The Blessed Read online

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  © 2011 by Ann H. Gabhart

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  E-book edition created 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-3265-6

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  Scripture used in this book, whether quoted or paraphrased by the characters, is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Dedicated to everyone

  who has ever felt the urge to dance

  to welcome spring.

  A Note about the Shakers

  American Shakerism originated in England in the eighteenth century. Their leader, a charismatic woman named Ann Lee, was believed by her followers to be the second coming of Christ in female form. After being persecuted for those beliefs in England, she and a small band of followers came to America in 1774 to settle in Watervliet, New York, and there established the first community of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, more commonly known as Shakers. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the Shakers had nineteen communities spread throughout the New England states and Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana.

  The Shaker doctrines of celibacy, communal living, and the belief that perfection could be attained in this life were all based on revelations that Mother Ann claimed to have divinely received. The name Shakers came from the way they worshiped. At times when a member received the “spirit,” he or she would begin shaking all over. These “gifts of the spirit,” along with other spiritual manifestations, were considered by the Shakers to be confirmation of the same direct communication with God they believed their Mother Ann had experienced.

  In the late 1830s at the height of the Shaker population, three young girls in the Watervliet village in New York claimed to be visited by angels. A tide of mysticism quickly swept through all the villages and reached its most fanatic extremes in the mid-1840s. During this Era of Manifestations—or as the Shakers commonly called it, the Era of Mother’s Work—the Believers’ worship services were closed to those of the “world” and many gift-songs and inspirational drawings were received by society members. Also, some among the Believers became chosen instruments who received hundreds of spiritual messages from Mother Ann and other early Shaker leaders, angels with melodic names, biblical saints, and figures famous in history. In 1842 each Society of Believers was instructed by the Ministry to select a hill or mountaintop as a sacred feast ground. Here spiritual feasts were held twice a year where the Shakers carried out elaborate pantomimes of various activities, such as dressing in fine garments, eating fruits from heaven, and washing themselves clean of sins in imaginary fountains.

  Some Shaker historians consider this era damaging to the Shaker societies, because many of those receiving visions and messages from above were younger members, and this resulted in a breakdown of the order of discipline established by the Ministries. The visions died out after a little more than a decade. The sacred feast grounds were deserted and many of the spirit drawings were hidden away for years as the leaders once again concentrated on disciplined work and free worship.

  In Kentucky, the Shaker villages of Pleasant Hill and South Union have been restored and attract many visitors curious about the Shaker lifestyle. These historical sites provide a unique look at the austere beauty of the Shakers’ craftsmanship. The sect’s songs and strange worship echo in the impressive architecture of their buildings. Visitors also learn about the Shakers’ innovative ideas in agriculture and industry that improved life not only in their own communities but also in the “world” they were so determined to shut away.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  A Note about the Shakers

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books By Author

  Back Ads

  1

  Autumn 1843

  Isaac Kingston didn’t think his Ella would really die. Not actually stop breathing and die. She’d told him she would, but he didn’t believe her. At least not soon enough.

  A person didn’t die because her mother wasn’t there to stroke her head. If that could happen, he would have died when he was thirteen, but here he was still breathing while he watched them lower his beautiful Ella down into the ground. Every breath seemed a betrayal of his love.

  He’d brought her home. He had to. The Fort Smith doctor who bled Ella advised Isaac to wait for her fever to abate before making the trip back to Louisville, but the doctor didn’t understand. He wasn’t the one being haunted by the memory of Ella looking him right in the eye the day before the fever hit and telling him she’d die if he didn’t take her home. It was Isaac who had to live with that memory seared into his soul.

  She’d been telling him the same thing every day since they’d left Louisville weeks before, until the words had meant no more than someone mentioning the sun shining or the rain falling outside. Not that he didn’t feel bad that she was unhappy. He did. He loved her. So some of the time he tried to kiss away her sadness. Other times he would grab her in his arms and dance her around their tiny boardinghouse room until she laughed. But there was no laughing once the fever struck, and he began to feel her words might be prophetic.

  So he’d given up his westward dream, sold his horse and gun to hire a wagon to take her overland to the Mississippi River and then for the ticket up the river to Louisville. He’d carried her up the steamboat’s gangplank before daylight so nobody would know how sick she was and try to stop him from bringing the fever on board. He had been so sure being on the way home would pull her back from the fever. Bring the light back to her eyes. But when he whispered their progress up the river toward Louisville into her ear, her fever-glazed eyes stared at him with no recognition, and it was her mother she called out for.

