Theodore Winthrop

“ They were in good spirits, and went into little panics when they saw Brent in his Indian rig, and then into “Lor me!” and “Bless us!” when the supposed Pawnee was discovered to be a handsome pale-face.
“Perhaps we waste sympathy,” said Brent, “on these people. Why are not they better off here, and likely to be more comfortable in Utah than in the slums of Manchester?”
“Drudgery for drudgery, slavery for slavery, barren as the Salt Lake country is, and rough the lot of pioneers, I have no doubt they will be. But then the religion!” ”

“ Some neater-handed Phyllis than we have seen has had the arranging of the household gear within.”
“Yes; the mistress of this rolling mansion has not lost her domestic ambition. This is quite the model wagon of the train. Refinement does not disdain Sizzum’s pilgrims; as ecce signum here!”
“The pretty cage has its bird, — pretty too, perhaps. See! there is some one behind that shawl screen at the back of the wagon.”
“The bird has divined Murker and Larrap, and is hiding, probably.”
“Come; we have stared long enough; let us walk on.” ”

“ A thousand slices of fat pork sizzled in two hundred frying-pans, and water boiled for two hundred coffee or tea pots. Saints cannot solely live on sermons.
Brent and I walked about to survey the camp. We stopped wherever we found the emigrants sociable, and chatted with them. They were all eager to know how much length of journey remained.
“We’re comin’ to believe, some of us,” said an old crone, with a wrinkle for every grumble of her life, “that we’re to be forty year in the wilderness, like the old Izzerullites. I wouldn’t have come, Samwell, if I’d known what you was bringin’ me to.” ”

“ Within these nomad cottages order or chaos reigned, according to the tenants. Some people seem only to know the value of rubbish. They guard old shoes, old hats, cracked mugs, battered tins, as articles of virtu. ”

“ They were the poorest class of towns-people from the great manufacturing towns, — penny tradesmen, indoor craftsmen, factory operatives, — a puny, withered set of beings; hardly men, if man means strength; hardly women, if woman means beauty. ”

“ Brent asked. “You’ve never told me.”
“Why, you see I was naturally of a religious nater, and I’ve tried ’em all, but I never fell foul of a religion that had real proved miracles, till I seed a man, born dumb, what was cured by the Prophet Joseph looking down his throat and tellin’ his palate to speak up, — and it did speak up, did that there palate, and went on talkin’ most oncommon. ”

“ I cannot wonder that they have given an easy belief to Mormonism, — an energetic, unscrupulous propagandism, offering escape from poverty and social depression, offering acres for the mere trouble of occupying ”