"What we deem good order, we're willing to state,Eat hearty and decent, and clear out your plate;Be thankful to heaven for what we receive,And not make a mixture or compound to leave."We often find left on the same China dish,Meat, apple sauce, pickle, brown bread and minced fish:Another's replenished with butter and cheese,With pie, cake, and toast, perhaps, added to these."
"What we deem good order, we're willing to state,Eat hearty and decent, and clear out your plate;Be thankful to heaven for what we receive,And not make a mixture or compound to leave.
"We often find left on the same China dish,Meat, apple sauce, pickle, brown bread and minced fish:Another's replenished with butter and cheese,With pie, cake, and toast, perhaps, added to these."
"You say it very nicely," commended Susanna.
"There's more:—
"Now if any virtue in this can be shown,By peasant, by lawyer, or king on the throne;We freely will forfeit whatever we've said,And call it a virtue to waste meat and bread."
"Now if any virtue in this can be shown,By peasant, by lawyer, or king on the throne;We freely will forfeit whatever we've said,And call it a virtue to waste meat and bread."
"There's a great deal to learn when you're being a Shaker," sighed Sue, as she finished her rhyme.
"There's a great deal to learn everywhere," her mother answered. "What verse did Eldress Abby give you to-day?"
"For little tripping maids may follow GodAlong the ways that saintly feet have trod,"
"For little tripping maids may follow GodAlong the ways that saintly feet have trod,"
quoted the child. "Am I a tripping maid, Mardie?" she continued.
"Yes, dear."
"If I trip too much, mightn't I fall?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Is tripping the same as skipping?"
"About the same."
"Is it polite to tripanskip when you're following God?"
"It couldn't be impolite if you meant to be good. A tripping maid means just a young one."
"What is a maid?"
"A little girl."
"When a maid grows up, what is she?"
"Why—she's a maiden, I suppose."
"When a maiden grows up, what isshe?"
"Just a woman, Sue."
"What is saintly feet?"
"Feet like those of Eldress Abby or Elder Gray; feet of people who have always tried to do right."
"Are Brother Ansel's feet saintly?"
"He's a good, kind, hard-working man."
"Is good-kind-hard-working same as saintly?"
"Well, it's not so very different, perhaps.—Now, Sue, I've asked you before, don't let your mind grope, and your little tongue wag, every instant; it isn't good for you, and it certainly isn't good for me!"
"All right; but 'less I gropeanwag sometimes, I don't see how I'll ever learn the things I 'specially want to know?" sighed Sue the insatiable.
"Shall I tell you a Shaker story, one that Eldress Abby told me last evening?"
"Oh, do, Mardie!" cried Sue, crossing her feet, folding her hands, andlooking up into her mother's face expectantly.
"Once there was a very good Shaker named Elder Calvin Green, and some one wrote him a letter asking him to come a long distance and found a Settlement in the western part of New York State. He and some other Elders and Eldresses traveled five days, and stopped at the house of a certain Joseph Pelham to spend Sunday and hold a meeting. On Mondaymorning, very tired, and wondering where to stay and begin his preaching, the Elder went out into the woods to pray for guidance. When he rose from his knees, feeling stronger and lighter-hearted, a young quail came up to him so close that he picked it up. It was not a bit afraid, neither did the old parent birds who were standing near by show any sign of fear, though they are very timid creatures. The Elder smoothed the young bird's feathers a little while and then let it go, but he thought an angel seemed to say to him, 'The quail is a sign; you will know before night what it means, and before to-morrow people will be coming to you to learn the way to God.'
"Soon after, a flock of these shy little birds alighted on Joseph Pelham's house, and the Elders were glad, and thought it signified the flock of Believers that would gather in that place; for the Shakers see more in signs than other people. Just at night a young girl of twelve or thirteen knocked at the door and toldElder Calvin that she wanted to become a Shaker, and that her father and mother were willing.
"'Here is the little quail!' cried the Elder, and indeed she was the first who flocked to the meetings and joined the new Community.
"On their return to their old home across the state the Elders took the little quail girl with them. It was November then, and the canals through which they traveled were clogged with ice. One night, having been ferried across the Mohawk River, they took their baggage and walked for miles before they could find shelter. Finally, when they were within three miles of their home, Elder Calvin shortened the way by going across the open fields through the snow, up and down the hills and through the gullies and over fences, till they reached the house at midnight, safe and sound, the brave little quail girl having trudged beside them the whole distance, carrying her tin pail."
Sue was transported with interest, her lips parted, her eyes shining, her hands clasped.
"Oh, I wish I could be a brave little quail girl, Mardie! What became of her?"
"Her name was Polly Reed, and when she grew up, she became a teacher of the Shaker school, then an Eldress, and even a preacher. I don't know what kind of a little quail girl you would make, Sue; do you think you could walk for miles through the ice and snow uncomplainingly?"
"I don' know's I could," sighed Sue; "but," she added hopefully, "perhaps I could teach or preach, and then I could gropeanwag as much as ever I liked." Then, after a lengthy pause, in which her mind worked feverishly, she said, "Mardie, I was just groping a little bit, but I won't do it any more to-night. If the old quail birds in the woods where Elder Calvin prayed, if those old birds had been Shaker birds, there wouldn't have been any little quail birds, would there, because Shakersdon't have children, and then perhaps there wouldn't have been any little Polly Reed."
Susanna rose hurriedly from the list-bottomed chair and folded her work. "I'll go up and help you undress now," she said; "it's seven o'clock, and I must go to the family meeting."
