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 that she 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.
“'T is n't so long as 'regenerating' and more easier.”
“Regenerating means 'making over,' you know.”
“There'd ought to be children's words and grownup words,--that's what I
think,” 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.”
“Does n't his feet take hold right, or why does he slip?”
“Perhaps he can't manage his feet;--perhaps they just won't climb.” 295
“Yes, or p'raps he just does n'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 't would be nicer to be an angel.”
“Nicer, perhaps, but one has to be very good to be an angel.”
“Backsliders could n'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 should n'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 of opinion, 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's not 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 farmwork,
and we'd all be so happy. I miss Fardie awfully! He did n'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 going in 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 has n'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 has n'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 had n'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 Sunclay, 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 had n'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 been led 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, does n'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 community and 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 of their
order 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, has n't really stained, only
humbled her; she would make such a Shaker, if she was once 'convinced,'
as we have n'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 does n't relax a mite
with her work, she drags about sometimes like a bird with one wing.”
Elder Daniel took off his broadbrimmed 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 which he 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 creature better 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.”