The Gifted Page 6

  Sister Sophrena listened for a moment. “Yea, there is joy in his song.” Her eyes softened on Jessamine. “And in yours. But you must decide not to sing the wrong songs or walk the wrong paths.”

  “But the man might have lain in the woods long without help. Even died there. Could it be that the Lord directed my steps there in order to help him? That it was providence instead of happenstance?”

  “Did you hear a voice leading you into the woods?”

  “Nay,” Jessamine admitted.

  “Were there angels beckoning you to follow that path?”

  “Nay.”

  “It is good that you are truthful. For Sister Annie has already told me that your lust for knowledge of worldly things is what led you down that path.”

  Jessamine felt a new rush of color in her cheeks, a true flush of shame this time. It was often so when she made confession to Sister Sophrena. She fell so short of the mark of a dutiful Shaker sister. “But good came of it when we were able to help the man.”

  When Sister Sophrena didn’t answer right away, Jessamine went on. “Didn’t it? We were able to bring him to Brother Benjamin to fix his arm and help him. I know it looked sinful to you the way he was leaning on me when we came into the village, but that was the only way he could stay on the horse. It meant nothing in the worldly way.”

  “And you felt nothing worldly while you were so near him?” Sister Sophrena’s eyes pierced her.

  Jessamine’s cheeks burned brighter. “I felt very unsettled. Unsure of every feeling that ran through me. Aware of my very toes. I didn’t know whether I was falling in sin or being lifted to paradise.” She wished those last words back when Sister Sophrena tightened her lips and shook her head slightly as though weary of listening to Jessamine. “I guess thinking that means I surely was falling into sin. But was it a normal feeling? One that people of the world don’t turn from?”

  “Why do you think I can answer such questions?” A furrow formed between Sister Sophrena’s dark eyebrows.

  “You told me once that you were married when you came into the Believers. That you had to rid yourself of the sin of matrimony.” The frown on Sister Sophrena’s face was growing darker, but Jessamine ignored it and plunged on. “I know that was many years ago, but before you came here, you must have experienced those feelings. Worldly love.”

  “My former husband and I had a different relationship. A marriage encouraged by my father with little consideration of love as the world knows it or as we here at Harmony Hill embrace it. Many marriages of the world are such. Naught but reason for despair.” Sister Sophrena pushed her lips together into a grim line as if she was fighting that despair even yet.

  Then her voice softened as she reached across the small writing desk to touch Jessamine’s cheek. “You, my dear sister, will never have to know that despair. You have been spared the temptations of worldly love. And the sorrows. Trust me. It is better so.”

  Jessamine knew she should be quiet. That she should accept what Sister Sophrena was telling her. But the words tumbled out of her mouth anyway. “But what about children? Did you never want to have children?” Jessamine stopped and her eyes widened. “Or perhaps you did and they became your little sisters and brothers as happens to others who come among us.”

  “Nay. I had no children. The Lord intended for my path to the Shakers to be an easy one. Like yours. You came so young with more innocence than most your age because of the way you lived separated from the world with your grandmother. Life here was not a lot different for you except with more people to love as you loved your granny.”

  “I do love my sisters.” Jessamine paused a moment. “And my brothers too, but—”

  Sister Sophrena cut her off. “Do not pick at this the way you might a scabbed over sore. The love we have here is pure and not selfish. It encompasses all your family of Believers and brings peace to your heart and mind. We serve one another in love. You did a good deed for the fallen young man and in the process had feelings stirred within you that you had not felt before. You can stomp out those feelings the same as any wickedness the devil tries to put into your mind. Put them behind you and continue on the right and perfect way. The young man will recover and return to his world.”

  “Yea, Sister Sophrena.” She lowered her eyes to her hands again and then peeked up again. “Is he well now then? Has he remembered who he is and where he was going?”

  “Sister Lettie reports that he spends much time in sleep. Brother Benjamin has given him potions to give his mind rest in hopes that will help him recover his thinking powers.”

