Christmas at Harmony Hill

by Ann H. Gabhart

  She had been so sure of the truth then. The Lord had guided her to this village where a new life awaited her. The Lord had blessed her with love here. She rejoiced in picking the fruit of the spirit and living a simple life. Such a life was a gift. She believed that. She wanted none of the trappings of the world. She had no need of fancy dresses or carriages to ride in like women of the world. She desired nothing more than the opportunity to work with her hands and feel the love of God within her heart.

  She was content to let others point the way for her. To do as the Ministry ordered. To whirl and dance to show her love of the Lord. To embrace the Believer’s way. But then she’d turned fifty. The Believers didn’t celebrate the birth dates of their members. It was only another day of no particular importance. Age was of no concern in heaven and so the same was true at Harmony Hill where heaven’s rules were heeded and worldly things forgotten.

  But while she’d given her birthdays little thought over the years, the number stayed in her mind. How could one forget the number of years one had been blessed with life? But no number had poked at her the way fifty did, worrying her like a thorn from a blackberry vine that worked deep into her finger and couldn’t be dug out. Temptations she never dreamed would beset her came and sat on her shoulders. Those confessions of wrong thinking she had heard from the novitiates she had once guided toward spiritual purity must have hidden out inside her and now were surfacing one after another.

  A month after her birthday, Brother Kenton Todd had come among them from the Union village in Ohio when Harmony Hill was in need of a doctor. Sister Lettie had passed into heaven and Brother Benjamin had developed painful joints that limited his doctoring ability. He’d returned to the New Lebanon village in the East to spend his days compounding new mixtures of herbs in hopes of finding something to relieve the rheumatism pains suffered by him and many of the older Believers.

  Something about the new brother had drawn Sophrena’s eyes. Even when she tried most not to notice him, her eyes would seek him out during meeting the way she’d once seen weaker-willed sisters let their gaze be drawn to the brothers’ side of the meetinghouse. She had zealously taken part in the stomping or shaking songs to rid her mind of such wayward thoughts. She thought she had succeeded. The fretful worry of missing something necessary stayed within her, but she kept her eyes where they were meant to look. She had no desire for forbidden fruit. She only wanted to recapture the peace she’d once known that now seemed to be leaking away from her. The new brother was not the cause of her melancholy. She had surely simply carried that seed forward from her mother.

  A couple of months after Brother Kenton came to Harmony Hill, he was in attendance at the same union meeting as Sophrena. They gathered with three other sisters and three other brothers in Brother Jackson’s room to talk of the events of the week. Such meetings were held each week to allow small groups of brothers and sisters to converse. A row of chairs for the brethren and a row of chairs for the sisters were placed across from one another well apart to avoid any possibility of touching during these times of shared words.

  That night, Brother Jackson had talked of the war and how those of the world were forced by conscription to fight. He kept warning of Confederate raiding parties in the area who might steal their horses or burn their barns until Sophrena began to wonder if he too struggled with melancholy. After he fell silent, Sister Thelma said the hens had quit laying and there would be only mush and biscuits for the morning meal. Sophrena felt weighted down by their unhappy reports.

  But then Brother Kenton began talking about how his spirit had been freed the first time he’d watched the Believers worship at Union village. That had been a mere year before. He’d once been married in the world, but his wife suffered from hysteria and had deserted him to return to the bosom of her mother.

  He raised his hands up in front of him to study them before he continued speaking. “These hands were given the gift of healing by the good Lord above, but I had never properly lived for him. Something was always missing in my life. I thought it was the worldly love of a wife, but the spirit showed me otherwise. I shed the trappings of the world and embraced the simple life.”

  He had looked across the space between the lines of chairs and smiled directly at Sophrena. A simple smile that brought sunlight back into the room and made her forget all about hens that didn’t lay eggs and guerilla raiding parties. She dropped her eyes to her hands folded in her lap, but she felt like spinning. And not to shake away the feeling. At that moment, it had not felt sinful. That came later upon recollection of the way her heart had leapt up at the sight of his smile. A smile that meant nothing more than brotherly love as was proper at a union meeting.

