The Lost Plates of Laman
An Account Written by the Hand of Laman
upon Plates of Tin Made by His Own Self—with a Little
Help from his Brother Lemuel

by
Bob Lewis

Signature Books; Salt Lake City, Utah
© 1997 by Signatue Books.

Contents

CHAPTER 17

Laman gives an account of his tin plates—The promised land is not a bed of roses—Lehi gives the older boys a scolding, then grows old.

NOW I, Laman, write somewhat concerning these plates of tin whereupon I do keep this account; yea, I did make them with mine own hands, with a little help from my brother Lemuel, for he became a semi-skilled worker in all branches of metallurgy, and he did work with copper and nickel and zinc and titanium, yea, he did enjoy dabbling in all of the elemental metals. And his own small plates, which I hope to high heaven you never have to read, upon which he gives his own warped account of our trials and tribulations and many afflictions, were cast from lead.

2 And behold, I did warn Lemuel that lead was not a good choice, for a record of more than a few pages would require a forklift to transport, and who knows when we might be commanded to pack up, lock, stock, and barrel, including all of our plates, and hit the road again, or maybe even sail the seven seas; but behold, he did insist that his plates of lead were soft and easy to inscribe upon, yea, [51] their excessive weight would compel him to be brief; wherefore, I did concede the wisdom of his choice, knowing well his literary gifts.

3 And it came to pass that I did learn from my son, Moron, who was sent to keep an eye upon Nephi, that my little brother had pounded out some plates of gold, upon which he did write an account of our wanderings and seafarings and promised landings; yea, Moron did report that Nephi had made both big gold plates and small gold plates, wherefore I did suppose that he was using the double entry method.

4 Now behold, when I learned of the plates of Nephi, I did go at once to Lemuel with a plan to hammer out some plates of my own whereupon I could inscribe a true and impartial account of these same events; yea, I could tell

6 But Lemuel did devise a way to bend the tin into rippled sheets just two feet by eight feet; yea, after I had inscribed our history upon one sheet, behold, it did serve as a perfect covering for the little bungalow that Morona had forced me to build, and the tin plates did keep out the water much better than sod or banana leaves; wherefore, she did nag me until I had to write day and night that our roof would be complete before the fall hurricane season.

7 Now it came to pass that life in the promised land was not all peaches and cream, for there were many insects and spiders and bugs and other nasty creatures that we had never seen in our forced march across Arabia, neither could we find them in any of Sam's entomology books; yea, some of them were exceedingly large and vicious, and they did bite with a vengeance, and we were constantly swatting and hitting at them so that the tranquillity of the promised land was punctuated by the sound of flesh smacking flesh; wherefore, I did complain that we had brought way too many seeds and nobody had remembered to pack the mosquito netting or the bug bomb.

8. And there were snakes; yea, the jungles were just chock full of snakes; and behold, I did never like snakes, and I did wonder why we could not be led unto a promised land like Ireland.

9 Now behold, we did find all manner of useful beasts in the forests and in the jungles, and, as Lemuel said, we did also find a good many that were totally useless, but behold, I was surprised to see cattle and horses and sheep; wherefore, I did worry that we had not been given top billing and that we [52] were not the first to be led to this promised land, and I did wonder if we were just renting or if we had the deed; yea, Lemuel did have nightmares wondering why the last tenants had decided to pack their bags and leave.

10 Now the useful beasts in the forest were no longer tame; wherefore, to call them useful was a misnomer, for they were not worth a plug nickel until we corralled them, for they had become as wild as a March hare; yea, and we did have a devil of a time trying to catch them, for we were on foot and were outnumbered in that category by two to one.

11 And behold, one day as we went out on a roundup, I did hook a rope on a wild cow, and she did drag me through the brush and across a field for half a mile before Lemuel did stop her; yea, and Lemuel did chew me out for not letting go of the rope, but I did explain that I couldn't let go, for it was wrapped around my wrist; wherefore, I was sore and cut and bruised and mad, neither did I wish to tame that cow, for I would not be content until she was carved into hamburger.

