Since
the war they lost seventy-five thousand dollars in bonds, which,
deposited in a bank, were stolen by one of its officers; but the greater
part of this they hope to recover. Like all the Shakers, they are
long-lived. A man was pointed out to me, now eighty-seven years of age,
who plowed and mowed last summer; two revolutionary soldiers died in the
society aged ninety-three and ninety-four; one member died at
ninety-seven; and they have now people aged eighty-seven, eighty-five,
eighty-two, eighty, and so on.
During "meeting" on Sunday I saw the children, many of them small, and
all clean and neat, and looking happy in their prim way. They came in,
as usual, the boys by one door, the girls by another, each side with its
care-taker; and took part in the marching, kneeling, and other forms of
the Shaker worship. After the war, the South Union elders sought out
twenty orphans in Tennessee, whom they adopted. Last fall, when Memphis
suffered so terribly from yellow fever, they tried to get fifty children
from there, but were unsuccessful. Considering the small number who stay
with them after they are grown up, this charity is surely admirable. And
though the education which children receive among the Shaker people is
limited, the training they get in cleanliness, orderly habits, and
morals is undoubtedly valuable, and better than such orphans would
receive in the majority of cases among the world's people.
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