Christmas at Harmony Hill

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Will the songs be familiar to my ears?” Heather lowered herself into the chair by the fire.

  “Not to your ears, but perhaps to your heart.”

  Sophrena went out the door into the crisp air of the morning with the lines of one of the songs playing through her head. ’Tis a gift to be simple. ’Tis a gift to be free.

  Free. Was she free?

  19

  After they ate, Sophrena ushered Heather inside the meetinghouse to what she called the visitors’ bench just as the gathering bell sounded.

  “You must stay seated and not interfere with the exercise of the songs,” Sophena instructed.

  When Heather promised to do as told, Sophrena heeded the call of the bell and hastened out the door.

  Heather rested her head against the wall. She was so tired. Her back hurt and her feet were swelling against the lacings of her shoes. She would have been content to stay by the fire and read the Bible on this Sunday morning. But Sophrena had been eager to go to meeting and have Heather accompany her. Heather could bear the hard bench and the stiff wall behind her back for a while. She almost whispered a prayer that the meeting would not go on overlong, but bit back the words. Such a prayer would not be proper. Worship was worth a little discomfort.

  She wondered if Beth and the boys would be heading to church with their father for spiritual renewal on this morning. Dear Beth. Heather thought of the letter she’d received from her a few days ago. Could Beth be right in thinking her father was feeling remorse for his unkindness? Beth claimed that was so, but Heather could not forget his cold look as he sent her away.

  She turned her mind away from her father. Better to send her prayers toward Gideon who might even now be in a conflict with the Rebels. War did not take time off for the Sabbath.

  Heather shifted on the hard bench and waited. She knew not for what, but even inside the big empty building there was a feel of anticipation as the bell continued to toll. Then the ringing stopped and a Sunday kind of silence fell around her, as though not just Heather but the whole village was waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

  Church, she supposed, but nothing in the large open room brought to mind anything about church. Rows of benches were lined on either side of an open space in the middle of the floor. The winter light spilled in through tall windows onto the polished broad floor planks. No curtains or shades hindered the light and no rugs softened the harsh bareness of the room. Easier to keep clean, Heather supposed, remembering how the Shakers couldn’t abide dirt.

  But other things that seemed necessary to worship were not in evidence either. No preacher podium. No table for a Bible or offering plates. No song books. No piano. Not the first hint of decoration of any kind, not even a sprig of Christmas greenery. At the church back home, a few of the ladies would have already tied red ribbons around cedar branches to decorate the windowsills and Mrs. Fenton would have fashioned a couple of wreaths of greenery and bittersweet berries or mistletoe for the doors.

  Here there was nothing. Even the white walls were bare except for the same type of blue strips of pegs circling the room she’d noted in that other building when she’d first come to the village. No chairs were hung upside down on these. All the pegs were empty except for a candleholder by one of the doors. Identical small iron stoves stood at either end of the room. Heather considered moving to a bench closer to the stove nearest her since the room was chilly, but she stayed where she was. She’d promised Sophrena. Besides, the silence was so profound that even the squeaking complaint of her bench as she shifted to get more comfortable sounded too loud.

  Something clicked like a door opening, but the outside doors were still closed as were the two blue doors at either end of the room. Sophrena had told her those selected for the Ministry lived above the meeting room. Another slight click drew Heather’s eyes to a two-inch square door easing open above one of the inside doors.

  She was not alone as she had imagined. Eyes were peering through the opening. Heather sneaked a look toward the other end of the room. Eyes were peering out of an opening above that door too, pinning her down on the bench as surely as if hands had reached out to hold her there. The eyes weren’t friendly. They weren’t unfriendly. They just were. Observing. Judging.

  Heather was glad when the silence was broken by the muted sounds of singing. Then the outside doors were swinging open and the Shakers fell silent as they entered the building. The women through one door. The men, the other. Their feet made only a whisper of sound as they went across the floor to the benches, the women to her right and the men to her left. They kept filing into the room. Too many for Heather to keep count.

  Only a very few let their eyes stray toward her even after they were standing silently in front of the benches. Heather looked up at the openings above the doors. The eyes there were no longer on her but instead watched the men and women standing silently in front of the benches.

  Sophrena was one of the last to enter the building. Even though Heather had been watching for her, she almost hadn’t picked her out. The women all looked so the same in their like dresses with the bonnets covering their heads. But it was more than their dress. It was the way they moved and how they stood. Different heights. Different sizes, but in spite of that, so alike.

  At a signal she did not catch, the men and women sat down. All at the same time. Sophrena had told her that unity in action led to unity in spirit. It put Heather in mind of the army companies marching in step, obedient to the officers’ directions. Not so strange. She had often heard a preacher speak of the army of God. Soldiers for Christ.

  She shut her eyes and thought of her soldier, Gideon. Would she ever see him again? The baby jumped inside her as though to protest her worry. She bent her head and prayed for Gideon, for them both, for them all three. She might be inside a church much different than anything she’d ever imagined, but it was still a church. A place for prayer.

