Dear America: Like the Willow Tree

by Lois Lowry

  At Uncle Henry’s, nothing was very pretty, and everything was atumble, always. Toys scattered, and things half-finished: a partly knitted sweater; stockings waiting to be darned; wood stacked haphazardly, toppled, and then left.

  Here everything is bare. The wood is polished, the floor and windows spotless, and in its own way, this room is beautiful. But there is no decoration. Drawers are built into the wall, and I have been shown which is mine. Pegs on the wall are to hold hanging things. There are two chairs, wooden ones with woven seats.

  There is nothing else.

  Sister Jennie (I will tell you more about her when I have time) is kind enough, though I can tell I must not try her patience. And she is to come for me in a moment, to tell me what to do next, so I will put my journal now into the drawer that is mine. And the stones from my pocket: my little family. I will put them here, under the pillow on my bed.

  So already I have secrets.

  Later

  I have cried, now, until there are no tears left in me.

  Where to begin? I will start where I left off earlier today. There was no time to write more then, for I was taken from this place to that, and not much alone. I need to be alone to write. Now I am, for I am being punished.

  It is odd to think of being alone as punishment, for I love time to myself. Mother always punished me, when I needed it (and I often did, I confess), with extra chores. Father, with his belt, though he was never cruel, not really.

  Here they do not punish with a thrashing, not even the boys, I am told, but with separation. So I am here alone in my retiring room (that is what they call the bedroom. They seem to have a different language) until the other girls come up to bed, and I do not mind at all, though I have cried very loudly, just to make them all sorry, hearing me.

  So now I will go back to earlier, when we arrived. A boy came and took the reins and led the horses away, I suppose to give them water. Uncle Henry took us into a building where we sat in a hallway to wait. It was very quiet and dimly lit, and cool. Uncle Henry went into a room where there was a woman in an odd dress, and Daniel and I could not hear what he and she were saying, though we tried to.

  After a while a man came into the hallway. He nodded to Daniel, completely ignoring me, which I thought was rude, and asked Daniel to come with him. I expected Daniel to argue and refuse. But to my surprise, he simply picked up his small bag of things and went away with the man, without a word to me. Of course I didn’t think he would say good-bye! We are both here in this same small place, of course, and would likely see each other shortly. But still! He should have made some acknowledgment of me, I thought, and certainly he should have introduced me to the man. I decided I would mention it to Daniel when I saw him next because even if we have to stay here for a while, we must not forget the manners that our mother worked so hard to teach us.

  So now I was alone in the hallway, and peeking into the room where Uncle Henry was, I could see that he was reading some papers and had a pen in his hand, as if he were to sign them. But that was all I saw, because suddenly a woman appeared and came to where I was. I could not tell how old she was. She wore glasses, had her hair pulled back tight and wore a small cap over it, and her long-sleeved dress was to her ankles and of a dark pattern. The front of her dress had a piece of the same fabric that fell across her bosom, like a sort of bib, and shaped in a triangle. I have never seen a dress like it before.

  She told me she was Sister Jennie Mathers. So I realized she was a kind of nun, for I remembered my friend Marjorie Fallon in Portland. Marjorie attends St. Joseph’s, and she used to speak of her favorite teacher, Sister Agatha, and her least favorite, Sister Mary Eunice. The dress that Sister Jennie wore was not at all like what the nuns at St. Joseph’s wore, but this is a different place and the rules and uniforms are likely different. I decided that if they told me to make promises that would turn me into a Catholic, or worse — into a nun! — I would do so with my fingers crossed, which makes everything invalid.

  Sister Jennie knew my name, and said it in a warm and kindly way. “Welcome to Chosen Land, Lydia,” she said.

  I must have looked puzzled, because she explained, “It’s our spiritual name. Each community has one. Over in Canterbury, they call their community Holy Ground.”

  “Oh, I see,” I said, though I didn’t, really. Chosen Land? Holy Ground? Everything seemed very confusing.

