Helen Hunt Jackson

“ 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. ”

“ Again swift months rolled on, and peace and joy brooded over the parsonage. Draxy's life with her child was something too beautiful to be told in words; her wifehood was lovely, was intense; but her motherhood was greater. Day and night her love for her boy protected and guided him, like pillar of cloud, like pillar of fire. She knew no weariness, no feebleness; she grew constantly stronger and more beautiful, and the child grew stronger and more beautiful, with a likeness to her and a oneness with her which were marvelous. ”

“ In Draxy's large nature,—her pure, steadfast, loving soul, quickened and exalted by the swift currents of an exquisitely attuned and absolutely healthful body,—this new life of love and passion wrought a change which was vivid and palpable to the commonest eyes. Men and women upon whom she smiled, in passing, felt themselves lifted and drawn, they knew not how. A sentiment of love, which had almost reverence in it, grew up towards her in the hearts of the people. A certain touch of sadness, of misgiving, mingled with it. ”

“ The news had gone all through the village on Saturday night, that Deacon Swift was to read one of Elder Kinney's sermons the next day. The whole parish was present; not a man, not a woman was missing except those who were kept at home by sickness. A tender solemnity was in every face. Not often does it happen to a man to be so beloved by a whole community as was Elder Kinney by this people.
With some embarrassment and hesitation, Deacon Swift read the hymns and made one of the prayers; Deacon Plummer made the other. Then there came a pause. Draxy flushed scarlet and half rose in her pew. ”

“ Kinney, it's all Christ," she said, slowly and hesitatingly, slipping her hand into his, and looking up at him so lovingly that his face flushed, and he threw his arms around her, and only felt a thousand times more that heaven had come to mean but one thing to him.
"Darling," he whispered, "would you feel so if I were to die and leave you alone?"
"Yes, I think so," said Draxy, still more slowly, and turning very pale. "You never can really leave me, and no human being can be really alone; it would still be all Christ, and it would be living His life and God's still;" ”

“ Deacon Plummer coughed nervously, and changed his position so as to cover his mouth with his hand. Angy put her head down on the front of the pew and began to cry.
"Render, therefore, unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's and unto God the things that are God's," came in clear ringing tones from Draxy's lips. Then she proceeded, in simple and gentle words, to set forth the right of every man to his own opinions and convictions; the duty of having earnest convictions and acting up to them in all the affairs of life. George Thayer and the Deacon looked easier. ”

“ There is little more to tell of Draxy's ministry. It closed as suddenly as it had begun.
It was just five years after the Elder's death that she found herself, one Sunday morning, feeling singularly feeble and lifeless. She was bewildered at the sensation, for in her apparent health she had never felt it before. She could hardly walk, could hardly stand. She felt also a strange apathy which prevented her being alarmed.
"It is nothing," she said; "I dare say most women are so all the time; I don't feel in the least ill;" and she insisted upon it that no one should remain at home with her. ”

“ Three days later they laid her by the side of her husband, and the gray-haired, childless old people, and the golden-haired, fatherless and motherless boy, returned together broken-hearted to the sunny parsonage.
On the village a terrible silence, that could be felt, settled down; a silence in which sorrowing men and women crept about, weeping as those who cannot be comforted.
Then week followed after week, and soon all things seemed as they had seemed before. But Draxy never died to her people. Her hymns are still sung in the little lonely church ”

“ It had a mixture of humility and of gracious bestowal in it, of entreaty and of benediction, which were ineffably beautiful and winning. It is ever so when a woman, who is as strong as she is sweet, comes into the fullness of her womanhood's estate of love. Her joy overflows on all; currents of infinite compassion set towards those who must miss that by which she is thrilled; her incredulity of her own bliss is forever questioning humbly; she feels herself forever in presence of her lover, at once rich and free and a queen, and poor and chained and a vassal. ”

“ Nobody's voice could be trusted for many syllables at a time, but nobody listened to the music. Everybody was impatient to speak to Draxy. They clustered round her in the aisle; they crowded into pews to get near her: all the reticence and reserve of their New England habit had melted away in this wonderful hour. They thanked her; they touched her; they gazed at her; they did not know what to do; even Draxy's calm was visibly disturbed by the atmosphere of their great excitement.
"O Mis' Kinney, ef ye'll only read us one more! ”

“ More than one young face in the congregation showed that this sentence struck home and threw light on hitherto unexplained emotions. "This is like what I mean," continued Draxy, "by the Gospel of Mystery, the good tidings of the things we cannot understand. This gospel is everywhere. Not the wisest man that has ever lived can fully understand the smallest created thing: a drop of water, a grain of dust, a beam of light, can baffle his utmost research. So with our own lives, with our own hearts; every day brings a mystery—sin and grief and death: all these are mysteries ”

“ The sight was one which thrilled every heart that looked on it; no poor laboring man there was so dull of sense and soul that he did not sit drinking in the wonderful picture: the tall, queenly woman robed in simple flowing white, her hair a coronet of snowy silver ”

“ She whispered, "I've found Reuby. He's asleep on the garret floor. He'd thrown himself down on some old carpet, way out in the darkest corner, under the eaves. I've covered him up, an' I'm goin' to sit by him till he wakes up. The longer he sleeps the better. You tell her where he is."
Reuben nodded; his dulled senses hardly heard the words. When the study-door next opened, Draxy herself came out, walking with a slow, measured step which transformed her whole bearing. Her face was perfectly calm, but colorless as white stone. ”

