The Elder's Wife

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Title:     The Elder's Wife
Author: Helen Hunt Jackson [More Titles by Jackson]

Part I.

Draxy and the Elder were married in the little village church, on the first Sunday in September.

"O Draxy! let it be on a communion Sunday," the Elder had said, with an expression on his face which Draxy could not quite fathom; "I can't tell you what it 'ud be to me to promise myself over again to the blessed Saviour, the same hour I promise to you, darling, I'm so afraid of loving Him less. I don't see how I can remember anything about heaven, after I've got you, Draxy," and tears stood in the Elder's eyes.

Draxy looked at him wonderingly and with a little pain in her face. To her serene nature, heaven and earth, this life and all the others which may follow it, had so long seemed one--love and happiness and duty had become so blended in one sweet atmosphere of living in daily nearness to God, that she could not comprehend the Elder's words.

"Why, Mr. Kinney, it's all Christ," she said, slowly and hesitatingly, slipping her hand into his, and looking up at him so lovingly that his face flushed, and he threw his arms around her, and only felt a thousand times more that heaven had come to mean but one thing to him.

"Darling," he whispered, "would you feel so if I were to die and leave you alone?"

"Yes, I think so," said Draxy, still more slowly, and turning very pale. "You never can really leave me, and no human being can be really alone; it would still be all Christ, and it would be living His life and God's still;" but tears rolled down her cheeks, and she began to sob.

"Oh, forgive me, Draxy," exclaimed the Elder, wrung to the heart by the sight of her grief. "I'm nothing but a great brute to say that to you just now; but, Draxy, you don't know much about a man's heart yet; you're such a saint yourself, you can't understand how it makes a man feel as if this earth was enough, and he didn't want any heaven, when he loves a woman as I love you," and the Elder threw himself on the ground at Draxy's feet, and laid his face down reverently on the hem of her gown. There were fiery depths in this man's nature of which he had never dreamed, until this fair, sweet, strong womanhood crossed his path. His love of Draxy kindled and transformed his whole consciousness of himself and of life; it was no wonder that he felt terrors; that he asked himself many times a day what had become of the simple-minded, earnest, contented worker he used to be. He was full of vague and restless yearnings; he longed to do, to be, to become, he knew not what, but something that should be more of kin to this beautiful nature he worshipped--something that should give her great joy--something in which she could feel great pride.

"It ain't right, I know it ain't right, to feel so about any mortal," he would say to himself; "that's the way I used to feel about Jesus. I wanted to do all for Him, and now I want to do all for Draxy," and the great, tender, perplexed heart was sorely afraid of its new bliss.

They were sitting in the maple grove behind the house. In the tree under which they sat was a yellow-hammer's nest. The two birds had been fluttering back and forth in the branches for some time. Suddenly they both spread their wings and flew swiftly away in opposite directions. Draxy looked up, smiling through her tears, and, pointing to the fast fading specks in the distant air, said,--

"It would be like that. They are both sent on errands. They won't see each other again till the errands are done."

The Elder looked into her illumined face, and, sighing, said: "I can't help prayin' that the Lord'll have errands for us that we can do together as long's we live, Draxy."

"Yes, dear," said Draxy, "I pray for that too," and then they were silent for some minutes. Draxy spoke first. "But Mr. Kinney, I never heard of anybody's being married on Sunday--did you?"

"No," said the Elder, "I never did, but I've always thought it was the only day a man ought to be married on; I mean the most beautiful, the sweetest day."

"Yes," replied Draxy, a solemn and tender light spreading over her whole face, "it certainly is. I wonder why nobody has ever thought so before. But perhaps many people have," she added with a merrier smile; "we don't know everybody."

Presently she looked up anxiously and said:

"But do you think the people would like it? Wouldn't they think it very strange?"

The Elder hesitated. He, too, had thought of this.

"Well, I tell you, Draxy, it's just this way: I've tried more than once to get some of them to come and be married on a Sunday in church, and they wouldn't, just because they never heard of it before; and I'd like to have them see that I was in true earnest about it. And they like you so well, Draxy, and you know they do all love me a great deal more'n I deserve, and I can't help believing it will do them good all their lives by making them think more how solemn a thing a marriage ought to be, if they take it as I think they will; and I do think I know them well enough to be pretty sure."

So it was settled that the marriage should take place after the morning sermon, immediately before the communion service. When Reuben was told of this, his face expressed such absolute amazement that Draxy laughed outright, in spite of the deep solemnity of her feeling in regard to it.

"Why, father," she said, "you couldn't look more surprised if I had told you I was not to be married at all."

"But Draxy, Draxy," Reuben gasped, "who ever heard of such a thing? What will folks say?"

"I don't know that anybody ever heard of such a thing, father dear," answered Draxy, "but I am not afraid of what the people will say. They love Mr. Kinney, and he has always told them that Sunday was the day to be married on. I shouldn't wonder if every young man and young woman in the parish looked on it in a new and much holier light after this. I know I began to as soon as the Elder talked about it, and it wouldn't seem right to me now to be married on any other day," and Draxy stooped and kissed her father's forehead very tenderly. There was a tenderness in Draxy's manner now towards every one which can hardly be described in words. It had a mixture of humility and of gracious bestowal in it, of entreaty and of benediction, which were ineffably beautiful and winning. It is ever so when a woman, who is as strong as she is sweet, comes into the fullness of her womanhood's estate of love. Her joy overflows on all; currents of infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal. So her largess is perpetual, involuntary, unconscious, and her appeal is tender, wistful, beseeching. In Draxy's large nature,--her pure, steadfast, loving soul, quickened and exalted by the swift currents of an exquisitely attuned and absolutely healthful body,--this new life of love and passion wrought a change which was vivid and palpable to the commonest eyes. Men and women upon whom she smiled, in passing, felt themselves lifted and drawn, they knew not how. A sentiment of love, which had almost reverence in it, grew up towards her in the hearts of the people. A certain touch of sadness, of misgiving, mingled with it.

"I'm afraid she ain't long for this world; she's got such a look o' heaven in her face," was said more than once, in grieving tones, when the Elder's approaching marriage was talked of. But old Ike was farther sighted, in his simplicity, than the rest. "'Tain't that," he said, "that woman's got in her face. It's the kind o' heaven that God sends down to stay'n this world, to help make us fit for the next. Shouldn't wonder ef she outlived th' Elder a long day," and Ike wiped his old eyes slyly with the back of his hand.

The day of the marriage was one of those shining September days which only mountain regions know. The sky was cloudless and of a transcendent blue. The air was soft as the air of June. Draxy's young friends had decorated the church with evergreens and clematis vines; and on each side of the communion-table were tall sheaves of purple asters and golden-rod. Two children were to be baptized at noon, and on a little table, at the right of the pulpit, stood the small silver baptismal font, wreathed with white asters and the pale feathery green of the clematis seed.

When Draxy walked up the aisle leaning on her father's arm, wearing the same white dress she had worn on Sundays all summer, it cannot be denied that there were sighs of disappointment in some of the pews. The people had hoped for something more. Draxy had kept her own counsel on this point closely, replying to all inquiries as to what she would wear, "White, of course," but replying in such a tone that no one had quite dared to ask more, and there had even been those in the parish who "reckoned" that she wouldn't "be satisfied with anythin' less than white satin." Her head was bare, her beautiful brown hair wound tightly round and round in the same massive knot as usual. Her only ornaments were the creamy white blossoms of the low cornel; one cluster in the braids of her hair, and one on her bosom. As she entered the pew and sat down by the side of her mother, slanting sunbeams from the southern windows fell upon her head, lighting up the bright hair till it looked like a saintly halo. Elder Kinney sat in the pulpit, with his best loved friend, Elder Williams, who was to preach that day and perform the marriage ceremony. When Draxy and her father entered the door, Elder Kinney rose and remained standing until they reached their pew. As Draxy sat down and the golden sunbeams flickered around her, the Elder sank back into his seat and covered his eyes with his hand. He did not change his posture until the prayers and the hymns and the sermon were over, and Elder Williams said in a low voice,--

"The ceremony of marriage will now be performed." Then he rose, his countenance glowing like that of one who had come from some Mount of Transfiguration. With a dignity and grace of bearing such as royal ambassadors might envy, he walked slowly down to Reuben Miller's pew, and, with his head reverently bent, received Draxy from her father's hands.

Passionate love and close contact with Draxy's exquisite nature were developing, in this comparatively untrained man, a peculiar courteousness and grace, which added a subtle charm to the simplicity of his manners. As he walked up the aisle with Draxy clinging to his arm, his tall figure looked majestic in its strength, but his face was still bent forward, turned toward her with a look of reverence, of love unspeakable.

The whole congregation rose, moved by one impulse, and the silence was almost too solemn. When the short and simple ceremony was over, the Elder led Draxy to his own pew and sat down by her side.

After the little children had been baptized, the usual announcement of the Lord's Supper was made, and the usual invitation given. Absolute silence followed it, broken only by the steps of the singers leaving their seats in the gallery to take places below. Not a person moved to leave the body of the house. Elder Williams glanced at Elder Kinney in perplexity, and waited for some moments longer. The silence still remained unbroken; there was not a man, woman, or child there but felt conscious of a tender and awed impulse to remain and look on at this ceremony, so newly significant and solemn to their beloved Elder. Tears came into many eyes as he took the cup of wine from Deacon Plummer's trembling hands and passed it to Draxy, and many hearts which had never before longed for the right to partake of the sacred emblems longed for it then.

After the services, were ended, just as Elder Williams was about to pronounce the benediction, Elder Kinney rose from his seat, and walking rapidly to the communion table said,--

"My dear friends, I know you don't look for any words from me to-day; but there are some of you I never before saw at this blessed feast of our Lord, and I must say one word to you from Him." Then pausing, he looked round upon them all, and, with an unutterable yearning in the gesture, stretched out both his arms and said: "O my people, my people! like as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, He would have gathered you long ago, but ye would not." Then, still holding out his arms towards them, he pronounced the benediction.

Silently and solemnly the little congregation dispersed. A few lingered, and looked longingly at Draxy, as if they would go back and speak to her. But she stood with her eyes fixed on the Elder's face, utterly unconscious of the presence of any other human being. Even her father dared not break the spell of holy beatitude which rested on her countenance.

"No, no, ma," he said to Jane, who proposed that they should go back to the pew and walk home with her. "This ain't like any other wedding that was ever seen on this earth, unless, maybe, that one in Cana. And I don't believe the Lord was any nearer to that bridegroom than He is to this one."

