Vigil

  Anna wanted the Mormons to knock on the door. She was eager to hear about the prophet Joseph Smith and this gold Bible she had heard so much about down in the village of Palmyra.
  "Pa said they're sending the men out two and two on missions, to preach the word of God," she told her mother.
  "Come away from the window, Anna!" Ma said with feigned patience. "No one ever comes up this way to visit, especially no Mormon missionaries!"
  Anna would discreetly watch for them when she went out to feed the chickens, gather the eggs, and slop the hogs. When she walked down the hill to school in the village, she kept her ears open, absorbing gossip about the new church as she passed townsfolk going about their business. Most people didn't have anything nice to say about Joseph Smith and the shocking new religion he founded, but Anna was eager to know more. She hated Ma and Pa's austere Presbyterian church she was forced to attend every Sunday in nearby Manchester, NY.
  She thought there must be more to know about Jesus than what was in the Bible. "What about the other apostles, like Andrew?" she once asked Pa. "Why doesn't he have a book in the New Testament?"
  "Hush your mouth and don't talk nonsense!" Pa snapped. "Preacher says there ain't no other scripture 'cept the Bible!"
  Anna didn't dare utter what she was longing to ask: "What if Preacher's wrong? What if Jesus did restore his church to the earth? What if he did give Joseph Smith a golden Bible? What did they call it? The Book of Mormon, named for a prophet who lived here in America before Columbus?"
  The rumors fired Anna's imagination. She watched every day, hoping the missionaries--maybe even Joseph Smith himself--would come to call.