  When it came her time to speak, her words came out with uncommon hesitancy as she reported on the number of hats the sisters had managed to weave in the week prior. Brother Jackson frowned and told her to speak up for he was hard of hearing, and Sister Emma asked if she might have caught a chill that was giving her a sore throat. At once Brother Kenton told her to come by the infirmary the next day so he could mix her a draught of medicine.

  She had not gone to the infirmary. There was no need. Her throat was not sore, and she was wise enough not to purposely seek stumbling blocks. Later Eldress Lilith had taken her to task for not getting treatment for her throat ailment.

  “A Shaker must keep her body whole in order to properly perform her duties to the best of her abilities,” the eldress told her.

  “Yea,” Sophrena had agreed, and added to her sin by pretending her throat had gotten better overnight when it never ailed to begin with. Even little, unspoken lies wrapped around a person and trapped them in a web of untruth that was hard to escape.

  The spring passed and summer brought many chores to keep her hands busy. Others were chosen to guide the novitiates for a season after she confessed her conflicted spirit to Eldress Lilith. An answer to prayers Sophrena had not thought to offer, for she was weary of keeping count of the faults of the new sisters. It was much better to work in the gardens. To plunge her hands into the dirt. To pluck out the weeds just as she needed to pluck out the weeds of discontent from her heart.

  She went out to the gardens each day with willing hands, for it might not be many seasons before the piling on of years sapped her strength for such work. She picked strawberries and beans. She pulled onions, carrots, and beets. The sunshine on her shoulders and bonnet was welcome, and the sweat on her brow, earned and satisfying.

  Back in the houses, she prayed at the proper times. She danced without missteps and kept her eyes away from the brethren’s side of the meetinghouse. She hid her malaise except for confessing her lack of proper spirit to Eldress Lilith.

  She could not keep all her sins secret. It was wrong to keep any of them secret, but one had to figure out what sin one was committing before one could confess it. At least that was the excuse she made for herself before the devil dug a hole to trip her up. Or if not the devil, some varmint.

  Whichever, the hole in the garden row hidden by bean vines was her downfall. She stepped into the hole, twisted her ankle sideways, and fell headlong in the dirt, scattering the beans from her basket. Such a fall could not be hidden. Nor could she keep from gasping from the pain when she tried to stand.

  Brother Kenton was called to the garden to determine if bones were broken. The only way to do that was by examination. After he carefully removed her shoe, his long fingers probed her ankle through her stocking. His hands cradled her foot as he gently bent it back and forth. Her breathlessness had not been completely from the pain caused by that movement. The flush on her cheeks not only from the summer sunshine.

  He determined her ankle was not broken, only badly sprained. She spent three days in the infirmary with nothing to keep her mind occupied except the basket of hand sewing that was brought to her each morning. Brother Kenton said she must stay off her feet, but that didn’t mean her hands could not work. Or that her eyes and ears would not be hearing and seei
ng the doctor as he went about his duty of tending to the sick.

  Each day she was there, he checked her ankle, healing hands touching her skin with great gentleness. At other times, he came and leaned in the doorway for no other purpose than to ask how she was doing or to comment on how one of the other sisters or brothers was healing. Always smiling. Always cheerful. Always looking at her as though she mattered.

  But of course, she mattered. All her brethren treasured her as a sister just as she treasured them. It was the way of the Believers. To love all the same. Whatever sickness of the spirit that was trying to overwhelm her was all that made her imagine anything different. That was what had planted in her head the idea that Brother Kenton was noticing her as Sophrena who wasn’t yet too old to dance instead of simply Sister Sophrena who filled a spot on the far side of the meetinghouse.