SUSANNA SPEAKS IN MEETING
Itwas the Sabbath day and the Believers were gathered in the meeting-house, Brethren and Sisters seated quietly on their separate benches, with the children by themselves in their own place. As the men entered the room they removed their hats and coats and hung them upon wooden pegs that lined the sides of the room, while the women took off their bonnets; then, after standing for a moment of perfect silence, they seated themselves.
In Susanna's time the Sunday costume for the men included trousers of deep blue cloth with a white line and a vest of darker blue, exposing a full-bosomed shirt that had a wideturned-down collar fastened with three buttons. The Sisters were in pure white dresses, with neck and shoulders covered with snowy kerchiefs, their heads crowned with their white net caps, and a large white pocket handkerchief hung over the left arm. Their feet were shod with curious pointed-toed cloth shoes of ultramarine blue—a fashion long since gone by.
Susanna had now become accustomed to the curious solemn march or dance in which of course none but the Believers ever joined, and found in her present exalted mood the songs and the exhortations strangely interesting and not unprofitable.
Tabitha, the most aged of the group of Albion Sisters, confessed that she missed the old times when visions were common, when the Spirit manifested itself in extraordinary ways, and the gift of tongues descended. Sometimes, in the Western Settlement where she was gathered in, the whole North Family would marchinto the highway in the fresh morning hours, and while singing some sacred hymn, would pass on to the Centre Family, and together in solemn yet glad procession they would mount the hillside to "Jehovah's Chosen Square," there to sing and dance before the Lord.
"I wish we could do something like that now!" sighed Hetty Arnold, a pretty young creature, who had moments of longing for the pomps and vanities. "If we have to give up all worldly pleasures, I think we might have more religious ones!"
"We were a younger church in those old times of which Sister Tabitha speaks," said Eldress Abby. "You must remember, Hetty, that we were children in faith, and needed signs and manifestations, pictures and object-lessons. We've been trained to think and reason now, and we've put away some of our picture-books. There have been revelations to tell us we needed movements and exercises to quicken our spiritual powers, and to give energy andunity to our worship, and there have been revelations telling us to give them up; revelations bidding us to sing more, revelations telling us to use wordless songs. Then anthems were given us, and so it has gone on, for we have been led of the Spirit."
"I'd like more picture-books," pouted Hetty, under her breath.
To-day the service began with a solemn song, followed by speaking and prayer from a visiting elder. Then, after a long and profound silence, the company rose and joined in a rhythmic dance which signified the onward travel of the soul to full redemption; the opening and closing of the hands meaning the scattering and gathering of blessing. There was no accompaniment, and both the music and the words were the artless expression of fervent devotion.
SUSANNA SAT IN HER CORNER BESIDE THE AGED TABITHA
Susanna sat in her corner beside the aged Tabitha, who would never dance again before the Lord, though her quavering voice joinedin the chorus. The spring floor rose and fell under the quick rhythmic tread of the worshipers, and with each revolution about the room the song gained in power and fervor.
I am nev-er wea-ry bring-ing my life un-to God, I am nev-er wea-ry sing-ing His way is good. With the voice of an an-gel with pow-er from a-bove, I would pub-lish the bless-ing of soul-sav-ing love.
The steps grew slower and more sedate, the voices died away, the arms sank slowly bythe sides, and the hands ceased their movement.
Susanna rose to her feet, she knew not how or why. Her cheeks were flushed, her head bent.
"Dear friends," she said, "I have now been among you for nearly three months, sharing your life, your work, and your worship. You may well wish to know whether I have made up my mind to join this Community, and I can only say that although I have prayed for light, I cannot yet see my way clearly. I am happy here with you, and although I have been a church member for years, I have never before longed so ardently to present my body and soul as a sacrifice unto the Lord. I have tried not to be a burden to you. The small weekly sum that I put into the treasury I will not speak of, lest I seem to think that the 'gift of God may be purchased with money,' as the Scriptures say; but I have endeavored to be loyal to your rules and customs, your aims and ideals, and tothe confidence you have reposed in me. Oh, my dear Sisters and Brothers, pray for me that I be enabled to see my duty more plainly. It is not the flesh-pots that will call me back to the world; if I go, it will be because the duties I have left behind take such shape that they draw me out of this shelter in spite of myself. I thank you for the help you have given me these last weeks; God knows my gratitude can never be spoken in words."
Elder Gray's voice broke the silence that followed Susanna's speech. "I only echo the sentiments of the Family when I say that our Sister Susanna shall have such time as she requires before deciding to unite with this body of Believers. No pressure shall be brought to bear upon her, and she will be, as she ever has been, a welcome guest under our roof. She has been an inspiration to the children, a comfort and aid to the Sisters, an intelligent comrade to the Brethren, and a sincere and earnest student of the truth. May the Spirit drawher into the Virgin Church of the New Creation!"
"Yee and amen!" exclaimed Eldress Abby, devoutly: "For thus saith the Lord of hosts: I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts."
"O Virgin Church, how great thy light,What cloud can dim thy way?"
"O Virgin Church, how great thy light,What cloud can dim thy way?"
sang Martha from her place at the end of a bench; and all the voices took up the hymn softly as the company sat with bowed heads.
