As the spring drew near, a new anxiety began to press upon Draxy. Reuben
drooped. The sea-shore had never suited him. He pined at heart for the
inland air, the green fields, the fragrant woods. This yearning always was
strongest in the spring, when he saw the earth waking up around him; but
now the yearning became more than yearning. It was the home-sickness of
which men have died. Reuben said little, but Draxy divined all. She had
known it from the first, but had tried to hope that he could conquer it.
Draxy spent many wakeful hours at night now. The deed of the New Hampshire
land lay in her upper bureau drawer, wrapped in an old handkerchief. She
read it over, and over, and over. She looked again and again at the faded
pink township on the old atlas. "Who knows," thought she, "but that land
was overlooked and forgotten? It is so near the 'ungranted lands,' which
must be wilderness, I suppose!" Slowly a dim purpose struggled in Draxy's
brain. It would do no harm to find out. But how? No more journeys must be
taken on uncertainties. At last, late one night, the inspiration came.
Who shall say that it is not an unseen power which sometimes suggests to
sorely tried human hearts the one possible escape? Draxy was in bed. She
rose, lighted her candle, and wrote two letters. Then she went back to bed
and slept peacefully. In the morning when she kissed her father good-by,
she looked wistfully in his face. She had never kept any secret from him
before, except the secret of her verses. "But he must not be disappointed
again," said Draxy; "and there is no real hope."
She dropped her letter into the post-office and went to her work.
The letter was addressed--
"To the Postmaster of Clairvend,
"New Hampshire."
It was a very short letter.
"DEAR SIR:--I wish to ask some help from a minister in your town. If there
is more than one minister, will you please give my letter to the kindest
one. Yours truly,
"DRAXY MILLER."
The letter inclosed was addressed--
"To the Minister of Clairvend."
This letter also was short.
"DEAR SIR:--I have asked the Postmaster to give this letter to the kindest
minister in the town.
"I am Reuben Miller's daughter. My father is very poor. He has not known
how to do as other men do to be rich. He is very good, sir. I think you
can hardly have known any one so good. Mr. Stephen Potter, a man who owed
him money, has given us a deed of land in your town. My father thinks the
deed is not good for anything. But I thought perhaps it might be; and I
would try to find out. My father is very sick, but I think he would get
well if he could come and live on a farm. I have written this letter in
the night, as soon as I thought about you; I mean as soon as I thought
that there must be a minister in Clairvend, and he would be willing to
help me.
"I have not told my father, because I do not want him to be disappointed
again as he was about the deed.
"I have copied for you the part of the deed which tells where the land is;
and I put in a stamp to pay for your letter to me, and if you will find
out for us if we can get this land, I shall be grateful to you all my
life. DRAXY MILLER."
Inclosed was a slip of paper on which Draxy had copied with great care the
description of the boundaries of the land conveyed by the deed. It was all
that was necessary. The wisest lawyer, the shrewdest diplomatist in the
land never put forth a subtler weapon than this simple girl's simple
letter.
It was on the morning of the 3d of April that Draxy dropped her letter in
the office. Three days later it was taken out of the mail-bag in the
post-office of Clairvend. The post-office was in the one store of the
village. Ten or a dozen men were lounging about curiosity about the odd
name was soon swallowed up in curiosity as to the contents of the letter.
The men of Clairvend had not been so stirred and roused by anything since
the fall election. Luckily for Draxy's poor little letter, there was but
one minister in the village, and the only strife which rose was as to who
should carry him the letter. Finally, two of the most persistent set out
with it, both declaring that they had business on that road, and had meant
all along to go in and see the Elder on their way home.
Elder Kinney lived in a small cottage high up on a hill, a mile from the
post-office, and on a road very little travelled. As the men toiled up
this hill, they saw a tall figure coming rapidly towards them.
"By thunder! there's the Elder now! That's too bad," said little Eben
Hill, the greatest gossip in the town.
The Elder was walking at his most rapid rate; and Elder Kinney's most
rapid rate was said to be one with which horses did not easily keep up.
"No, thank you, friend, I haven't time to ride to-day," he often replied
to a parishioner who, jogging along with an old farm-horse, offered to
give him a lift on the road.
"Elder! Elder! here's a letter we was a bringin' up to you!" called out
both of the men at once as he passed them like a flash, saying hurriedly
"Good evening! good evening!" and was many steps down the hill beyond them
before he could stop.
"Oh, thank you!" he said, taking it hastily and dropping it into his
pocket. "Mrs. Williams is dying, they say; I cannot stop a minute," and
he was out of sight while the baffled parishioners stood confounded at
their ill-luck.
"Now jest as like's not we shan't never know what was in that letter,"
said. Eben Hill, disconsolately. "Ef we'd ha'gone in and set down while he
read it, we sh'd ha' had some chance."
"But then he mightn't ha' read it while we was there," replied Joseph
Bailey resignedly; an' I expect It ain't none o' our business anyhow, one
way or t'other."
"It's the queerest thing's ever happened in this town," persisted Eben;
"what's a girl--that is, if 'tis a girl--got to do writin' to a minister
she don't know? I don't believe it's any good she's after."
"Wal, ef she is, she's come to the right place; and there's no knowin' but
that the Lord's guided her, Eben; for ef ever there was a man sent on this
airth to do the Lord's odd jobs o' looking arter folks, it's Elder
Kinney," said Joseph.
"That's so," answered Eben in a dismal tone, "that's so; but he's dreadful
close-mouthed when he's a mind to be. You can't deny that!"
"Wal, I dunno's I want ter deny it," said Joseph, who was beginning, in
Eben's company, to grow ashamed of curiosity; "I dunno's it's anything
agin him," and so the men parted.
It was late at night when Elder Kinney went home from the bedside of the
dying woman. He had forgotten all about the letter. When he undressed, it
fell from his pocket, and lay on the floor. It was the first thing he saw
in the morning. "I declare!" said the Elder, and reaching out a long arm
from the bed, he picked it up.
The bright winter sun was streaming in on the Elder's face as he read
Draxy's letter. He let it fall on the scarlet and white counterpane, and
lay thinking. The letter touched him unspeakably. Elder Kinney was no
common man; he had a sensitive organization and a magnetic power, which,
if he had had the advantages of education and position, would have made
him a distinguished preacher. As a man, he was tender, chivalrous, and
impulsive; and even the rough, cold, undemonstrative people among whom his
life had been spent had, without suspecting it, almost a romantic
affection for him. He had buried his young wife and her first-born
still-born child together in this little village twelve years before, and
had ever since lived in the same house from which they had been carried to
the grave-yard. "If you ever want any other man to preach to you," he said
to the people, "you've only to say so to the Conference. I don't want to
preach one sermon too many to you. But I shall live and die in this house;
I can't ever go away. I can get a good livin' at farmin'--good as
preachin', any day!"
The sentence, "I am Reuben Miller's daughter," went to his heart as it
had gone to every man's heart who had heard it before from Draxy's
unconscious lips. But it sunk deeper in his heart than in any other.
"If baby had lived she would have loved me like this perhaps," thought the
Elder, as he read the pathetic words over and over. Then he studied the
paragraph copied from the deed. Suddenly a thought flashed into his mind.
He knew something about this land. It must be--yes, it must be on a part
of this land that the sugar-camp lay from which he had been sent for, five
years before, to see a Frenchman who was lying very ill in the little log
sugar-house. The Elder racked his brains. Slowly it all came back to him.
He remembered that at the time some ill-will had been shown in the town
toward this Frenchman; that doubts had been expressed about his right to
the land; and that no one would go out into the clearing to help take care
of him. Occasionally, since that time, the Elder had seen the man hanging
about the town. He had an evil look; this was all the Elder could
remember.
At breakfast he said to old Nancy, his housekeeper: "Nancy, did you ever
know anything about that Frenchman who had a sugar-camp out back of the
swamp road? I went to see him when he had the fever a few years ago."
Nancy was an Indian woman with a little white blood in her veins. She
never forgot an injury. This Frenchman had once jeered at her from the
steps of the village store, and the village men had laughed.
"Know anythin' about him? Yes, sir. He's a son o' Satan, an' I reckon he
stays to hum the great part o' the year, for he's never seen round here
except jest sugarin' time."
