Saxe Holms Stories | Page 7

the boys had both become engaged to
daughters of the farmers for whom they had been working, and would
very soon take their positions as sons-in-law on these farms.
The store was sold, the furniture packed, and Reuben Miller, with his
wife and child, set his face eastward to begin life anew. The change
from the rich wheat fields and glorious forests of Western New York,
to the bare stony stretches of the Atlantic sea-board, is a severe one. No
adult heart can make it without a struggle. When Reuben looked out of
the car windows upon the low gray barrens through which he was
nearing his journey end, his soul sank within him. It was sunset; the sea
glistened like glass, and was as red as the sky. Draxy could not speak
for delight; tears stood in her eyes, and she took hold of her father's
hand. But Reuben and Jane saw only the desolate rocks, and treeless,
shrubless, almost--it seemed to them--grassless fields, and an

unutterable sense of gloom came over them. It was a hot and stifling
day; a long drought had parched and shriveled every living thing; and
the white August dust lay everywhere.
Captain Melville lived in the older part of the town near the water. The
houses were all wooden, weather-beaten, and gray, and had great
patches of yellow lichen on their walls and roofs; thin rims of
starved-looking grass edged the streets, and stray blades stood up here
and there among the old sunken cobble-stones which made the
pavements.
The streets seemed deserted; the silence and the sombre color, and the
strange low plashing of the water against the wharves, oppressed even
Draxy's enthusiastic heart. Her face fell, and she exclaimed
involuntarily, "Oh, what a lonesome place!" Checking herself, she
added, "but it's only the twilight makes it look so, I expect."
They had some difficulty in finding the house. The lanes and streets
seemed inextricably tangled; the little party was shy of asking direction,
and they were all disappointed and grieved, more than they owned to
themselves, that they had not been met at the station. At last they found
the house. Timidly Draxy lifted the great brass knocker. It looked to her
like splendor, and made her afraid. It fell more heavily than she
supposed it would, and the clang sounded to her over-wrought nerves
as if it filled the whole street. No one came. They looked at the
windows. The curtains were all down. There was no sign of life about
the place. Tears came into Jane's eyes. She was worn out with the
fatigue of the journey.
"Oh dear, oh dear," she said, "I wish we hadn't come."
"Pshaw, mother," said Reuben, with a voice cheerier than his heart,
"very likely they never got our last letter, and don't know we were to be
here to-day," and he knocked again.
Instantly a window opened in the opposite house, and a jolly voice said,
"My gracious," and in the twinkling of an eye the jolly owner of the
jolly voice had opened her front door and run bareheaded across the

street, and was shaking hands with Reuben and Jane and Draxy, all
three at once, and talking so fast that they could hardly understand her.
"My gracious I my gracious! Won't Mrs. Melville be beat! Of course
you're her folks she was expecting from the West, ain't you? I
mistrusted it somehow as soon as I heard the big knock. Now I'll jest let
you in the back door. Oh my, Mis' Melville'll never get over this; to
think of her be'n' away, an' she's been lookin' and looking and worryin'
for two weeks, because she didn't hear from you; and only last night
Captain Melville he said he'd write to-day if they didn't hear.'"
"We wrote," said Draxy, in her sweet, low voice, "we wrote to Aunt
Emma that we'd come to-day."
"Now did you!" said the jolly voice. "Well, that's jest the way. You see
your letter's gone somewhere else, and now Mis' Melville she's gone
to"--the rest of the sentence was lost, for the breathless little woman
was running round the house to the back door.
In a second more the upper half of the big old-fashioned door had
swung open, to Draxy's great delight, who exclaimed, "Oh, father, we
read about such doors as this in that Knickerbocker book, don't you
remember?"
But good Mrs. Carr was drawing them into the house, giving them
neighborly welcome, all the while running on in such voluble
ejaculatory talk that the quiet, saddened, recluse-like people were
overwhelmed with embarrassment, and hardly knew which way to turn.
Presently she saw their confusion and interrupted herself with--
"Well, well, you're jest all tired out with your journey, an' a cup o' tea's
the