So Jane and Reuben walked home from church alone, for the first time since they came to Clairvend, and Draxy and her husband followed slowly behind. The village people who watched them were bewildered by their manner, and interpreted it variously according to their own temperaments.

"You'd ha' thought now they'd been married years an' years to look at 'em," said Eben Hill; "they didn't speak a word, nor look at each other any more 'n old Deacon Plummer 'n his wife, who was joggin' along jest afore 'em."

Old Ike--poor, ignorant, loving old Ike, whose tender instinct was like the wistful sagacity of a faithful dog--read their faces better. He had hurried out of church and hid himself in the edge of a little pine grove which the Elder and Draxy must pass.

"I'd jest like to see 'em a little longer," he said to himself half apologetically. As they walked silently by, old Ike's face saddened, and at last became convulsed with grief. Creeping out from beneath the pines, he slowly followed them up the hill, muttering to himself, in the fashion which had grown upon him in his solitary life:--

"O Lord! O Lord! No such looks as them is long for this earth. O Lord! which is it ye're goin' to take? I reckon it's the Elder. I reckon 'tis. That woman's goin' to have her heart broke. O Lord! O Lordy me! I can't bear the sight on't!" and he leaped a fence and struck off across the fields towards his house. He did not shut his eyes that night, but tossed and groaned aloud. Towards morning he formed a resolution which calmed him somewhat.

"Ef I kin only be right close to 'em till it comes, p'raps I can be of a little use. Leastways it 'ud be some comfort to try," he said.

As the Elder and Draxy were sitting at breakfast the next day, they caught sight of the old man's bent figure walking up and down outside the gate, and stopping now and then irresolutely, as if he would come in, but dared not.

"Why, there's old Ike," exclaimed the Elder, "What on earth can he want at this time of day!"

Draxy looked up with a very tender smile, and said: "I shouldn't wonder if he wanted just to see how happy you look, Mr. Kinney. Nobody in this world loves you so well as old Ike does."

"Oh, Draxy!" said the Elder, reproachfully.

"No, dear, not even I. Old Ike never dreams of receiving any love in return. I have seen his eyes follow you with just such a look as dogs' eyes have. I wish we could do something for him."

"We will, dear, we will go and see him often. I own it smites me to the soul sometimes to think how humble he is, and so glad to see me when I haven't been near him for six months, maybe."

At this moment Hannah put her head into the door and said, in no pleasant voice:--

"Here's that Ike Sanborn wantin' to speak to ye sir, but I telled him"--

"Let him come right in here, Hannah," said Draxy. "Mr. Kinney and I will be very glad to see him this morning." Hannah's face relaxed in spite of herself, in answer to Draxy's smile, but she could not forgive Ike for what seemed to her a most unwarrantable intrusion, and she was grimmer than ever when she returned to him, saying,--

"They'll see ye; but I must say, I sh'd ha' thought ye'd know better'n to be comin' round here this mornin' of all mornin's. Ain't they to have a minute's peace to theirselves?"

Ike looked up appealingly at the hard Indian face.

"I wa'n't goin' to keep 'em a minute," he said: "I won't go in now. I'll come agin, ef you say so, Hannah."

"No, no--go in, now ye're here; ye've interrupted 'em, and ye may's well take the good on't now," replied the vengeful Hannah, pushing Ike along towards the sitting-room door.

"Ef there's anythin' I do hate, it's shiftless white folks," grumbled Hannah as she went back to her work. If poor Ike had known the angry contempt for him which filled Hannah's heart, he would have felt still less courage for the proposition he had come to make. As it was, he stood in the doorway the very picture of irresolution and embarrassment.

"Come in, come in, Ike," said the Elder; "you're the first one of the parish to pay your respects to Mrs. Kinney." Draxy rose from her seat smiling, and went towards him and said: "And Mrs. Kinney is very glad to see you, Ike."

This was too much for the loving old heart. He dropped his hat on the floor, and began to speak so rapidly and incoherently that both Draxy and the Elder were almost frightened.

"O Elder! O Miss Kinney!--I've been a thinkin' that p'raps you'd let me come an' live with you, an' do all yer chores. I'd bring my two cows, an' my keepin' wouldn't be very much; an'--oh, sir, ef ye'll only let me, I'll bless ye all the days o' my life," and Ike began to cry.

So did Draxy, for that matter, and the Elder was not very far from it. Draxy spoke first.

"Why, Ike, do you really want so much to live with us?"

Ike's first answer was a look. Then he said, very simply,--

"I've laid awake all night, ma'am, tryin' to get bold enough to come and ask ye."

Draxy looked at her husband, and said in a low voice, "You know what I told you just now, Mr. Kinney?"

The Elder saw that Draxy was on Ike's side.

"Well, well, Ike," he said, "you shall certainly come and try it. Perhaps you won't like it as well as you think. But don't say anything about it to any one else till you hear from us. You shall come very soon."

Ike turned to go, but lingered, and finally stammered: "I hope, sir, ye don't take it that I'm askin' a charity; I make bold to believe I could be worth to ye's much's my keepin'; I'm considerable handy 'bout a good many things, an' I can do a day's mowin' yet with any man in the parish, I don't care who he is. It's only because--because"--Ike's voice broke, and it was very nearly with a sob that he added, "because I love ye, sir," and he hurried away. Draxy sprang after him.

"I know that very well, Ike, and so does Mr. Kinney, and you will be a great help to us. You are making us the most valuable wedding present we've had yet, Ike," and Draxy held out her hand.

Ike looked at the hand, but he did not touch it.

"Maybe God'll let me thank ye yet, ma'am," he said, and was gone.

As he went through the kitchen a sudden misgiving seized him of terror of Hannah.

"Supposin' she sh'd take into her head to be agin me," thought he. "They say the Elder himself's 'fraid on her. I don't s'pose she'd dare to try to pizen me outright, an' anyhow there's allers eggs an' potatoes. But I'll bring her round fust or last;" and, made wary by love, Ike began on the spot to conciliate her, by offering to bring a pail of water from the well.

This small attention went farther than he could have dreamed. When Draxy first told Hannah that Ike was to come and live with them, she said judiciously,--

"It will make your work much easier in many ways, Hannah."

Hannah answered:--

"Yes, missus. He'll bring all the water I spose, an that alone's wuth any man's keep--not that I've ever found any fault with the well's bein' so far off. It's 's good water's there is in the world, but it's powerful heavy."

The arrival of the two cows crowned Hannah's liking of the plan. If she had a passion in life it was for cream and for butter-making, and it had been a sore trial to her in her life as the Elder's housekeeper, that she must use stinted measures of milk, bought from neighbors. So when poor Ike came in, trembling and nervous, to his first night's lodging under the Elder's roof, he found in the kitchen, to his utter surprise, instead of a frowning and dangerous enemy, a warm ally, as friendly in manner and mien as Indian blood would permit.

Thus the little household settled down for the winter: Draxy and the Elder happy, serene, exalted more than they knew, by their perfect love for each other, and their childlike love of God, blending in one earnest purpose of work for souls; Hannah and Ike anything but serene, and yet happy after their own odd fashions, and held together much more closely than they knew by the common bond of their devotion to the Elder and his wife.

In the other side of the house were also two very thankful and contented hearts. Reuben and Jane were old people now: Reuben's hair was snowy white, and Jane was sadly bent; but the comfort and peace which had come so late into their lives had still come early enough to make the sunset a bright one. It was a sight to do all hearts good to see the two sitting together on the piazza of the house, in the warm afternoons, and gazing in delight at the eastern mountain ranges turning rose-pink, and then fading through shades of purple to dark gray.

"It's a good deal like our life, ma," Reuben said sometimes; "our sun's pretty low--most down, I reckon; it's all rosy-light, just these days; but we shall have to lie down in the shadow presently; but it's all beautiful, beautiful."

Jane did not understand him. She never did. But she loved the sound of his voice best when he said the things which were too subtle for her.

The two households lived separately as before. The Elder had proposed their making one family, and Reuben had wistfully seconded it. But Draxy had firmly said "No."

"I shall be able to do more for you, father dear, if we do not. It will not seem so at first, but I know I am right," she said, and it was a rare wisdom in her sweet soul which led to the decision. At first it was very hard for Reuben to bear, but as the months went on he saw that it was best.

Draxy's loving, thoughtful care of them never relaxed. The excellent woman whom she had secured for their servant went for her orders quite as often to Draxy as to Jane; very few meals were set out for them to which Draxy's hand had not given the last final touch. She flitted back and forth between the two homes, equally of both the guardian angel; but the line of division and separation was just as distinctly drawn as if they had been under different roofs a mile apart. Two or three times in the week they dined and took tea together, but the habit never was formed of doing this on a special day. When Reuben said, "Couldn't ye arrange it so's always to eat your Sunday dinner with us, Draxy?" she replied:

"Sometimes Sunday dinner; sometimes Thursday; sometimes Saturday, father dear. If we make it a fixed day, we shall not like it half so well; any of us. We'll come often enough, you may be sure." And of this, too, Reuben soon saw the wisdom.

"O Draxy, Draxy, my little girl!" he said one day, when, just after breakfast, she ran in, exclaiming,--

"Father dear, we're coming to take dinner with you and ma to-day. It's a surprise party, and the chickens have come first; they're in the kitchen now!"

"O Draxy, Draxy," he exclaimed, "it's a great deal nicer not to know it beforehand. How could you be so wise, child?"

Draxy put her arms round his neck and did not speak for a moment. Then she said, "I don't think it is wisdom, dear. Real true love knows by instinct, just as the bee does, which shaped cell will hold most honey. I'm only a honey-maker for my darlings."

Jane looked mystified, but Reuben's face quivered with pleasure.

"That you are, you blessed child," he said, and as, hearing the Elder's step in the hall, she flew out of the room, Reuben covered his eyes with his hand.

Happy years leave slender records; but for suffering and sin there would not be history. The winter came, and the spring came, and the summer and the autumn, and no face in the quiet little parsonage looked a shade older for the year that had gone; no incident had taken place which could make a salient point in a story, and not one of the peaceful hearts could believe that a twelvemonth had flown. Elder Kinney's pathetic fears lest he might love his Saviour less by reason of his new happiness, had melted like frost in early sunlight, in the sweet presence of Draxy's child-like religion.

"O Draxy!" he said again and again, "seems to me I never half loved all these souls we are working for, before I had you. I don't see how I could have been so afraid about it before we were married."

