“Yee, so we be! We sowed more'n usual so's to keep the two jiners at work long's we could.—Take that scythe over to the barn, Jacob, an' fetch me another, an' step spry.”
“What's a 'jiner,' Ansel?”
“Winter Shakers, I call 'em. They're reg'lar constitooshanal dyed-in-the-wool jiners, jinin' most anything an' hookin' on most anywheres. They jine when it comes on too cold to sleep outdoors, an' they onjine when it comes on spring. Elder Gray's always hopin' to gather in new souls, so he gives the best of 'em a few months' trial. How are ye, Hannah?” he called to a Sister passing through the orchard to search for any possible green apples under the trees. “Make us a good old-fashioned deep-dish pandowdy an' we'll all do our best to eat it!”
“I suppose the 'jiners' get discouraged and fear they can't keep up to the standard. Not everybody is good enough to lead a self-denying Shaker life,” said Susanna, pushing back the close sunbonnet from her warm face, which had grown younger, smoother, and sweeter in the last few weeks.
“Nay, I s'pose likely; 'less they're same as me, a born Shaker,” Ansel replied. “I don't hanker after strong drink; don't like tobaccer (always could keep my temper 'thout smokin'), ain't partic'lar 'bout meat-eatin', don't keer 'bout heapin' up riches, can't 'stand the ways o' worldly women-folks, jest as lives confess my sins to the Elder as not, 'cause I hain't sinned any to amount to anything sence I made my first confession; there I be, a natural follerer o' Mother Ann Lee.”
Susanna drew her Shaker bonnet forward over her eyes and turned her back to Brother Ansel under the pretense of reaching over to the rows of sweet marjoram. She had never supposed it possible that she could laugh again, and indeed she seldom felt like it, but Ansel's interpretations of Shaker doctrine were almost too much for her latent sense of humor.
“What are you smiling at, and me so sad, Mardie?” quavered Sue, piteously, from the little plot of easy weeding her mother had given her to do. “I keep remembering my game! It was such a Christian game, too. Lots nicer than Mother Ann in prison; for Jane said her mother and father was both Believers, and nobody was good enough to pour milk through the keyhole but her. I wanted to give the clothes-pins story names, like Hilda and Percy, but I called them Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel just because I thought the Shakers would 'specially like a Bible play. I love Elderess Abby, but she does stop my happiness, Mardie. That's the second time today, for she took Moses away from me when I was kissing him because he pinched his thumb in the window.”
“Why did you do that, Sue?” remonstrated her mother softly, remembering Ansel's proximity. “You never used to kiss strange little boys at home in Farnham.”
“Moses is n't a boy; he's only six, and that's a baby; besides, I like him better than any little boys at home, and that's the reason I kissed him; there's no harm in boy-kissing, is there, Mardie?”
“You don't know anybody here very well yet; not well enough to kiss them,” Susanna answered, rather hopeless as to the best way of inculcating the undesirability of the Adamic plane of thought at this early age. “While we stay here, Sue, we ought both to be very careful to do exactly as the Shakers do.”