Dear America: Like the Willow Tree

by Lois Lowry

  Last year Mother and Father gave me a fine set of watercolors for Christmas. I was proud of the set and tried very hard with painting but don’t think I have a gift for it.

  The Shakers speak often of gifts. If a Shaker has a special gift, then it is encouraged. The person with the gift, they say, is only the channel for the good to flow through and benefit us all. Brother Delmer has a gift for mechanical things. He built his own bench saw when he was eighteen, and the steam-fitted greenhouse only two years later. Of course he tends the Selden automobile, and he has set up a motor-driven apple grader that makes the packaging of the apples so much easier. He has so many gifts, I think he should divide them up and let others have some!

  “ ’Tis a gift to be simple, ’tis a gift to be free” says one of the favorite Shaker songs.

  I am not simple, nor free. I am all tangled up in worry for my brother, and I have done something I shouldn’t. I suppose I will have to confess this. But I have asked Ida to ask the delivery boy — because I know she finds ways to talk to him, even though the sisters try to keep her from it — if he knows where Daniel is. She said she would. So I am waiting for the answer. And while I wait, I am looking out at the snow flying, the blur of white, and feeling the icy air, and wondering if my brother has a warm coat. And mittens. I hope he has mittens. If I had been more patient and industrious with my knitting, perhaps by now I could have made him some.

  Thursday, December 12, 1918

  Well! Now I have something to confess! But I think it might make Sister Jennie laugh, when the time comes.

  Last evening I was working once again, after supper, on my washcloth. The other girls were all raveling haircloth and they will show me how soon so that I will be doing it, too, for the horsehair brushes are an important way to earn money for the village. But first, Sister Jennie had explained, I must master my knitting — and my impatience with it!

  So last evening I was once again carefully making stitch after stitch, trying not to twist them, trying not to drop them, and, for a change, trying not to hide my mistakes but to correct them. I worked steadily along. Sister Jennie was reading aloud as we worked. She has finished The Secret Garden and now is reading us a book called Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus about a boy who, like some of us, is an orphan. (Isn’t it odd, that so many books have orphans? Like Mary Lennox, and now Toby Tyler? And there are others, too: a boy named Freckles in a book with that title; and Pollyanna, too.) Toby is ten, and he runs away and joins a traveling circus but it is a cruel situation.

  All of us love Toby and hope for the best for him. He has a pet! A chimpanzee named Mr. Stubbs! We children are not allowed pets here, although Elder William actually has a dog he calls Pup. Mother Ann’s teachings are against pets, especially dogs. She taught that they are unclean and full of evil spirits! That makes me sad because a dog, or perhaps a kitten, would be a lovely thing to have, I think. And I suspect Sister Jennie thinks so, too, but of course she abides by the teachings.

  Some of the girls help with gathering eggs and feeding the chickens, and they name the chickens and think of them as pets. But they aren’t, really. They’re ill tempered and even frightening when they flutter and peck at you. Susannah has a fierce scratch on her wrist from a chicken.

  But a chimpanzee! Imagine that! We are all a bit in love with Mr. Stubbs and, of course, with Toby.

  “Does a circus ever come to Sabbathday Lake?” Rebecca asked. But Sister Jennie shook her head no.

  “Sometimes the circus comes to Portland,” I told them. “My parents took me when I was eight and my brother was eleven. It was the only time I have ever seen an elephant.”

  “Were you frightened?” Grace asked.

  “Not of the elephant. I just kept thinking of the Elephant’s Child in Just So Stories. Do we have that book, Sister Jennie? I had it at home, but I don’t know where it is now.”

  “Yea, I believe we do have a copy,” she said. “We might read that one next. But let’s get on now, with Toby’s adventures. How’s that washcloth coming, Lydia?”

  When she asked me, I looked down at the needles in my hands. I realized I had been knitting the whole while, not even noticing that I was. My fingers had been moving automatically. Into the stitch, yarn around, pull through, slip over. I knew it by heart. And now, when I looked down, I could see that a row was finished, with no mistakes, the final row on top of all those others that had been redone again and again. I held it up. A perfect square of pink yarn.

