"It is now nearly forty years ago, but Alma has never been the least crippled during his life, and he has traveled quite a long period of the time as a missionary of the gospel and a living miracle of the power of God.
"I cannot leave the tragic story without relating some incidents of those five weeks when I was a prisoner with my wounded boy in Missouri, near the scene of the massacre, unable to obey the order of extermination.
"All the Mormons in the neighborhood had fled out of the State, excepting a few families of the bereaved women and children who had gathered at the house of Brother David Evans, two miles from the scene of the massacre. To this house Alma had been carried after that fatal night.
"In our utter desolation, what could we women do but pray? Prayer was our only source of comfort; our Heavenly Father our only helper. None but he could save and deliver us.
"One day a mobber came from the mill with the captain's fiat:
"'The captain says if you women don't stop your d—d praying he will send down a posse and kill every d—d one of you!'
"And he might as well have done it, as to stop us poor women praying in that hour of our great calamity.
"Our prayers were hushed in terror. We dared not let our voices be heard in the house in supplication. I could pray in my bed or in silence, but I could not live thus long. This godless silence was more intolerable than had been that night of the massacre.
"I could bear it no longer. I pined to hear once more my own voice in petition to my Heavenly Father.
"I stole down into a corn-field, and crawled into a 'stout of corn.' It was as the temple of the Lord to me at that moment. I prayed aloud and most fervently.