The Elder laughed in spite of himself. Nancy's tongue was a member of
which he strongly disapproved; but his efforts to enforce charity and
propriety of speech upon her were sometimes rendered null and void by his
lack of control of his features. Nancy loved her master, but she had no
reverence in her composition, and nothing gave her such delight as to make
him laugh out against his will. She went on to say that the Frenchman came
every spring, bringing with him a gang of men, some twelve or more, "all
sons o' the same father, sir; you'd know 'em's far's you see 'em." They
took a large stock of provisions, went out into the maple clearing, and
lived there during the whole sugar season in rough log huts. "They do say
he's jest carried off a good thousand dollar's worth o' sugar this very
week," said Nancy.
The Elder brought his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" This
was Elder Kinney's one ejaculation. Nancy seldom heard it, and she knew it
meant tremendous excitement. She grew eager, and lingered, hoping for
further questions; but the Elder wanted his next information from a more
accurate and trustworthy source than old Nancy. Immediately after
breakfast he set out for the village; soon he slackened his pace, and
began to reflect. It was necessary to act cautiously; he felt
instinctively sure that the Frenchman had not purchased the land. His
occupation of it had evidently been acquiesced in by the town for many
years; but the Elder was too well aware of the slack and unbusinesslike
way in which much of the town business was managed, to attach much weight
to this fact. He was perplexed--a rare thing for Elder Kinney. He stopped
and sat down on the top of a stone wall to think. In a few minutes he saw
the steaming heads of a pair of oxen coming up the hill. Slowly the cart
came in sight: it was loaded with sugar-buckets; and there, walking by
its side, was--yes! it was--the very Frenchman himself.
Elder Kinney was too much astonished even to say "Whew!"
"This begins to look like the Lord's own business," was the first
impulsive thought of his devout heart. "There's plainly something to be
done. That little Draxy's father shall get some o' the next year's sugar
out o' that camp, or my name isn't Seth Kinney;" and the Elder sprang from
the wall and walked briskly towards the Frenchman. As he drew near him,
and saw the forbidding look on the fellow's face, he suddenly abandoned
his first intention, which was to speak to him, and, merely bowing, passed
on down the hill.
"He's a villain, if I know the look of one," said honest Elder. "I'll
think a little longer. I wonder where he stores his buckets. Now, there's
a chance," and Elder Kinney turned about and followed the plodding cart up
the hill again. It was a long pull and a tedious one; and for Elder Kinney
to keep behind oxen was a torture like being in a straight waistcoat. One
mile, two miles, three miles! the Elder half repented of his undertaking;
but like all wise and magnetic natures, he had great faith in his first
impulses, and he kept on.
At last the cart turned into a lane on the right-hand side of the road.
"Why, he's goin' to old Ike's," exclaimed the Elder. "Well, I can get at
all old Ike knows, and it's pretty apt to be all there is worth knowin',"
and Elder Kinney began, in his satisfaction, to whistle
"Life is the time to serve the Lord,"
in notes as clear and loud as a bob-o'-link's.
He walked on rapidly, and was very near overtaking the Frenchman, when a
new thought struck him. "Now, if he's uneasy about himself,--and if he
knows he ain't honest, of course he's uneasy,--he'll may be think I'm on
his track, and be off to his 'hum,' as Nancy calls it," and the Elder
chuckled at the memory, "an' I shouldn't have any chance of ketchin' him
here for another year." The Elder stood still again. Presently he jumped a
fence, and walking off to the left, climbed a hill, from the top of which
he could see old Ike's house. Here, in the edge of a spruce grove, he
walked back and forth, watching the proceedings below. "Seems little too
much like bein' a spy," thought the good man, "but I never felt a clearer
call in a thing in my life than I do in this little girl's letter," and he
fell to singing
"Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,"
till the crows in the wood were frightened by the strange sound, and came
flying out and flapping their great wings above his head.
The Frenchman drove into old Ike's yard. Ike came out of the house and
helped him unload the buckets, and carry them into an old corn-house which
stood behind the barn: As soon as the Frenchman had turned his oxen's head
down the lane, the Elder set out for the house, across the fields. Old Ike
was standing in the barn-door. When he saw the tall figure striding
through the pasture, he ran to let down the bars, and hurried up to the
Elder and grasped both his hands. Not in all Elder Kinney's parish was
there a single heart which beat so warmly for him as did the heart of this
poor lonely old man, who had lived by himself in this solitary valley ever
since the Elder came to Clairvend.
"Oh, Elder, Elder," said he, "it does me reel good to see your face. Be ye
well, sir?" looking closely at him.
"Yes, Ike, thank you, I'm always well," replied the Elder absently. He was
too absorbed in his errand to have precisely his usual manner, and it was
the slight change which Ike's affectionate instinct felt. But Ike saved
him all perplexity as to introducing the object of his visit by saying at
once, picking up one of the sugar-buckets which had rolled off to one
side, "I'm jest pilin' up Ganew's sugar-buckets for him. He pays me well
for storin' 'em, but I kind o' hate to have anythin' to do with him. Don't
you remember him, sir--him that was so awful bad with the fever down'n the
clearin' five years ago this month? You was down to see him, I know."
"Yes, yes, I remember," said the Elder, with a manner so nonchalant that
he was frightened at his own diplomacy. "He was a bad fellow, I thought,"
Ike went on: "Wall, that's everybody's feelin' about him: and there ain't
no great thing to show for 't nuther. But they did say a while back that
he hadn't no reel right to the land. He turned up all of a sudden, and
paid up all there was owin' on the taxes, an' he's paid 'em regular ever
sence. But he hain't never showed how the notes come to be signed by some
other name. Yes, sir, the hull lot--it's nigh on ter three hundred acres,
such's 'tis; a good part on't 's swamp though, that ain't wuth a
copper--the hull lot went to a man down in York State, when the Iron
Company bust up here, and for two or three year the chap he jest sent up
his note for the taxes, and they've a drefful shiftless way o' lettin'
things go in this ere town, 's you know, sir; there wan't nobody that
knowed what a sugar orchard was a lyin' in there, or there'd been plenty
to grab for it; but I don't s'pose there's three men in the town'd ever
been over back o' Birch Hill till this Ganew he come and cut a road in,
and had his sugar-camp agoin' one spring, afore anybody knew what he was
arter. But he's paid all up reg'lar, and well he may, sez everybody, for
he can't get his sugar off, sly's he is, w'thout folks gettin' some kind
o' notion about it, an' they say's he's cleared thousands an' thousands o'
dollars. I expect they ain't overshot the mark nuther, for he's got six
hundred new buckets this spring, and Bill Sims, he's been in with 'em the
last two years, 'n he says there ain't no sugar orchard to compare, except
Squire White's over in Mill Creek, and he's often taken in three thousand
pounds off his'n."
Ike sighed as he paused, breathless. "It's jest my luck, allers knockin'
about 'n them woods 's I am, not to have struck trail on that air orchard.
I could ha' bought it's well's not in the fust on't, if it had been put up
to vendue, 's't oughter ben, an' nobody knowin' what 'twas wuth."
Elder Kinney was almost overcome by this unhoped-for corroboration of his
instincts; clearing up of his difficulties. His voice sounded hoarse in
his own ears as he replied:--
"Well, Ike, the longest lane has a turnin'. It's my belief that God
doesn't often let dishonest people prosper very long. We shall see what
becomes of Ganew. Where does he live? I'd like to see him."
"Well, he don't live nowhere, 's near's anybody can find out. He's in the
camp with the gang about six weeks, sometimes eight; they say's it's a
kind of settlement down there, an' then he's off again till sugarin' comes
round; but he's dreadful sharp and partikler about the taxes, I tell you,
and he's given a good deal too, fust and last, to the town. Folks say he
wants to make 'em satisfied to let him alone. He's coming up here again
to-morrow with two more loads of buckets, sir: if 'twouldn't be too much
trouble for you to come here agin so soon," added poor Ike, grasping at
the chance of seeing the Elder again.
"Well, I think perhaps I'll come," replied the Elder, ashamed again of the
readiness with which he found himself taking to tortuous methods, "if I'm
not too busy. What time will he be here?"
"About this same time," said Ike. "He don't waste no time, mornin' nor
evenin'."
The Elder went away soon, leaving poor Ike half unhappy.
