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In the first day's journey he reached Geneva, and setting out again before it was light, he came to John Biery's hotel when the sun was rising red beyond the gray elm boughs on the morning on which Susannah breakfasted alone. Susannah looked up from her breakfast and saw Ephraim standing beside her.
It was no longer possible for Joseph Smith to ride, as he had done on the day of Susannah's marriage, with a minister of one of the older sects. He became very notorious, and to every one except those who were interested enough in his doctrine to give him a fair hearing, his name became a synonym for all evil. Halsey remained with Susannah at John Biery's hotel.
He rode away leaving her standing upon the tawny carpet of the fallen leaf, standing in the pink sunshine under naked trees, and looking after him with tears of gratitude in her eyes. Ephraim looked back once, but not again. When Susannah was returning from her parting with Ephraim Croom, she found Joseph Smith was walking slowly upon the road not far from John Biery's hotel.
She thought that his accents were a horrible simulation of merriment, but by the others they were accepted as an evidence of holy joy. Two days after, when Susannah and her husband were returning from Smith's preaching through the autumn night, they were met as they were approaching Biery's hotel by a messenger from Knight's house. The messenger had been sent to fetch Halsey.
A man stood in the doorway. "What place is this?" cried Susannah's voice from the darkness. "It's John Biery's hotel." "Will you have the kindness to tell me if you know of any one called Mr. Joseph Smith?" There was some talking within. "No, we never heard of Mr. Joseph Smith." "Or Mr. Oliver Cowdery?" Again there was talking. "No, it don't seem that we've any of us heard o' those names before.
Near to John Biery's hotel lived a family of the name of Knight. The worthy farmer became a convert, and so also, in appearance, did his son. Susannah first saw them at their baptism, which took place one cold bleak day in the margin of Seneca Lake.
She was accustomed to walking through John Biery's main room to gain the stair that led to her own; on the whole it was not disorderly, or Susannah had but to appear on the threshold to reduce it to order. To-night the men did not let her pass with their usual civil "Good evening"; they assumed that she had an interest in their talk. "Is Mr. Halsey stopping over to Farmer Knight's?" asked Biery.
He then spread his hands over the sick man and made a short prayer. There was much fervour in his words and his voice was loud. "Give him to drink," said Smith. "Biery's wife told me as long as he was in fever not to give him water." Smith looked down upon her kindly, but he spoke in a tone of absolute authority. "My sister, I say unto thee give him water.
Some days after, when driving past Biery's hotel from a meeting he had been holding in the town of Geneva, Joseph Smith entered and laid before Susannah books for the cultivation of her mind a Latin grammar and exercise book like his own, a Universal History, and a primer of Natural Philosophy. He told her that in two weeks, when she had mastered their contents, he would bring her others.
He reported that Newell Knight was in "an awful way." Susannah alighted at once and walked to the tavern, in order that her husband might drive with all speed to the afflicted man. The lights as they shone from John Biery's windows reminded her vividly of the first time, a month since, when she had driven to that house at night.
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