“Of course it is! He said they were happy; I would like to see what kind of life makes people happy.”
He looked at the lighted end of his cigar and smiled, but he said nothing. Afterward, as they followed the cart across the field and out into the road, Athalia asked the old herb-gatherer many questions about the happiness of the community life, which he answered patiently enough. Once or twice he tried to draw into their talk the silent husband who walked at her side, but Lewis had nothing to say. Only when some reference was made to one of the Prophecies did he look up in sudden interest. “You take that to mean the Judgment, do you?” he said. And for the rest of the walk to the settlement the two men discussed the point, the Shaker walking with one hand on the heavy shaft, for the support it gave him, and Lewis keeping step with him.
At the foot of the hill the road widened into a grassy street, on both sides of which, under the elms and maples, were the community houses, big and substantial, but gauntly plain; their yellow paint, flaking and peeling here and there, shone clean and fresh in the sparkle of morning. Except for a black cat whose fur glistened like jet, dozing on a white doorstep, the settlement, steeped in sunshine, showed no sign of life. There was a strange remoteness from time about the place; a sort of emptiness, and a silence that silenced even Athalia.
“Where IS everybody?” she said, in a lowered voice; as she spoke, a child in a blue apron came from an open doorway and tugged a basket across the street.
“Are there children here?” Lewis asked, surprised; and their guide said, sadly:
“Not as many as there ought to be. The new school laws have made a great difference. We’ve only got two. Folks used to send ‘em to us to bring up; oftentimes they stayed on after they were of age. Sister Lydia came that way. Well, well, she tired of us, Lydy did, poor girl! She went back into the world twenty years ago, now. And Sister Jane, she was a bound-out child, too,” he rambled on; “she came here when she was six; she’s seventy now.”
“What!” Lewis exclaimed; “has she never known anything but—this?”
His shocked tone did not disturb the old man. “Want to see my herb-house?” he said. “Guess you’ll find some of the sisters in the sorting-room. I’m Nathan Dale,” he added, courteously.
They had come to the open door of a great, weather-beaten building, from whose open windows an aromatic breath wandered out into the summer air. As they crossed the worn threshold, Athalia stopped and caught her breath in the overpowering scent of drying herbs; then they followed Brother Nathan up a shaky flight of steps to the loft. Here some elderly women, sitting on low benches, were sorting over great piles of herbs in silence—the silence, apparently, of peace and meditation. Two of them were dressed like world’s people, but the others wore small gray shoulder-capes buttoned to their chins, and little caps of white net stretched smoothly over wire frames; the narrow shirrings inside the frames fitted so close to their peaceful, wrinkled foreheads that no hair could be seen.
“I wish I could sit and sort herbs!” Athalia said, under her breath.