“I thought the Mormons didn’t compel any woman to give her husband away in marriage against her will,” said Jean.
The woman uttered a sharp, rasping, staccato laugh that betokened incipient insanity.
“There are other ways to kill a dog besides choking him to death on butter!” she cried, throwing her arms wildly about, and casting grotesque shadows upon those sitting behind her. “They told me that as a good Mormon I was bound to obey the mandates of the Church; that my eternal salvation, and my husband’s also, depended upon obedience. And they said it so often, and prayed over me so long and hard, that at last I said I’d do it. Then they held me to my promise. But my heart would beat, and the world would move; so in spite of what I did in the Endowment House, I would go about and tell my woes to everybody that would listen. And I was getting to be a scandal in Zion, so that by-and-by, when a lot of Gentiles got to making a fuss about it,—they made it hot for polygamy through my story,—the elders took it up. But they couldn’t tie my tongue, for the Devil had hold of it, and he just kept it wagging. The cases of Abraham and Jacob and David didn’t fit my case at all, for they hadn’t made any such vows.”
The woman, as if suddenly recollecting herself, stopped speaking, and glared at her awe-stricken listeners with an insane gleam in her fiery eyes.
“Oh, my head, my head!” she cried, clasping her hands tightly over her temples. “The Devil has caught me again!”
“You’d better not talk any more to-night,” said the Little Doctor, soothingly. “And you cannot go on till morning. I’ll make a warm, snug bed for you in one of the wagons. After you’ve had a sound sleep and a good breakfast, you can go on your way refreshed.”
“But I’ve got to talk it out. You’re like all the rest! You want me to be quiet, when the rocks and stones would cry out against me if I did!”
“You’ll take a drink of our ‘Number Six,’ won’t you?” asked the Little Doctor. “Here it is. I’ve mixed and sweetened it for you.”
She grasped the decoction and gulped it eagerly.
“Thanks,” she said, returning the cup. “I must be going now. I’ve stayed too long already. The Danites will be after me. Do you think any of them are in hearing now? President Young put me under their surveillance before they’d let me start. He put his hands on my head and blessed me, too. Talk about your popes! Why, Brigham Young can discount a ten-acre field full of Apostolic successors, and be the father of a whole regiment of American progeny in the bargain. I know you think I’m crazy, but there’s plenty of method in my madness. I’m not half as crazy as I act and talk.”