  On the second morning Sophrena was in the infirmary, Sister Edna brought a basket of dresses to be hemmed. When she passed Brother Kenton leaving Sophrena’s room, she bent her head and muttered a morning greeting to his cheery hello. She watched him with a dark scowl as he left the room.

  “That brother lacks the proper gravity.” Sister Edna let out a huff of breath as she set the basket down with a thump beside Sophrena’s chair.

  “I should hope there’s no rule against a cheerful heart.” Sophrena shifted her foot on the cushiony pillow Brother Kenton had just brought her. “Is not that what we should all have as we go about our duties?”

  Sister Edna turned her scowl on Sophrena. “A Believer needs to mind his duties with a serious demeanor and attention to his work. I should think especially a doctor who tends to the ill and injured. Brother Benjamin never went around with such a face.”

  “Brother Benjamin was generally of a good humor.” Sophrena did not look at Sister Edna for fear the woman might note Sophrena’s good humor and find fault in it. Instead she pulled one of the dresses out of the basket and arranged it on her lap before she picked up her needle.

  “But he was not continually laughing like a child tickling his own nose with a hen’s feather,” Sister Edna said. “Such is not proper for a brother with the task of healing.”

  “I seem to recall reading a Bible verse in Proverbs about how a merry heart worketh good like a medicine. If so, then surely Brother Kenton will add power to his draughts with his happy ways.”

  Sophrena took great care in threading her needle and finding her thimble. When at last she did look up, Sister Edna’s eyes were mere slits as she stared at Sophrena.

  “If I were you, Sister Sophrena, I would be very careful which draughts of medicine you are hankering after. I sense sin is ready to overtake you.”

  “Nay, I pray not.” Sophrena calmly turned up the hem on the dress sleeve before she looked up at Sister Edna. “The two of us have long been sisters together, so I know you will pray the same. Come back after the workday and I will have the sewing finished.”

  She had been glad to see Sister Edna go with her sour spirit, but as she hemmed the sleeve with tiny stitches, she knew Sister Edna was right. That was why, in spite of Brother Kenton saying she should rest her ankle for a full week, she had gone back out to the gardens after three days.

  And now here she sat beside young Heather with a basket of sewing between them. Heather had asked to help and Sophrena did not have the heart to refuse her, even though she often had to pull out the girl’s stitches after she had gone to bed to redo them on the morrow. The girl never knew since all the dresses were so alike. She wore one of them herself now. It looked unusual with the mound of baby growing under the skirt.

  This time Sophrena could not leave to go back to the gardens to avoid being near Brother Kenton. As she made her stitches and listened to Heather talk of her husband, she could not be sure the devil was not throwing more temptations in her path. But what if it wasn’t the devil’s doing? What if it was the Lord knowing her need and answering her prayers?

  She could believe Heather was that. God’s plan. But what of Brother Kenton? He was a covenanted Believer. She was a covenanted Believer. Sometimes she paused in her sewing when such thoughts assaulted her and stared at the fire, but she found no answer in the flames.

  15

  Heather was glad of the hand sewing to keep her busy as she sat in front of the fire with Aunt Sophrena. That’s how she thought of her, even though when she spoke her name aloud she said Sister Sophrena. In her mind she was aunt. Family. Heather needed family.

  Sometimes an hour would go by without a word passing between them, but it was a comfortable silence. A necessary silence. The Shakers valued silence. While at first such silence had felt odd to Heather, as the days passed she began to be glad of the silent time that allowed her the privacy of thought. Sophrena didn’t push Heather for words simply for the sake of dispelling the silence. Nor did she offer her own words. Often as she sat beside Heather and worked her needle through the cloth of whatever garment she held in her lap, she looked to be occupied with thoughts that were troubling, but she never spoke them aloud. Heather had no idea what could be burdening her aunt’s heart, but she knew very well why her own heart was weighted down.