  He told her over and over that he was taking her to her mother. Patiently at first and then angrily. She had to understand how he was giving up everything to do what she wanted, but the words too late whispered through his mind and turned his anger into sorrow. She died before they reached the Ohio River.

  Now the preacher Ella’s father had gotten to say words over her grave was talking about Ella going home to a better place. The home awaiting all who reached for the Lord with faith and sincerity.

  A chill wind blew across the open hole that was swallowing Ella and ruffled
the pages of the worn Bible the old man held. His hands trembled as he smoothed down the tissue-thin page and continued to speak the Bible words without looking down to read them. No doubt he had spoken the same verses over hundreds of newly departed souls.

  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” The preacher’s voice quavered and sounded properly mournful.

  Why couldn’t it have been the old preacher who had walked through death’s shadow instead of Ella? Isaac’s eyes shifted from the preacher to Ella’s ancient grandmother. The old woman had to be pushed in a chair everywhere she went and now sat huddled in a black shawl with tears gathering in the deep wrinkles on her cheeks as she stared at the grave of her youngest grandchild. Why couldn’t it have been her?

  Isaac looked down at the coffin. Why couldn’t it have been him? It should have been him. This was the second time in his life he’d stood in a graveyard with those thoughts. But everybody told him that was wrong when they buried his father.

  Nobody told him he was wrong this time. Ella’s parents would have gladly pushed him into the grave and covered him over if that would have brought their Ella back to them. Judge Carver had his arm around his wife, holding her up. Isaac was able to bear the judge’s accusing eyes on him, but the despairing look in the eyes of Ella’s mother smote him. Ella looked like her mother. Delicate with beautiful pale skin and often the hint of a tremble in her fingers. Ella had needed a man like her father to hold her up and shelter her.

  Instead Isaac had ripped her away from her family and headed west where he planned for them to start a new life. The kind of life he wanted. One full of adventure and challenge. Ella had no desire for adventure. She wept when he said they were going west. He held her gently while she cried, but he didn’t change his mind. Instead he assured her he was strong enough for both of them. He talked of the land they’d work, the children they would have, and because she loved him, she had gone with him. He’d never considered the possibility that she might refuse to go. She was his wife.

  The judge offered to buy them a house if he would stay in Louisville. When Isaac told him he didn’t need a house, only opportunity, the judge ordered him to leave Ella behind. To go west and establish his claim, if that was what he had to do. When he was settled, he could come back for Ella. Isaac should have listened. Then he wouldn’t be standing beside Ella’s grave, mashing down the desire to knock the Bible out of the old preacher’s hands if he spoke one more word about the Lord calling Ella home.

  The Lord hadn’t called anybody home. Not that Isaac was on good enough terms with the Lord to ever hear the first thing he might call out. He’d sat in some churches. First with his mother. Then with the old farmer who gave Isaac bed and board in exchange for his labor after his father’s death tore their family asunder.

  The McElroys believed in church, but they lived a far piece from any church house, so they didn’t make the trip more than four or five Sundays a year. Even so, the old couple hadn’t neglected spiritual matters. Mrs. McElroy made him read the Bible out loud to her by candlelight nearly every night after the supper meal. She claimed the Scripture could be a powerful comfort and help if a person let the Lord’s message speak to his heart, but Isaac had let the words slide off his tongue without paying them much mind. Bible words were for the old and the fearful.

  And the dead.

  The preacher’s mournful words kept spilling out of his mouth. He read through the funeral psalm, but he didn’t close up his Bible the way Isaac hoped he would. Instead he thumbed through it searching for more Scripture. The rustle of the pages was loud in the silence. Once he found the proper spot, his preacher voice grew stronger and lost its quaver.

  “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

  The preacher looked up at the sky and then across the grave at them and spoke the Bible words again as if he feared they hadn’t heard him the first time. Then the quiver was back in his voice as he went on. “Sorrow comes to us all. May you lean on the good Lord’s strength and call upon his help to carry you through.”

  Isaac let his hands curl into fists against his side, crushing the stem of the yellow flower someone had handed him. What good did it do to call for help now? Ella had needed help a week ago. When the fever was burning through her. He stared across the grave at the preacher who met his eyes without turning away. He was the first person to do so since Isaac had brought Ella home dead. Everybody else couldn’t seem to bear letting their eyes light on him. Isaac understood. He couldn’t bear the sight of his own face in a mirror when he was combing his hair.

