“Why, after a fashion,” Lewis said; and then he asked, suddenly, “Why did you turn Shaker, Nathan?”
“Well, I got hold of a Shaker book that set me thinking. Sister Lydia gave it to me. I met Sister Lydia when she had come down to the place I lived to sell baskets. And she was interested in my salvation, and gave me the book. Then I got to figuring out the Prophecies, and I saw Shakerism fulfilled them; and then I began to see that when you don’t own anything yourself you can’t worry about your property; well, that clinched me, I guess. Poor Sister Lydia, she didn’t abide in grace herself,” he ended, sadly.
“I should have thought you would have been sorry then, that you—” Lewis began, but checked himself. “How about”—he said, and stopped to clear his voice, which broke huskily;—“how about love between man and woman? Husband and wife?”
“Marriage is honorable,” Brother Nathan conceded; “Shakers don’t despise marriage. But they like to see folks grow out of it into something better, like—like your wife, maybe.”
“Well, your doctrine would put an end to the world,” Lewis said, smiling.
“I guess,” said Brother Nathan, dryly, “there ain’t any immediate danger of the world coming to an end.”
“I’d like to see that book,” Lewis said, when they parted at the pasture-bars where a foot-path led down the hill to his own house.
And that night Brother Nathan had an eager word for the family. “He’s asked for a book!” he said. The Eldress smiled doubtfully, but Athalia, with a rapturous upward look, said,
“May the Lord guide him!” then added, practically, “It won’t amount to anything. He thinks Shakerism isn’t human.”
“That’s not against it, that’s not against it!” Nathan declared, smiling; “I’ve told him so a dozen times!”