Free The Gifted by Ann H. Gabhart Page A

must be thinking on the thousand years to live, for the way she was working, it might take her that long to fill her basket. Jessamine thought of telling her that, but instead she only said, “The roses are grown not for their beauty but for their usefulness.”
    “How can a rose be grown without some eye seeing its beauty? It appears to me that if the Lord gave the rose such beauty, he surely meant for us to use our eyes and our noses to enjoy it in every way and not for rosewater only.” She clipped another bloom and lifted it to her nose to breathe in its beauty.
    “It is not necessary for us to test the fragrance of every bloom. We can trust that the Lord has filled them all with a pleasing and useful scent,” Jessamine said.
    The girl gave Jessamine a little smile, then picked another rose to hold to her nose as well.
    When she carried the fourth rose to her nose, Sister Annie looked over at her and completely lost her patience. “We are not to be indulging in a rose-sniffing frolic, Sister Abigail,” Sister Annie told her with a frown. “It is our duty to fill our baskets with the petals. Not our noses with fragrance.”
    “But the fragrance is there for the free taking, Sister. I have stolen nothing from the petals by breathing of their fragrance.” She took another sniff of the bloom she held before she pulled off the petals and spread them out evenly in the bottom of her basket. “You know what those of the world do with your rosewater, don’t you?”
    “We shut away such wondering and keep the sins of the world away from our borders.” Sister Annie sounded cross as she snipped off a lush bloom and stripped the petals with one firm twist. She stepped forward toward another bloom as if eager to leave Sister Abigail and her foolish talk behind.
    “I did not say they sinned in any way in the use of the Shaker rosewater.” Sister Abigail’s hazel eyes suddenly looked watery with tears. She had a great desire to be liked. Not simply loved by the sisters around her but liked with smiles and attentive ears to her stories.
    Sister Annie stormed on up the row with nary a glance back. Jessamine snipped off the blooms Sister Annie had passed by in her haste to get away from Sister Abigail’s stories of the world and resumed her duty of training the younger sister in the proper Shaker way.
    “Sister Annie is right.” Jessamine raised her voice a little in hopes her words might carry across the roses to Sister Annie’s ears. “We can pick much faster without giving each rose a trip to our nose. The fragrance is in the air. Breathe the scent there and strip the petals for your basket.”
    Sister Abigail let out a small sigh. “It would be far better to be one of the pampered young ladies at White Oak Springs bathing in the rosewater.” She peeked up at Jessamine to see if her words had awakened her curiosity.
    “Bathing in it?” Jessamine let the rose petals drift from her hand down into the basket.
    “Yea,” Sister Abigail said.
    Jessamine offered Sister Abigail an approving smile for remembering to use the Shaker word for agreement. That was a welcome step along the Shaker path, even if the girl couldn’t keep her mind on harvesting the rose petals. “No wonder we have to pick so many rose petals. Rosewater baths. I can hardly imagine.”
    Actually she could only imagine too well and she hungered for more details to add to her imagining. Sister Annie was far up the row and no other sisters were near, so what could it hurt to listen to Sister Abigail tell of how those of the world used the rosewater? Jessamine could pick just as quickly with words in her ears as not.
    Sister Abigail smiled. “When I worked there last summer, the ladies would often ask me to pour as much as half a bottle of the fragrant water into their baths and then sprinkle great handfuls of fresh rose petals on top of the water. Believe me, I found much occasion to dip my hands in the baths when I brought them extra hot water so