"Do I really help you, Mr. Kinney?" Draxy would reply, with a lingering emphasis on the "really," which made her husband draw her closer to him and forget to speak: "It seems very strange to me that I can. I feel so ignorant about souls. It frightens me to answer the smallest question the people ask me. I never do, in any way except to tell them if I have ever felt so myself, and how God seemed to help me out."

Blessed Draxy! that was the secret of her influence from first to last: the magnetic sympathy of a pure and upright soul, to whose rare strength had been added still rarer simplicity and lovingness. Old and young, men as well as women, came to her with unhesitating confidence. Before her marriage, they had all felt a little reserve with her, partly because she was of finer grain than they, partly because she had, deep down in her soul, a genuine shyness which showed itself only in quiet reticence. But now that she was the Elder's wife, they felt that she was in a measure theirs. There is a very sweet side, as well as an inconvenient and irritating one, to the old-fashioned rural notion that the parish has almost as much right to the minister's wife as to the minister. Draxy saw only the sweet side. With all the loyalty and directness which had made her, as a little girl, champion and counselor and comfort to her father, she now set her hand to the work of helping her husband do good to the people whom he called his children.

"If they are yours, they must be mine, too, Mr. Kinney," she would say, with a smile half arch, half solemn. "I hope I shan't undo on week-days what you do on Sundays."

"What I do on Sundays is more'n half your work too, Draxy," the Elder would make reply; and it was very true. Draxy's quicker brain and finer sense, and in some ways superior culture, were fast moulding the Elder's habits of thought and speech to an extent of which she never dreamed. Reuben's income was now far in advance of their simple wants, and newspapers, magazines, and new books continually found their way to the parsonage. Draxy had only to mention anything she desired to see, and Reuben forthwith ordered it. So that it insensibly came to pass that the daily life of the little household was really an intellectual one, and Elder Kinney's original and vigorous mind expanded fast in the congenial atmosphere. Yet he lost none of his old quaintness and simplicity of phrase, none of his fervor. The people listened to his sermons with wondering interest, and were not slow to ascribe some of the credit of the new unction to Draxy.

"Th' Elder's getting more'n more like Mis' Kinney every day o' his life," they said: "there's some o' her sayin's in every sermon he writes.

"And no wonder," would be added by some more enthusiastic worshipper of Draxy's. "I guess he's got sense enough to know that she's got more real book-learnin' in her head than he has, twice over. I shouldn't wonder if she got to writin' some of his sermons for him out'n out, before long."

Dear Draxy's reverent wifehood would have been grieved and dismayed if she had known that her efforts to second her husband's appeals to his people were sometimes so eloquent as to make the Elder's words forgotten. But she never dreamed of such a thing; she was too simple hearted and humble.

In the early days of the second winter came the Angel of the Annunciation, bearing a white lily to Draxy. Her joy and gratitude were unspeakable, and the exquisite purity and elevation of her nature shone out transcendent in the new experience.

"Now I begin to feel surer that God really trusts me," she said, "since he is going to let me have a child of my own."

"O my dear friends!" she exclaimed more than once to mothers, "I never dreamed how happy you were. I thought I knew, but I did not."

Draxy's spontaneous and unreserved joy of motherhood, while yet her babe was unborn, was a novel and startling thing to the women among whom she lived. The false notions on this point, grown out of ignorant and base thoughts, are too wide-spread, too firm-rooted, to be overthrown in an hour or a day, even by the presence of angelic truth incarnate. Some of Draxy's best friends were annoyed and disquieted by her frankness and unreserve of delight. But as the weeks went on, the true instinct of complete motherhood thrilled for the first time in many a mother's heart, under Draxy's glowing words, and women talked tearfully one with another, in secret, with lowered voices, about the new revelation which had come to them through her.

"I've come to see it all quite different, since I've talked with Mis' Kinney," said one young married woman, holding her baby close to her breast, and looking down with remorseful tenderness on its placid little face. "I shan't never feel that I've quite made it up to Benjy, never, for the thoughts I had about him before he was born. I don't see why nobody ever told us before, that we was just as much mothers to 'em from the very first as we ever could be," and tears dropped on Benjy's face; "an' I jest hope the Lord'll send me's many more's we can manage to feed'n clothe, 'n I'll see if lovin' 'em right along from the beginnin', with all my heart, 'll make 'em beautiful an' happy an' strong an' well, 's Mis' Kinney sez. I b'lieve it's much's ef 'twas in the Bible, after all she told me, and read me out of a Physiology, an' it stands to natur', which's more'n the old way o' talkin did."

This new, strong current of the divinest of truths, stirred the very veins of the village. Mothers were more loving and fathers more tender, and maidens were sweeter and graver--all for the coming of this one little babe into the bosom of full and inspired motherhood.

On the morning when Draxy's son was born, a stranger passing through the village would have supposed that some great news of war or of politics had arrived. Little knots of people stood at gates, on corners, all talking earnestly; others were walking rapidly to and fro in the street. Excitement filled the air.

Never was heir to royal house more welcomed than was the first-born son of this simple-minded, great-hearted woman, by the lowly people among whom she dwelt.

Old Ike's joy was more than he could manage. He had sat on the floor all night long, with his head buried in his hands.

The instinct of grief to come, which not even all these long peaceful months had been able to wholly allay in his faithful heart, had sprung into full life at the first symptom of danger to Draxy.

"P'raps it's this way, arter all, the Lord's goin' to do it. O Lord! O Lord! It'll kill Mr. Kinney, it'll kill him," he kept repeating over and over, as he rocked to and fro. Hannah eyed him savagely. Her Indian blood hated groans and tears, and her affection for her master was angered at the very thought of his being afflicted.

"I wish it had pleased yer Lord to give ye the sense of a man, Mr. Sanborn," she said, "while He was a makin' on ye. If ye'd go to bed, now, instead o' snivelin' round here, you might be good for somethin' in the mornin', when there'll be plenty to do. Anyhow, I'm not goin' to be pestered by the sight on ye any longer," and Hannah banged the kitchen-door violently after her.

When poor Ike timidly peered into the sitting-room, whither she had betaken herself, he found her, too, sitting on the floor, in an attitude not unlike the one she had so scorned in him. But he was too meek to taunt her. He only said,--

"I'm goin' now, Hannah, so ye needn't stay out o' the kitchen for me," and he climbed slowly up the stairs which led to his room.

As the rosy day dawned in the east, Draxy's infant son drew his first mortal breath. His first quivering cry, faint almost as a whisper, yet sharp and piteous, reached old Ike's ears instantly. He fell on his knees and remained some minutes motionless, then he rose and went slowly down-stairs. Hannah met him at the door, her dark face flushed with emotion which she vainly tried to conceal by sharp words.

"Hope ye've rested well, Mr. Sanborn. Another time, mebbe ye'll have more sense. As fine a boy's ye ever see, and Mis' Kinney she's a smilin' into its face, as nobody's never seen her smile yet, I tell you."

Ike was gone,--out into the fields, over fences, over brooks, into woods, trampling down dewy ferns, glistening mosses, scarlet cornels, thickets of goldenrod and asters,--he knew not where, muttering to himself all the while, and tossing his arms into the air. At last he returned to the house saying to himself, "P'raps th' Elder 'll like to have me go down into the village an' let folks know."

Elder Kinney was standing bareheaded on the door-steps. His face looked like the face of a man who had come off a battle-field where victory had been almost as terrible as defeat. As soon as he saw old Ike running across the field towards him, he divined all.

"Loving old heart!" he thought, "Draxy was right," and he held out both his hands to the old man as he had never done before, and spoke a few affectionate words, which made tears run down the wrinkled cheeks. Then he sent him on the errand he knew he craved.

"You'd better give the news first to Eben Hill, Ike," he called after him. "It'll be of more use to him than to anybody in the parish."

It was just two years from Draxy's wedding day, when she stood again in the aisle of the little village church, dressed in pure white, with the southern sunlight resting on her beautiful hair. Her husband stood by her side, holding their infant son in his arms. The child had clear, calm blue eyes like Draxy's, and an expression of serenity and radiant joy on his tiny face, which made the people wonder.

"Reuben Miller Kinney" was his name; and though the parish had hoped that the child would be named for his father, when they looked at Reuben Miller's sweet, patient, noble face, and saw its intense happiness as the words were spoken, they felt that it was better so.

Again swift months rolled on, and peace and joy brooded over the parsonage. Draxy's life with her child was something too beautiful to be told in words; her wifehood was lovely, was intense; but her motherhood was greater. Day and night her love for her boy protected and guided him, like pillar of cloud, like pillar of fire. She knew no weariness, no feebleness; she grew constantly stronger and more beautiful, and the child grew stronger and more beautiful, with a likeness to her and a oneness with her which were marvelous. He was a loving and affectionate boy to all; his father, his grandparents, old Ike, and swarthy Hannah,--all alike sunned themselves in the delight of his beautiful childhood. But wherever he was--however amused and delighted--even in his father's arms--his eyes sought his mother's eyes, and the mute interchange between them was subtle and constant as between lovers. There was but one drawback on Draxy's felicity now. She was afraid of her love for her boy.

"O Seth!" she said,--after little Reuben's birth she for the first time called her husband by this name; before that, although she lavished on him all words of endearment, she had never found courage to call him Seth,--"O Seth!" she said, "I feel now as you did about me before we were married. I can't make myself think about anything but Reuby. O darling! you don't think God would take him away from you to punish me, do you?" The Elder could not comfort her when she was in this frame of mind; in fact, he himself was sometimes afraid, seeing her utter absorption in the child. Yet it never for one instant warped her firmness or judiciousness of control. Draxy could not have comprehended that type of love which can lose sight for one instant of the best good of the loved one. Her control, however, was the control of a wise and affectionate companion, never that of the authoritative parent. Little Reuben never heard the words, "You must not do thus and so." It was always, "You cannot, because it is not safe, best, or proper," or, "because if you do, such and such things will happen."

"Draxy," said Reuben to her one day, "you never tell Reuby to do anything without giving him a reason for it. He's the best boy that ever lived, I do believe, but 'tain't just my idea of obedience for all that."

Draxy smiled. "I never said a word to him about obeying me in his life; I never shall. I can't explain it, father dear, but you must let me do my way. I shall tell him all I know about doing right, and he will decide for himself more and more. I am not afraid."

She need not have been. Before Reuby was seven years old his gentle manliness of behavior was the marvel of the village. "It beats all how Mis' Kinney's brought that boy o' hern up," was said in the sewing-circle one day. "She told me herself that she's never so much's said a sharp word to him; and as for whipping she thinks it's a deadly sin."

