John Stevens' Courtship

John drew her closer to his side, with his encircling arm, and looking down into her eyes, he said:

"Dear girl, I have been courting you in spirit all my life. Let me have my own way now, will you not?"

His tone was so gentle, so tender, that she answered softly, yet still half-mischievously:

"Well, Aunt Clara, I guess we will have to let him have his way. He is so big that he could crush us both if we didn't please him."

Aunt Clara's eyes were moist with tears, as she watched them. She rejoiced in their love, and she was content that she had helped a little. But as they started out of the door to leave her, and Diantha came back to kiss her once more in token of love and gratitude, Aunt Clara's heart flew back to their lost Ellie, and all the sad, miserable story. She went to the door and watched them go out of the gate, Diantha still full of bubbling mischief, with her quick, pretty gestures of teasing indifference as she refused even to take John's arm in the bright moonlight – it all brought back her Ellie's love for this same good man, and she turned back into her room with sobs in her throat; and then she knelt in silent prayer for these two who had gone out from her home to their blessed future.

As Diantha Winthrop herself knelt that night in her evening prayer, she poured out the wealth of her young heart in gratitude to God who had so magnified her life and its mission. After her prayer, she sat at her window and thought back on all the past, and she wondered anew that she could ever have called her lover cold, reserved or silent. His every look was pregnant with thought, and his presence was full of unspoken meanings. She could see how in her ignorant, thoughtless girlhood she could not appreciate him, as she could not appreciate the deep throbbing poems in the Bible until life opened them and sorrow put into her hand the secret key to their mysteries.

She had grown up to John now, and she wondered how it was that she could ever have permitted ordinary men to come near her. He was a king! Proud, intelligent, pure! With the wide-open eyes of experience, she recognized his matchless manhood and bowed down in mighty prayer that she might prove worthy of his love.

XL

JOHN BUILDS A HOME

That was a busy month, and everybody in the neighborhood insisted on doing something for the coming wedding.

John bought a lot not far from Aunt Clara's home, and although it had only one log room on it for a house, he soon had a large front room added to it, and he put up a small lean-to for kindlings and wood. He did not propose, he said to himself, that his wife should have an unnecessary step to walk, and with that same thought, he dug a new well close to the kitchen door.

He put a good paling fence in front of the house, and promised himself that he would very soon replace the brush fence on the south side of the lot with a new one, to match the front.

How many times he peeped into the large front room, with its new, white pine floor, and its huge fire-place, and wondered how he could wait until the days were gone and Dian was there to fill every nook and corner with radiance. He wished he had time to pull down the old part and put up an adobe room, but that must needs wait for the future. He planted, with patient care, several vines around the front "door stoop," for he knew Dian loved flowers and green things. And with what infinite pleasure at the last, he watched the putting down of carpets, bright new rag ones, that Dian and her sister-in-law and other friends had been busy getting made for the happy time of her wedding day. She and Aunt Clara came a day or so before the wedding and cleaned everything to spotless whiteness.

In the window Dian hung simple, unbleached muslin curtains with crocheted edge, which she had spent many days in bleaching. But they still retained enough of the original creamy tint to soften the plastered walls of shining white. Under one window Dian set a small pine table, painted red in imitation of mahogany, which held her three only books, one her Bible, a beloved Book of Mormon, and a prized copy of Shakespeare, which had in some way come into her possession. Under the other window was a square box, which John had fitted with hinges and a good lid, and Dian had stuffed the lid top with wool and then covered it with a pretty piece of cotton print and had hung a valence of the print around under the lid. This made a comfortable seat, and that was necessary, as chairs were rare and expensive. Inside the box-seat she had folded her modest store of linen.

Over the huge fireplace John had put a low, broad mantle, and Dian set upon the shelf her precious clock, which was one of the few things owned by her mother that she now possessed. On each side of the clock were two brass candlesticks polished like gold, and filled with tall, yellow tallow candles. Most precious of all prized treasures, John had bought the small melodeon from Bishop Winthrop, who was now in possession of a new organ for his music-loving family. John loved the dear old melodeon, out of whose slender case his beloved young wife would weave great color waves of sound and harmony; while to him alone she would now sing "Kathleen, mavourneen, the day dawn is breaking!" Ah, how he loved music and beauty and love! No one but God knew how he loved them!

A few chairs, the old-fashioned bed in the corner, a box which they called a trunk, and which had also an edged cover of white to hide its plain look, and the modest room was furnished. John had filled in the fire-place with spicy evergreens from the canyons, and he had searched the hills for the last columbines, which stood on the mantle shelf, their creamy whiteness falling into the bright color tone of the pretty room.

