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diff --git a/old/wy2pc10.txt b/old/wy2pc10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7575b68 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wy2pc10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1797 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext The Way to Peace, by Margaret Deland + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +*It must legally be the first thing seen when opening the book.* +In fact, our legal advisors said we can't even change margins. + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +The Way to Peace + +by Margaret Deland + + + + +TO LORIN DELAND + +KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE AUGUST 12TH, 1910 + + + + +I + +ATHALIA HALL stopped to get her breath and look back over the road +climbing steeply up from the covered bridge. It was a little after five, +and the delicate air of dawn was full of wood and pasture scents-- +the sweetness of bay and the freshness of dew-drenched leaves. +In the valley night still hung like gauze under the trees, but the top +of the hill was glittering with sunshine. + +"Why, we've hardly come halfway!" she said. + +Her husband, plodding along behind her, nodded ruefully. +"Hardly," he said. + +In her slim prettiness Athalia Hall looked like a girl, but she +was thirty-four. Part of the girlishness lay in the smoothness +of her white forehead and in the sincere intensity of her gaze. +She wore a blue linen dress, and there was a little, soft, blue scarf +under her chin; her white hat, with pink roses and loops +of gray-blue ribbon, shadowed eager, unhumorous eyes, the color +of forget-me-nots. Her husband was her senior by several years-- +a large, loose-limbed man, with a scholarly face and mild, +calm eyes--eyes that were full of a singular tenacity of purpose. +Just now his face showed the fatigue of the long climb up-hill; +and when his wife, stopping to look back over the glistening tops +of the birches, said, "I believe it's half a mile to the top yet!" +he agreed, breathlessly. "Hard work!" he said. + +"It will be worth it when I get to the top and can see the view!" +she declared, and began to climb again. + +"All the same, this road will be mighty hot when the sun gets full +on it," her husband said; and added, anxiously, "I wish I had made +you rest in the station until train-time." She flung out her hands +with an exclamation: "Rest! I hate rest!" + +"Hold on, and I'll give you a stick," he called to her; +"it's a help when you're climbing." He pulled down a slender +birch, and, setting his foot on it, broke it off at the root. +She stopped, with an impatient gesture, and waited while he tore +off handfuls of leaves and whittled away the side-shoots. + + +"Do hurry, Lewis!" she said. + +They had left their train at five o'clock in the morning, and had +been sitting in the frowsy station, sleepily awaiting the express, +when Athalia had had this fancy for climbing the hill so that she +might see the view. + +"It looks pretty steep," her husband warned her. + +"It will be something to do, anyhow!" she said; and added, +with a restless sigh, "but you don't understand that, I suppose." + +"I guess I do--after a fashion," he said, smiling at her. +It was only in love's fashion, for really he was incapable +of quite understanding her. To the country lawyer of sober +piety and granite sense of duty, the rich variety of her moods +was a continual wonder and sometimes a painful bewilderment. +But whether he understood the impetuous inconsequence of her +temperament "after a fashion," or whether he failed entirely +to follow the complexity of her thought, he met all her fancies +with a sort of tender admiration. People said that Squire Hall +was henpecked; they also said that he had married beneath him. +His father had been a judge and his grandfather a minister; +he himself was a graduate of a fresh-water college, which later, +when he published his exegesis on the Prophet Daniel, had conferred +its little degree upon him and felt that he was a "distinguished son." +With such a lineage he might have done better, people said, +than to marry that girl, who was the most fickle creature +and no housekeeper, and whose people--this they told one another +in reserved voices--were PLAY-ACTORS! Athalia's mother, who had +been the "play-actor," had left her children an example of duty-- +domestic as well as professional duty--faithfully done. +As she did not leave anything else, Athalia added nothing +to the Hall fortune; but Lewis's law practice, which was +hardly more than conveyancing now and then, was helped out +by a sawmill which the Halls had owned for two generations. +So, as things were, they were able to live in humdrum prosperity +which gave Lewis plenty of time to browse about among his +grandfather's old theological books, and by-and-by to become +a very sound Hebrew scholar, and spared Athalia much wholesome +occupation which would have been steadying to her eager nature. +She was one of those people who express every passing emotion, +as a flower expresses each wind that sways it upon its stalk. +But with expression the emotion ended. + +"But she isn't fickle," Lewis had defended her once to a privileged +relation who had made the accusation, basing it on the fact that Athalia +had sewed her fingers off for the Missionary Society one winter and done +nothing the next--"Athalia ISN'T fickle," Lewis explained; "fickle people +are insincere. Athalia is perfectly sincere, but she is temporary; +that's all. Anyway, she wants to do something else this winter, +and 'Thalia must have her head." + +"Your head's better than hers, young man," the venturesome +relative insisted. + +"But it must be her head and not mine, Aunty, when it comes +to doing what she thinks is right, even if it's wrong," +he said, smiling. + +"Well, tell her she's a little fool!" cried the old lady, viciously. + +"You can't do that with 'Thalia," Lewis explained, patiently, "because it +would make her unhappy. She takes everything so dreadfully hard; +she feels things more than other people do." + +"Lewis," said the little, old, wrinkled, privileged great-aunt, +"think a little less of her feelings and a little more of your own, +or you'll make a mess of things." + +Lewis Hall was too respectful to tell the old lady what +he thought of such selfish advice; he merely did not act +upon it. Instead, he went on giving a great deal of thought +to Athalia's "feelings." That was why he and she were climbing +the hill in the dewy silence of this August morning. +Athalia had "felt" that she wanted to see the view--though it +would have been better for her to have rested in the station, +Lewis thought;--("I ought to have coaxed her out of it," +he reproached himself.) It certainly was a hard walk, +considering that it followed a broken night in the sleeping-car. +They had left the train at five o'clock in the morning, +and were sitting in the station awaiting the express +when Athalia had had this impulse to climb the hill. +"It looks pretty steep," Lewis objected; and she flung out +her hands with an impatient gesture. + +"I love to climb!" she said. So here they were, almost at the top, +panting and toiling, Athalia's skirts wet with dew, and Lewis's face +drawn with fatigue. + +"Look!" she said; "it's all open! We can sit down and see all over +the world!" She left the road, springing lightly through the fringing +bay and briers toward an open space on the hillside. "There is a gate +in the wall!" she called out; "it seems to be some sort of enclosure. +Lewis, help me to open the gate! Hurry! What a queer place! +What do you suppose it is?" + +The gate opened into a little field bounded by a stone wall; +the grass had been lately mowed, and the stubble, glistening with dew, +showed the curving swaths of the scythe; across it, in even lines +from wall to wall, were rows of small stakes painted black. +Here and there were faint depressions, low, green cradles in the grass; +each depression was marked at the head and foot by these iron stakes, +hardly higher than the stubble itself. + +"Shakers' graveyard, I guess," Lewis said; "I've heard that they +don't use gravestones. Peaceful place, isn't it?" + +Her vivid face was instantly grave. "Very peaceful! Oh," she added, +as they sat down in the shadow of a pine, "don't you sometimes want +to lie down and sleep--deep down in the grass and flowers?" + +"Well," he confessed, "I don't believe it would be as interesting +as walking round on top of them." + +She looked at him in despair. + +"Come, now," he defended himself, "you don't take much to peace +yourself at home." + +"You don't understand!" she said, passionately. + +"There, there, little Tay," he said, smiling, and putting a soothing +hand on hers; "I guess I do--after a fashion." + +It was very still; below them the valley had suddenly brimmed +with sunshine that flickered and twinkled on the birch leaves +or shimmered on sombre stretches of pine and