SETH HARDCOME, while not an elder, was one of the most prominent men in the church, and if anything could be said against him it was that he was almost too upright. Men are intended, no doubt, to be more or less miserable sinners, but Seth Hardcome was, to outward view, absolutely irreproachable. He was in the shoe business on the main street. It is a nice, clean business and does not call for much sweat of the brow (a boy can be hired to open the cases) or necessitate rough clothes, and Seth Hardcome was always clean, neat and suave. He was a gentleman, polite and courteous. He sold the best shoe he could give for the money. Among other boots, shoes and slippers he sold gaiters—then quite the fashion—with prunella uppers and elastic gores at the sides. Most of the ladies wore them.
'Thusia needed new gaiters. David's stipend was so small in those days—it was never large—that, with the new baby, he had hard figuring to avoid running into debt and 'Thusia did her share in the matter of economy. She had worn her old gaiters until they were hardly fit to wear. The elastic had rotted and hung in warped folds; the gaiters had been soled and resoled and the soles were again in holes; finally one of the gaiters broke through at the side of the foot. 'Thusia could not go out of the house in such footwear and she asked David to stop at Hardcome's for a new pair. She wrote the size on a slip of paper.
“The black prunella gaiters, David; the same that I always get. Mr. Hardcome will know,” she said.
David bought the gaiters. He handed Mr. Hardcome the slip of paper, and Mr. Hardcome himself went to the shelves and selected the gaiters. He wrapped them with his own hands. This was a Monday, and not until the next Sunday did 'Thusia have occasion to wear the gaiters. It was a day following a rain, and the streets were awash with yellow mud. 'Thusia came home limping, her poor little toes crimped in the ends of the gaiters.
“My poor, poor feet!” she cried. “David, I nearly died; I'm sure you never preached so long in your life. Oh, I'll be glad to get these off!”
She pulled off one of the offending gaiters and looked at the sole. The size stamped on the sole was a size smaller than 'Thusia wore. The next day David returned the gaiters to Mr. Hardcome. Mr. Hardcome's professional smile fled as David explained. He shook his head sorrowfully as he opened the parcel and looked at the shoes. There was yellow clay on the heels and a spattering of yellow clay on the prunella.
“Too bad!” said Mr. Hardcome, still shaking his head. “She's worn them.”
“Yes; to church, yesterday,” David said. “I'm sorry,” said Mr. Hardcome, and he really was sorry, “I can't take them back. My one invariable rule; boots or shoes I sometimes exchange, but gaiters never! After they have been worn I cannot exchange gaiters.”
“But in this case,” said David, “when they were the wrong size? You remember my wife herself wrote the size on a slip. It doesn't seem, when it was not her error—”
“That, of course,” said Mr. Hardcome with a sad smile, “we cannot know. I am not likely to have made a mistake. Mrs. Dean should have tried the shoes before she wore them.”
David did not argue. He had the average man's reluctance to exchange goods, particularly when soiled, and he bought and paid for another pair, and nothing more might have come of it had 'Thusia not happened to know that old Mrs. Brown wore gaiters a size smaller than herself.
'Thusia did not give the gaiters to Mrs. Brown without first having tried to get Mr. Hardcome to take them back. She went herself. David's money must not be wasted if she could prevent it, and it is a fact that when she left Mr. Hardcome's store she left in something of a huff. She cared nothing whatever for Mr. Hardcome's rules, but she was angry to think he should suggest that she had written the wrong size on the slip of paper. Mr. Hardcome was cold and polite; he bowed her out of the store as politely as he would have bowed out Mrs. Derling or any other lady customer, but he was firm. It was natural enough that 'Thusia should tell the story to old Mrs. Brown when she gave her the gaiters.
From Mrs. Brown the story of the black prunella gaiters circulated from one lady to another, changing form like a putty ball batted from hand to hand, until it reached Mrs. Hardcome. One, or it may have been two, Sundays later David, coming down from his pulpit, found Mr. Hardcome—white-faced and nervous—waiting for him. Suspecting nothing David held out his hand. Mr. Hardcome ignored it.
“If you have one minute, Mr. Dean,” he said in the hard voice of a man who has been put up to something by his wife, “I would like to have a word with you.”
“Why, certainly,” said David.
“It has come to my ears,” said Mr. Hardcome, “that your wife is circulating a report that I am untruthful.”
David almost gasped with astonishment. He could not imagine 'Thusia doing any such thing.
“I do not hold you in any way responsible for what your wife may say or do, Mr. Dean,” said Mr. Hardcome in the same hard voice. “I do not believe for one moment that you have sanctioned any such slanderous remarks. I have the utmost respect and affection for you, but I tell you, Mr. Dean”—his voice shook with the anger he tried to control—“that woman—your wife—must apologize! I will not have such reports circulated about me! That is all. I merely expect you to do your duty. If your wife will apologize I will do my duty as a Christian and say no more about it.”
David, standing in amazement, chanced to look past Mr. Hardcome, and he saw many of his congregation watching him. He had not the slightest idea of what Mr. Hardcome was speaking, but he felt, with the quick intuition of a sensitive man, that these others knew and were keen to catch his attitude as he answered. He put his hand on Mr. Hardcome's arm.
“This must be some mistake, Hardcome,” he said. “I have not a doubt it can all be satisfactorily explained. My people are waiting for me now. Can you come to the house to-night? After the sermon! That's good!”
He let his hand slide down Mr. Hardcome's sleeve and stepped forward, extending his hand for the shaking of hands that always awaited him after the service. Before he reached the door his brow was troubled. Not a few seemed to yield their hands reluctantly; some had manifestly hurried away to avoid him. 'Thusia, always the center of a smiling group, stood almost alone in the end of her pew. He saw Mrs. Hardcome sweep past 'Thusia without so much as a glance of recognition.
On the way home he spoke to 'Thusia. She knew at once that the trouble must be something about the black prunella gaiters.
“But, David,” she said, looking full into his eyes, “he is quite wrong if he says I said anything about untruthfulness. I have never said anything like that. I have never said anything about him or the gaiters except to old Mrs. Brown. I did tell her I was quite sure I had written the correct size on the slip of paper I gave you. But I never, never said Mr. Hardcome was untruthful!”
