Sully Richardson stories

Sullivan Richardson stories

FOR OUR YOUNG FOLKS

by Sullivan Calvin Richardson

12 THE EASY ROAD IS NOT THE ROAD TO PROGRESS

When we must endure the result of having taken our own way, many times, we would place the blame upon others.

In one of the counties up north, two boys just through with high school put in their vacation in a cow camp. Both came home with a burning desire to return to that captivating life.

Both were ready to go to the B. Y. Academy, and their fathers had arrangements made to that end. Both boys tried to beg off from returning to school. They thought they were already quite well prepared for life and well fitted for all that was necessary.

One father listened to his son's pleading, and at last said: "Well, you are old enough to think for yourself, and to know what you want. The money is here for you, but I won't compel you. Do as you please." He went back to the ranch.

The other father said: "No, my boy, you have long years ahead to put in at such work. Now is the time for character building and improvement. After a year or two at the Academy, I can leave you to judge. But do as I ask now."

For some time the lad thought it hard, but then became interested and found a world so much broader, bigger, that there was no place to stop.

Years later, when the two boys met, one was at the head of an academy, a leader in Mutual work and high up in all circles, and an influence everywhere.

The other was a common cow man. It is said that he cursed his father, saying that he felt he had not done a father's part by his son. That at one time he was fully the equal of the other, and should have been compelled to work for advancement. Perhaps this was justifiable in part, but it was poor pay for listening to the pleadings of a son he felt he could not offend.

When I was at the summer school of the Chicago University, I helped a lady in her housework for my board and room. When I was about to leave for home, a young fellow came to take my place. He had bummed his way on the railroad, all the way from New Jersey.

At home he had finished High School, but had gotten in with the wrong crowd. They thought they were tough. They would not study and were always up to pranks and mischief. He would not quit the crowd as long as he was there, but at last went to his father, explained all, and asked if he could go west to some other school.

The father replied: "My boy, under the circumstances, I wish you might go, but I can't possibly provide for you away from home."

"I won't ask you to do a thing, Father, only to send my trunk prepaid to the address I'll send, and allow me to have my time. I'll know enough to choose my companions."

He started, but when bumming his way through Pennsylvania, he was arrested for vagrancy. The Judge said: "For shame! A husky lad like you, STEALING A RIDE! I've a notion to give you the full extent of the law, breaking stone on the road!"

"Do it if you wish, Judge, but when you are through with me, I'm going to bum my way on."

"Where are you going?" The answer was, "To the Chicago University."

"As if there were not as good schools nearer home!" was the sarcastic retort.

"There is one right where I came from." Then he gave the circumstances, and why he was going from a good home. When he had finished, the Judge said in kindly tone: "My boy, I am inclined to believe you."

"Here is my father's address, write him if you wish." In the end the Judge said: "Go on, my boy; and here! I have a ticket to the end of this division. Take it and go ahead. But let us hear from you."

The young fellow thanked him; took the ticket, went down to a broker's office and sold it for enough to buy a pair of overalls then beat his way on in to the University.

Determination like that will surely show some rewards in his future.

TO GET OR TO GIVE.

Henry Van Dyke, in THE OTHER WISE MAN, says:

Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul,
May keep the path, but will not reach the goal,
While he who walks in love, tho' he may wander far,
Yet God will bring him where the angels are.

Again he tells us:

We think too much about what we are going to get
When we go to meeting and
NOT ENOUGH ABOUT WHAT WE ARE GOING TO GIVE.

What about our whole lives measured by this standard?

Are you getting nearer Patriarch Little's example?

He said: "The veil between this world and the next is getting so thin, I sometimes feel I could reach out and pull it aside."

Strive for this happy condition and take courage in:

"And when the great last Scorer comes
To write his score for you;
He'll write, not what you said and did,
But what you tried to do."
. . .Author Unknown.

WHY LIVE THE GOSPEL?

