In my sleep I seemed to see a mother quail with a little
one beside her. The two were always together, happily flying or hopping about
under the trees; but every now and then I heard a sad little note, as of a
deserted bird somewhere in the wood. I walked a short distance, and parting
the branches, saw on the open ground another parent bird and a young one by
its side darting hither and thither, as if lost; they seemed to be restlessly
searching for something, and always they uttered the soft, sad note, as if the
nest had disappeared and they had been parted from the little flock. Of course
my brain had changed the very meaning of the Shaker story and translated it
into different terms, but when I woke this morning, I could think of nothing
but my husband and my boy. The two of them seemed to me to be needing me,
searching for me in the dangerous open country, while I was hidden away in the
safe shelter of the wood--I and the other little quail bird I had taken out of
the nest."
"Do you think you could persuade your husband to unite with us?" asked Abby,
wiping her eyes.
The tension of the situation was too tightly drawn for mirth, or Susanna could
have smiled, but she answered soberly, "No; if John could develop the best in
himself, he could be a good husband and father, a good neighbor and citizen,
and an upright business man, but never a Shaker.
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