Mary Queen of Bees. Diane Glancy

      They compassed me as bees

      —Psalm 118:12

      Mary Queen of Bees

      Mary [Molly] Wesley Whitelamb [1696–1734] Sister of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, Epworth, England

      Copyright © 2017 Diane Glancy. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Resource Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-1765-2

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-4220-9

      ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-4249-3

      Manufactured in the U.S.A. June 15, 2017

      For the quote from Susanna, Mother of the Wesleys:

      Copyright @ 1968 Abingdon Press. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      For the two quotes from the Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley:

      Copyright @ 1980 Abingdon Press. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      The Journal of George Fox, 1648–1652, Early Ministry: www.hallvworthington.com/wjournal/gfjournal2a.html

      The letters of Mary Wesley and Amelia Wesley to their brother, John Wesley:

      Maser, Frederick E., Seven Sisters in Search of Love, The Story of John Wesley’s Sisters, Academy Books, Rutland, Vermont, 1988. The book acknowledged:

      Stevenson, George J., Memorials of the Wesley Family, London: S. W. Partridge, New York: Nelson and Phillips, 1876

      The four passages of Susanna Wesley:

      Susanna Wesley, The Complete Writings, edited by Charles Wallace, Jr. Oxford University Press, 1997, by permission of Oxford University Press

      I still wake as a child at the head of the stairs in the servant’s arms who miss-stepped and we fell down the stairs. Turning my feet under. At my mother’s insistence, we were not allowed to cry out. I was quiet as the servant started to fall, unable to catch herself and stop our fall. The servant herself falling over me turning both my feet inward never to walk again without a crutch or a sister on either side. I cried when the pain hit at the bottom of the stairs. Unable to stop my howling.

      We weren’t allowed to do anything that wasn’t church. We were his lambs as he was Lamb. The wool of the Lord was a fire to me.

      Our mother taught us to read and write so we could study scripture, but what could we do with it? Teach it to our own daughters who themselves would be a garden surrounded by a wall, shut up with no outlet as we had none? Or as a governess, providing others with knowledge they too could hold inside?

      Why this learning if all we were to do was to have children? Our mother, Susanna, held church services for us when our father was in debtor’s prison. She didn’t like the locum he hired to preach in his place. Soon others came to her services. Crowds gathered in our house on Sunday afternoons to hear Susanna Wesley read her husband’s old sermons. During the week, she taught our school lessons. It always felt like Sunday.

      I put salt grains on my tongue to sting it. For words not spoken that I wanted to speak. In-between the conjugation of verbs, I wanted to by-pass them and not give them thought.

      What did I want to give voice? Not the hymns my mother insisted upon. I did not feel like singing. I hated the sound of my voice. It had no song in it. Why force it? Why make a tongue to sing? It brought me humbly before the Lord. I would not be a song-bird on the branch of a tree that constantly sang to Him. To give praise and thanksgiving. My scrawny voice thin as the blanket that covered us at night.

      Her stomach big with another child. Why so many? Couldn’t we do with less? I think they heard me. As many infants died as lived. I cried in misery, quietly to myself. I wished them dead so I could have a corner of the bed. A piece of the quilt. So I could have a chair at the table. So I could have bread. And what would we do as women? Marry and have children.

      If the dead ones had names I didn’t know them. They were born. They cried. They stopped crying. Sometimes they were born without crying. Jedidiah was one of the names.

      My body jumped in bed before I slept. I was in the servant’s arms at the top of the stairs about to fall. My sisters mocked me. You would think children would have mercy, but they do not. They continued to taunt.

      Sometimes there was thunder.

      We heard rain. If you cover your head it is warmer. If you leave your stockings on in bed.

      The smell of sickness. Vomiting. Running bowels. Brothers and sisters everywhere. It was our job to clean them. The servant could only do so much. IF YOU’RE GETTING SICK, GET OUT OF BED SO WE DON’T HAVE TO PULL OFF SHEETS AND COVERS AND CLEAN THE WHOLE BED. Pulling the mattress out to air. Dragging it down and up the stairs.

      THROW UP ON THE FLOOR. Not in the middle of the bed.

      I pinched Hetty when she made her body jump, making fun of me. As we were not allowed to cry, I pinched her again. She hit back on the sore places on my feet and I cried out.

      STOP. STOP. I’LL COME WITH THE ROD.

      I stifled my voice in the covers.

      Everlasting children. Nineteen of Samuel and Susanna Wesley. Nine died in infancy.

      Samuel b 1690

      Emilia (Emily) b 1692

      Annesley b 1694 (died)

      Jedediah b 1694 (died)

      Susanna (Sukey) b 1695

      Mary (Molly) b 1696

      Mehetabel (Hetty) b 1697

      Infant b 1698 (stillborn)

      Infant b 1698 (stillborn)

      John b 1699 (died)

      Benjamin b 1700 (died)

      Infant b 1701 (died)

      Infant b 1701 (died)

      Anne b 1702

      John b 1703

      Infant b 1705 (accidentally smothered)

      Martha (Patty) b 1706

      Charles b 1707

      Kezzia (Kezzie) b 1709

      At times, I was almost warm between Emily and Hetty. Sukey had her own cot at the foot of the bed. On the coldest nights, she got in bed with us. We hardly could move or one of us would fall out. Often they put me at the open edge of the bed. More than once, I was pushed out, and laid shivering on the floor until I climbed onto the cot at the foot of the bed, and thought of the burning wool of the Lord,

      We played with the thistle-heads the women used to card the wool after the sheep were sheared. Once Emily ripped the thistle from my hand and left splinters. My mother soaked my hand in water and removed them with a sewing needle.

      I would have made a doll from twigs and scraps of old material. Or twigs and leaves. But we weren’t allowed. I would have made an apron for the doll from a