolve that John Stevens could not secure her hand, even for a quadrille at a dance, as she was always just engaged. She would not allow him to speak to her one moment in private, and this so successfully turned his attention to Ellen Tyler that she breathed freely and felt that the sacrifice had been accepted and that her friend was saved.

XXXI
JOHN ALSO RESOLVES

The early spring had begun to clothe the towering mountain steeps with spotted robes of brown, gray and green; over the distant summits, the fleecy wind-clouds were torn and draggled as they trailed their white skirts across the sharp edges of the mountain tops. Out on the hills peeped the lovely rare bulb that the pioneer children called "sego-lily," and here and there nestled the early, pink star they called "Sweet Williams;" and rarer still, the tall, intensely blue bulbous flower that was known as "the blue-bell," hid its precious beauty beneath the gray walls of its shrubby friend the sage brush. Everywhere the sego lily nodded with its golden brown heart and its delicate, pouting lips of creamy white; while children ran and laughed and quarreled as they dug the mellow, luscious root they called in the Indian tongue, "segoes."

Boys began to drive the sheep from the valley winter quarters to the bunch-grass covered hills above; the herdsman took possession of his mountain hut beside the cold, moss-covered spring, perched high up in the tiny valleys of the upper mountain peaks. Out on the hills was heard the tinkling bell of the sheep, and the call of the herders echoed from peak to peak as they drove their hungry flocks through the upper vales. The low, dark green pastures on the marshy lands began to throw up their mellow juices into feathery wild oat stems, or filled the reedy grass with thin nectar for the few and very choice cows that waded around with slow pleasure in the Jordan meadows.

Down by the Jordan's banks the boys watched the cows through the early spring days, occasionally plunging into the cool water for a quick swim, longing for the hot summer days when hours could be spent in the water of the treacherous stream. Here and there a stray fisherman threw his rude line into the stream and occasionally caught a mountain trout, the speckled beauty glistening like silver as he threw it upon the bank. At break of day, the husbandman – and who was not a husbandman in those early pioneer times in these valleys? – drove his team afield – not in the mellow soil known to the home he had left in the East, but in the hard, uncultivated earth of centuries of sun-baked, rainless summers, down in the bosom of the barren valleys. He dug out the tall, gray-spiked sage brush and huge, flaunting sunflowers, and everywhere he trenched his land in regular lines to train down upon it the cooling streams which gave life and fertility to the otherwise hopeless soil.

The first days of April brought the annual Conference, and everyone in Utah laid aside work and prepared to attend the great three days' meeting. Men in the city brought into their homes great stores of flour and food to feed the visitors who would tarry with them during the Conference. Women cooked meats and pastry, washed and ironed sheets and quilts and filled the extra straw ticks to make temporary beds in every spare corner to accommodate their usual country visitors.

For many miles on all the country roads could be seen teams of all descriptions wending their way to Conference. A few horses, some mules, and often great ox-teams plodded their way city-ward. Men, women and little children cheerfully left their homes and comforts to take chances of any kind of hospitality for the privilege of attending the prized semi-annual religious services.

The yard of the Tithing office was filled with visiting teams and wagons of every description, and busy women prepared food and comfort for the hungry multitude gathered there. Children ran about, playing at hide-and-seek, or chased each other over the ground amid wheels and wagon tongues, grouped about in semi-confusion.

It was rather a cold and damp time, therefore the Tabernacle was well warmed for the people gathered in happy groups for this Friday morning. What exchanges of greetings were there as brother met brother and sister greeted sister! Months, perhaps years had elapsed since they had seen each other. Here was a family just come over from the "old country" standing up between the benches to greet the throng which crowded about them to shake their hands, for they had been good to the "elders" in England, and every elder wanted to take them by the hand and introduce them to his family. How quaint the old English pronunciation sounded on those newly imported English tongues, and how queer the children looked with their little bare, red arms, and their low, broad-toed shoes and white "pinafores," and how it made the Utah children laugh and stare to be told by these recent importations to "give over now, give over;" and how the elder would smile as the jolly mother of the new arrival would recall his words and ways while amongst them; and how his merry eyes would sadden and fill with tears as he heard the story of "our Mary who had died," or, far worse, perchance, had apostatized in spite of all teachings, and who had been left behind to her own backsliding ways! What great slaps were bestowed upon broad backs as Brother So-and-So came up behind Brother What's-His-Name and thus announced his pleasure at greeting his old-time friend!

