True Sisters Read Online Free PDF

argue. With the shop gone, there was no way she could support herself and the children. And with a baby on the way, she would not be able to find employment, even if she had the skills to work, which she did not. Few tailoring shops needed a woman to manage them. So she gave in. “Not willingly, John, not willingly,” she told him.
    He had been grateful, solicitous, had told her he would do everything to ensure her comfort. She could pack her feather bed, her pillows, her blankets and shawls, the carpets, the trunks. He would buy her a sewing machine to take with them, for surely America did not have them, and he would fit up a bed for her in the wagon so that she could ride whenever she was tired. But nothing could assuage her dread.
    *   *   *
    They embarked on May 25 from Liverpool, sailing on the packet ship Horizon with a horde of poor converts from the factories and mines, their belongings tied up in bundles. The passengers crowded onto the ship, waving their ragged handkerchiefs at friends onshore who had come to see them off. During the voyage, Anne kept her three children close to her, but at times, Emma Lee, who was six, and sometimes Joe slipped off to play. When Anne complained to John that the children were liable to catch some disease, he soothed her. “It’s no more dangerous for them than if they were at home. Besides, they have the sea air to breathe.” But Anne was not convinced.
    The ship was crowded. The five of them slept in a bunk no larger than a small bed at home. To her surprise, Anne found the expedition was well organized. The elders scheduled times for the women to prepare meals of salt pork and boiled beef, hard sea biscuit, oatmeal, peas, beans, rice, and tea, so there was no jostling or arguing over space in the tiny galley. In fact, there was little arguing at all, and that surprised Anne even more. The people were sharing, joyful. They felt blessed that the Lord was sending them to America, away from the filth and decay, the disease and starvation of their homelands, and they did not complain about the cramped accommodations, the rolling ship that kept many in their beds with seasickness. Each morning and evening, they gathered to praise the Lord and sing. The ship’s captain told them he had never sailed with a finer group, that he would always be happy to transport Mormons. Anne had to admit that the Saints were good people, and kind—the women, especially.
    “I had my doubts, too,” Catherine Dunford, a convert from Glasgow, said after discovering that Anne had not accepted the doctrine. Catherine had befriended Anne, offering to loan her a tiny volume of poems she’d brought along, a book that Anne later saw lying in a pile of discarded items in Iowa City. “I thought it was nonsense, all that talk about Jesus preaching to the Indians. But the spirit came over me and told me it was the true religion, the one Jesus Himself started. I pray the spirit will move ye, too.”
    Anne murmured something unintelligible, hoping the woman would stop, because she did not care to be preached at, but Catherine would not be stilled. “Myself, I thought it was all the strangest thing ever I heard. I don’t question that ye doubt. For the longest time, I wanted to embrace the faith, for my husband had, and he’s a brilliant man. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me. It was only after I stopped trying to believe that the Lord called to me. He did indeed reach out for me. The faith isnae something you accept with your head, but with your heart.”
    “It is idiotic. I despise it,” Anne blurted out.
    The words did not shock the woman. “I am not surprised at your remarks, Sister Sully. You and your little ones have been taken from your home and are going to a country filled with savages. Since ye are not a believer, ye must hate your husband for it. I advise ye to rest your mind for a while. Do not grieve over your loss, but look on it as an adventure. And do not worry over