spruce. Close at hand, +pennyroyal grew thick in the shadow of the wall; and just beyond, +mullen candles cast slender bars of shade across the grass. +The sunken graves and the lines of iron markers lay before them. + +"How quiet it is!" she said, in a whisper. + +"I guess I'll smoke," Lewis said, and scratched a match on his trousers. + +"How can you!" she protested; "it is profane!" + +He gave her an amused look, but lighted his cigar and smoked dreamily +for a minute; then he drew a long breath. "I was pretty tired," he said, +and turned to glance back at the road. A horse and cart were coming in at +the open gate; the elderly driver, singing to himself, drew up abruptly +at the sight of the two under the pine-tree, then drove toward them, +the wheels of the cart jolting cheerfully over the cradling graves. +He had a sickle in his hand, and as he clambered down from the seat, +he said, with friendly curiosity: + +"You folks are out early, for the world's people." + +"Is this a graveyard?" Athalia demanded, impetuously. + +"Yee," he said, smiling; "it's our burial-place; we're Shakers." + +"But why are there just the stakes--without names?" + +"Why should there be names?" he said, whimsically; "they have +new names now." + +"Where is your community? Can we go and visit it?" + +"Yee; but we're not much to see," he said; "just men and women, like you. +Only we're happy. I guess that's all the difference." + +"But what a difference!" she exclaimed; and Lewis smiled. + +"I've come up for pennyroyal," the Shaker explained, sociably; "it grows +thick round here." + +"Tell me about the Shakers," Athalia pleaded. "What do you believe?" + +"Well," he said, a simple shrewdness glimmering in his brown eyes, +"if you go to the Trustees' House, down there in the valley, +Eldress Hannah'll tell you all about us. And the sisters have +baskets and pretty truck to sell--things the world's people like. +Go and ask the Eldress what we believe, and she'll show +you the baskets." + +She turned eagerly to her husband. "Never mind the ten-o'clock +train, Lewis. Let us go!" + +"We could take a later train, all right," he admitted, "but--" + +"Oh, PLEASE!" she entreated, joyously. "We'll help you pick pennyroyal," +she added to the Shaker. + +But this he would not allow. "I doubt you'd be careful enough," +he said, mildly; "Sister Lydia was the only female I ever knew +who could pick herbs." + +"Do you get paid for the work you do?" Athalia asked, practically. +Lewis flushed at the boldness of such a question, but the +old man chuckled. + +"Should I pay myself?" he asked. + +"You own everything in common, don't you?" Lewis said. + +"Yee," said the Shaker; "we're all brothers and sisters. +Nobody tries to get ahead of anybody else." + +"And you don't believe in marriage?" Athalia asserted. + +"We are as the angels of God," he said, simply. + +He left them and began to sickle his herbs, with the cheerfully +obvious purpose of escaping further interruption. + +Athalia instantly bubbled over with questions, but Lewis could +tell her hardly more of the Shakers than she knew already. + +"No, it isn't free love," he said; "they're decent enough. +They believe in general love, not particular, I suppose. . . . 'Thalia, +do you think it's worth while to wait over a train just to +see the settlement?" + +"Of course it is! He said they were happy; I would like to see +what kind of life makes people happy." + +He looked at the lighted end of his cigar and smiled, +but he said nothing. Afterward, as they followed the cart across +the field and out into the road, Athalia asked the old herb-gatherer +many questions about the happiness of the community life, +which he answered patiently enough. Once or twice he tried +to draw into their talk the silent husband who walked at her side, +but Lewis had nothing to say. Only when some reference was made +to one of the Prophecies did he look up in sudden interest. +"You take that to mean the Judgment, do you?" he said. +And for the rest of the walk to the settlement the two men discussed +the point, the Shaker walking with one hand on the heavy shaft, +for the support it gave him, and Lewis keeping step with him. + +At the foot of the hill the road widened into a grassy street, +on both sides of which, under the elms and maples, were the +community houses, big and substantial, but gauntly plain; +their yellow paint, flaking and peeling here and there, +shone clean and fresh in the sparkle of morning. Except for a black +cat whose fur glistened like jet, dozing on a white doorstep, +the settlement, steeped in sunshine, showed no sign of life. +There was a strange remoteness from time about the place; +a sort of emptiness, and a silence that silenced even Athalia. + +"Where IS everybody?" she said, in a lowered voice; as she spoke, +a child in a blue apron came from an open doorway and tugged a basket +across the street. + +"Are there children here?" Lewis asked, surprised; and their +guide said, sadly: + +"Not as many as there ought to be. The new school laws have made +a great difference. We've only got two. Folks used to send 'em +to us to bring up; oftentimes they stayed on after they were of age. +Sister Lydia came that way. Well, well, she tired of us, Lydy did, +poor girl! She went back into the world twenty years ago, now. +And Sister Jane, she was a bound-out child, too," he rambled on; +"she came here when she was six; she's seventy now." + +"What!" Lewis exclaimed; "has she never known anything but--this?" + +His shocked tone did not disturb the old man. +"Want to see my herb-house?" he said. "Guess you'll find +some of the sisters in the sorting-room. I'm Nathan Dale," +he added, courteously. + +They had come to the open door of a great, weather-beaten building, +from whose open windows an aromatic breath wandered out into +the summer air. As they crossed the worn threshold, Athalia stopped +and caught her breath in the overpowering scent of drying herbs; +then they followed Brother Nathan up a shaky flight of steps to the loft. +Here some elderly women, sitting on low benches, were sorting over +great piles of herbs in silence--the silence, apparently, of peace +and meditation. Two of them were dressed like world's people, +but the others wore small gray shoulder-capes buttoned to their chins, +and little caps of white net stretched smoothly over wire frames; +the narrow shirrings inside the frames fitted so close to their peaceful, +wrinkled foreheads that no hair could be seen. + +"I wish I could sit and sort herbs!" Athalia said, under her breath. + +Brother Nathan chuckled. "For how long?" he asked; and then +introduced her to the three workers, who greeted her calmly +and went on sorting their herbs. The loft was dark and cool; +the window-frames, in which there were no sashes, opened wide +on the still August fields and woods; the occasional brief words +of the sorting-women seemed to drop into a pool of fragrant silence. +The two visitors followed Brother Nathan down the room between +piles of sorted herbs, and out into the sunshine again. +Athalia drew a breath of ecstasy. + +"It's all so beautifully tranquil!" she whispered, looking about +her with blue, excited eyes. + +"Tay and tranquillity!" Lewis said, with an amused laugh. + +But as they went along the grassy street this sense +of tranquillity closed about them like a palpable peace. +Now and then they stopped and spoke to some one--always an +elderly person; and in each old face the experiences that life +writes in unerasable lines about eyes and lips were hidden +by a veil of calmness that was curiously unhuman. + +"It isn't canny, exactly," Lewis told his wife, in a low voice. +But she did not seem to hear him. She asked many questions +of Eldress Hannah, who had taken them in charge, and once +or twice she burst into impetuous appreciation of the idea +of brotherhood, and even of certain theological principles-- +which last diverted her husband very much. Eldress Hannah showed +them the dairy, and the work-room, and all there was to see, +with a patient hospitality that kept them at an infinite distance. +She answered Lewis's questions about the community with +a sad directness. + +"Yee; there are not many of us now. The world's people say we're +dying out. But the Lord will preserve the remnant to redeem +the world, young man. Yee; when they come in from the world +they cast their possessions into the whole; we own nothing, +for ourselves. Nay; we don't have many come. Brother William +was the last. Why did he come?" She looked coldly at Athalia, +who had asked the question. "Because he saw the way to peace. +He'd had strife enough in the world. Yee," she admitted, briefly, +"some fall from grace, and leave us. The last was Lydia. +She was one of our children, and I thought she was of the chosen. +But she was only thirty when she fell away, and you can't +expect wisdom at that age. That was nearly twenty years ago. +When she has tasted the dregs of the world she will come back to us-- +if she