  “She’s finished!” Grace exclaimed. “Look, Sister Jennie! Lydia’s finally finished!”

  Sister Jennie set the book aside and looked. She examined it carefully, front and back, looking for my usual mistakes. Then she smiled at me. “At last!” she said. “I’ll show you how to cast it off, now.”

  “Now you can ravel haircloth with us!” Rebecca said. The other girls groaned. Raveling haircloth wasn’t fun. But at least we would be doing it together, and to make the brushes, which brought in money.

  “Perhaps Lydia would like to make another washcloth,” Sister Jennie said, her eyes twinkling.

  “Nay,” I groaned. “Never again!”

  That night, when I was getting into my nightclothes, I decided that I finally had something to confess. I would confess to her, would open my mind to her, and tell her that I had felt a great bursting of pride when I finished the silly little washcloth. Such a small thing, but it had taken me so long and I had worked so hard at it. I was very proud.

  Yet Shakers, I know by now, are not supposed to feel pride. Every act of a Shaker is directed to perfection, to making a heaven on this earth. Sweeping the floor, peeling a potato, folding a pillowcase, knitting a little square. We do it perfectly. We don’t take pride in that.

  So I would confess to Sister Jennie about my worldly emotion.

  After kneeling for prayers, the other girls and I got into our beds. Grace whispered to me, “You said ‘nay’ tonight.”

  “I did?”

  Grace giggled. “About making another washcloth. It’s the first time I ever heard you say it. Usually you say ‘no.’ ”

  “It was just an accident,” I whispered back.

  “Nay,” Grace said. “It was you, becoming a Shaker.”

  Saturday, December 14, 1918

  Some of the sisters have taken fancywork to the Poland Spring House, which is a lovely hotel, along with the Mansion House, nearby. Brother Delmer drove them there in the Selden (it would be a short buggy ride, just four miles, but the weather is very cold) and they will display the handmade goods. There are many knitted sweaters, pincushions, fans made with turkey feathers, wooden sewing carriers with handles, and poplar keepsake boxes. The other girls have been weaving the poplar cloth and I am to learn soon. The guests at the hotel often buy the Shaker fancy goods, and of course Christmas season is a busy time for sales.

  One thing that the sisters will take orders for is what my father would have called a “top seller.” It is an opera cloak, though now they sometimes call them “Dorothy Cloaks” after Eldress Dorothy, who first designed them. They are made in beautiful French wool lined with silk, and have a hood and a silk ribbon tie, and they cost $30! President Grover Cleveland’s wife, Frances, wore one to his inauguration. But hers was gray. My favorite is a wonderful shade of red. Perhaps they will take many orders for red cloaks, this being Christmas season, and with the war over, people are wanting to celebrate.

  I hope so, for these are hard times for the Shakers. I hear the sisters talking about it in worried voices. There were once so many of them! But now their numbers grow fewer and fewer, as the elders enter their spirit life, and younger sisters and brethren sometimes leave the order to join the world. The Shaker villages are getting smaller, and some, in other places, have closed. I see that they are concerned here at Sabbathday Lake about how they will survive, and about money, though at the same time they have faith that the Lord will provide, and some even predict a rebirth and many new members.

  But that has
not happened yet, and so they continue — I should say we continue — to work hard, to make new goods, to sell as much as we can, to provide for the community. At the hotel they will also sell dried herbs and candies. The candy-making shop above the laundry is filled with the smell of caramel cooking.

  I am still in the kitchen, though, peeling and mashing potatoes, washing dishes, setting the tables. Sometimes I help Sister Agnes make butter. The barrel-shaped churn actually has a small motor, which makes it easier. After the butter is formed and the buttermilk is drained into pails, Sister Agnes kneads the butter with her strong hands until no more liquid comes out. Then she kneads in a little salt.

