[Illustration: Rose 058]
IT was during that week that Benedict, the medical man-of-all-work of
the county, David's closest friend, carried David out to Griggs Township
to see old Hinch. Doctor Benedict had his faults, medical and otherwise.
Calomel in tooth-destroying quantities was one and his periodical sprees
were all the rest. His list of professional calls and undemanded bills
qualified him for a saintship, for his heart was right and it hurt him
to take money from a poor man even when it was willingly proffered.
“Davy,” he said, putting his beaver hat on David's desk and sinking into
David's easy-chair with a yawn (people would not let him have a good
night's rest once a week), “one of my patients gave you a dozen eggs.
Remember her?”
“Yes. The Copperhead's wife. She's not sick, I hope.”
“Malaria, backache, pain in the joints, headache, touch of sciatica. No,
she's well. She don't complain. It's her husband, David. He's in a bad
way.”
“What ails him!” David asked.
“He's blaspheming his God and Maker, Davy,” said Benedict. “He's
blaspheming himself into his grave. He has hardened his heart and he
curses the God that made him. Davy, he's dying of a breaking heart. He
is breaking his heart against the pillars of Heaven.”
David turned in his chair.
“And you came for me? You were right, Benedict. You want me to go to
him!”
“I want to take you to him,” said Benedict. “Get on your duds, Davy; the
horse is outside.” It is a long drive to Griggs Township and Benedict
had ample time to tell all he knew of Hinch. For five days the man had
refused to eat. He sat in his chair and cursed his God for bringing the
war upon the country; sat in his chair with a letter crumpled in his
hand, with his eyes glassy hard and his face in a hideous scowl.
“I heard from the wife of what you did the other day when those loafers
would have beaten the old man. He hates all mankind, Davy, but if there
is one of the kind can soften his heart you are the one. Hates?” The
doctor shook his head. “No, he thinks he hates man and God. It is
grief, Davy. He's killing himself with grief.” David was silent. He knew
Benedict would continue.
“The day you mixed up in his affair he got a letter at the post office.
It's the letter he keeps crushed in his hand.”
“I remember. I picked it up and gave it to him.”
“He read it before he came out of the post office, I dare say,” said the
doctor. He flicked his whip over the haunches of his horse. “You don't
know why he came West? He was burned out where he came from. He spent
his life and his wife's life, too, building up a farm and Fate made it a
battlefield. Raiders took his stock first, then one army, and after that
the other, made his farm a camp and between them they made it a desert,
burning his buildings. He had a boy of fourteen, and they were trying to
keep alive in the cellar hole where the house had been. A chance bullet
killed the lad. I think the boy was running to the well for a pail of
water. It has made, the old man bitter, Davy. It has made him hate the
war.”
“It might well make him hate the war,” said David.
“There was another son,” said Benedict. “I take it he was a fine lad,
from what the mother tells me. He was nineteen. The letter that came the
other day said the lad had been killed in battle. Yes, the old man hates
the war. He does not love the war, Davy.”
“He may well hate it,” said David.
They found old Hinch as Benedict had left him, bent down in his chair
with his eyes set in a hard glare. He was very weak--much weaker than
when Dr. Benedict had left him--but his lips still moved in ceaseless
blasphemy. The wife let David and the doctor in. No doubt she felt the
loss of her son as deeply as old Hinch himself felt it, but Fate had
taken vigor out of her soul before this blow fell. Her nervous hands
clasped and unclasped, and she looked at Benedict with the pitiful
pleading of a dumb animal. When the two men went up to Hinch she seated
herself at the far side of the room, still clasping and unclasping her
hands. The tragedy that had occurred seemed lost in the tragedy that
impended.
David fell on his knees beside the old man's chair and, with his hand
on old Hinch's arm and his forehead on the chair arm, prayed. He prayed
aloud and as he prayed he tightened his grasp on the old man's arm. It
was more than a prayer; it was a stream of comfort flowing straight
from his heart. He prayed long. The wife ceased her nervous clasping and
unclasping of her hands and knelt beside her own chair. Benedict stole
to the far corner of the room and dropped noiselessly into a seat. An
hour passed and still David prayed.
The room was poverty-stricken in the extreme. There was no carpet on the
floor and no drapery at the windows. The table was of pine, and a squat
lamp of glass stood on it, the lamp chimney broken and patched with
scorched paper. The afternoon waned and old Hinch ceased his muttering,
but David prayed on. He was fighting for the man's soul and life. Dusk
fell, and with a sudden great sob old Hinch buried his face between his
knees. Then David clasped his hand.
The wife silently lighted the lamp and went to the kitchen, and, as if
the light had been a signal, the door opened and Rose Hinch came in. She
stood a moment in the doorway, her sunbonnet pushed back, taking in the
scene, and then she came and stood beside her father and put her hand on
his head. Then David looked up and saw her.
