The Way to Peace | Page 6

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.
Brother Nathan chuckled. "For how long?" he asked; and then
introduced her to the three workers, who greeted her calmly and went
on sorting their herbs. The loft was dark and cool; the window-frames,
in which there were no sashes, opened wide on the still August fields
and woods; the occasional brief words of the sorting-women seemed to
drop into a pool of fragrant silence. The two visitors followed Brother
Nathan down the room between piles of sorted herbs, and out into the
sunshine again. Athalia drew a breath of ecstasy.
"It's all so beautifully tranquil!" she whispered, looking about her with

blue, excited eyes.
"Tay and tranquillity!" Lewis said, with an amused laugh.
But as they went along the grassy street this sense of tranquillity closed
about them like a palpable peace. Now and then they stopped and spoke
to some one--always an elderly person; and in each old face the
experiences that life writes in unerasable lines about eyes and lips were
hidden by a veil of calmness that was curiously unhuman.
"It isn't canny, exactly," Lewis told his wife, in a low voice. But she did
not seem to hear him. She asked many questions of Eldress Hannah,
who had taken them in charge, and once or twice she burst into
impetuous appreciation of the idea of brotherhood, and even of certain
theological principles-- which last diverted her husband very much.
Eldress Hannah showed them the dairy, and the work-room, and all
there was to see, with a patient hospitality that kept them at an infinite
distance. She answered Lewis's questions about the community with a
sad directness.
"Yee; there are not many of us now.