I wanted
to give the clothes-pins story names, like Hilda and Percy, but I called them
Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel just because I thought the Shakers would
'specially like a Bible play. I love Elderess Abby, but she does stop my
happiness, Mardie. That's the second time today, for she took Moses away from
me when I was kissing him because he pinched his thumb in the window."
"Why did you do that, Sue?" remonstrated her mother softly, remembering
Ansel's proximity. "You never used to kiss strange little boys at home in
Farnham."
"Moses is n't a boy; he's only six, and that's a baby; besides, I like him
better than any little boys at home, and that's the reason I kissed him;
there's no harm in boy-kissing, is there, Mardie?"
"You don't know anybody here very well yet; not well enough to kiss them,"
Susanna answered, rather hopeless as to the best way of inculcating the
undesirability of the Adamic plane of thought at this early age. "While we
stay here, Sue, we ought both to be very careful to do exactly as the Shakers
do."
By this time mother and child had reached the orchard end of a row, and
Brother Ansel was thirstily waiting to deliver a little more of the
information with which his mind was always teeming.
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