  “You come along with me,” she said. “I’ll take you to the girls’ shop.”

  I am sorry to say that I rose and followed her, carrying my small satchel, and forgot to speak to Uncle Henry. I suppose I thought I would be seeing him again, but that was not to be true. The last I saw of my mother’s brother was the back of him, sitting in a straight wooden chair, leaning over the papers on the desk and signing me away to the Shakers.

  “What will I be selling?” I asked Sister Jennie.

  She looked puzzled. “Selling?”

  “You said we were going to the shop.”

  She laughed. “It’s just our way of naming things. It’s where you’ll live, with the other girls. We call it the girls’ shop. Over here —” She pointed to a building on her right. “That’s the boys’ shop. Your brother will be living there.”

  “It’s very pretty here,” I said politely to Sister Jennie as we walked on the path between the buildings. And I did not have to cross my fingers when I said it, for it was indeed quite beautiful, all the buildings so clean and white, and the pastures beyond still green in October, with the trees every shade of orange and red.

  “It’s lovely in summer, with the flower gardens,” Sister Jennie said. “Of course it’s too late now for flowers. But next summer, you’ll see. Some of our girls make the most beautiful bouquets and we sell them up at the Mansion House.”

  I was completely befuddled by what she said. A mansion house, like the one in The Secret Garden? I didn’t see anything of the sort. I saw only the white house she was leading me to, and it was not at all a mansion, though it was large, larger than my home in Portland. It had porches, and looked comfortable enough.

  “Where are the girls?” I asked her, for it seemed so quiet everywhere. “In school?”

  “Nay,” she said. “The schoolhouse is closed for now, because of the sickness.”

  It was the first time — though not the last! — that I heard Sister Jennie say “Nay” instead of “No.” It seemed very old-fashioned and odd.

  “The girls are working all about,” she said. “Susannah’s in the kitchen of the dwelling, helping with the after-dinner work there. She’s just your age, eleven. And Rebecca’s at the ironing. She’s ten.”

  She had gestured a bit, with her head, to indicate the big brick building when she described Susannah at work in the kitchen. And the ironing, it seemed, was in the large white building behind the one we were now entering.

  “And I left the other girls doing fancywork,” she said. “They’re in here.”

  We went in through the back door, the one off the rear porch. I could see a room full of stacked wood facing me, ready for winter. And next, a bathroom! I was so glad to see it, and that they did not have a privy like Uncle Henry’s. Awful, smelly thing! But this was clean and bright, with a tub standing on feet.

  She saw me looking at it, smiled, and indicated with a nod of her head that I might use it. And thank goodness, for I think I might have burst otherwise, but had not wanted to ask.

  When I came out, she was waiting, and she said to me, “Tonight you will have a warm bath.” I know she meant, “because you are so dirty,” but she was kind not to say it. And in truth I loved the thought of a bath, the smell of soap, the softness of a towel. There was none of that at Uncle Henry’s.

  She led me into a large front room where a small group of young girls sat on the wooden chairs that I had seen everywhere. They were quite silent but looked at me curiously, and one, a little younger than I, with curls and freckles, gave me a grin. Sister Jennie introduced them and they were not called “Siste
r,” so I know they were not yet nuns. I have forgotten, already, most of the names, but the one who had grinned at me was Grace. Each of them was at work with her hands, most knitting, some working on samplers with cross-stitch. I surely hoped that they had time to play, and to run about outdoors. If I have to sit silently in this room and knit, I thought, I will faint from boredom.

  I noticed a book on a table, and Sister Jennie saw me notice. “I was reading aloud to the girls while they did their handwork,” she explained.

  “The Five Little Peppers,” the girl named Grace piped up. “It’s a lovely story.”

  I knew, for I had read it myself already at home. “I brought a book with me,” I said. “It’s called The Secret Garden.” I reached down and took it out of my satchel, to show them.