lives," Eldress Hannah ended. + +Athalia listened breathlessly, her rapt, unhumorous eyes fixed +on Eldress Hannah's still face. Now and then she asked a question, +and once cried out that, after all, why wasn't it the way to live? +Peace and self-sacrifice and love! "Oh," she said, +turning to her husband, "can't you feel the attraction of it? +I should think even you could feel it!" + +"I think I feel it--after a fashion," he said, mildly; "I think +I have always felt the attraction of community life." + +Afterward, when they had left all this somnolent peace and begun +the long walk back to the station, he explained what he meant: +"I couldn't say so before the Eldress, but of course there are times +when anybody can feel the charm of getting rid of personal responsibility-- +and that is what community life really means. It's the relief +of being a little cog in a big machine; in fact, the very attraction +of it is a sort of temptation, to my way of looking at it. +But it--well, it made me sleepy," he confessed. + +For once his wife had no reply. She was very quiet on that return +journey in the cars, and in the days that followed she kept referring +to their visit with a persistence that surprised her husband. +She thought the net caps were beautiful; she thought the exquisite +cleanness of everything was like a perfume--"the perfume of a wild rose!" +she said, ecstatically. She thought the having everything in common +was the way to live. "And just think how peaceful it is!" + +"Well, yes," Lewis said; "I suppose it's peaceful--after a fashion. +Anything that isn't alive is peaceful." + +"But their idea of brotherhood is the highest kind of life!" + +"The only fault I have to find with it is that it isn't human," +he said, mildly. He had no desire to prove or disprove anything; +Athalia was looking better, just because she was interested +in something, and that was enough for Lewis. When she proposed to read +a book on Shakerism aloud, he fell into her mood with what was, +for him, enthusiasm; he declared he would like nothing better, +and he put his daily paper aside without a visible regret. + +"Well," he admitted, "I must say there's more to it than I supposed. +They've studied the Prophecies; that's evident. And they're not narrow +in their belief. They're really Unitarians." + +"Narrow?" she said--"they are as wide as heaven itself! +And, oh, the peace of it!" + +"But they are NOT human," he would insist, smiling; "no marriage-- +that's not human, little Tay." + +It was not until two months later that he began to feel +vaguely uneasy. "Yes; it's interesting," he admitted; +"but nobody in these days would want to be a Shaker." +To which she replied, boldly, "Why not?" + +That was all, but it was enough. Lewis Hall's face suddenly sobered. +He had not stumbled along behind her in all her emotional experiences +without learning to read the guide-posts to her thought. +"I hope she'll get through with it soon," he said to himself, +with a worried frown; "it isn't wholesome for a mind like 'Thalia's +to dwell on this kind of thing." + +It was in November that she broke to him that she had written +Eldress Hannah to ask if she might come and visit the community, +and had been answered "Yee." + +Lewis was silent with consternation; he went out to the sawmill +and climbed up into the loft to think it all out alone. +Should he forbid it? He knew that was nonsense; in the first place, +his conception of the relation of husband and wife did not include +that kind of thing; but more than that, opposition would, he said +to himself, "push her in." Not into Shakerism; "'Thalia couldn't +be a Shaker to save her life," he thought, with an involuntary smile; +but into an excited discontent with her comfortable, prosaic life. +No; definite opposition to the visit must not be thought of--but he must +try and persuade her not to go. How? What plea could he offer? +His own loneliness without her he could not bring himself to speak of; +he shrank from taking what seemed to him an advantage. +He might urge that she would find it cold and uncomfortable in those old +frame houses high up on the hills; or that it would be bad for her +health to take the rather wearing journey at this time of year. +But he knew too well how little effect any such prudent counsels +would have. The very fact that her interest had lasted for more +than three months showed that it had really struck roots into +her mind, and mere prudence would not avail much. Still, he would +urge prudence; then, if she was determined, she must go. +"She'll get sick of it in a fortnight," he said; but for the present +he must let her have her head, even if she was making a mistake. +She had a right to have her head, he reminded himself--"but I must +tell those people to keep her warm, she takes cold so easily." + +He got up and looked out of the window; below, in the race, +there was a jam of logs, and the air was keen +with the pungent smell of sawdust and new boards. +The whir and thud of the machinery down-stairs sent a faint +quiver through the planks under his feet. "The mill will net +a good profit this year," he said to himself, absently. +"'Thalia can have pretty nearly anything she wants." +And even as he said it he had a sudden, vague misgiving: +if she didn't have everything she wanted, perhaps she would +be happier? But the idea was too new and too subtle to follow up, +so the result of that troubled hour in the mill-chamber was +only that he made no very resolute objection to Athalia's +acceptance of Eldress Hannah's permission to come. +It had been given grudgingly enough. + + +The family were gathered in the sitting-room; they had had their supper-- +the eight elderly women and the three elderly men, all that were left +of the community. The room had the austere and shining cleanness +which Athalia had called a perfume, but it was full of homely comfort. +A blue-and-white rag carpet in the centre left a border of bare floor, +painted pumpkin-yellow; there was a glittering airtight stove with +isinglass windows that shone like square, red eyes; a gay patchwork +cushion in the seat of a rocking-chair was given up to the black cat, +whose sleek fur glistened in the lamplight. Three of the sisters +knitted silently; two others rocked back and forth, their tired, +idle hands in their laps, their eyes closed; the other three yawned, +and spoke occasionally between themselves of their various tasks. +Brother Nathan read his weekly FARMER; Brother William turned over +the leaves of a hymn-book and appeared to count them with noiseless, +moving lips; Brother George cut pictures out of the back of +a magazine, yawning sometimes, and looking often at his watch. +Into this quietness Eldress Hannah's still voice came: + +"I have heard from Lydia again." There was a faint stir, but no +one spoke. "The Lord is dealing with her," Eldress Hannah said; +"she is in great misery." + +Brother George nodded. "That is good; He works in a mysterious way-- +she's real miserable, is she? Well, well; that's good. +The mercies of the Lord are everlasting," he ended, in a satisfied voice, +and began to read again. + +"Amen!--amen!" said Brother William, vaguely. + +"Poor Lydy!" Brother Nathan murmured. + +"And I had another letter," the Eldress proceeded, +"from that young woman who came here in August--Athalia Hall; +do you remember?--she asked two questions to the minute! +She wants to visit us." + +Brother Nathan looked at her over his spectacles, and one of the sisters +opened her eyes. + +"I don't see why she should," Eldress Hannah added. + +Two of the old brothers nodded agreement. + +"The curiosity of the world's people does not help their souls," +said one of the knitters. + +"She thinks we walk in the Way to Peace," said the Eldress. + +"Yee; we do," said Brother George. + +"Shall I tell her 'nay'?" the Eldress questioned, calmly. + +"Yee," said Brother George; and the dozing sisters murmured "Yee." + +"Wait," said Brother Nathan; "her husband--HE has something to him. +Let her come." + +"But if she visited us, how would that affect him?" +Eldress Hannah asked, surprised into faint animation. + +"If she was moved to stay it would affect him," Brother Nathan said, +dryly; "he would come, too, and there are very few of us left, Eldress. +He would be a great gain." + +There was a long silence. Brother William's gray head sagged on +his shoulder, and the hymn-book slipped from his gnarled old hands. +The knitting sisters began, one after another, to stab their needles +into their balls of gray yarn and roll their work up in their aprons. + +"It's getting late, Eldress," one of them said, and glanced +at the clock. + +"Then I'll tell her she may come?" said Eldress Hannah, reluctantly. + +"He can make the wrath of man to praise Him," Brother Nathan +encouraged her. + +"Yee; but I never heard that He could make the foolishness of woman +do it," the old woman said, grimly. + +As the brothers and sisters parted at the door of the sitting-room +Brother