One of these introduced herself to Miss Fitch as Sister Samantha. She had a round, comfortable face, and the boys and girls, who had felt an awe of the grave Elder, recovered courage as they looked at her. She said they could "go round" if they wanted to, and called a younger sister named Dorcas to show them the way.
Sister Dorcas had a pale, rather dissatisfied face. She did not seem so happy as Sister Samantha. She showed the children all that there was to see, but she said very little and took no pains to explain any thing, or to make the visit pleasant. They saw the bedrooms where the sisters slept, and the bedrooms where the brothers slept, all exactly alike, comfortable, plain, and unadorned, except for wonderful patchwork quilts on the beds, and the gay "pulled" rugs on the floors. They were shown the kitchen where the food for all the community was cooked, a kitchen as clean and shining as the waxen cell of a bee, and the storerooms, full of dried fruits and preserved fruits, honey, cheeses, beeswax, wooden ware, brooms, herbs, and soap. There was an "office" also, where these things were for sale to any one who should choose to buy, and great consultations took place among the children, who had almost all brought a little shopping money. Some chose maple-sugar, some, silk-winders, some, little cakes of white wax for use in work-baskets. Molly Prime had a sudden bright thought, which she whispered about, and after much giggling and mysterious explanations in corners, they clubbed together and got a work-basket for Miss Fitch. It cost a dollar and a quarter, and was a great beauty, the children thought. Miss Fitch was very much pleased with it, and that added to their pleasure, so that the purchase of the work-basket was one of the pleasantest events of the day. Eyebright spent what was left of her money in buying a new mop-handle as a present for Wealthy, who wanted one, she knew. She was a good deal laughed at by the other boys and girls, but she didn't mind that a bit, and shouldering her mop-handle as if it had been a flag-staff, followed with the rest wherever Sister Dorcas chose to lead them.
Sister Dorcas took them to see the big barns, sweet with freshly made hay, and to the dairy and cheese-house, with white shelves laden with pans of rich milk and curds, the very sight of which made the children hungry. Next they peeped into the meeting-house for Sundays, and then they were taken to the room where fruit was packed and sorted. Here they found half-a-dozen young Shakeresses, busy in filling baskets with blackberries for next day's market.
These Shaker girls pleased the children very much; they looked so fresh and prim and pretty in their sober costume, and so cheerful and smiling. Eyebright fell in love at once with the youngest and prettiest, a girl only two or three years older than herself. She managed to get close to her, and, under pretence of helping with the blackberries, drew her a little to one side, where they could talk without being overheard.
"Do you like to live here?" she asked confidentially, as their fingers met in the blackberry basket.
"Yea," said the little Shakeress, glancing round shyly. Then as she saw that nobody was noticing them, she became more communicative.
"I like it—pretty well," she said. "But I guess I shan't stay here always."
"Won't you? What will you do then? Where will you go?"
"I don't know yet; but Ruth Berguin—she is my sister in the flesh—was once of this family, and she left, and went back to the world's people and got married. She lives up in Canada now, and has got two babies. She came for a visit once, and fetched one of them. Sister Samantha felt real badly when Ruth went, but she liked the baby ever so much. I mean to go back to the world's people too, some day."
"Oh my! perhaps you will get married," suggested Eyebright, greatly excited at the idea.