Now, living up to the standards of life of a Latter day Saint, may deprive us of taking part in the wild life of excitement for the few years of this "time for progress." But in the end, instead of sorrow and the punishment of a lower exaltation, this type of life insures us a home on this earth with the redeemed when it has received its Paradisiacal glory. A time will come when a little place way out in space will be given us, where we may create a little world, an eternal HERITAGE, OUR OWN. It may be where many, like the rich man who looked UP to the despised Lazarus, may never come, never enjoy. Why? Because pleasure, and ease, and pride, and EVIL, kept them from listening to the pleading of a loving Father, to the GREAT PROMISE that if they WILL SEEK, THEY SHALL KNOW THESE THINGS ARE TRUE.

"WHAT WE DID before we came to earth predestined OUR CONDITION HERE, so what we do here will predestine our condition hereafter!"

Is this plain enough? Then if I can get you to feel what a SUM TOTAL OF MY LIFE, you all make up, I'll leave it.

I stop and think of what my own little group mean to me. I realize that my brother has those same feelings and appreciation towards his part of that one and three quarters hundreds that now make up this little part of the Richardson family. I know that my Father and Mother feel the same interest in us, one and all, IN THEIR LARGER GROUP. Then his parents feel just the same, and his, and his, and his, clear on back and each embracing all the others. That same interest binds our mothers' lines all in one, ONE THAT REACHES to the LOVE OF A FATHER AND GOD OF ALL! He who rules in LOVE and MERCY, though, must do so in complete justice, ever doing so much to get us to come back to him worthy. I am stirred to the depths of my being, and would like to use every influence IN MY POWER to help you.

Yet I know you can NOT APPRECIATE it till you have reached the time when your aims and ambitions have changed to take on the vital, deeper phases of life. Even then you will not, for life is now filled with so different a conglomeration of labors, surroundings, and influences, you can never really appreciate Pa and Ma, their life and struggles, any more than I can the beginning and struggles of my father where he had to take the brunt of keeping his father's family on that little piece of potato ground way off in Vermont; or of Ma's work in the factory while studying and forming a mind and character that made her so wonderful a woman.

Nor can I appreciate their trip across the plains, where they lost their oxen and then one comfort after another along the way, because of too heavy loads. There all worked out (even their best ox died just at the right place) to send them down among the Latter day Saints to a new Gospel, new light, and new blessings. Instead of a family of two being the limit in their set, children are considered a blessing, and a glory, and the two other sons were given a beginning to start this Richardson group.

How can I appreciate all that? Can you?

But I could, (even when it has been more than I should do) write some things I think may help you to the inspiration that will lead to the greater blessings and I can pray that the Spirit of the Lord may rest upon you, and keep you worthy of those higher blessings. And be assured, I do.

With worlds of love,

Grandpa S. C. Richardson.

BUT
IF YOUR NOSE IS CLOSE To the grindstone rough,
And you choose to hold it there Long enough
IN TIME YOU'LL SAY There is no such thing
As brooks that babble, And birds that sing;

THESE THREE WILL ALL Your world compose
Just YOU, the STONE, And your darned old NOSE

.. . . The Herald

DAY BY DAY, as the shadows fall,
We are painting pictures on Memory's wall;
The paint is ready and dark or fair,
Our thoughts and actions are pictures there.

And by and by, when life is done,
We'll have to review them one by one:
If the pictures are dark, O , sad our fate,
We cannot erase them, 'tis forever too late.

OUR ONLY HOPE IS THEN, TO LIVE FOR THE RIGHT,
THAT MEMORY�S PICTURES MAY ALL BE BRIGHT

. . . .John M. Mills

A TESTIMONY OF THE PROPHET JOSEPH SMITH

At the Old Folks Party, Mesa, Arizona, W. L. Sirrine gave an interesting account of his uncle, Mefaboshius Sirrine. Once while he was really sick, he was visited by the Prophet Joseph Smith who came up to him and said: "Boshius, get up, I have a mission for you."

The reply was that he was so weak he could not walk; etc. But the Prophet said, "You get up and go! And as you walk, strength will come to you. You will go in fine shape." He told him when he got to a certain little town, they would hold a meeting in the school house and that a young lady would come and write down his talk. Then they would be invited to her home, and he would at last marry her.