Nathan plucked at the Eldress's sleeve; "Is she +very wretched--Lydia? Where is she now, Eldress? Poor Lydy! +poor little Lydy!" + + +The fortnight of Athalia's absence wore greatly upon +her husband. Apprehension lurked in the back of his mind. +In the mill, or out on the farm, or when he sat down among +his shabby, old, calf-skin books, he was assailed by the memory +of all her various fancies during their married life. +Some of them were no more remarkable or unexpected than this +interest in Shakerism. He began to be slowly frightened. +Suppose she should take it into her head--? + +When her fortnight was nearly up and he was already deciding whether, +when he drove over to Depot Corners to meet her, he would take Ginny's +colt or the new mare, a letter came to say she was going to stay +a week longer. + +"I believe," she wrote--her very pen, in the frantic down-hill slope +of her lines, betraying the excitement of her thoughts--"I believe +that for the first time in my life I have found my God!" The letter +was full of dashes and underlining, and on the last page there was +a blistered splash into which the ink had run a little on the edges. + +Lewis Hall's heart contracted with an almost physical pang. +"I must go and get her right off," he said; "this thing is serious!" +And yet, after a wakeful night, he decided, with the extraordinary +respect for her individuality so characteristic of the man-- +a respect that may be called foolish or divine, as you happen +to look at it--he decided not to go. If he dragged her away +from the Shakers against her will, what would be gained? +"I must give her her head, and let her see for herself that it's +all moonshine," he told himself, painfully, over and over; +"my seeing it won't accomplish anything." But he counted +the hours until she would come home. + +When she came, as soon as he saw her walking along the platform looking +for him while he stood with his hand on Ginny's colt's bridle, even before +she had spoken a single word, even then he knew what had happened-- +the uplifted radiance of her face announced it. + +But she did not tell him at once. On the drive home, in the dark +December afternoon, he was tense with apprehension; once or twice +he ventured some questions about the Shakers, but she put them aside +with a curious gentleness, her voice a little distant and monotonous; +her words seemed to come only from the surface of her mind. +When he lifted her out of the sleigh at their own door he felt +a subtle resistance in her whole body; and when, in the hall, +he put his arms about her and tried to kiss her, she drew back +sharply and said: + +"No!--PLEASE!" Then, as they stood there in the chilly entry, she burst +into a passionate explanation: she had been convicted and converted! +She had found her Saviour! She-- + +"There, there, little Tay," he broke in, sadly; "supper is ready, dear." +He heard a smothered exclamation--that it was smothered showed how +completely she was immersed in a new experience, one of the details +of which was the practice of self-control. + +But, of course, that night they had it out. . . . When they came into +the sitting-room after supper she flung the news into his pale face: +_she wished to join the Shakers_. But she must have his consent, +she added, impatiently, because otherwise the Shakers would not +let her come. + +"That's the only thing I don't agree with them about," +she said, candidly; "I don't think they ought to make +anything so solemn contingent upon the 'consent' of any other +human being. But, of course, Lewis, it's only a form. +I have left you in spirit, and that is what counts. +So I told them I knew you would consent." + +She looked at him with those blue, ecstatic eyes, +so oblivious to his pain that for a moment a sort of impersonal +amazement at such self-centredness held him silent. +But after the first shock he spoke with a slow fluency that pierced +Athalia's egotism and stirred an answering astonishment in her. +His weeks of vague misgiving, deepening into keen apprehension, +had given him protests and arguments which, although they +never convinced her, silenced her temporarily. +She had never known her husband in this character. +Of course, she had been prepared for objections and entreaties, +but sound arguments and stern disapproval confused and annoyed her. +She had supposed he would tell her she would break his heart; +instead, he said, calmly, that she hadn't the head for Shakerism. + +"You've got to be very reasonable, 'Thalia, to stand +a community life, or else you've got to be an awful fool. +You are neither one nor the other." + +"I believe their doctrines," she declared, "and I would die +for a religious belief. But I don't suppose you ever felt +that you could die for a thing!" + +"I think I have--after a fashion," he said, mildly; "but dying +for a thing is easy; it's living for it that's hard. +You couldn't keep it up, Athalia; you couldn't live for it." + +Well, of course, that night was only the beginning. The days and weeks +that followed were full of argument, of entreaty, of determination. +Perhaps if he had laughed at her. . . . But it is dangerous +to laugh at unhumorous people, for if they get angry all is lost. +So he never laughed, nor in all their talks did he ever reproach +her for not loving him. Once only his plea was personal-- +and even then it was only indirectly so. + +"Athalia," he said, "there's only one kind of pain in this world +that never gets cured. It's the pain that comes when you remember +that you've made somebody who loved you unhappy--not for a principle, +but for your own pleasure. I know that pain, and I know how it lasts. +Once I did something, just to please myself, that hurt mother's feelings. +I'd give my right hand if I hadn't done it. It's twenty-two years ago, +and I wasn't more than a boy, and she forgave me and forgot all about it. +I have never forgotten it. I wish to God I could! 'Thalia, I don't +want you to suffer that kind of pain." + +She saw the implication rather than the warning, and she +burst out, angrily, that she wasn't doing this for "pleasure"; +she was doing it for principle! It was for the salvation +of her soul! + +"Athalia," he said, solemnly, "the salvation of our souls depends +on doing our duty." + +"Ah!" she broke in, triumphantly, "out of your own lips:-- +isn't it my duty to do what seems to me right?" + +He considered a minute. "Well, yes; I suppose the most valuable +example any one can set is to do what he or she believes +to be right. It may be wrong, but that is not the point. +We must do what we conceive to be our duty. Only, we've got +to be sure, Tay, in deciding upon duty, in deciding what is right,-- +we've got to be sure that self-interest is eliminated. +I don't believe anybody can decide absolutely on what is right +without eliminating self." + +She frowned at this impatiently; its perfect fairness meant +nothing to her. + +"You promised to be my wife," he went on with a curious sternness; "it is +obviously 'right,' and so it is your first duty to keep your promise-- +at least, so long as my conduct does not absolve you from it." +Then he added, hastily, with careful justice: "Of course, I'm not talking +about promises to love; they are nonsense. Nobody can promise to love. +Promises to do our duty are all that count." + +That was the only reproach he made--if it was a reproach-- +for his betrayed love. It was just as well. Discussion on this +subject between husbands and wives is always futile. Nothing was +ever accomplished by it; and yet, in spite of the verdict of time +and experience that nothing is gained, over and over the jealous man, +and still more frequently the jealous woman, protests against a lost love +with a bitterness that kills pity and turns remorse into antagonism. +But Lewis Hall made no reproaches. Perhaps Athalia missed them; +perhaps, under her spiritual passion, she was piqued that earthly +passion was so readily silenced. But, if she was, she did not know it. +She was entirely sincere and intensely happy in a new experience. +It was a long winter of argument;--and then suddenly, in early April, +the break came. . . . + +"I WILL go; I have a right to save my soul!" + +And he said, very simply, "Well, Athalia, then I'll go, too." + +"You? But you don't believe--" And almost in the Bible words he answered +her, "No; but where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live." +And then, a moment later, "I promised to cleave to you, little Tay." + + + + +II + +THE uprooting of their life took a surprisingly short time. +In all those dark months of argument Lewis Hall had been quietly +making plans for this final step, and such preparation betrayed +his knowledge from the first of the hopelessness of his struggle-- +indeed, the struggle had only been loyalty to a lost cause. +His calm assent to his wife's ultimatum left her a little blank; +but in the immediate excitement of removal, in the thrill of +martyrdom that came with publicity, the