Christmas at Harmony Hill Read online

  “Perhaps the Ministry should forbid you to receive mail if it is going to cause you to surrender to worries of the world,” Sister Edna said. “Just as they forbade you to write in your journal when it was noted you were straying from the proper path of simple living.”

  “Perhaps so,” Sophrena murmured without looking at Sister Edna. She pulled the first tray of biscuits out of the oven, taking no care to keep the pan from clanging against the oven sides. She hoped to attract the attention of Sister Nora, whose duty it was to keep all on task in the kitchen, but she did not seem bothered by the noise or the needless chatter.

  So Sophrena turned and looked directly at Sister Edna. “The bell will soon toll for us to carry the food to the dining area. I must see to my tasks.” Sophrena let a ghost of a smile touch her lips. “As I am sure you must as well.”

  “You needn’t worry about me faithfully performing my duty, Sister Sophrena.” Sister Edna’s voice lost any hint of warmth as she glared at her. “It is you who appears to be in need of proper attention to your tasks. It’s ever been so since you let that former sister step too close to you. The Ministry should have barred every memory of her from our village instead of allowing her letters to you. Now I hear she’s sent you a book with her name upon it. Why ever did they not send it back at once?”

  “That is a question best asked of the Ministry. It is not my place to try to divine their thoughts.” Sophrena should have let the matter rest there, but she could not. Their former sister had ever been a splinter of discord between the two of them. Sister Edna had resented Jessamine’s lack of discipline while Sophrena had loved the young girl’s joyful enthusiasm for life. “She has been gone from us for fifteen years. Perhaps they have forgiven her leaving and are merely pleased she has found a place in the world writing stories.”

  “Foolishness. That’s what it is.” Sister Edna pushed her hand through the air in dismissal. “Naught but foolishness.”

  “Nevertheless, stories those of the world seem fond of, from all reports,” Sophrena said mildly. “Our former sister seems to do well in the world.”

  “No one does well in the world. Have you forgotten its evil actions and sorrow?” Sister Edna let out a disgusted huff. “Especially out there in the wild state of California. That is where she went, is it not?”

  “Yea, you are right, my sister.” Sophrena began lifting the biscuits off the pan to put into the baskets. Eight in each basket to be set in the middle of four sisters or four brethren so there would be no need for talk as they took care of the serious business of feeding their bodies.

  She could feel Sister Edna staring at her still, but she continued her task as she wished there was a rule against talking in the kitchen as well as the dining area. The bell would signal the morning meal soon, and while she might not be taking the proper joy in her work, she did intend to accomplish it as expected. She was relieved when Sister Edna blew out another disgusted breath and picked up a stack of plates to go set the tables.

  Was Sister Edna right? Were the letters she had received from those in the world upsetting her peace? Not the letters from Jessamine. They were always reason for joy. Just thinking about Jessamine brought a smile to Sophrena’s lips even in the midst of her malaise.

  On the other hand, the letters from her family in the world were reason for sadness. She had no idea why she had reached out to her worldly family after so many years of being the same as dead to them. The Believers were her family, and yet the desire had awakened in her to know what had become of her worldly family. In so doing, she opened her heart to grief. Her brother of the world’s daughter, Susan, wrote back to share her deep sadness over the loss of her son at Gettysburg.

  It would have been cruel to not respond to such an evident plea for someone to listen to her sorrow. For a year the letters had flown between them, with Sophrena coming to know the family through Susan’s words. The stress was there in their small family just as Mother Ann warned it would be, but something else was there too that pulled at Sophrena’s heart.

  Then a couple of months ago a letter had come in a different hand. That of Susan’s young daughter reporting the cholera had taken her mother and her youngest brother. Life was so fragile. It was good to be insulated here in the Shaker village. Yet, at the same time, Sophrena was beginning to wonder if there was more. She’d turned fifty before the coming of spring. She told herself it mattered not how old she was, but at the same time a strange desire arose in her to experience more of life. To know what it was to love as the world loved. As Susan and her family loved.

