A 19th-century Shaker woman hides packets of her writing because her brother threatens to tear up such hogwash. When a present-day schoolteacher discovers these pages, she writes to a Honolulu librarian for traces of the brother, a whaler. As the Shaker communes were staunchly socialist and pacifist, Ginn and Van are drawn into a correspondence via their interest in still current social problems in Lydie's emerging pages. Lydie's concern...