"He's got somethin' on his mind, thet's plain enough," thought the loving
old soul. "I wonder now ef it's a woman; I've allus thought the Elder
war'nt no sort of man to live alone all his days."
"Dear, good little Draxy," thought the Elder, as he walked down the road.
"How shall I ever tell the child of this good luck, and how shall I manage
it all for the best for her?"
Draxy's interests were in good hands. Before night Elder Kinney had
ascertained that there had never been any sale of this land since it was
sold to "the New York chap," and that Ganew's occupation of it was
illegal. After tea the Elder sat down and wrote two letters.
The first one was to Draxy, and ran as follows:--
"MY DEAR CHILD:--
"I received your letter last night, and by the Lord's help I have found
out all about your father's land today. But I shall write to your father
about it, for you could not understand.
"I wish the Lord had seen fit to give me just such a daughter as you are.
"Your friend,
"SETH KINNEY."
The letter to Reuben was very long, giving in substance the facts which
have been told above, and concluding thus:--
"I feel a great call from the Lord to do all I can in this business, and I
hope you won't take it amiss if I make bold to decide what's best to be
done without consulting you. This fellow's got to be dealt with pretty
sharp, and I, being on the ground, can look after him better than you can.
But I'll guarantee that you'll have possession of that land before many
weeks." He then asked Reuben to have an exact copy of the deed made out
and forwarded to him; also any other papers which might throw light on the
transfer of the property, sixteen years back. "Not that I calculate
there'll be any trouble," he added; "we don't deal much in lawyer's tricks
up here, but it's just as well to be provided."
The Elder went to the post-office before breakfast to post this letter.
The address did not escape the eyes of the postmaster. Before noon Eben
Hill knew that the Elder had written right off by the first mail to a
"Miss Draxy Miller."
Meantime the Elder was sitting in the doorway of old Ike's barn waiting
for the Frenchman; ten o'clock came, eleven, twelve--he did not appear.
The Elder's uneasiness grew great, but he talked on and on till poor Ike
was beside himself with delight. At last the distant creak of the wheels
was heard. "There he is," exclaimed Ike. "I'm thinking, sir, that it's a
kind o' providential dispensation thet's hendered him all this time; it's
done me such a sight o' good to hear you talk."
The Elder smiled tenderly on poor old Ike.
"Everything is a dispensation, Ike, accordin' to my way o' thinkin';" and
again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy."
Ganew assented with a half-surly civility to Elder Kinney's proposition to
ride down with him.
"I've got a matter of business to talk over with you, Mr. Ganew,"--said
the Elder, "and I came up here on purpose to find you."
The man turned his stolid black eyes full on the Elder, but made no reply.
It was indeed an evil face. The Elder was conscious that impulses which
he feared were unchristian were rising rapidly in his breast. He had
wished a few times before in his life that he was not a minister. He
wished it now. He would have liked to open his conversation with Ganew
after the manner of the world's people when they deal with thieves. And
again he thought involuntarily of "little Draxy," and her touching "we are
very poor."
But when he spoke, he spoke gently and slowly.
"I have some news for you which will be very disagreeable, Mr. Ganew."
Here the Frenchman started, with such a terrified, guilty, malignant look
on his face, that the Elder said to himself: "Good God, I believe the man
knows he's in danger of his life. Stealin's the least of his crimes, I'll
venture."
He proceeded still more gently. "The owners of the land which you've been
using as your own in this town, have written to inquire about it, and have
put the business in my hands."
Ganew was silent for a moment. Then trying to speak in an indignant tone,
he said,--
"Using as my own! I don't know what you mean, Mr. Parson. I have paid my
taxes all regular, and I've got the title-deeds of the land, every acre of
it. I can't help whoever's been writing to you about it; it's all my
land."
But his face twitched with nervous excitement, and the fright and anger in
his serpent-like black eyes were ugly to see.
"No, Mr. Ganew, it is not," said the Elder; "and you know it. Now you jest
listen to me; I know the whole truth about the matter, an' all the time
you spend fightin' off the truth'll be wasted, besides addin' lyin' to
havin' been a thief. The owners of the land'll be here, I expect before
long; but they've put it all in my hands, an' I can let you off if I
choose."
"Let me off! What the devil do you mean?" said Ganew.
"Why, you don't suppose there's goin' to be nothin' said about all the
thousands o' dollars' wuth of sugar you've carried off here, do"--
The next thing Elder Kinney knew he was struggling up to his feet in the
middle of the road; he was nearly blinded by blood trickling from a cut on
his forehead, and only saw dimly that Ganew was aiming another blow at him
with his heavy-handled ox-goad.
But the Frenchman had reckoned without his host. Elder Kinney, even half
stunned, was more than a match for him. In a very few minutes Ganew was
lying in the bottom of his own ox-cart, with his hands securely tied
behind him with a bit of his own rope and the Elder was sitting calmly
down on a big boulder, wiping his forehead and recovering his breath; it
had been an ugly tussle, and the Elder was out of practice.
Presently he rose, walked up to the cart, and leaning both his arms on the
wheel, looked down on his enemy.
The Frenchman's murderous little black eyes rolled wildly, but he did not
struggle. He had felt in the first instant that he was but an infant in
the Elder's hands.
"Ye poor, miserable, cowardly French,--sinner ye," said the Elder,
struggling for an epithet not unbecoming his cloth. "Did you think you was
goin' to get me out o' yer way's easy's that, 's I dare say ye have better
folks than me, before now!"
Ganew muttered something in a tongue the Elder did not understand, but the
sound of it kindled his wrath anew.
"Well, call on your Master, if that's what you're doin', 's much's you
like. He don't generally look out for anybody much who's so big a fool's
you must be, to think you was goin' to leave the minister o' this parish
dead in a ditch within stone's throw o' houses and nobody find you out,"
and the Elder sat down again on the boulder. He felt very dizzy and faint;
and the blood still trickled steadily from his forehead. Ganew's face at
this moment was horrible. Rage at his own folly, hate of the Elder, and
terror which was uncontrollable, all contended on his livid features.
At last he spoke. He begged abjectly to be set free. He offered to leave
the town at once and never return if the Elder would only let him go.
"What an' give up all your land ye've got such a fine clear title to?"
said the Elder, sarcastically. "No; we'll give ye a title there won't be
no disputin' about to a good berth in Mill Creek jail for a spell!"
At this the terror mastered every other emotion in the Frenchman's face.
What secret reason he had for it all, no one could know but himself; what
iniquitous schemes already waiting him in other places, what complications
of dangers attendant on his identification and detention. He begged, he
besought, in words so wildly imploring, so full of utter unconditional
surrender, that there could be no question as to their sincerity. The
Elder began, in spite of himself, to pity the wretch; he began also to ask
whether after all it would not be the part of policy to let him go. After
some minutes he said, "I can't say I put much confidence in ye yet, Mr.
Ganew; but I'm inclined to think it's the Lord's way o' smoothin' things
for some o' his children, to let you kind o' slink off," and somehow Elder
Kinney fancied he heard little Draxy say, "Oh, sir, let the poor man go."
There was something marvelous in his under-current of consciousness of
"little Draxy."
He rose to his feet, picked up the heavy ox-goad, struck the near ox
sharply on the side, and walking on a little ahead of the team, said:
"I'll just take ye down a piece, Mr. Ganew, till we're in sight of Jim
Blair's, before I undo ye. I reckon the presence o' a few folks'll
strengthen your good resolutions." "An' I mistrust I ain't quite equal to
another handlin,'" thought the Elder to himself, as he noted how the sunny
road seemed to go up and down under his feet. He was really far more hurt
than he knew.
When they were in sight of the house, he stopped the oxen, and leaning
again on the wheel, and looking down on Ganew, had one more talk with him,
at the end of which he began cautiously to untie the rope. He held the
ox-goad, however, firmly grasped in his right hand, and it was not without
a little tremor that he loosed the last knots. "Suppose the desperate
critter sh'd have a knife," thought the Elder.
He need not have feared. A more crestfallen, subdued, wretched being than
Paul Ganew, as he crawled out of that cart, was never seen. He had his own
secret terror, and it had conquered him. "It's more'n me he's afraid of,"
said the Elder to himself. "This is the Lord's doin', I reckon. Now, Mr.