  Sophrena brushed her hand across her forehead as if she could wipe away such wayward thoughts. Why now, at her age, would the forbidden fruit suddenly look so tempting? And why with the season of joy coming upon them when they celebrated the birth of Christ?

  But first there would be Sacrifice Day, a day of atonement. Perhaps that would get her spirit back in order the way the use of a broom and a dusting brush could get a room back into fit shape for use. On that day, a leader from the New Lebanon village was expected to help them focus their prayers on righting their spirits and regaining unity with their Shaker brothers and sisters. Sacrifice Day could not come too soon for Sophrena.

  7

  What’s the matter with you, Worth?” Jake White crouched down beside the little fire Gideon had coaxed to life. “You lost your smile?”

  “Hard to smile on a day like this.” Gideon rubbed his arms to warm them. The cold drizzle that had fallen all day was freezing in the air now that the sun was gone.

  “You’ve got a fire.” Jake held his hands out toward the promise of heat from the flames. “That’s something of a miracle on this wet day. And welcome it is. Our tents will be coated in ice come morning or I miss my guess.”

  The flames spluttered in the damp air before bravely flickering back up. Gideon stared at his coffeepot on the fire as though he could will it to heat faster. His back was wet. The skin between his toes was rotting, and he wasn’t sure he’d kept his gun dry. What good did it do a man to march to battle if he didn’t even know whether his gun would fire?

  The tents stretched out over the flat expanse of a farmer’s field littered with cow pies, but no cows were in evidence now. Farmers had a way of making their herds disappear when an army was coming through. Gideon shut his eyes and imagined beef sizzling on a spit over his fire. But there was no fresh meat this night. Only hardtack and salt pork.

  Gideon fed the fire a little more wood. A cup of coffee might make the night bearable. He was hungry. He was always hungry. He had hardtack. Another reason for the coffee. He needed to dunk the hardtack in it so the weevils would float to the top. He’d eaten the stuff often enough, weevils and all, but he preferred full dark to do that. Even then he felt the little creatures wiggling on his tongue. And here Jake White was, expecting him to smile.

  He looked across his struggling fire at Jake. “Tell me, what do you miss the most about home?”

  “That’s easy enough on a night like this one,” Jake said. “Warming my bones by the stove, a blanket around my feet and a hot drink in my hands. Then again, a few months back I guess I would have been wishing for a cool shade by a blue lake. The weather can change a man’s mind quick.”

  “Weather don’t matter all that much when somebody’s ready to shoot at you.”

  “You’re right there, lad, but you’ve got to remember you’re wanting to shoot back.”

  “Wanting to? I never wanted to shoot anybody.” Gideon speared a piece of salt pork and held it directly in the flames. Grease from the pork caused the fire to flare up and gave him hope for the coffee. He’d gladly exchange the salt pork for a hot cup of coffee.

  “But we do. Shoot back.” Jake stared at the fire as he pulled some hardtack out of his pocket and bit off a piece without even checking for weevils. “We have to. It’s what soldiers do.”

  “I want to go home, Jake.” The meat was shriveling to nothing as grease kept spattering into the fire, but he
didn’t pull his roasting stick back.

  “That’s the other thing soldiers do. Think about home.” Jake took another bite of the hardtack and chewed awhile before he went on. “Your trouble is you had home with you and now she’s gone.”

  “Gone,” he echoed Jake. He pulled his roasting stick back and blew on the crisp of meat the fire hadn’t stolen before he ate it off the stick.

  “She’ll be all right,” Jake said after a minute. “The girl marched with us for months without once having the vapors.”

  “But what if the baby decided to come early? Or who knows what might happen.” He poked the stick into the fire.

  “True enough, lad. But if it does, it’s better for her to be in the bosom of her loving family than here where bullets can start flying.” Jake pulled a tin cup from his pack and held it out. “Let’s give that coffee a try if you’ve got a wee bit to share.”

