Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/82

 There was great rejoicing in the colony, and out of death Cyrus Spragg wrung a greater faith.

But before six months had passed murmurs began to arise in New Jerusalem. The revelations of the Prophet had caused the crops to freeze out of the ground, and ewes to be bred too early so that the lambs died of cold. There came a great plague of grasshoppers which ate what was left of the wheat. Among the chosen women who served the Prophet other strange murmurs arose, that now he received them only in the darkness of the innermost chamber and that his manner was strange. Eliza Weatherby, who had become pregnant and seemed a little out of her head, made the hysterical statement that the Prophet no longer existed and that an impostor had taken his place. But they held her in disfavor for having loved an infidel and so having been the cause of all their misfortunes, and no one believed her. She was tried and, being expelled from the colony by the Prophet's eldest son for blasphemy, went to Des Moines to live, where she embraced a literary career and wrote book reviews for the newspapers.

But in the end it was a thing as simple and commonplace as jealousy that destroyed the strange kingdom of Cyrus Spragg. One day in the midst of worship before the Temple the wife of Obadiah Spragg rose and cried out wildly that the Prophet was dead and that an impostor had taken his place. And then turning upon one of the female followers who had been shown special favor by the Prophet she began to scratch and pull the woman's hair and call her all manner of evil names. When they had