“I don’t believe Sister Helene means anything but good for us,” I insisted.
“I can agree with that. But her idea of what is good and our idea of what is good might be different. Trust me on this, Sister Darcie, and guard your time with your little one by careful rule following. I would greatly miss my little sister should Eldress Maria decide to move you from our room.” She had kissed Anna Grace’s head before she hurried off to her duty.
I remembered that conversation on this day as I hurried back up the stairs to our room. Sister Helene was dressed with her bonnet carefully adjusted and her cloak around her shoulders, for the air was still cool on this April morning.
She reached down to gently rock Anna Grace’s cradle. “Our little sister smiled at me when I tucked her cover around her a moment ago. She will be a wonderful Shaker sister someday.”
I did not tell her I prayed that would not happen. I did not wish the Shaker life on my child. Or on me. Instead my curiosity got the better of me. “What duties do you have today?”
“I am assigned to the dye room to ready our yarn for the looms. It is not my favorite task, but that is why we rotate duties. So no one has a duty they do not like for too long. I do like mixing the dyes, but I always end up with blue or brown hands.” She smiled at me. “Worry not. I will be sure to scrub my hands before I pick up Anna Grace.”
“I’m not worried. I see how you care for her.”
“Yea, it is easy to love her. It makes me understand better the anguish some of the sisters feel when they come into our society and are parted from their children.”
“But you still believe the Shaker way best?”
“Oh, yea. It is the only way we can live as they do in heaven. As sisters and brothers. It is as our Mother Ann instructed.” Her face softened again as she looked toward the cradle. “But I am glad to be able to help with such a little angel sister.”
After she left the room, I picked up Anna Grace and held her close as I looked out the window at the Shakers moving around on the walkways. Like so many ants. All the same with their like dress and bonnets or hats. No, that wasn’t true. Each one was different. Just as I was different. All with their own stories and their own reasons to be here. Some because they wanted to walk the Shaker path. Others perhaps like me, with no options other than the Shaker roof.
“I don’t know how, but we will find a way out of this place. With the Lord’s help,” I whispered.
“Have faith in the providence of the Lord.” Granny Hatchell’s words slipped through my mind.
“I do have faith, Lord. You sent me Walter when I needed him and you gave me Anna Grace when you took him from me. I will wait for your answer.”
I put Anna Grace back in her cradle to finish my cleaning before the morning meal. When it was near time for the bell to summon the Shakers to breakfast, I positioned Anna Grace in the wrap to head toward the Children’s House. To share in the meal, I had to be on time.
As I stepped out into the hallway, the warbling cry of a baby came to my ears. Not Anna Grace, content next to my breast. Sister Helene appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying a bundle. Her face showed a mixture of relief and distress when she saw me.
“Oh, Sister Darcie. I’m glad you are still here. I feared you might have already left.”
Eldress Maria appeared behind her, panting from her climb up the stairs.
“What is it? Do you have a baby?” I asked. That didn’t seem possible, but the sounds coming from the ragged bundle were unmistakably made by a baby.
“Yea. I saw him on the washhouse steps and hurried to fetch him. Poor dear.”
“On the washhouse steps?” I couldn’t take it in, even after she pulled the ragged blanket away from the baby’s red face. His little mouth was wide open, with his tongue quivering because of his fearful cries.
“Someone deserted him there.” Eldress Maria had caught her breath enough to speak. “Sister Lettie says you can nurse him along with Anna Grace.”
Sister Lettie appeared at the top of the stairs then. She fanned her face with her hand. “My dear Sister Helene, there was no reason to run with the child. He is not in imminent danger of expiring. I’m too old to be rushing up these stairs like that.”
“But you said—” Sister Helene started, but Sister Lettie waved away her words.
“I said the infant would have a better chance to thrive if our young sister here nurses him.” Sister Lettie looked directly at me then. “The poor tyke needs a bath and clean clothes and food you can supply him.”
“Yea.”
