The Bride

880 IMPROVEMENT ERA

colored gown, arose to greet them, and he again perceived how lame she was. She asked them many questions about their religion, and their very simplicity impressed her. They came many times after that, and she served them tea. They declined the drink, but ate the little cakes. They talked about many principles of the gospel, but always the conversation veered round to the subject of eternal marriage. In Boston, where they read the Bible for its "fine Semitic flavor," one may believe in Buddhism, pantheism, or the transmigration of souls. It was only considered somewhat queer that Miriam Manners should have taken up with that strange western religion "Mormonism." So, one day she was baptized in her own marble swimming pool. After that she was a regular attendant at the Latterday Saints services. With her prestige and influence she was able to help the laboring missionaries meet people that they did not ordinarily gain access to. Then she tried to convert her father. She told him how splendid it would be to have his four fine sons sealed to him in the hereafter. The old banker was engrossed in the money-getting of this world, but he encouragd his daughter. He was glad to have her interested in anything. When, after years of experience that had tested as well as increased her faith, she expressed a desire to go to the temple, in Salt Lake City, to be sealed to her dead husband, her father gladly acquiesced, and added that a trip to the far west would do her good. So Miriam went up to the House of the Lord, in the tops of the mountains, and when she donned her veil, she was more radiant than on that first bridal morn.

A Prayer Father in heaven, Send me a greeting Draw near to me; Tempered with cheer; Clear up my vision, While a blind mortal Help me to see I linger here, Thy mercy and truth, Guard me from danger, While now I bend my knee. And keep thou me from fear.

Turn me from evil, Give to me wisdom With charity's measure; To light my way; Of the little good Let not the dull mists I've tried to treasure, Darken my day; Keep thou my heart While the tares reaping, From dangerous pleasure. Allow thou me to stay. Ogden, Utah O. M. Sanderson.

Rubber from Rabbit Brush By J. Cecil Alter, Meteorologist, U. S. Department Agriculture, W eatiier Bureau

"What a joy it was to me," remarked the pioneer housewife, "when, in the early days, my mother dyed a faded Sunday frock with a delicate but beautiful yellow coloring matter which she had extracted from rabbit brush blossoms; it was the most gaily colored dress I had owned, and I was a happy girl, indeed." "Yes," added the husband, who had carefully selected his farmstead so as to contain as little rabbit brush land as possible, "I've noticed that the cattle will browse it in winter, too, but we usually considered it good for nothing, like the land it grows on — too much wet and alkali in the subsoil where it grows. It is good rabbit hunting ground when the snow is deep, though, and that's all we've used it for since we came here in the 80's." Thus did the "Mormon" ranchfolks, accommodating the traveler for the night, evince an interest in the investigating botanist, who, in the lat- ter days of the war, was quietly map- ping and sampling the rabbit brush PROF. MARCUS E. JONES areas of the state for government in- Of Salt Lake City, Utah, formation. botanist, securing typical specimens of rabbit brush "You're takin' home some souve- for laboratory tests as to nirs, are you?" a village loafer had rubber contents. The finer facetiously inquired, as the botanist roots and stems are not came into town, his Ford bristling utilized. Specimen taken in Circle Valley, Piute with well-tagged specimens of rabbit county, Utah, brush. "Better be careful about takin' too much of that stuff; we've only got about two million acres of it," finished the joker, quite satisfactorilv to himself.