“Then it will be very easily settled,” said David. “We will tell him that when he comes to-night.”
Mr. Hardcome did not go to David's alone. When David opened the door it was quite a delegation he faced. Mrs. Hardcome was with her husband, and old Sam Wiggett, Ned Long and James Cruser filed into the little parlor behind them. David met them cheerfully. He placed chairs and stood with his back to the door, his hands clasped behind him. 'Thusia sat at one side of the room. David smiled.
“I have spoken to my wife,” he said, “and—”
“If you will pardon me for one minute, Mr. Dean,” said Mrs. Hardcome, interrupting him. “I do not wish to have any false impressions. I do not want my husband blamed, if there is any blame. I want it understood that I insisted that he ask for this apology. I am not the woman to have my husband called a—called untruthful without doing something about it. It is not for me to say that plenty of us thought you made a mistake when you chose a wife, that is neither here nor there. A man marries as he pleases. We don't ask anything unreasonable. If Mrs. Dean will apologize—”
Little 'Thusia, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, looked up at David with wistful eagerness. David, stern enough now, shook his head.
“I have spoken to my wife,” he said, “and I have her assurance that she has never said anything whatever in the least reflecting on Mr. Hardcome's veracity. Neither she nor I can say more.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Hardcome in a shocked tone, glancing at her husband as if to say: “So she is lying about this too!” Mr. Hardcome arose and took up his hat.
“We came in a most forgiving spirit, Brother Dean, feeling sure, from what you told me, that an apology would be given without quibble. We wished to avoid all anger and quarreling. If we begin a dispute as to what Mrs. Dean said or did not say we cannot tell what unpleasantness may result. I am taking this stand not to protect myself, but to protect others in our church who may be similarly attacked. We wish Mrs. Dean to apologize.”
“Mrs. Dean cannot apologize for what she has not done.”
There was no mistaking David's tone. If he was angry he hid his anger; he was stating an unchangeable fact.
When he and 'Thusia were alone again she cried in his arms; she told him it would have been better if he had let her apologize—that she did not care, she would rather apologize a thousand times than make trouble for him—but David was firm. Old Sam Wiggett, on the way home, told the Hardcomes they had been fools; that they had been offered all they had a right to ask. It was not, however, his quarrel. Mrs. Hardcome was the offended party, and Mrs. Hardcome would hear of nothing less than an apology.
In a week or less the church was plunged into all the mean pettiness of a church quarrel. The black prunella gaiters and the slip of paper with the shoe size were, while not forgotten, almost lost in the slimy mass of tattle and chatter. James Cruser in a day changed from a partisan of the Hardcomes to a bitter enemy, because Mrs. MacDorty told Mrs. Cruser that Mrs. Hardcome had said Mr. Cruser was trying to befriend both sides and was double-faced. Ned Long, looming as the leader of the Hardcome faction, told of a peculiar mortgage old James P. Wardop had—he said—extorted from Widow Wilmot, and Mr. Wardop became the staunchest supporter of David, although he had always said David was the worst preacher a man ever sat under. It was—“and she's a nice one to stick up for the Deans when everybody knows”—and—“but what else can you expect from a man like him, who was mean enough to”—and so on.
'Thusia wept a great many tears when she was not with David. The quarrel was like a wasp-like a nest of wasps. From whatever quarter a stinging bit of maliciousness set out, and whoever it stung in its circling course, it invariably ended at 'Thusia's door. In a short time the affair had become a bitter factional quarrel. There were those who supported Mr. Hardcome and those who supported Mr. Wardop, but the fight became a battle to drive 'Thusia out of Riverbank and the result threatened to be the same, whichever side finally considered itself beaten. Many would leave the church.
During those weeks David's face became thin and drawn. Even the actions of his closest friend, Dr. Benedict, hurt him, for Benedict refused to remain neutral and became a raging partisan for David. The old bachelor—while he never admitted it—adored 'Thusia and since he had been dubbed “Uncle” he considered her his daughter (a mixing of relationships) and nothing 'Thusia could do was wrong. He hurt David's cause by his violence. Even 'Thusia's own father, Mr. Fragg, was less partisan. David tried to act as peacemaker, but soon the quarrel seemed to have gone beyond any adjustment.
Mary Wiggett went home from her father's office deeply hurt because her father was uncompromisingly against David. Ellen Hardcome was delighted. With old Sam Wiggett on her side she was sure of victory, and when she left Mary she set about planning a final blow against David. She found her husband in his shoe store and told him of the manner in which old Wiggett had refused to help Mary. Together Ellen and her husband discussed the best method of administering thecoup de grâce. Hardcome, being neither an elder nor a trustee, doubted the advisability of forcing the matter immediately upon the attention of either body, for he was not yet sure enough of them. The decision finally reached was to ask for an unofficial meeting at which the opposition to David could be crystallized—a meeting made up of enough prominent members of the church to practically overawe any undecided elders and trustees. With Sam Wiggett at the head of such a meeting no one could doubt the result. David would have to go.
Hardcome's first step was to see Sam Wiggett, for he desired, above all else, to have Wiggett call the meeting. The stubborn old man refused.
“I'm with you,” he said. “That wife of Dean's made all this trouble, but I never sold her a shoe. You started this; call your own meeting.”
“You'll attend!” asked Hardcome.
“Yes.”
“And may we make you chairman!”
“Yes.”
“There may be some there who will try to talk down any motion or resolution we may want to pass—”
“You leave them to me!” said Wiggett.
Of the proposed meeting Mary knew nothing. She planned to run down to see David and 'Thusia after supper, although she had but faint hope of inducing David to leave Riverbank for a “vacation” now that her father had refused his aid. Wiggett, who still remained the head of his household, although Mary and her husband were nominally in control, ate his supper in grim silence and nothing was said about David or the church affairs. Nor did Mary run down to the manse after supper as she had planned. When the meal was half finished her nurse called her away from the supper table to see her child, who was suddenly feverish and “stopped up.” Mary did not return, and Derling, when he had ended his meal, found her holding the little one in her arms.
“George,” she said, “I'm worried about baby. I'm afraid he's sick. Touch his cheek; see how hot he is. Go for Dr. Benedict. I'm frightened.”