Then Brother Issachar rose from his corner, saying: "Jesus called upon his disciples to give up everything: houses, lands, relationships, and even the selfishness of their own lives. They could not call their lives their own. 'Lo! we have left all and followed thee,' said Peter; 'fathers, mothers, wives, children, houses, lands, and even our own lives also.'It is a great price to pay, but we buy Heaven with it!"
"Yee, we do," said Brother Thomas Scattergood, devoutly. "To him that overcometh shall the great prize be given."
"God help the weaker brethren!" murmured young Brother Nathan, in so low a voice that few could hear him.
Moved by the same impulse, Tabitha, Abby, and Martha burst into one of the most triumphant of the Shaker songs, one that was never sung save when the meeting was "full of the Spirit":—
"I draw no blank nor miss the prize,I see the work, the sacrifice,And I'll be loyal, I'll be wise,A faithful overcomer!"
"I draw no blank nor miss the prize,I see the work, the sacrifice,And I'll be loyal, I'll be wise,A faithful overcomer!"
The company rose and began again to march in a circle around the centre of the room, the Brethren two abreast leading the column, the Sisters following after. There was a waving movement of the hands by drawinginward as if gathering in spiritual good and storing it up for future need. In the marching and countermarching the worshipers frequently changed their positions, ultimately forming into four circles, symbolical of the four dispensations as expounded in Shakerism, the first from Adam to Abraham; the second from Abraham to Jesus; the third from Jesus to Mother Ann Lee; and the fourth the millennial era.
The marching grew livelier; the bodies of the singers swayed lightly with emotion, the faces glowed with feeling.
Over and over the hymn was sung, gathering strength and fullness as the Believers entered more and more into the spirit of their worship. Whenever the refrain came in with its militant fervor, crude, but sincere and effective, the singers seemed faith-intoxicated; and Sister Martha in particular might have been treading the heavenly streets instead of the meeting-house floor, so complete was her absorption. The voices at length grew softer, and the movement slower, and after a few moments' reverent silence the company filed out of the room solemnly and without speech.
I am as sure that heav'n is mine As though my vi-sion could de-fine Or pen-cil draw the boun-da-ry line Where love and truth shall con-quer.
"The Lord ain't shaken Susanna hard enough yet," thought Brother Ansel shrewdly from his place in the rear. "She ain't altogether gathered in, not by no manner o' means,because of that unregenerate son of Adam she's left behind; but there's the makin's of a pow'ful good Shaker in Susanna, if she finally takes holt!"
"What manner of life is my husband living, now that I have deserted him? Who is being a mother to Jack?" These were the thoughts that troubled Susanna Hathaway's soul as she crossed the grass to her own building.
"THE LOWER PLANE"
BrotherNathan Bennett was twenty years old and Sister Hetty Arnold was eighteen. They had been left with the Shakers by their respective parents ten years before, and, growing up in the faith, they formally joined the Community when they reached the age of discretion. Thus they had known each other from early childhood, never in the familiar way common to the children of the world, but with the cool, cheerful, casual, wholly impersonal attitude of Shaker friendship, a relation seemingly outside of and superior to sex, a relation more like that of two astral bodies than the more intimate one of a budding Adam and Eve.
When and where had this relationship changed its color and meaning? Neither Nathan nor Hetty could have told. For years Nathan had sat at his end of the young men's bench at the family or the public meeting, with Hetty exactly opposite him at the end of the girls' row, and for years they had looked across the dividing space at each other with unstirred pulses. The rows of Sisters sat in serene dignity, one bench behind another, and each Sister was like unto every other in Nathan's vague, dreamy, boyishly indifferent eyes. Some of them were seventy and some seventeen, but each modest figure sat in its place with quiet folded hands. The stiff caps hid the hair, whether it was silver or gold; the white surplices covered the shoulders and concealed beautiful curves as well as angular outlines; the throats were scarcely visible, whether they were yellow and wrinkled or young and white. The Sisters were simply sisters to fair-haired Nathan, and the Brothers were but brothers to little black-eyed Hetty.
Once—was it on a Sunday morning?—Nathan glanced across the separating space that is the very essence and sign of Shakerism. The dance had just ceased, and there was a long, solemn stillness when God indeed seemed to be in one of His holy temples and the earth was keeping silence before Him. Suddenly Hetty grew to be something more than one of the figures in a long row: she chained Nathan's eye and held it.
"Through her garments the grace of her glowed." He saw that, in spite of the way her hair had been cut and stretched back from the forehead, a short dusky tendril, softened and coaxed by the summer heat, had made its way mutinously beyond the confines of her cap. Her eyes were cast down, but the lashes that swept her round young cheek were quite different from any other lashes in the Sisters' row. Her breath came and went softly after theexertion of the rhythmic movements, stirring the white muslin folds that wrapped her from throat to waist. He looked and looked, until his body seemed to be all eyes, absolutely unaware of any change in himself; quite oblivious of the fact that he was regarding the girl in any new and dangerous way.
The silence continued, long and profound, until suddenly Hetty raised her beautiful lashes and met Nathan's gaze, the gaze of a boy just turned to man: ardent, warm, compelling. There was a startled moment of recognition, a tremulous approach, almost an embrace, of regard; each sent an electric current across the protective separating space, the two pairs of eyes met and said, "I love you," in such clear tones that Nathan and Hetty marveled that the Elder did not hear them. Somebody says that love, like a scarlet spider, can spin a thread between two hearts almost in an instant, so fine as to be almost invisible, yet it will hold with the tenacity of an iron chain. The thread hadbeen spun; it was so delicate that neither Nathan nor Hetty had seen the scarlet spider spinning it, but the strength of both would not avail to snap the bond that held them together.