blankness did not last. +What the publicity was to her husband she could not understand. +He received the protests of his family in stolid silence; +when the venturesome great-aunt told him what she thought of him, +he smiled; when his brother informed him that he was a fool, he said +he shouldn't wonder. When the minister, egged on by distracted +Hall relatives, remonstrated, he replied, respectfully, that he was +doing what he believed to be his duty, "and if it seems to be a duty, +I can't help myself; you see that, don't you?" he said, anxiously. +But that was practically all he found to say; for the most part +he was silent. Athalia, in her absorption, probably had not +the slightest idea of the agonies of mortification which he suffered; +her imagination told her, truly enough, what angry relatives +and pleasantly horrified neighbors said about her, and the abuse +exhilarated her very much; but her imagination stopped there. +It did not give her the family's opinion of her husband; it did +not whisper the gossip of the grocery-store and the post-office; +it did not repeat the chuckles or echo the innuendoes: + +"So Squire Hall's wife's got tired of him? Rather live +with the Shakers than him!" "I like Hall, but I haven't +any sympathy with him," the doctor said; "what in thunder did +he let her go gallivanting off to visit the Shakers for? +Might have known a female like Mrs. Hall'd get a bee in her bonnet. +He ought to have kept her at home. _I_ would have. +I wouldn't have had any such nonsense in my family! +Well, for an obstinate man (and he IS obstinate, you know), +the squire, when it comes to his wife, has no more backbone +than a wet string." + +"Wonder if there's anything under it all?" came the sly insinuation +of gossip; "wonder if she hasn't got something besides the Shakers +up her sleeve? You wait!" + +If Athalia's imagination spared her these comments, +Lewis's unimaginative common sense supplied them. +He knew what other men and husbands were saying about him; +what servants and gossip and friends insinuated to one another, +and set his jaw in silence. He made no excuse and no explanation. +Why should he? The facts spoke. His wife did prefer the Shakers +to her husband and her home. To have interfered with her purpose +by any plea of his personal unhappiness, or by any threat +of an appeal to law, or even by refusing to give the "consent" +essential to her admission, would not have altered these facts. +As for his reasons for going with her, they would not have +enhanced his dignity in the eyes of the men who wouldn't +have had any such nonsense in their families: he must be +near her to see that she did not suffer too much hardship, +and to bring her home when she was ready to come. + +In those days of tearing his life up by the roots the silent +man was just a little more silent, that was all. But the fact +was burning into his consciousness: he couldn't keep his wife! +That was what they said, and that was the truth. +It seemed to him as if his soul blushed at his helplessness. +But his face was perfectly stolid. He told Athalia, passively, +that he had rented the house and mill to Henry Davis; +that he had settled half his capital upon her, so that she would +have some money to put into the common treasury of the community; +then he added that he had taken a house for himself near +the settlement, and that he would hire out to the Shakers +when they were haying, or do any farm-work that he could get. + +"I can take care of myself, I guess," he said; "I used +to camp out when I was a boy, and I can cook pretty well, +mother always said." He looked at her wistfully; but the +uncomfortable-ness of such an arrangement did not strike her. +In her desire for a new emotion, her eagerness to FEEL-- +that eagerness which is really a sensuality of the mind-- +she was too absorbed in her own self-chosen hardships to think +of his; which were not entirely self-chosen. + + +"I think I can find enough to do," he said; "the Shakers need +an able-bodied man; they only have those three old men." + +"How do you know that?" she asked, quickly. + +"I've been to see them twice this winter," he said. + +"Why!" she said, amazed, "you never told me!" + +"I don't tell you everything nowadays, 'Thalia," he said, briefly. + +In those two visits to the Shakers, Lewis Hall had been treated with +great delicacy; there had been no effort to proselytize, and equally +there had been no triumphing over the accession of his wife; in fact, +Athalia was hardly referred to, except when they told him that they would +take good care of her, and when Brother Nathan volunteered a brief summary +of Shaker doctrines--"so as you can feel easy about her," he explained: +"We believe that Christ was the male principle in Deity, and Mother Ann +was the female principle. And we believe in confession of our sins, +and communion with the dead--spiritualism, they call it nowadays-- +and in the virgin life. Shakers don't marry, nor give in marriage. +And we have all things in common. That's all, friend. You see, +we don't teach anything that Christ didn't teach, so she won't learn +any evil from us. Simple, ain't it.?" + +"Well, yes, after a fashion," Lewis Hall said; "but it isn't human." + +And Brother Nathan smiled mysti-cally. "Maybe that isn't against it, +in the long run," he said. + + +They came to the community in the spring twilight. +The brothers and sisters had assembled to meet the convert, +and to give a neighborly hand to the silent man who was to live by +himself in a little, gray, shingled house down on Lonely Lake Road. +It was a supreme moment to Athalia. She had expected an intense +parting from her husband when they left their own house; +and she was ready to press into her soul the poignant +thorn of grief, not only because it would make her FEEL, +but because it would emphasize in her own mind the divine +self-sacrifice which she wanted to believe she was making. +But when the moment came to close the door of the old home +behind them, her husband was cruelly commonplace about it--for poor +Lewis had no more drama in him than a kindly Newfoundland dog! +He was full of practical cares for his tenant, and he stopped even +while he was turning the key in the lock, to "fuss," as Athalia said, +over some last details of the transfer of the sawmill. +Athalia could not tear herself from arms that placidly consented +to her withdrawal; so there had been no rending ecstasies. +In consequence, on the journey up to the community she was +a little morose, a little irritable even, just as the drunkard +is apt to be irritable when sobriety is unescapable. . . . +But at the door of the Family House she had her opportunity: +she said, dramatically, "Good-night--_Brother Lewis_." +It was an entirely sincere moment. Dramatic natures are not +often insincere, they are only unreal. + +As for her husband, he said, calmly, "Good-night, dear," +and trudged off in the cool May dusk down Lonely Lake Road. +He found the door of the house on the latch, and a little +fire glowing in the stove; Brother Nathan had seen +to that, and had left some food on the table for him. +But in spite of the old man's friendly foresight the house +had all the desolation of confusion; in the kitchen there +were two or three cases of books, broken open but not unpacked, +a trunk and a carpet-bag, and some bundles of groceries; +they had been left by the expressman on tables and chairs +and on the floor, so that the solitary man had to do some +lifting and unpacking before he could sit down in his +loneliness to eat the supper Brother Nathan had provided. +He looked about to see where he would put up shelves for +his books, and as he did so the remembrance of his quiet, +shabby old study came to him, almost like a blow. + +"Well," he said to himself, "this won't be for so very long. +We'll be back again in a year, I guess. Poor little Tay! I shouldn't +wonder if it was six months. I wonder, can I buy Henry Davis off, +if she wants to go back in six months?" + +And yet, in spite of his calm understanding of the situation, +the wound burned. As he went about putting things into some +semblance of order, he paused once and looked hard into +the fire. . . . When she did want to go back--let it be in six +months or six weeks or six days--would things be the same? +Something had been done to the very structure and fabric +of their life. "Can it ever be the same?" he said to himself; +and then he passed his hand over his eyes, in a bewildered +way--"Will I be the same?" he said. + + + + +III + +SUMMER at the Shaker settlement, lying in the green cup of the hills, +was very beautiful. The yellow houses along the grassy street +drowsed in the sunshine, and when the wind stirred the maple leaves +one could see the distant sparkle of the lake. Athalia had a fancy, +in the warm twilights, for walking down Lonely Lake Road, that jolted +over logs and across gullies and stopped abruptly at the water's edge. +She had to pass Lewis's house on the way, and