“There are brand new kittens,” announced Pegeen skipping joyously into the quiet shaded room and bringing a gust of the sunshiny outdoor world with her, “and the jam is heavenly this year, Eldress Martha. I tried three kinds, and I saw Sister Jane take honey out of the hives,—only I didn’t see it as close as I wanted to.”
She dropped down on the floor at the Eldress’ feet and leaned her head against the gray clad knee.
“I don’t see why bees should want to sting me.” Her voice held a note of injury. “But they do.”
Eldress Martha laughed. Her laugh was even better than her smile, a thing surpassingly girlish, and the tenderness in her face, as she laid her hand lightly on the child’s head and smoothed the shining black hair, gave Archibald a sudden twinge of heartache. It must be very lonely sometimes, on the spiritual heights, and this dear woman had walked there so long. He wondered whether she ever looked back to some far-away time of youth and counted the cost of the peace she had now.
But Pegeen was contented to take Eldress Martha’s human side without question. She had never been over-awed by Shaker asceticism. That was perhaps the reason why the sisters adored her. They were such simple, friendly folk in spite of their rules and visions.
“Brother Paul came to the garden,” Pegeen rubbed her cheek softly against the caressing hand, as she spoke, “and he told me a spandy new poem,—a lovely one. He’d met it coming down through the orchard and it isn’t a speck religious,—just summery and sweet and all about butterflies and birds and clouds.”
“And thee doesn’t call that ‘religious’?” asked Eldress Martha.
Pegeen recognized the gentle reproof with a smile.
“Why of course it is, when you stop to think about it—praising God and all his works and psalmy things like that,—but I meant it wasn’t anything you’d sing in church.”
“Brother Paul meets many poems that are not for church Worship.” The Eldress spoke quietly but a shadow of anxiety clouded the serenity of her face.