Salt Lake City, Utah: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mutual Improvement Association, February 1927
Fiction, Short Story
Jethro Williams is a soldier in the Mexican War. He is struggling and starving but manages to find and kill a rabbit. He intends to eat it, but he passes by the hospital tent where he hears a man begging for food. Jethro debates whether or not to keep the rabbit for himself, knowing that he is on the verge of starvation, but ultimately throws the rabbit into the tent for the other man. Later, during the California gold rush, Jethro falls ill and loses his money. The man he gave the rabbit to comes into his cabin. There the man confesses that he had thought his daughter was killed by an LDS missionary, Jethro’s father, years ago, and that the man had joined the army to get revenge on the missionary by killing Jethro. However, after Jethro gave the man food, the man couldn’t bring himself to go through with it. The man later learned that Jethro’s father was innocent after all. After telling Jethro everything, the man gives him a sack of gold and leaves.