“Benedict!” said Derling. “What do you want that fellow for! I won't have him in the house. I'll get Martin. I won't have Benedict, always hanging about that dear dominie of yours!”
“He's jealous!” thought Mary with a sudden inward gasp of surprise. She bent forward and brushed the baby's hair from the hot forehead. That Derling could be jealous of David Dean had never occurred to Mary. Her marriage had been so completely an alliance of fortune rather than of love, and Derling had seemed so indifferent and lacking in affection, that she had never even considered that jealousy might have a part in his nature. Derling, she knew, conducted plenty of flirtations on his own side; some were rather notorious affairs; but Mary was conscious of never having overstepped the lines set for a good wife. She did not deny to herself that she felt still a great affection for David, and she felt that for David to leave Riverbank would be the greatest sorrow of her life, but she had never imagined that Derling might think he had cause for jealousy.
Derling was, however, like many men who are willing to flirt with other women, an extremely jealous man. He was jealous of the time and attention Mary gave the dominie. Derling had, therefore, thrown himself into the ranks of the Hardcome adherents, and he had been one of those who ran afoul of old Dr. Benedict's keen tongue. Some of the advice Benedict had given him would have done him good had he acted on it, but it cut deep. The old doctor knew human nature and how to make it squirm.
“Benedict is so much better with children, George,” said Mary, looking up. “He seems to work miracles, sometimes.”
“If he came in this house, I would throw him out,” said Derling. “I won't have him. That's flat!”
“Well, get Martin then, but Idon'thave the faith in him I have in Benedict,” Mary said.
Martin came. He said it was nothing, that the child had a croupy cold and he left a powder for the fever and advised Mary what to do in case the child got worse during the night. When he came the next day he said the boy was much better. That evening Derling, sent downtown for medicine, heard at the druggist's that 'Thusia's child had diphtheria and that there was a fresh outbreak of the disease in town. He drove his horse home at a gallop and found Martin there, and Mary, white and panic-stricken, wringing her hands. When the young doctor admitted that the child had diphtheria Derling, in a rage, almost threw him out of the house. A slight fever was one thing, the dread disease was quite another, and he left Mary weeping, and lashed his horse in search of Dr. Benedict.
The old doctor was not at home; Derling found him at David's and found him in a tearing rage. Mrs. Hardcome, hoping to force David's resignation, had just called to warn David that if he wished to protect himself he must attend the meeting the next evening. Benedict was still spluttering with anger and tramping up and down David's little study, when Derling found him.
“You!” he shouted. “Go to your house! I'd let you all rot first, the whole lot of you. Go get your Martin, you called him quick enough. I wouldn't go if you got on your knees to me. You and your dog-faced father-in-law and your Hardcomes, trying to drive this poor girl out of town! If this was my house I'd throw you out. I will anyway! Get out!”
Poor Derling—harmless enough creature—did all but get on his knees. He went away haggard, and looking twenty years older, to find some other physician. He got Wagenheim, a poor substitute. In fact there was no substitute for Benedict. It may have been that luck favored him, but the old doctor seemed able to wrest children from the clutches of the awful disease far oftener than other physicians. Derling felt that the angry old doctor had condemned his son to death. With the witlessness of a distracted man he tried to find Rose Hinch at her room on the main street, thinking Rose might plead for him with Benedict. He might have known Rose would be with 'Thusia in such an hour of trial. He went home, dreading to face Mary, and found Wagenheim doing what he could, which was little enough. Mary was not there.
When Wagenheim came Mary had guessed that Derling had not got Benedict, and she guessed why. She ran, half dressed and hatless as she was, all the way to the manse. In her agony she still thought clearly; Benedict would be there, and if he was not there David would be, and in David—calm and faithful to all his people even when they turned against him—she placed her hope. In the dark she could not find the bell and she was fumbling at the door when it opened and 'Thusia stood before her, silhouetted against the light. With the impulse of one suffering mother in the presence of another, Mary grasped 'Thusia's arms.
“'Thusia!” she cried. “My boy is dying and Benedict won't come. Can't you make him come? He knows, and he won't come!”
'Thusia drew back in horror.
“He knows? And he won't go?” she exclaimed. “But Mary, he must go! Why—why—but he must go, Mary! I don't understand! Benedict—won't—go?”
She turned and flew to the study where Benedict had usurped David's easy-chair. She stood before him, one mother pleading for another. No one but the three—Benedict and 'Thusia and Mary—will ever know what she said, but when she had said it old Benedict drew himself out of the chair and went with Mary.
A week later little Davy, 'Thusia's child, died. Mary was more fortunate; her boy recovered and although it was long before he was strong again Mary treasured him all the more. Rose Hinch, her work at David's ended, went to her and for many weeks was like another mother to the sick child.
But it was the night following old Benedict's denunciation of Derling and all the Hardcome clique that David Dean found a new supporter. The meeting that was to end his stay in Riverbank was to be held in Ned Long's office and David went early, not to be accused of cowardice. He left 'Thusia and Rose with the boy, drove old Benedict away, and went alone. He walked slowly, his head bowed and his hands clasped behind him, for he had no hope left. It was so he came to the foot of Ned Long's office stairs and face to face with old Sam Wiggett standing in the dark of the entry. He stopped short, for the bulky old man did not move aside.
“Huh!” growled the old lumberman. “So it's you, is it? What are you doing here?”
“There's a meeting—” David began.
“Meeting? No, by the eternal! there's not going to be any meeting, now nor ever! I'll throw them out neck and crop; I'll boot them out, but there'll be no meeting. Go home!” In the dark the heavy-jowled old man scowled at the slender young dominie. Suddenly he put his hand on David's shoulder. “Dean—Dean—” he said; “you and that little wife of yours—” That was all he could say. Mary's boy, at home, was making the awful struggle for life.
And there was no meeting. A month later Mr. and Mrs. Hardcome went to the Episcopalians, and a half year later to the Congregationalists, where they remained. There was a lull in the church quarrel during the days when little Davy was sickest, and while David and 'Thusia were in the first cruel days of grief. There were but few bitter enough to wish to take up the fight again against the sorrowing 'Thusia. The quarrel was buried with little Davy, for when David entered the pulpit again, and the congregation waited to learn how their leaders would lead them, the powerful man of the church decided for them. When David came down from the pulpit old Sam Wiggett, stolid, heavy-faced and thick-necked, waited for him at the head of the aisle and placed his arm around David's shoulders, and Mary Derling crossed the aisle and stood beside 'Thusia Dean.
