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.  It’s only because—­because”—­Ike’s voice broke, and it was very nearly with a sob that he added, “because I love ye, sir,” and he hurried away.  Draxy sprang after him.

“I know that very well, Ike, and so does Mr. Kinney, and you will be a great help to us.  You are making us the most valuable wedding present we’ve had yet, Ike,” and Draxy held out her hand.

Ike looked at the hand, but he did not touch it.

“Maybe God’ll let me thank ye yet, ma’am,” he said, and was gone.

As he went through the kitchen a sudden misgiving seized him of terror of Hannah.

“Supposin’ she sh’d take into her head to be agin me,” thought he.  “They say the Elder himself’s ’fraid on her.  I don’t s’pose she’d dare to try to pizen me outright, an’ anyhow there’s allers eggs an’ potatoes.  But I’ll bring her round fust or last;” and, made wary by love, Ike began on the spot to conciliate her, by offering to bring a pail of water from the well.

This small attention went farther than he could have dreamed.  When Draxy first told Hannah that Ike was to come and live with them, she said judiciously,—­

“It will make your work much easier in many ways, Hannah.”

Hannah answered:—­

“Yes, missus.  He’ll bring all the water I spose, an that alone’s wuth any man’s keep—­not that I’ve ever found any fault with the well’s bein’ so far off.  It’s ’s good water’s there is in the world, but it’s powerful heavy.”

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.