Saxe Holms Stories | Page 5

She could not see how they were to live; the three rooms over the store could easily be fitted up into an endurable dwelling-place; but what was to supply the food which the farm had hitherto given them? There was literally no way open for a man or a woman to earn money in that little farming village. Each family took care of itself and hired no service, except in the short season of haying. Draxy was an excellent seamstress, but she knew very well that the price of all the sewing hired in the village in a year would not keep them from starving. The Store must be given up, because her father would have no money with which to buy goods. In fact, for a long time, most of his purchases had been made by exchanging the spare produce of his farm at large stores in the neighboring towns. Still Draxy never wavered, and because she did not waver Reuben did not die. The farm was sold at auction, with the stock, the utensils, and all of the house-furniture which was not needed to make the store chambers habitable. The buyer boasted in the village that he had not given more than two thirds of the real value of the place. After Reuben's debts were all paid, there remained just one thousand dollars to be put into the bank.
"Why, father! That is a fortune," said Draxy, when he told her. "I did not suppose we should have anything, and it is glorious not to owe any man a cent."
It was early in April when the Millers moved into the "store chambers." The buyer of their farm was a hard-hearted, penurious man, a deacon of the church in which Draxy had been baptized. He had never been known to give a penny to any charity excepting Foreign Missions. His wife and children had never received at his hands the smallest gift. But even his heart was touched by Draxy's cheerful acquiescence in the hard change, and her pathetic attempts to make the new home pleasant. The next morning after Deacon White took possession, he called out over the fence to poor Reuben, who stood listlessly on the store steps, trying not to look across at the house which had been his.
"I say, Miller, that gal o' your'n is what I call the right sort o' woman, up an' down. I hain't said much to her, but I've noticed that she set a heap by this garding; an' I expect she'll miss the flowers more'n anything; now my womenfolks they won't have anythin' to do with such truck; an' if she's a mind to take care on't jest's she used ter, I'm willin'; I guess we shall be the gainers on't."
"Thank you, Deacon White; Draxy'll be very glad," was all Reuben could reply. Something in his tone touched the man's flinty heart still more; and before he half knew what he was going to say, he had added,--
"An' there's the vegetable part on't, too, Miller. I never was no hand to putter with garden sass. If you'll jest keep that up and go halves, fair and reg'lar, you're welcome."
This was tangible help. Reuben's face lighted up.
"I thank you with all my heart," he replied. "That'll be a great help to me; and I reckon you'll like our vegetables, too," he said, half smiling, for he knew very well that nothing but potatoes and turnips had been seen on Deacon White's table for years.
Then Reuben went to find Draxy; when he told her, the color came into her face, and she shut both her hands with a quick, nervous motion, which was habitual to her under excitement.
"Oh, father, we can almost live off the garden," said she. "I told you we should not starve."
But still new sorrows, and still greater changes, were in store for the poor, disheartened family. In June a malignant fever broke out in the village, and in one short month Reuben and Jane had laid their two youngest boys in the grave-yard. There was a dogged look, which was not all sorrow, on Reuben's face as he watched the sexton fill up the last grave. Sam and Jamie, at any rate, would not know any more of the discouragement and hardship of life.
Jane, too, mourned her boys not as mothers mourn whose sons have a birthright of gladness. Jane was very tired of the world.
Draxy was saddened by the strange, solemn presence of death. But her brothers had not been her companions. She began suddenly to feel a sense of new and greater relationship to them, now that she thought of them as angels; she was half terrified and bewildered at the feeling that now, for the first time, they were near to her.
On the evening after