Читать книгу Ellen Levis - Elsie Singmaster - Страница 4

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Outside the Saal or meeting-room of the old Kloster all was hot and bright in the sunshine. The thick grass in the enclosure which surrounded the group of strangely fashioned buildings was ready for cutting, the foliage was at its greenest. Ellen Levis could see between the two wings of a bowed shutter the sloping plot and half of a willow tree whose plumy branches hung motionless in the still air. She could see also sheep feeding in the fields across Cocalico Creek and in imagination she played with them and with herself a childish game, making a silly wager that a certain black lamb would come again into sight before Grandfather Milhausen had finished his lengthy exposition of trine immersion. It was Saturday morning when most children were, like the lambs, at play, all but the children of the Seventh-Day Baptists.

Presently, when her eyes grew tired of the glare of sunshine, she turned them upon the scene nearer at hand.

In the meeting-house all was cool and dim. A soft golden light fell upon the worn benches, the long tables running the length of the room, the pulpit covered with a white homespun cloth, the ancient stove. All was old and strange and brown with the stain of time. Hung upon the wall, close to the heavy beams of the ceiling, were crumbling paper charts with intricate and graceful lettering which had been made in 1740—it was natural that now, after almost two centuries, the inscriptions should be faded and dull.

The congregation sitting motionless in the shadowy place had an unearthly aspect. There were three young mothers, with heads bent in somnolent maternity above the infants in their arms; there were a few older women whose heads were likewise bent; there were half a dozen men; and last of all, a few children, dressed like their fathers and mothers in clothes which betokened indifference to changing styles.

Only Ellen Levis and her brother were clad in any modern fashion. Their mother, long dead, had been a Seventh-Day Baptist and their father, who was not a church member, not even a worldly Lutheran, sent them to the meeting at the Kloster because of a promise made to her.

The two children, Matthew, a sturdy, blond boy of sixteen, and Ellen, who was almost two years younger, sat a little apart from the others, Matthew with his arms folded like the brethren, and Ellen close beside him. Sometimes she laid her head for a moment on his shoulder. She was a child of intense affections to whom the sight and touch of the beloved object gave unspeakable satisfaction. Matthew was to go to school in the fall to study medicine and at the thought of separation from him tears came into her brown eyes.

The meeting seemed interminable. It was not always possible for the little flock to gather together on the Seventh Day, and once assembled they communed long together. This evening after the solemn ceremony of Foot-washing, the Lord's Supper would be celebrated, as was proper, as an evening feast.

The attendance was comparatively large, all that remained of the Ephrata flock having gathered, as well as a few members from Franklin and Bedford Counties; and Grandfather Milhausen, feeling the occasion to be important, was delivering himself of the fruits of a lifetime of meditation. He proved the necessity of baptism; he proved that baptism by sprinkling had no warrant in Scripture; he dwelt in conclusion with passionate outpouring of words upon the efficacy and comfort of trine immersion.

His voice, now loud, now soft, kept throughout a monotone. His hearers grew drowsy, slept, woke again, changed their positions, and slept once more. The little black lamb came again and again into the field of Ellen's vision, fifty accurately counted automobile horns sounded from a curve near by, and each member of the congregation was in turn gazed at and meditated upon.

"I like Sister König because she is so very fat and when she is not in meeting she smiles pleasantly.... I pity Brother Reith because they had to take his wife to the asylum, but I do not like him.... I pity Sister Herman because she had to be baptized in the cold creek last winter. I should choose the summer. I should"—there was a slight admonitory motion of the shoulder against which she leaned. But she was disturbed only for a second; then she settled her plump body still more closely against her brother's arm. He was tired, she was sure, and she was very, very tired. Grandfather's eyes, lifted a moment ago toward the ceiling, were bent now upon his congregation. He must see that they were tired, that they longed to go, but he took no heed of their misery.