  I offered to help with the kneading, but Sister Agnes laughed and said my hands are too small. But I help to shape the deep yellow rolls of butter. We put them on plates and I take them into the cold shed. In summer the shed is filled with ice that the brethren chop from the lake when the ice is thick and clear, as it is now.

  But in winter there is no need for ice. The butter stays cold enough in the shed. When we need it in the kitchen, for pie crust or mashed potatoes, or just to put on bread in the dining room, we simply slice some from the roll.

  There are so many different things to learn! The one I yearn to learn next is the candy-making, but by the time I get to candy-making I may be too old to have teeth! (Some of the older sisters have false ones!)

  Ida knows nothing yet. But she hopes to have information soon about Daniel. She pretends that everything is very mysterious and suspenseful. I suspect she is slipping out to meet the delivery boy. But I don’t want to know.

  Sunday, December 15, 1918

  Oh, the blessings rich and many,

  Which are mine to share today!

  All the fountains of God’s goodness

  Seem to open in my way,

  Blessed fruits of sweet repentance,

  Grown while stricken ‘neath the rod!

  Blessed lessons of instruction

  Sent to lead me home to God!

  That was a song sung in meeting this morning. We have sung it before and though I like the part about blessings and God’s goodness, I do not care at all for the part about “stricken ‘neath the rod” because I think it means that people who do wrong should be beaten. I have never seen anyone beaten here, or struck in any way, even lightly. The worst I have behaved ever was the night I shouted at Sister Jennie and said hateful things to her. Maybe I should have been stricken ‘neath the rod! But she simply sent me to the retiring room to think.

  Father did whip Daniel on occasion. Not with a rod, but with his belt. So did Uncle Henry. But according to the Shaker song, being stricken should make one grow into repentance. And Daniel never grew that way at all. He just grew angrier and angrier.

  Oh, I do wonder and worry about my brother! Ida is no longer working in the kitchen and so she cannot see the delivery boy and will not be able to ask. I think they moved her to the laundry for that reason, so that she would stop lingering and laughing with the boy and coming back in with her cheeks all flushed.

  I might try to ask the farm boy from the world who attends our school, if I can find a way. But it seems impossible. All the boys are on the other side of the classroom, beyond the big stove. We girls are not to look at them or they at us, and certainly not to talk. Daniel’s desk is now empty on his side, though the boy who shared it is still there. I know Daniel talked a lot with that boy during recess. I saw them sometimes through the window.

  Sister Jennie did laugh, a bit, when I confessed to her yesterday of my pride.

  “Pride is a foolish thing, isn’t it?” she said with a chuckle.

  And I had to agree with her. Why ever did I feel so important about a silly washcloth? Making a perfect washcloth is not something to be proud about, but simply the right way — the Shaker way — to do it.

  Sister Jennie read to me from Mother Ann’s teachings. “ ‘Take good care of what you have. Provide places for your things, so that you may know where to find them, at any time, by day or by night; and learn to be neat and clean, prudent and saving, and see that nothing is lost; and be kind to the poor and needy.’ ”

  “My house,” I told her, “I mean, my house in the world? It was always neat and clean. My mother was almost like a Shaker about housekeeping!”

  She smiled.

  “But at Uncle Henry’s! Oh, my goodness! There were things strewn everywhere. And Aunt Sarah was always blaming me, or the twins, and complaining that she couldn’t find anything! I think Uncle Henry should have sent her to the Shakers!”

  “It sounds to me as if she might be unhappy,” Sister Jennie said.

  “I never thought of that,” I told her.

  “Unhappiness is a kind of neediness,” she pointed out.

  She had just read to me about being kind to the needy, and I had thought, while she was reading: Oh, yes, I would be very kind to needy people if I knew any. But I wasn’t at all kind to Aunt Sarah. I decided that I must think more carefully about Mother Ann’s teachings and try hard to live by them.

  And being kind to the poor? I think we here at Sabbathday Lake must be poor. That is why we girls work so hard on the haircloth for the brushes, and the sisters worry about the price of eggs and are so busy, always, making cloaks and candy, and the brethren make the boxes that they sell. Poor people cannot rest or waste time; they must work, always.