  “He seemed to think fine. He just didn’t know his name or his reason for being in the woods.”

  Sister Sophrena’s frown began slipping back between her eyes. “Don’t allow your curiosity to lead you into more sin, Sister Jessamine. Concentrate on your duties and abandon these wayward thoughts. Think not on the man’s name or anything about him.”

  “Yea, Sister Sophrena,” Jessamine said again. “I will reflect on my duty to the Lord and Mother Ann and my sisters and brothers.”

  “Such an attitude will serve you well.”

  Jessamine meant the words when she spoke them to Sister Sophrena. She would never intentionally defy Sister Sophrena, but at the same time she very much wanted to see the young man again. She couldn’t seem to rid her mind of the thought of letting her eyes linger on him. Perhaps even letting her hand touch him again to see if those strange feelings that rose inside her were merely from the excitement of the moment or something more. Wayward thoughts were not so easy to abandon.

  Journal Entry

  Harmony Hill Village

  Entered on this 14th day of June in the year 1849

  by Sister Sophrena Prescott

  The sisters are busy gathering rose petals for our rosewater. It is much in demand by those of the world as perfumed water and as a refreshing agent for the hands and face. Our own use is more for flavoring our cakes and teas or for treating ailments of the eye. We need not soak our bodies in perfume to make them sweet smelling for our Lord and Mother Ann. The aroma produced by dedicated work and the love rising up from our meetinghouse when we go forth to exercise our songs in worship—that is what pleases the Spirit.

  On instruction from the Ministry, I am watching Sister Jessamine with a careful eye since her return from the woods with the man from the world. I trust she tells me the truth when she claims no desire to stray upon wayward paths, but her imaginings of the world are a stumbling block in her path toward living as a true Believer. It is evident she has curiosity about the stranger she brought into our midst. Not the simple curiosity some of the other brethren and sisters might feel as to who the man is and how he came to be in the woods. Nay, her curiosity is the more dangerous kind. The kind that will plummet her into sin if she allows it to grow and wrap tendrils of temptation around her.

  There is no sin in curiosity in its innocent state. Such is good, for it is the spark that leads to new discoveries resulting in good for all in our community. When a Believer is performing a task and becomes curious about how better to accomplish said task by improving the tools necessary or the process, then that is a gift. Such curiosity has led to the addition of rollers on our bed legs that give us ease in cleaning the dust from under them and to the carving of slots in our large spoons that makes serving up vegetables so much more efficient. Many innovations we use in our tasks every day were brought about by appropriate curiosity and attention to duty and not to things of the world.

  It is my prayer that our sister doesn’t succumb to her sinful curiosity and that the man of the world will soon be well enough to be gone from our village. Sister Lettie reports the bone in his arm will knit back together in time and that his confusion seems to be lifting although he has yet to remember his name. That seems odd to me. I have difficulty believing a man could forget his name, but Brother Benjamin does not feel the same suspicions that want to linger in my mind. Perhaps it is no more than my desire to have him awa
y from here, taking his worldly temptations with him. We have shut away the world to keep such sin from us. I fear it can only be the devil sneaking it back among us with trickery.

  Eldress Frieda says I must not think uncharitably, and she is right. I have confessed my lack of trust in the watchcare of the Ministry and our Mother Ann. At the same time, the eldress has instructed me not to let Sister Jessamine stray from the village. But it is my opinion that the danger to our sister is no longer only among the trees. It resides in our midst.

  There too is the letter. An appropriate time will have to be determined to give it to Sister Jessamine. It had been thought to wait until she neared twenty-one and spiritual maturity, but now I wonder. How can we set an age or time when a person is mature enough to look into her past at the truth of her beginnings? If that is what it tells. I do not know, for I did not break the seal of the inner envelope before giving it to the Ministry.

  But I do fear—whatever the letter says—that it might only further confound our young sister’s mind. For what purpose? Who knows if whoever penned the letter even still breathes? No other letter has ever come for her. None at all. She seems greatly alone in the world except for the Believers here who embrace her as a beloved sister. A very beloved sister, even if at times she can be our exasperating sister as well.