"So do I," spoke up young Mrs. Plummet, the mother of Benjy. "I never did believe in that; I don't believe in it, even for hosses; it only gets 'em to go a few rods, and then they're lazier'n ever. My father's broke more colts than any man in this county, an' he'd never let 'em be struck a blow. He said one blow spiled 'em, and I guess ye've got more to work on in a boy than ye have in a colt."

These discussions often ran high and waxed warm. But Draxy's adherents were a large majority; and she had so patiently and fully gone over these disputed grounds with them that they were well fortified with the arguments and facts which supported her positions. Indeed, it was fast coming to pass that she was the central force of the life of the village. "Let me make the songs of the community, and I care not who makes its laws," was well said. It was song which Draxy supplied to these people's lives. Not often in verse, in sound, in any shape that could be measured, but in spirit. She vivified their every sense of beauty, moral and physical. She opened their eyes to joy; she revealed to them the sacredness and delight of common things; she made their hearts sing.

But she was to do more yet for these men and women. Slowly, noiselessly, in the procession of these beautiful and peaceful days, was drawing near a day which should anoint Draxy with a new baptism,--set her apart to a holier work.

It came, as the great consecrations of life are apt to come, suddenly, without warning. While we are patiently and faithfully keeping sheep in the wilderness, the messenger is journeying towards us with the vial of sacred oil, to make us kings.

It was on a September morning. Draxy sat at the eastward bay-window of her sitting-room, reading to Reuby. The child seemed strangely restless, and slipped from her lap again and again, running to the window to look out. At last Draxy said, "What is it, Reuby? Don't you want to hear mamma read any longer?"

"Where is papa?" replied Reuby. "I want to go and find papa."

"Papa has gone way down to the Lower Mills, darling; he won't come home till dinner," said Draxy, looking perplexedly at Reuby's face. She had never known him to ask for his father in this way before. Still his restlessness continued, and finally, clasping his mother's hand, he said earnestly,--

"Come and find papa."

"We can't find him, dear," she replied; "it is too far for Reuby to walk, but we will go out on the same road papa has gone, and wait for papa to come;" so saying, she led the child out of the house, and rambled slowly along the road on which the Elder would return. In a few moments she saw moving in the distance a large black object she could not define. As it came nearer she saw that it was several men, walking slowly and apparently bearing something heavy between them.

Little Reuby pulled her hand and began to run faster. "Come and find papa," he said again, in a tone which struck terror to Draxy's heart. At that instant the men halted. She hurried on. Presently she saw one man leave the rest and run rapidly towards her. It was old Ike. The rest still remained motionless and gathered closer around what they were carrying.

"O Reuby!" groaned Draxy. "Come quicker; find papa," he replied, impatiently; but old Ike had reached them, and wringing his hands, burst into tears. "O my Lord!--O Mis' Kinney, yer must go back; they can't bring him along, an' you 'n' the boy standin' here. O my Lord! O Mis' Kinney, come right back!" And Ike took hold of her shoulder and of her gown and almost turned her around.

"Is Mr. Kinney hurt?" said Draxy in a strange voice, high pitched and metallic. "I shall not go back. Tell the men to hurry. How dare they lose time so?" and Draxy tried to run towards them. Old Ike held her by main force. Sobs choked his voice, but he stammered out: "O Mis' Kinney, ef ye love Mr. Kinney, go back. He'd tell ye so himself. He won't know ye; the men won't never move a step till they see you 'n' Reuby goin' first."

Draxy turned instantly and walked toward the house so swiftly that little Reuby could not keep up with her. He followed her crying aloud, but she did not heed him. She flew rather than ran into the house, into the Elder's study, and dragged a lounge to the very threshold of the door. There she stood, whiter than any marble, and as still, awaiting the slow, toiling steps of the overburdened men. Little Reuben stumbled on the steps and she did not help him. As he came close, clutching her dress in his pain and terror, she said in a low whisper, "Reuby, it will trouble papa if he sees us cry. Mamma isn't going to cry." The child stopped instantly and stood by her side, as calm as she for a moment, then bursting out again into screams, said: "O mamma, I can't help crying, I can't; but I'll run away. Don't tell papa I cried." And he ran up-stairs. Draxy did not see which way he went. Her eyes were fixed on the doorway which Ike had that moment reached; the men bearing the Elder's body were just behind him.

"O Mis' Kinney! can't yer go away jest while we lay him down?" gasped Ike. "Seem's ef 'twouldn't be so hard."

Draxy looked past him, as not hearing a word.

"Bring him in here and lay him on this lounge," she said, in tones so clear and calm they sent both courage and anguish into every heart.

Panting, and with grief-stricken faces, the men staggered in and laid the tall, majestic figure down. As they lifted the head tenderly and propped it by pillows, Draxy saw the pale, dead face with the sunken eyes and set lips, and gave one low cry. Then she clasped both hands tight over her heart and looked up as if she would pierce the very skies whither her husband had gone.

"We sent for the doctor right off; he'll be here's soon's he can get here."

"He never spoke a word arter we lifted him up. He couldn't ha' suffered any, Mis' Kinney."

"P'raps, Mis' Kinney, it'd be a good plan to ondo his clothes afore the doctor gits here," came in confused and trembling tones from one after another of the men who stood almost paralyzed in presence of Draxy's terrible silence.

"O Mis' Kinney, jest speak a word, can't ye? O Lord! O Lord! she'll die if she don't. Where's Reuby? I'll fetch him," exclaimed Ike, and left the room; the men followed him irresolutely, looking back at Draxy, who still stood motionless, gazing down into the Elder's face.

"Do not look for Reuby--he has hid," came in a slow, measured whisper from her lips. "And leave me alone." "Yes, I know. You need not be afraid. I understand that Mr. Kinney is dead," she added, as the men hesitated and looked bewilderedly in her face. "I will stay alone with him till the doctor comes," and Draxy gently closed the door and locked it. In a short time the little hall and door-yard were crowded with sobbing men and women. There was little to be told, but that little was told over and over. The Elder had walked down to the village store with old Ike, and had just given him some parcels to carry home, saying, "Tell Mrs. Kinney,"--when a runaway horse had come dashing furiously down the street, drawing a wagon in which clung, rather than sat, a woman holding a baby in her arms. The Elder had sprung into the middle of the road, and caught the horse by the bridle as he swerved a little to one side; but the horse was too strong and too much frightened to be held by any man's strength. Rearing high, he had freed his head, and plunging forward had knocked the Elder down in such a way that both wagon-wheels had run over his neck, breaking it instantly.

"He never talked so much like an angel from heaven's he did this mornin'," sobbed Ike, who looked already decrepit and broken from this sudden blow. "He was a tellin' me about suthin' new that's jest been discovered in the sun; I couldn't rightly make it out; but says he, 'Ike, how glorious 'twill be when we can jest fly from one sun to another, all through this universe o' God's, an' not be a tryin' in these poor little airthly ways to understand 'bout things.'"

That Draxy should be all this time alone with her husband's body seemed dreadful to these sympathizing, simple-hearted people. No sound came from the room, though the windows were all wide open.

"O Mr. Miller! don't ye think some on us had better try to git in to her," said the women; "she don't make no noise."

"No." replied Reuben, feebly. He, too, was prostrated like Ike by the fearful blow, and looked years older within the hour. "No: Draxy knows what's best for her. She's spoke to me once through the door. She hasn't fainted."

"When the doctor came, Reuben called to Draxy,--

"Daughter, the doctor's come."

The door opened instantly, but closed as soon as the doctor had entered. In a few moments it opened again, and the doctor handed a slip of paper to Reuben. He unfolded it and read it aloud:--

"Father dear, please thank all the people for me, and ask them to go home now. There is nothing they can do. Tell them it grieves me to hear them cry, and Mr. Kinney would not wish it."

Slowly and reluctantly the people went, and a silence sadder than the sobs and grieving voices settled down on the house. Reuben sat on the stairs, his head leaning against the study-door. Presently he heard a light step coming down. It was young Mrs. Plummer, the mother of Benjy. She whispered, "I've found Reuby. He's asleep on the garret floor. He'd thrown himself down on some old carpet, way out in the darkest corner, under the eaves. I've covered him up, an' I'm goin' to sit by him till he wakes up. The longer he sleeps the better. You tell her where he is."

Reuben nodded; his dulled senses hardly heard the words. When the study-door next opened, Draxy herself came out, walking with a slow, measured step which transformed her whole bearing. Her face was perfectly calm, but colorless as white stone. At sight of her father her lips quivered, and she stretched out both hands to him; but she only said, "Where is Reuby?" And as soon as she heard she went quickly up the stairs, adding, "Do not follow me, father dear; you cannot help me."

Mrs. Plummer sat in the dark garret, leaning her head against the dusty rafters, as near as she could get to poor little Reuby. Her eyes were shut, and tears stood on her cheeks. Suddenly she was startled by Draxy's low voice, saying,--

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Plummer; it was very kind in you to stay here and not wake him up. I will sit by him now."

Mrs. Plummer poured forth incoherent words of sympathy and sorrow, but Draxy hardly seemed to hear her. She stood quietly, making no reply, waiting for her to go.

"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney, do cry a little, can't ye?" exclaimed the warm-hearted woman; "it scares us to death to see ye this way."

Draxy smiled. "No, my dear friend. I cannot cry now. I suppose I shall sometimes, because I am very selfish, and I shall be so lonely; but just now I am only thinking how happy he is in these first hours in heaven." The tears stood in her eyes, but her look was as of one who gazed rapturously inside the pearly gates. Mrs. Plummer stole softly away, overawed and afraid. As she went out of the house, she said to Reuben: "Mis' Kinney ain't no mortal woman. She hain't shed a tear yet, and she jest looks as glorified as the Elder can this minute in sight o' God's very throne itself. O Mr. Miller, I'm afraid she'll break down. This kind o' grief is what kills folks."

"No," said Reuben, "you don't know Draxy. She won't break down. She'll take care on us all jest the same, but ye won't never see again the same face you used to see. Oh, I can't be reconciled, I can't!" And Reuben groaned aloud.

The next morning, when Draxy came out of the study, her hair was white as snow. As her father first caught sight of her, he stared wildly for a moment as at some stranger; then crying out, "O Draxy! O my little girl!" he tottered and would have fallen if she had not caught him and led him to a chair.

"O father dear," she exclaimed, "don't feel so! I wouldn't call him back this minute if I could," and she smiled piteously.

