The Believer by Ann H. Gabhart Read Free Book Online Page A

curls back from his face and pushed the hat down on his head again. The October day was warm and they had been hacking the limbs off the cherry log before they had taken a moment to rest.
    Brother Issachar took off his hat to cool his head and balanced it on his left knee as he studied Ethan with a steady gaze. Veins traced red lines across his high cheekbones on his long, angular face.
    At last he said, "Yea, that it is, but you are still young. You have lived most of your life in our village:"
    "But is not that good? How better to know the Shaker way?"
    "True:" Brother Issachar looked around as though concerned someone might be listening from the trees behind them. Age was beginning to droop his shoulders, and his knuckles were knotted with arthritis that made his woodworking difficult.
    When he hesitated before continuing, Ethan jumped in front of his words. "Do you not want me to be a brother?"
    "You ask the wrong question, my brother. The question is, do you want to be a brother? The Covenant should not be signed lightly."
    "I can't imagine any other life," Ethan answered truthfully.
    "Have you never looked out toward the world with longing? With curiosity to know how man lives outside the village?" Brother Issachar looked straight at Ethan. "To know how man and woman live as one"
    "Nay," Ethan said a bit too quickly. He dropped his eyes to the ground and watched a beetle scramble out of sight under the log. "At least not great curiosity. Brother Martin says all young men feel a stirring in their loins at times. That it is the lust of the world trying to lead us astray, but that such sin and desire can be shaken off us:"
    "So it can be if that is what a man wants" Brother Issachar looked down at the log and moved his hand up and down its bark. Each fallen tree was a gift to him, a way to make use of every bit of the Lord's providence.
    "How old were you when you signed the Covenant?" Ethan had never asked that. It had seemed to Ethan as if Brother Issachar had been born a Shaker.
    "I was thirty-two. I joined a community in the state of New York, but I came here when I was thirty-five. That was two years before the river delivered you to us. I had another life before I was a Shaker." Brother Issachar kept his eyes on the pebbled bark of the tree below his hand.
    "What sort of life? Did you have a wife?" Ethan asked.
    "I did. Her name was Eva'
    "So you had the sin of matrimony to rid yourself of before you could be a Shaker. Did she also become a sister?" Ethan had seen many couples come in to the Shakers since he had lived among them. They became brother and sister and no longer had relations one with another once they joined the Shakers.
    "Nay. My Eva died trying to bear me a child:" Brother Issachar looked up and stared at the trees as if he could see far away back to that other life of which he spoke. `And it was not a sin in that other world'
    "But the Believer has taken himself out of that world:"
    "Yea. That I have done, and with no regrets" Brother Issachar's eyes came back to Ethan. "But I see doubt yet in your eyes. Great or not, it is there. So perhaps it might be better if you wait a year."
    Ethan protested. "I see no need in delay. If the doubt you think you see is there, it lies buried so deeply that it will never come forward to cause me problems. I am ready."
    "You could be right, my young brother." Brother Issachar pushed up off the log. Then before he began wielding his axe again, he turned to stare intently at Ethan as if searching his soul. "But what is one year in the whole of a man's life? You need to be sure of your decision for a man is honor-bound by the promises he makes"
    And so Ethan had waited the year. He had withstood the questions and concerns of the elders and eldresses. He had exercised the dances and sung the songs and read more of Mother Ann's wisdom. He had shaken off the lustful drawing of the world without problem and put his hands to work for the good of the community. He had given