  Gideon folded his handkerchief to grasp the coffeepot, lift it from the fire, and pour their cups full. They both took a few sips of the bracing liquid and then dumped their hardtack into their cups. After a few seconds, Gideon held his cup closer to the light of the fire to skim off the weevils that had risen to the top. Then he fished out the hardtack and wished he’d asked Heather to send him a box of sugar cookies. Maybe she would. Maybe the mail would catch up with them after a few weeks. Before Christmas. It would be nice to have a taste of Christmas instead of only hardtack.

  “Do you think we’ll still be fighting at Christmas?” Gideon asked.

  “It’s likely. I’m just hoping we’re not still fighting come the Christmas after this one.”

  “But isn’t Christmas supposed to be a time of peace?”

  “Tell that to the generals. In a war, one day follows another and one soldier runs up the hill after another falls until one side gives up.”

  “But there are things worth fighting for, aren’t there, Jake?” Gideon took another drink of the coffee and was glad for the slightly sweet, yet bitter taste and the warmth it shot through him.

  “We aim to keep the Union together.” Jake sipped his coffee too. They were both quiet a moment before he went on. “Even if we have to kill our brothers to do it.”

  “Or let them kill us.”

  “You’re wrong on that, lad. We aren’t letting anybody kill us. Certainly not you with a baby on the way.” Firelight danced on his face as he leaned toward Gideon. “Think of it, lad. By Christmas, you’ll be a father.”

  “What do I know about being a father?” Gideon stared down into his cup. If weevils still floated there, the darkness blessedly hid them.

  “Enough, lad.” Jake said. “You’ll know enough.”

  “If I live long enough.”

  “There is that,” Jake said. “The weather don’t kill us, the rations might.” He threw the dregs of his coffee out on the ground.

  After Jake left to go climb into his tent, Gideon stared at the fire and remembered the way Heather looked on that last night they were together. Would he ever feel her head resting on his shoulder again?

  8

  The Shaker village surprised Heather. Buildings spread out from the road, several of them rising high above her as she rode into the town on Perry’s wagon. Some were of hewn stone. Others brick. Several frame buildings were painted dark orange. Not at all a color she had expected to see on a Shaker building.

  Perry pointed out a white frame building in the center of the village across from a huge white stone building. “That’s their church. They call it a meetinghouse. It’s where they dance.” He gave the building a sideways look as if he hoped to see some of that dancing but at the same time was afraid he might. “Pa’s seen it and he says it’s mighty strange.”

  Perry, the same as Beth, had grown up in the last two years. Now instead of an awkward kid, he was a young man obviously completely smitten with Beth. That’s all he’d wanted to talk about on the ride to the Shaker village. That and the war. Heather had to tell him she couldn’t talk about the war. The very thought of Gideon headed toward another battle made her head swim and she had to grip the wagon seat to keep upright.

  She could have told Perry plenty. How she’d been deafened by the cannons and gunfire. That was what Perry wanted to know. He wanted to hear about courageous charges to take a hill, but Heather was tormented by the memory of the men who didn’t rise back up after the hill had been taken and would never make a new charge at the enemy. The enemy fell the same on the other side of whatever line the generals determined had to be taken or defended. She’d gone among the wounded men offering them water and been anxious and afraid often enough, but a washerwoman couldn’t give in to feminine vapors. At least then she’d known what was happening.

  Now she could only imagine and worry. What if Gideon never came home? Whatever would happen to her with no husband and a father who shut his door to her?

  She stared up at the Shaker buildings. They took in those in need. That was why she was riding into their village. But she couldn’t stay here. Not forever. They divided families. She’d heard her grandmother speak harshly of the way Shakers didn’t believe in marriage and had special houses where children were kept from their parents.

  Heather put a hand over the swell of her baby inside her. Surely they wouldn’t take a newborn from his mother’s bosom. Heather’s mother couldn’t have imagined that happening or she’d have never told her to come find this aunt Sophrena.

