The Life Story of Thisbe Read Hanks

The Life Story of Thisbe Read Hanks

The Tempered Wind

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The Tempered Wind

SYDNEY ALVARUS HANKS

Tribute to the Author

To a noble father we say “Thanks.”

Thanks for this book, The Tempered Wind. The Story of your Mother’s life, Thisbe Quilly Read. For the book, “Scouting for the Mormons,” the life story of your father, Ephraim K. Hanks. For the story of your own life and your family, “The Time of Ripening.”

Now we can better appreciate our noble ancestors and the trials they passed through for the love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Ephraim K. Hanks was ordained patriarch to the Wayne Stake of Zion, and true to his prediction, two of his sons enjoyed the same calling. In 1939 Sidney Alvarus was sustained patriarch to the Pasadena Stake, Los Angeles, Calif. The office he held until the time of his death, April 1, 1949.

Thanks to a loving mother, Martha Huber Hanks. Her patience and help, during the many hours father was busy writing, helped to make this book possible. For her untiring efforts after his death to have it published.

Thanks to all who have helped in any way.

The Family

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The Tempered Wind

Thisbe Read

CHAPTER ONE

Thisbe looked up into the sun-reddened eyes of the drover. “Please, Brother Temple. Have you seen my brother. Walter?”

Brother Temple took off his hat and wiped his sleeve up over his face and the place where his bald head was as smooth as the back of your hand. “Be ye Brother Sam Read’s little girl?”

Thisbe nodded. “I’m nine, and my sister Alicia is ten and Walter’s just turned eight. Please, we can’t find Walter any place, and he asked Ma at noon if he could come up ahead with the herd.”

“Walter’d be the little black-headed fellow that’s always riding his stick horse around, then. Yes, he’s been with the herd this afternoon.” Brother Temple chuckled as he put his hat back on his head. “Most of us is groanin’ because we can’t walk one way to the Valley. But that young’un’ll make the trip three times afore we’re through. For’ard and back an’ on again.”

The worry line between Thisbe’s grayish brown eyes smoothed out for a moment. Brother Temple talked as if he could lift Walter right out of the pocket of his home-spun trousers. “Where is he now?” she asked. “Ma’s making a special supper for him because he’s eight years old today.”

Brother Temple rubbed his stubble covered chin. “Where is he? That I don’t know. We passed him two, three hours ago, sittin’ beside the road waitin’ for the cart company and yer pa and ma.”

Three hours ago! Then he must be with the cart company after all. She’d find Alicia, who was talking with some of the other drovers, and then they’d go back to the place where the hand-carts were already circled in for the night and maybe they’d find Walter sitting by somebody’s supper fire.

As soon as Thisbe saw Alicia she called, “Did you find Walter?” But she knew the answer the minute she saw Alicia’s face. Alicia had been crying and the tears had made wagon tracks down her dusty face. They took each other’s hands and without a word hurried back to the circle of hand-carts.

“Let s go to every fire until we find Walter,” Thisbe suggested.

“Why, you know there are more than five hundred people, counting all of us. That would take all night. We ought to go tell Pa and Ma so they can help us look. It’s getting dark. Thisbe, what if Walter is really lost!”

“Oh, he isn’t lost,” Thisbe said, but she wasn’t at all sure she was telling the truth. It made her feel funny in the stomach to think of Walter and his stick horse not being with the drovers –or anywhere.

In the light of the campfire the girls saw Pa and Ma sitting by a spread-out canvas. The tin plates and knives and forks were all set for supper. There was jam and a piece of pound cake and some fine smelling fried venison. Pa was rubbing his foot – the one with the broken-down arch in it – and singing:

We’re marching to Zion, that beautiful Zion,

We’re marching, marching to Zion.

That beautiful city of love.”

Ma called, “Girls, where’s Walter?”

Alicia burst into a new flood of tears. “He’s lost. He wasn’t with the drovers.

Thisbe took off her sunbonnet. Suddenly her head felt too hot, and cold perspiration soaked the back of her neck under the bonnet’s curtain. “The drovers left him by the side of the road waiting for the carts to come.”