  To my surprise, Sister Jennie took it out of my hands. “We’ll place it here, on the shelf, with the other books,” she said.

  “But it’s mine,” I told her.

  “Nay,” she said. “All that we have belongs to us all.”

  So I watched as my beloved book, the one I had hoped to have in my room — wherever my room was to be — so that I could read in private, became part of their small collection of books.

  And for that reason, I was downhearted when she led me up the stairs. The girls turned back to their handwork, and I followed Sister Jennie to the large room above. There were four beds, and she told me I was to have the one that had been Eliza’s. I wondered what had become of Eliza but didn’t ask.

  She showed me the drawer in which to place my things, and left me there to settle myself. It was then, seated there on Eliza’s bed, which was now mine, that I wrote earlier in this journal.

  Shortly after I finished and put the journal into a drawer, a bell rang. I think it was on the top of the large brick building nearby. Sister Jennie summoned me and I went with her and the other girls, after washing our hands, to that building, for supper. By then I was certainly hungry!

  But we waited for quite a while outside of the dining room, sitting there quietly in a room that seemed almost like the doctor’s waiting room in Portland. Older girls came in, and then the women, who were dressed as Sister Jennie was, wearing the long-sleeved dress with its V-shaped yoke, and a cap covering their tightly pulled-back hair. Some of them greeted me in soft voices, and I learned their names: Sister Helen, Sister Amanda, Eldress Prudence, Eldress Lizzie.

  I wondered where the men were, and the boys. I wanted to see Daniel. But when I asked, whispering, Sister Jennie told me that they entered through a different door. She called them “the brethren.”

  I was a little nervous because I was afraid there would be rules I didn’t know to follow. I was going to ask Sister Jennie. But suddenly there was a chime, and the door to the dining room opened. I watched and could see that we would enter in a particular way, with Eldress Lizzie first, then Eldress Prudence. Behind them, in twos, the other women. Then the teen-aged girls, and finally we youngest girls, and Sister Jennie with us. She directed me to a table in what seemed to be the children’s section. I was to sit with three other girls, the three who would share the bedroom with me — curly-headed Grace; Polly, who wears glasses; and Rebecca, who seems so quiet and serious.

  After we had entered and were standing at our places, another door opened and the men came in, followed by boys. There was Daniel! He didn’t see me at first. And I couldn’t help it — I called his name and left my place to scurry across to the other side of the room where they were finding their tables. I just wanted to let him know that I was all right, that I was here. I was going to greet him and then hurry back to my seat. Supper hadn’t started. It didn’t occur to me that I was doing anything wrong.

  But Sister Jennie grabbed me. She almost ran across the room to grab my arm and move me back firmly to where I had been. I was so confused. “That’s my brother,” I began to explain. “I was only going to …”

  Then I realized that the entire room was silent, and that everyone was looking at me. I stopped talking. The women and a girl my age who had been working in the kitchen appeared in the door. By now I was back at my chair. And then everyone got on their knees, on the floor, and bowed their heads. I did the same. They were praying silently. I couldn’t pray. I could feel tears starting, hot behind my eyelids, and I bit my tongue to keep from crying. Finally, after a moment, we all stood, pulled out our chairs, and sat down. Food was brought to each table by the women from the kitchen, and by the young girl, Susannah, who lives in the girls’ shop. She smiled at me curiously and I guessed they had told her that a new girl had arrived.

  I don’t remember what the food was. There was plenty of it, and I ate. But I was tired and confused and embarrassed and scared. The whole meal was silent. No one talked. I glanced across the room from time to time at Daniel, but he didn’t look up.

  I do remember there was apple pie, and that I had two pieces.

  Then the meal was over. I watched the other girls and placed my knife and fork carefully, exactly the way they had placed theirs. Eldress Lizzie stood and nodded, and it seemed to mean that we should all march out in order. Grace grinned at me a little impishly, and she walked beside me back along the path to the girls’ shop. Talking seemed to be allowed now, and Grace asked, “Where did you live, in the world?”

