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; in fact, he
himself was sometimes afraid, seeing her utter absorption in the child.
Yet it never for one instant warped her firmness or judiciousness of
control. Draxy could not have comprehended that type of love which can
lose sight for one instant of the best good of the loved one. Her control,
however, was the control of a wise and affectionate companion, never that
of the authoritative parent. Little Reuben never heard the words, "You
must not do thus and so." It was always, "You cannot, because it is not
safe, best, or proper," or, "because if you do, such and such things will
happen."

"Draxy," said Reuben to her one day, "you never tell Reuby to do anything
without giving him a reason for it. He's the best boy that ever lived, I
do believe, but 'tain't just my idea of obedience for all that."

Draxy smiled. "I never said a word to him about obeying me in his life; I
never shall. I can't explain it, father dear, but you must let me do my
way. I shall tell him all I know about doing right, and he will decide for
himself more and more. I am not afraid."

She need not have been. Before Reuby was seven years old his gentle
manliness of behavior was the marvel of the village. "It beats all how
Mis' Kinney's brought that boy o' hern up," was said in the sewing-circle
one day. "She told me herself that she's never so much's said a sharp word
to him; and as for whipping she thinks it's a deadly sin."

"So do I," spoke up young Mrs. Plummet, the mother of Benjy. "I never did
believe in that; I don't believe in it, even for hosses; it only gets 'em
to go a few rods, and then they're lazier'n ever. My father's broke more
colts than any man in this county, an' he'd never let 'em be struck a
blow. He said one blow spiled 'em, and I guess ye've got more to work on
in a boy than ye have in a colt."

These discussions often ran high and waxed warm. But Draxy's adherents
were a large majority; and she had so patiently and fully gone over these
disputed grounds with them that they were well fortified with the
arguments and facts which supported her positions. Indeed, it was fast
coming to pass that she was the central force o