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,--