if he saw her he would +call out to her, cheerfully, + +"Hullo, 'Thalia! how are you, dear?" + +And she, with prim intensity, would reply, "Good-evening, BROTHER Lewis." + +If one of the sisters was with her, they would stop and speak to him; +otherwise she passed him by in such an eager consciousness of her +part that he smiled--and then sighed. When she had a companion, +Lewis and the other Shakeress would gossip about the weather +or the haying, and Lewis would have the chance to say: +"You're not overworking, 'Thalia? You're not tired?" While Athalia, +in her net cap and her gray shoulder cape buttoned close up to her chin, +would dismiss the anxious affection with a peremptory "Of course not! +I have bread to eat you know not of, Brother Lewis." +Then she would add, didactically, some word of dogma or admonition. + +But she had not much time to give to Brother Lewis's salvation-- +she was so busy in adjusting herself to her new life. +Its picturesque details fascinated her--the cap, the brevity of speech, +the small mannerisms, the occasional and very reserved mysticism, +absorbed her so that she thought very little of her husband. +She saw him occasionally on those walks down to the lake, +or when, after a day in the fields with the three old Shaker men, +Brother Nathan brought him home to supper. + +"We Shakers are given to hospitality," he said; "we're always +looking for the angel we are going to entertain unawares. +Come along home with us, Lewis." And Lewis would plod up +the hill and take his turn at the tin washbasin, and then +file down the men's side of the stairs to the dining-room, +where he and the three old brothers sat at one table, +and Athalia and the eight sisters sat at the other table. +After supper he had the chance to see Athalia and to make +sure that she was not looking tired. "You didn't take cold +yesterday, 'Thalia? I saw you were out in the rain," he would say. +And she, always a little embarrassed at such personal interest, +would reply, primly, "I am not at all tired, Brother Lewis." +Nathan used to walk home with his guest, and sometimes they +talked of work that must be done, and sometimes touched on more +unpractical things--those spiritual manifestations which at +rare intervals centred in Brother William and were the hope +of the whole community. For who could tell when the old +man's incoherent muttering would break into the clear speech +of one of those Heavenly Visitants who, in the early days, +had descended upon the Shakers, and then, for some divine +and deeply mysterious reason, withdrawn from such pure channels +of communication, and manifested themselves in the world,-- +but through base and sordid natures. Poor, vague Brother William, +who saw visions and dreamed dreams, was, in this community, +the torch that held a smouldering spark of the divine fire, +and when, in a cataleptic state, his faint intelligence fluttered +back into some dim depths of personality, and he moaned +and muttered, using awful names with babbling freedom, +Brother Nathan and the rest listened with pathetic eagerness +for a _"thus saith the Lord,"_ which should enflame the gray +embers of Shakerism and give light to the whole world! +When Nathan talked of these things he would add, with a sigh, +that he hoped some day William would be inspired to tell them something +more of Sister Lydia: "Once William said, 'Coming, coming.' +_I_ think it meant Lydia; but Eldress thought it was Athalia; +it was just before she came." Brother Nathan sighed. +"I wish it had meant Lydy," he said, simply. + +If Lewis wished it had meant Lydy, he did not say so. +And, indeed, he said very little upon any subject; +Brother Nathan did most of the talking. + +"I fled from the City of Destruction when I was thirty," +he told Lewis; "that was just a year before Sister Lydy left us. +Poor Lydy! poor Lydy!" he said. "Oh, yee, _I_ know the world. +I know it, my boy! Do you?" + +"Why, after a fashion," Lewis said; and then he asked, suddenly, "Why did +you turn Shaker, Nathan?" + +"Well, I got hold of a Shaker book that set me thinking. +Sister Lydia gave it to me. I met Sister Lydia when she +had come down to the place I lived to sell baskets. +And she was interested in my salvation, and gave me the book. +Then I got to figuring out the Prophecies, and I saw Shakerism +fulfilled them; and then I began to see that when you don't +own anything yourself you can't worry about your property; +well, that clinched me, I guess. Poor Sister Lydia, she didn't +abide in grace herself," he ended, sadly. + +"I should have thought you would have been sorry then, +that you--" Lewis began, but checked himself. "How about"-- +he said, and stopped to clear his voice, which broke huskily;-- +"how about love between man and woman? Husband and wife?" + +"Marriage is honorable," Brother Nathan conceded; "Shakers don't +despise marriage. But they like to see folks grow out of it +into something better, like--like your wife, maybe." + +"Well, your doctrine would put an end to the world," +Lewis said, smiling. + +"I guess," said Brother Nathan, dryly, "there ain't any immediate +danger of the world coming to an end." + +"I'd like to see that book," Lewis said, when they parted +at the pasture-bars where a foot-path led down the hill +to his own house. + +And that night Brother Nathan had an eager word for the family. +"He's asked for a book!" he said. The Eldress smiled doubtfully, +but Athalia, with a rapturous upward look, said, + +"May the Lord guide him!" then added, practically, "It won't +amount to anything. He thinks Shakerism isn't human." + +"That's not against it, that's not against it!" +Nathan declared, smiling; "I've told him so a dozen times!" + +But Athalia was so happy that first year, and so important, +that she did not often concern herself with the welfare of the man +who had been her husband. Instead--it was early in April-- +he concerned himself with hers; he tried, tentatively, to see +if it wasn't almost time for Athalia "to get through with it." +Of course, afterward, Sister Athalia realized, with chagrin, +that this attempt was only a forerunner of the fever that +was developing, which in a few days was to make him a very sick man. +But for the moment his question seemed to her a temptation +of the devil, and, of course, resisted temptation made her faith +stronger than ever. + +It was a deliciously cold spring night; Lewis had drawn the table, with +his books on it, close to the fire to try to keep warm, but he shivered, +even while his shoulders scorched, and somehow he could not keep his mind +on the black, rectangular characters of the Hebrew page before him. +He had been interested in Brother Nathan's explanation of Hosea's +forecasting of Shakerism, and he had admitted to himself that, +if Nathan was correct, there would be something to be said for Shakerism. +The idea made him vaguely uneasy, because, that "something" might be +so conclusive, that--But he could not face such a possibility. + +He wanted to dig at the text, so that he might refute Nathan; +but somehow that night he was too dull to refute anybody, and by-and-by +he pushed the black-lettered page aside, and, crouching over the fire, +held out his hands to the blaze. He thought, vaguely, of the big +fireplace in the old study, and suddenly, in the chilly numbness +of his mind, he saw it--with such distinctness that he was startled. +Then, a moment later, it changed into the south chamber that +had been his mother's bedroom--he could even detect the faint +scent of rose-geranium that always hung about her; he noticed +that the green shutters on the west windows were bowed, and from +between them a line of sunshine fell across the matting on the floor +and touched the four-poster that had a chintz spread and valance. +How well he knew the faded roses and the cockatoos on that old chintz! +Over there by the window he had caught her crying that time he had +hurt her feelings, "just for his own pleasure"; the old stab of this +thought pierced through the feverish mists and touched the quick. +He struggled numbly with the visualization of fever, brushing his +hot hand across his eyes and trying to see which was real-- +the geranium-sweet south chamber or the chilly house on Lonely Lake Road. +Athalia had given him pain in that same way--just for her own pleasure. +Poor little Tay! He was afraid it would hurt her, some day, when she +realized it; well, when she came to herself, when she got through her +playing at Shakerism, he must not let her know how great the pain +had been; she would suffer too much if she should understand his misery: +and Athalia didn't bear suffering well. . . . But how long she had been +getting over Shakerism! He had thought it would only last six months, +and here it was a year! Well, if Nathan's reading of the Prophecies +was right, then Athalia would never get over it. She ought never +to get over it. Then what would become of the farm and the sawmill? +And instantly everything was unreal