Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-06-06
A Sad Story.

A sadder story has not been told for a
long while than that of the mother and
daughter who were excluded from the Shaker
settlement at Whitewater, where they had
been for fourteen years, and after leaving
which, and seeking in vain the means Of
livelihood, they, in despair, took poison, and
died in each Others arms. The sadness is
not so much in their death, for to that they
were at any time liable; and loving each
other fondly, as they manifestly did, in their
voluntary death they were not divided But
the mother was at first driven to the Shaker
community, fourteen years ago, with her lit.
tie girl, because she had been deserted by
the father of her child, to whom she had not
been married She had weakly yielded to
the impulse of nature without fortifying her
self by legal claim upon the father of her
child, and the world, instead of treating her
tenderly and helping her, turned its back
upon her, and told her that she and the child
that she had borne were fit only to starve, or
to live in country poor-house. After four.
teen years of the cold, colorless and unnat-
ural life of the Shakers, the daughter showed
that she was not an abstraction or forked
radish, and behaved like woman, perhaps
not prudent one, to the young men of tn,
community. She was told that such be-
havior was only fit for the worlds people
and that she and her mother must CO. Bui
the worlds people had driven out the mothei
herself upon something such grounds year,
before and now, when she came back sh,
was met by the same stony front. Lei
MS not be misunderstood we are not iust
lying, or even paliating, the mothers con
duct We pass that point by without con
'ideration. But the point remains that foi
an error, which, however great, was in the
course of nature, the mother became an out.
EAST, and that for indiscreton, also in tn
course of nature, on the daughters part
both afterward were turned away from thu
shaker community and then they found
the world so hard, and life in it so bitter
that, although one was still in the prime OF
life aud the other in its early morning, they
chose rather death together They nigh
have been base and unnatural, hard-hearted
malicious, slanderous, revengeful covetous
yrasping, utterly regardless of the happiness
and within the law, of the rights of others
the mother might not have loved her child
the child might not have loved her mother
md yet the world would not have driven
them to the Shakers, and the Shakers would
not have driven them out again into the
world to die. 1t is an old story--we do not
hesitate to say an old wrohg-with which
very man and woman with an unperverted
heart admits the cruelty in the abstract, but
Df which the collective world is always
ready to be guilty. woman who gets a
no matter by what base arts or de-
sign, is " received :" woman who gives the
world a child otherwise than according to
law is cast out often by those who are not
worthy to touch the hem of her garment
1t is not necessary to Justify women who err
III this way before condemning the pharisaic
which stones them into de.
'pair. "Neither do | condemn thee Go
and sin no more. e."-THe Gaiary for June.