The moments passed. Hetty's kerchief rose and fell, rose and fell tumultuously, while her face was suffused with color. Nathan's knees quivered under him, and when the Elder rose, and they began the sacred march, the lad could hardly stand for trembling. He dreaded the moment when the lines of Believers would meet, and he and Hetty would walk the length of the long room almost beside each other. Could she hear his heart beating, Nathan wondered; while Hetty was palpitating with fear lest Nathan see her blushes and divine their meaning. Oh, the joy of it, the terror of it, the strange exhilaration and the sudden sensation of sin and remorse!
The meeting over, Nathan flung himself on the haymow in the great barn, while Hetty sat with her "Synopsis of Shaker Theology" atan open window of the girls' building, seeing nothing in the lines of print but visions that should not have been there. It was Nathan who felt most and suffered most and was most conscious of sin, for Hetty, at first, scarcely knew whither she was drifting.
She went into the herb-garden with Susanna one morning during the week that followed the fatal Sunday. Many of the plants to be used for seasoning—sage, summer savory, sweet marjoram, and the like—were quite ready for gathering. As the two women were busy at work, Susanna as full of her thoughts as Hetty of hers, the sound of a step was heard brushing the grass of the orchard. Hetty gave a nervous start; her cheeks grew so crimson and her breath so short that Susanna noticed the change.
"It will be Brother Ansel coming along to the grindstone," Hetty stammered, burying her head in the leaves.
"No," Susanna answered, "it is Nathan.He has a long pole with a saw on the end. He must be going to take the dead branches off the apple trees; I heard Ansel tell him yesterday to do it."
"Yee, that will be it," said Hetty, bending over the plants as if she were afraid to look elsewhere.
Nathan came nearer to the herb-garden. He was a tall, stalwart, handsome enough fellow, even in his quaint working garb. As the Sisters spun and wove the cloth as well as cut and made the men's garments, and as the Brothers themselves made the shoes, there was naturally no great air of fashion about the Shaker raiment; but Nathan carried it better than most. His skin was fair and rosy, the down on his upper lip showed dawning manhood, and when he took off his broad-brimmed straw hat and stretched to his full height to reach the upper branches of the apple trees, he made a picture of clean, wholesome, vigorous youth.
Suddenly Susanna raised her head and surprised Hetty looking at the lad with all her heart in her eyes. At the same moment Nathan turned, and before he could conceal the telltale ardor of his glance, it had sped to Hetty. With the instinct of self-preservation he stooped instantly as if to steady the saw on the pole, but it was too late to mend matters: his tale was told so far as Susanna was concerned; but it was better she should suspect than one of the Believers or Eldress Abby.
HETTY LOOKING AT THE LAD WITH ALL HER HEART IN HER EYES
Susanna worked on in silent anxiety. The likelihood of such crises as this had sometimes crossed her mind, and knowing how frail human nature is, she often marveled that instances seemed so infrequent. Her instinct told her that in every Community the risk must exist, even though all were doubly warned and armed against the temptations that flesh is heir to; yet no hint of danger had showed itself during the months in which she had been a member of the Shaker family. She had heard the Elder's plea to the young converts to take up"a full cross against the flesh"; she had listened to Eldress Abby when she told them that the natural life, its thoughts, passions, feelings, and associations, must be turned against once and forever; but her heart melted in pity for the two poor young things struggling helplessly against instincts of which they hardly knew the meaning, so cloistered had been the life they lived. The kind, conscientious hands that had fed them would now seem hard and unrelenting; the place that had been home would turn to a prison; the life that Elder Gray preached, "the life of a purer godliness than can be attained by marriage," had seemed difficult, perhaps, but possible; and now how cold and hopeless it would appear to these two young, undisciplined, flaming hearts!
"Hetty dear, talk to me!" whispered Susanna, softly touching her shoulder, and wondering if she could somehow find a way to counsel the girl in her perplexity.
Hetty started rebelliously to her feet asNathan moved away farther into the orchard. "If you say a single thing to me, or a word about me to Eldress Abby, I'll run away this very day. Nobody has any right to speak to me, and I just want to be let alone! It's all very well for you," she went on passionately. "What have you had to give up? Nothing but a husband you didn't love and a home you didn't want to stay in. Like as not you'll be a Shaker, and they'll take you for a saint; but anyway you'll have had your life."
"You are right, Hetty," said Susanna, quietly; "but oh! my dear, the world outside isn't such a Paradise for young girls like you, motherless and fatherless and penniless. You have a good home here; can't you learn to like it?"
"Out in the world people can do as they like and nobody thinks of calling them wicked!" sobbed Hetty, flinging herself down, and putting her head in Susanna's aproned lap. "Here you've got to live like an angel, and if youdon't, you've got to confess every wrong thought you've had, when the time comes."
"Whatever you do, Hetty, be open and aboveboard; don't be hasty and foolish, or you may be sorry forever afterwards."
Hetty's mood changed again suddenly to one of mutiny, and she rose to her feet.
"You haven't got any right to interfere with me anyway, Susanna; and if you think it's your duty to tell tales, you'll only make matters worse"; and so saying she took her basket and fled across the fields like a hunted hare.