  News of happenings out in the world did find its way to the Shaker village. Not particular news of Gideon, but general news of the war. General Sherman was marching on through the Southern states of Georgia and South Carolina toward the sea, but instead of pursuing him, the Confederate General Hood was moving his army to the northwest to challenge the Union forces in Nashville. Even though there was no news of fighting as yet, a battle was clearly in the offing.

  The Shaker doctor carried that report to her. He was not like the other Shaker men who often hurried past the cabin with their eyes averted, as though worried they might catch a glimpse of her through a window or open door. The doctor, on the other hand, had a ready smile and no reluctance to take measure of the growth of the baby within her.

  Brother Kenton, as he told her to call him, came by the cabin every day. Sometimes he came alone, which seemed to cause Sophrena great unease as if it was wrong for him to be there. After all, the Shakers did take great care to keep the men and women apart.

  Sophrena had explained that was the reason for the two stairways in the Trustees’ House. “As there are in every house where both brothers and sisters might have need to climb to an upper story.”

  Heather remembered Sister Muriel’s quick removal of Heather’s hand from the railing in that house. “But what could it hurt for the men and women to use the same stairs? Wouldn’t that be simpler?” Sophrena had told her of the Shakers’ desire for a simple life.

  “Oh, nay, the simpler way is to keep away temptations of the flesh,” Sophrena said. “The Ministry has determined such temptations can best be avoided by keeping the brothers and sisters from sharing the same space where there might be the chance of touching.”

  “But don’t you dance?”

  “Yea, we do indeed.” Sophrena smiled over at Heather before looking back at her sewing. “But not as you must be imagining. Not as people of the world dance. Our dances are labors of love for the Lord above. We march in lines and circles and at times shake and whirl as the spirit falls upon us.”

  “But not together?” Heather was trying to picture such a dance.

  “Yea, together in unity of movement and spirit.” She looked over at Heather again. “But not by clinging to one another and inviting wrong thoughts into our minds instead of worshipful ones. If you want, you can come to meeting and see for yourself.”

  “That might be good,” Heather said.

  “Yea, you will see.” Sophrena paused her needle and stared toward the fire before she added, “It is a good way.”

  Heather wasn’t sure which of them she was trying most to convince—Heather or herself. Heather could not imagine ever being convinced of the need for such separation. Hadn’t she lived among whole divisions of soldiers? She’d touched them many times when they brought their uniforms to her or when she helped care for
the wounded after a battle without ever once feeling the temptation of the flesh that she felt simply looking into Gideon’s eyes. That was the way the Lord intended. One man, one woman, two hearts promised to one another forever. And children to bless the union.

  That too was something the Shakers did not sanction. No marriages. As a result, no babies. So she wasn’t sure if it was Brother Kenton being in the cabin that caused Sophrena such uneasiness or if it was merely Heather’s condition that his presence brought more to mind. Whichever, her aunt stayed apart whenever he was there, perhaps to be sure to avoid that forbidden touch of his hand or arm. Sometimes one of the eldresses, either Corinne, the one Heather had met on that first day, or a long-faced younger woman named Lilith, came with the doctor.

  When they came, Sophrena would slip on her cloak and be gone from the cabin to fetch this or that need. Brother Kenton paid Sophrena’s hasty departures no mind, nor did Eldress Corinne. But the other eldress would watch Sophrena go out the door with a frown sprouting between her eyebrows. The frown did not go away when the woman turned back to stand like a sentry over Brother Kenton while he asked Heather about pains and other signs of imminent birth.

  Such talk made Eldress Lilith’s frown darken and she often encouraged Brother Kenton to hurry his visit in order to see to his other patients. Heather had no difficulty divining the woman’s underlying message that those patients would be proper Believers with more acceptable ailments.

  Brother Kenton didn’t let her words rush him, although he did seem to be more careful in what he said when the eldresses were with him than when he was alone with Heather and the silent Sophrena. With only the three of them in the cabin, he spent time trying to ease Heather’s worries about the birthing process.