Ganew, if you'll jest walk to the heads o' them oxen I'll thank ye," said
he: "an' 's I feel some tired, I'll jump into the cart; an' I'll save ye
carryin' the ox-goad," he added, as he climbed slowly in, still holding
the murderous weapon in his hand. Nothing could extinguish Seth Kinney's
sense of humor.
"If we meet any folks," he proceeded, "we've only to say that I've had a
bad hurt, and that you're very kindly takin' me home."
Ganew walked on like a man in a dream. He was nearly paralyzed with
terror. They met no human being, and very few words passed between them.
When the cart stopped at the Elder's door, Ganew stood still without
turning his head. The Elder went up to him and said, with real kindness of
tone,
"Mr. Ganew, I expect you can't believe it, but I don't bear ye the least
ill-will."
A faint flicker of something like grateful surprise passed over the hard
face, but no words came.
"I hope the Lord'll bring ye to himself yet," persisted the good man,
"and forgive me for havin' had anything but pity for ye from the first
on't. Ye won't forget to send me a writing for Bill Sims that the rest of
the buckets in the camp belong to me?"
Ganew nodded sullenly and went on, and the Elder walked slowly into the
house.
After dark, a package was left at the Elder's door. It contained the
order on Bill Sims, and a letter. Some of the information in the letter
proved useful in clearing up the mystery of Ganew's having known of this
tract of land. He had been in Potter's employ, it seemed, and had had
access to his papers. What else the letter told no one ever knew; but the
Elder's face always had a horror-stricken look when the Frenchman's name
was mentioned, and when people sometimes wondered if he would ever be seen
again in Clairvend, the emphasis of the Elder's "Never! ye may rely on
that! Never!" had something solemn in it.
In less than forty-eight hours the whole village knew the story. "The
sooner they know the whole on't the better, and the sooner they'll be
through talkin'," said the Elder, and nobody could have accused him of
being "close-mouthed" now. He even showed "the little gal's letter," as
the townspeople called it, to anybody who asked to see it. It hurt him to
do this, more than he could see reason for, but he felt a strong desire to
have the village heart all ready to welcome "little Draxy" and her father
when they should come. And the village heart was ready! Hardly a man,
woman, or child but knew her name and rejoiced in her good fortune. "Don't
yer remember my tellin' yer that night," said Josiah Bailey to Eben Hill,
"that she'd come to the right place for help when she come to Elder
Kinney?"
When Draxy took Elder Kinney's letter out of the post-office, her hands
trembled. She walked rapidly away, and opened the letter as soon as she
reached a quiet street. The Elder had not made it so clear as he thought
he had, in his letter to the "child," which way matters had gone. Draxy
feared. Presently she thought, "He says 'your father's land.' That must
mean that we shall have it." But still she had sad misgivings. She almost
decided to read the inclosed letter which was unsealed; she could not have
her father disappointed again; but her keen sense of honor restrained her.
Reuben had grown really feeble. There were many days now when he could not
work, but sat listlessly on a ledge of rocks near the house, and watched
the restless waves with a sense of misery as restless as they. When Draxy
reached home this night and found that her father was not in the house,
she ran over to the "Black Ledge." There she found him. She sat down by
his side, not knowing how to begin. Presently he said: "I wish I loved
this water, daughter,--it is very beautiful to look at; but I'm thinkin'
it's somethin' like human beings; they may be ever so handsome to look on,
but if you don't love 'em you don't, and that's the end on't, an' it don't
do ye no sort o' good to be where they are."
"The woods and fields used to do you good, father," said Draxy.
Reuben was astonished. Draxy was not wont to allude to the lost and
irrecoverable joys. But he only sighed.
"Read this letter, father dear," said Draxy, hurriedly pushing it into his
hand; "I wrote up to a good old minister to find out, and here's his
answer."
Reuben looked bewildered. Draxy's words did not make themselves clear.
But the first words of Elder Kinney's letter did. The paper fell from his
hands.
"Oh, daughter! daughter! it can't be true! It can't!" and Reuben Miller
covered his eyes and cried. Draxy did not cry. One of the finest traits in
her nature was her instantaneous calmness of exterior under sudden and
intense excitement.
"Yes; father, it is true. It must be. I have believed it from the first!
Oh do, do read the letter," said Draxy, and she forced the letter into his
hands again.
"No, no, daughter. Read it to me. I can't see the words," replied Reuben,
still weeping. He was utterly unmanned. Then Draxy read the letter aloud
slowly, distinctly, calmly. Her voice did not tremble. She accepted it
all, absolutely, unconditionally, as she had accepted everything which had
ever happened to her. In Draxy's soul the past never confused the present;
her life went on from moment to moment, from step to step as naturally, as
clearly, as irrevocably as plants grow and flower, without hinderance,
without delay. This it was which had kept her serene, strong: this is true
health of nature.
After a time Reuben grew calmer; Draxy's presence always helped him. They
sat on the rocks until twilight fell, and the great red lamp in the
light-house was lighted.
"Father, dear," said Draxy, "I think there are light-houses all along our
lives, and God knows when it is time to light the lamps."
Reuben clasped Draxy's hand tighter, and turned his eyes upon her with a
look whose love was almost reverent.
Lights shone until morning from the windows of Captain Melville's house.
The little family had sat together until long after midnight, discussing
this new and wonderful turn in their affairs. Jane and Reuben were
bewildered and hardly happy yet; Draxy was alert, enthusiastic, ready as
usual; poor Captain Melville and his wife were in sore straits between
their joy in the Millers' good fortune, and their pain at the prospect of
the breaking up of the family. Their life together had been so beautiful,
so harmonious.
"Oh, Draxy," said the Captain, "how shall we ever live without you?"
"Oh! but you will come up there, uncle." said Draxy; "and we shall keep
you after we once get you."
Captain Melville shook his head. He could never leave the sea. But full
well he knew that the very salt of it would have lost its best savor to
him when this sweet, fair girl had gone out from his house.
The "good-nights" were sadly and solemnly said. "Oh!" thought Draxy, "does
joy always bring pain in this world?" and she fell asleep with tears on
her cheeks.
Reuben sat up until near dawn, writing to Elder Kinney. He felt strangely
strong. He was half cured already by the upland air of the fields he had
never seen. The next morning Draxy said, "Do you not think, father, I
ought to write a note too, to thank the kind minister, or will you tell
him how grateful I am?"
"Put a postscript to my letter, daughter. That will be better," said
Reuben.
So Draxy wrote at the bottom of the last page:--
"DEAR MR. KINNEY:--I do not know any words to thank you in; and I think
you will like it better if I do not try. My father seems almost well
already. I am sure it was the Lord that helped you to find out about our
land. I hope we can come very soon.
"Your grateful friend,
"DRAXY MILLER."
When the Elder read this second note of Draxy's, he said aloud, "God bless
her! she's one o' His chosen ones, that child is," and he fell to
wondering how she looked. He found himself picturing her as slight and
fair, with blue eyes, and hair of a pale yellow. "I don't believe she's
more than fourteen at most;" thought he, "she speaks so simple, jest like
a child; an' yet, she goes right to the pint, 's straight's any woman;
though I don't know, come to think on't, 's ever I knew a woman that could
go straight to a pint," reflected the Elder, whose patience was often
sorely tried by the wandering and garrulous female tongues in his parish.
The picture of "Little Draxy" grew strangely distinct in his mind; and his
heart yearned towards her with a yearning akin to that which years before
he had felt over the little silent form of the daughter whose eyes had
never looked into his.
There was no trouble with the town in regard to the land. If there had
been any doubts, Elder Kinney's vigorous championship of the new claimant
would have put them down. But the sympathy of the entire community was
enlisted on Reuben's side. The whole story from first to last appealed to
every man's heart; and there was not a father in town that did not rest
his hand more lovingly on his little girl's head at night, when he sat in
his door-way talking over "them Millers," and telling about Draxy's
"writin' to th' Elder."
Before the first of May all was settled. Elder Kinney had urged Mr. Miller
to come at once to his house, and make it a home until he could look about
and decide where he would establish himself.
"I am a lonely man," he wrote; "I buried my wife and only child many years
ago, and have lived here ever since, with only an old Indian woman to take
care of me. I don't want to press you against your will; and there's a
house in the village that you can hire; but it will go against me sorely
not to have you in my house at the first. I want to see you, and to see
your little daughter; I can't help feeling as if the Lord had laid out for
us to be friends more than common."
