o live on the Christ
plane, in virgin purity, longsuffering, meekness, and patience."

"I see, I know," Susanna answered slowly, with a little glance at
injured Sue walking toward the house, "but we need n't leave the
children unhappy this morning, for I can think of a play that will
comfort them and please you. Come back, Sue! Wait a minute, Mary and
Jane, before you go to Sister Martha! We will play the story that Sister
Tabitha told us last week. Do you remember about Mother Ann Lee in the
English prison? The soapbox will be her cell, for it was so small she
could not lie down in it. Take some of the shingles, Jane, and close
up the open side of the box. Do you see the large brown spot in one of
them, Mary? Push that very hard with a clothespin and there 'll be a
hole through the shingle; that's right! Now, Sister Tabitha said that
Mother Ann was kept for days without food, for people thought she was a
wicked, dangerous woman, and they would have been willing to let her
die of starvation. But there was a great keyhole in the door, and James
Whittaker, a boy of nineteen, who loved Mother Ann and believed in her,
put the stem of a clay pipe in the hole and poured a mixture of wine and
milk through it. He managed to do this day after day, so that when the
jailer opened the cell door, expecting to find Mother Ann dying for lack
of food, she walked out looking almost as strong and well as when she
entered. You can play it all out, and afterwards you can make the ship
that brought Mother Ann and the other Shakers from Liverpool to New
York. The clothes-pins can be who will they be, Jane?"

"William Lee, Nancy Lee, James Whittaker, and I forget the others,"
recited Jane, like an obedient parrot.

"And it will be splendid to have James Whittaker, for he really came to
Albion," said Mary.

"Perhaps he stood on this very spot more than once," mused Abby. "It was
Mother Ann's vision that brought them to this land, a vision of a large
tree with outstretching branches, every leaf of which shone with the
brightness of a burning torch! Oh! if the vision would only come true!
If Believers would only come to us as many as the leaves on the tree,"
she sighed, as she and Susanna moved away from the group of chattering
children, all as eager to play the history of Shakerism as they had been
to dramatize the family life of Adam and Eve.

"There must be so many men and women without ties, living useless lives,
with no aim or object i