As John stood within its sacred precincts the night before he was to be married, he thought how the glorious presence of his beautiful wife would make it a haven of rest and happiness. He walked into the neat kitchen, and noted how carefully Dian had arranged their scanty, pioneer store of dishes, three plates, three cups and saucers, three bowls and a vegetable dish – all these had been placed up in brave show against the board he had nailed at the back of the shelves. The small cook-stove, called a "step stove," he was especially proud of, for it was a great luxury in those days. It shone with a brilliant lustre, and the few pots and pans belonging to it were hung upon the wall behind the stove with housewifely precision. He bent his face over the flowers in the kitchen windows, and whispered to himself that the delicate pinks were like Dian's cheeks, and their perfume was her breath.

As he finished his survey, he turned into the front room, and kneeling down, he offered, for the last time, his lonely evening prayer. He prayed that God would make him gentle, and worthy of such happiness, while he asked earnestly for the strength to love his religion well enough to put God first, and wife and home after. But even as he prayed, the voice of inspiration whispered in his soul, that wife and home, if rightly understood, are religion, and God was pleased with the man who could be worthy of them.

XLI

DIANTHA ENTERS

If time permitted, it would be pleasant to tell of the merry wedding, and of the delicately mocking charm with which Diantha held her lover at arm's length, all that long, happy day. She was as winsome as a sprite, and as elusive. She had a thousand excuses to leave him to his own devices, after they had returned from the early morning wedding in the Endowment House. She must see to the dinner, for they were all at Aunt Clara's, who had insisted on getting the wedding dinner. So John folded his arms, after she had slipped from them at last, and quietly sat down by the window to read his book. She might go, she could never get away from him now, he reflected with a thrill of delight, and he could well afford to wait for her sure return.

Dian peeped in occasionally to see if he was all right, for the company would be there soon, she said, and she was very anxious to see if his collar and necktie were perfectly straight. She came in, as she found that he did not seem to notice her, and playfully ordered him to arise and let her see if he was in perfect trim. He arose at her bidding, and stood looking quizzically down upon her, as she took a number of unnecessary minutes to arrange the already faultless collar and tie under the long beard. His eyes burned down into her uplifted, mocking blue orbs, but he said nothing, nor did he offer to touch her.

"I am very glad, Mr. John, that you have learned to keep your arms from around me, for at least this afternoon, for you will have to learn, you great, big, awkward John, that muslin dresses are not to be shaken, nor are they to be taken in such careless hands as these," and she held his unresisting hand a moment, then deftly put it about her waist.

He stooped down, and kissed her gravely upon the tender, red mouth, as if he found it impossible to resist his own forever.

Then she drew back, and with a sudden assumption of dignity she said, "Don't you know that it is very rude to kiss a lady, unless you have properly courted her, and she has promised to marry you?"

He laughed out of his eyes at her, and fell to stroking his long beard in the way she remembered so well.

"Now, I am going to stay right here, Mr. John, to punish you for not seeming glad to see me just now."

She sat down for a moment, but as John made as if to take her in his arms she sprang up, and with a sudden elusive gesture, she put out her pretty toe from the front of her dress, and made him a deep curtsy, saying mockingly:

"The lady must away to spread the feast of – well, not reason – but beef and chickens, and to thus assist the flow of – well, not soul, but small talk. Adieu," and she swept him another low bow, and tripped to the door, where she paused a moment, and turning back she tossed him a pretty kiss from the pink tips of her dainty fingers, as she laughed: "None but the brave deserve the fair," and was gone.

They had refused to have a dancing party, for both had still a deep, painful remembrance of the friend they had both loved and lost, and nothing but a simple gathering of the immediate family would they invite. As they left Aunt Clara's door that night after every guest had departed, Aunt Clara put her hands on their two shoulders, and with a silent tear in her eyes, she bade them, "Be true to God and each other," and they were alone at last with their wedded love and its pure, exquisite, heaven-ordained bliss.

Dian walked very primly down the midnight streets with her young husband, refusing to allow him to attempt to put his arm about her waist.

"You know it is exceedingly bad taste for people to show any affection in public; and even if you were to offer as an excuse that it is very late and no one is about, you remember that as children we have learned that we must do what is right whether there is any one to look at us or not. Eh?"

John assented, allowing her to place the merest finger tip on his arm, and he walked gravely down the moonlit streets between Aunt Clara's house and their own dear little home, which they were about to enter for the first time together.

Dian chatted and laughed nervously, asking and answering all sorts of questions, sometimes putting into John's mouth words he never would have uttered, for she said if he would not talk for himself she must do the talking for both. Presently they reached their own lowly gate; and he gravely held open the little wicket, for her to pass through. She stood with beating heart and quiet lips upon the small porch, while he unlocked the newly painted front door. And then she stood just inside the door, still silent, while John found and lighted the two candles on the mantle.