David had won.
105
DAVID had won. Except for the defection of the Hardcomes—who left behind them a feeling that they were trouble-makers and were not greatly regretted—the church continued its even tenor. It must always be a question, however, whether David would not have done better by losing. Riverbank grew in population, as shown by the census, but the growth was not one to prosper the Presbyterian Church at Riverbank. The sawmills brought nearly all the newcomers—immigrants from Germany almost entirely—and these had their own churches. The increase in population offered little material with which to build up David's congregation.
At that time but few farmers, grown wealthy, moved into town. The town hardly realized, until the lumber business died, how contracted was the circle of its industries. The few men of wealth were all firmly affiliated with one church or another—as were also all the well-to-do—and, with no available new blood, it was inevitable that the numbers in the existing churches should remain almost stationary.
Liberality was not a trait of the wealthy of Riverbank at that day. Like old Sam Wiggett, those with money had had their hard grubbing at first and knew almost too well the value of a dollar. The ministers of the various churches in Riverbank were paid but paltry sums and their salaries were often in arrears.
Had David lost his fight and been driven from Riverbank he might, and probably would, have gone far. He preached well and was still young. It is hardly possible that he would have felt for a new church the affection he felt for the church at Riverbank, and he might have gone from church to church until he was in some excellent metropolitan pulpit. For Riverbank he felt, coming here so young, something of the affection of a man for his birthplace.
In the years following the church quarrel David began to feel the pinch of an inadequate remuneration. After little Roger was born 'Thusia was, for a year, more or less of an invalid, and a maid was a necessity. The additional drains on David's income, slight as they were, meant real hardship when he had with difficulty kept out of debt before. Two years later little Alice was born, and 'Thusia was kept to her bed, an invalid, longer than before. They were sad days for David. For a month 'Thusia hung between life and death, and Mary Derling and Rose Hinch, with old Dr. Benedict, spared neither time nor affection.
Rose Hinch put aside all remunerative calls and nursed 'Thusia night and day. Dr. Benedict was equally faithful, and the women of David's congregation deluged the manse with jellies, flowers, bowls of “floating island” and other dainties, but when 'Thusia was up and about again David faced a debt of nearly three hundred dollars. As soon as 'Thusia was able to stand the strain the church gave David a donation party. Pickles and preserves predominated, but a purse made a part of the donation and left David only some hundred and seventy or eighty dollars in debt.
This is no great sum nor did any of his creditors press him unduly for payment. His bills were small and scattered. He tried to pay them, but in spite of 'Thusia's greatest efforts each salary period saw an unpaid balance seldom smaller, and sometimes slightly greater, than the original debt. This debt worried David and 'Thusia far more than it worried his creditors—who worried not at all—but before long it seemed to become, as such things do, a part of life. David's bills, paid at one end and increased at the other, were never over three months in arrears. In Riverbank at that day this was considered unusually prompt pay. Accounts were usually rendered once a year. But the debt was always there.
The year her boy was three Mary Derling divorced her husband. For some time one of Derling's flirtations had been more serious than Mary had imagined. When she heard the truth she talked the matter over calmly with her father and her husband. All three were of one mind. Derling's father had consistently refused to give the son money and Sam Wiggett had again and again put his hand in his pocket to make good sums lost by Derling in ill-considered business ventures. The truth was that Derling's flirtations were costing too much, and he spent more than he could afford. Wiggett, to be rid of this constant drain, gave Derling a good lump sum and Mary kept the child. The divorce was granted quietly, no one knowing anything about it until it was all over. There was no scandal whatever. Derling went back to Derlingport and was soon forgotten, and Mary resumed her maiden name. More than ever, now, she took part in David's work, and her purse was always at his service for his works of charity. David, Rose Hinch and Mary were a triumvirate working together for the good.
At thirty-seven Dominie Dean was as fully a man as he ever would be. He was fated to cling always to his boyish optimism; never to age into a heavily authoritative head of a flock, with a smooth paunch over which to pass a plump hand as if blessing a satisfactory digestive apparatus. To the last day of his life he remained youthfully slender, and his clear gray eyes and curly hair, even when the latter turned gray, suggested something boyish.
It is inevitable that fifteen years of ministry shall either make or mar the man inside the minister. David Dean had ripened without drying into a hack of church routine. At thirty he had, without being aware of the fact, entered a new period of his ministry, and at thirty-seven, like a pilot who knows his ship, he was no longer prone to excitement over small difficulties. If he was no longer a flash of fire, he was a steadier flame.
In fifteen years David had come to love Riverbank, even to having a half-quizzical and smilingly philosophical love for the Wiggetts, Grims-bys and others who had once been thorns in his flesh. Their simple closefistedness, generosity based on ambition and transparent, harmless, hypocrisy were, after all, human traits, and while not exactly pleasant neither more nor less than part of the world in which David had his work to do. Wherever one went, or whatever work one undertook, there were Wiggetts and Hardcomes and Grimsbys. They were part of life. They were irritants, but it rested with David whether he should feel their irritation as a scratch or a tickle. Until he was thirty he had often smarted; now he smiled.
In the self-centered little town there were good people and bad and, as is the case everywhere, fewer actively vicious than we are pleased to assume. David cherished a philosophy of pity for these. If old Wiggett had so much good in him, and 'Thusia, who was now as faithful a wife and mother as Riverbank could boast, had once been on the verge of being cold-shouldered into a life of triviality, if not of shame, no doubt all these others, if they had been properly guided in the beginning, might have been as normal as old Mrs. Grelling, or the absolutely colorless Mr. Prell. With all this willingness to make allowances for the sinner, David had a hard, uncompromising, Presbyterian hatred for the sin. In one of his sermons he put it thus: “To sin is human; the sin is of the devil.” It was in this spirit David began his long fight against Mac-dougal Graham's personal devil.