  6

  The morning after Jessamine made her confession and promises to Sister Sophrena, she had resolutely determined to completely shut from her mind any wayward thoughts or sinful desires as she paid mind to her duties in the rose gardens. She concentrated on snipping the rose blooms off the bushes and stripping the petals from the stems to fill her basket.

  The blossoms spread a beautiful fragrant blanket across the field and made this duty a thousand times more pleasing than being stuck in the hot washhouse or in the kitchen peeling mounds of potatoes and onions. Each duty was valuable and to be performed with dedication and care. Sister Sophrena often reminded her of that truth if she noted the slightest look of dismay when she told Jessamine her duties for the week. And no sister was continually assigned to an odious duty. A week was not forever, although there were times it seemed it might be when stuck in the upper room ironing endless piles of shirts and dresses. So in the spring and early summer, Jessamine was thankful many hands were needed in the rose gardens.

  Sister Abigail stepped up beside Jessamine and softly touched one of the roses. “It seems such a pity to not place so much as one rosebud into a vase to brighten our retiring room.”

  Jessamine smiled at the young sister and pretended not to notice the frown Sister Annie leveled toward them from the next row. Sister Annie had doubts that Sister Abigail desired to learn the Shaker ways. Even something as simple as the Shaker way to gather rose petals.

  “She longs for the world and has no eye for the Shaker path,” Sister Annie told Jessamine after their first day in the rose gardens a week ago.

  “You are patient with me, Sister Annie. Why not with Sister Abigail who is so new to our ways?” Jessamine had asked.

  “She does not want my patience. She wants only things of the world and her talk of such is bringing disharmony to our sleeping room.” Sister Annie narrowed her eyes on Jessamine. “To you. Can you deny she has you thinking of the world?”

  “I cannot blame Sister Abigail for that. I ever have curiosity of the world. You know how often I have need to confess that fault to Sister Sophrena.”

  “Yea, but Sister Abigail does not think it a fault. She thinks the ways we show her are what is faulty.”

  There was truth in what Sister Annie said. Jessamine did like hearing Sister Abigail talk of the world. About parasols and other frivolities that Jessamine knew nothing about. But now, Jessamine tried to keep her mind on her Shaker duties as she had promised Sister Sophrena she would do. Part of that duty on this day was guiding Sister Abigail in how to efficiently pluck the rose petals.

  Although little expertise was required and Jessamine had shown the young sister the quickest method to strip the petals time and again, the girl kept dawdling instead of bending to her task. Now she clipped a rose, then lifted the bloom up to sniff it before she began slowly pulling the petals loose two or three at a time to let them drift down in her basket.

  Jessamine smiled at her with no censure. One of Mother Ann’s most oft repeated sayings was to do their work as if they had a thousand years to live, or as if they might die on the morrow. Sister Abigail must be thinking on the thousand years to live, for the way she was working, it might take her that long to fill her basket. Jessamine thought of telling her that, but instead she only said, “The roses are grown not for their beauty but for their usefulness.”

  “How can a rose be grown without some eye seeing its beauty? It appears to me that if the Lord gave the rose such beauty, he surely meant for us to use our eyes and our noses to enjoy it in every way and not for rosewater only.” She clipped another bloom and lifted it to her nose to breathe in its beauty.

  “It is not necessary for us to test the fragrance of every bloom. We can trust that the Lord has filled them all with a pleasing and useful scent,” Jessamine said.

  The girl gave Jessamine a little smile, then picked another rose to hold to her nose as well.

  When she carried the fourth rose to her nose, Sister Annie looked over at her and completely lost her patience. “We are not to be indulging in a rose-sniffing frolic, Sister Abigail,” Sister Annie told her with a frown. “It is our duty to fill our baskets with the petals. Not our noses with fragrance.”