  Her hand slid over to her mother’s letter tucked deep in her pocket. That morning when the night began to cede to the coming day, she’d slipped out of the barn and hurried across the frost-encrusted grass to hide among a stand of trees. She hadn’t wanted to chance encountering her father’s wrath again by lingering in the barn overlong. The dogs didn’t bark at her, nor did they leave their warm spots on the porch to come to her.

  Her feet were freezing. Her back ached, and her spirit was weary. She stood there as stiff and cold as the trees and prayed for the morning light to hurry. She didn’t know how much longer she could bear the darkness.

  “Oh, Mother, I did so need your arms around me,” Heather whispered into the shadows. Tears traced down her cheeks, and she pulled the quilt Lucas had carried out to her tighter around her shoulders.

  She ran her hands over the bits of thread knotted through the fabric to keep the batting in place. Her mother’s hands had tied those threads. Thinking that gave her some comfort as she unfolded her mother’s letter. Fingers of pink were reaching up into the eastern sky, but the writing was still only a dark blur. She stared at the paper anyway and waited for morning to crawl over the horizon and bring light.

  The first word she could make out was “Heather.” The next, at the bottom of the letter, was “Mother.” She held the paper against her heart and tried to absorb the love there as she leaned against the maple she and Simon called their monkey tree. She looked up at the branches and remembered climbing the tree with Simon always climbing a little higher. The memory of their laughter as they perched high above their small world filled her with longing for a happier time. Before the war tore their family apart, everything was good.

  She’d cried when Simon shouldered his rifle and went off to war. To the South. She hadn’t understood that then. She didn’t understand it now. What had pulled them—her father and Simon—to the South? They had no slaves. They spent sunrise to sunset scratching out a meager living from the hard ground.

  “A man can’t let the government order his life,” Simon had told her. “He has to be free.”

  The word “free” echoed in her head. The slaves had been freed. Lincoln had issued an Emancipation Proclamation. Strange how both sides looked at free from different eyes. And how free was just a word that meant nothing when shells started exploding. On a battlefield, nobody was free. Every person anywhere near could be caught in a web of violence.

  What did the Bible say about freedom? That all were shackled by sin and only through Christ could true freedom be found. Ye shall be free indeed. />
  Now her mother and Simon and Jimmy knew that eternal freedom, but before her mother went to be with the Lord, she’d remembered Heather. At long last the gray light of dawn crept in under the trees to let Heather read her mother’s words.

  My dearest Heather,

  Oh, how it pains my heart to think I will never lay eyes on you again in this lifetime. Or Simon. Or Jimmy. I will soon be with them, but you I am leaving behind. You and the sweet babe you are carrying. My arms ache with longing as I think of the child forming within you. I so wish to hold that precious child, a promise of life continuing at a time when death has stolen so much from us and now knocks on the door for me.

  But I know you are coming. Not soon enough and I’m glad of that, for I want you far from this sickness. I weep each time Beth comes near and pray that when you do come you will not find all your family in the grave. But enough of grief. I must save my strength for hope for your tomorrow.

  Simon’s death has embittered your father. I fear he will not welcome you when you come. If Gideon comes with you, then I trust the two of you will find your way to a good life without your father’s blessings. But I worry you might return alone before the war ends. I sense that desire between the lines of your letter telling me about the baby. And oh, how I wish my hands could be the hands to catch him as he comes into the world.

  A tear dripped from Heather’s cheek down onto the letter to join the stain made by her mother’s tears. She touched the spot where the ink was smudged and closed her eyes for a long moment. Then she blinked away her tears in order to keep reading.

  But it is not to be. I have tried to think of what you must do if your father’s heart hasn’t softened by then. And the thought that comes to me as if the Lord planted it here in my head is Sophrena. You remember me telling you about my aunt who went to the Shakers. Last year, she wrote to me. I wonder now if that was God’s plan. Perhaps he knew the troubles headed our way and tapped Sophrena on the shoulder over there in her Shaker village and made her remember her family.