Saxe Holms Stories | Page 4

of the rockers. For the first part of
the evening, Jane always knitted; but by eight o'clock the hands relaxed,
the needles dropped, the tired head fell back against the chair, and she
was fast asleep.
The boys were by themselves in the farther corner of the room, playing
checkers or doing sums, or reading the village newspaper. Reuben and
Draxy were as alone as if the house had been empty. Sometimes he
read to her in a whisper; sometimes he pointed slowly along the lines in
silence, and the wise little eyes from above followed intently. All
questions and explanations were saved till the next morning, when
Draxy, still curled up like a kitten, would sit mounted on the top of the
buckwheat barrel in the store, while her father lay stretched on the
counter, smoking. They never talked to each other, except when no one
could hear; that is, they never spoke in words; there was mysterious
and incessant communication between them whenever they were
together, as there is between all true lovers.
At nine o'clock Reuben always shut the book, and said, "Kiss me, little
daughter." Draxy kissed him, and said, "Good-night, father dear," and
that was all. The other children called him "pa," as was the universal
custom in the village. But Draxy even in her babyhood had never once
used the word. Until she was seven or eight years old she called him
"Farver;" after that, always "father dear." Then Reuben would wake
Jane up, sighing usually, "Poor mother, how tired she is!" Sometimes
Jane said when she kissed Draxy, at the door of her little room, "Why
don't you kiss your pa for good-night?"
"I kissed father before you waked up, ma," was always Draxy's quiet
answer.

And so the years went on. There was much discomfort, much
deprivation in Reuben Miller's house. Food was not scarce; the farm
yielded enough, such as it was, very coarse and without variety; but
money was hard to get; the store seemed to be absolutely
unremunerative, though customers were not wanting; and the store and
the farm were all that Reuben Miller had in the world. But in spite of
the poor food; in spite of the lack of most which money buys; in spite
of the loyal, tender, passionate despair of her devotion to her father,
Draxy grew fairer and fairer, stronger and stronger. At fourteen her
physique was that of superb womanhood. She had inherited her body
wholly from her father. For generations back, the Millers had been
marked for their fine frames. The men were all over six feet tall, and
magnificently made; and the women were much above the average size
and strength. On Draxy's fourteenth birthday she weighed one hundred
and fifty pounds, and measured five feet six inches in height. Her
coloring was that of an English girl, and her bright brown hair fell
below her waist in thick masses. To see the face of a simple-hearted
child, eager but serene, determined but lovingly gentle, surrounded and
glorified by such splendid physical womanhood, was a rare sight.
Reuben Miller's eyes filled with tears often as he secretly watched his
daughter, and said to himself, "Oh, what is to be her fate! what man is
worthy of the wife she will be?" But the village people saw only a
healthy, handsome girl, "overgrown," they thought, and "as queer as
her father before her," they said, for Draxy, very early in life, had
withdrawn herself somewhat from the companionship of the young
people of the town.
As for Jane, she loved and reverenced Draxy, very much as she did
Reuben, with touching devotion, but without any real comprehension
of her nature. If she sometimes felt a pang in seeing how much more
Reuben talked with Draxy than with her, how much more he sought to
be with Draxy than with her, she stifled it, and, reproaching herself for
disloyalty to each, set herself to work for them harder than before.
In Draxy's sixteenth year the final blow of misfortune fell upon Reuben
Miller's head.

A brother of Jane's, for whom, in an hour of foolish generosity, Reuben
had indorsed a note of a considerable amount, failed. Reuben's farm
was already heavily mortgaged. There was nothing to be done but to
sell it. Purchasers were not plenty nor eager; everybody knew that the
farm must be sold for whatever it would bring, and each man who
thought of buying hoped to profit somewhat, in a legitimate and
Christian way, by Reuben's extremity.
Reuben's courage would have utterly forsaken him now, except for
Draxy's calmness. Jane was utterly unnerved; wept silently from
morning till night, and implored Reuben to see her brother's creditors,
and beg them to release him from his obligation. But Draxy, usually so
gentle,