  “But the fragrance is there for the free taking, Sister. I have stolen nothing from the petals by breathing of their fragrance.” She took another sniff of the bloom she held before she pulled off the petals and spread them out evenly in the bottom of her basket. “You know what those of the world do with your rosewater, don’t you?”

  “We shut away such wondering and keep the sins of the world away from our borders.” Sister Annie sounded cross as she snipped off a lush bloom and stripped the petals with one firm twist. She stepped forward toward another bloom as if eager to leave Sister Abigail and her foolish talk behind.

  “I did not say they sinned in any way in the use of the Shaker rosewater.” Sister Abigail’s hazel eyes suddenly looked watery with tears. She had a great desire to be liked. Not simply loved by the sisters around her but liked with smiles and attentive ears to her stories.

  Sister Annie stormed on up the row with nary a glance back. Jessamine snipped off the blooms Sister Annie had passed by in her haste to get away from Sister Abigail’s stories of the world and resumed her duty of training the younger sister in the proper Shaker way.

  “Sister Annie is right.” Jessamine raised her voice a little in hopes her words might carry across the roses to Sister Annie’s ears. “We can pick much faster without giving each rose a trip to our nose. The fragrance is in the air. Breathe the scent there and strip the petals for your basket.”

  Sister Abigail let out a small sigh. “It would be far better to be one of the pampered young ladies at White Oak Springs bathing in the rosewater.” She peeked up at Jessamine to see if her words had awakened her curiosity.

  “Bathing in it?” Jessamine let the rose petals drift from her hand down into the basket.

  “Yea,” Sister Abigail said.

  Jessamine offered Sister Abigail an approving smile for remembering to use the Shaker word for agreement. That was a welcome step along the Shaker path, even if the girl couldn’t keep her mind on harvesting the rose petals. “No wonder we have to pick so many rose petals. Rosewater baths. I can hardly imagine.”

  Actually she could only imagine too well and she hungered for more details to add to her imagining. Sister Annie was far up the row and no other sisters were near, so what could it hurt to listen to Sister Abigail tell of how those of the world used the rosewater? Jessamine could pick just as quickly with words in her ears as not.

  Sister Abigail smiled. “When I worked there last summer, the ladies woul
d often ask me to pour as much as half a bottle of the fragrant water into their baths and then sprinkle great handfuls of fresh rose petals on top of the water. Believe me, I found much occasion to dip my hands in the baths when I brought them extra hot water so they could soak among the rose petals longer.”

  Jessamine ran her fingers through the rose petals in her basket. She wondered how it would feel to lay back in a warm bath with the fragrance of roses rising around her while someone carried water to the tub. Not a proper Shaker thought. Color rose in her cheeks as she looked around to see if any of the sisters had somehow divined her slip into vanity.

  She had promised Sister Sophrena she wouldn’t let her thoughts stray down wayward paths and here she was letting them do that very thing.

  “That would not be the Shaker way,” Jessamine said. “It would be good to keep our minds on our tasks and put our hands to work. It’s unwise to tempt our thoughts with worldly ways.”

  “But wouldn’t it be wonderful to be one of those young ladies who never have anything to do but listen to music and dance in the moonlight?” Sister Abigail lightly stroked her cheek with one of the roses.

  “We have music and dancing.” Jessamine tried to block Sister Abigail’s words from her imagination, but dancing in moonlight wormed into her mind.

  “Not the way they do. Being held in handsome young men’s arms. Kissing in the shadows.”

  “It’s not fitting to allow our minds to dwell on sinful things of the world.” Jessamine pushed an echo of Sister Annie’s firmness in her voice.

  It was one thing to be curious about parasols and rosewater baths. It was quite another to let her mind chase after the thought of kissing. Her grandmother had kissed her, dry lips touching her cheek as she pulled the quilt up over Jessamine each night. Right after she’d ended one of her fairy-tale stories. The prince and princess always kissed before they went back to the castle to live happily ever after. In Jessamine’s mind, sparkles of happiness had flashed at the first mention of the kiss. Like the glittering dust from a shooting star drifting down around them.