Reuben hesitated. The shyness of his nature made him shrink from other
men's houses. But Draxy inclined strongly to the Elder's proposition. "Oh,
think father, how lonely he must be. Suppose you hadn't mother nor me,
father dear!" and Draxy kissed her father's cheek; "and think how glad you
have been that you came to live with uncle," she added.
Reuben looked lovingly at Captain Melville, but said nothing.
"I'll tell ye what I think, Reuben;" said the Captain. "It's my belief
that you'n that parson'll take to each other. His letters sound like your
talk. Somehow, I've got an uncommon respect for that man, considerin' he's
a parson: it's my advice to ye, to take up with his offer."
"And it seems no more than polite, father," persisted Draxy: "after he
has done so much for us. We need not say how long we will stay in his
house, you know."
"Supposin' you go up first, Draxy," said Reuben, hesitatingly, "an' see
how 'tis. I always did hate Injuns."
"Oh!" said Draxy; she had hardly observed the mention of that feature in
the Elder's household, and she laughed outright. Her ideas of the
ancestral savage were too vague to be very alarming. "If she has lived all
these years with this good old minister, she must be civilized and kind,"
said Draxy. "I'm not afraid of her."
"But I think it would be a great deal better for me to go first," she
continued, more and more impressed with the new idea. "Then I can be sure
beforehand about everything, and get things all in order for you; and
there'll be Mr. Kinney to take care of me; I feel as if he was a kind of
father to everybody." And Draxy in her turn began to wonder about the
Elder's appearance as he had wondered about hers. Her mental picture was
quite as unlike the truth as was his. She fancied him not unlike her
father, but much older, with a gentle face, and floating white hair. Dim
purposes of how she might make his lonely old age more cheerful, floated
before her mind. "It must be awful," thought she, "to live years and years
all alone with an Indian."
When Elder Kinney read Reuben's letter, saying that they would send their
daughter up first to decide what would be best for them to do, he brought
his hand down hard on the table and said "Whew!" again.
"Well, I do declare," thought he to himself, "I'm afraid they're dreadful
shiftless folks, to send that girl way up here, all alone by herself; and
how's such a child's that goin' to decide anything, I should like to
know?"
He read again the letter Reuben had written. "My daughter is very young,
but we lean upon her as if she was older. She has helped us bear all our
misfortunes, and we have more confidence in her opinions than in our own
about everything." The Elder was displeased.
"Lean on her;' I should think you did! Poor little girl! Well, I can look
out for her; that's one comfort." And the Elder wrote a short note to the
effect that he would meet their "child" at the railway station, which was
six miles from their town; that he would do all he could to help her; and
that he hoped soon to see Mr. and Mrs. Miller under his roof.
The words of the note were most friendly, but there was an indefinable
difference between it and all the others, which Draxy felt without knowing
that she felt it, and her last words to her father as she bade him good-by
from the car window were: "I don't feel so sure as I did about our staying
with Mr. Kinney, father. You leave it all to me, do you, dear, even if I
decide to buy a house?"
"Yes, daughter," said Reuben, heartily; "all! Nothing but good's ever come
yet of your way o' doin' things."
"An' I don't in the least hanker after that Injun," he called out as the
cars began to move. Draxy laughed merrily. Reuben was a new man already.
They were very gay together, and felt wonderfully little fear for people
to whom life had been thus far so hard.
There was not a misgiving in Draxy's heart as she set out again on a two
days' journey to an unknown place. "Oh how different from the day when I
started before," she thought as she looked out on the water sparkling
under the bright May sun. She spent the first night, as before, at the
house of Captain Melville's brother, and set out at eight the following
morning, to ride for ten hours steadily northward. The day was like a day
of June. The spring was opening early; already fruit-trees were white and
pink; banks were green, and birds were noisy.
By noon mountains came in sight. Draxy was spellbound. "They are grander
than the sea," thought she, "and I never dreamed it; and they are loving,
too. I should like to rest my cheek on them."
As she drew nearer and nearer, and saw some tops still white with snow,
her heart beat faster, and with a sudden pang almost of
conscience-stricken remorse, she exclaimed, "Oh, I shall never, never once
miss the sea!"
Elder Kinney had borrowed Eben Hill's horse and wagon to drive over for
Draxy. He was at the station half an hour before the train was due. It had
been years since the steady currents of his life had been so disturbed and
hurried as they were by this little girl.
"Looks like rain, Elder; I 'spect she'll have to go over with me arter
all," said George Thayer, the handsomest, best-natured stage-driver in the
whole State of New Hampshire. The Elder glanced anxiously at the sky.
"No, I guess not, George," he replied. "'Twon't be anything more'n a
shower, an' I've got an umbrella and a buffalo-robe. I can keep her dry."
Everybody at the station knew Draxy's story, and knew that the Elder had
come to meet her. When the train stopped, all eyes eagerly scanned the
passengers who stepped out on the platform. Two men, a boy, and three
women, one after the other; it was but a moment, and the train was off
again.
"She hain't come," exclaimed voice after voice. The Elder said nothing; he
had stood a little apart from the crowd, watching for his ideal Draxy; as
soon as he saw that she was not there, he had fallen into a perplexed
reverie as to the possible causes of her detention. He was sorely anxious
about the child. "Jest's like's not, she never changed cars down at the
Junction," thought he, "an' 's half way to Montreal by this time," and
the Elder felt hot with resentment against Reuben Miller.
Meantime, beautiful, dignified, and unconscious, Draxy stood on the
platform, quietly looking at face after face, seeking for the white hair
and gentle eyes of her trusted friend, the old minister.
George Thayer, with the quick instinct of a stage-driver, was the first to
see that she was a stranger.
"Where d'ye wish to go, ma'am?" said he, stepping towards her.
"Thank you," said Draxy, "I expected some one to meet me," and she looked
uneasy; but reassured by the pleasant face, she went on: "the minister
from Clairvend village was to meet me here."
George Thayer said, two hours afterward, in recounting his share of the
adventure, "I tell ye, boys, when she said that ye might ha' knocked me
down with a feather. I hain't never heard no other woman's voice that's
got jest the sound to't hern has; an' what with that, an' thinkin' how
beat the Elder'd be, an' wonderin' who in thunder she was anyhow, I don't
believe I opened my dum lips for a full minute; but she kind o' smiled,
and sez she, 'Do you know Mr. Kinney?' and that brought me to, and jest
then the Elder he come along, and so I introduced 'em."
It was not exactly an introduction, however. The Elder, entirely absorbed
in conjecture as to poor little Draxy's probable whereabouts, stumbled on
the platform steps and nearly fell at her very feet, and was recalled to
himself only to be plunged into still greater confusion by George Thayer's
loud "Hallo! here he is. Here's Elder Kinney. Here's a lady askin' for
you, Elder!"
Even yet it did not dawn upon Elder Kinney who this could be; his little
golden-haired girl was too vividly stamped on his brain; he looked gravely
into the face of this tall and fine-looking young woman and said kindly,
"Did you wish to see me, ma'am?"
Draxy smiled. She began to understand. "I am afraid you did not expect to
see me so tall, sir," she said. "I am Reuben Miller's daughter,--Draxy,"
she added, smiling again, but beginning in her turn to look confused.
Could this erect, vigorous man, with a half-stern look on his dark-bearded
face, be the right Mr. Kinney? her minister? It was a moment which neither
Elder Kinney nor Draxy ever forgot. The unsentimental but kindly George
gave the best description of it which could be given.
"I vow, boys, I jest wish ye could ha' seen our Elder; an' yet, I dunno's
I do wish so, nuther. He stood a twistin' his hat, jest like any o' us,
an' he kind o' stammered, an' I don't believe neither on 'em knew a word
he said; an' her cheeks kep' gittin' redder'n redder, an' she looked's ef
she was ready to cry, and yet she couldn't keep from larfin, no how. Ye
see she thought he was an old man and he thought she was a little gal, an'
somehow't first they didn't either of 'em feel like nobody; but when I
passed 'em in the road, jest out to Four Corners, they was talkin' as easy
and nateral as could be; an' the Elder he looked some like himself, and
she--wall, boys, you jest wait till you see her; that's all I've got to
say. Ef she ain't a picter!"