“ They love Mr. Kinney, and he has always told them that Sunday was the day to be married on. I shouldn't wonder if every young man and young woman in the parish looked on it in a new and much holier light after this. I know I began to as soon as the Elder talked about it, and it wouldn't seem right to me now to be married on any other day," and Draxy stooped and kissed her father's forehead very tenderly. There was a tenderness in Draxy's manner now towards every one which can hardly be described in words. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Again with softened and gladdened faces the little congregation looked up to the fair, tall priestess with her snow-white robes and snow-white hair, and gleaming steadfast eyes, standing meekly between the communion-table and the chair in which sat her golden-haired little son. ”

“ Reuben's income was now far in advance of their simple wants, and newspapers, magazines, and new books continually found their way to the parsonage. Draxy had only to mention anything she desired to see, and Reuben forthwith ordered it. So that it insensibly came to pass that the daily life of the little household was really an intellectual one, and Elder Kinney's original and vigorous mind expanded fast in the congenial atmosphere. ”

“ There was but one drawback on Draxy's felicity now. She was afraid of her love for her boy.
"O Seth!" she said,—after little Reuben's birth she for the first time called her husband by this name; before that, although she lavished on him all words of endearment, she had never found courage to call him Seth,—"O Seth!" she said, "I feel now as you did about me before we were married. I can't make myself think about anything but Reuby. O darling! you don't think God would take him away from you to punish me, do you?" The Elder could not comfort her when she was in this frame of mind ”

“ Next to Reuben, they filled her heart; the sentiment was after all but an expanded and exalted motherhood. Strangers sometimes came to Clairvend to hear her preach, for of course the fame of the beautiful white-robed woman-preacher could not be confined to her own village. This always troubled Draxy very much.
"If we were not so far out of the world, I should have to give it up," she said; "I know it is proper they should come; but it seems to me just as strange as if they were to walk into the study in the evening when I am teaching Reuby. ”

“ There ain't any law agin a woman's bein' minister, thet I ever heerd on. Howsomever, Mis' Kinney never'd hear to anythin' o' that kind. I don' no' for my part how she ever mustered up courage to do what she's done, so kind o' backward 'n' shy's she is for all her strength. But for my part, I wouldn't ask for no other preachin' all the rest o' my life, than jest to hear Mis' Kinney read one o' her husband's sermons every Sunday. ”

“ Bareheaded, Draxy and her little son walked from the church to the grave; their faces the calmest, their steps the steadiest there. Reuben and Jane walked behind them, bent over and sobbing, and half the congregation were weeping uncontrollably; but the widowed woman and the fatherless boy walked with uplifted glances, as if they saw angel-forms in the air by their side.
"Tain't nateral; 'tain't noways nateral; thet woman hain't got any nateral feelin' in her," said Eben Hill, leaning against a grave-stone, and idly chewing a spray of golden-rod. ”

“ It's enough to make the Elder rise up afore ye, to hear ye say sech a thing, Eben Hill; 'n' ef 'twan't jest the funeral that 'tis, I b'leeve I'd thrash ye right an' left, here'n sight o' yer own mother's tombstone, ye miserable, sneakin' fool. Ef there was ever a woman that was carryin' a hull town straight into the Lord's heaven on her own shoulders, it's Mis' Kinney, an' that blessed boy o' her'n 's goin' to be jest like her. Look at him now, a workin' his poor little mouth an' lookin' up to her and tryin' not to cry. ”

“ And nations to nations send good news: a race of slaves is set free; a war has ended; shiploads of grain have been sent to the starving; a good man has been made ruler; these are good tidings—gospels."
After dwelling on this first, simplest idea of the word, until every one of her hearers had begun to think vividly of all the good tidings journeying in words back and forth between heart and heart, continent and continent, she spoke of the good news which nature tells without words. ”

“ Why we ain't one of us the same we used to be. I know I ain't. I reckon myself's jest about eight years old, if I have got three boys. That makes me born the summer before her Reuby, 'an that's jest the time I was born, when my Benjy was seven months old!"
"You're jest crazy about Mis' Kinney, Angy Plummer," said her mother. "I b'lieve ye'd go through fire for her quicker 'n ye would for any yer own flesh an' blood." ”

“ As she went out of the house, she said to Reuben: "Mis' Kinney ain't no mortal woman. She hain't shed a tear yet, and she jest looks as glorified as the Elder can this minute in sight o' God's very throne itself. O Mr. Miller, I'm afraid she'll break down. This kind o' grief is what kills folks."
"No," said Reuben, "you don't know Draxy. She won't break down. She'll take care on us all jest the same, but ye won't never see again the same face you used to see. ”

“ He couldn't ha' suffered any, Mis' Kinney."
"P'raps, Mis' Kinney, it'd be a good plan to ondo his clothes afore the doctor gits here," came in confused and trembling tones from one after another of the men who stood almost paralyzed in presence of Draxy's terrible silence.
"O Mis' Kinney, jest speak a word, can't ye? O Lord! O Lord! she'll die if she don't. Where's Reuby? I'll fetch him," exclaimed Ike, and left the room; the men followed him irresolutely, looking back at Draxy, who still stood motionless, gazing down into the Elder's face. ”

“ Kinney?"
The Elder saw that Draxy was on Ike's side.
"Well, well, Ike," he said, "you shall certainly come and try it. Perhaps you won't like it as well as you think. But don't say anything about it to any one else till you hear from us. You shall come very soon."
Ike turned to go, but lingered, and finally stammered: "I hope, sir, ye don't take it that I'm askin' a charity; I make bold to believe I could be worth to ye's much's my keepin'; I'm considerable handy 'bout a good many things, an' I can do a day's mowin' yet with any man in the parish, I don't care who he is. ”