The Believer by Ann H. Gabhart Read Free Book Online

faded and blended in with his new Shaker brothers and sisters. Brother Issachar was always there with his kind eyes and ready smile. He took Ethan into the forest with him and taught him the different kinds of wood for making the chairs and furniture and tools they needed in the village. Brother Martin filled his mind with knowledge of numbers and letters and the tenets of the Shaker beliefs. Brother Haskell taught him the songs and helped him practice the steps to the worship dances. They all embraced him as the gift Brother Issachar claimed he might be to the Shakers on that first morning so long ago now.
    Harmony Hill was just as its name said. Harmony and peace. And work. But Ethan didn't mind the labor. He had grown strong and tall with the Shakers, even taller than Brother Issachar. He enjoyed putting his hands to work, especially working with Brother Issachar, but he gladly did his duty with any work assignment. Sometimes at harvesttimes he imagined every Shaker in the village as the hands and feet on a giant reaping machine going through the field. By himself he could not accomplish so much, but when they joined together for the good of all, much was harvested. They knew no physical wants.
    Not only were their biting room tables where they took their meals weighted down with the provisions they grew on their lands, but their industries were booming as well. Every labor of a Believer's hands showed his or her worship of the Eternal Father whether that was weaving a basket, building a drawer, quarrying stone out of the palisades along the river for a new building, or mucking out a barn stall.
    While those of the world did not understand or accept the Shaker way, they did seek after the Shakers' seeds and herbs, jams and potions, brooms and baskets. And some of the world came to the village to find the perfect peace and right living of their Society of Believers. The membership at Harmony Hill had climbed since Ethan landed on their riverbank until it numbered over two hundred souls.
    Not all were covenant-signed Believers. Some were part of the Gathering Family where they lived as Shakers but had not made a commitment decision. Some only came for the provisions in a time of need and then left the village as their lots improved. Brother Martin spoke angrily of them as "winter Shakers" People committed only to filling their stomachs and running after the lusts of the world, he said. Brother Martin had no use for those of the world.
    He had been looking at Ethan in somewhat the same way ever since Ethan turned twenty-one as if he feared Ethan might be lusting after the world. He had expected Ethan to sign the Covenant of Belief and be welcomed into full membership of the Society of Believers at Harmony Hill in October of the year before.
    Ethan had brought memory of his birth date to the village. October 15,1811. He didn't know why he knew that and didn't know so many other things from before Harmony Hill, but he had treasured that one bit of knowledge. Something from the past to remember as his alone.
    A birthday had not been an important thing to know as a child among the Shakers. The date of one's birth was not noted in any special fashion among the Believers, but the dates were duly written into the records. Twenty-one was recognized as the age of acceptance when a young person could make a decision about the direction of his life, and Ethan had been ready to make that decision. Had looked forward to making that decision until Brother Issachar had taken him into the woods in the week before Ethan's twenty-first birthday and advised him to wait.
    They had sat on a wild cherry log that had fallen in a storm over the summer and that Brother Issachar hoped to use to make cabinets for the Centre Family House.
    "You are young, Brother Ethan;' Brother Issachar began.
    "I will be twenty-one. That is the acceptable age:" Ethan took off his broad-brimmed hat and wiped the sweat off his face before he smoothed a few stray black