Then with a quizzical look in the keen loving eyes, he said, softly: "Sister Stevens, will you come in and take possession of your home?"

It was the first time she had ever heard herself so called, and she felt overpowered by all the blessed happiness the name implied. She stood a moment, and then put up her hands to cover the tears which would fill and overflow her eyes. The big fellow beside her waited a moment also, as if to make sure of the source of all these tears, and then he put his hand gently upon her shoulder and whispered, "You are not sorry, dear?"

"Oh, John," she sobbed, throwing her arms close about his neck, "I'm so happy that I must cry. Don't mind, it is only that I am so grateful to God for you and your dear love. To think, John, that I am yours, your true wife, for time and for all eternity," and she sighed with a happy, half-sobbing sigh, as she ceased her crying, and drew his face down to her own that she might kiss him on the lips, she said, to begin her married life aright, giving him always, first and last, her best loving devotion.

Then Dian opened the lid of her little organ, and played an evening hymn, while John watched her shining eyes and tender mouth as she offered up for them both a hymnal of praise in their new home. After the last note they both bowed in solemn prayer before the Throne of Grace!

XLII

HOME, SWEET HOME

The next morning, Diantha began at once with housewifely care to clean and sweep her treasured dwelling. She scrubbed the kitchen floor, already white and new; she polished the shining brass candlesticks; she scoured the new tins, and as she worked she sang with gay abandon. There was song in her heart, and it could not but bubble up to her lips.

These small chores were done all too soon; then she dusted and arranged her modest belongings in the dainty "front room." After everything was carefully "put to rights," she looked with the happy eyes of ownership at the box, a plain, darkly-painted one, which had come clear from New England to Nauvoo, and which held all her husband's belongings. She would go through that, she said to herself, and see if there were any little bits of mending to do, for of course John had no mother to take care of his things.

She found everything folded with as exquisite neatness and care as she herself could have given them, and in the small wooden "till" she discovered many a little treasure. There were his small Bible and Book of Mormon, which he always carried when out on his trips, with a small rubber cup, also one of his traveling necessities. There was a box of needles, pins, and cotton which Dian appropriated gleefully, whispering to her own happy heart that her dear John should never need to put them to use again. She carefully brushed and folded away all the modest stores of clothing, and then she came to a small packet, on the bottom of the trunk, and wrapped up in a paper which was marked "Private."

It never occurred to Dian, for she was not much of a novel-reader, that there was anything mysterious in the packet; she knew her lover husband too well. She laid that out on the stand under the window, for she wanted John, himself, to show her all its contents, and she knew he would.

Ah, the happiness of that morning, for that blessed girl! Who could portray the bliss of her soul! It was a simple thing, the opening of a homely box, filled with homely articles, but they were the precious belongings of the one man in all creation to that girl-wife, and she felt that the little act, simple as it was, represented her taking formal possession of John and all that he could ever own. He was hers now, as perfectly as she was his.

John came in and found her on the floor, still dreaming over her future.

"Well?" he asked.

"Oh, John, I have just been looking over all your things; and I am so happy."

John did not exactly see what there was in so little a thing as that to give her so much joy, but saying nothing, as usual, he sat down and held out his arms for her to come to him. Then she brought the little packet, and with one of his quiet smiles, John unwrapped the little parcel and showed her his choicest treasures.

"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, as she held up a small, rather indistinct daguerreotype of herself and Ellen with their arms fixed primly around each other.

"I remember that," and her eyes streamed with sad tears in memory of Ellen. "I have one just like it. How did you get one? Aunt Clara has Ellie's."

"I bought it," laconically answered John.

Dian cried a moment, and then he gave her the four letters he had put away as the most precious of all his keepsakes. There was one from the Prophet Joseph Smith to his dead father, one from President Brigham Young to himself, one from his sainted mother, and a tiny little note of her own, written when she was only a girl of fourteen.

"Why, John, what on earth have you kept that little scrawling note for? I can just remember writing it to you in school one day, in answer to your own written invitation to go to a party."

"It is the only line you ever wrote to me, how can I help keeping it?"

"John," she said, facing him and looking him in the eyes, "do you mean to tell me that you liked me away long ago, when I was a little girl?"

He had never told her the story which he had confided to Aunt Clara. So he did not answer at once, but at length said, in his most drawling fashion:

"Do you think I would ask a girl to go to a party if I did not like her?"

"Now, John dear, you are not going to bother me in that way. I want you to tell just how long you have liked me, you know, loved me, in a really truly way?"

