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N E W T R O U S S E A U Emma Smith,  Suppose your husband, via charm and the sheer nerve-force common to America’s lesser gods, steps off the prairie and breaks gold open with an upstart prayer—he’s a peerless narcissist but holy, holy, holy in his ability to draw pioneer souls toward dubious creeds, even as you stand hunched in the dust-yard pressing whey from a stinking hoop of cheese, or brining a hog’s cheek then mixing lye with ash in such faithful proportions as smartly burn a collar clean— suppose at the very moment he regards his own handmaiden’s low estate, your husband whispers celestial wifery in your ear. Plurality: received. Forty wives might be enough, many dewy juveniles, too, waiting to be impregnated as though by raindrops on the wind before their fifteenth birthday. For Heaven has a roving eye, and man is that he might have joy. And Emma,  Barresi pages:Layout 1 5/12/10 1:43 PM Page 56 you shall have good company! Pivot and first cause, true wife stubborn as an impacted tooth, what would you say then to this man so full of God’s love he never apologizes for anything? What prophecy? Keep a sharp eye for the tar & feather boys gathering, gathering: I’ll skim black lace from their boiling pot to make my widow’s weeds, then walk to Salt Lake City.  Barresi pages:Layout 1 5/12/10 1:43 PM Page 57 ...

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