As John Stevens entered the well-warmed and cosy building, a few minutes before the meeting was called to order, his eye involuntarily became brighter in sympathy with the merry confusion and bustle which he witnessed all around him. Everybody was standing up and talking to everybody else, while on the distant "stand" the elders were indulging in the same friendly and informal greetings. Crops, the weather, babies, death, marriage, sermons, soldiers, war, the millennium, new homespun coats, the possible advent of a woolen mill in the Territory, carpet looms, shoe lasts, prospective sawmills, and the best recipe for cooking dried service-berries, all these topics buzzed in endless variety and confusion around the well-filled hall.

But hark! all eyes are turned to the stand, as Brigham Young is heard calling the people to come "to order," and instantly all voices are stilled; the groups at once settle down into regularity, and the thoughts of the congregation are fixed upon the words of the heartfelt opening prayer of Elder Chas. C. Rich.

As the choir began its second hymn, John turned in his seat to see if Diantha and Ellen were in their seats in the choir. Yes, Diantha stood there with her lovely form clad in its classical, simple gown of homespun, fitting her like a molded glove, while the glorious eyes and scarlet lips were as beautiful as ever. He looked at her so long, and as she was unconscious of his gaze, so earnestly, that he forgot to look for Ellen.

After the hymn was over, however, he remembered Ellen and he soon saw that her place among the altos was vacant. Where was Ellen? he wondered; she was always at meeting.

John addressed to himself some very severe reflections, and as his mind left his own affairs and became partly absorbed in the sermon which Elder Orson Hyde was preaching, he gradually became conscious that he had formed a resolution. That resolution was to forget Diantha Winthrop as speedily as possible.

Now, this was a thing which John had never before contemplated. In all his past associations with the girl, no matter what coldness, neglect or discouragements he had experienced, he had never for one moment despaired of some day winning her for his wife. He knew intuitively something of human nature, and besides that he had felt in the depths of his own soul a whispering assurance that the girl belonged to him, and that his claim to her was one which had existed before they came to this earth. Therefore he had quietly gone along, never seeking to urge himself or his attentions upon her nor indeed upon any girl; he had concealed from her as from everyone else the secret of his preference, and he had lived for years with the hope in his heart which made his daily sunshine and sweetened his every night vision. Yet now, with awakened consciousness on his part, he found himself forming an invincible resolution never again to permit his thoughts or his love to go out to this girl who had given him at one time plain encouragement, and who had since, for no reason whatever, turned upon him a colder, prouder face than she had ever done in the old days before she had guessed his secret.

He sought, with the old Puritanic inheritance of self-investigation, to fathom the cause of this resolution. He found his mind distracted from the sermon which had been so interesting, and involuntarily he turned around to look at Dian herself to see what expression she had now upon her face, and to see if perchance her looks might have had something to do with this strange decision. She looked as serene, as unconscious, as a statue. Her face looked slightly weary, as if she, too, had lost interest in the sermon, and her thoughts were on something else. But she did not look at John, and even if she knew where he sat, she seemed to avoid meeting his eyes.

As John's gaze left her witching face, and his eyes traveled over the choir seats, he observed Ellie's vacant seat, and he felt suddenly that Ellie had something to do with this decision. What and how did Ellie effect this? John was not an impulsive man, his thoughts were deep and rather slow in forming. He allowed his mind to play upon this thought which had come to him, and it seemed to him that a veritable inspiration flashed upon him that Ellie was in danger, and that she needed him. He had no superstitious notion that he could hear Ellen calling him, that is the way he would have put it to himself; yet if he had been a more imaginative man, he would have said that he could hear her voice in his soul pleading for help in her hour of extremest peril.

However it was, he was so strongly impressed that he struggled as long as he could to restrain the feeling which gave him no peace, until he finally arose and went out of the meeting, and hastened down to the home of the Tylers, and inquired for Ellen. Aunt Clara was at home, getting dinner for the rest of the folks who had gone to meeting, and she answered his knock at the door.

"Ellie, why, she is not well this morning, and she is still in bed. She did not sleep much last night, and I told her to lie still this morning, and she could perhaps go to meeting this afternoon."

John sat and chatted a while with his old friend, Aunt Clara, but he did not mention the dreadful impression which he had felt that morning, and he told himself again and again what a silly thing it was for him to give way to such notions.

He heard later from Tom Allen that Ellen was at the afternoon meeting and he added that fact to the scolding he had administered that morning to himself, and assured himself that there was plenty of time to try and persuade pretty Ellen Tyler to accept him and his home as her future destiny.