"O Draxy--'tain't that," gasped Reuben. "O daughter! you're dyin' and never lettin' us know it. Your hair's as white's mine." Draxy gave a startled glance at the mirror, and said, in a much more natural tone than she had hitherto spoken in: "I don't think that's strange. It's happened before to people in great trouble. I've read of it: you'll get used to it very soon, father dear. I'm glad of it; I'll be all in white now," she added in a lower tone, speaking dreamily, as if to herself,--"they walk in white; they walk in white."

Then Reuben noticed that she was dressed in white. He touched her gown, and looked inquiringly. "Yes, father dear," she said, "always."

On the day of the funeral, when Draxy entered the church leading little Reuby by the hand, a visible shudder ran through the congregation. The news had run like wildfire through the parish, on the morning after the Elder's death, that Mrs. Kinney's hair had all turned gray in the night. But nobody was in the least prepared for the effect. It was not gray--it was silver-white; and as it retained all the silken gloss which had made it so beautiful the shining of it was marvelous. It kindled her beauty into something superhuman. The color had left her cheeks also, but in its place was a clear soft tint which had no pallor in it. She was dressed in pure white, so also was little Reuby; but for this the parish were prepared. Very well they knew Draxy's deep-rooted belief that to associate gloom with the memory of the dead was disloyal alike to them and to Christ; and so warmly had she imbued most of the people with her sentiment, that the dismal black garb of so-called mourning was rarely seen in the village.

Bareheaded, Draxy and her little son walked from the church to the grave; their faces the calmest, their steps the steadiest there. Reuben and Jane walked behind them, bent over and sobbing, and half the congregation were weeping uncontrollably; but the widowed woman and the fatherless boy walked with uplifted glances, as if they saw angel-forms in the air by their side.

"Tain't nateral; 'tain't noways nateral; thet woman hain't got any nateral feelin' in her," said Eben Hill, leaning against a grave-stone, and idly chewing a spray of golden-rod. George Thayer turned upon him like a blazing sword.

"Hev ye got any nateral feelin' yourself, Eben Hill, to say that, standin' here an' lookin' at that woman's white hair an' cheeks, 'n' only last Sunday she was 's handsome a pictur's ye ever see, her hair a twinklin' in the sun like a brown beech-tree, an' her cheeks jest like roses? Nateral feelin's! It's enough to make the Elder rise up afore ye, to hear ye say sech a thing, Eben Hill; 'n' ef 'twan't jest the funeral that 'tis, I b'leeve I'd thrash ye right an' left, here'n sight o' yer own mother's tombstone, ye miserable, sneakin' fool. Ef there was ever a woman that was carryin' a hull town straight into the Lord's heaven on her own shoulders, it's Mis' Kinney, an' that blessed boy o' her'n 's goin' to be jest like her. Look at him now, a workin' his poor little mouth an' lookin' up to her and tryin' not to cry."

Poor little Reuby! when the first shovelful of earth fell on the coffin, his child's heart gave way, and he broke into loud crying, which made the roughest men there hide their eyes. Draxy caught him up in her arms and whispered something which quieted him instantly. Then she set him down, and he stood till the end, looking away from the grave with almost a smile on his face. He told some one, the next day, that he kept saying over to himself all that time: "Beautiful gates of precious stones and angels with harps."--"That's the city, you know, where my papa has gone. It's not half so far off as we think; and papa is so happy there, he don't even miss us, though he can see us every minute. And mamma and I are going there pretty soon; next summer perhaps."

 

Part II.

For the first few days after the funeral, Draxy seemed to sink; the void was too terrible; only little Reuby's voice roused her from the apathetic silence in which she would sit by the hour gazing out of the east bay-window on the road down which she had last seen her husband walk. She knew just the spot where he had paused and turned and thrown kisses back to Reuby watching him from the window.

But her nature was too healthy, too full of energy, and her soul too full of love to remain in this frame long. She reproached herself bitterly for the sin of having indulged in it even for a short time.

"I don't believe my darling can be quite happy even in heaven, while he sees me living this way," she said sternly to herself one morning. Then she put on her bonnet, and went down into the village to carry out a resolution she had been meditating for some days. Very great was the astonishment of house after house that morning, as Draxy walked quietly in, as had been her wont. She proposed to the mothers to send their younger children to her, to be taught half of every day.

"I can teach Reuby better if I have other children too," she said. "I think no child ought to be sent into the district school under ten. The confinement is too much for them. Let me have all the boys and girls between six and eight, and I'll carry them along with Reuby for the next two or three years at any rate," she said.

The parents were delighted and grateful; but their wonder almost swallowed up all other emotions.

"To think o' her!" they said. "The Elder not three weeks buried, an' she a goin' round, jest as calm 'n' sweet's a baby, a gettin' up a school!"

"She's too good for this earth, that's what she is," said Angy Plummer. "I should jest like to know if anybody'd know this village, since she came into 't. Why we ain't one of us the same we used to be. I know I ain't. I reckon myself's jest about eight years old, if I have got three boys. That makes me born the summer before her Reuby, 'an that's jest the time I was born, when my Benjy was seven months old!"

"You're jest crazy about Mis' Kinney, Angy Plummer," said her mother. "I b'lieve ye'd go through fire for her quicker 'n ye would for any yer own flesh an' blood."

Angy went to her mother and kissed the fretful old face very kindly. "Mother, you can't say I hain't been a better daughter to you sence I've knowed Mis' Kinney."

"No, I can't," grumbled the old woman, "that's a fact; but she's got a heap o' new fangled notions I don't believe in."

The school was a triumphant success. From nine until twelve o'clock every forenoon, twelve happy little children had a sort of frolic of learning lessons in the Elder's sacred study, which was now Draxy's sitting-room. Old Ike, who since the Elder's death had never seemed quite clear of brain, had asked so piteously to come and sit in the room, that Draxy let him do so. He sat in a big chair by the fire-place, and carved whistles and ships and fantastic toys for the children, listening all the time intently to every word which fell from Draxy's lips. He had transferred to her all the pathetic love he had felt for the Elder; he often followed her at a distance when she went out, and little Reuby he rarely lost sight of, from morning till night. He was too feeble now to do much work, but his presence was a great comfort to Draxy. He seemed a very close link between her and her husband. Hannah, too, sometimes came into the school at recess, to the great amusement of the children. She was particularly fond of looking at the blackboard, when there were chalk-marks on it.

"Make a mark on me with your white pencil," she would say, offering her dark cheek to Reuby, who would scrawl hieroglyphics all over it from hair to chin.

Then she would invite the whole troop out into the kitchen to a feast of doughnuts or cookies; very long the recesses sometimes were when the school was watching Hannah fry the fantastic shapes of sweet dough, or taking each a turn at the jagged wheel with which she cut them out.

Reuben also came often to the school-room, and Jane sometimes sat there with her knitting. A strange content had settled on their lives, in spite of the sorrow. They saw Draxy calm; she smiled on them as constantly as ever; and they were very old people, and believed too easily that she was at peace.

But the Lord had more work still for this sweet woman's hand. This, too, was suddenly set before her. Late one Saturday afternoon, as she was returning, surrounded by her escort of laughing children, from the woods, where they had been for May-flowers, old Deacon Plummer overtook her.

"Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney," he began several times, but could get no further. He was evidently in great perplexity how to say the thing he wished.

"Mis' Kinney, would you hev--

"Mis' Kinney, me and Deacon Swift's been a sayin'--

"Mis' Kinney, ain't you got--"

Draxy smiled outright. She often smiled now, with cordial good cheer, when things pleased her.

"What is it, Deacon? out with it. I can't possibly tell unless you make it plainer."

Thus encouraged, good Deacon Plummer went on: "Well, Mis' Kinney, it's jest this: Elder Williams has jest sent word he can't come an' preach to-morrer, and there ain't nobody anywhere's round thet we can get; and De'n Swift 'n me, we was a thinkin' whether you wouldn't be willin' some of us should read one o' the Elder's old sermons. O Mis' Kinney, ye don't know how we all hanker to hear some o' his blessed words agin."

Draxy stood still. Her face altered so that the little children crowded round her in alarm, and Reuby took hold of her hand. Tears came into her eyes, and she could hardly speak, but she replied,--

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Plummer, I should be very glad to have you. I'll look out a sermon to-night, and you can come up to the house in the morning and get it."

"O Mis' Kinney, do forgive me for speakin'. You have allers seem so borne up, I never mistrusted that't'd do any harm to ask yer," stammered the poor Deacon, utterly disconcerted by Draxy's tears, for she was crying hard now.

"It hasn't done any harm, I assure you. I am very glad to do it," said Draxy.

"Yes, sir, my mamma very often cries when she's glad," spoke up Reuby, his little face getting very red, and his lips quivering. "She's very glad, sir, if she says so."

This chivalrous defense calmed poor Draxy, but did not comfort the Deacon, who hurried away, saying to himself,--

"Don't believe there was ever such a woman nor such a boy in this world before. She never shed a tear when we brought the Elder home dead, nor even when she see him let down into the very grave; 'n' I don't believe she's cried afore anybody till to-day; 'n' that little chap a speakin' up an' tellin' me his ma often cried when she was glad, an' I was to believe her spite of her crying! I wish I'd made Job Swift go arter her. I'll make him go arter that sermon anyhow. I won't go near her agin 'bout this bisness, that's certain;" and the remorse-stricken, but artful deacon hastened to his brother deacon's house to tell him that it was "all settled with Mis' Kinney 'bout the sermon, an' she was quite willin';" and, "O," he added, as if it were quite a second thought, "ye'd better go up an' git the sermon, Job, in the mornin,' ye're so much nearer, an' then, 's ye've to do the readin,' maybe she'll have somethin' to explain to ye about the way it's to be read; th' Elder's writin' wan't any too easy to make out, 's fur 's I remember it."

Next morning, just as the first bells were ringing, Deacon Swift knocked timidly at the door of the Elder's study. Draxy met him with a radiant face. She had been excited by reading over the sermon she had after long deliberation selected. The text was,--

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." The sermon had been written soon after their marriage, and was one of her husband's favorites. There were many eloquent passages in it, which seemed now to take on a new significance, as coming from the lips of the Elder, absent from his flock and present with Christ.

"O Mis' Kinney, I recollect that sermon 's if 'twas only yesterday," said Deacon Swift. "The hull parish was talkin' on't all the week; ye couldn't have picked out one they'd be so glad to hear; but dear me! how I'm ever goin' to read it in any kind o' decent way, I don't know; I never was a reader, anyhow, 'n' now I've lost my front teeth, some words does pester me to git out."