That evening, as Hetty left the infirmary, where she had been sent with a bottle of liniment for the nursing Sisters, she came upon Nathan standing gloomily under the spruce trees near the back of the building. It was eight o'clock and quite dark. It had been raining during the late afternoon and the trees were still dripping drearily. Hetty came upon Nathan so suddenly, that, although he had been in her thoughts, she gave a frightenedlittle cry when he drew her peremptorily under the shadow of the branches. The rules that govern the Shaker Community are very strict, but in reality the true Believer never thinks of them as rules, nor is trammeled by them. They are fixed habits of the blood, as common, as natural, as sitting or standing, eating or drinking. No Brother is allowed to hold any lengthy interview with a Sister, nor to work, walk, or drive with her alone; but these protective customs, which all are bound in honor to keep, are too much a matter of every-day life to be strange or irksome.
"I must speak to you, Hetty," whispered Nathan. "I cannot bear it any longer alone. What shall we do?"
"Do?" echoed Hetty, trembling.
"Yes,do." There was no pretense of asking her if she loved or suffered, or lived in torture and suspense. They had not uttered a word to each other, but their eyes had "shed meanings."
"You know we can't go on like this," he continued rapidly. "We can't eat their food, stay alongside of them, pray their prayers and act a lie all the time,—wecan't!"
"Nay, we can't!" said Hetty. "Oh, Nathan, shall we confess all and see if they will help us to resist temptation? I know that's what Susanna would want me to do, but oh! I should dread it."
"Nay, it is too late," Nathan answered drearily. "They could not help us, and we should be held under suspicion forever after."
"I feel so wicked and miserable and unfaithful, I don't know what to do!" sobbed Hetty.
"Yee, so do I!" the lad answered. "And I feel bitter against my father, too. He brought me here to get rid of me, because he didn't dare leave me on somebody's doorstep. He ought to have come back when I was grown a man and asked me if I felt inclined to be a Shaker, and if I was good enough to be one!"
"And my stepfather wouldn't have me in the house, so my mother had to give me away; but they're both dead, and I'm alone in the world, though I've never felt it, because the Sisters are so kind. Now they will hate me—though they don't hate anybody."
"You've got me, Hetty! We must go away and be married. We'd better go to-night to the minister in Albion."
"What if he wouldn't do it?"
"Why shouldn't he? Shakers take no vows, though I feel bound, hand and foot, out of gratitude. If any other two young folks went to him, he would marry them; and if he refuses, there are two other ministers in Albion, besides two more in Buryfield, five miles farther. If they won't marry us to-night, I'll leave you in some safe home and we'll walk to Portland to-morrow. I'm young and strong, and I know I can earn our living somehow."
"But we haven't the price of a lodging or a breakfast between us," Hetty said tearfully."Would it be sinful to take some of my basket-work and send back the money next week?"
"Yee, it would be so," Nathan answered sternly. "The least we can do is to go away as empty-handed as we came. I can work for our breakfast."
"Oh, I can't bear to disappoint Eldress Abby," cried Hetty, breaking anew into tears. "She'll say we've run away to live on the lower plane after agreeing to crucify Nature and follow the angelic life!"
"I know; but there are five hundred people in Albion all living in marriage, and we shan't be the only sinners!" Nathan argued. "Oh, Sister Hetty, dear Hetty, keep up your spirits and trust to me!"
Nathan's hand stole out and met Hetty's in its warm clasp, the first hand touch that the two ignorant young creatures had ever felt. Nathan's knowledge of life had been a journey to the Canterbury Shakers in New Hampshire with Brother Issachar; Hetty's was limited toa few drives into Albion village, and half a dozen chats with the world's people who came to the Settlement to buy basket-work.
"I am not able to bear the Shaker life!" sighed Nathan. "Elder Gray allows there be such!"
"Nor I," murmured Hetty. "Eldress Harriet knows I am no saint!"
Hetty's head was now on Nathan's shoulder. The stiff Shaker cap had resisted bravely, but the girl's head had yielded to the sweet proximity. Youth called to youth triumphantly; the Spirit was unheard, and all the theories of celibacy and the angelic life that had been poured into their ears vanished into thin air. The thick shade of the spruce tree hid the kiss that would have been so innocent, had they not given themselves to the Virgin Church; the drip, drip, drip of the branches on their young heads passed unheeded.
Then, one following the other silently along the highroad, hurrying along in the shadowsof the tall trees, stealing into the edge of the woods, or hiding behind a thicket of alders at the fancied sound of a footstep or the distant rumble of a wagon, Nathan and Hetty forsook the faith of Mother Ann and went out into the world as Adam and Eve left the garden, with the knowledge of good and evil implanted in their hearts. The voice of Eldress Abby pursued Hetty in her flight like the voice in a dream. She could hear its clear impassioned accents, saying, "The children of this world marry; but the children of the resurrection do not marry, for they are as the angels." The solemn tones grew fainter and fainter as Hetty's steps led her farther and farther away from the quiet Shaker village and its drab-clad Sisters, and at last they almost died into silence, because Nathan's voice was nearer and Nathan's voice was dearer.
