The first I knew of the gulls, I heard their sharp cry. Upon looking up, I beheld what appeared like a vast flock of pigeons coming from the northwest. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. My brother Franklin and I were trying to save an acre of wheat of father's, growing not far from where the Salt Lake Theatre now stands. The wheat was just beginning to turn yellow. The crickets would climb the stalk, cut off the head, then come down and eat it. To prevent this, my brother and I each took an end of a long rope, stretched it full length, then walked through the grain holding the rope so as to hit the heads, and thus knock the crickets off. From sunrise till sunset we kept at this labor; for as darkness came the crickets sought shelter, but with the rising of the sun they commenced their ravages again.
I have been asked "how numerous were the gulls."
There must have been thousands of them. Their coming was like a great cloud; and when they passed between us and the sun, a shadow covered the field. I could see the gulls settling for more than a mile around us. They were very tame, coming within four or five rods of us.
At first we thought that they, also, were after the wheat, and this thought added to our terror: but we soon discovered that they devoured only the crickets. Needless to say, we quit drawing the rope, and gave our gentle visitors the possession of the field. As I remember it, the gulls came every morning for about three weeks, when their mission was apparently ended, and they ceased coming. The precious crops were saved.
I have met those who were skeptical about the gulls' being sent by divine Providence, for the salvation of our people, but I believe it most firmly; as witness the preparedness of the Indians. They kept on hand baskets purposely made to put in the creeks to catch the loathsome insects as they floated down the streams, and they caught them by tons, sun-dried them, then roasted them, and made them into a silage that would keep for months. Their skill in this convinces me that the coming of the crickets had been continuous for ages. Nor had the cricket crop ever been interrupted before until our people came, and the coming of the gulls checked the increase of the loathsome insects. The gulls were sent by the same Power that sent the quails to feed the Israelites.
Do I love the sea gulls? I never hear their sharp, shrill cry but my heart leaps with joy and gladness, for I know that they saved my father's family and his people from a fearful death. Bless the gulls! They and the lovely sego lilies should ever be remembered, protected, and sacredly cherished by the children of the Latter-day Saints.
Chapter 9.
My First Mission.—Uncle Brigham's Counsel.—Parley P. Pratt, Teacher and Orator.—My First View of the Ocean.—San Francisco.—Tracting the City.—Scrap with a Hotel Keeper.—Labor as a Cook in the Home of Mr. McClain.—The Man Who Murdered Parley P. Pratt.
In 1854, at the April Conference in Salt Lake City, I was appointed a mission to the Sandwich Islands. I was then in my sixteenth year, and with my overcoat on I weighed, on Father Neff's mill scales, just ninety-six pounds. On the 4th of May I started on my mission; George Speirs, Simpson M. Molen, Washington B. Rogers, and I having fitted up a four-horse team with which we traveled across the desert to San Bernardino. In our company were Joseph F. Smith, then in his fifteenth year, John T. Caine, Edward Partridge, William W. Cluff, Ward E. Pack, Silas, and Silas S. Smith, and some others.