The Blessed

by Ann H. Gabhart

  21

  Monday morning Brother Asa was uncommonly quiet as he and Isaac headed toward the barn. The bell would summon them back to breakfast in an hour, but by then the horses would already have their feed and be ready to go to work in the fields as soon as the Shaker brethren had their own feed.

  “I prayed for you last night, my brother,” Brother Asa said with no sound of a smile in his voice.

  The sun was not yet up, and the dawn air hung around them like thick gray curtains they had to keep pushing aside. While not as cold, it reminded Isaac of the morning they’d met on the dock in Louisville. He had no river to swallow him up here, and when he looked within, no desire now to rob himself of his next breath. He liked looking across the fields and seeing the cows nursing new calves. He liked breathing in the fresh air. He liked Brother Asa’s voice in his ear, even when he noted the edge of concern there. He liked thinking about the new sister smiling at him.

  The last thought brought him up short and he made himself think of Ella. But in spite of the all-too-familiar stab of guilt, it was getting harder and harder to keep his feet sunk in that pit of sorrow. He had no right to climb out of it. He knew that. Not when Ella would never climb out of her grave. But still the sun was pushing fingers of pink light up over the trees on the eastern horizon, and up ahead in the barn, a couple of horses nickered in anticipation of their feed. He liked working with the horses and cows.

  Isaac brought his mind back to Brother Asa’s prayers for him. “I have need of prayers,” he said.

  “As do we all.” Brother Asa gave the expected response, but Isaac heard an unusual coolness in his voice that had to be because of what had happened the day before.

  “I didn’t intend to upset you or any of the brothers and sisters at meeting yesterday.” Isaac tried to set things to right with his brother. “I was only trying to keep the new sister from falling.”

  He’d already confessed his sins to Elder Homer at the elder’s insistence after the meeting the day before. Some sins were too big to allow to fester and infect one’s soul with worldly desires, Elder Homer had said as he stroked his beard and waited for Isaac’s words of contrition. Words Isaac had felt no need to speak, but the elder had great patience. He would sit with Isaac till the retiring bell rang if necessary. So Isaac asked forgiveness for disturbing the meeting with carnal thoughts whether the thoughts were Isaac’s own or that of others led astray by the sight of a man and woman holding on to one another. It mattered not that the sister had fallen into him and he’d had no intent of embracing her. That was what Isaac claimed. But there had been those few seconds where his hands had tightened quite intentionally around the new sister’s small waist. That he did not confess to Elder Homer or see any need of mentioning now to Brother Asa.

  “Yea, so it seemed, my young brother.” Brother Asa looked up at Isaac. “But do not forget I was near enough to clearly see your face. Her nearness was a temptation to you. Do you deny that?”

  “Nay. I have not fully become a Believer,” Isaac admitted. He bent his head and studied the walkway of stone beneath his feet. Some other Shaker men had gathered the stones and laid the walking path. Some other men who had no doubt struggled with sin the same as he did.

  “She too carries the odor of the world and has not bent her spirit to the Shaker way.”

  “What makes you think that?” Isaac looked up at Asa.

  “I have been much in the world, my brother, and I have eyes and ears that work as they should. Ways of the world are not hard to discern. Her spirit still lusts after those ways. Even if I had not seen it in her face, I would have heard it in her voice when she asked about her child with blame in her voice.”

  “Blame?”

  “She counts being separated from her child a wrong done to her.”

  “She did appear to care deeply for the little girl on the day we helped move them to the village. Isn’t it too much to expect such feelings to just fade away in a few days?” Isaac looked away from Brother Asa out toward the fields again where the sun was touching the tops of the trees now. Was he letting his feelings for Ella fade away?

  “She will be given time. The same as you are being given. No one is forced to make a decision before his or her heart is ready. But the child won’t be unloved. I can vouch for the truth of that. Love of many quickly healed my loss of a worldly mother.”

  “Do you think that will be so of the child? That she will forget Sister Lacey’s love?”

  “Perhaps not forget. More to not need it among her new family. But in truth, all are not meant to be Believers. If they were, we would have to build many more houses.” Brother Asa’s smile bounced back on his face, his good humor restored as he stepped in front of Isaac to pull open the barn door. The horses whinnied and moved impatiently in their stalls. “But enough preaching. We must be about our work. The horses need their feed. Hands to work. Hearts to God. That takes care of all problems.”

  When the bell rang an hour later, they were already headed back to the Gathering Family House for the morning meal. Isaac was eager to Shaker his plate. Eating every bite of whatever was set in front of him was the one Shaker rule he had no trouble obeying with enthusiasm.

  They were nearly close enough to catch the aroma of freshly baked biscuits in the air when a brother alone in front of them suddenly climbed up on the fence beside the pathway and tried to walk across the top rail like a tightrope performer. With his arms wobbling out to his sides, he made two, then three steps before he lost his balance and fell flat on the ground.

  The man scrambled to his feet and climbed right back up on the fence. It was Brother Elwood, the new sister’s preacher husband. Once more he fell before he had taken four steps and this time landed hard on the stone walkway. Isaac ran ahead of Brother Asa to see if the man was hurt.

  Brother Elwood held his palm out to stop Isaac when he reached toward him. “Nay, keep away. I have no need of aid from one such as you.”

  Isaac dropped his hands and stepped back. The man had a strange look in his eyes as he stared fiercely at Isaac. He’d seen the same look on men’s faces along the riverfront, but it wasn’t a look he’d expected to see here. “Are you drunk, Brother Elwood?”

  Anger flooded the man’s face. “Nay. My body is pure. Pure I say. Else the spirits wouldn’t speak to me.”

  Brother Asa came up beside them and asked in a gentle voice, “What is it the spirit is telling you to do, Brother?”

  “Balance. I must lift myself up between the earth and heaven and find balance there.” He climbed up on the fence again. “Sweet, holy balance.”

  When the man began wobbling on the edge of the top plank of the fence again, Isaac started to step forward to help him, but Brother Asa grabbed his arm. “It is best not to impede the spirits,” he said quietly.

  Isaac stopped, but it was all he could do to keep from saying that it looked to him like the spirits had all gone crazy. Then again, what did he know about the spirits? He couldn’t even figure out his own spirit.

  “He’s going to fall again,” Isaac said.

  “Yea, perhaps.” Brother Asa moved a bit closer to the man swaying on the fence rail and raised his voice. “May I advise you, Brother Elwood, in your quest?”

  When the man gave no answer, Brother Asa went on as if he’d received permission. “In time, sweet, holy balance comes to all who believe. You have taken a good step toward such belief and the balance you seek, but now it is time for the morning meal. A proper Shaker must feed not only his soul but also his body in order to perform his duties well and contribute to the good of all. So Mother Ann has instructed us.”

  Brother Asa reached up to encourage the man to climb down from the fence, but Brother Elwood kept his eyes forward and ignored the little Shaker completely. Brother Asa kept his hand outstretched and spoke in the firm voice he used when working with one of the more fractious horses. “Come, Brother Elwood. Take my hand and climb down.”

  The man turned to stare at Brother
Asa’s hand for a long moment without reaching for it. Instead he blinked his eyes a couple of times before he jumped down from the fence. He stumbled when he hit the ground but didn’t fall. Once he recovered his footing, he stood on the walkway staring down at the ground with his shoulders humped forward and didn’t move.

  “Come, Brother, it is time to go eat.” Brother Asa took the man’s arm. “When we kneel before our meal, we will pray for you to find the balance that will bring peace to your heart, will we not, Brother Isaac?”

  Isaac nodded, although he was blank of prayers for himself. He certainly knew nothing to pray for this man with his tormented spirit.

  “Prayers won’t help,” the man muttered. “She won’t let them help.”

  Brother Asa frowned. “Nay. Mother Ann rejoices in our prayers. She delights in sending blessings down on us. Such gifts of love will soothe your troubled spirit.”

  Brother Elwood looked up at Brother Asa as if his words made no sense to him. “She has no love in her heart for me.”

  And even while Brother Asa was assuring the other man of the mother’s love, Isaac knew it wasn’t the Shakers’ Mother Ann whose lack of love was tormenting Brother Elwood. It had to be Lacey. With her name came memory of the feel of her waist in his hands and the smile in her eyes, and Isaac was glad she had no love for the man before him.

  Isaac lagged behind the two men. He didn’t want Brother Asa to see his face and guess his unkind spirit. Or worse to somehow divine his thoughts and see how the new sister’s face was not only lodged there in his mind but welcomed. A temptation he sought. Just a few weeks before, Isaac entertained no thought of such a temptation even being possible with his heart still full of Ella. He could not let himself look on another as he did Ella.

  Guilt flooded him now. And yet Lacey remained in his thoughts in spite of the guilt. In spite of the fact that she was this tormented brother’s wife. Wives meant nothing in this village. Such were disavowed and turned into sisters. But she was to be his sister too. Certainly it was a sin to think of her in any other way.

  He’d had a wife. He would still have a wife if he hadn’t spurned her father’s advice. Being trapped under the judge’s thumb would have been no worse than being separated from the world in this village. And Ella would still be leaning on his arm, smiling up at him, depending on him for her happiness. But he had not put her happiness before his. Not before it was too late to offer his life for hers.

  Could the same guilt be torturing the man walking with Brother Asa in front of him? It did not seem the same. His Ella was dead. This man’s wife, the new sister, was very much alive. Exercising her contrary spirit that seemed to so match Isaac’s own as she resisted the Shaker way. He could not see her giving in to despair. Instead she let smiles slip out that poked at Isaac and made his lips turn up in answer.

  Isaac was glad when they met Brother Forrest on the walkway coming to find Brother Elwood. He took him on toward the house to take their place in the line to the eating room. Brother Asa fell back beside Isaac once more. Since they had not yet entered the house, the rule of silence was not over them.

  “Do you think he will find the balance he seeks?” Isaac asked as he watched the two men go up the steps to the brothers’ door.

  “That is not an easy question to answer. It would appear the poor man is soul sick.” Brother Asa shook his head slightly before he went on. “For such there is no cure that can be given by another. That cure has to come from within or from the heavens. Something the man seems to realize and why he thinks the spirits are telling him to climb into the air.”

  “You don’t think he’s receiving a true spirit message?”

  “Nay, I did not say that. Any among us can be an instrument of the spirits. But when the spirits torment instead of bringing joy, then a Believer must be sure he is allowing the proper spirits access to his heart. There are evil spirits as well as those sent by Mother Ann.” Brother Asa stopped at the bottom of the stone steps and stared at the door above them. The other two men had already disappeared inside. “On the anvil of life we are forging the chains that link us to heaven or to hell.”

  “How can we change what we’ve already forged?”

  “Those evil chains can be broken and new chains forged. With confession comes forgiveness and changed hearts. There are none too evil to be forgiven.”

  “But he was a preacher in the world. Surely he had done nothing so evil to link him to hell before he came here.”

  “So it would seem, but that we cannot know. Each man—you, me, Brother Elwood, all of us—must face his personal demons and find his own peace with the Eternal Father. The Christ himself faced the demons of temptation while on earth, as did our Mother Ann. None are free from such temptations. But in our village we shut away the world with its sinful enticements. Here a Believer can put his feet on that path to a perfect life in union with his brothers and sisters and find the peace that lets us live without sin.”

  A perfect life. Isaac didn’t think that was possible. Mrs. McElroy’s Bible had said Jesus had lived without sin. Isaac had no reason to doubt the Bible’s words, even if he’d never let them seep down into his heart. But he did doubt that he himself could ever live a perfect life or if any of the Shakers he’d met could either. Even Brother Asa, who wore his faith like a shield against the arrows of sin.

