“The Lord has upheld me, and His right hand has sustained me,” Athalia quoted, with an uplifted look.
“Yee,” old Jane assented, “but He likes sense, Athalia, and there ain’t any reason why two of us shouldn’t take turns settin’ up with her tonight.”
“This is my service,” Athalia said, smiling joyously.
Eldress Hannah, lying with closed eyes, said, suddenly: “Athalia, don’t be foolish and conceited. You go right along to your bed; Jane and Mary’ll look after me.”
It took Athalia a perceptible minute to get herself in hand sufficiently to say, meekly, “Yee, Eldress.” When she had shut the door behind her with perhaps something more than Shaker emphasis, the Eldress opened her eyes and smiled at old Jane. “She’s smart,” she said.
“Yee,” said Sister Jane; and there was a little chuckle.
The sick woman closed her eyes again and sighed. “What a nurse Lydia was!” she said; and added, suddenly: “How is Nathan getting along with Lewis? There isn’t much more time, I guess,” she ended, mildly; “she won’t last it out another summer.”
“She’s done better than I expected to stay till now,” Jane said; and the Eldress nodded.
But it was, perhaps, a natural result of Athalia’s abounding energy that toward the end of that second winter in the Shaker village she should grow irritable. The spring work was very heavy that year. Brother William was too feeble to do even the light, pottering tasks that had been allotted to him, and his vague babblings about the spirits ceased altogether. In April old Jane died, and that put extra burdens on Athalia’s capable shoulders. “But I notice I don’t get anything extra for my work, not even thanks!” she told Lewis, sharply, and forgot to call him “Brother.” She had walked down Lonely Lake Road and stopped at his gate. She looked thinner; her forget-me-not eyes were clouded, and there was an impatient line about her lips, instead of the faint, ecstatic smile which was part of her early experience.
“Yes, there’s lots of work to be done,” he agreed, “but when people do it together—”