Saxe Holms Stories | Page 3

that he could say to this little child what he could
not say to her mother; that he often detected himself in a desire to ask
of this babe advice or suggestion which he never dreamed of asking
from his wife.
But Draxy was wise. She had the sagacity which comes from great
tenderness and loyalty, combined with a passionate nature. In such a
woman's soul there is sometimes an almost supernatural instinct. She
will detect danger and devise safety with a rapidity and ingenuity
which are incredible. But to such a nature will also come the subtlest
and deepest despairs of which the human heart is capable. The same
instinct which foresees and devises for the loved ones will also
recognize their most hidden traits, their utmost possibilities, their
inevitable limitations, with a completeness and infallibility akin to that
of God Himself. Jane Miller, all her life long, believed in the possibility
of Reuben's success; charged his failures to outside occasions, and
hoped always in a better day to come. Draxy, early in her childhood,
instinctively felt, what she was far too young consciously to know, that
her father would never be a happier man; that "things" would always go
against him. She had a deeper reverence for the uprightness and sweet
simplicity of his nature than her mother ever could have had. She
comprehended, Jane believed; Draxy felt, Jane saw. Without ever
having heard of such a thing as fate, little Draxy recognized that her
father was fighting with it, and that fate was the stronger! Her little
arms clasped closer and closer round his neck, and her serene blue eyes,

so like his, and yet so wondrously unlike, by reason of their latent fire
and strength, looked this unseen enemy steadfastly in the face, day by
day.
She was a wonderful child. Her physical health was perfect. The first
ten years of her life were spent either out of doors, or in her father's lap.
He would not allow her to attend the district school; all she knew she
learned from him. Reuben Miller had never looked into an English
grammar or a history, but he knew Shakespeare by heart, and much of
Homer; a few odd volumes of Walter Scott's novels, some old voyages,
a big family Bible, and a copy of Byron, were the only other books in
his house. As Draxy grew older, Reuben now and then borrowed from
the minister books which he thought would do her good; but the child
and he both loved Homer and the Bible so much better than any later
books, that they soon drifted back to them. It was a little sad, except
that it was so beautiful, to see the isolated life these two led in the
family. The boys were good, sturdy, noisy boys. They went to school in
the winter and worked on the farm in the summer, like all farmers' boys.
Reuben, the oldest, was eighteen when Draxy was ten; he was hired, by
a sort of indenture, for three years, on a neighboring farm, and came
home only on alternate Sundays. Jamie, and Sam, and Lawton were at
home; young as they were, they did men's service in many ways. Jamie
had a rare gift for breaking horses, and for several years the only ready
money which the little farm had yielded was the price of the colts
which Jamie raised and trained so admirably that they sold well. The
other two boys were strong and willing, but they had none of their
father's spirituality, or their mother's gentleness. Thus, in spite of
Reuben Miller's deep love for his children, he was never at ease in his
boys' presence; and, as they grew older, nothing but the influence of
their mother's respect for their father prevented their having an
impatient contempt for his unlikeness to the busy, active, thrifty
farmers of the neighborhood.
It was a strange picture that the little kitchen presented on a winter
evening. Reuben sat always on the left hand of the big fire-place, with a
book on his knees. Draxy was curled up on an old-fashioned
cherry-wood stand close to his chair, but so high that she rested her

little dimpled chin on his head. A tallow candle stood on a high bracket,
made from a fungus which Reuben had found in the woods. When the
candle flared and dripped, Draxy sprang up on the stand, and, poised on
one foot, reached over her father's head to snuff it. She looked like a
dainty fairy half-floating in the air, but nobody knew it. Jane sat in a
high-backed wooden rocking-chair, which had a flag bottom and a
ruffled calico cushion, and could only rock a very few inches back and
forth, owing to the loss of half of one