Once more Ellen returned to her musing. She journeyed through the strange old building, passing from the meeting-room into a kitchen where, long ago, meals were prepared for visiting brethren, and climbing up into large empty lofts which had been their dormitories.

Then she sped in imagination out the door of the meeting-room and across the angle between the Saal and Saron. In Saron had lived a conventual sisterhood, young women who had left their fathers' houses, and older women who had left their own homes and their husbands and children, to pray, to spin and weave, to letter the old charts, and to sing morning, noon and midnight, strange, attenuated music from a latticed gallery.

The old building was an enchanting place—if only one were sometimes allowed there alone, so that one might dream without the guiding admonitions of Grandfather, to whom these women were all saints. Here were old spinning-wheels and a curious tower clock which struck the hours, and pieces of pottery and old books and still other elaborate charts. Climbing a narrow, winding stairway, one came to tiny cells where the sisters had slept on narrow benches fastened to the wall, with blocks of wood for pillows. Ellen pictured them lying stiffly; sometimes she imagined them falling with a crash from their narrow couches; sometimes she fancied herself pursued by them, and taking refuge with Matthew or her father. They wore, she seemed to remember, thick white dresses, tied about with ropes. The poor things lay now, dead and done for, in the little cemetery between the meeting-house and the road.

After a long time she resumed her meditations upon the subject of immersion.

"I would not like to be baptized when the water was high, either. I would do like Millie König"—her eyes turned toward one of the youngest of the sisters, a girl about Matthew's age, with a meaningless, saintlike beauty. "I would take a nice day like Millie." She looked again at the downcast eyes and the crossed hands. "I hate Millie," said she calmly. Then her weariness became acute. It was dreadful to have to sit here while the world went on, dreadful, dreadful. She began to pity herself and saw her whole life wasted.

Suddenly she was acutely disturbed. It was not alone the admonitory motion of Matthew's shoulder; it was the preacher's eyes, bent directly upon Matthew and upon her. She sat upright. Something was going to happen after all—she anticipated that it was something more trying than the monotony.

"There are those in our midst who should be of us," said Grandfather, with jealous passion. "The children of a good mother who was a Seventh-Day Baptist should follow in her footsteps, should go down into the cleansing flood and there wash themselves clean of sin, should make a fresh start in the world, should put upon themselves the badge of separation. They have heard the call many times; they must be no longer disobedient to the heavenly vision. Brother Matthew, Sister Ellen, is it well that you should postpone what is right for you to do, that you should longer reject the peace of God?"

Ellen's head turned sharply, her eyes seeking her brother's. A shaft of sunshine fell upon his thick, light hair and across his smooth cheek. For a long time he did not answer and an awful fear began to take shape in her heart. Was he not going to answer, to get somehow between her and the dreadful eyes, the deathlike beard of Grandfather? Still he sat motionless.

Grandfather lifted his arms in supplication.

"Father in Heaven, Thou that takest care of the least of Thy children, Thou who rejoicest over each lamb brought into the fold, help us in this hour!"

Ellen leaned forward and grasped the edge of the seat with both hands. Was not Matthew angry, would he not be angry, would he not take her and himself away from this glittering, searching eye? She thought with sick longing of her father, so comfortable at home, or riding to see a patient. No one would dare, she was certain, to talk to him about his soul, or to suggest that he should take off his clothes and put on a long black robe and kneel in Cocalico Creek and let Grandfather dip him back and forth! Neither would Matthew submit to such indignity. Outraged and insulted, she tried to find his hand to assure him of her sympathy.

But her hand was not taken. Matthew sat motionless staring at the floor. Her eyes sought the watching faces. Mothers had lifted their heads, the few fathers in Israel bent forward. Sister Herman was crying. Sister Millie's eyes were different from the rest; their expression was sharper and more eager; they were hungry eyes, bent upon Matthew's thick, light curls. Without understanding, Ellen hated her even more vehemently. Her hand, creeping into Matthew's, would not be withstood.