This opened the way for Draxy. Nearly all night she had lain awake, thinking how terrible it would be to her to hear her husband's beloved words indistinctly and ineffectively read by Deacon Swift's cracked and feeble voice. Almost she regretted having given her consent. At last the thought flashed into her mind, "Why should I not read it myself? I know I could be heard in every corner of that little church." The more she thought of it, the more she longed to do it, and the less she shrank from the idea of facing the congregation.

"'It's only just like a big family of children,' Seth always used to say, 'and I'm sure I feel as if they were mine now, as much as ever they were his. I wish I dared do it. I do believe Seth would like it,' and Draxy fell asleep comforted by the thought. Before breakfast she consulted her father, and he approved it warmly.

"I believe your mission isn't done yet, daughter, to these people of your husband's. The more you speak to 'em the better. It'll be jest like his voice speaking from heaven to 'em," said Reuben, "an' I shouldn't wonder if keepin' Elder Williams away was all the Lord's doin', as the blessed saint used to say."

Reuben's approval was all that Draxy needed to strengthen her impulse, and before Deacon Swift arrived her only perplexity was as to the best way of making the proposition to him. All this difficulty he had himself smoothed away by his first words.

"Yes, I know, Deacon Swift," she said. "I've been thinking that perhaps it would tire you to read for so long a time in a loud voice; and besides, Mr. Kinney's handwriting is very hard to read."

Draxy paused and looked sympathizingly in the deacon's face. The mention of the illegible writing distressed the poor man still more. He took the sermon from her hand and glanced nervously at the first page.

"Oh my! Mis' Kinney," he exclaimed, "I can't make out half the words."

"Can't you?" said Draxy, gently. "It is all as plain as print to me, I know it so well. But there are some abbreviations Mr. Kinney always used. I will explain them to you. Perhaps that will make it easier."

"O Mis' Kinney, Mis' Kinney! I can't never do it in the world," burst out the poor deacon. "O Mis' Kinney, why can't you read it to the folks? They'd all like it, I know they would."

"Do you really think so, Mr. Swift?" replied Draxy; and then, with a little twinge of conscience, added immediately, "I have been thinking of that very thing myself, that perhaps, if it wouldn't seem strange to the people, that would be the best way, because I know the handwriting so well, and it really is very hard for a stranger to read."

"Yes, yes, that's the very thing," hastily exclaimed the relieved deacon,--"that's it, that's it. Why, Mis' Kinney, as for their thinkin' it strange, there ain't a man in the parish that wouldn't vote for you for minister twice over if ye wuz only a man. I've heerd 'em all say so more 'n a thousand times sence." Something in Draxy's face cut the Deacon's sentence short.

"Very well, Mr. Swift," she said. "Then I will try, since you think it best. My father thought it would be a good plan too, or else I should not have been willing," she added, gently.

"Reuben Miller's daughter" was still as guileless, reverent, potent a thought in Draxy's heart as when, upon her unconscious childish lips, the words had been a spell, disarming and winning all hearts to her.

The news had gone all through the village on Saturday night, that Deacon Swift was to read one of Elder Kinney's sermons the next day. The whole parish was present; not a man, not a woman was missing except those who were kept at home by sickness. A tender solemnity was in every face. Not often does it happen to a man to be so beloved by a whole community as was Elder Kinney by this people.

With some embarrassment and hesitation, Deacon Swift read the hymns and made one of the prayers; Deacon Plummer made the other. Then there came a pause. Draxy flushed scarlet and half rose in her pew. She had not thought to tell the Deacon that he must explain to the people beforehand why she read the sermon. She had taken it for granted that he would do so; but he did not comprehend that he ought, and only looked nervously towards her, waiting for her to come forward. This was the one moment which tried Draxy's soul; there was almost vexation in her look, as hastily laying aside her bonnet she walked up to the table in front of the pulpit, and, turning towards the people, said in her clear, melodious voice,--

"Dear friends, I am sorry Deacon Swift did not explain to you that I was to read the sermon. He asked me to do so because Mr. Kinney's handwriting is very hard for a stranger to read."

She paused for a second, and then added:

"The sermon which I have chosen is one which some of you will remember. It was written and preached nine years ago. The text is in the beautiful Gospel of St. John, the 14th chapter and the 27th verse,--

"'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.'"

After pronouncing these words, Draxy paused again, and looking towards her pew, made a slight sign to Reuby. The child understood instantly, and walked swiftly to her.

"Sit in this chair here by mamma, Reuby darling," she whispered, and Reuby climbed up into the big chair on her right hand, and leaned his fair golden head against the high mahogany back. Draxy had become conscious, in that first second, that she could not read with Reuby's wistful face in sight. Also she felt a sudden yearning for the support of his nearer presence.

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you," she repeated, and went on with the sermon. Her tones were low, but clear, and her articulation so perfect that no syllable was lost; she could have been distinctly heard in a room twice as large as this. The sight was one which thrilled every heart that looked on it; no poor laboring man there was so dull of sense and soul that he did not sit drinking in the wonderful picture: the tall, queenly woman robed in simple flowing white, her hair a coronet of snowy silver; her dark blue eyes shining with a light which would have been flashingly brilliant, except for its steadfast serenity; her mouth almost smiling, as the clear tones flowed out; sitting quiet, intent, by her side, the beautiful boy, also dressed in white, his face lighted like hers by serene and yet gleaming eyes; his head covered with golden curls; his little hands folded devoutly in his lap. One coming suddenly upon the scene might well have fancied himself in another clime and age, in the presence of some rite performed by a mystic priestess clothed in samite. But the words which fell from the lips were the gentlest words of the gentlest religion earth has known; and the heart which beat under the clinging folds of the strange white garb was no priestess' heart, but a heart full, almost to breaking, of wifehood, of motherhood.

It does not need experience as an orator to give significance to the magnetic language of upturned faces. Before Draxy had read ten pages of the sermon, she was so thrilled by the consciousness that every heart before her was thrilled too, that her cheeks flushed and her whole face glowed.

The sermon had sounded eloquent when the Elder preached it; but now, from Draxy's lips, it was transcendent. As she read the closing paragraph,--

"His peace He leaves with us: his peace He gives unto us: not such peace as He knew on earth: such peace as He knows now in heaven, on the right hand of His Father; even that peace He bids us share--that peace, the peace of God which passeth understanding,"--she seemed to dilate in stature, and as she let the sermon fall on the table before her, her lifted eyes seemed arrested in mid air as by a celestial vision.

Then in a second more, she was again the humble, affectionate Draxy, whom all the women and all the little children knew and loved; looking round on them with an appealing expression, she said,--

"Dear friends, I hope I have not done wrong in standing up here and taking it upon me to read such solemn words. I felt that Mr. Kinney would like to speak to you once more through me."

Then taking little Reuby by the hand, she walked slowly back to her pew.

Then Deacon Swift made sad work of reading the hymn,--

"Blest be the tie that binds,"

And the choir made sad work of singing it. Nobody's voice could be trusted for many syllables at a time, but nobody listened to the music. Everybody was impatient to speak to Draxy. They clustered round her in the aisle; they crowded into pews to get near her: all the reticence and reserve of their New England habit had melted away in this wonderful hour. They thanked her; they touched her; they gazed at her; they did not know what to do; even Draxy's calm was visibly disturbed by the atmosphere of their great excitement.

"O Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll only read us one more! just one more! won't ye, now? Do say ye will, right off, this arternoon; or read the same one right over, ef that's any easier for ye. We'd like to hear jest that 'n' nothin' else for a year to come! O Mis' Kinney! 'twas jest like hearin' the Elder himself."

Poor Draxy was trembling. Reuben came to her rescue.

"I hope you won't take it unkindly of me," he said, "but my daughter's feeling more than's good for her. She must come home now." And Reuben drew her hand into his arm.

The people fell back sorry and conscience-stricken.

"We orter ha' known better," they said, "but she makes us forgit she's flesh 'n' blood."

"I will read you another sermon some time," said Draxy, slowly. "I shall be very glad to. But not to-day. I could not do it to-day." Then she smiled on them all, with a smile which was a benediction, and walked away holding Reuby's hand very tightly, and leaning heavily on her father's arm.

The congregation did not disperse; nothing since the Elder's death had so moved them. They gathered in knots on the church steps and in the aisles, and talked long and earnestly. There was but one sentiment, one voice.

"It's a thousand shames she ain't a man," said some of the young men.

"It 'ud be a thousand times more ef she wuz," retorted Angy Plummer. "I'd like to see the man that 'ud do what she does, a comin' right close to the very heart o' yer's ef she was your mother 'n' your sister 'n' your husband, and a blessed angel o' God, all ter once."

"But Angy, we only meant that then we could hev her for our minister," they replied.

Angy turned very red, but replied, energetically,--

"There ain't any law agin a woman's bein' minister, thet I ever heerd on. Howsomever, Mis' Kinney never'd hear to anythin' o' that kind. I don' no' for my part how she ever mustered up courage to do what she's done, so kind o' backward 'n' shy's she is for all her strength. But for my part, I wouldn't ask for no other preachin' all the rest o' my life, than jest to hear Mis' Kinney read one o' her husband's sermons every Sunday."

"Why, Angy Plummer!" burst from more lips than one. But the bold suggestion was only the half-conscious thought of every one there, and the discussion grew more and more serious. Slowly the people dispersed to their homes, but the discussion still continued. Late into night, by many a fireside, the matter was talked over, and late the next night, and the next, until a vague hope and a still vaguer purpose sprang up in the parish.

"She said she'd read another some day," they reiterated. "Most likely she'd 's soon do it next Sunday, 'n' sooner, 'cause she'd be more used to't than ef she waited a spell between."

"But it won't do to take it for granted she's goin' to, 'n' not git anybody," said Deacon Swift, in great perplexity. "I think Brother Plummer 'n' me'd better go 'n' ask her."

"No," said Angy, "let me go. I can talk it over better'n you can. I'll go."

And Angy went. The interview between the two women was long. Angy pleaded as nobody else in the parish could have done; and Draxy's heart was all on her side. But Draxy's judgment was unconvinced.

"If I could be sure, Angy, that it would be best for the people, I should not hesitate. But you know very well, if I begin I shall keep on," she said.

She consulted Reuben. His heart, too, was on the people's side, but his judgment was like hers, perplexed.

"One thing's very certain, daughter: there is not anybody they can ever find to settle here, or that they are likely to, who can preach as the Elder did. His old sermons are worlds better than any new ones they'll get."

"Yes, indeed, I know that," said Draxy. "That's what makes me feel as if I must do it."

