We knocked on the door, but got no answer.  Mr. Beeler went around to the back, but no one answered, so we concluded we would have to try elsewhere for shelter.  Mrs. O’Shaughnessy comforted me by remarking, “Well, there ain’t a penny’s worth of difference in a Mormon bishop and any other Mormon, and D——­ is not the only polygamist by a long shot.”

We had just turned out of the gate when a lanky, tow-headed boy about fourteen years of age rode up.  We explained our presence there, and the boy explained to us that the Bishop and Aunt Debbie were away.  The next best house up the road was his “Maw’s,” he said; so, as Mr. Beeler expected to stay with a friend of his, Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and I determined to see if “Maw” could accommodate us for the night.

Mr. Beeler offered to help the boy get the cattle out, but he said, “No, Paw said it would not matter if they got into the hay, but that he had to knock off some poles on another part of the stockyard so that some horses could get in to eat.”

“But,” I asked, “isn’t that consecrated hay?—­isn’t it tithing?”

“Yes,” he said, “but that won’t hurt a bit, only that old John Ladd always pays his tithe with foxtail hay and it almost ruins Paw’s horses’ mouths.”

I asked him if his father’s stock was supposed to get the hay.

“No, I guess not,” he said, “but they are always getting in accidental like.”

We left him to fix the fence so the horses could get in “accidental like,” and drove the short distance to “the next best house.”

We were met at the door by a pleasant-faced little woman who hurried us to the fire.  We told her our plight.  “Why, certainly you must stay with me,” she said.  “I am glad the Bishop and Deb are away.  They keep all the company, and I so seldom have any one come; you see Debbie has no children and can do so much better for any one stopping there than I can, but I like company, too, and I am glad of a chance to keep you.  You two can have Maudie’s bed.  Maud is my oldest girl and she has gone to Ogden to visit, so we have plenty of room.”

By now it was quite dark.  She lighted a lamp and bustled about, preparing supper.  We sat by the stove and, as Mrs. O’Shaughnessy said, “noticed.”

Two little boys were getting in wood for the night.  They appeared to be about eight years old; they were twins and were the youngest of the family.  Two girls, about ten and twelve years old, were assisting our hostess; then the boy Orson, whom we met at the gate, and Maud, the daughter who was away, made up the family.  They seemed a happy, contented family, if one judged by appearance alone.  After supper the children gathered around the table to prepare next day’s lessons.  They were bright little folks, but they mingled a great deal of talk with their studies and some of what they talked was family history.

“Mamma,” said Kittie, the largest of the little girls, “if Aunt Deb does buy a new coat and you get her old one, then can I have yours?”