CONCERNING BACKSLIDERS
Therewas no work in the herb-garden now, but there was never a moment from dawn till long after dusk when the busy fingers of the Shaker Sisters were still. When all else failed there was the knitting: socks for the Brothers and stockings for the Sisters and socks and stockings of every size for the children. One of the quaint sights of the Settlement to Susanna was the clump of young Sisters on the porch of the girls' building, knitting, knitting, in the afternoon sun. Even little Shaker Jane and Mary, Maria and Lucinda, had their socks in hand, and plied their short knitting-needles soberly and not unskillfully.The sight of their industry incited the impetuous Sue to effort, and under the patient tutelage of Sister Martha she mastered the gentle art. Susanna never forgot the hour when, coming from her work in the seed-room, she crossed the grass with a message to Martha, and saw the group of children and girls on the western porch, a place that caught every ray of afternoon sun, the last glint of twilight, and the first hint of sunset glow. Sister Martha had been reading the Sabbath-school lesson for the next day, and as Susanna neared the building, Martha's voice broke into a hymn. Falteringly the girls' voices followed the lead, uncertain at first of words or tune, but gaining courage and strength as they went on:—
"As the waves of the mighty oceanGospel love we will circulate,And as we give, in due proportion,We of the heavenly life partake.Heavenly Life, Glorious Life,Resurrecting, Soul-Inspiring,Re-gen-er-a-ting Gospel Life,It leadeth away from all sin and strife!"
"As the waves of the mighty oceanGospel love we will circulate,And as we give, in due proportion,We of the heavenly life partake.Heavenly Life, Glorious Life,Resurrecting, Soul-Inspiring,Re-gen-er-a-ting Gospel Life,It leadeth away from all sin and strife!"
The clear, innocent treble sounded sweetly in the virgin stillness and solitude of the Settlement, and as Susanna drew closer she stopped under a tree to catch the picture—Sister Martha, grave, tall, discreet, singing with all her soul and marking time with her hands, so accustomed to the upward and downward movement of the daily service. The straight, plain dresses were as fresh and smooth as perfect washing could make them, and the round childlike faces looked quaint and sweet with the cropped hair tucked under the stiff little caps. Sue was seated with Mary and Jane on the steps, and Susanna saw with astonishment that her needles were moving to and fro and she was knitting as serenely and correctly as a mother in Israel; singing, too, in a delicate little treble that was like a skylark's morning note. Susanna could hear her distinctly as she delightedly flung out the long words so dearto her soul and so difficult to dull little Jane and Mary:—
"Res-ur-rect-ing, Soul-In-spir-ing,Re-gen-er-a-ting Gospel Life,It lead-eth a-way from all sin and strife."
"Res-ur-rect-ing, Soul-In-spir-ing,Re-gen-er-a-ting Gospel Life,It lead-eth a-way from all sin and strife."
Jane's cap was slightly unsettled, causing its wearer to stop knitting now and then and pull it forward or push it back; and in one of these little feminine difficulties Susanna saw Sue reach forward and deftly transfer the cap to her own head. Jane was horrified, but rather slow to wrath and equally slow in ingenuity. Sue looked a delicious Shaker with her delicate face, her lovely eyes, and her yellow hair grown into soft rings; and quite intoxicated with her cap, her knitting, and the general air of holiness so unexpectedly emanating from her, she moved her little hands up and down, as the tune rose and fell, in a way that would have filled Eldress Abby with joy. Susanna's heart beat fast, and she wondered for a moment, as she went back to her room, whether she couldever give Sue a worldly childhood more free from danger than the life she was now living. She found letters from Aunt Louisa and Jack on reaching her room, and they lay in her lap under a pile of towels, to be read and reread while her busy needle flew over the coarse crash. Sue stole in quietly, kissed her mother's cheek, and sat down on her stool by the window, marveling, with every "under" of the needle and "over" of the yarn, that it was she, Sue Hathaway, who was making a real stocking.
Jack's pen was not that of an especially ready writer, but he had a practical way of conveying considerable news. His present contributions, when freed from their phonetic errors and spelled in Christian fashion, read somewhat as follows:—
Father says I must write to you every week, even if I make him do without, so I will. I am well, and so is Aunt Louisa, and any boy thatlives with her has to toe the mark, I tell you; but she is good and has fine things to eat every meal. What did Sue get for her birthday? I got a book from father and one from Aunt Louisa and the one from you that you told her to buy. It is queer that people will give a boy books when he has only one knife, and that a broken one. There's a book prize to be given at the school, and I am pretty afraid I will get that, too; it would be just my luck. Teachers think about nothing but books and what good they do, but I heard of a boy that had a grand knife with five sharp blades and a corkscrew, and in a shipwreck he cut all the ropes, so the sail came down that was carrying them on to the rocks, and then by boring a hole with his corkscrew all the water leaked out of the ship that had been threatening to sink the sailors. I could use a little pocket money, as Aunt Louisa keeps me short.... I have been spending Sunday with father, and had a pretty good time, not so very. Father will take meabout more when he stops going to the store, which will be next week for good. The kitchen floor is new painted, and Ellen says it sticks, and Aunt Louisa is going to make Ellen clean house in case you come home. Do you like where you are? Our teacher told the girls' teacher it seemed a long stay for any one who had a family, and the boys at school call me a half orphan and say my mother has left me and so my father has to board me in the country. My money is run out again. I sat down in a puddle this afternoon, but it dried up pretty quick and didn't hurt my clothes, so no more from your sonJack.