12 And it came to pass that we did scour the wilderness and search the forests for months until we had rounded up a few paltry horses and punched us a small herd of cows; yea, we did have fresh milk and cheese and butter; but after a few weeks of milking night and morning, even on weekends and holidays, I did complain unto Lemuel, saying that it was miserable being a farmer, but it was hell being a dairyman.

13 And it came to pass that one day as I was murmuring about the beastly chores and complaining about the blasted bovines, behold, my father, Lehi, did overhear me, and he did call me unto him, and he did summon my brother, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael also; yea, he did call pretty much all of the sons together, and I did suspect that we were in for another good tonguelashing.

14 Now behold, my father was becoming absent-minded, and he did sometimes call me Lemuel and did occasionally wear socks that did not match, but he did not forget any of our old blunders; yea, he did retain a keen remembrance of all of our wickedness; wherefore, he did recite the whole concatenation of our offenses, beginning from the time we left Jerusalem unto the present, with particular mention of our behavior aboard that wretched ship, as well as the excessive number of times we had tied Nephi up, though he was off by two since a couple of our rope therapy sessions, as Lemuel called them, had taken place in the privacy of the desert.

15 And behold, our father did remind us that this land was a choice land; yea, it was head and shoulders above all other lands, and that none should be brought unto this land save it be by the hand of the Lord.

16 And I, Laman, did hope that with the next batch of chosen people the Lord would use a kinder and gentler hand than he did with us, and maybe [53] chuck out the wandering in the desert part; yea, it did seem to me that nobody would volunteer to be the chosen people any more if they knew that part of the bargain was to slog around for years in the wilderness and maybe get killed off in the process, and then not get a clear title to the promised land when they got there!

17 And it came to pass that as my father, Lehi, spake unto us about the amenities of our new real estate, behold, he did drop another grenade, for he did tell us that he had seen in a vision that Jerusalem had finally been destroyed; yea, we would also have perished if the Lord had not been merciful unto us and warned us that we should flee.

18 But behold, he said nothing about the old Babylonians, and I did wonder if our good friends might not be haVing more fun in Babylon than we were here in Timbuktoo.

19 And I was glad that I did not see the fall of dear old Jerusalem in any vision, for I did want to remember it as I had always known it; yea, I, Laman, and my brother Lemuel also, did like to believe that we had brought a little bit of Jerusalem with us into the promised land.

20 And it came to pass that as my father, Lehi, spake unto us, he did appear old and tired and worn out; and I, Laman, had not noticed this before, for he had always been just a father unto me, and I had never looked upon him as someone who would not always be there to lecture me and to shout at me and to sometimes thwack me, as he had been forced to do many times while I was growing up, but that he could waste away and wither like the leaves and fade and die like all other living things.

21 Yea, and he began to weep, saying that he must soon lie down in the cold and silent grave and return unto the dust of the earth, and he did admonish us to awake from the sleep of hell and shake off the chains with which we were bound; yea, he did mourn for us because of our iniquity.

22 And I, Laman, did look upon my father with different eyes, for they were now a little misty, and for the first time in my life I saw a father who truly loved his sons and whose heart was weighed down with sorrow because he feared that at least two of them would be lost forever, and I don't mean Nephi and Sam.

23 And I beheld an old and gentle and good man who was dying in a strange land, far from his home; yea, he had given up everything, and his gold and his silver and his precious things were now his family and his faith in God; wherefore he did believe that God had been good and merciful unto him and had brought him into a promised land that would be a legacy unto his seed forever.

24 Yea, and he had suffered hardships and afflictions and hunger and thirst; and behold, he had even thanked God for doing all these things unto him, and he did consider himself the happiest of men.

25 And it came to pass that after my father had spoken unto us, I did go off by myself into [55] the forest, and I did sit and think; yea, and all of my wickedness and abominations did come into my mind; wherefore I did sit and think for many hours, and my heart was filled with sorrow that I had been such a lousy son, and I did see that my brother Lemuel had been a bad influence upon me, and I was sorry that I did hang out with so many non-member friends; yea, I did regret that I had not been the baby of the family, for then maybe I would have been the righteous and good son instead of the odious older brother.

26 And behold, I did find myself so loathsome that I was about to throw myself into the river, until I did recall that I could not swim.