“But then . . .” He stopped. She knew exactly what he was thinking, and she knew he wouldn’t say it, because he didn’t want to hurt her. If what she said was true, why wasn’t
she
going to be baptized?
“It’s different when people are married to each other, Will,” she said slowly, answering his unasked question. “Someday you’ll understand that better.”
“If I am baptized, I want to be baptized with you, Mama.”
She had to look away. “There is nothing that would please me more, Will. You know that. But when you’re ready, you don’t wait for anyone or anything.” She was suddenly filled with a terrible fierceness. “Do you hear me, Will? Don’t you wait for anything.”
It was a hot and dirty morning. Heat waves shimmered off the stone floor and walls. The light gray limestone reflected sunlight almost like a mirror. Bodies were sticky and ripe with sweat. Everyone worked more slowly, not expending energy too fast, stopping to drink often lest they faint from heat exhaustion or dehydration. This was summer in the quarry, and it was murderously hard on both man and beast.
It was Saturday, August seventh. Nathan and Benjamin had last seen duty in the quarry on the twenty-sixth of July, which meant that they were actually a couple of days overdue for their “tithed” labor. It didn’t always work out at exactly one day out of ten, but the building committee encouraged the brethren to come as close as possible so it would be easier to keep records.
Today Matthew and Derek were also there taking their tithing day as well. On seeing the four of them together, the quarry foreman put them on the task of cutting into blocks the massive slab of stone blasted out the previous evening. The slab was three to four feet high, with about the same thickness, and was fifteen to twenty feet long. Now the task was to cut it into equal-sized blocks.
Limestone is a fairly soft stone and more easily worked than granite or marble, but it was still back-breaking labor. Up and down the sides and across the top of the slab, a series of holes had to be “drilled” in a precise line about nine to twelve inches apart. This was done by using a point drill—a chisel-like piece of steel with a square point that had four cutting edges. It took two men working together. One would hold the point drill in place while the other struck it with one of the big eight-pound jack sledges, or “double jacks.” After each blow of the hammer, the one holding the drill would turn it about a half turn so that the cutting edges were in a different position. An experienced team of drillers could cut a hole three to four inches deep about every ten to fifteen minutes.
At the moment, Derek and Matthew were taking their turn on the hammers, while Benjamin and Nathan held the drills. The one turning the drill bit never looked up to watch the hammer blows coming. Seeing an eight-pound hammerhead coming down at full force to hit a drill head less than an inch in diameter which was being held by one’s hands just below the strike point tended to make one flinch. And with an eight-pound hammerhead coming down at full force in a steady, rhythmic cadence, flinching was not at all a wise thing to do.
Wham!
Turn.
Wham!
Turn. The pattern became so habitual that one didn’t even think about it.
They were working on the last two holes on the top of the great slab—Benjamin with Derek, and Nathan with Matthew—directly across from one another, so Benjamin was looking right into Nathan’s eyes. But when he spoke, he spoke to Derek.
“You sure love that farm, don’t you?”
Wham!
Turn.
Wham!
“Sure do.”
Benjamin held up his hand and Derek let the hammer swing down to the floor of the quarry, straightening. Matthew, seeing that, did the same, reaching up to wipe at his brow with the back of his sleeve. Benjamin and Nathan reached for the “spoons.”
Drilling a three-quarter-inch-wide hole into solid rock necessarily produced quite a bit of limestone chips and dust. When a hole was being drilled horizontally into the side of the rock slab, the debris emptied itself out and the holes were kept clear. But the top holes, those going down vertically into the rock, didn’t work that way. After a minute or two of hammering, the hole would begin to fill with debris, which would cushion the bite of the drill and slow the cutting efficiency. Thus, every two or three minutes they had to clean out the holes by using a device called a spoon. This was nothing more than a long, thin rod with a tiny scoop fashioned on one end.
Benjamin pulled out the first spoonful of dust and chips and threw it aside. He reached across and nudged Nathan with his free hand. “Derek sure loves farming, Nathan. Have you noticed that?”