Sister Lettie must have heard the worry in my word. “Never fear, young sister. You will have plenty for your baby and for this poor abandoned waif. Think of how his mother threw him away.”
“Nay,” Sister Helene said softly. “She did not. She brought him to us because she knew we were kind and would care for him. Perhaps she was like Moses’s mother who sent her daughter to watch the basket with Moses to be sure he was all right.”
Eldress Maria turned stern eyes on Sister Helene. “Did you see whoever left this baby?”
“Nay, I only saw the bundle on the steps and went to see what it might be.”
Sister Lettie clapped her hands as if to dismiss all that. “We can worry about that later. Now we must take care of this new soul. Come, Sister Darcie. Back into your room. Your Anna Grace seems content enough. Let us make this child as content.”
Sister Helene laid the baby on one of the beds and peeled back the ragged covers. The baby had nothing on.
“How old?” I placed Anna Grace back in her cradle and grabbed one of her clean blankets out of the drawer.
“Maybe a day. Maybe two.” Sister Lettie cleaned the baby’s bottom and then rubbed his legs. “He’s cold and hungry.”
“Here, let me have him.” I wrapped the clean blanket around him and put him to my breast. After a bit of urging, he figured out what to do and he sucked eagerly. Poor little fellow. He needed me. “I will take care of him. And Anna Grace.”
“Yea, of course you will. Sister Helene can assist you today with bringing water for the infant’s bath and the morning meal for you.” Sister Lettie looked at the eldress again. “Such can be arranged, can it not?”
“Yea.” Eldress Maria agreed, but she looked as if she’d been blindsided by a runaway horse. Two babies in a house where there were to be no babies. But she did not argue with Sister Lettie. Instead, she sighed heavily as she turned to leave the room. “I will have someone bring a cradle. Sister Helene, do whatever Sister Lettie asks of you.”
“Yea.” Sister Helene was beside me, her eyes fastened on the baby boy I held. She waited until the door closed behind Eldress Maria. “Will he be all right?”
Sister Lettie didn’t answer and silence built in the room. The baby stopped sucking, too exhausted from his ordeal to continue. His skin was splotchy red and his little bit of dark hair stuck up in points. His eyes opened just a slit, but he didn’t cry, as though he knew his demands would be met. At last.
When Sister Lettie finally answered Sister Helene, her voice was soft. “If the Lord wills it so.”
The bell to summon everyone to the morning meal began to chime then. The noise startled the baby in my arms and he opened his mouth to cry. I held him closer. He pushed out a breath and settled against me. Yes, I could take care of two babies.
19
“Why you are so dead set against Irene?” Silas frowned at Flynn. “What’s she done besides cook us some decent meals?”
And betray the vows she made to you by sneaking into my bedroom. But Flynn couldn’t say that. Silas wasn’t ready to hear it. He didn’t appear to want to hear any complaint against Irene this morning. He was moving slow, as though he had to think about each step he took. Whatever Irene had given him a double dose of the night before was still working on him.
Silas had come out to the barn to hitch the team to the wagon, so they were away from Irene’s hearing and from Leatrice’s too. The little girl
had climbed down from the loft to retrieve one of the kittens she spotted climbing on the woodpile.
Irene wanted to go to the store. Flynn hoped Silas had money for whatever Irene thought she needed. He didn’t like the idea of running up a tab at the store. It was bad enough he now owed the bank after buying the Harley place, but owing for land was different than owing for new hats or buttons and bows.
Flynn bent back to mucking out the stalls. This was about more than the frills a woman might want. He needed to find the right words to warn Silas. That morning, Flynn had been up before daylight. After he stirred the fire to a flame, he lit a taper and searched the kitchen for the tin with the black powder Leatrice had seen. He hadn’t found it.
He’d like to believe Leatrice was wrong, but he didn’t think she’d made up seeing the black powder. That was why not finding something like that in the cabinet worried him. If it had been there on a shelf, that would mean Irene had no reason to conceal whatever it was. But it was gone.
