The early spring had begun to clothe the towering mountain steeps with spotted robes of brown, gray and green; over the distant summits, the fleecy wind-clouds were torn and draggled as they trailed their white skirts across the sharp edges of the mountain tops. Out on the hills peeped the lovely rare bulb that the pioneer children called "sego-lily," and here and there nestled the early, pink star they called "Sweet Williams;" and rarer still, the tall, intensely blue bulbous flower that was known as "the blue-bell," hid its precious beauty beneath the gray walls of its shrubby friend the sage brush. Everywhere the sego lily nodded with its golden brown heart and its delicate, pouting lips of creamy white; while children ran and laughed and quarreled as they dug the mellow, luscious root they called in the Indian tongue, "segoes."
Boys began to drive the sheep from the valley winter quarters to the bunch-grass covered hills above; the herdsman took possession of his mountain hut beside the cold, moss-covered spring, perched high up in the tiny valleys of the upper mountain peaks. Out on the hills was heard the tinkling bell of the sheep, and the call of the herders echoed from peak to peak as they drove their hungry flocks through the upper vales. The low, dark green pastures on the marshy lands began to throw up their mellow juices into feathery wild oat stems, or filled the reedy grass with thin nectar for the few and very choice cows that waded around with slow pleasure in the Jordan meadows.
Down by the Jordan's banks the boys watched the cows through the early spring days, occasionally plunging into the cool water for a quick swim, longing for the hot summer days when hours could be spent in the water of the treacherous stream. Here and there a stray fisherman threw his rude line into the stream and occasionally caught a mountain trout, the speckled beauty glistening like silver as he threw it upon the bank. At break of day, the husbandman—and who was not a husbandman in those early pioneer times in these valleys?—drove his team afield—not in the mellow soil known to the home he had left in the East, but in the hard, uncultivated earth of centuries of sun-baked, rainless summers, down in the bosom of the barren valleys. He dug out the tall, gray-spiked sage brush and huge, flaunting sunflowers, and everywhere he trenched his land in regular lines to train down upon it the cooling streams which gave life and fertility to the otherwise hopeless soil.
The first days of April brought the annual Conference, and everyone in Utah laid aside work and prepared to attend the great three days' meeting. Men in the city brought into their homes great stores of flour and food to feed the visitors who would tarry with them during the Conference. Women cooked meats and pastry, washed and ironed sheets and quilts and filled the extra straw ticks to make temporary beds in every spare corner to accommodate their usual country visitors.
For many miles on all the country roads could be seen teams of all descriptions wending their way to Conference. A few horses, some mules, and often great ox-teams plodded their way city-ward. Men, women and little children cheerfully left their homes and comforts to take chances of any kind of hospitality for the privilege of attending the prized semi-annual religious services.
The yard of the Tithing office was filled with visiting teams and wagons of every description, and busy women prepared food and comfort for the hungry multitude gathered there. Children ran about, playing at hide-and-seek, or chased each other over the ground amid wheels and wagon tongues, grouped about in semi-confusion.
It was rather a cold and damp time, therefore the Tabernacle was well warmed for the people gathered in happy groups for this Friday morning. What exchanges of greetings were there as brother met brother and sister greeted sister! Months, perhaps years had elapsed since they had seen each other. Here was a family just come over from the "old country" standing up between the benches to greet the throng which crowded about them to shake their hands, for they had been good to the "elders" in England, and every elder wanted to take them by the hand and introduce them to his family. How quaint the old English pronunciation sounded on those newly imported English tongues, and how queer the children looked with their little bare, red arms, and their low, broad-toed shoes and white "pinafores," and how it made the Utah children laugh and stare to be told by these recent importations to "give over now, give over;" and how the elder would smile as the jolly mother of the new arrival would recall his words and ways while amongst them; and how his merry eyes would sadden and fill with tears as he heard the story of "our Mary who had died," or, far worse, perchance, had apostatized in spite of all teachings, and who had been left behind to her own backsliding ways! What great slaps were bestowed upon broad backs as Brother So-and-So came up behind Brother What's-His-Name and thus announced his pleasure at greeting his old-time friend!
As John Stevens entered the well-warmed and cosy building, a few minutes before the meeting was called to order, his eye involuntarily became brighter in sympathy with the merry confusion and bustle which he witnessed all around him. Everybody was standing up and talking to everybody else, while on the distant "stand" the elders were indulging in the same friendly and informal greetings. Crops, the weather, babies, death, marriage, sermons, soldiers, war, the millennium, new homespun coats, the possible advent of a woolen mill in the Territory, carpet looms, shoe lasts, prospective sawmills, and the best recipe for cooking dried service-berries, all these topics buzzed in endless variety and confusion around the well-filled hall.
But hark! all eyes are turned to the stand, as Brigham Young is heard calling the people to come "to order," and instantly all voices are stilled; the groups at once settle down into regularity, and the thoughts of the congregation are fixed upon the words of the heartfelt opening prayer of Elder Chas. C. Rich.
As the choir began its second hymn, John turned in his seat to see if Diantha and Ellen were in their seats in the choir. Yes, Diantha stood there with her lovely form clad in its classical, simple gown of homespun, fitting her like a molded glove, while the glorious eyes and scarlet lips were as beautiful as ever. He looked at her so long, and as she was unconscious of his gaze, so earnestly, that he forgot to look for Ellen.