“Uh-huh,” Nathan murmured, concentrating on spooning out his own hole.
“And Carl. Have you watched him down at that brickyard? I’ve never seen a man so happy. Have you?”
“No,” Matthew answered for Nathan. “He loves it down there.”
There was another nudge from Benjamin. “You notice that, Nathan?”
Now all Benjamin got was a grunt in response. He took that to be an affirmative answer.
“And Joshua? What do you think, Derek? You think Joshua likes being a businessman?”
Derek had taken off his hat and was mopping his forehead with a large handkerchief. He stopped, looking down at his father-in-law as he realized this was more than just idle chatter. “He certainly does,” he said cautiously.
Nathan also sensed something behind all this and was giving his father a quizzical look. Benjamin kept right on spooning as if they weren’t there. With three more scoops he was finished and set the spoon aside. After a moment, when he said nothing more, Nathan started his spooning again, finishing after a few moments.
As the two younger men reached for their hammers, Benjamin looked at Matthew. “How are things at the shop with you and Brigham?” he asked casually.
Like the others, Matthew knew there was something going on in his father’s mind. “Good,” he said with a tentative grin.
Benjamin looked positively innocent. “I was just telling your mother last night, I said, ‘You know, that Matthew is as happy as a meadowlark in a field of sunflowers. He sure does love that woodworking shop.’ That’s what I told her.”
There was a long silence; then Nathan laid his spoon down slowly. “All right, Pa, what are you getting at?”
Benjamin looked hurt. “Getting at?”
“You want us to stand up and sing a hymn or something?”
“My, aren’t you the testy one.”
Nathan was feigning irritation, but actually he was amused. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“You know what. Derek’s happy. Carl’s happy. Joshua’s ecstatic. Matthew’s singing in the sunflowers.”
“And Nathan’s a storekeeper,” Benjamin cut in quickly.
“Is that a sin?”
“No, not at all. An honorable profession. If . . .” He let it hang there, unfinished.
Nathan grinned up at Derek. This was Pa, through and through. Having something on his mind but never coming at it straight on, just nibbling around it, moving in on it a blade at a time, until the next thing you knew he was standing squarely in the patch of grass where he wanted to be and there was no budging him off of it. “If what, Pa?”
Benjamin shrugged and picked up the drill bit. He stuck it in the hole and eyed the mark on it. “I’d say we need about another quarter of an inch.” He reached out with both hands again and held the chisel bit firm.
Nathan sighed and picked up his bit. In a moment, the steady hammering was under way again. Two minutes later they stopped to spoon once more, and this time Nathan measured the depth of the hole. “That’s got it,” he said.
They all straightened, and the hammers were again set aside for the moment. Matthew turned to the bucket of slips and wedges a few feet away. He picked it up and brought it over.
Once the rock slab was blasted off the rock face, blasting powder could no longer be used on the slab. Even light charges tended to split the rock in unpredictable ways. This is where the stonecutters came in. Using a simple but ingenious device, they could cut even huge slabs of stone cleanly. That is where the slips and wedges—also called “feathers” and “plugs”—came in. The slip looked like a steel tent peg. Only one side was smooth and flat while the rest was round. The top of the slip was curled over a little to provide a striking surface, creating its resemblance to a tent peg. It also looked somewhat like a feather from the side—thus its other name. Two slips were put into the hole so as to make a V-shape, with the flat sides facing each other. Then
the plug, or wedge, was tapped into the V until it was firmly locked, with its head protruding enough to be struck with a hammer. With each blow, the wedge was driven deeper into the slips, forcing them apart and exerting pressure on the rock. As
the stonecutters did this in sequence along a straight line of holes, constantly increasing pressure was applied until the rock split cleanly into two pieces.
Now, with the feathers and plugs in every hole, the three Steed men and Derek all got sledgehammers. Derek took the front face, Matthew the back. Benjamin and Nathan worked the top. Carefully, not striking with their full strength, but in precise rotation, they moved along the line of holes. On the fourth series, there was a sharp
crack
and the block split cleanly off the larger slab.
