She forgot him a little time, in the reading, until it occurred to her that he was singularly quiet. She glanced up, and was horrified to see that he slept. The trials of Jared’s brother in building the boats that were about the length of a tree, combined with his broken rest of the night before, had lured him into the dark valley of slumber where his soul could not lave in the waters of truth. But something in the sleeping face softened her, and she smiled, waiting for him to awaken. He was still only a waymark to the kingdom of folly, but she had made a beginning, and she would persevere. He must be saved into the household of faith. And indeed it was shameful that such as he should depend for their salvation upon a chance meeting with an unskilled girl like herself. She wondered somewhat indignantly how any able-bodied Saint could rest in the valley while this man’s like were dying in sin for want of the word. As her eye swept the sleeping figure, she was even conscious of a little wicked resentment against the great plan itself, which could under any circumstances decree such as he to perdition.
He opened his eyes after awhile to ask her why she had stopped reading, and when she told him, he declared brazenly that he had merely closed his eyes to shut out everything but her words.
“I heard everything,” he insisted, again raised upon his elbows. “‘It was built like unto a dish, and the length was about as long as a tree—’”
“What was?”
“The Urim and Thummim.”
When he saw that she was really distressed, he tried to cheer her.
“Now don’t be discouraged,” he said, as they started home in the late afternoon. “You can’t expect to get me roped and hog-tied the very first day. There’s lots of time, and you’ll have to keep at it. When I was a kid learning to throw a rope, I used to practise on the skull of a steer that was nailed to a post. At first it didn’t look like I could ever do it. I’d forget to let the rope loose from my left hand, or I wouldn’t make the loop line out flat around my head, or she’d switch off to one side, or something. But at last I’d get over the horns every time. Then I learned to do it running past the post; and after that I’d go down around the corral and practise on some quiet old heifer, and so on. The only thing is—never give up.”
“But what good does it do if you won’t pay attention?”
“Oh, well, I can’t learn a new religion all at once. It’s like riding a new saddle. You put one on and ‘drag the cinches up and lash them, and you think it’s going to be fine, and you don’t see why it isn’t. But you find out that you have to ride it a little at a time and break it in. Now, you take a fresh start with me to-morrow.”
“Of course I’m going to try.”