Page:History of Utah.djvu/96

 mim, and the breastplate. But when he was about to take them out Moroni stood beside him and said, “Not yet; meet me here at this time each year for four years, and I will tell you what to do.” Joseph obeyed.

The elder Smith was poor, and the boys were sometimes obliged to hire themselves out as laborers. It was on the 22d of September, 1823, that the plates were found. The following year Alvin died, and in October 1825 Joseph went to work for Josiah Stoal, in Chenango county. This man had what he supposed to be a silver mine at Harmony, Pennsylvania, said to have been once worked by Spaniards. Thither Joseph went with the other men to dig for silver,