XXXII
"SOUR GRAPES"

A few hours later, just in the cool edge of the late afternoon, John found himself eagerly looking over some new daguerreotypes of various of his friends in the shop of Marcena Cannon, the photographer, on Main Street. He was so busily engaged that he did not notice the slight noisy wrangle of some drunken men on the street until he saw a group of them darken the small doorway of the tiny shop. As his glance caught the fact that they were soldiers, he withdrew into the shadow and waited for developments. He was unwilling to embroil himself with these men, and yet he had caught sight of the dissolute face of Captain Sherwood in the crowd, and John remained to watch.

"Hello, Mr. Cannon," cried the tipsy captain, "we want our pictures taken. Can you take the picture of a gentleman as well as the ugly mugs of these d – d Mormons?"

The face of the photographer was drawn into a sneer of contempt for the insult thus offered himself and his associates, but he only said:

"Men in my profession must be as willing to try their hands at painting a fool as they are to take the likeness of an honest man. Are there any honest men in your party who want to pose before my camera?"

For answer the captain only leered about the shop, pausing unsteadily before first one picture and then another; finally he caught sight of a large daguerreotype of President Brigham Young, done by the enterprising pioneer photographer Marcena Cannon. Steadying himself in front of this picture, Sherwood raised his pistol, and shot through it, the bullet embedding itself in the wall behind. His marksmanship was so unsteady that only the corner of the canvas was riddled; but the soldiers surrounded their captain at once, fearing that his overt act might precipitate some trouble. Sherwood yelled out as his shot rang into the dim silence of the room:

"That's the way I'd serve the old scoundrel if I could get him in the same place."

Instantly the room filled with street-loungers, although the sound was no unusual one in those unhappy Salt Lake days. As the smoke cleared away, Captain Sherwood found himself looking down the muzzle of John Stevens' own revolver, while a cool, grating voice hissed in his ear:

"Git out, vermin."

The soldier, sobered by his own folly, found his small squad of men were vastly outnumbered by the civilian police who now crowded into the tiny room, and without further parley he assumed a braggart air, and swaggered out of the place.

"'He who runs away'," quoth Charlie Rose, who was at John's elbow by this time, "'may live to fight another day.' But then again he may not. You can't sometimes always tell. Little Captain Sherwood may reach the place of his own seeking sooner than he anticipates."

The incident only served the better to reveal the unprincipled character of a man whom already poor John hated with a righteous vigor.

As the drunken captain, now somewhat sobered by his recent escapade, clanked noisily down Main Street, followed by his squad, he saw Diantha, clad in her usual comely habit, coming toward him. Instantly alert to any possible results of this chance encounter, Captain Sherwood straightened himself, and endeavored to assume his usual elegant swagger. But if he had removed the traces of his recent debauch from his walk, it still lingered in the dusky flame which burned in cheeks and chin, and above all there still glittered in the dusk of his leering eyes that signal of danger which thrills every weak human creature who beholds that black flag. Captain Sherwood sober had much to recommend him to polite society – but Captain Sherwood drunk betrayed the devil within him. Drunk or sober, he was the acme of grace, and it was with customary lightness that he swept off his blue cap and carrying it to his heart he bowed low with exaggerated politeness to the frightened girl, now opposite him.

With small trace of the raging fear within her, the girl turned her head proudly away, and with a slight motion of mingled fear and disgust she drew her skirts aside as if to avoid possible contact, and walked coldly on, leaving a short, dismayed silence behind her, as the men watched with common interest this second rout of their dissolute companion and superior officer.

"You won't speak to me?" the captain muttered thickly to himself; "well, my tragedy queen, I know somebody who will."

To his men he only gave the word of command and the party were soon astride of their horses and riding rapidly into the south.

It was Diantha's first experience with such evil forces; and after she was well out of sight she flew to her home, with her heart clamoring at her throat for swift release. Flinging herself down upon her knees she buried her face in her pillow as she sobbed out her broken prayers to that living Father whose tender protection she had never before sought with such abject humility. After her heart had ceased to pound in her neck, she scolded herself for a stupid coward of a girl – to be frightened in broad daylight, and on Main Street, where there were plenty of good men to protect her in case of real danger. Fright has no reason, has only eyes to see and ears to hear the nameless possibilities which sweep the spirit out into formless space. Presently the still small voice of reason reached her consciousness, and as thought settled quietly down upon its throne in her troubled soul, the question flashed along her mind: "Why is that man hanging around Great Salt Lake City so often of late?" Then – "Ellen?" was questioned and answered in a second illuminating thrill of pain.

Without another moment's hesitation, Diantha sprang up, bathed her face, and the fear that had oppressed her for her own safety was transferred to her friend.

Ellen was churning in her cool, quiet buttery. She greeted Diantha coldly, then bade her bring a chair for herself from the kitchen.

