Without another word he returned to his office and the brightest dream of my life had been swept away. What should I do? I sat a few minutes as if dazed, then sprang to my feet, saying, "I will accept counsel, let it lead me where it will."
A little later I met my Uncle Joseph. He said, "Johnny, Bishop Stewart wants you to go to Draper and talk to the young folks. Will you go?"
"Yes, when does he want me."
"Next Monday night."
"I will be there."
The schoolhouse was packed full that night. I had commenced talking, when a lady came in and was given a seat in front of the stand. Our eyes met, and I heard a voice say, "That is your wife." After meeting she was introduced to me as Miss Albina Terry. From that hour our life stream began flowing in one channel, but not to anticipate, I will let Albina tell her side of our love story. After we were engaged she confided to me:
"I had been unfortunate and unhappy in my first loves, and it had left me with a bleeding heart. I tried to forget, but could not. My health failed, until my parents became alarmed at my condition. One day in a heart to heart talk, my mother said, 'My daughter, if you will go to the Lord with your sorrows, he will comfort you.' I accepted her counsel. With fasting and prayer I asked the Father for help, and He graciously answered my pleadings. In a dream I saw a rosy-cheeked laughing boy, and a Person said, 'See, your husband.'
"I told my mother the dream; my hope revived, and my health became better. I waited and watched. Suitors came, but I shunned them. Three years had passed, and I was still at home. Johnston's army was coming, and all of our people from Salt Lake City northward, had fled to the south. Our home being only a few rods back from the road, we saw thousands of people pass southward until the stream was exhausted. One day as I sat weaving, my face to the street, a one-horse buggy with two men in it, drove by. The one on the side nearest us turned his face toward me and laughed. Instantly I cried, 'Oh, mother! That is my husband. Who are they?' I came to the meeting, and when I saw you, I knew you. I felt confused, yet a thrill of joy came to me. At the close of the meeting, I sought your sister and went home with her, for I knew you would be there."
On New Year's day we were married—and a blessing had come to me. She was industrious and saving as a housekeeper; she was also a wise counselor, and a loyal wife. As my family became enlarged, I adopted the plan of buying my family supplies by wholesale.
While we were living in Long Valley, I was a farmer, and also a saw-mill man. In the fall I would load my teams with lumber and grain and go to the Washington factory seventy-five miles away, buy my supplies, take them home, and give them to Albina, for I knew that she would divide them justly with every other member of the family. She was big hearted enough to sympathize with the other wives, and if trouble occurred in the family she always took their parts, yet so wisely and soothingly, that she always kept my love and confidence. By nature, I was of a quick, irritable disposition, and her firm calmness was a great help to me. It served as a balance wheel to keep me from flying to pieces. And her life had deeper roots than love for her husband, as the following incident illustrates: