The Refuge

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “It appears you do need a few minutes to teach your child some manners.” Irene shook her finger at him, but kept her smile. “We’ve got stew and cornbread. And I made some fried pies out of the Shaker applesauce I found in the cupboard. They do make good applesauce. You’ll see. You’ll be glad I’m here.”

  For a few minutes after the door shut behind her, the two men looked at each other without saying anything. Finally Silas spoke. “She told me she and Leatrice got along and she didn’t know why you sent her packing back last year.”

  Maybe he hadn’t known. He was still grieving Ma Beatrice then. “It would have been good if we’d talked first. Unless you love her.”

  “Love takes longer than a weekend. Truth of it is, she was willing and we need help out here to keep things going. I aimed good.”

  Flynn let out a slow breath. “I know you did, Silas, and maybe it’ll work out.”

  “I’ll make sure she steps lightly around Leatrice.”

  “And I’ll tell Leatrice she has to be respectful. But I don’t think she’ll ever be ready to claim her as a grandmother.”

  “She can call her Miss Irene.”

  “That should work.”

  Silas shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the door. “Leastways, she can cook. She helped me pick out some supplies.”

  “We needed them.”

  “I was mighty tired of beans every meal.”

  “I understand.” Flynn smiled at the man. What else could he do? This man had taken him to his heart when he married his daughter and been a father to him. “How’s your cough?”

  “Better except at night. Irene is going to fix me up a tonic.”

  “That might help.” Maybe the woman would be good for Silas. He could only hope that turned out to be true. “I’d best go talk to Leatrice.”

  “Don’t fuss at her overmuch. Some things take getting used to.”

  Leatrice wasn’t the only one who needed to get used to Irene in their house. Flynn would have to do the same, and maybe Silas too.

  13

  The winter days passed. Snow, cold winds, clouds, or sun, no matter the weather, I wanted each day to linger. I was in no hurry for my time of confinement. As long as I held my baby within me, I could not be separated from him. But the nausea stayed with me, making mealtimes difficult.

  “You won’t have energy to bring this child into the world if you don’t start eating more,” Sister Ellie fussed. “Birthing babies is no easy task. A woman walks through a dangerous valley anytime she brings a baby into the world.”

  I hadn’t dwelt upon the ordeal of bringing a baby into the world. I merely feared what might follow the birth of my child since I could not ignore the lack of cradles in the Gathering Family House. I did not speak my fear of being parted from my baby aloud to Sister Ellie. She knew without words between us. I simply promised, “I will eat.”

  But then when food was in front of me in the Shaker eating room, I could only nibble.

  Sister Ellie would not be defeated. She rashly broke the Shaker rules by pirating out biscuits and cheese or whatever she could fit in her pockets, for she somehow guessed my appetite was better at bedtime. Perhaps she heard the growling of my stomach in the night.

  Sister Helene knew of the smuggled food but turned her head. For her to follow a tainted path to trouble by breaking rules was surprising. That proved she too worried about me, and her concern was even more vexing since she knew so little of childbirth.

  However, she knew well the story of Mother Ann and how she had four babies who all died at young ages while Ann Lee lived in England. This Mother Ann believed their deaths were God’s way of convincing her to live a celibate life. Those who followed her were required to shed what the Shakers called the sin of matrimony in order to join their society. I didn’t believe any of it.

  The Lord who lived in my heart loved me. He loved my baby even as he was formed in my womb. The Bible promised that, but Sister Helene had lived the Shaker way. She had come to this sterile environment as a young girl and knew little of the creation of life, other than the hatching of chicks and the freshening of a mother cow when a calf was dropped.

  I, at least, had been with my mother when she birthed my brothers and sister. I knew what to expect, even though, as Sister Ellie warned, every woman came to childbirth alone. Each delivery was a unique experience.

  “My first was many hours of pain,” Sister Ellie told me. “My second came quickly with ease. Such a gift that was. I was sure those to follow would be the same, and it was so for the third boy. But the fourth, another boy, was turned the wrong way. If the old granny my husband fetched to assist me hadn’t guided other such babies into the world, I would have lost that one and perhaps died myself. The last, dear Abby, was born after the others were well beyond their baby years. She came easy enough, but then I struggled to find my feet again.”

  Sister Ellie gave me a hard look before she went on. “And that was in spite of never neglecting my nourishment. I knew to eat not only for my baby but also for myself. A mother must stay as healthy as possible in order to nurse her baby once he is born.”

  She had brought me a hunk of cornbread and a slice of apple pie wrapped in her handkerchief. I had managed the pie, but the cornbread needed milk to make it go down. I nibbled at it and considered her words. We perched on the edge of my bed, speaking quietly to keep from disturbing the other two in the room already asleep, although I wondered if Sister Helene only pretended sleep. If she let us know she was awake, she would be conflicted about the need to chastise Sister Ellie for breaking the rules. Eldress Maria gave her the duty of instructing us in proper Shaker behavior. The other, Sister Genna, kept to herself.

  I barely kept from choking as I swallowed the cornbread. Sister Ellie produced a small jar of water from the folds of her nightdress. I wondered if she had sewn extra pockets into the garment.

  I gratefully took a drink and then stared at the remaining hunk of cornbread in my hand. Sister Ellie was right. I did need to preserve my health in order to properly mother my child, but would I be given that choice?

  “Will I be allowed to nurse my baby?” For the first time, I spoke my fears aloud.

  Sister Ellie looked puzzled. “The baby must be fed and such is the natural way.”

  “Little is natural here. At least among the people.” I stared down at the cornbread crumbling in my hand. Unshed tears clogged my throat. “I suppose calves are not separated from their mothers before their time.”

  Sister Ellie’s face softened as she wrapped her arms around me. “Nor will you be separated from your baby while he needs the food you can provide. I am sure of it.”

  “I see no cradles here.”

  “True. They may move you to the Children’s House for a time.”

  “And when that time is through?” I wiped away a tear that escaped. “What then?”

  Her eyes moistened like mine. She knew the answer, had felt the sorrow with her own dear children, but did not want to speak it aloud. Instead she said, “Look not too far ahead. Best to take each day as it comes.”

  “Yea.” But I felt the days counting down.

  “Be glad for this gift of motherhood.” She hugged me again and whispered in my ear as though she too worried Sister Helene might be listening. “We will pray for a better way for you when that time comes.”

  “I am praying.”

  She leaned back and I could see the worry on her face in the moonlight sliding through the window. “Are you still having those pains in your back?”

  “Some. Nothing I can’t bear.”

  “At least the eldress let you change from kitchen duty. She should forgive you from all duties until after your baby comes.” Sister Ellie squeezed my hand. “I will see if Sister Helene will ask Eldress Maria to allow you to rest.”

  “Nay, don’t do that. I don’t mind the duty of hand lettering the seed packages. Eldress Maria said that perhaps I had found my best talent for the Society. Careful script
.”

  After Sister Ellie returned to her own bed, I smiled as I remembered how surprised the eldress had been when I told her I could read and write.

  In the days that followed, printing the planting instructions on the seed packages proved an easy duty. I worked alone so if my back stiffened and ached, I could stand and walk about a bit. I think the eldress was glad to hide me away from the other sisters. Many of them looked at me with the same sympathy as Sister Ellie and perhaps regretted the lost joys of motherhood.

  At times when I peered out the room’s window to rest my eyes from the printing duty, I watched for the child Leatrice and her father. I wondered if he still worked with Walter’s horse but dared not go back to the barn.

  After that morning when I had strayed from the Shaker rules, Eldress Maria made it clear my visit to Sawyer was a serious infraction. She had known about my transgression even before I made my confession to her. When I asked how, she said such was not my concern but that nothing happening in the village could remain hidden.

  I knew about the watchers, those stationed in high windows to make sure all went about their duties without wandering onto paths of sins, but I had assumed even the watchers went to the meals when the bell rang. Obviously, I was mistaken.

  Eldress Maria had let me know I was in a precarious position. Those who didn’t follow the rules could be asked to leave the village.

  “We would hate losing you to the world. We want to embrace you as a dear sister, but as a sister you must abide by our rules. Without such discipline, we cannot have unity.” Her frown had deepened as she spoke.

  So I had bent my head and murmured the expected words of contrition, even as I prayed for forgiveness for my duplicity. Unity. The only ones I felt sure unity with were the child within me and the husband lost to me.

  When the pain of that loss threatened to overwhelm me, I imagined Walter smiling down on me from heaven. He would want me to find a way to be happy. But what way that could be I did not know except I was sure I could find no happiness separated from my child.

  When that worry came to mind, I remembered Sister Ellie’s whispered words to pray. So I did. Granny Hatchell had taught me prayers offered in faith were answered even when the answers might not be what you expected. The Lord’s ways were not man’s ways. Or Shaker ways, in my mind.

  I was not sure why I continued to look for the child, Leatrice, and her father. But once, while I was still working in the kitchen, I had been almost sure I saw the child with Sister Faye. I was headed to the privy, something I had to do often as the weight of the baby increased. The child I thought might be Leatrice was wearing a Shaker cloak such as she had worn on the morning I ushered her away from the barn, but it could have been another little sister since I didn’t see her face.

  Another time, after Eldress Maria gave me the lettering duty, I was positive I saw the girl’s father riding Sawyer past my window. He stepped lively, and my heart was glad for the horse that Walter had loved. I wished I could run out and stop the man. Speaking with him in the barn about Sawyer that day and then taking his daughter’s hand in mine had somehow lifted my spirits. A proof the world went on in its normal way outside the village.

  I felt sequestered in the small room that served as Eldress Maria’s place to hear the confessions of those in her charge. She gave it over to me for the working hours of the day while she was about other duties, for the elders and eldresses worked with their hands the same as novitiates such as I. Sister Helene said the eldress wove perfect baskets and never dropped a seed when she was filling the seed packets.

  The Shakers sold thousands of these seed packets here in the near neighborhood and as far away as New Orleans and the western territories. Each day I was given a stack of the packets already partially printed on a hand press but needing an extra line of planting instructions. For the cabbage seeds, Sow in early spring. For other seeds, Plant after the danger of frost is past.

  Before the eldress assigned me the duty, she had asked me to print out the alphabet. She studied my lettering and nodded that I passed the test. Her smile was genuine and not one I often saw. I was a continual cross for Eldress Maria to bear. Not only did she sense I lacked proper belief in the Shaker way, my condition made her uneasy. Yet she tried to be kind. She was kind. I reminded myself of that often. The Shakers were all kind. They worked at practicing kindness the same as they worked making chairs and brooms or packaging seeds.

  Were I widowed without the blessing of approaching motherhood, then I might have settled into the village life with ease and enjoyed sharing chores and duties with the sisters. Even the songs and dances of the Shakers were not all that difficult to embrace. Sister Ellie said I was fortunate that what was called the Era of Manifestations was dying out. For several years the community had experienced an odd period of visions and visitations from heaven.

  My doubt must have shown on my face, because Sister Ellie merely smiled and went on. “It was a strange time for sure. Sister Faye claimed to go up into heaven and walk all around. Others said the spirits came to dance with them.”

  “Did you dance with them?”

  “Nay. Even when most of those at meeting seemed excited and able to see those from the heavenly realm, I saw and felt nothing.”

  “Did that upset you?” I asked.

  “Not at all. I have no wish to see spirits. Eldress Maria said, and rightly so, that I must not be open to receive spiritual gifts. It is true that I have ever been practical in my thinking, so the steadiness of life here suits me. At the same time I do miss my own kitchen, and it is a sorrow not being the one to tuck my Abby into bed each night.”

  “Perhaps we should pray for you to have another way too,” I told her as we walked to the privy after the morning meal on a late February day that had early spring warmth in its sunshine. No one was near enough to overhear us.

  “A way is open to me with my oldest daughter.” She sighed. “But I hesitate to take it and leave Abby and my husband behind, even if neither of them seems to note me as mother and wife. I little know what to pray.”

  “Perhaps peace with your decision,” I suggested. “Whatever path you decide to walk.”

  “Yea. A heart torn two ways knows no joy.” Sister Ellie looked away at the trees across the pasture behind the privy and then back at me. “For now, I am glad to be here so I can be a sister mother to you during this time.”

  “I don’t know what I would do without your help. And prayers.”

  “We will continue to pray for answers.” Sister Ellie put an arm around me and I leaned into her strength. “And for an easy birth. How much longer do you think?”

  “Four weeks to make nine months.” I did not tell her about the pains pulsing in my back. Surely that was from sitting so long at my lettering duty. “Will they call for a doctor when it is my time?”

  “We have a Shaker doctor here. Sister Lettie. She is very old but has healing in her hands.”

  “Will she know about babies?”

  “Yea, I’m sure she does. Besides, as long as all is well, I could help usher your little one into the world. The Lord intended such to be a natural process.”

  “So it was for my mother.” I paused to stretch my back. The pain was still there. “I am anxious to hold my baby in my arms and see his face.” I stroked the baby moving under my skin as I spoke my next words barely loud enough for Sister Ellie to hear. “But I am afraid.”

  She hugged me once more. “Yea, that is only natural with a first child. But dwell on the truth that many, many women have gone through this birthing experience. With the Lord’s help, you will be fine.” She leaned down to peer into my face, a smile on her own. “If you remember to eat enough.”

  “I will eat,” I promised. “But how will I know when the time has come?” I was with my mother during her confinements, but I was so young then. I remembered her hours of laboring to push out the babies, but I didn’t remember the beginning.

  “Your body will tell you. There will
be pain.” Sister Ellie’s smile disappeared. “You cannot bring a baby into the world without some suffering, but I will be there to hold your hand and Sister Helene will send up sincere prayers.”

  “I am blessed with sisters.” And that I said with complete honesty. If I could not be in my husband’s house, then here was a good place for me.

  14

  FEBRUARY 26, 1850

  I should have told Sister Ellie how much my back was hurting. But that wasn’t where labor pains grabbed my mother. I did know that. Plus I had to consider the four more weeks my baby needed to grow. Early babies struggled to thrive. I did not want my baby to have any reason to struggle.

  But what one wanted did not always happen. I remembered the early pains and how Sister Ellie had told me to lie still and rest so they would go away. They did go away then, with only vague twinges since. But nothing was vague about the pain attacking me now. Nor did it matter how still I lay or what position I curled into on the bed.

  The pain slid around from my back and grabbed my belly with dreadful claws before it eased. I tried to count the minutes, but I was very tired and dozed off before the dreadful tightening that meant another pain was taking possession of my body. I tensed even as the memory of the midwife granny telling my mother to take slow breaths to relax came to mind. Once the woman had her singing hymns.

  I considered humming a tune to help endure the pain. But what I really wanted was for them to slide completely away. To wait yet a little longer, but the pain grabbed me again. Instead of a song, a groan escaped my lips.

  Sister Ellie was beside me in an instant. She must have been sleeping with a mother’s ear, listening for my least sound. Hadn’t she claimed happiness at being my sister mother to help me through this time? Perhaps because she had missed being there for her daughter when her grandchild was born.

  She put her hand on my stomach. “Are you having pains?”

  My breath caught as the pain strengthened its hold on me so that I could do no more than nod.