  A gray-haired man stepped into the center of the room between the rows of benches and began to speak. He was very thin with stooped shoulders, but when he spoke, his deep voice commanded the attention of every person in the room.

  “Sacrifice Day, a time for atonement, is near. Search within yourself for every wrong. No sin is too small to be repented and plucked from our hearts. Heaven knows no sin and here at Harmony Hill we are bringing heaven down among us. Each wrong, each error in our walk, must be swept away, for good spirits will not abide where there is sin. Prepare for perfect reconciliation one with another. All grudges, hard feelings, and disaffection toward any brother or sister must be left behind. Be ready to beg forgiveness from your brethren, from your sisters, from the Eternal Father. Prepare your spirits to start afresh, for nothing which is settled on Sacrifice Day can ever be brought forward against another of your holy family. If one has done any harm, imagined or real, toward you, offer forgiveness fully and completely. An unforgiving spirit is not a Believer’s way.”

  Heather hardly dared breathe. Her mother’s words seemed to be coming out of this man’s mouth straight at her. Forgive.

  The Shaker man let his eyes circle around the room, landing on this or that person to perhaps prod those he knew had most need of his words. Then as if her mother were directing his eyes, he looked straight at Heather, seeming to demand she hear and heed his words. She was relieved when he turned back to the Shakers.

  “Remember our Mother Ann’s words. Labor to make the way of God your own. Let it be your inheritance, your treasure, your occupation, your daily calling.” He lifted his hands into the air and stood in silence a moment before he went on. “Now let us go forth to labor these songs with our spirits in tune with the Lord’s. May we be open to receive whatever gift of the spirit falls down upon us.”

  He stepped back to his place by the bench and the other Shakers all rose to stand with him. Then they were moving aside the benches with eagerness. When the floor was cleared, one of the women began singing. Not words, but sounds. A few other sisters and then some of
the men joined in as though the song was as familiar to them as a hymn would have been to the people at Heather’s church.

  The Shakers began moving up and back and in circles to the sound of the voices. Part marching, part dancing as they moved to the rhythm of the song. The singers increased the speed of their wordless songs. The line dancers reversed and passed in and out and circled without touching. Their shoes whispered against the floor and the fabric of the dresses swished as they passed by Heather so close she could have touched them. She kept her hands tucked under her cloak. The singing changed, and Heather was relieved to hear words she could understand.

  “Come old and young, come great and small.

  There’s love and union free for all,

  And everyone that will obey

  Has now a right to dance and play.”

  They did seem to be playing. Smiles lit up their faces as they sang. Some of the sisters began to skip. Even some of the older women with gray hair peeking out from under their bonnets. Round and round they went. All at once the mood changed. Somebody shouted a warning about the devil and feet began stomping to chase him away from their worship.

  Heather’s bench jarred and bounced her back against the wall. She moved her hand out to embrace the swell of her baby. She wasn’t sure if she was protecting him from the threat of the devil in the room or the fury of the Shakers ridding themselves of even the thought of evil.

  As suddenly as it started, the stomping stopped with the dancers gliding past as they pretended to sweep every corner. The song changed and with it the mood yet again. A man yelled. A woman screamed and began to tremble all over. Another began to whirl. The hysteria raced through the dancers until more than half of them were whirling and shaking or shouting.

  Heather tried not to show her astonishment. Their worship was like nothing she could have ever imagined. That they danced was no surprise. Everybody knew Shakers worshiped by dancing. And it was common knowledge they were given to tremors of the spirit that shook their bodies. After all, they weren’t called Shakers without reason.

  But Heather had never actually thought about how that shaking might look. Frantic and noisy, without order. Certainly nothing at all like any church service she’d ever witnessed. Even the impromptu gatherings of men out in the open in the army camps had more of a feeling of church than whatever was happening here in the Shakers’ meetinghouse.

  Then one of the women spun in front of her in such frenzy that she fell to the floor. Heather was not too sure she might not join her in a swoon. Where before the room had felt chill, now it was too warm with so many whirling bodies. The eggs and biscuits she had eaten not so long ago were beginning to swirl in her stomach. She gripped the bench, willing herself to keep a steady head. Another sister fell prostrate. None of the others seemed to notice.

  Heather looked through the whirling people for Shakers she’d met. Brother Kenton had a smile spread across his face as he moved his feet with abandon in a way that made her think of the jigs she’d seen in the army camps. Eldress Lilith had lost the shadow of disapproval that generally darkened her face and peered heavenward with a look of deep contentment. There was Sister Doreen who had brought her the material for the baby’s gowns. It was no surprise that she was whirling like a child. But where was Sophrena?

  At last she spotted her standing very still in the middle of the floor with her hands reaching toward the ceiling. She seemed unaware of the fervor of the others spinning around her. She was praying. Heather had no doubt of that, and although she had no idea what her prayers were, she sent her own prayers out to join them. Prayers without words just as the Shakers’ first songs had been sounds without meaning. A prayer could have meaning without words.

