when nine more Mrs. Youngs filed into the presence, and a new tempest
burst forth and raged round about the prophet and his guest. Nine
breast-pins were promised, and the weird sisters filed out again. And in
came eleven more, weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth. Eleven
promised breast-pins purchased peace once more.
“That is a specimen,” said Mr. Young. “You see how it is. You see what
a life I lead. A man can’t be wise all the time. In a heedless moment I
gave my darling No. 6–excuse my calling her thus, as her other name has
escaped me for the moment–a breast-pin. It was only worth twenty-five
dollars–that is, apparently that was its whole cost–but its ultimate
cost was inevitably bound to be a good deal more. You yourself have seen
it climb up to six hundred and fifty dollars–and alas, even that is not
the end! For I have wives all over this Territory of Utah. I have
dozens of wives whose numbers, even, I do not know without looking in the
family Bible. They are scattered far and wide among the mountains and
valleys of my realm. And mark you, every solitary one of them will hear
of this wretched breast pin, and every last one of them will have one or
die. No. 6’s breast pin will cost me twenty-five hundred dollars before
I see the end of it. And these creatures will compare these pins
together, and if one is a shade finer than the rest, they will all be
thrown on my hands, and I will have to order a new lot to keep peace in
the family. Sir, you probably did not know it, but all the time you were
present with my children your every movement was watched by vigilant
servitors of mine. If you had offered to give a child a dime, or a stick
of candy, or any trifle of the kind, you would have been snatched out of
the house instantly, provided it could be done before your gift left your
hand. Otherwise it would be absolutely necessary for you to make an
exactly similar gift to all my children–and knowing by experience the
importance of the thing, I would have stood by and seen to it myself that
you did it, and did it thoroughly. Once a gentleman gave one of my
children a tin whistle–a veritable invention of Satan, sir, and one
which I have an unspeakable horror of, and so would you if you had eighty
or ninety children in your house. But the deed was done–the man
escaped. I knew what the result was going to be, and I thirsted for
vengeance. I ordered out a flock of Destroying Angels, and they hunted
the man far into the fastnesses of the Nevada mountains. But they never
caught him. I am not cruel, sir–I am not vindictive except when sorely
outraged–but if I had caught him, sir, so help me Joseph Smith, I would
have locked him into the nursery till the brats whistled him to death.
By the slaughtered body of St. Parley Pratt (whom God assail!) there
was never anything on this earth like it! I knew who gave the whistle to
the child, but I could, not make those jealous mothers believe me. They
believed I did it, and the result was just what any man of reflection
could have foreseen: I had to order a hundred and ten whistles–I think
we had a hundred and ten children in the house then, but some of them are
off at college now–I had to order a hundred and ten of those shrieking
things, and I wish I may never speak another word if we didn’t have to
talk on our fingers entirely, from that time forth until the children got
tired of the whistles. And if ever another man gives a whistle to a
child of mine and I get my hands on him, I will hang him higher than
Haman! That is the word with the bark on it! Shade of Nephi! You don’t
know anything about married life. I am rich, and everybody knows it. I
am benevolent, and everybody takes advantage of it. I have a strong