When David Dean came to Riverbank Mack Graham had been a bright-eyed, saucy, curly-haired little fellow of five or six; a “why!” sort of boy—“Why do you wear a white necktie? Why do you have to stand in the pulpit! Why did Mr. Wiggett get up and go out! Why's that horse standing on three legs!” Certain ladies of the church made a great pet of Mack and helped spoil him, for he was as handsome as he was saucy. An only son, born late in his parents' lives, they prepared the way for his disgrace. It may be well enough, as Emerson advises, to “cast the bantling on the rocks,” but leaving an only son to his own devices on the theory that he is the finest boy in creation and can do no wrong does not work out as well. At nineteen Mack was wild, unruly and drinking himself to ruin.
David's first knowledge of the state into which Mack had fallen came from 'Thusia. There had been one of those periodical church squabbles in which the elder members had locked horns with the younger and more progressive over some unimportant question that had rapidly grown vital, and David had, for a while, been busy impoverishing the little conflagration so that it might burn out the more quickly. The church was subject to these little affairs. In the fifteen years of his ministry David had seen the church change slowly as a natural result of children reaching maturity, and the passing of the aged. Some, who liked David's sermons left other churches and joined the congregation, and there were a few accretions of newcomers, but from the first the older members had resented any interference with their management on the part of new and younger members. A change in the choir, an effort to have the dingy interior of the church redecorated, any one of a thousand petty matters would, if suggested by the newer members, throw the older men into a line of battle.
It was, in a way, a quarrelsome church. It was, indeed, not only in Riverbank but throughout the country, a quarrelsome time. The first rills of broader doctrine were beginning to permeate the hot rock of petrified religion and where they met there was sure to be steam and boiling water and discomfort for the minister, whether he held with one side or the other, or tried to be neutral. The Riverbank church, because of the conservatism of the older members, was particularly prone to petty quarrels, and this was one of David's greatest distresses. At heart he was with those who favored the broader view, but he was able to appreciate the fond jealousy of the older men and women for old thoughts and ways.
It was after one of these quarrels, when he had found himself unduly busied healing wounds, that 'Thusia came running across from the Mannings', opposite the manse, and tapped on David's study door.
“Yes! Come in!” he said.
“David! It's Mack—Mack Graham—he is drunk!”
“Mack drunk!” David cried, for he could not believe he had heard aright. “Not our Mack!”
David, his lanky form slid down in his great chair so that he was sitting on the small of his back, had been thinking over his sermon for the next Sunday. No one could sit in David's great chair without sliding down and down and down into comfort or into extreme discomfort. It had taken David a long time to become part of the chair, so that he could feel the comfort of utter relaxation of body it demanded. In time the chair grew to be a part of the David we all knew. Those of us who knew him best can never forget him as he was when he sat in that old chair, his feet on the floor, his knees almost as high as his chin, his hands loosely folded over his waist, so that his thin, expressive thumbs could tap together in, emphasis as he talked, and his head forward so that his chin rested on the bosom of his shirt. Slumped down like this in the great chair, he talked to us of things we talked of nowhere else. We could talk religion with David when he was in his chair quite as if it were an interesting subject. Many of us can remember his smile as he listened to our feeble objections to his logic, or how he ran his hand through his curls and tossed one knee on top of the other when it was time to bring the full battery of his mind against us. It was while slumped into his great chair that David had most of his famous word battles with old Doc Benedict, and there, his fine brow creased, he listened when Rose Hinch told of someone in need or in trouble. When we happened in and David was out and we waited for him in his study that chair was theemptiestchair man ever saw in the world. The hollows of the threadbare old green rep always seemed to hunger for David as no other chair ever hungered for any other man. No other man or woman ever fitted the chair. I always felt like an overturned turtle in it, with my neck vainly trying to get my head above the engulfing hollow. Only David and little children felt comfortable in the chair, for in it little children—David's own or others—could curl up as comfortably as a kitten in a rug.
It was out of this chair David scrambled, full of fight, when 'Thusia brought him the news that Mack was drunk.
What 'Thusia had to tell David was clear enough and sad enough. From his great chair, when David raised his eyes, he could see the Mannings' house across the way, white with green blinds, cool in the afternoon shadows. Sometimes Amy Manning and sometimes her mother and sometimes both sat on the porch, busied with the trifles of needlework women love. It was always a pleasant picture, the house framed between the trunks of two great maples, the lawn crisply cut and mottled with sunshine and shadow, and at one side of the house a spot of geranium glowing red in the sun with, at the other side, a mass of shrubbery against which a foliage border of red and green fell, in the afternoons, just within the shadow and had all the quality of rich Italian brocade.
Sometimes 'Thusia would run across to visit a few minutes with Amy Manning, and sometimes Amy—her needlework gathered in her apron—would come running across to sit awhile with 'Thusia. The two were very fond. 'Thusia had reached the age when she was always humorously complaining about having to let out the seams of her last year's dresses, and Amy was hardly more than a girl, but propinquity or some contrast or similarity of disposition had made them the best of friends. Perhaps 'Thusia had never lost all her girlish qualities, and certainly Amy had been something of a woman even as a child. For all the years that divided them they were more nearly of an age than many who reckoned from the same birth year. Such friendships are far from rare and are often the best and most lasting.
David had seen Amy grow; had seen her fall bumping—a little ball of white—down the Manning porch steps and had heard (and still heard) the low-voiced and long lasting farewells she and Mack exchanged at the Mannings' gate, young love making the most of itself, and making a twenty-four hour tragedy out of a parting. The girl had been tall at fourteen and even then had certain womanly gestures and manners. She had always been a sweet girl, frank, gentle, even-tem-pered, with clear eyes showing she had a good brain back of their blue. She was always, as the saying is in Riverbank, “interested in church.” Her religion was something real and vital. She accepted her faith in full and lived it, not bothering with the artificial agonies of soul that some youngsters find necessary. From a girl of this kind she had grown into a young woman, calm, clean, sterling. She had a healthy love of pleasure in any of the unforbidden forms, and, before Mack Graham slipped a ring on her finger, she liked to have half a dozen young whipper-snappers showing attention, quite like any other girl. She even liked, after that, to see that two or three of the whipper-snappers were jealous of Mack.