The drive to the village seemed long, however, to both Draxy and the
Elder. Their previous conceptions of each other had been too firmly rooted
to be thus overthrown without a great jar. The Elder felt Draxy's
simplicity and child-like truthfulness more and more with each word she
spoke; but her quiet dignity of manner was something to which he was
unused; to his inexperience she seemed almost a fine lady, in spite of her
sweet and guileless speech. Draxy, on the other hand, was a little
repelled by the Elder's whole appearance. He was a rougher man than she
had known; his pronunciation grated on her ear; and he looked so strong
and dark she felt a sort of fear of him. But the next morning, when Draxy
came down in her neat calico gown and white apron, the Elder's face
brightened.
"Good morning, my child," he said. "You look as fresh as a pink." The
tears came into Draxy's eyes at the word "child," said as her father said
it.
"I don't look so old then, this morning, do I, sir?" she asked in a
pleading tone which made the Elder laugh. He was more himself this
morning. All was well. Draxy sat down to breakfast with a lighter heart.
When Draxy was sitting she looked very young. Her face was as childlike as
it was beautiful: and her attitudes were all singularly unconscious and
free. It was when she rose that her womanhood revealed itself to the
perpetual surprise of every one. As breakfast went on the Elder gradually
regained his old feeling about her; his nature was as simple, as
spontaneous as hers; he called her "child" again several times in the
course of the meal. But when at the end of it Draxy rose, tall, erect,
almost majestic in her fullness of stature, he felt again singularly
removed from her.
"'Ud puzzle any man to say whether she's a child or a woman," said the
Elder to himself. But his face shone with pleasure as he walked by her
side out into the little front yard. Draxy was speechless with delight. In
the golden east stretched a long range of mountains, purple to the top;
down in the valley, a mile below the Elder's house, lay the village; a
little shining river ran side by side with its main street. To the north
were high hills, some dark green and wooded, some of brown pasture land.
"Oh, sir," said Draxy, "is there any other spot in your mountain land so
beautiful as this?"
"No, not one," said the Elder, "not one;" and he, too, looked out silently
on the scene.
Presently Draxy exclaimed, with a sigh, "Oh, it makes me feel like crying
to think of my father's seeing this!"
"Shall I tell you now about my father, sir?" she continued; "you ought to
know all about us, you have been so good."
Then sitting on the low step of the door, while the Elder sat in an
arm-chair in the porch, Draxy told the story of her father's life, and,
unconsciously, of her own. More than once the Elder wiped his eyes; more
than once he rose and walked up and down before the door, gazing with
undefined but intense emotion at this woman telling her pathetic story
with the simple-hearted humility of a child. Draxy looked younger than
ever curled up in the doorway, with her hands lying idle on her white
apron. The Elder was on the point of stroking her hair. Suddenly she rose,
and said, "But I am taking too much of your time, sir; will you take me
now to see the house you spoke of, which we could hire?" She was again the
majestic young woman. The Elder was again thrown back, and puzzled.
He tried to persuade her to give up all idea of hiring the house: to make
his house their home for the present. But she replied steadfastly, "I must
look at the house, sir, before I decide." They walked down into the
village together. Draxy was utterly unconscious of observation, but the
Elder knew only too well that every eye of Clairvend was at some
window-pane studying his companion's face and figure. All whom they met
stared so undisguisedly that, fearing Draxy would be annoyed, he said,--
"You mustn't mind the folks staring so at you. You see they've been
talkin' the matter all over about the land, an' your comin', for a month,
an' it's no more than natural they should want to know how you look;" and
he, too, looked admiringly at Draxy's face.
"Oh," said Draxy (it was a new idea to her mind), "I never thought of
that."
"I hope they are all glad we are coming, sir," added she, a moment after.
"Oh yes, yes; they're glad enough. 'Taint often anything happens up here,
you know, and they've all thought everything of you since your first
letter came."
Draxy colored. She had not dreamed of taking a whole village into her
confidence. But she was glad of the friendliness; and she met every
inquisitive gaze after this with an open, responsive look of such beaming
good-will that she made friends of all whom she saw. One or two stopped
and spoke; most were afraid to do so, unconsciously repelled, as the Elder
had been at first, by something in Draxy's dress and bearing which to
their extreme inexperience suggested the fine lady. Nothing could have
been plainer than Draxy's cheap gray gown; but her dress always had
character: the tiniest knot of ribbon at her throat assumed the look of a
decoration; and many a lady for whom she worked had envied her the
expression of her simple clothes.
The house would not answer. Draxy shook her head as soon as she saw it,
and when the Elder told her that in the spring freshets the river washed
into the lower story, she turned instantly away, and said, "Let us go
home, sir; I must think of something else."
At dinner Draxy was preoccupied, and anxious. The expression of perplexity
made her look older, but no less beautiful. Elder Kinney gazed at her
more steadily than he knew; and he did not call her "child" again.
After dinner he took her over the house, explaining to her, at every turn,
how useless most of the rooms were to him. In truth, the house was
admirably adapted for two families, with the exception that there was but
one kitchen. "But that could be built on in a very few days, and would
cost very little," said the Elder eagerly. Already all the energies of his
strong nature were kindled by the resolve to keep Draxy under his roof.
"I suppose it might be so built that it could be easily moved off and
added to our own house when we build for ourselves," said Draxy,
reflectively.
"Oh, yes," said the Elder, "no sort o' trouble about that," and he glowed
with delight. He felt sure that his cause was gained.
But he found Draxy very inflexible. There was but one arrangement of which
she would think for a moment. It was, that the Elder should let to them
one half of his house, and that the two families should be entirely
distinct. Until the new kitchen and out-buildings were finished, if the
Elder would consent to take them as boarders, they would live with him;
"otherwise, sir, I must find some one in the village who will take us,"
said Draxy in a quiet tone, which Elder Kinney knew instinctively was not
to be argued with. It was a novel experience for the Elder in more ways
than one. He was used to having his parishioners, especially the women,
yield implicitly to his advice. This gentle-voiced girl, who said to him,
"Don't you think, sir?" in an appealing tone which made his blood quicken,
but who afterward, when she disagreed with him, stood her ground
immovably even against entreaties, was a phenomenon in his life. He began
to stand in awe of her. When some one said to him on the third day after
Draxy's arrival: "Well, Elder, I don't know what she'd ha' done without
you," he replied emphatically, "Done without me! You'll find out that all
Reuben Miller's daughter wants of anybody is jest to let her know exactly
how things lay. She ain't beholden to anybody for opinions. She's as
trustin' as a baby, while you're tellin' her facts, but I'd like to see
anybody make her change her mind about what's best to be done; and I
reckon she's generally right; what's more, she's one of the Lord's
favorites, an' He ain't above guidin' in small things no mor'n in great."
No wonder Elder Kinney was astonished. In forty-eight hours Draxy had
rented one half of his house, made a contract with a carpenter for the
building of a kitchen and out-buildings on the north side of it, engaged
board at the Elder's table for her parents and herself for a month, and
hired Bill Sims to be her father's head man for one year. All the while
she seemed as modestly grateful to the Elder as if he had done it all for
her. On the afternoon of the second day she said to him:--
"Now, sir, what is the nearest place for me to buy our furniture?"
"Why, ain't you goin' to use mine--at least's far's it goes?" said the
poor Elder. "I thought that was in the bargain."
Draxy looked disturbed. "Oh, how careless of me," she said; "I am afraid
nothing was said about it. But we cannot do that; my father would dislike
it; and as we must have furniture for our new house, we might as well have
it now. I have seven hundred dollars with me, sir; father thought I might
decide to buy a house, and have to pay something down."
"Please don't be angry with me," she added pleadingly, for the Elder
looked vexed. "You know if I am sure my father would prefer a thing, I
must do it."
The Elder was disarmed.
"Well, if you are set on buyin' furniture," he said, "I shouldn't wonder
if you'd have a chance to buy all you'd want cheap down at Squire
Williams's sale in Mill Creek. His wife died the night your first letter
came, an' I heard somebody say he was goin' to sell all out; an' they've
always been well-to-do, the Williamses, an' I reckon you'd fancy some o'
their things better'n anything you'd get at the stores."
