Brigham Young and the robin

Brigham Young - hungry and lonely

Brigham and his mother were good friends. She was sick with tuberculosis so Brigham helped her with the housework. (When he was the prophet, he said he could do housework as well as any woman - and maybe he could.) She got progressively worse and died when he was fourteen.

After that his father was gone much of the time, leaving Brigham and his younger brother, Lorenzo, home to clear the land.

One day Brigham and Lorenzo spent the day out chopping branches, digging out roots, burning the bushes - hard manual labor. As the sun began to set Brigham and Lorenzo started for home. They knew there was nothing in the house to eat. It was early summer and all the fox, deer and other game animals were further into the woods. What could they find to eat?

The boys tramped toward home. Brigham missed his mother. When she was alive there was always food in the house and a welcoming voice when he and Lorenzo got home. Now there would be only emptiness. Brigham spotted a robin flitting from branch to branch near their cabin. He crept quietly into the house to get the gun and shot the robin.

The boys plucked and dressed the bird. They boiled it in a kettle of water and dumped the last of the flour dust from the empty barrel into the pot to made a watery broth. It wasn't much, but at least it was something.

Brigham knew what it was like to be hungry and lonely.