Mack was never jealous and could not be. He was one of the laughing, conquering hero kind. Amy was his from the moment he decided she was the finest girl in the world; he never considered any rival worth a worry. In olden days he would have been a carefree, swashbuckling D'Artagnan sort of fellow, and this, in nose-to-grindstone Riverbank, made him a great favorite and it led him to consort with a set of young fellows of the gayer sort with whom he learned to crook his elbow over a bar and continue to crook it until the alcohol had tainted his blood and set up its imperative cry for more. When David took up the fight for Mack this alcohol yearning had become well intrenched, and the conquering hero trait in the young fellow's character made the fight doubly hard, for Mack—more than any man I have ever known—believed in himself and that he could “stop off short” whenever he really wished.
The thing that, more than all else, kept Mack from rapid ruin was his engagement. Love has a certain power, and there are some men it will reform or hold from evil, but it could not hold Mack. The yearning for alcohol had found its place in his system before Amy had found her place in his heart. The very night of his engagement was celebrated in Dan Reilly's; Amy's kiss was hardly dry on his lips before he moistened them with whisky, and it probably never occurred to him that he was doing wrong. Before he had received all the congratulations that were pushed over the bar, however, he was sickeningly intoxicated. Amy's father, returning home from a late session with a trial balance, ran across Mack and two of his companions swaying perilously on the curb of Main Street, each maudlinly insisting that he was sober and should see the other two safely home. It was ridiculous and laughable, but Mr. Manning did not laugh; he knew Amy was more than fond of Mack. He told Amy about Mack before she had a good opportunity to tell him of her engagement. This was the next morning.
Mack, of course, came to see Amy that evening. In spite of a full day spent in trying to remove the traces of the night's spree he showed evidences that he had taken one or two drinks to steady his nerves before seeing Amy. He was a little too hilarious when he met her at the door, not offensive, but too talkative. It was a cruel position for the girl. She loved Mack and loved him tremendously, but she had more than common sense. She knew she had but one life to live, and she had set her ideals of happiness long before. A drunken husband was not one of them.
She talked to Mack. She did not have, to help her, an older woman's experience of the world, and she had against her the love that urged her to throw herself in Mack's arms and weep away the seriousness of the affair. She had against her, too—for it was against her with a man like Mack—her overflowing religious eagerness which would have led another girl to press the church and prayer upon him as a cure. No doubt it was a strange conglomeration of love, religion and common sense she gave him, but the steel frame of it all was that she could not marry a man who drank. She left no doubt of that.
“Why, that's all right, Amy, that's all right!” Mack said. “I'll quit the stuff. I can quit whenever I want to. Last night I just happened to meet the boys and I was feeling happy—say, no fellow ever had a bigger right to feel happy!—and maybe I took one or two too many. No more for little Mack!”
They left it that way and went into the dining room, where Mr. and Mrs. Manning were, to announce the engagement formally. It was two months before Mack toppled again. This was the first 'Thusia and David knew of it. 'Thusia and Amy had been sitting on the Mannings' porch when Mack came up. Anyone would have known he was intoxicated, he was so intoxicated he swayed. He talked, but his lips refused to fully form the words he tried to use. He had come up, he said, to convince the little rascal—meaning Amy—that it was all nonsense not to be married right away. When he tried to say “nonsense” he said, “nom-nom-nomsemse, all nomsemse.”
“Mack and I want to have a talk, 'Thusia,” Amy said, and 'Thusia gathered up her sewing and fled to David.
When 'Thusia had told David all she knew, David walked to the window, his thin hands clasped behind his back, and looked across toward the Mannings'. Amy had taken Mack into the house to hide his shame from chance passers-by. For several minutes David stood at the window while 'Thusia waited. He turned at last.
“It is my fault,” he said. “I should have thought of him.”
That was like David Dean. His shoulders were always overloaded with others' burdens, and it was like David to blame himself for having overlooked one burden more.
MACK was not the only weak creature David was trying to help. Helpfulness was his life. I do not want you to think of David as eager for overwork, or as eager for greater burdens. He was always loaded down with others' fights against poverty, passion and sin because something within him always said: “This is one case in which you can be of actual help.” Before he was aware he would be enlisted in these individual battles, with all the close personal details that made them living sorrows.
Inside the broad fight the church was making to strengthen character and maintain morality these individual battles were fought. How could David stand aloof from the battle of old Mrs. Miggs against poverty, with her penchant for spending the alms she received for flummery dress; or from the battle of old Wickham Reid against his insane inclination to suicide; or from the battles of all the backsliders of one kind and another; or from the battle of the Rathgebers against starvation; the battle of young Ross Baldwin against the trains of thought that were urging him to unbelief; or all the battles against alcohol! These were lame dogs David was helping over stiles. There were battles David won in an hour; there were other battles that lengthened into sieges, where sin and sinners “dug in” and struggled for years.
In some of these 'Thusia could help David, and she did help, most willingly, but 'Thusia had her own battles. Like most ministers' wives she had a constant battle to make David's inadequate salary meet the household expenses. When, after one of the usual church quarrels, those in favor of putting the choir in surplices won, 'Thusia was sorry she was not in the choir; her worn Sunday gown would not then be a weekly humiliation. Her hats, poor things! were problems as difficult to finance as a war. The grocer's bill was a monthly catastrophe; “the wood is low again, David,” was an announcement 'Thusia felt was almost unkind. She spent five times as long turning a dress that was no pleasure after it was turned than she should have had to spend getting a new one. The lack of a few dollars to “do with” is the greatest waster of a faithful home-keeper's time.
The hope of a call to a church that will pay enough to supply those few dollars is one many ministers' wives cherish.
David picked up his hat and waited on his own porch until he saw Mack come from the Mannings' door; then he crossed the street.
“'Lo, dominie!” Mack said unsteadily. “Little girl's been giving me Hail Columbia. She's all right, dominie; fine little girl. I'm ashamed of myself. Told you so, didn't I, little girl?”
David put his hand on Mack's shoulder.
“Sheisa fine girl, Mack,” he said. “There's no finer girl in America than Amy. Suppose we take a walk, Mack, a good long walk out into the country and tell each other just how fine Amy is.” Mack smiled knowingly. He put a hand on David's shoulder, so that the two men stood like some living statue of “United we stand.”
“Couldn't tell all about how fine a little girl she is inonewalk,” he said.