Pa jumped to his feet. “Walter can’t be lost. He’s somewhere in the camp. I’ll go to Captain Martin. He’ll give the alarm. We’ll find the boy in no time.” But Thisbe and Alicia and Mother all three knew that Pa didn’t believe a word he was saying. Why, he even forgot to slip his foot back into his boot, and hurried off like “my son John,” limping as he ran.

Ma and Thisbe and Alicia followed as fast as they could. By the light of the fire they saw Captain Martin’s face, full of sympathy, but stern, too. “Did you give your little son permission to leave your family and go with the drovers?”

Thisbe watched Pa’s face, his limp hanging shoulders, his bowed head. He seemed like such a little man standing there with Ma half a head taller and Captain Martin two or three inches taller than Ma. She was proud when Pa’s shoulders straightened and his head came up. “Yes, the boy had permission.”

Sympathy smoothed out of Captain Martin’s face and only sternness was left there. “That is bad, Brother Read. It is bad for a father to give his little son permission to break one of the sacred laws of the camp. I hope you have read the rules of the camp.”

Pa looked up again, “I have Captain Martin.”

“I’m surprised to see such an honorable man disregard these rules.”

“But Captain Martin –” Ma began.

Captain Martin went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “Have you read the rule which says, ‘Parents or guardians are responsible for every child in the family, every minute of the day traveling and every minute of the night in camp’?”

“But Captain Martin,” Ma began again, and this time he let her go on. “Blame it on me. I told Walter he could go ahead for awhile. It was his birthday – and he coaxed.” Thisbe put her hand in her mother’s and felt the usually cool, strong hand trembling. “Don’t blame Samuel. Blame me.”

When Pa put his arm around Ma’s waist. Ma began to cry. Tears came to Captain Martin’s eyes too, and he brushed them away with a red bandana. “Sister Read,” he said kindly, and the sternness was gone. “I feel it is my duty to forgive you for breaking the rule. And may God do the same.”

Thisbe grasped Ma’s hand tighter. She didn’t understand everything that was going on and she felt that time was wasting. She itched to be looking again for Walter. Pa must have been feeling the same way, she thought, because he said slowly, “Captain Martin, I’ve brought along gold to start me in business when I get to the Valley. I’ll gladly give every bit of it towards finding the boy.”

“We’ll do what we can,” the Captain promised. “And what we can do can’t be paid for with money. We’ll find the boy, if –”. There was something in the pause that frightened Thisbe more than anything that had happened – “if it is God’s will. Go get your supper and in thirty minutes, after I have talked with my council, I’ll call an assembly.”

Thisbe held tight to Ma’s hand as they walked back to their camp. The wood fire had fallen into embers. Pa put some more wood on it and poked it into a blaze. In the new flame the canvas with Walter’s birthday dinner spread out on it looked forlorn and deserted. “Do you want supper, Samuel?” Ma asked. “What about you girls? I can warm it up.”

“No, Elizabeth.” Pa said, and Thisbe and Alicia started to gather up the plates and knives and forks and put them in their place in the cart, while Ma took care of the food.

In a few minutes the folks next in the circle came over to the Read fire. “Hear your baby’s lost,” Sister Smuin said, and the word “baby” set Ma to crying again. Sister Smuin’s arm around her shoulder comforted her, and Pa began to tell about Walter waiting by the roadside.

“Oh, he’s somewhere in the camp,” Brother Smuin said in his bluff voice. But Thisbe could see his face was worried too. Everybody was just whistling – that was all. Pa always talked about whistling in the dark to keep your courage up.

In a few minutes other neighbors came over, the women talked with Ma and the men talked with Pa. Somebody gave Thisbe a slice of bread fried in bacon grease, and she ate it without noticing whether the grease was good or rancid.

It seemed like a long time before the alarm was sounded and everybody joined in the center of the circle of carts. There were more than five hundred people in the company, and it seemed to Thisbe that everybody was there. For a moment there was shuffling and talking, then Captain Martin began: “One of our beloved flock has been lost this afternoon. Walter P. Read, eight years old today. I well know all of you are tired and need your rest. The drovers last saw him about three o’clock, perhaps eight miles from here, sitting by the side of the road waiting for the on-coming train.” He paused a moment, then said, “May I have two men to go back and hunt for the boy?”