  Brother Asa must have seen the shadow of a frown on Isaac’s face, because he smiled and put his hand on Isaac’s elbow to urge him toward the steps. “Some things are difficult to understand, my brother. But this is an easy truth for you to know. If we don’t hurry, we will miss our breakfast.”

  They fell silent as they entered the brothers’ door and slipped into their places in line to go into the dining room. When they knelt for the silent prayer before the meal, Isaac did offer up words for Brother Elwood. Forgive this man his sins. Isaac had no idea if he had used proper prayer words. He wasn’t even sure he should be praying for another man’s forgiveness when he’d never prayed for his own. But at least he’d kept his promise to Brother Asa.

  As he got to his feet, he thought he could have prayed the same prayer for himself. For any man. Who didn’t need forgiveness? A bit of a prayer his mother had taught him when he was just a boy came into his mind. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. For just a second he did think about whispering the prayer again for himself, but he pushed away the impulse as he reached with his right hand to pull out his chair at the same time as the others around him. The chairs scraped against the floor to break the silence in the room as the men and women settled in for the serious business of feeding their bodies.

  When all had cleaned their plates, they pushed back their chairs in union again and stood before once more kneeling to pray. Another chance to pray for himself. At least eight times a day he knelt in the posture of prayer. Why had he never said the words for himself? He felt the words welling up inside him, but he turned his mind from them. He had no right to forgiveness. None. Better to think about the fence they needed to mend or the heifers that Brother Asa worried might have problems calving.

  He was glad when the time of prayer was over and they could be about their duties. Without intent, as he stood up, his eyes fell on the new sister getting up off her knees across the room, and for no reason other than that she was in front of his eyes, his spirit lightened. She must have felt his eyes on her and looked across at him. She looked happy. Not the look of everyday contented happiness that many of the sisters wore. Her face was alight with joy. No small secret smile the way she had looked at him the day before in the meetinghouse. This smile lit up the room and she sent every bit of it his way. A fact that did not go unnoticed by the older sister beside her, who jerked on Lacey’s sleeve and frowned displeasure at her. Even that didn’t dim the new sister’s smile. Isaac wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to see her spin out away from the other sisters in a whirling dance.

  He looked away from her before he found himself smiling back and earning them
more trouble. But her smile lit up his heart and he found himself wishing he knew the prayer of her heart.

  Isaac glanced around for Asa, but the little man was behind him in the line. He could only hope the brother hadn’t noted Isaac’s wandering gaze. But he wasn’t the only one looking improperly toward the sisters’ side of the eating room. Brother Elwood was standing to the side and not falling into line with the other brothers as they prepared to leave the room. He seemed unaware that the line was even forming as he stared across at the sisters.

  He didn’t seem to be looking toward Lacey. Instead he looked to be staring at Sister Aurelia, who had brought down the angel at the meeting the day before and started the commotion. At first Isaac thought the sister unaware of the man’s stare, but then she turned her head slightly toward Brother Elwood. Her eyes only touched on the man for a brief second before she pulled on the corners of her cap and stared straight ahead again with the slightest of smiles. Brother Elwood stayed rooted in his spot until Brother Forrest took his arm and moved him toward the line.

  Once outside, the men split off in pairs and groups to go to their duties, as did the women who were spilling out the women’s door of the building at the same time. Spring brought much work. Strawberry patches were red with berries to make jam. Weeds were rearing their unwelcome heads in the gardens already planted. Ground had to be readied for more beans and corn. It took acres of productive fields and gardens to supply the village with the necessary food for the Shakers and their stock and still leave abundant seeds to gather for next spring’s planting and to package to sell to those of the world.

  At Harmony Hill, idleness was not allowed in any fashion. Just the day before, Elder Homer had warned Isaac that an idle brain was the devil’s workshop and that an empty soul tempted the devil to come take residence. Isaac didn’t doubt the elder’s words or the judgment he’d seen in the man’s eyes that Isaac’s soul might be tempting the devil to move in. But it was beginning to look as if his soul wasn’t the only one tempting the devil in the Shaker village.