  But I don’t think we are needy. It is not the same as poor.

  I am almost at the last page of this journal and I do not know what I will do when it is filled. I need a way to record my days and tell my thoughts. I am thankful every day that when I finally was brave enough to tell Sister Jennie about the journal, she viewed it as a kind of work, not something that must be shared, so she did not take it from me, as I feared she might.

  Wednesday, December 18, 1918

  Now, in the evenings, I am raveling haircloth with the other girls. We are each given a square of haircloth, the same kind of horsehair that covers the settee in the good room, and which stabs you with tiny prickers when you sit on it. Our job is to remove the woven hair from one edge, leaving bristles that will become a clothes brush after the brethren attach a handle. Last spring they made 840 brushes! Maybe they will do even better this spring. But of course we girls must do the raveling first. And it is not easy. Our fingers get stabbed again and again. Sister Jennie distracts us with her reading.

  But now Toby’s chimpanzee, Mr. Stubbs, has died! It is the saddest passage I have ever heard, in a book — the death of Mr. Stubbs. All of us wept. Even Sister Jennie had tears in her eyes. She let us set our raveling aside and we had some hot chocolate in order to recover our spirits.

  Friday, December 20, 1918

  Sister Mamie Curtis just got false front teeth! She smiles and smiles at everyone, to show them off.

  Sunday, December 22, 1918

  Courage! My brothers, each step bears you on,

  On to that beautiful home;

  March ye in triumph with victory crowned,

  Home to a heavenly home.

  Ida is gone. She ran off in the night. Maybe with the delivery boy! We girls are not supposed to know, but I could hear the sisters whispering about it in the kitchen. And there was a prayer for her at worship this morning. The prayer did not use her name, but I could tell it was about her because it mentioned sins of the flesh, and ingratitude — and forgiveness, of course.

  Ida had not yet signed the covenant so she was not a true Shaker, but she had been here at Chosen Land a long time and the sisters had had hopes for her.

  It was a special worship service at meeting because it is Fast Day, in preparation for Christmas. Everyone feels very solemn, and there is less food and no laughter today.

  Also, on Fast Day, the Shaker covenant is read during the service — just to remind everyone, I guess, of what we are part of. It was quite long, and I’m afraid not very interesting to listen to.

  I confessed that thought to Sister Jennie. Confession — opening
one’s mind — is also part of Christmas preparation. And I confessed something else to her, too: that Ida’s leaving makes me worry a bit because it means one more person who will not be a Shaker.

  Once there were thousands of Shakers, but no longer. The communities grow smaller and smaller. There are many more sisters than brethren, even here at Sabbathday Lake. I look around at my group of girls, and at the older girls who have moved to the large dwelling, and I wonder who will stay. One day I saw the two little sisters, Lillian and Pearl, playing wedding, using a torn tea towel from the mending basket as a bride’s veil. I took it away from them and turned their attention elsewhere because I knew Sister Jennie would disapprove. Grace says very boldly that she wants to marry and have babies. I heard her ask Sister Jennie if she had ever wanted to have children, but Sister Jennie smiled and said, “I do have children. I have all of you.”

  Some of the sisters and brethren here are quite old and I expect that they will join the others under the stone carved with the word Shakers in the cemetery beside the school. Before I came, there was a brother named Eben. I heard the sisters speak about him, saying that Brother Eben had stepped out a few months ago, and at first, when they said it, I thought that he had simply walked away. But finally they explained. He had been ill, had been in the hospital for a while, but then came back to Sabbathday Lake and been tended by the sisters until he died. His earthly body rests now in the cemetery. But the important part of him stepped out to a heavenly home, as this morning’s hymn describes, or to what they call the spirit world.

  Sometimes Brother Delmer fetches Dr. Sturgis in the electric, and brings him to see Eldress Lizzie, or Sister Gertrude. They are both so frail.