For a second Thisbe’s heart waited for something to happen – but only for a second. Hands went up all around the circle. “More than a hundred,” Alicia whispered to Thisbe, but before Thisbe had a chance to count, Captain Martin went on, “You, Brother Temple, and you, Brother Evans. You are both men of the plains. You’ll be able to pick up the child’s tracks, and if he has wandered away a little, bring him in. I want you to take good horses, and your guns, and bring the boy back before starting time in the morning, if –”. Again there was that awful pause– “if it be God’s will.” He bowed his head. “We will now unite in evening prayer.”

Thisbe had meant to follow every word of the prayer, but at her side she heard a dry, racking sob. The woman next to her was almost a stranger. She couldn’t even call her by name. She remembered her because – because – and the picture took every word of Captain Martin’s prayer from Thisbe’s ears. Not more than two weeks ago the company had gathered around the grave of a little boy no bigger than Walter, and the woman who now knelt next to Thisbe had been the child’s mother. Thisbe remembered that the mother had begged to be left with the little grave and had not wanted to go on with the cart company. Suddenly Thisbe knew what losing Walter meant. It wasn’t just being worried sick for an hour or even through a night. It was more than likely forever. Something inside of her had known this all the time. That was why it had hurt so when Captain Martin had said. “If – if it be God’s will.”

When the two men rode out of the circle to go back over the road everybody wished them God speed. For a moment Pa held to the stirrup of one of the horses and talked to Brother Temple. Thisbe knew that Pa would like to have been one of the searchers Captain Martin sent back, but he wasn’t a plainsman. He was just a city man newly come from London.

In a few moments every campfire was out and quietness prevailed. Ma spread the bed for Thisbe and Alicia, and the girls crawled under the cover with part of their clothing still on, without Ma ever noticing. It didn’t seem right to be in bed without Walter. He always slept at the bottom, and if Thisbe moved her foot the least little bit she could lay it up against his restless little legs. Besides, Pa and Ma still sat by their gone out fire talking and talking. Pa’s voice was too low to hear, but once in a while Ma’s carried to the camp bed. Her words were detached and Thisbe could make nothing out of them – “Snow – mountains – heavy carts – almost impassable – alone – alone – alone.” These were the words.

At last Thisbe slept, her arm locked around Alicia’s body for comfort. When she wakened, stripes of color were just beginning to cut through the grayness of the sky. Captain Martin was talking to Ma and Pa. Thisbe slipped out of bed and quickly put on her shoes. She moved close enough so she could hear the conversation. Captain Martin was saying, “If the snow catches us in the mountains, it will mean the lives of the whole company. So, Brother Read, if you want to stay and search for your son you have our blessing.”

Ma’s voice came clear and firm. “Samuel and I have been talking through the night and he’ll stay here and I’ll go on with my little girls.”

Thisbe crept back to bed and pulled the covers up over her head. With Pa and Ma so brave she didn’t want to be seen crying. But they hadn’t found Walter. He was lost forever and ever. And Pa would be lost, too. He was going to stay in this horrid Iowa hill country. And what ever would happen to Ma and Alicia and her?

Thisbe could see as well as if she were looking at it now, the loaded cart stuck in the dry rutted earth, Pa pulling for all he was worth, and Ma pushing with the strength of a man. And these were only hills. What would happen when the cart company reached the mountains everybody had been dreading? She remembered Ma’s words – “Snow – mountains – almost impassible – alone.”

When Captain Martin had walked away, Ma came over and shook the two girls by the shoulder. “Is Walter, here?” Alicia asked, then she began to cry when she read Ma’s face. Thisbe had finished her cry under the covers. She was ready to be brave to help Ma.

When everything was packed into the cart Captain Martin came over again. “I wish we could wait for you, Brother Read.” He put his hand on Pa’s shoulder. “But you understand. It is already late to start for the Valley.”

Pa stood up, tall and dry-eyed. “We know. We wouldn’t want you to wait. Elizabeth and the girls will get along.”

“We’ll do all we can for your wife and daughters. If it is humanly possible – and God willing – we will see that they reach Zion in safety.”