Already the Elder began to divine Draxy's tastes; to feel that she had
finer needs than the women he had known. In less than an hour he was at
the door with Eben Hill's horse and wagon to take Draxy to Squire
Williams's house.
"Jest more o' the same Providence that follows that girl," thought he when
he saw Draxy's eyes fairly dilate with pleasure as he led her into the
old-fashioned parlor, where the furniture was piled and crowded ready for
the auction.
"Oh, will they not cost too much for me, dear Mr. Kinney?" whispered
Draxy.
"No, I guess not," he said, "there ain't much biddin' at these sort of
sales up here," and he mentally resolved that nothing Draxy wanted should
cost too much for her.
The sale was to be the next day. Draxy made a careful list of the things
she would like to buy. The Elder was to come over and bid them off for
her.
"Now you just go over 'em again," said the Elder, "and mark off what you'd
like to have if they didn't cost anything, because sometimes things go
for's good 's nothing, if nobody happens to want 'em." So Draxy made a
second list, and laughing a little girlish laugh as she handed the papers
to the Elder, pointed to the words "must haves" at the head of the first
list, and "would-like-to-haves" at the head of the second. The Elder put
them both in his breast-pocket, and he and Draxy drove home.
The next night two great loads of Squire Williams's furniture were carried
into Elder Kinney's house. As article after article was taken in, Draxy
clapped her hands and almost screamed with delight; all her
"would-like-to-haves" were there. "Oh, the clock, the clock! Have I really
got that, too!" she exclaimed, and she turned to the Elder, half crying,
and said, "How shall I ever thank you, sir?"
The Elder was uncomfortable. He was in a dilemma. He had not been able to
resist buying the clock for Draxy. He dared not tell her what he had paid
for it. "She'd never let me give her a cent's worth, I know that well
enough. It would be just like her to make me take it back," thought he.
Luckily Draxy was too absorbed in her new riches, all the next day, to ask
for her accounts, and by the next night the Elder had deliberately
resolved to make false returns on his papers as to the price of several
articles. "I'll tell her all about it one o' these days when she knows me
better," he comforted himself by thinking; "I never did think Ananias was
an out an' out liar. It couldn't be denied that all he did say was true!"
and the Elder resolutely and successfully tried to banish the subject from
his mind by thinking about Draxy.
The furniture was, much of it, valuable old mahogany, dark in color and
quaint in shape. Draxy could hardly contain herself with delight, as she
saw the expression it gave to the rooms; it had cost so little that she
ventured to spend a small sum for muslin curtains, new papers, bright
chintz, and shelves here and there. When all was done, she herself was
astonished at the result. The little home was truly lovely. "Oh, sir, my
father has never had a pretty home like this in all his life," said she to
the Elder, who stood in the doorway of the sitting-room looking with
half-pained wonder at the transformation. He felt, rather than saw, how
lovely the rooms looked; he could not help being glad to see Draxy so
glad; but he felt farther removed from her by this power of hers to create
what he could but dimly comprehend. Already he unconsciously weighed all
things in new balances; already he began to have a strange sense of
humility in the presence of this woman.
Ten days from the day that Draxy arrived in Clairvend she drove over with
the Elder to meet her father and mother at the station. She had arranged
that the Elder should carry her father back in the wagon; she and her
mother would go in the stage. She counted much on the long, pleasant drive
through the woods as an opening to the acquaintance between her father and
the Elder. She had been too busy to write any but the briefest letters
home, and had said very little about him. To her last note she had added a
post-script,--
"I am sure you will like Mr. Kinney, father. He is very kind and very
good. But he is not old as we thought."
To the Elder she said, as they drove over, "I think you will love my
father, sir, and I know you will do him good. But he will not say much at
first; you will have to talk," and Draxy smiled. The Elder and she
understood each other very well.
"I don't think there's much danger o' my not lovin' him," replied the
Elder; "by all you tell he must be uncommon lovable." Draxy turned on him
such a beaming smile that he could not help adding, "an' I should think
his bein' your father was enough."
Draxy looked seriously in his face, and said "Oh, Mr. Kinney, I'm not
anything by the side of father."
The Elder's eyes twinkled.
It was a silent though joyful group which gathered around the Elder's
tea-table that night.
Reuben and Jane were tired, bewildered, but their eyes rested on Draxy
with perpetual smiles. Draxy also smiled more than she spoke. The Elder
felt himself half out of place and wished to go away, but Draxy looked
grieved at his proposal to do so, and he stayed. But nobody could eat, and
old Nancy, who had spent her utmost resources on the supper, was cruelly
disappointed. She bustled in and out on various pretenses, but at last
could keep silence no longer. "Seems to me ye've dreadful slim appetites
for folks that's been travellin' all day. Perhaps ye don't like yer
victuals," she said, glancing sharply at Reuben.
"Oh yes, madame, yes," said poor Reuben, nervously, "everything is very
nice; much nicer than I am used to."
Draxy laughed aloud. "My father never eats when he is tired, Nancy. You'll
see how he'll eat to-morrow."
After Nancy had left the room, Reuben wiped his forehead, and Draxy
laughed again in spite of herself. Old Nancy had been so kind and willing
in helping her, she had grown fond of her, and had quite forgotten her
father's dread. When Reuben bade Draxy good-night, he said under his
breath, "I like your Elder very much, daughter; but I don't know how I'm
ever goin' to stand livin' with that Injun."
"My Elder," said Draxy to herself as she went up-stairs, "he's everybody's
Elder--and the Lord's most of all I think," and she went to sleep thinking
of the solemn words which she had heard him speak on the last Sunday.
It was strange how soon the life of the new household adjusted itself; how
full the days were, and how swift. The summer was close upon them;
Reuben's old farmer instincts and habits revived in full force. Bill Sims
proved a most efficient helper; he had been Draxy's sworn knight, from the
moment of her first interview with him. There would be work on Reuben's
farm for many hands, but Reuben was in no haste. The sugar camp assured
him of an income which was wealth to their simple needs; and he wished to
act advisedly and cautiously in undertaking new enterprises. All the land
was wild land--much of it deep swamps. The maple orchard was the only part
immediately profitable. The village people came at once to see them.
Everybody was touched by Jane's worn face and gentle ways; her silence did
not repel them; everybody liked Draxy too, and admired her, but many were
a little afraid of her. The village men had said that she was "the
smartest woman that had ever set foot in Clairvend village," and human
nature is human nature. It would take a great deal of Draxy's kindly
good-will to make her sister women forgive her for being cleverer than
they. Draxy and Reuben were inseparable. They drove; they walked; even
into the swamps courageous Draxy penetrated with her father and Bill Sims,
as they went about surveying the land; and it was Draxy's keen instinct
which in many cases suggested where improvements could be made.
In the mean time Elder Kinney's existence had become transformed. He dared
not to admit himself how much it meant, this new delight in simply being
alive, for back of his delight lurked a desperate fear; he dared not move.
Day after day he spent more and more time in the company of Draxy and her
father. Reuben and he were fast becoming close friends. Reuben's gentle,
trustful nature found repose in the Elder's firm, sturdy downrightness,
much as it had in Captain Melville's; and the Elder would have loved
Reuben if he had not been Draxy's father. But to Draxy he seemed to draw
no nearer. She was the same frank, affectionate, merry, puzzling
woman-child that she had been at first; yet as he saw more and more how
much she knew of books which he did not know, of people, and of affairs of
which he had never heard--how fluently, graciously, and even wisely she
could talk, he felt himself cut off from her. Her sweet, low tones and
distinct articulation tortured him while they fascinated him; they seemed
to set her so apart. In fact, each separate charm she had, produced in the
poor Elder's humble heart a mixture of delight and pain which could not be
analyzed and could not long be borne.
He exaggerated all his own defects of manner, and speech, and education;
he felt uncomfortable in Draxy's presence, in spite of all the
affectionate reverence with which she treated him; he said to himself
fifty times a day, "It's only my bein' a minister that makes her think
anythin' o' me." The Elder was fast growing wretched.
But Draxy was happy. She was still in some ways more child than woman. Her
peculiar training had left her imagination singularly free from fancies
concerning love and marriage. The Elder was a central interest in her
life; she would have said instantly and cordially that she loved him
dearly. She saw him many times every day; she knew all his outgoings and
incomings; she knew the first step of his foot on the threshold; she felt
that he belonged to them, and they to him. Yet as a woman thinks of the
man whose wife she longs to be, Draxy had never once thought of Elder
Kinney.
