Chapter III: Part II (1)

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.