Setting his hammer down, Benjamin leaned over to examine the break. Then he straightened, nodding in satisfaction. “Clean as if we’d used a saw.”
Nathan nodded. That was a slight exaggeration, but it certainly wouldn’t take much work for the stonemasons to shape the rock down for its final placement in the foundation of the temple.
They moved over to the edge of the quarry where there was a large barrel of drinking water beneath the shade of a tree. As they did so, another team moved in behind them. This second team would lift the block enough to get rollers beneath it, then move it to where the boom crane could lift it onto a wagon.
After drinking deeply, they each dipped their bandannas into a bucket of water set aside for this very purpose and began to wipe the dust and sweat from their faces. Benjamin sat down and the others followed suit. It would take the other men a few minutes to get the block out of their way, so they had a brief respite. Then they would start drilling another line of holes for the next block.
Nathan lay back on the softer soil, pulling his hat down over his face. Benjamin watched him for a moment, then looked at Derek. “Speaking of loving to farm, Derek, how do you think Nathan feels about being a storekeeper?”
Nathan pushed his hat up with his thumb just enough to glare at his father. “I don’t mind it,” he said.
“That’s a good answer, don’t you think?” Benjamin said, still talking to Derek as if Nathan weren’t there. “He doesn’t
mind
it.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“That’s nice.”
Derek and Matthew smiled at each other. There was no question that Nathan was the target of whatever it was Benjamin was driving at, and they were glad to be only observers. As for Nathan, he knew when he was licked. He sat up again. “All right, so it’s not all that wonderful.” Then he grew instantly serious. “Do you know what it is, Pa? I think it was handling the store for Lydia’s father before he died. I know it wasn’t for that long, but there at the last, when he was really sick, it was like it was my store. And with every passing day I felt more and more trapped, like it was closing in on me.”
He turned, looking toward the slab, finding a better analogy. “It was like I was the rock and the store was the feather and plugs. Every day was one more blow with the hammer until I thought I was going to split wide open.”
Benjamin smiled at Matthew and Derek sardonically. “This is why he doesn’t really mind it,” he observed.
“Well, having our own store isn’t that bad,” Nathan admitted begrudgingly. “In fact, I really don’t mind the supply side of it—finding the buyers and getting the merchandise we need, working with Joshua to get it shipped in.” He sighed. “But standing behind that counter all day. Keeping the books. Taking inventory.” He rolled his eyes. “Oh, my. Taking inventory. I’d just as soon be dragged through a corral.”
Benjamin nodded. “I knew something was wrong when you were excited about spending the day at the quarry.”
Nathan looked at him sharply, then had no choice but to laugh. It was true. Nathan really had welcomed the opportunity to break away from the store. That was pretty desperate.
There was no further response from his father, and after almost a full minute, Nathan thought Benjamin had made his point and forgotten about it. Nathan lay back down, and almost immediately learned that he should have known better.
“You been paying attention to what’s happening to the price of building lots lately?”
Surprised a little, Nathan shook his head. “Not really.”
“Not so much in town, because Joseph and the Brethren are controlling the sale of land here so our people are not taken advantage of. But outside of town? Or in the surrounding settlements?”
“No, I haven’t been following that at all.”
“Remember Kirtland?”
Turning fully around to face his father now, Nathan nodded soberly. When a land speculation craze hit the United States in the spring of 1837, land prices went berserk. Lots doubled overnight, then doubled again. Paper fortunes were made—and lost. It had been a major factor in the great apostasy that had nearly ripped the Church apart back then. Yes, Nathan remembered it well. Derek, having heard all about those events after his arrival in America, was nodding too. Matthew had been only sixteen at that time, and while he was aware of what they were talking about, he hadn’t been that much into the crisis.
“It’s nothing like that,” Benjamin went on. “At least not yet.”
“Good.”
“But with hundreds still coming in every month—from the East, from the South, all the British Saints—the pressure for good land is mounting.”
Nathan merely nodded again. He didn’t know where this was all leading to, but he knew that now they were getting to the reason his father had started this whole line of conversation in the first place.