The prophet's wife was at that time living in a building of which the front part was the general store whence the material needs of the growing church were as far as possible provided.
Susannah passed through between bales of cloths, boxes, and barrels of provisions.

It was dusk; a young man who served in the store carried a candle before her, and the odd-shaped piles of merchandise threw strange moving shadows upon the low beams of the roof and walls.

The young man held the candle to light the way up a straight staircase.

"Mis' Smith," he shouted, "here's Mis' Halsey come to see you." At the top of the staircase Susannah was met by a cooing, creeping baby, who beat with its little fist upon a wicket gate fencing off the stair.
"It was the last thing he did before setting out, to nail that gate together and fasten it up with his own hands, so as I wouldn't need always to be running after the young one, lest he should fall down the stair." It was Emma Smith who spoke; she emerged dishevelled and tearful from an upper room.

"When he has so much to think about and all, and Elder Rigdon waiting for him at the office till he'd finished.