It seemed to cost John a little effort to answer, for he loved silence, especially when he was put upon the witness stand. However, he answered at last, taking her face between his hands as he spoke, and kissing both pink cheeks:

"I think I have loved you, sweetheart, since we sang together with the morning stars and shouted in unison with our companions when the foundations of this earth were laid."

"But on this earth, John; what about this earth?"

"Well, I can hardly answer. If you were to ask me when I did not love you, I could tell you – never. Ever since I saw you, a tiny, silver-haired tot of a girl, I felt that you were apart and separate from everything human for me, and I loved you."

John, with his every-day clothes on, was out in the lot daily that fall, plowing and planting for his little wife. He said little. John never was a talker; but he proved by his constant labors that no unnecessary task should be put upon the slender hands of his wife. Wood, kindlings – why, Diantha used to laugh and say that John was getting in a supply to last five years. Gentle assistance also he often silently rendered in her many household tasks. She used to order him away, but he knew the feet must get weary, after a hard day's work; and Diantha had much to do, to spin, weave, color and prepare their clothes for the coming winter. Outside her door, the yard was packed, and wetted down, and swept, until Diantha declared she could trail her wedding dress over it without harm.

It was amusing to see him out at his work, driving his team across and around the lot; and then, when Diantha came out, as she very often did, singing as she came, he would stop and look over at her with a gleam of rapturous love in his eyes, while he would wait until she threw the dainty kiss she was sure to toss before she went inside the house. Sometimes he could not resist the spell, and tying up his team he would saunter after her, and once at the door, stand wiping his brow meditatively.

"John Stevens," she would cry, "what have you left your work for, and what do you want, sir?"

And then he would go up, and putting his hand under her chin, he would draw up her face to his own bent lips and kiss her saucy red lips, while he said sometimes, in answer to her mocking question, "I only want to look at my wife."

Then she would be silenced, for that sweet word "wife" always poured over her soul such a flood of happiness that she could not speak for a time. At other times John would beg his wife to sing him one song, or to thread a tune on the mystic ivory keys, and he would let his soul go out to God and his wife on the sound-waves that beat upon his throbbing breast. Ah, John had much to thank God for, and he knew it!

One Sabbath day, as usual, they both dressed in their simple, homely best, and together walked up to the Tabernacle; Diantha felt as if she were walking upon air. She looked up at her big, sober, gentle, masterful and yet tender husband, and she knew there was not his superior in all Zion. How proudly she sat in the congregation while John paced his slow way to the stand, for he had lately been appointed to an important position in the Church. Her heart echoed every word of the ringing homely hymn, "Do What Is Right," and she thanked God that she had been helped by His matchless power to follow the simple but noble advice.

Elder Orson Pratt, who spoke, dwelt upon some of the peculiar beliefs of the Saints, and then launched out upon the great topic of marriage, and spoke with mighty power upon the eternity of the marriage covenant. Diantha's heart swelled with rapture to know that she and John had been sealed by the power and authority of the Priesthood for time and for all eternity. And to think that three short months ago she had been so full of grave misgivings as to whether John would ever seek her again, for he had made no sign for the two whole years of his missionary life! How she had grown in these two years, to love the sound of his slow, drawling voice, the glance of his keen, beautiful, yet gentle eyes. How ardently she listened to the mere mention of his name by others. She would sit with her heart all a-tremble if his name were being discussed. And now to think he was all her own! For time and for all eternity! Oh, God, what bliss divine!

The speaker touched upon the privileges of parents who bear children under the new and everlasting covenant. What a thrill of joy swept over her as she thought that she would some day be mother to John's children! Her heart almost ceased its beating for a moment, it was so new and so beautiful to think of. She looked up at John as the thought came, and he must have been led to the same reflection, for he had turned from the speaker and was looking at her with a love in his eyes which she could see from where he sat; and she colored, half with joy, half with modest shrinking, as she dropped her eyes and sat still for a moment.

"John," she said, as they were walking home at noon, "what a beautiful sermon Brother Pratt preached this morning."

"Yes," assented John.

"And, John, what a happy thought, that I – that we – that – I, that – "

John could not speak, he was too full of emotion to say a word; but when they had entered their own door, and closed themselves from the gaze of the public, he took her in his arms and held her close to his own throbbing heart, and said in her ear, "The mother of my children. For time and in all eternity."

Let us leave them now. We like the last view of our friends to be the brightest and best. This much, however, must be told, that John and Diantha are as happy today, although in the whitened years of old age and long experience, as they were in those early days of their newly wedded love.

One day when I asked John to tell me about his courting days, he answered gravely, putting his arms around the motherly shoulders of his wife:

"Why, I have just begun to court my wife. It takes a man a long time to get ready, and then the courting, to be well done, must never end, but continue throughout the long eternities."