"Oh, Matthew, let us go home!"

Holding her hand, Matthew rose. It seemed that only the blood of his mother filled his veins. The love of the soil was in him and of the heavy, unthinking, comfortable life which his mother's people had lived for generation upon generation, life founded upon a conviction that in the next world all would be well. He could not remember his mother, but he had thought much about her.

He took now the most important step of his life. Inclination, inherited tendencies, and a piety, deep and authentic, though narrow, indicated his path.

"I have thought about these matters for a long time," he said slowly. "I believe that we should be baptized by trine immersion, that there is no salvation outside it. I believe that we should observe the ordinance of Foot-washing because our Lord commanded it. I believe in the holy kiss and in the communion. I believe we should be a separated people and that we should keep the peace, not going to law, and not making or engaging in war, and observing temperance and charity. I am ready to be immersed when it seems best. I am—"

But he could say no more. Even so well thought out a declaration proved difficult to deliver. Sister Herman began to sing, a high, shrill song, not the strange part singing of a century and a half ago, which had become merely a tradition, but a modern revival hymn,

"The Lord's my strength,

In Him I'll trust,

A Shelter in the time of storm."

Sister König joined and the tenor of Brother Amos fell in. Brother Amos, a nephew of Grandfather Milhausen, was only twenty-one, but he was a school-teacher and had already been appointed a preacher.

The music caught Ellen by the throat; it seemed to drown her in thick, overpowering emotion. An inner voice admonished her to yield; that it was easier to yield, better to yield, to give up one's own desires, one's own will, to walk in an appointed path. Matthew grasped her hand closely and then laid his other hand upon it. He was undemonstrative and his unwonted gesture softened her heart still more. For him she had fetched and carried all their short lives; he believed that she would obey now as she had always obeyed, and he would bring her into the kingdom.

Grandfather had not finished his appeal. He looked down at Ellen and it seemed that his bright eyes burned her through. She thought of a dreadful picture of God and the judgment, she thought of every wrong she had done; of disobedience, of impertinence to the housekeeper, of excursions into forbidden books, of wandering thoughts in meeting. She heard him plead, she felt Matthew's hand clasp hers still more closely. Like Matthew she was compelled suddenly to decide, but unlike Matthew she had not thought on these things, and except in amused speculation the possibility of being immersed or of baring her feet before the women had not occurred to her.

Then Ellen made the choice by which she was to abide. The blood which flowed in her veins was different from that in her brother's; the paternal inheritance was paramount, the choice was, after all, made for her. Though Matthew's caress thrilled her with delight, she rose unsteadily. She saw in all eyes a pleased conviction that she was about to imitate him; she noticed for the first time that Amos's eyes could gleam like her grandfather's, and she trembled. Standing for a moment she was a pleasant picture, a round and still childish figure whose future appearance was not to be certainly prophesied, but possessing two features whose beauty would be for years to come certain, thick, curly, brown hair, now braided primly, and dark eyes shaded by lashes so black that they seemed immeasurably deep and tender.

Suddenly she felt wings given her. Out of the brown shadows, across the shaft of light which illuminated the bent, blond head of her brother with a symbolism marked by the congregation, she fled. The sunlight, the green grass, the trees, now waving in a gentle breeze, and most wonderful of all, the unlimited blue sky, seemed to hold out welcoming arms. She began to cry and to run as she cried. She feared that she might be pursued. Though she was not afraid to drive Matthew's young horse, she did not think of taking him, but sped on foot up Mount Zion toward the bounds of the enclosure, across the site of a more ancient church to the hill-top. There she usually looked down through a thick bit of virgin woods toward the smoothly flowing Cocalico, and beyond to pleasant Ephrata. But now she opened the rude fastening of an old gate, and ran across a field past a tall monument, toward a pair of arms of whose welcome she was certain. There was peace, and not in the dim cavern from which she fled!