Father says I must write to you every week, even if I make him do without, so I will. I am well, and so is Aunt Louisa, and any boy thatlives with her has to toe the mark, I tell you; but she is good and has fine things to eat every meal. What did Sue get for her birthday? I got a book from father and one from Aunt Louisa and the one from you that you told her to buy. It is queer that people will give a boy books when he has only one knife, and that a broken one. There's a book prize to be given at the school, and I am pretty afraid I will get that, too; it would be just my luck. Teachers think about nothing but books and what good they do, but I heard of a boy that had a grand knife with five sharp blades and a corkscrew, and in a shipwreck he cut all the ropes, so the sail came down that was carrying them on to the rocks, and then by boring a hole with his corkscrew all the water leaked out of the ship that had been threatening to sink the sailors. I could use a little pocket money, as Aunt Louisa keeps me short.... I have been spending Sunday with father, and had a pretty good time, not so very. Father will take meabout more when he stops going to the store, which will be next week for good. The kitchen floor is new painted, and Ellen says it sticks, and Aunt Louisa is going to make Ellen clean house in case you come home. Do you like where you are? Our teacher told the girls' teacher it seemed a long stay for any one who had a family, and the boys at school call me a half orphan and say my mother has left me and so my father has to board me in the country. My money is run out again. I sat down in a puddle this afternoon, but it dried up pretty quick and didn't hurt my clothes, so no more from your son
Jack.
This was the sort of message that had been coming to Susanna of late, bringing up little pictures of home duties and responsibilities, homely tasks and trials. "John giving up the store for good"; what did that mean? Had he gone from bad to worse in the solitude thatshe had hoped might show him the gravity of his offenses, the error of his ways? In case she should die, what then would become of the children? Would Louisa accept the burden of Jack, for whom she had never cared? Would the Shakers take Sue? She would be safe; perhaps she would always be happy; but brother and sister would be divided and brought up as strangers. Would little Sue, grown to big Sue, say some time or other, "My mother renounced the world for herself, but what right had she to renounce it for me? Why did she rob me of the dreams of girlhood and the natural hopes of women, when I was too young to give consent?" These and other unanswerable questions continually drifted through Susanna's mind, disturbing its balance and leaving her like a shuttlecock bandied to and fro between conflicting blows.
"Mardie," came a soft little voice from across the room; "Mardie, what is a backslider?"
"Where did you hear that long word, Sue?" asked Susanna, rousing herself from her dream.
"'Tisn't so long as 'regenerating' and more easier."
"Regenerating means 'making over,' you know."
"There'd ought to be children's words and grown-up words,—that's whatIthink," said Sue, decisively; "but what does 'backslider' mean?"
"A backslider is one who has been climbing up a hill and suddenly begins to slip back."
"Doesn't his feet take hold right, or why does he slip?"
"Perhaps he can't manage his feet; perhaps they just won't climb."
"Yes, or p'raps he just doesn't want to climb any more; but it must be frightensome, sliding backwards."
"I suppose it is."
"Is it wicked?"
"Why, yes, it is, generally; perhaps always."
"Brother Nathan and Sister Hetty were backsliders; Sister Tabitha said so. She told Jane never to speak their names again any more than if they was dead."
"Then you had better not speak of them, either."
"There's so many things better not to speak of in the world, sometimes I think 'twould be nicer to be an angel."
"Nicer, perhaps, but one has to be very good to be an angel."
"Backsliders couldn't be angels, I s'pose?"
"Not while they were backsliders; but perhaps they'd begin to climb again, and then in time they might grow to be angels."
"I shouldn't think likely," remarked Sue, decisively, clicking her needles as one who could settle most spiritual problems in a jiffy. "I think the sliding kind is diff'rent from the climbing kind, and they don't make easy angels."
A long pause followed this expression ofopinion, this simple division of the human race, at the start, into sheep and goats. Then presently the untiring voice broke the stillness again.
"Nathan and Hetty slid back when they went away from here. Did we backslide when we left Fardie and Jack?"
"I'm not sure but that we did," said poor Susanna.
"There's children-Shakers, and brother-and-sister Shakers, but no father-and-mother Shakers?"
"No; they think they can do just as much good in the world without being mothers and fathers."
"Do you think so?"
"Ye-es, I believe I do."
"Well, are you a truly Shaker, or can't you be till you wear a cap?"
"I'm not a Shaker yet, Sue."
"You're just only a mother?"
"Yes, that's about all."
"Maybe we'd better go back to where there'snot so many Sisters and more mothers, so you'll have somebody to climb togedder with?"
"I could climb here, Sue, and so could you."
"Yes, but who'll Fardie and Jack climb with? I wish they'd come and see us. Brother Ansel would make Fardie laugh, and Jack would love farm-work, and we'd all be so happy. I miss Fardie awfully! He didn't speak to me much, but I liked to look at his curly hair and think how lovely it would be if he did take notice of me and play with me."
A sob from Susanna brought Sue, startled, to her side.
"You break my heart, Sue! You break it every day with the things you say. Don't you love me, Sue?"
"More'n tongue can tell!" cried Sue, throwing herself into her mother's arms. "Don't cry, darling Mardie! I won't talk any more, not for days and days! Let me wipe your poor eyes. Don't let Elder Gray see you crying, or he'll think I've been naughty. He's just goingin downstairs to see Eldress Abby. Was it wrong what I said about backsliding, or what, Mardie? We'll help each udder climb, an' then we'll go home an' help poor lonesome Fardie; shall we?"
"Abby!" called Elder Gray, stepping into the entry of the Office Building.
"Yee, I'm coming," Eldress Abby answered from the stairway. "Go right out and sit down on the bench by the door, where I can catch a few minutes more light for my darning; the days seem to be growing short all to once. Did Lemuel have a good sale of basket-work at the mountains? Rosetta hasn't done so well for years at Old Orchard. We seem to be prospering in every material direction, Daniel, but my heart is heavy somehow, and I have to be instant in prayer to keep from discouragement."
