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The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West by Harry Leon Wilson
page 238 of 447 (53%)
She came and stood before him, one foot a little advanced, several dolls
clutched tightly under one arm, and her bonnet swinging in the other
hand. She looked up at him fearlessly, questioningly, but with no sign
of friendliness. He saw and felt her mother in all her being, in her
eyes and hair, in the lines of her soft little face, and indefinably in
her way of standing or moving. He was seized with a sudden fear that the
mother watched him secretly out of the child's eyes, and with the
child's lips might call to him accusingly, with what wild cries of
anguish and reproach he dared not guess. He strove to say something to
her, but his lips were dry, and he made only some half-articulate sound,
trying to force a smile of assurance.

Then the child spoke, her serious, questioning eyes upon him
unwaveringly.

"Are you a damned Mormon?"

It broke the spell of awe that had lain upon him, so that he felt for
the moment only a pious horror of her speech. He called Christina to
take charge of her, and Martha, the second wife, to put away her little
bundle of clothing, and Tom Potwin to fetch water for her bath. He
himself went to be alone where he could think what must be done for her.
From an entry in the little Bible, written in letters that seemed to
shout to him the accusation of his crime, he had found that she must now
be five years old. It was plainly time that he should begin to supply
her very apparent need of religious instruction.

When she had become a little used to her surroundings later in the day,
he sought to beguile her to this end, beginning diplomatically with
other matters.
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