  I almost laughed, it was such an odd way of asking. Was this not still the world? “Portland,” I told her.

  “I lived in Harrison,” she said. “I came here last March. My mother died.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. And I was, for I knew what it was like. “Do you have any brothers? Or sisters?”

  “All of us are sisters,” Grace explained, as if it didn’t seem strange to her as she said it, though it surely did to me. “And brethren, too, but we stay separate. That’s why Sister Jennie pulled you back from the brethren’s side.”

  “But I just wanted to speak to Daniel! He’s my real brother!”

  We were approaching the porch and the entrance to the girls’ shop. Sister Jennie appeared at my side. She had overheard what I had said to Grace. “We are all real brethren and sisters here,” she said in a gentle voice, “but we’ll arrange a meeting with Daniel for you soon.”

  “A meeting?” I asked. It sounded so formal and odd.

  “We don’t converse with the brethren, or get near. It’s part of Mother Ann’s teachings. You will grow accustomed to it and see the wisdom in it.

  “Girls!” Sister Jennie called to the others, who were standing and talking quietly on the porch. “We’ll gather in the front room. Polly? Would you lead the others in some singing? I’ll take our new girl and help her with a bath.”

  I almost told her no. I don’t need to be helped to take a bath! I am eleven years old! But I was just so tired. Everything here is so different and puzzling. And so I followed her into the first-floor bathroom and waited as she turned on the water in the deep tub. While it ran (and I touched it with my finger. It was so warm and soothing), Sister Jennie disappeared briefly and returned with a folded garment.

  “I think this nightdress will fit you,” she said.

  “I have no other clothes with me,” I explained, as I began to take off the dusty dress I had worn all day, the same one I had worn when I left my life in Portland behind. I was embarrassed. “I had so many dresses, but things happened so quickly and somehow they were all left behind, and I don’t know …”

  “It doesn’t matter, child. You will be provided for. I sew clothes for all my girls. Tomorrow we will give you underclothes, and there are dresses of all sizes in the large closet.”

  She handed me a thick bar of soap and waited while I stepped into the filled tub. It did feel grand to lower myself into the warm water after such a long time without. “Wash your hair, too, and I’ll come back to help with combing it when you’re ready,” Sister Jennie said.

  I nodded. I could hear the girls singing in the front room. The melodies were unfamiliar. She left me, taking my little heap of dirty clothing with
her, and I lay soaking in the tub and listened to the girls’ voices after I was alone. Then I scrubbed myself until my flesh was pink, and my fingernails cleaner than they had been in weeks. I washed my long hair.

  Finally I emptied the tub, scrubbed the dirt from the sides of it, dried myself, and put on the nightdress she had left me. It was not night yet. Supper had been early, and though the sky was darkening because it was almost winter, and the oil lamps had been lit, it was not yet full night. I sat on the straight chair in the bathroom and waited. After a moment, the singing ended and Sister Jennie returned.

  “I’ve set the girls to marking,” she told me. “You can join them when we’ve combed your hair.” I didn’t even ask her what she meant by marking. It was just one more thing that I would have to learn.

  I was tired, and confused by things, but I was not sad, not really. I was curious, and interested, and I liked the other girls, those I had met and talked to. Sister Jennie seemed very kind. If only she had not —

  She tugged the comb through my hair gently, working out the snarls without hurting me, the way my mother always had. If only —

  I just wish —

  Oh, I do not know how to tell the rest! So I will simply say what happened next.

  She saw my ring. “You’ll need to give me that,” she said, and held out her hand.

  “My ring?” I asked. “Oh, no, it was my grandmother’s! My mother gave it to me on my birthday,” I explained. “I vowed never to take it off.”

  “Nay, you’re a Shaker girl now, child,” she said in her soft voice. “We Shakers do not ornament ourselves.” She held out her hand for the ring.