“Come!” said David.
He put his arm through Mack's, and thus he led him away. The assistance was necessary, for Mack was drunker than he had seemed. David led him to the country roads by the shortest route, that passing the cemetery, and when they were beyond the town he walked Mack hard. He let Mack do the talking and kept him talking of Amy, for of what would a lover, drunk or sober, rather talk than of his sweetheart! It was dark and long past David's supper hour when they reached the town again, and David drew Mack into the manse for a “bite.” After they had eaten he led him into the study.
Mack was well past the unpleasant stage of his intoxication now, and with 'Thusia sewing in her little, low rocker and Mack in a comfortable chair and David slumped down in his own great chair, they talked of Amy and of a hundred things David knew how to make interesting. It was ten when 'Thusia bade them good-night and went out of the study.
“The Mannings are still up,” said David, and Mack turned and looked out of the window.
“God, but I am a beast!” said Mack.
“You are worse than that, Mack, because you are a man,” said David.
“Yes, I'm worse than a beast,” said Mack. He meant it. David, deep in his chair, his eyes on Mack's face, tapped his thumbs slowly together.
“Mack,” he asked, “just how much of a hold has this drink got on you!”
“Oh, I can stop any time I—”
“Yes, so can Doc Benedict,” said David. “He stops whenever he has had his periodical and his nerves stop their howling for the alcohol. I don't mean that, Mack. Just how insistent is the wish for the stuff, when you haven't had it for a while, if it makes you forget Amy as you did to-day!”
“Well, it is pretty insistent,” Mack admitted. “I don't mean to get the way I was this afternoon, dominie. Something starts me and I keep going.”
David's thumbs tapped more and more slowly.
“You still have the eyes of a man, Mack,” he said, “and you are still able to look me in the eyes like a man, Mack,” he said. “We ought to be able to beat this thing. Now go over and say good-night to Amy. She'll sleep better for seeing you as you are now.”
The next day David learned more, and so did 'Thusia. What David learned was that the two months that had elapsed between Mack's engagement spree and his next was the longest period the young fellow had been sober for some time, and that Mack had already been docketed in the minds of those who knew him best as a hard and reckless drinker. It meant the fight would be harder and longer than David had hoped. What 'Thusia learned was that Amy had had a long talk with Mack after he had left David.
“She did not tell him, David, but she told me, that she could not marry him if he let this happen. She can't marry a drunkard; no one would want her to; but if she throws him over he will be gone, David. She'll give him his chance, and she will help us—or let us help her—but when she is sure he is beyond help she will send him away. And when she sends him away—”
“If she sends him away one great influence will be lost,” said David. “She must not send him away.”
“If he comes to her drunk again,” said 'Thusia, as one who has saved the worst tidings until last, “she will have no more to do with him.”
In less than a week Mack fell again, and Amy, her heart well-nigh broken, gave him back his ring, and ended the engagement. Then, indeed, began the hardest fight David ever made for a man against that man's self. There were nights when David walked the streets with Mack until the youth fell asleep as he walked, and days when Mack lay half stupid in David's great chair while the dominie scribbled his sermon notes at the desk beneath the spatter-work motto: “Keep an even mind under all circumstances.” Often David and old Doc Benedict sat in the same study and discussed Mack. David from the stand of one who wanted to save the young fellow, and Benedict as one who knew the alcohol because it had conquered him.
“Now, in my case,” the doctor would say, quite as if he were discussing another person; and, “but on the other hand I had this gnawing pain in my stomach, while—” and so on.
There were weeks when David felt he was making great progress and other weeks when he felt he was not holding his own, and some frightful weeks when Mack threw everything aside and plunged into unbridled dissipation. The periods after these sprees were deceptive. During them Mack seemed to want no liquor and vaunted his strength of will. He boasted he would never touch another drop.
There were also periods of overwhelming defeat, and periods when Mack was never drunk but never sober. Little by little, however, David felt he was making progress. It was slow and there were no “Cures” to work a sudden change, as there are now, but under the tottering structure of Mack's will David was slowly building a foundation of serious thought. Mack was changing. His dangerous and illusive bravado was bit by bit yielding to a desire to do what David wished.
It was slow work. Rather by instinct than by logic David saw that to save Mack he must make Mack like him better than he liked anyone in Riverbank. Our David had none of that burly magnetism that draws men in a moment; those of us who liked him best were those who had known him longest, and he was not the man a youth like Mack would instinctively choose as a dearest friend and most frequent companion. In David's mind the idea probably formed itself thus: “I must make Mack come to me as often as possible,” and, “Mack won't come unless he likes me.” He set about making Mack like him, and making him like 'Thusia and little Roger and baby Alice, and making him like the manse and all that was in it. With Amy turning her face from Mack, and Mack's mother varying between shrewish scolding and maudlin tears, and Mack's father wielding no weapon but a threat of disinheritance, it became necessary that Mack should have someone he wished to please, someone he liked and respected and wished to please more than he wished to please his insistent nerves. Each touch of eagerness added to Mack's face as he came up the manse walk David counted a gain.
And 'Thusia, beside what she did for Mack in making Mack love the manse and all those in it, worked with Amy and kept alive the flame of her love.
They were dear people, our Dominie Davy and his wife. In time little Roger became as eager to see Mack as Mack was to see David, and Mack became “Ungel Mack” to the child. The boy would climb the gate and cry, “Here cometh Ungel Mack!” with all the eagerness of joyful childhood. Sometimes when Mack was drunk, but not too drunk, David would lead Roger into the study, and the boy would say, “Poor Ungel Mack, you thick?” It all helped.
Together Mack and David made the fight. Amy, according to her light, did her part, too. She never fled from David's little porch when she happened to be there and saw Mack coming up the street. She always gave Mack her hand in frank and friendly manner. She did not let the other young fellows pay her attentions. It was as if Mack had never courted her; as if they were bound by a friendship that had never ripened into anything warmer but that might some day. Mack was fine about it; eager as he was to have Amy he held himself in check. Eventually it was a great thing for them both; it was as if they were living the difficult “getting acquainted” year that follows the honeymoon before the honeymoon itself. They got to know each other better, perhaps, than any Riverbank lovers had ever known one another.