This had been her strongest motive. Only too well she knew what would be the probable calibre of a man who would come to this poor and lonely little village which she so loved.

At last she consented to make the experiment. "I will read for you every Sunday, two sermons of Mr. Kinney's," she said, "until you hear of some one whom you would like to settle for your minister."

Angy Plummer, clapped her hands when her father repeated at tea on Thursday evening what "Mis' Kinney" had said.

"That's good's settlin' her," she exclaimed. "Oh, I never thought she'd come to it," and real tears of joy stood in Angy's eyes.

"I don't know 'bout that, Angy," replied the Deacon; "there's a good deal to be thought on, fust 'n' last. Folks '11 talk like everythin', I expect, 'n' say we've got a woman preacher. It wouldn't never do for any great length o' time; but it will be a blessin' to hear some th' Elder's good rousin' comfortin' sermons for a spell, arter the stuff we hev been a havin', 'n' they can't say she's any more 'n' a reader anyhow. That's quite different from preachin'."

"Of course it is," said Angy, who was wise enough to keep some of her thoughts and hopes to herself; "they're's different's any other two things. I don't suppose anybody'd say you was a settin' up to preach, if you'd ha' read the sermons, 'n' I don't see why they need to any more o' Mis' Kinney." And so, on the next Sunday Draxy's ministry to her husband's people began. Again with softened and gladdened faces the little congregation looked up to the fair, tall priestess with her snow-white robes and snow-white hair, and gleaming steadfast eyes, standing meekly between the communion-table and the chair in which sat her golden-haired little son. Her voice was clearer and stronger than ever; and there was a calm peacefulness in her whole atmosphere which had not been there at first.

Again the people crowded around, and thanked her, and clasped her hands. This time she answered them with cordial good cheer, and did not tremble. To little Reuby also they spoke gratefully.

"You help too, Reuby, don't you?" said Angy Plummer,--"do you like it?"

"Very much, ma'am; mamma says I help, but I think she's mistaken," replied the little fellow, archly.

"Yes you do, you darling," said Mrs. Plummer, stooping and kissing him tenderly. Angy Plummer loved Reuby. She never looked at him without thinking that but for his existence the true mother-heart would perhaps never have been born in her bosom.

The reading of the sermons grew easier and easier to Draxy, Sunday by Sunday. She became conscious of a strange sense of being lifted out of herself, as soon as she began to speak. She felt more and more as if it were her husband speaking through her; and she felt more and more closely drawn into relation with the people.

"Oh, father dear," she said more than once, "I don't know how I shall ever give it up when the time comes. It makes me so happy: I feel almost as if I could see Seth standing right by me and holding my gown while I read. And father, dear," she proceeded in a lower, slower voice, "I don't know but you'll think it wrong; I'm almost afraid to tell you, but sometimes I say words that aren't in the sermons; just a sentence or two, where I think Seth would put it in if he were here now; and I almost believe he puts the very words into my head."

She paused and looked anxiously and inquiringly at her father.

"No, Draxy," replied Reuben solemnly, "I don't think it wrong. I feel more and more, every Sunday I listen to you, as if the Lord had set you apart for this thing; and I don't believe he'd send any other angel except your husband on the errand of helpin' you."

The summer passed, and the parish gave no signs of readiness for a new minister. When Draxy spoke of it, she was met by such heartfelt grief on all sides that she was silenced. At last she had a long, serious talk with the deacons, which set her mind more at rest. They had, it seemed, consulted several neighboring ministers, Elder Williams among the number, and they had all advised that while the congregation seemed so absorbed in interest, no change should be made.

"Elder Williams he sez he'll come over regular for the communion," said Deacon Plummer, "and for baptisms whenever we want him, and thet's the main thing, for, thank the Lord, we haint many funerals 'n course of a year. And Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll excuse my makin' so bold, I'll tell ye jest what Elder Williams said about ye: sez he, It's my opinion that ef there was ever a woman born thet was jest cut out for a minister to a congregation, it's that Elder's wife o' your'n; and sez we to him 'Thet's jest what the hull town thinks, sir, and it's our opinion that ef we should try to settle anythin' in the shape of a man in this parish, there wouldn't be anythin' but empty pews for him to preach to, for the people'd all be gone up to Mis' Kinney's.'"

Draxy smiled in spite of herself. But her heart was very solemn.

"It is a great responsibility, Deacon Plummer," she said, "and I feel afraid all the time. But my father thinks I ought to do it, and I am so happy in it, it seems as if it could not be a mistake."

As months went on, her misgivings grew less and less; and her impulses to add words of her own to her husband's sermons grew more and more frequent. She could not but see that she held the hearts of the people in her hands to mould them like wax; and her intimate knowledge of their conditions and needs made it impossible for her to refrain from sometimes speaking the words she knew they ought to hear. Whenever she did so at any length, she laid her manuscript on the table, that they might know the truth. Her sense of honesty would not let her do otherwise. It was long before anybody but Angy Plummer understood the meaning of these intervals. The rest supposed she knew parts of the sermon by heart.

But at last came a day when her soul was so stirred within her, that she rose up boldly before her people and said,--

"I have not brought any sermon of Mr. Kinney's to read to you to-day. I am going to speak to you myself. I am so grieved, so shocked at events which have taken place in this village, the past week, that I cannot help speaking about them. And I find among Mr. Kinney's sermons no one which meets this state of things."

The circumstances to which Draxy alluded had been some disgraceful scenes of excitement in connection with the Presidential election. Party spirit had been growing higher and higher in Clairvend for some years; and when, on the reckoning of the returns on this occasion, the victorious party proved to have a majority of but three, sharp quarreling had at once broken out. Accusations of cheating and lying were freely bandied, and Deacon Plummer and George Thayer had nearly come to blows on the steps of the Town House, at high noon, just as the school-children were going home. Later in the afternoon there had been a renewal of the contest in the village store, and it had culminated in a fight, part of which Draxy herself had chanced to see. Long and anxiously she pondered, that night, the question of her duty. She dared not keep silent.

"It would be just hypocrisy and nothing less," she exclaimed to herself, "for me to stand up there and read them one of Seth's sermons, when I am burning to tell them how shamefully they have behaved. But I suppose it will be the last time I shall speak to them. They'll never want to hear me again."

She did not tell her father of her resolution till they were near the church. Reuben started, but in a moment he said, deliberately,--

"You're quite right, daughter; may the Lord bless you!"

At Draxy's first words, a thrill of astonishment ran over the whole congregation. Everybody knew what was coming. George Thayer colored scarlet to the roots of his hair, and the color never faded till the sermon was ended. Deacon Plummer coughed nervously, and changed his position so as to cover his mouth with his hand. Angy put her head down on the front of the pew and began to cry.

"Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's," came in clear ringing tones from Draxy's lips. Then she proceeded, in simple and gentle words, to set forth the right of every man to his own opinions and convictions; the duty of having earnest convictions and acting up to them in all the affairs of life. George Thayer and the Deacon looked easier. Her words seemed, after all, rather a justification of their vehemence of feeling.

But when she came to speak of the "things that are God's," her words pierced their very souls. The only thing that enabled George Thayer to bear up under it at all was, as he afterwards said in the store, keeping his "eyes fixed steady on old Plummer," "'cause, you know, boys, I never jined the church nor made any kind o' profession o' goin' in for any things o' God's, nohow; not but what I've often wished I could see my way to: but sez I to myself, ef he kin stan' it I kin, an' so I held out. But I tell you, boys, I'd rather drive the wust six-hoss team I ever got hold on down Breakneck Hill 'n the dark, than set there agin under thet woman's eyes, a blazin' one minnit, 'n fillin' with tears the next: 'n' I don't care what anybody sez; I'm a goin' to see her an' tell her that she needn't be afeard o' ever hevin to preach to me s' good s' by my name, in the meeting 'us agin, by thunder!"

"Suppose the blessed Saviour had come walking through our streets, looking for his children last Wednesday," said Draxy, "He would say to himself, 'I shall know them, wherever I find them: I have given them so many badges, they will be sure to be wearing some of them. They suffer long and are kind; they envy not, vaunt not, are not puffed up: they are not easily provoked, think no evil, seek not their own, rejoice in the truth; they do not behave unseemly.' Alas, would the dear Jesus have turned away, believing Himself a stranger and friendless in our village? Which one of you, dear men, could have sprung forward to take him by the hand? What terrible silence would have fallen upon you as he looked round on your angry faces!"

Tears were rolling down little Reuby's face. Slyly he tried to wipe them away, first with one hand, then with the other, lest his mother should see them. He had never in his life seen such an expression of suffering on her face. He had never heard such tones of pain in her voice. He was sorely perplexed; and the sight of his distressed little face was almost more than the people could bear.

When Draxy stopped speaking, Deacon Plummer did a manly thing. He rose instantly, and saying "Let us pray," poured out as humble and contrite a petition for forgiveness as ever went up on wings of faith to Heaven. It cleared the air, like sweet rain; it rolled a burden off everybody's heart--most of all, perhaps, off Draxy's.

"He is not angry, after all," she said; "God has laid it to his heart;" and when, at the end of the services, the old man came up to her and held out his hand, she took it in both of hers, and said, "Thank you, dear Deacon Plummer, thank you for helping me so much to-day. Your prayer was better for the people than my little sermon, a great deal." The deacon wrung her hands, but did not speak a word, only stooped and kissed Reuby.

After this day, Draxy had a new hold on the people. They had really felt very little surprise at her speaking to them as she did. She had slowly and insensibly to herself grown into the same place which the Elder had had in their regard; the same in love and confidence, but higher in reverence, and admiration, for although she sympathized just as lovingly as he in all their feelings, they never for a moment ceased to feel that her nature was on a higher plane than his. They could not have put this in words, but they felt it.

"Donno, how 'tis," they said, "but Mis' Kinney, even when she's closest to ye, an' a doin' for ye all the time, don't seem just like a mortal woman."

"It's easy enough to know how 'tis," replied Angy Plummer, once, in a moment of unguarded frankness, "Mis Kinney is a kind o' daughter o' God, somthin' as Jesus Christ was His Son. It's just the way Jesus Christ used to go round among folks, 's near 's I can make out; 'n' I for one, don't believe that God jest sent Him, once for all, 'n' haint never sent anybody else near us, all this time. I reckon He's a sendin' down sons and daughters to us oftener 'n' we think."

"Angy Plummer, I call that downright blasphemy," exclaimed her mother.

"Well, call it what you're a mind to," retorted the crisp Angy. "It's what I believe."