Or perhaps not gone, just hidden, as Leatrice said. The child didn’t like Irene. For that matter, Flynn didn’t like Irene. Her coming into his bedroom was reprehensible. Her threatening Leatrice was unforgivable. Her trying to poison Silas was criminal. So even if it did upset Silas, he had to warn him.
Before he figured out how best to say what needed saying, Silas spoke up. “Irene said you’d try to turn me against her. That you’d be jealous.”
Flynn set the pitchfork down and stepped out of the stall to look at Silas on the other side of the wagon. “You know that’s not true, Silas. I would never do anything to hurt you. You’re like a father to me.”
“I know.” Silas stared down at the ground for a few seconds. “I told her she was wrong. It’s just that she’s in my ear all the day long and half the night about this or that. Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind.”
“That cough is getting you down. You seem to be feeling worse all the time.” Flynn hesitated, but he had to say it. “Could be you might ought to skip that tonic Irene’s been making for you and get something at the doctor when you are in town today. I don’t think her tonic is helping you.”
“To be honest, I’ve been thinking the same thing. Seems like it makes my legs feel like two logs and my hands shake.” Silas held a hand over the wagon to show how it trembled. “I can’t hardly do anything anymore.”
“Why don’t you try it without the tonic for a few days?”
“Irene will get mad if I don’t drink it.” Silas looked worried.
“Just pretend to and pour it out. She doesn’t have to see you. That way you can figure out if you feel better when you don’t take it without getting her bothered.”
Silas fiddled with the harness he was holding. Flynn was afraid he’d upset the man. But instead Silas looked up, straight at Flynn. “You don’t really think she’s trying to poison me, do you?”
Flynn hesitated.
Silas’s gaze didn’t waver. “Tell me the truth.”
“I don’t want to believe that, but I’m not at all sure she isn’t.” He’d gone this far. He might as well tell it all. “Leatrice saw her putting something she thought looked bad in the drink.”
“A little girl can’t know what herbs are good and which ones aren’t.”
“You’re right. But Leatrice is worried about you. She loves you, Silas.” Again he hesitated.
Silas stared at him. “Go ahead and say whatever it is you’re wanting to say.”
“I don’t think Irene loves you. I think she’s just using you.”
“For what?”
“That I don’t know, but if I were you, I wouldn’t drink any more of that tonic. And I wouldn’t let her know I wasn’t drinking it. Just to be on the safe side.”
“Safe.” Silas looked off toward the open barn door. “I grew up here on this farm. Never had any reason not to feel safe. This is home. Always has been, but after I lost Beatrice, it’s not the same. Nothing’s the same.”
“The cholera taking Ma Beatrice was hard. You two were married a long time.”
“Thirty some years. She always wanted more children, but Lena was the only one the Lord gave us. And then he took her back too soon. That was hard. Him taking Bea on top of it about took me down. Might have if it hadn’t been for you and the girl.” He turned back to Flynn. “Bea always said I was too quick on the draw. That I needed to pray things through. Guess as how she was right.”
“She was a praying woman.” Flynn didn’t know what else to say.
“She was that. Said Lena and me kept her in practice. I reckon that was so.” A smile touched the man’s lips, but he couldn’t seem to hold it there. “Not sure even she could pray me out of this mess I brung on us. What do you think needs doing?”
“Hard to say, Silas. You’ll have to figure that out.” Flynn hesitated, but there wasn’t any use not telling Silas. He had to know sooner or later. “But what with the way things are, I think it’s better for Leatrice and me to find another place. Fact is, I bought old Jackson Harley’s place down the road.”
Silas frowned. “That house won’t hold the rain off your head.”
“You’re right there.” Flynn smiled a little. “But I’m going to fix it up. That will give you and Irene some privacy to maybe work things out.”
“I see. When you thinking on moving?”
“Not for a while as long as you don’t run me off, but I am thinking on taking Leatrice to the Shakers for a while. Just until I get the house fixed up. You remember you said I ought to do that last year.”