But when the new kitchen was finished, and the Millers entered on their
separate housekeeping, a change came. As Reuben and Jane and Draxy sat
down for the first time alone together at their tea-table, Reuben said
cheerily:--
"Now this seems like old times. This is nice."
"Yes," replied Jane. Draxy did not speak. Reuben looked at her. She
colored suddenly, deeply, and said with desperate honesty,--
"Yes, father; but I can't help thinking how lonely Mr. Kinney must be."
"Well, I declare," said Reuben, conscience-stricken; "I suppose he must
be; I hate to think on't. But we'll have him in here's often's he'll
come."
Just the other side of the narrow entry sat the Elder, leaning both his
elbows on the table, and looking over at the vacant place where the night
before, and for thirty nights before, Draxy had sat. It was more than he
could bear. He sprang up, and leaving his supper untasted, walked out of
the house.
Draxy heard him go. Draxy had passed in that moment into a new world. She
divined all.
"He hasn't eaten any supper," thought she; and she listened intently to
hear him come in again. The clock struck ten, he had not returned! Draxy
went to bed, but she could not sleep. The little house was still; the warm
white moonlight lay like summer snow all over it; Draxy looked out of her
window; the Elder was slowly coming up the hill; Draxy knelt down like a
little child and said, "God bless him," and crept back to bed. When she
heard him shut his bedroom door she went to sleep.
The next day Draxy's eyes did not look as they had looked the day before.
When Elder Kinney first saw her, she was coming down stairs. He was
standing at the foot of the staircase and waited to say "Good morning."
As he looked up at her, he started back and exclaimed: "Why, Draxy, what's
the matter?"
"Nothing is the matter, sir," said Draxy, as she stepped from the last
stair, and standing close in front of him, lifted the new, sweet, softened
eyes up to his. Draxy was as simple and sincere in this as in all other
emotions and acts of her life. She had no coquetry in her nature. She had
no distinct thought either of a new relation between herself and the
Elder. She simply felt a new oneness with him; and she could not have
understood the suggestion of concealment. If Elder Kinney had been a man
of the world, he would have folded Draxy to his heart that instant. If he
had been even a shade less humble and self-disrustful, he would have done
it, as it was. But he never dreamed that he might. He folded his empty
arms very tight over his faithful, aching, foolish heart, and tried to say
calmly and naturally, "Are you sure? Seems to me you don't look quite
well."
But after that morning he never felt wholly without hope. He could not
tell precisely why. Draxy did not seek him, did not avoid him. She was
perhaps a little less merry; said fewer words; but she looked glad, and
more than glad. "I think it's the eyes," he said to himself again and
again, as he tried to analyze the new look on Draxy's face which gave him
hope. These were sweet days. There are subtle joys for lovers who dwell
side by side in one house, together and yet apart. The very air is loaded
with significance to them--the door, the window, the stairway. Always
there is hope of meeting; always there is consciousness of presence;
everywhere a mysterious sense that the loved one has passed by. More than
once Seth Kinney knelt and laid his cheek on the stairs which Draxy's feet
had just ascended! Often sweet, guileless Draxy thought, as she went up
and down, "Ah, the dear feet that go over these stairs." One day the
Elder, as he passed by the wall of the room where he knew Draxy was
sitting, brushed his great hand and arm against it so heavily that she
started, thinking he had stumbled. But as the firm step went on, without
pausing, she smiled, she hardly knew why. The next time he did it she laid
down her work, locked and unlocked her hands, and looking toward the door,
whispered under her breath, "Dear hands!" Finally this became almost a
habit of his; he did not at first think Draxy would hear it; but he felt,
as he afterwards told her, "like a great affectionate dog going by her
door, and that was all he could do. He would have liked to lie down on the
rug."
These were very sweet days; spite of his misgivings, Elder Kinney was
happy; and Draxy, in spite of her unconsciousness, seemed to herself to be
living in a blissful dream. But a sweeter day came.
One Saturday evening Reuben said to Draxy,--
"Daughter, I've done somethin' I'm afraid'll trouble you. I've told th'
Elder about your verses, an' showed him the hymn you wrote when you was
tryin' to give it all up about the land."
"Oh, father, how could you," gasped Draxy; and she looked as if she would
cry.
Reuben could not tell just how it happened. It seemed to have come out
before he knew it, and after it had, he could not help showing the hymn.
Draxy was very seriously disturbed; but she tried to conceal it from her
father, and the subject was dropped.
The next morning Elder Kinney preached--it seemed to his people--as he
never preached before. His subject was self-renunciation, and he spoke as
one who saw the waving palms of the martyrs and heard their shouts of joy.
There were few dry eyes in the little meeting-house. Tears rolled down
Draxy's face. But she looked up suddenly, on hearing Elder Kinney say, in
an unsteady voice,--
"My bretherin, I'm goin' to read to you now a hymn which comes nigher to
expressin' my idea of the kind of resignation God likes than any hymn
that's ever been written or printed in any hymn-book;" and then he
began:--
"I cannot think but God must know," etc.
Draxy's first feeling was one of resentment; but it was a very short-lived
one. The earnest tone, the solemn stillness of the wondering people, the
peaceful summer air floating in at the open windows,--all lifted her out
of herself, and made her glad to hear her own hymn read by the man she
loved, for the worship of God. But her surprise was still greater when the
choir began to sing the lines to a quaint old Methodist tune. They had
been provided with written copies of the hymn, and had practiced it so
faithfully that they sang it well. Draxy broke down and sobbed for a few
moments, so that Elder Kinney was on the point of forgetting everything,
and springing to her side. He had not supposed that anything in the world
could so overthrow Draxy's composure. He did not know how much less
strong her nerves were now than they had been two months before.
After church, Draxy walked home alone very rapidly. She did not wish to
see any one. She was glad that her father and mother had not been there.
She could not understand the tumult of her feelings.
At twilight, she stole out of the back door of the house, and walked down
to a little brook which ran near by. As she stood leaning against a young
maple tree she heard steps, and without looking up, knew that the Elder
was coming. She did not move nor speak. He waited some minutes in silence.
Then he said "Oh, Draxy! I never once thought o' painin' you! I thought
you'd like it. Hymns are made to be sung, dear; and that one o' yours is
so beautiful!" He spoke as gently as her father might, and in a voice she
hardly knew. Draxy made no reply. The Elder had never seen her like this.
Her lips quivered, and he saw tears in her eyes.
"Oh, Draxy, do look up at me--just once! You don't know how hard it is for
a man to think he's hurt anybody--like you!" stammered the poor Elder,
ending his sentence quite differently from what he had intended.
Draxy smiled through her tears, and looking up, said: "But I am not hurt,
Mr. Kinney; I don't know what I am crying for, sir;" and her eyes fell
again.
The Elder looked down upon her in silence. Moments passed. "Oh, if I could
make her look up at me again!" he thought. His unspoken wish stirred her
veins; slowly she lifted her eyes; they were calm now, and unutterably
loving. They were more than the Elder could bear."
"Oh, Draxy, Draxy!" exclaimed he, stretching out both his arms towards
her.
"My heart grows weaker and more weak
With looking on the thing so dear
Which lies so far, and yet so near!"
Slowly, very slowly, like a little child learning to walk, with her eyes
full of tears, but her mouth smiling, Draxy moved towards the Elder. He
did not stir, partly because he could not, but partly because he would not
lose one instant of the deliciousness of seeing her, feeling her come.
When they went back to the house, Reuben was sitting in the porch. The
Elder took his hand and said:
"Mr. Miller, I meant to have asked you first; but God didn't give me
time."
Reuben smiled.
"You've's good's asked me a good while back, Elder; an' I take it you
haint ever had much doubt what my answer'd be." Then, as Draxy knelt down
by his chair and laid her head on his shoulder, he added more solemnly,--
"But I'd jest like once to say to ye, Elder, that if ever I get to heaven,
I wouldn't ask anythin' more o' the Lord than to let me see Draxy 'n' you
a comin' in together, an' lookin' as you looked jest now when ye come in't
that gate!"
The Elder's Wife.
Sequel to "Draxy Miller's Dowry."