Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ Lewis Hall said; “but it isn’t human.”
And Brother Nathan smiled mystically. “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 ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”