again; he could hear the hum +of the driving-wheel and the screech of the saw tearing through a log; +how fragrant the fresh planks were, and the great heaps of sawdust-- +but the noise made his head ache; and--and the fire didn't seem hot. . . . + +It was in one of those moments when the mists thinned, and he knew that +he was shivering over the stove instead of basking in the sunshine in his +mother's room that smelled of rose-geranium leaves, that Athalia came in. +She looked conscious and confused, full of a delightful embarrassment +at being for once alone with him. The color was deep on her cheeks, +and her eyes were starry. + +"Eldress asked me to bring your mail down to you, Brother Lewis," +she said. + +"Thalia!" he said; "I am so glad to see you, dear; I--I seem +to be rather used up, somehow." The mists had quite +cleared away, but a violent headache made his words stumble. +"I was just wondering, Thalia--don't you think you might go +home now? You've had a whole year of it--and I really ought +to go home--the mill--" + +"Why, Lewis Hall! What do you mean!" she said, +forgetting her part in her indignation. "I am a Shakeress. +You've no right to speak so to me." + +He blinked at her through the blur of pain. "I wish you'd +stay with me, Athalia, I've got a--a sort of--headache. +Never mind about being a Shakeress just for to-night. It would +be such a comfort to have you." + +But Athalia, with a horrified look, had left him. +She fled home in the darkness with burning cheeks; she debated +with herself whether she should tell Eldress how her husband-- +no, Brother Lewis--had tried to "tempt" her back to him. +In her excitement at this lure of the devil she even wondered +whether Lewis had pretended that he was ill, to induce +her to stay with him? But even Athalia's imagination could +not compass such a thought of Lewis for more than a moment, +so she only told the Eldress that Brother Lewis had "tried +to persuade her to go back to the world with him." +The Lord had defended her, she said, excitedly, and she had +forbidden him to speak to her! + +Eldress Hannah looked perplexed. "That's not like Lewis. +I wonder--" But she did not say what she wondered. Instead, she went +early in the morning down Lonely Lake Road to Lewis's house. +The poor fellow was entirely in the mists by that time, +shivering and burning and quite unconscious, saying over and over, +"She wouldn't stay; she wouldn't stay." + +"'Lure her back,'" said Eldress Hannah, with a snort. "Poor boy! +It's good riddance for him." + +But Eldress Hannah stayed, and Brother Nathan joined her, +and for many days the little community was shaken with real anxiety, +for they had all come to love the solitary, waiting husband. +Athalia, abashed, but still cherishing the dear insult of having +been tempted, took what little part Eldress allowed her in +the care of the sick man; but in the six or seven weeks of his +illness Brother Nathan and the Eldress were his devoted nurses, +and by-and-by a genuine friendship grew up between them. +Old Eldress Hannah's shrewd good-humor was as wholesome as a sound +winter apple, and Nathan had a gayety Lewis had never suspected. +The old man grew very confidential in those days of Lewis's convalescence; +he showed his simple heart with a generosity that made +the sick man's lip tighten once or twice and his eyes blur;-- +Lewis came to know all about Sister Lydia; indeed, he knew more +than the old man knew himself. When the invalid grew stronger, +Nathan wrestled with him over the Prophecies, and Lewis studied them +and the other foundation-stones of the Shaker faith with a constantly +increasing anxiety. "Because," he said, with a nervous blink, +"if you ARE right--" But he left the sentence unfinished. +Once he said, with a feeble passion--for he was still very weak--"I +tell you, Nathan, it isn't human!" and then added, under his breath, +"but God knows whether that's not in its fa-vor." + + +When he was quite well again he was plainly preoccupied. +He pored over the Prophecies with a concentration that made +him blind even to Athalia's tired looks. Once, when some one +said in his presence, "Sister 'Thalia is working too hard," +he blinked at her in an absent way before the old, +anxious attention awoke in his eyes. + +Athalia tossed her head and said, "Brother Lewis has his own +affairs to think of, I guess!" + +And he said, eagerly: "Yes, 'Thalia; I have been thinking-- +Some day I'll tell you. But not yet." + +"Oh, I haven't time to pry into other people's thoughts," +she said, acidly. And, indeed, just then her time was very full. +She was enormously useful to the community that second winter; +her young power and strength shone out against the growing +weariness of the old sisters. "Athalia's capable," +Eldress Hannah said, and the other sisters said "Yee," +and smiled at one another. + +"She IS useful," Sister Jane declared; "do you know, she got through +the churning before nine? I'd 'a' been at it until eleven!" + +"Athalia is like one of those candles that have a streak of soft +wax in 'em," Eldress Hannah murmured; "but she's useful, +as you say, Jane." + +In January, when the Eldress fell ill, Athalia was especially useful. +She nursed her with a passion of faithfulness that made +the other sisters remonstrate. + +"You'll wear yourself out, Athalia; you haven't had your clothes +off for three days and nights!" + +"The Lord has upheld me, and His right hand has sustained me," +Athalia quoted, with an uplifted look. + +"Yee," old Jane assented, "but He likes sense, Athalia, and there +ain't any reason why two of us shouldn't take turns settin' +up with her tonight." + +"This is my service," Athalia said, smiling joyously. + +Eldress Hannah, lying with closed eyes, said, suddenly: +"Athalia, don't be foolish and conceited. You go right along +to your bed; Jane and Mary'll look after me." + +It took Athalia a perceptible minute to get herself in hand +sufficiently to say, meekly, "Yee, Eldress." When she had shut +the door behind her with perhaps something more than Shaker +emphasis, the Eldress opened her eyes and smiled at old Jane. +"She's smart," she said. + +"Yee," said Sister Jane; and there was a little chuckle. + +The sick woman closed her eyes again and sighed. +"What a nurse Lydia was!" she said; and added, suddenly: +"How is Nathan getting along with Lewis? There isn't much +more time, I guess," she ended, mildly; "she won't last it +out another summer." + +"She's done better than I expected to stay till now," Jane said; +and the Eldress nodded. + +But it was, perhaps, a natural result of Athalia's abounding energy +that toward the end of that second winter in the Shaker village she +should grow irritable. The spring work was very heavy that year. +Brother William was too feeble to do even the light, pottering +tasks that had been allotted to him, and his vague babblings +about the spirits ceased altogether. In April old Jane died, +and that put extra burdens on Athalia's capable shoulders. +"But I notice I don't get anything extra for my work, not even thanks!" +she told Lewis, sharply, and forgot to call him "Brother." +She had walked down Lonely Lake Road and stopped at his gate. +She looked thinner; her forget-me-not eyes were clouded, and there +was an impatient line about her lips, instead of the faint, +ecstatic smile which was part of her early experience. + +"Yes, there's lots of work to be done," he agreed, "but when people +do it together--" + +"What do you think?"--she interrupted him, her lip drooping +a little in a half-contemptuous smile--"they've heard +again from that Sister Lydia who ran away! You know +who I mean?--Brother Nathan is always talking about her. +They think she'll come back. _I_ should say good riddance! +Though of course if it's genuine repentance I'll be glad. +Only I don't think it is." + +"How pleased Nathan will be!" Lewis said. + +"Oh, he's pleased; he's rather too pleased for a Shaker, +it strikes me." + +Lewis frowned. "There is joy in the presence of the angels," +he reminded her, gravely. + +"Angels!" she said, with a laugh; "I don't believe so much +in the angels as I did before I knew so much about them. +I understand that when this 'angel' comes back I am to give up +my room to her, if you please, because it used to be hers. +Oh, I'm of no importance now--Lewis," she broke off, suddenly, +"who has our house this year?" + +"Davis; he wants to re-lease it in May." + +"He just takes it by the year, doesn't he?" she asked. + +He nodded. "Wants a five-years' lease next time." + +"Well, don't give it to him!" she said; and added, frowning: +"You ought to go back yourself, you know. It's foolish for you +to be here. Why, it's almost two years!" + +"Time flies," he said, smiling. + +She laughed and sighed. "Yes--I mean yee--indeed, it does! +I was just thinking, Lewis, we've been married ten years!" + +"No, eight years. We were married just eight years," +he said, soberly. + +The color flew into her face. "Oh, yee; we were married eight +years when I came in." + +He looked at her with great tenderness. "Athalia, I have to confess +to you that when you came I didn't think it would last with you. +I distrusted the Holy Spirit. And I came, myself, against my will, +as you know. But now I begin to think you were led--and perhaps you +have led me." + +Athalia gave a little gasp--"WHAT!" + +"I am not sure yet," he said. + +"You said Shakerism was unhuman!" Athalia protested, with a thrill +of panic in her voice. + +"Ah!" he cried, his voice suddenly kindling, "you know +what Nathan is always saying?