"'Tis blasphemy though, to be sayin' it to folks that can't understand," she muttered to herself as she left the room, "ef blasphemy means what Mis' Kinney sez it does, to speak stupidly."

Three years had passed. The novelty of Draxy's relation to her people had worn off. The neighboring people had ceased to wonder and to talk; and the neighboring ministers had ceased to doubt and question. Clairvend and she had a stout supporter in old Elder Williams, who was looked upon as a high authority throughout the region. He always stayed at Reuben Miller's house, when he came to the town, and his counsel and sympathy were invaluable to Draxy. Sometimes he said jocosely, "I am the pastor of Brother Kinney's old parish and Mis' Kinney is my curate, and I wish everybody had as good an one."

It finally grew to be Draxy's custom to read one of her husband's sermons in the forenoon, and to talk to the people informally in the afternoon. Sometimes she wrote out what she wished to say, but usually she spoke without any notes. She also wrote hymns which she read to them, and which the choir sometimes sang. She was now fully imbued with the feeling that everything which she could do, belonged to her people. Next to Reuben, they filled her heart; the sentiment was after all but an expanded and exalted motherhood. Strangers sometimes came to Clairvend to hear her preach, for of course the fame of the beautiful white-robed woman-preacher could not be confined to her own village. This always troubled Draxy very much.

"If we were not so far out of the world, I should have to give it up," she said; "I know it is proper they should come; but it seems to me just as strange as if they were to walk into the study in the evening when I am teaching Reuby. I can't make it seem right; and when I see them writing down what I say, it just paralyzes me."

It might have seemed so to Draxy, but it did not to her hearers. No one would have supposed her conscious of any disturbing presence. And more than one visitor carried away with him written records of her eloquent words.

One of her most remarkable sermons was called "The Gospel of Mystery."

The text was Psalm xix. 2:--

"Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge."

First she dwelt on the sweet meaning of the word Gospel. "Dear friends," she said, "it is a much simpler word than we realize; it is only 'good news,' 'good tidings.' We get gospels every day. Our children send us good news of their lives. What gospels of joy are such letters! And nations to nations send good news: a race of slaves is set free; a war has ended; shiploads of grain have been sent to the starving; a good man has been made ruler; these are good tidings--gospels."

After dwelling on this first, simplest idea of the word, until every one of her hearers had begun to think vividly of all the good tidings journeying in words back and forth between heart and heart, continent and continent, she spoke of the good news which nature tells without words. Here she was eloquent. Subtle as the ideas were, they were yet clothed in the plain speech which the plain people understood: the tidings of the spring, of the winter, of the river, of the mountain; of gold, of silver, of electric fire; of blossom and fruit; of seed-time and harvest; of suns and stars and waters,--these were the "speech" which "day uttered unto day."

But "knowledge was greater" than speech: night in her silence "showed" what day could not tell. Here the faces of the people grew fixed and earnest. In any other hands than Draxy's the thought would have been too deep for them, and they would have turned from it wearily. But her simplicity controlled them always. "Stand on your door-steps on a dark night," she said,--"a night so dark that you can see nothing: looking out into this silent darkness, you will presently feel a far greater sense of how vast the world is, than you do in broad noon-day, when you can see up to the very sun himself."

More than one young face in the congregation showed that this sentence struck home and threw light on hitherto unexplained emotions. "This is like what I mean," continued Draxy, "by the Gospel of Mystery, the good tidings of the things we cannot understand. This gospel is everywhere. Not the wisest man that has ever lived can fully understand the smallest created thing: a drop of water, a grain of dust, a beam of light, can baffle his utmost research. So with our own lives, with our own hearts; every day brings a mystery--sin and grief and death: all these are mysteries; gospels of mystery, good tidings of mystery; yes, good tidings! These are what prove that God means to take us into another world after this one; into a world where all things which perplexed us here will be explained.... O my dear friends!" she exclaimed at last, clasping her hands tightly, "thank God for the things which we cannot understand: except for them, how should we ever be sure of immortality?"

Then she read them a hymn called "The Gospel of Mystery." Coming after the sermon, it was sweet and clear to all the people's hearts. Before the sermon it would have seemed obscure.

The Gospel of Mystery.

Good tidings every day,
God's messengers ride fast.
We do not hear one half they say,
There is such noise on the highway,
Where we must wait while they ride past.

Their banners blaze and shine
With Jesus Christ's dear name,
And story, how by God's design
He saves us, in His love divine,
And lifts us from our sin and shame.

Their music fills the air,
Their songs sing all of Heaven;
Their ringing trumpet peals declare
What crowns to souls who fight and dare,
And win, shall presently be given.

Their hands throw treasures round
Among the multitude.
No pause, no choice, no count, no bound,
No questioning how men are found,
If they be evil or be good.

But all the banners bear
Some words we cannot read;
And mystic echoes in the air,
Which borrow from the songs no share,
In sweetness all the songs exceed.

And of the multitude,
No man but in his hand
Holds some great gift misunderstood,
Some treasure, for whose use or good
His ignorance sees no demand.

These are the tokens lent
By immortality;
Birth-marks of our divine descent;
Sureties of ultimate intent,
God's Gospel of Eternity.

Good tidings every day.
The messengers ride fast;
Thanks be to God for all they say;
There is such noise on the highway,
Let us keep still while they ride past.

But the sermon which of all others her people loved best was one on the Love of God. This one she was often asked to repeat,--so often, that she said one day to Angy, who asked for it, "Why, Angy, I am ashamed to. Everybody must know it by heart. I am sure I do."

"Yes, that's jest the way we do know it, Mis' Kinney, by heart," said the affectionate Angy, "an' that's jest the reason we want it so often. I never told ye what George Thayer said the last time you read it to us, did I?"

"No, Angy," said Draxy.

"Well, he was singing in the choir that day, 'n place o' his brother, who was sick; 'n' he jumped up on one o' the seats 'n' swung his hat, jest 's you was goin' down the aisle, 'n' we all ketched hold on him to pull him down, 'n' try to hush him; for you can't never tell what George Thayer'll do when his blood's up, 'n' we was afraid he was agoin' to holler right out, 's ef he was in the town-'us; but sez he, in a real low, trembly kind o' voice,

"'Ye needn't be afraid, I ain't agoin' to whoop;--taint that way I feel,--but I had to do suthin' or I should bust': 'n' there was reel tears in his eyes--George Thayer's eyes, Mis' Kinney! Then he jumped down, 'n' sez he, 'I'll tell ye what that sermon's like: it's jest like one great rainbow all round ye, and before 'n' behind 'n' everywheres, 'n' the end on't reaches way to the Throne; it jest dazzles my eyes, that's what it does.'"

This sermon had concluded with the following hymn, which Draxy had written when Reuby was only a few weeks old:--

The Love of God.

Like a cradle rocking, rocking,
Silent, peaceful, to and fro,
Like a mother's sweet looks dropping
On the little face below,
Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning,
Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow;
Falls the light of God's face bending
Down and watching us below.

And as feeble babes that suffer,
Toss and cry, and will not rest,
Are the ones the tender mother
Holds the closest, loves the best,
So when we are weak and wretched,
By our sins weighed down, distressed,
Then it is that God's great patience
Holds us closest, loves us best.

O great Heart of God! whose loving
Cannot hindered be nor crossed;
Will not weary, will not even
In our death itself be lost--
Love divine! of such great loving,
Only mothers know the cost--
Cost of love, which all love passing,
Gave a Son to save the lost.

There is little more to tell of Draxy's ministry. It closed as suddenly as it had begun.

It was just five years after the Elder's death that she found herself, one Sunday morning, feeling singularly feeble and lifeless. She was bewildered at the sensation, for in her apparent health she had never felt it before. She could hardly walk, could hardly stand. She felt also a strange apathy which prevented her being alarmed.

"It is nothing," she said; "I dare say most women are so all the time; I don't feel in the least ill;" and she insisted upon it that no one should remain at home with her. It was a communion Sunday and Elder Williams was to preach.

"How fortunate it is that Mr. Williams was here!" she thought languidly, as she seated herself in the eastern bay-window, to watch Reuby down the hill. He walked between his grandparents, holding each by the hand, talking merrily and looking up into their faces.

Draxy watched them until their figures became dim, black specks, and finally faded out of sight. Then she listened dreamily to the notes of the slow-tolling bell; when it ceased she closed her eyes, and her thoughts ran back, far back to the days when she was "little Draxy" and Elder Kinney was only her pastor. Slowly she lived her life since then over again, its joy and its sorrow alike softened in her tender, brooding thoughts. The soft whirring sound of a bird's wings in the air roused her: as it flew past the window she saw that it was one of the yellow-hammers, which still built their nests in the maple-grove behind the house.

"Ah," thought she, "I suppose it can't be one of the same birds we saw that day. But it's going on errands just the same. I wonder, dear Seth, if mine are nearly done."

At that instant a terrible pain shot through her left side and forced a sharp cry from her lips. She half rose exclaiming, "Reuby, oh, darling!" and sank back in her chair unconscious.

Just as Elder Williams was concluding the communion service, the door of the church was burst open, and old Ike, tottering into the aisle, cried out in a shrill voice:--

"Mis' Kinney's dead! Mis' Kinney's dead!"

The scene that followed could not be told. With flying feet the whole congregation sped up the steep hill--Angy Plummer half lifting, half dragging Reuby, and the poor grandparents supported on each side by strong men. As they drew near the house, they saw Draxy apparently sitting by the open window.

"O mamma! why that's mamma," shrieked Reuby, "she was sitting just so when we came away. She isn't dead."

Elder Williams reached the house first, Hannah met him on the threshold, tearless.

"She dead, sir. She's cold as ice. She must ha' been dead a long time."

Old Ike had been rambling around the house, and observing from the outside that Draxy's position was strange, had compelled Hannah to go into the room.

"She was a smilin' just's you see her now," said Hannah, "'n' I couldn't ha' touched her to move her more'n I could ha' touched an angel."

There are griefs, as well as joys, to which words offer insult. Draxy was dead!

Three days later they laid her by the side of her husband, and the gray-haired, childless old people, and the golden-haired, fatherless and motherless boy, returned together broken-hearted to the sunny parsonage.

On the village a terrible silence, that could be felt, settled down; a silence in which sorrowing men and women crept about, weeping as those who cannot be comforted.

Then week followed after week, and soon all things seemed as they had seemed before. But Draxy never died to her people. Her hymns are still sung in the little lonely church; her gospel still lives in the very air of those quiet hills, and the people smile through their tears as they teach her name to little children.

[The end]
Helen Hunt Jackson's short story: The Elder's Wife

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