"No, I will stand," answered Dian, too excited yet to talk calmly. "I have had such a fright!" And she proceeded to relate her recent experiences, not adding to nor taking from one single point; the truth was brutal enough to this sheltered, pure-minded, unsophisticated girl. With that awful truth she had come to warn and shield her dearest friend.

Ellen listened with her brooding eyes fixed upon her frothing churn-dash. When the story was fairly told, she offered no word of comment.

"What do you think of that?" asked Dian, anxious to obtain her friend's point of view.

"I don't think anything," Ellen said, at last.

"Why, Ellie, he was dead drunk."

"How could you tell such a thing as that?" asked Ellen, judicially. "What do you or I know about drunken men?"

"Oh, his eyes, and his red face – and – and – everything – " stammered Diantha, confused to be thus put at a disadvantage, and upon the witness-stand. "And there was something so terrible about him every way that I just shuddered when he looked into my eyes."

Still Ellen refused to discuss the matter. Dian persisted:

"You can't think what a fright I was in. If you could have just seen him – "

The sullen listener busied herself with her churn. And at last, she sat down to work over her butter.

"Ellie," coaxed Diantha, "what do you think about the thing, anyway?"

The weak, delicate character of the love-sick Ellen had been turned from its own natural candid sweetness into the gall of secretive obstinacy, by her concealed passion; and when she was thus adjured, she simply raised her dash to clean off the remaining globes of gold, as she said, tartly:

"If you want to know what I think about you, Dianthy Winthrop, I'll tell you – 'sour grapes'!"

Diantha was too frankly surprised for a moment to do aught but stare stupidly at the lowered face opposite her. Then suddenly comprehending, she said icily, her lips drawing into a sharp line across her face:

"Do you think I have made up all this story? That I am jealous? Jealous of a vile, wicked soldier? Oh, Ellen, you surely can't think such a terrible thing as that!"

"Would it be the first time you've been jealous of me?" asked the girl. Dian's truthful memory received this home-thrust in silence; but she was not thus to be thrown from her purpose.

"But, Ellen, he was drunk! Drunk, I tell you! And he is not fit to wipe your shoes on."

"Sour grapes," muttered the scornful lips of the girl before her.

"Ellen Tyler, I came here with an honest desire to give you a friendly warning. I don't imagine for one moment that you need it any more than I do, or that you are not just as good and just as wise as I am – maybe more so. But I am beginning to see things as they are: the glamor and glory and romance which once so fascinated me is fading away, thank God – anyway as it relates to men who drink and carouse or who do wrong. And especially do I begin to see how unsafe we are associating with any man outside this Church and kingdom. I have done my best to warn you, as Aunt Clara and my brother have warned us both time and time again. We are two orphaned girls, but God has sent us repeated warnings through our best friends and guardians to listen and obey. We girls may or may not come to harm when we follow our own path, but we can never come to a good end if we disobey the counsels of those who have a right to give us such counsel. I am going to try and heed that warning counsel. I dare not disobey. It is bred in my very bone to give heed to the voice of wisdom. I felt a strong impression that you needed this warning, too, and I have given it. I think now that I shall go to Aunt Clara and tell her exactly what I have told you."

Ellen's eyes lifted quickly. But with the subtle deceit of a weak, inwardly-selfish soul she said, smoothly:

"Don't bother to tell Aunt Clara, Dian. You have told me, and I will remember all you say. It might only worry Aunt Clara when there is no need."

Only half convinced, but wholly appeased by this seeming flag of truce, Diantha chatted with her friend awhile on indifferent things and then went away, resolved to seek some convenient opportunity after the Conference was well over to have a long talk with Aunt Clara.

Alas, that we wait for these laggard opportunities, instead of boldly going out to meet them in the highway! It is well to consider well before we do evil, but good should be done on the impulse.

The next morning, which was Sunday, Ellen was at her post in the choir, and John hurried home from meeting at noon to make arrangements with a friend to take his place in the evening so that he could spend that Sunday evening visiting with Ellen.

All afternoon he gently forced his mind to dwell solely and wholly upon the real sweetness and charm of pretty Ellen Tyler. He fancied what a dear little wife she would make and he drew all sorts of domestic pictures of what home with such a fond little wife would be. He knew she was good, true, lovely, and although weak in some points, he was sure that marriage would give her all the strength and force necessary for her perfection as a woman and as a saint. Yes, John had decided to marry – not Dian Winthrop, but sweet, impulsive, pretty Ellen Tyler – if he could get her! If he could! Ah, if he only could!