Silas pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. “I guess I did. Thought it was the best for her at the time.” He looked toward the field outside the barn again. “I don’t know if I’ve got it in me to keep this place going by myself. I’m getting on up in years and with this cough and all.”
“I’m not deserting you. I’ll just be down the road. I’ll come help you with whatever needs doing every day.”
“I always intended the place to go to you and then to Leatrice.” He blinked as though tears were pushing at his eyes.
“But you’re married now. Irene has a claim on the farm.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Flynn was turning back to finish with the stalls when Silas said, “Could be we can figure something out. You get the house fixed and we’ll swap farms. You can deed that place to me and I’ll deed this one to you.”
“Irene won’t go for that.”
“She’ll have to do whatever I say. The man makes the decisions on things like that.”
“Maybe we better wait and think about this awhile.”
“You mean not let Irene know about it?” Silas smiled, but there wasn’t much humor in the look. “You think she might up the poison?”
“I don’t have any proof about that tonic. Just a bad feeling. Could be I’m wrong.”
“Could be you’re not.” Silas sighed. “But either way, guess I better get these horses hitched up and get her into town. Else I’ll never hear the end of it. I’ll check in with Doc Robards while I’m there.”
“Good. I’ll help you hitch up the team.”
They talked about ordinary things, like how the horses looked while they put the harness on them, but under their words, a dark worry lurked. Surely he was wrong about Irene. Just because she threw herself at him didn’t mean she was ready to poison Silas. Even so, times were when a man needed to keep his eyes and ears open.
Leatrice scooted up close to the side of the barn when Grandpa drove the wagon outside so he wouldn’t see her there and know she’d heard him talking to Papa. She hadn’t meant to listen. After she caught her kitten, she would have headed straight to the loft, but the sun felt so good that she settled down by the barn to play. Muggins liked the sun too and purred while she rubbed him.
At first she hadn’t paid much attention to what they were saying. She figured it was about the horses, but then Papa said her name. That got her attention. She kept petting the kitten to keep it quiet so she could hear
what they said. It wasn’t hard. The cracks between the barn planks let their voices come out plain enough.
Papa told Grandpa about the black stuff. Grandpa didn’t sound like he wanted to believe it, but then he’d said poison. Poison. That was what Papa used to kill mice in the cellar. He was always warning Leatrice to keep her cats out of the cellar so they wouldn’t eat the poison and die.
Leatrice held the kitten a little closer. Limp as a rag doll, he almost seemed to be melting in the warm sunlight.
She was still worrying over the idea of poison when Papa said he was going to take her to the Shakers. Not just to visit, but to live. While she’d been begging to go to the Shakers, she hadn’t thought about not coming on back home at the end of the day.
But Papa said he had bought a house for them, and that was why he was taking her to the Shakers. So he could get the new place fixed up right. Thinking about moving away from here made her stomach jerk funny. This was her place. Or it had been before that woman came. All of this was that woman’s fault.
Leatrice stared across the field toward the house where Grandpa was helping that woman up into the wagon. If only she would ride away and not come back. Leatrice didn’t want Grandpa not to come back. She loved him. She didn’t want him to be poisoned by that woman. If she went to the Shakers, she wouldn’t be able to help him or Papa either. And who would take care of Muggins and the other kittens?
But she could learn to read at the Shaker school. And that woman couldn’t put something bad in her food. If she was ready to poison Grandpa, no telling what she might do to Leatrice. Papa must think so too. That was why he kept Leatrice with him all the time. And slept by her bed last night.
She watched the wagon until it disappeared down the dirt road. Maybe that woman would stay in town. She didn’t act as though she liked it here since she was always fussing about something or other.
If only things could go back to the way they were. With Mamaw Bea still there. She could teach Leatrice to read, using the Bible the way she said she’d taught Mama. A few tears slid down Leatrice’s cheeks. She raised the kitten up to brush them away with his fur. He was so soft.
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