Presently the proprietor came in and looked at my basket. I arose and invited him to buy a Book of Mormon. With an oath he grabbed the basket and started to throw it into the furnace. I held on, and began pleading with him, when he suddenly let go of the basket, and grappling me, swore he would throw me out of the window. I clinched with him and threw him on his back, and held him until the boarders came in and pulled me off.
The rough, big-hearted men were so amused, that I had to go into the dining hall and eat dinner with them. Then they bought all my books; and for the first and only time I went back to the office with an empty basket and a well-filled purse. Brother Pratt was so pleased with my bit of experience, that he released me from tracting. My first sacrifice had been accepted.
While making my home in San Francisco, I had been kindly cared for by a Sister Evans, a widow lady. I also made the acquaintance of Sister Eleanor McLain, an intelligent, energetic, but over-zealous woman, who had recently been baptized by Elder William McBride.
The morning after my release from tracting, I took my carpet bag, walked down to the ferry, and paid a dollar for a ticket to Oakland, intending to hunt work among the farmers. As the boat was on the eve of pushing off, I saw Elder McBride hurrying down the street waving his hat. I stepped on shore, when he told me that I must come back at once, as Parley had a mission for me. Upon reaching the office I was told by Brother Pratt that McLain was making arrangements to send his wife to the insane asylum because she had joined the Church, and my mission was to prevent his doing so. He then placed his hands upon my head, and blessing me, said that McLain should never harm a hair of my head. The spirit and power of that blessing gave me more than natural strength and courage; and I at once commenced my labor.
It occurred to me that if I could get to talk to McLain and his wife, I could bring about a reconciliation. After repeated calls, I persuaded him to hire me as cook in the family. Every day for a month, I dusted his room, made up his bed, handled the revolver with which he was going to kill the Mormon Elder who should dare to call at his home. During evenings I would read aloud selections from the Bible, and pray with the family; and as David played upon his harp to sooth Saul in his angry moods, so God gave to me, child though I was, power to soothe that wicked man, and drive the evil spirit from his abode.
At the end of a month, having been told by someone that I was a Mormon Elder, he rushed into the house like a madman, and in a fearful voice shouted: "Were you not a child, I would kill you."
I reminded him that he claimed to be a minister of the Gospel. (He was acting temporarily in that capacity in the Unitarian Church). He quieted down enough to get his Bible, and said he would prove to me that there was not to be any more revelation, and that laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost was blasphemy. But his hands trembled, and he could not find the passages.
I read to him the words of Peter on the day of Pentecost, "For the promise is unto you, and unto your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord, our God, shall call." He then sprang from the table, went into an adjoining room, came back and, giving me forty dollars in gold, my month's wages, dismissed me.
I had thus filled my second mission,—had turned the shaft of madness from Sister McLain, had earned my passage money, and Parley's blessing on my head had been realized.