  As though those prayers touched Sophrena, she lowered her hands and looked through the Shakers spinning around her straight at Heather just as the Shaker man had earlier. Not with judgment as he had, but with love mingled with sadness as though she might be divining sorrow coming. But Heather didn’t know if the sadness was for herself or for Heather or even maybe a reflection of Heather’s sorrow for her mother.

  Letting her shoulders droop then, Sophrena leaned forward and shook her arms in a copy of the motion of those around her. Then she twirled, but slowly and with none of the frantic joy in the movement that some others were showing as they spun around like giant tops.

  Heather pushed up off the bench. She did not belong here. She had no choice but to stay in the village until Gideon came home from the war, but it was not right for her to be here in their meeting. Better for her to find a quiet spot and fill the hour with earnest prayers. It was not her place to be judging the manner of their worship. That was between them and the Lord. Nor did she need a Shaker man telling her to forgive. Her mother’s words echoed through her head often enough with that message.

  Before she went out the door, she looked back at Sophrena once more standing stiffly in the midst of the motion around her. On her face was that same mingled look of sadness and love she had given Heather moments before. Something about her looked so very alone that Heather wanted to thread her way through the dancers to wrap her arms around her. But she did not. Instead she went out the door and down the steps away from the building.

  She was the one who didn’t belong. Not Sophrena.

  20

  The ice storm rid Gideon of the last of his fantasies about winter in the south. The ice-coated trees groaned like old men when the slightest wind pushed through them. At times a loud crack gave warning of a branch or even a whole tree coming down. The only safe place was inside a building. The tents were no shelter. Most were flattened by the storm, but at least Gideon’s hadn’t ripped under the weight of the ice.

  The next day the sun came out and turned the world into a sparkling wonderland that crunched underfoot with every step. By Monday the ice was gone, but the cold air lingered. Snowflakes floated in the air and stuck tight wherever they landed.

  “Better than ice,” Jake assured Gideon as he dropped an armload of misshapen tree limbs by the fire. “Leastways we can keep a fire with all the branches brought down by the ice.”

  “Good in everything,” Gideon muttered with no good feelings at all. “Except wet as it is, it’s as apt to put out the fire as keep it burning.”

  “I see you’re in fine humor.” Jake twisted his mouth to keep from smiling. “So I’m guessing no word from your pretty washerwoman?”

  “Not a word. You’d think she could write to me.” Gideon scowled at the fire.

  “Could be she has. The girl seemed fair struck on you. Why, one could never guess.” Jake no longer bothered hiding his smile. “Her sweet words of love are no doubt on their way to you.”

  “Maybe she’s forgotten all about me.” Gideon squatted down by the fire and let his head droop down.

  “I doubt there’s much chance of that with her carrying evidence of your loving.” Jake gave Gideon’s shoulder a shake. “The mail’s just stuck on the other side of the river. They’re saying the boats are afraid to come down to Nashville. Not with the Johnny Rebs as thick as fleas on a dog around here.”

  Gideon threw one of the branches on the fire. The flames disappeared in an explosion of smoke billowing up from the fire.

  “Whew.” Jake coughed and waved the smoke away from his face. “What are you trying to do? Send her smoke signals?”

  Gideon ignored Jake and the smoke. Breathing smoke was part of being in camp. He stared at the flames flickering back to life around the damp wood. “You think we’ll be stuck here all winter waiting for fighting weather to come back in the spring?”

  “I wouldn’t mind that so much. We’ve wintered in worse places, but I’m thinking we’ll be marching out against them before the week’s out.”

  “You said that last week.”

  “I didn’t count on an ice storm. Nor did Pap Thomas, but he’ll have us moving soon.”

  “I just want it to be over. All of it. Done and through.”

  “Don’
t we all, lad. Don’t we all.”

  Heather put aside the letter she was writing to Gideon. She’d written one every day and Sophrena had posted them for her, but she’d heard not a word in return. If only she could hear from him to know he was all right. There’d been no news of battles. Sherman was continuing his march to the sea with little opposition from all reports, but Gideon wasn’t with him. Gideon was in Nashville where the opposition was gathering, according to the news the Shaker doctor shared with her when he came by on his visits.

  The Shakers didn’t ignore the happenings in the world. Sophrena said the news was read aloud in the family meetings. Meetings that Sophrena was missing because of Heather. Perhaps another reason for the sadness Heather had glimpsed on her face at their Sunday meeting.

  Heather had tried to ask her about it, but each time Sophrena deflected her questions with words of denial.

  “The dances can appear strange to those who have never seen them,” she’d said when she came back to the cabin after the meeting.

  “I feared my presence might be a hindrance to your spirit,” Heather said.

  “Nay, it is not you who hinders me.” She had turned away to bustle about setting out their meal. Bread and meat and applesauce. Cold foods that needed little preparation on the Sabbath.

  Now Heather pushed up from her chair to stand by the fire.

  Sophrena looked up from her sewing. “Are you all right?” She asked the same question a dozen times a day.

  Heather sighed and stared down at the fire. “I am fine. My back aches and I can’t seem to take a deep breath any longer and my feet are puffy, but Brother Kenton says all that is to be expected.”