He tried to get up and dress and he found he could. He started out and found his strength return until the grip he had felt he could hardly lift was unnoticed. He had forgotten about the Prophet's promise of the girl. While he was speaking in the meeting they were holding in the schoolhouse of the town the Prophet had named, he saw a woman and a young girl come and sit in front of him, and the girl began to write down his talk. Then it all came in a flash and he looked at her with great interest. When the meeting was through, as expected, the Elders were asked to make their home at the house of the ladies as long as they were in the vicinity, as they could well care for them.

The young lady became his wife as foretold, "And," Brother Sirrine said, "my father and uncle KNEW JOSEPH SMITH IS A PROPHET by their own experience.

APPLES SAVED FROM THE GRASSHOPPERS

Benjamin Samuel (Uncle Sam) Johnson told of an experience he had when a small boy, hauling hay from Payson to Summit for Abe Butterfield.

An army of grasshoppers came, and they were eating everything in their path. A field of grain would be left almost as clean as a floor. Of a patch of corn, only the tough part of the stalks would be left. When they started to eat on the apple orchards even the more tender parts of the trees were being skinned. Brother Butterfieldt's early sweet apples were almost as large as eggs. Uncle Sam saw him come out, raise his hands, and in the name of Jesus Christ command them to leave and let his apples alone.

To see a good old man do as unbelievable thing as to command grasshoppers, by the authority of the Priesthood, in that name, appealed to Uncle Sam, as it would to any boy. .HIS APPLES AND TREES WERE LEFT UNHURT BY THE HOPPERS.

Mrs. Caroline Maxim (from Thatcher, Arizona), daughter of Brother Butterfield, (worked some time in the temple at Mesa in March, 1929) well remembers the clouds of grasshoppers. She said that they had apples when neighbors had none, but she did not know of her father's rebuking and commanding the hoppers to leave. But it is one of the impressive pictures of his youth, to Uncle Sam Johnson.

FAITH OF EARLY PIONEERS

When Father (William D.) Kartchner was called to come and settle in Arizona, he was so sick and had rheumatism so bad, his folks and friends told him he could not possibly go. He replied that when the day came to start, he would stand if he could, and if he fell, he would fall towards Arizona.

He came and settled first, in the little place they called Taylor, below and across the Little Colorado from Joseph City. But when they found it impossible to make a dam stay in that quick sandy old river bed, they moved on up to the Snowflake country. His spirit and determination has given him a faithful, sturdy family of sons and daughters who now, throughout the southern country, in temples and in every place they occupy, are an honor to his name and memory.

The friends of Henry C. Rogers testify that when he was called to this southern land, he looked with misgivings to a life spent here. Being quite intimate with President Young, he asked him: "Do you WANT me to go there?"

The President returned: "DO YOU WANT to go?" Then his eyes seemed opened. He saw this land as he would find it; its growth and beauty, wealth and comfort, and his whole soul burned with eager desire to go. His answer was obvious, and he spent his life in a place that, on his arrival, he at once recognized from the picture he had seen at his call.

The worthy family of John Saline point still further back to the interesting manifestation that marked their beginning in the West. He had come to the Valleys, earlier in the season. Upon hearing of the sad condition of that last handcart company, when so many were caught in the snow, he volunteered to return and help them in.

When the relief party drove up to the camp among the handcarts, there was great excitement and rejoicing. Soon all were thought to be stowed away in comfort.

But the feelings of John Saline were greatly disturbed, and he began to inquire if all were really in. Being Norwegian he could talk to the Danish Saints, and as they were getting ready to start, he went around asking if someone were not behind. At last a Danish sister said: "Oh, there were four women back there in the snow, and I haven�t seen them come in."

Saline immediately turned around and drove back. He found three sisters and another woman, huddled beside their handcarts in the snow. They were crying, suffering, praying, and wondering if, after leaving their home, crossing the ocean and enduring so much, they must perish so close to their goal. The father, mother, and brother, of the sisters had already been buried on that journey. But they were now quickly relieved and made comfortable, and made their way on the Zion rejoicing. Susan, the oldest of the sisters, became the wife of their rescuer, and was blessed in becoming the mother of that family who now honor the names of worthy parents.