Chapter IV: Part II (2)

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."