--'That's not against it'? +Athalia, its unhumanness, as you call it, is why I think it +may be of God. The human in us must give way to the divine. +'First that which is natural; then that which is spiritual.'" + +"I--don't understand," she said, faintly; "you are not a Shaker?" + +"No," he said, "not yet. But perhaps some day--I am trying +to follow you, Athalia." + +She caught her breath with a frightened look. "Follow--ME?" Then she +burst out crying. + +"Why, Tay!" he said, bewildered; "what is it, dear?" +But she had left him, stumbling blindly as she walked, +her face hidden in her hands. + +Lewis went back into his house, and, lighting his lamp, +sat down to pore over one of Brother Nathan's books. +He was concerned, but he smiled a little; it was so like +Athalia to cry when she was happy! He did not see his wife +for several days. The Eldress said Sister 'Thalia was +not well, and Lewis looked sorry, but made no comment. +He was a little anxious, but he did not dwell upon his anxiety. +In the next few days he worked hard all day in Brother Nathan's +herb-house, where the air was hazy with the aromatic dust +of tansy and pennyroyal, then hurried home at night to sit +down to his books, so profoundly absorbed in them that sometimes +he only knew that it was time to sleep because the dawn fell +white across the black-lettered page. + +But one night, a week later, when he came home from work, +he did not open his Bible; he stood a long time in his doorway, +looking at the sunset, and, as he looked, his face seemed to shine +with some inner light. The lake was like glass; high in the upper +heavens thin golden lines of cloud had turned to rippling copper; +the sky behind the black circle of the hills was a clear, +pale green, and in the growing dusk the water whitened like snow. +"'Glass mingled with fire,'" he murmured to himself; +"yes, 'great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; +just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints!'" And what +more marvellous work than this wonder of his own salvation? +Brought here against his will, against his judgment! +How he had struggled against the Spirit. He was humbled to +the earth at the remembrance of it; "if I had my way, we wouldn't +have walked up the hill from the station that morning!" . . . + +The flushing heavens faded into ashes, but the solemn glow +of half-astonished gratitude lingered on his face. + +"Lewis," some one said in the darkness of the lane--"LEWIS!" Athalia came +up the path swiftly and put her hands on his arm. "Lewis, I--I want +to go home." She sobbed as she spoke. + +He started as if she had struck him. + +"Lewis, Lewis, let us go home!" + +The flame of mystical satisfaction went out of his face as a lighted +candle goes out in the wind. + +"There isn't any home now, Athalia," he said, with a sombre look; +"there's only a house. Come in," he added, heavily; "we must +talk this out." + +She followed him, and for a moment they neither of them spoke; +he fumbled about in the warm darkness for a match, and lifting the shade, +lighted the lamp on the table; then he looked at her. "Athalia," he said, +in a terrified voice, "I am--_I am a Shaker!_" + +"No--no--no!" she said. She grew very white, and sat down, +breathing quickly. Then the color came back faintly into her lips. +"Don't say it, Lewis; it isn't true. It can't be true!" + +"It is true," he said, with a groan. He had sunk into a chair, +and his face was hidden in his hands. "What are we going to do?" +he said, hoarsely. + +"Why, you mustn't be!" she cried; "you can't be--that's all. +You can't STAY if I go!" + +"I must stay," he said. + +There was a stunned silence. Then she said, in an amazed whisper: + +"What! You don't love me any more?" + +Still he was silent. + +"You--don't--love--me," she said, as if repeating some astounding fact, +which she could not yet believe. + +He seemed to gather his courage up. + +"I have--" he tried to speak; faltered, broke, went on: +"I have--the kindliest feelings toward you, 'Thalia"--his last +word was in a whisper. + +"Stop!" she protested, with a frightened look--"oh, stop!-- +don't say THAT!" He did not speak; and suddenly, looking at +his fixed face, she cried out, violently: "Oh, why, why did +I go up to the graveyard that day? Why did you let me?" +She stared at him, her forget-me-not eyes dilating with dismay. +"It all came from that. If we hadn't walked up the hill +that morning--" He was speechless. Then, abruptly, she sprang +to her feet, and, running to him, knelt beside him and +tried to pull down the hands in which he had again hidden +his face. "Lewis, it's I--Tay! You don't 'feel kindly' +to ME? Lewis, you haven't stopped loving me?" + +"I am a Shaker," he said, helplessly. "I can't give up my religion, +even for you." + +He got on his feet and stood before her, his empty palms hanging at his +sides in that strange gesture of entire hopelessness; he tried to speak, +but no words came. The lamp on the table flickered a little. +Their shadows loomed gigantic on the wall behind them; the little hot +room was very still. + +"You think you don't love me?" Athalia said, between set teeth; +"_I know better!_" With a laugh she caught his arm with both +her shaking hands, and kissed him once, and then again. +Still he was silent. Then with a cry she threw herself against +his breast. "I love you," she said, passionately, "and you love me! +Nothing on earth will make me believe you don't love me,"-- +and for one vital moment her lips burned against his. + +His arms did not close about her,--but his hands clinched slightly. +Then he moved back a step or two, and she heard him sigh. +"Don't, sister," he said, gently. + +She threw up her hands with a frantic gesture. "SISTER? My God!" +she said; and left him. + +* * * + + +There was no further struggle between them. A week later she went away. +As he told her, "the house was there"--and to that she went until she +should go to find some whirl of life that would make her deaf to voices +of the past. + +As for Lewis, he did not see that miserable departure from the +Family House in the shabby old carryall that had been the Shakers' +one vehicle for more than thirty years. He told Nathan he wanted +to mow the burial-ground up on the hill that morning. From that high +and silent spot he could see the long white road up from the settlement +on one side and down to the covered bridge on the other side. +He sat under the pine-tree, his scythe against the stone wall +behind him, his clinched hands between his knees. Sitting thus, +he watched the road and the slow crawl of the shaky old carriage. +. . . After it had passed the burying-ground and was out of sight, +he hid his face in his bent elbow. + + +It was some ten years afterward that word came to Eldress Hannah +that Athalia Hall was dying and wanted to see her husband; +would he come to her? + +"Will you go, Brother Lewis?" Eldress asked him, doubtfully. + +"Yee, if you think best," he said. + +"I do think best," the old woman said. + +He went, a bent, elderly man in a gray coat, threading his +wavering way through the noisy buffet of the streets of +the city where Athalia had elected to dwell. He found her +in a gaudy hotel, full of the glare of pushing, hurrying life. +He sat down at her bedside, a little breathless, and looked +at her with mild, remote eyes. + +"Do you forgive me, Lewis?" she said. + +"I have nothing to forgive, sister," he told her. + +"Don't call me that!" she cried, with feeble passion. + +He looked a little bewildered. "Yee," he said, "I forgive you." + +"Oh, Lewis!--Lewis!--Lewis!" she mourned; "this is what I have done!" +She wept pitifully. His face grew vaguely troubled, as if he did +not quite understand. . . . Then, abruptly, the veil lifted: +his eyes dilated with pain; he passed his hand over his forehead +once or twice and sighed. Then he looked down at the poor, +dying face that once he had loved. + +"Why, 'Thalia!" he said, in a surprised and anguished voice; +suddenly he put his arm under the restless head. "There, there, +little Tay; don't cry," he said, and smiled at her. + +And with that she was content to fall asleep. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext The Way to Peace, by Margaret Deland + diff --git a/old/wy2pc10.zip b/old/wy2pc10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..65162be --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wy2pc10.zip |