It was one Sunday afternoon during this stage of Mack's fight, while Mack and 'Thusia and Amy were on the porch and David taking his between-sermon nap in his great chair, that the great opportunity came to David's door. It came in the form of a man of sixty years, silk-hatted and frock-coated. He walked slowly up the street from the direction of the town, and when he reached David's gate he paused and read the number painted on the riser of the porch step, opened the gate and entered. He removed his hat and extended his hand to 'Thusia.
“You are Mrs. Dean, I know,” he said, smiling. “My name is Benton, and I don't think you know me. Mr. Dean is in?”
There were many men of many kinds came to David's door from one end of a year to the other, but never had a man come whose face so quickened 'Thusia's heart. It was a strongly modeled face and gave an impression of power. The nose was too large and the lips were too large, so were the brows, so were all the features. It was a face that was too large for itself, it left no room for the eyes, which had to peer out as best they could from between the brows that crowded them from above, and the cheekbones that crowded them from below, but they were kind, keen, sane eyes; they were even twinkling eyes. The man was rather too stout and his skin was coarse-pored, almost as if pitted. 'Thusia had never seen a homelier man, and yet she liked him from the moment he spoke. It was partly his voice, full, soft and, in some way, satisfying. She felt he was a big man and a good man and an honest man.
“Yes, Mr. Dean is in,” she said. “I think he is napping. If you will just rest a minute until I see—”
David, as was his habit when his visitors were unknown to him, came to the door. 'Thusia slipped into the kitchen. The day was hot and Mr. Benton was hot, and there were lemons and ice in the refrigerator, perhaps a pitcher of lemonade all ready to serve with thin cakes.
“Mr. Benton, my wife said, I think!” asked David. “Shall we sit out here or go inside!”
“Might go inside,” said the visitor, and David led the way into the study. Mr. Benton placed his hat on the floor beside the chair David placed for him, unbuttoned his coat and breathed deeply.
“Quite a hill you are perched on here,” he said. “Fat man's misery on a day like this. I suppose you saw me in church this morning!”
“Yes. I tried to reach you after the service, but you slipped out.”
“I ran away,” admitted Mr. Benton. “I wanted to think that sermon over and cool down after it. It was a good sermon.”
David waited.
“I'm a lawyer,” said Mr. Benton, “and I'm cracked up as quite an orator in one way and another, and I know that some of the things that sound best hot from the lips don't amount to so much an hour later. That was a good sermon, then and now! It was a remarkable sermon. I want you to come to Chicago and preach that same sermon to us in the Boulevard Church next Sunday, Mr. Dean.”
David, in his great chair, tapped his thumbs together and looked at Mr. Benton. He was trying to keep an even mind under circumstances that made his pulse beat almost wildly.
“You know now, as well as you ever will, why I'm here, I think,” said Mr. Benton. “We are looking for the right man for our church, and I came here to hear you. I think you are the man we want. I can almost say that if you preach as well for us next Sunday as you did to-day we will hardly dare let you come back for your household goods. Matter of fact, the man I select is the man we want.”
“I know the church,” said David slowly. “It is a splendid church.”
“Itisa good church,” said Mr. Benton. “It is a strong church and a large church. It is a church that needs a young man and a church in which you will have opportunity for the greater good a man such as you always desires. I jotted down a few figures and so on—”
Holding the paper in his hand Mr. Benton read the figures; figures of membership, average attendance morning and evening, stipend, growth, details even to the number of rooms in the manse and what the rooms were.
“The church pays the salary of the secretary,” he added.
David's thumbs were pressed close together. His mind passed in rapid review the patched breeches little Roger wore during the week, the pitiful hat 'Thusia tried to make respectable, her oft-remodeled gowns. It was comfort to the verge of luxury Mr. Benton was offering, as compared with Riverbank. It was more than this: it was a broader field, a greater chance.
Slumped down in his great chair, his eyes closed, David thought. It would mean freedom from the petty quarrels that vexed the church at Riverbank; it would mean freedom from cares of money. Out of the liberal stipend Mr. Benton had mentioned they might even put aside a goodly bit. It would mean he could start anew with a clean slate and be rid of the stupid interference of all the Hardcome and Grimsby tribe. 'Thusia would be with him, and Rose Hinch—who had become, in a way, a lay sister of good works, helping him with his charities—could be induced to follow him. Then he thought of old Mrs. Miggs, and of Wickham Reid, of the Rathgebers and Ross Baldwin, and all those whose fight he was fighting in Riverbank. And Mack! What would become of Mack!
Through the window he heard the voices of Mack and Amy.
“It is quite unexpected,” David said, opening his eyes. “I'll have to—you have no objection to my speaking to my wife?”
The tinkling of ice in a pitcher sounded at the door.
“By all means, speak to her,” said Mr. Benton, and as 'Thusia tapped David arose and opened the door. 'Thusia entered.
“'Thusia,” David said, “Brother Benton is from the Boulevard Church in Chicago. He wants me to preach there next Sabbath and, if the congregation is satisfied, I may be offered the pulpit.” The color slowly mounted from 'Thusia's throat to her brow. She stood holding the small tin tray, and the glasses trembled against the pitcher. It did not need the figures Mr. Benton reread to tell 'Thusia all the opportunity meant. Mr. Benton ceased, and still 'Thusia stood holding the tray. Her eyes left Mr. Benton's uncouth face and found David's eyes.
“It—it's wonderful, David,” she said steadily, “but of course there's Mack—and Amy!”
So Mr. Benton and the great opportunity went back to Chicago, after a sip or two of 'Thusia's lemonade, and David dropped back into his great chair and his old life of helpfulness, and 'Thusia went out on the porch and smiled at Amy, and they all had lemonade.
From the day Mr. Benton entered David's door Mack never touched the liquor again. It was a year before Amy felt sure enough to let him slip the ring on her finger again, but it was as if David's sacrifice had worked the final cure. Perhaps it did. Perhaps Mack, hearing, as all of us did, of the great chance David had put aside, guessed what none of us guessed—that it was for him David remained in Riverbank. Perhaps that was why, when our church wanted to throw David aside in his old age like a worn-out shoe, Mack Graham fought so hard and successfully to secure for David the honorary title and the pittance.