“It was just so with Henry and this girl. He has gone quite against the grain with me, and I feel it all the more because he used to be so quiet and anxious to do exactly what I wanted. But he doesn’t care a fig now whether I’m pleased or not—he only thinks about this red-headed girl. In fact, he’s quite crazy about her, and if there’s any sin in apostasy, you may remember that it was he who drove me into it.”
“That seems hardly fair,” I said, “for you knew all along that it was his privilege to take more wives.”
“That’s very true,” she exclaimed; “it is his privilege to take wives, but it’s my privilege to choose them for him. I’m a good Mormon, and I don’t mind how many wives my husband takes, if he’ll only act reasonably about getting them. But, Sister Stenhouse, I do not want a parcel of girls about the house. I’m so far from wishing to usurp authority, that, as I told Henry, I would not mind if his wives were even a little older than me, but I won’t have them younger. It makes Henry look so silly. Why, to see him with that girl Charlotte, now, who isn’t more than half my own age—no; I don’t mean that, I mean she’s slightly younger than I am—you might really almost imagine that he thought more of her than he does of me. I know he doesn’t, for he has told me so; but any one to see them together would get quite a wrong impression.”
“When did he marry Charlotte?” I asked. “You spoke so hastily, Sister Ann, that I did not quite understand you.”
“When? Why he married her this morning, as I thought I told you; he has only just done it. He said he was anxious to be in a quiet state of mind to-day, so I gave him a piece of my mind, and he was so astonished at the pointed way in which I explained to him what a fool he’d been making of himself that he quite showed it in his face. The fact is, Sister Stenhouse, he has lately become rather more than I could manage.”
“Well, Sister,” I said, “I should have thought that his finding a wife for himself would have saved you a world of trouble.”
“Oh dear no, Sister Stenhouse,” she replied; “it was trouble I did not want to be saved. Men have no business, in my opinion, to choose their own wives, after the first. I know the men do do it, one and all; but it’s a shameful stretch of authority. I should like to know whether it is not of much more consequence to me what wife my husband has than it is to him? However, I resolved that my husband should never marry the red-headed girl, and I told him so; and what do you think the inhuman creature said? ‘You’ve been persuading me all these years,’ he said, ‘to take another wife, although I’ve already got three, and now I’ve begun to do so you blame me. I think I’ve as good a right as any one to say who I’ll marry and who I won’t.’ Did you ever hear of such ingratitude? Would you hear of such a thing from your husband, Sister Stenhouse?”
I told her that with Mormonism my husband had given up Polygamy, and she continued:
“Well, I tried to bring him to reason, but it was of no use. And then I told him that the girl should never set foot inside the house while I was in it. This was a very unfortunate speech, for I do believe that up to that time he wanted as much as possible to keep the girl out of my way; but the moment I said that, to show his dignity, I suppose, he declared that she should come to tea with us that very afternoon, and he would go and fetch her; and he did so. I wouldn’t go down to tea at first, though both the other wives were there and he sent up for me, but my pride would not allow me to stoop. At last I got tired of being all alone, and as it occurred to me that perhaps they might be enjoying themselves without me, I resolved to go down and see if I could not do something to annoy them. Down I went, and Henry, all smiling, introduced the girl to me as ‘Sister Charlotte,’ talking of her as if he had known her for years. Was it not shameful?”
“It must have been very awkward for you,” I said.