If I had been
agitated by the urgency of his summons to me, and he had wished to allay
my anxiety at once, the sight of his face, as he looked at me, would
have been reassurance enough.

At a characteristic motion of the hand from him, the others left us.
We sat down in the "horsehair" chairs of a well-to-do farmer's
parlor--furnished in black walnut, with the usual organ against one
wall, and the usual marble-topped bureau against the other. I remember
the "store" carpet, the mortuary hair-wreaths on the walls, the
walnut-framed lithographs of the Church authorities and of the angel
Moroni with "the gold plates;" and none of these seem ludicrous to me to
remember. They express, to me, in the recollection, some of the homely
and devout simplicity of the people whose community life this man was to
save.

He talked a few minutes, affectionately, about family matters, and
then--straightening his shoulders to the burden of more gravity--he
said: "I have sent for you, my son, to see if you cannot find some way
to help us in our difficulties. I have made it a matter of prayer, and
I have been led to urge you to activity. You have never performed a
Mission for the Church, and I have sometimes wondered if you cared
anything about your religion. You have never obeyed the celestial
covenant, and you have kept yourself aloof from the duties of the
priesthood, but it may have been a providential overruling. I have
talked with some of the brethren, and we feel that if relief does not
soon appear, our community will be scattered and the great work crushed.
The Lord can rescue us, but we must put forth our own efforts. Can you
see any light?"

I replied that I had already been in Washington twice, on my own
initiative, conferring with some of his Congressional friends. "I am
still," I said, "of the opinion I expressed to you and President Taylor
four years ago. Plural marriage must be abandoned or our friends in
Washington will not defend us."

Four years before, when I had offered that opinion, President Taylor
had cried out: "No! Plural marriage is the will of God! It's apostasy to
question it!" And I paused now with the expectation that my father would
say something of this sort. But, as I was afterwards to observe, it was
part of his diplomacy, in conference, to pass the obvious opportunity of
replying, and to remain silent when he was expected to speak, so that
he might not be in the position of following the lead of his opp