"It hasn't been an altogether good year with us spiritually," confessed Daniel; "perhaps we needed chastening."
"If we needed it, we've received it," Abby ejaculated, as she pushed her darning-ball into the foot of a stocking. "Nothing has happened since I came here thirty years ago that has troubled me like the running away of Nathan and Hetty. If they had been new converts, we should have thought the good seed hadn't got fairly rooted, but those children were brought to us when Nathan was eleven and Hetty nine."
"I well remember, for the boy's father and the girl's mother came on the same train; a most unusual occurrence to receive two children in one day."
"I have cause to remember Hetty in her first month, for she was as wild as a young hawk. She laughed in meeting the first Sunday, and when she came back, I told her to sit behind me in silence for half an hour while I was reading my Bible. 'Be still now, Hetty, and labor to repent,' I said. When the time was up, she said in a meek little mite of a voice, 'I think I'm least in the Kingdom now. Eldress Abby!''Then run outdoors,' I said. She kicked up her heels like a colt and was through the door in a second. Not long afterwards I put my hands behind me to tie my apron tighter, and if that child hadn't taken my small scissors lying on the table and cut buttonholes all up and down my strings, hundreds of them, while she was 'laboring to repent.'"
Elder Gray smiled reminiscently, though he had often heard the story before. "Neither of the children came from godly families," he said, "but at least the parents never interfered with us nor came here putting false ideas into their children's heads."
"That's what I say," continued Abby; "and now, after ten years' training and discipline in the angelic life, Hetty being especially promising, to think of their going away together, and worse yet, being married in Albion village right at our very doors; I don't hardly dare to go to bed nights for fear of hearing in the morning that some of the other young folks have beenled astray by this foolish performance of Hetty's; I know it was Hetty's fault; Nathan never had ingenuity enough to think and plan it all out."
"Nay, nay, Abby, don't be too hard on the girl; I've watched Nathan closely, and he has been in a dangerous and unstable state, even as long ago as his last confession; but this piece of backsliding, grievous as it is, doesn't cause me as much sorrow as the fall of Brother Ephraim. To all appearance he had conquered his appetite, and for five years he has led a sober life. I had even great hopes of him for the ministry, and suddenly, like a great cloud in the blue sky, has come this terrible visitation, this reappearance of the old Adam. 'Ephraim has returned to his idols.'"
"How have you decided to deal with him, Daniel?"
"It is his first offense since he cast in his lot with us; we must rebuke, chastise, and forgive."
"Yee, yee, I agree to that; but how if he makes us the laughing-stock of the communityand drags our sacred banner in the dust? We can't afford to have one of our order picked up in the streets by the world's people."
"Have the world's people found an infallible way to keep those oftheirorder out of the gutters?" asked Elder Gray. "Ephraim seems repentant; if he is willing to try again, we must be willing to do as much."
"Yee, Daniel, you are right. Another matter that causes me anxiety is Susanna. I never yearned for a soul as I yearn for hers! She has had the advantage of more education and more reading than most of us have ever enjoyed; she's gifted in teaching and she wins the children. She's discreet and spiritually minded; her life in the world, even with the influence of her dissipated husband, hasn't really stained, only humbled her; she would make such a Shaker, if she was once 'convinced,' as we haven't gathered in for years and years; but I fear she's slipping, slipping away, Daniel!"
"What makes you feel so now, particularly?"
"She's diff'rent as time goes on. She's had more letters from that place where her boy is; she cries nights, and though she doesn't relax a mite with her work, she drags about sometimes like a bird with one wing."
Elder Daniel took off his broad-brimmed hat to cool his forehead and hair, lifting his eyes to the first pale stars that were trembling in the sky, hesitating in silver and then quietly deepening into gold.
Brother Ansel was a Believer because he had no particular love for the world and no great susceptibility to its temptations; but what had drawn Daniel Gray from the open sea into this quiet little backwater of a Shaker Settlement?
After an adventurous early life, in which, as if youth-intoxicated, he had plunged from danger to danger, experience to experience, he suddenly found himself in a society of whichhe had never so much as heard, a company of celibate brothers and sisters holding all goods and possessions in common, and trying to live the "angelic life" on earth. Illness detained him for a month against his will, but at the end of that time he had joined the Community; and although it had been twenty-five years since his gathering in, he was still steadfast in the faith.
His character was of puritanical sternness; he was a strict disciplinarian, and insisted upon obedience to the rules of Shaker life, "the sacred laws of Zion," as he was wont to term them. He magnified his office, yet he was of a kindly disposition easily approached by children, and not without a quaint old-time humor.
There was a long pause while the two faithful leaders of the little flock were absorbed in thought; then the Elder said: "Susanna's all you say, and the child,—well, if she could be purged of her dross, I never saw a creaturebetter fitted to live the celestial life; but we must not harbor any divided hearts here. When the time comes, we must dismiss her with our blessing."
"Yee, I suppose so," said Eldress Abby, loyally, but it was with a sigh. Had she and Tabitha been left to their own instincts, they would have gone out into the highways and hedges, proselyting with the fervor of Mother Ann's day and generation.
"After all, Abby," said the Elder, rising to take his leave, still in a sort of mild trance,—"after all, Abby, I suppose the Shakers don't own the whole of heaven. I'd like to think so, but I can't. It's a big place, and it belongs to God."