“Wal—I know they brag mightily on thur genteelity. I reckon you’re about right thur—them, storekeepers air stuck-up enough for anythin’.”
“No, no; it’s not that I mean. My religion has nothing to do with Swampville. Thank the Lord for his mercy, I’ve been led into a surer way of salvation. I suppose, Brother Holt, you’ve heard of the new Revelation?”
“Heern o’ the new rev’lation. Wal, I don’t know as I hev. What’s the name o’t?”
“The book of Mormon?”
“Oh! Mormons! I’ve hearn o’ them. Hain’t they been a fightin’ a spell up thur in Massouray or Illinoy, whar they built ’em a grandiferous temple? I’ve hearn some talk o’t.”
“At Nauvoo. It is even so, Brother Holt the wicked Gentiles have been persecuting the Saints: just as their fathers were persecuted by the Egyptian Pharaohs.”
“An’ hain’t they killed their head man—Smith he wur called, if I recollex right.”
“Alas, true! Joseph Smith has been made a martyr, and is by this time an angel in heaven. No doubt he is now in glory, at the head of the angelic host.”
“Wal—if the angels are weemen, he’ll hev a good wheen o’ ’em about him, I reck’n. I’ve hearn he wur at the head of a putty consid’able host o’ ’em up thur in Massoury—fifty wives they said he hed! Wur that ere true, Josh?”
“Scandal, Brother Holt—all scandal of the wicked enemies of our faith. They were but wives in the spirit. That the Gentiles can’t comprehend; since their eyes have not been opened by the Revelation.”