  But the old preacher’s eyes settled right on him as he kept going in his preacher voice. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone. But the mercy of the Lord is everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him. Amen and amen.”

  Amen. That was a Bible word Isaac was glad to hear fall out of the preacher’s mouth. Isaac stared at the grave that held Ella. They were all waiting for him to drop the flower he held down on her. He kept his eyes on the ground. He couldn’t do it. His feet wouldn’t move forward. His hand wouldn’t turn loose of the flower.

  The silence pounded against his ears and he almost wished the old preacher would start up with some more Scripture. Anything to push the silence back. The seconds stretched into minutes. A bird began to sing in a tree not far away, and while only seconds before, Isaac wanted some noise to break the silence, now he wished for a rock to silence the bird. With a keening wail that sliced through Isaac, Ella’s mother gave way to her grief. The undertaker, a man so slim and gray in his black suit that he seemed part of the shadows, produced a chair from those shadows to push under her before she could fall. A woman Isaac didn’t know and the preacher knelt beside her to offer comfort.

  The judge stepped up beside Isaac and whispered fiercely in his ear. “For the love of God, Kingston, do what has to be done so we can leave this place.”

  But what Ella’s father didn’t understand was that Isaac didn’t think he could leave this place. Not and surrender Ella to the earth. An even more piercing wail rose from Ella’s mother behind them.

  When Isaac didn’t move, the judge gave him a little shove toward the grave. “You killed her. Now be man enough to bury her.”

  Do what had to be done. That was what his mother told him after the boilers of the steamboat Lucy Gray had blown up and stolen his father from them. They did what had to be done. He had to go to live with the McElroys. Marian had to go live with the Shakers. And she, his mother, had to marry the dour old banker, Mr. Ludlow. Nobody was promised happiness. But if everybody kept going—kept moving forward and doing what had to be done—then maybe around some corner happiness might be waiting. At least for some of them.

  He had thought to round that corner with Ella. Out west where opportunity awaited those brave enough to chase it. That’s where happiness could be found. And now it was all dust. Dust to dust.

  Isaac stepped forward at last and dropped the aster he held into the grave. Ella’s father followed after him and then the others. It was done. What had to be done was done.

  None of his family had shown up for the funeral. Too many miles separated them. And too many years. He hadn’t seen his mother since he was eighteen and left the McElroys. That visit hadn’t gone well with Old Man Ludlow hovering in the shadows behind Isaac’s mother, anxious to see him away from his door. What choice did she have but to send him off to make his way as best he could? She and the sour banker had no children, but there were Isaac’s young brother and sister to consider.

  She had kissed Isaac and then held his face in her hands for a long moment before she said, “You’re like him. Like your father. Live like him.”

  Isaac knew what she meant. His father had carried enthusiasm for life in his pocket and shared it with everyone he met. Everything was an adventure to him, and an o
pportunity. The steamboat explosion had ended that and plunged them all into new lives. And now another death had plunged Isaac into despair.

  Isaac hadn’t gone back to see his mother since that day. The only one he kept in contact with was Marian at the Shaker town. He’d gone to see her there a couple of times. She claimed to be content. Claimed to want to be shed of the world. So perhaps she had turned the corner to happiness, even though she hadn’t used that word. Peace and perfection seemed to fit better on the Shakers’ tongues and on Marian’s. And there in that village with those solemn people, it could be she would never have that happiness or peace ripped from her.

  He’d sent Marian word of Ella’s death but not with any expectation she would make the journey to Louisville. While she didn’t deny he was her natural brother in the worldly way, she claimed no part of that world now. Her life was there in the village at Harmony Hill with her Shaker brothers and sisters. So there was no one to put an arm around Isaac, to offer a word of sympathy.

  In every face as they moved away from the grave toward the carriages waiting to carry them back to Ella’s house, Isaac saw the reflection of the judge’s condemnation. You killed her. It was almost a relief when the judge stepped in front of him as they were leaving the cemetery to block his way to the carriage that had carried Isaac from the house to the burial ground.

  While Ella’s father was several inches shorter than Isaac and stooped a bit by age, what he lacked in size, he more than made up in authority. He was a judge. When he spoke, people did as he said.

  He tipped back his head and glared at Isaac from under the black rim of his hat. “You took our child from her home and stole her from us.”

  “She went with me of her own free will.” Isaac was surprised to hear his voice speaking up in his own defense.

  “She went with you in tears.” The judge’s voice grew even harsher. “You are not to darken our door ever again.”

  “I didn’t kill her. The fever did.” His words sounded lame even to his own ears.