She had been all day in the field, doing the work her father had left
undone, and her shoes were covered with loam and her hands burned to a
brown-red. Her garments were rough and patched, but her face, protected
by the sunbonnet, was untouched by tan. It was a face like that of a
madonna, sweet and calm. Her hair, parted in the middle, had been drawn
back smoothly, but now it fell rather loosely over her forehead, and was
brown, as were her eyes. She let her hand rest a moment on her father's
head, and then passed on into the kitchen.
Benedict left immediately after the supper, but David remained for the
night. Old Hinch drank a bowl of broth and permitted himself to be led
to bed. He was very weak but he blasphemed no more; his mood was one of
saner sorrow. The wife sat with him, and David, seeing that Rose--after
a day of man's work in the field--must care for the scanty stock,
insisted on aiding her. When Benedict arrived the next morning old Hinch
was much better physically and quite himself mentally, and David drove
back to town with the doctor.
Three times in the next two weeks David drove out to Griggs Township
with Benedict. Things had returned to their miserable normal state when
he made his last visit, but when David arrived Samuel Wiggett was there.
No doubt the farm was to be put up at tax sale and Wiggett had come out
to see whether it was worth bidding in. It would have pleased him to be
able to put old Hinch, a Copperhead, off the place.
Wiggett, like many sober and respectable men, had little respect for men
like Benedict, and he was never any too well pleased to see David in the
doctor's company. To see David and Benedict together at the home of the
Copperhead was bad indeed, and to see the evident friendship existing
between David and the Copperhead and the Copperhead's wife and daughter
was worse. Wiggett climbed into his buggy after a gruff greeting and
drove away.
For several days after David's meeting with Wiggett at the farm the
young dominie did not see Mary Wiggett. War times were busy times for
the ministers as well as for the men at the front, and David's pastoral
duties seemed to crowd upon him. Three of the “boys,” sent home to die,
lay in their beds and longed for David's visits. He tried to grasp a few
minutes to see Mary, but it was often long past midnight when he fell
exhausted on his bed.
Gossip, once started in a small town, does not travel--it leaps, growing
with each leap. It builds itself up like conglomerate, that mass of
pebbles of every sort, shells and mud. In no two heads did the stories
that were told about David during those days agree. The tales were a
conglomerate of unpleasant lies in which disloyalty, infatuation for
the Copperhead's daughter, hypocrisy, unhallowed love and much else were
illogically combined. Of all this David suspected nothing. What Mary
Wiggett heard can only be guessed, but it set her burning with jealousy
of Rose Hinch and weeping with hurt pride.
It was not a week after his last visit to the Hinches that Sam Wiggett's
man-of-all-work stopped at the manse, leaving a small parcel and a note
for David. The parcel held the cheap little ring David had given Mary as
a token of their engagement and the letter broke their engagement.
David was horrified. Again and again he read the letter, seeking to find
in it some clew to Mary's act, but in vain. He hastened to her home,
but she would not see him. He wrote, and she replied. It was a calmly
sensible letter, but it left him more bewildered than ever. She begged
him not to be persistent, and said her mind was made up and she could
never marry him. She said he could see that if he forced his attentions
or even insisted on making a quarrel of what was not one it would be
harder for both, since she was a member of his church and, if he became
annoying, one of them must leave.
Before giving up all hope David persuaded Dr. Benedict to see Mary. The
good doctor returned somewhat dazed.
“She sat on me, Davy; she sat on me hard,” he said. “My general
impression is that she meant to convey the idea that what Samuel
Wiggett's daughter chooses to do is none of a drunken doctor's infernal
business.”
“But would she give you no reason?” asked David.
“Now as to that,” said Benedict, “she implied quite plainly that if you
don't know the reason it is none of your business either. She knows the
reason and that's enough for the three of us.” David wrote again, and
finally Mary consented to see him and set the day and hour; but, as if
Fate meant to make everything as bad as possible for David, Benedict
came that very afternoon to carry him out to Griggs Township to minister
to Mrs. Hinch, who had broken down and was near her end. It was not
strange that she should ask for David, but the town found in the two or
three visits he made the dying woman additional cause for umbrage,
and Mary, receiving David's message telling why he could not keep his
appointment, refused to make another.
Through all this David went his way, head high and with an even mind.
He felt the change in his people toward him and he felt the changed
attitude of the town in general, but until the news reached him through
little 'Thusia Fragg he did not know there was talk in some of the
barrooms of riding him out of town on a rail.
He was sitting in his study trying to work on his sermon for the next
Sunday morning, but thinking as much of Mary as of his sermon, when
'Thusia came to the door of the manse. Mary Ann, the old housekeeper,
admitted her, leaving her sitting in the shaded parlor while she went to
call David. He came immediately, raising one of the window shades that
he might better see the face of his visitor, and when he saw it was
'Thusia he held out his hand. It was the first time 'Thusia had been
inside the manse.
“Well, 'Thusia!” he queried.
She was greatly agitated. As she talked she began to cry, wringing her
hands as she poured out what she had heard. David was in danger; in
danger of disgrace and perhaps of bodily harm or even worse. From her
father she had heard of the threats; Mr. Fragg had heard the word passed
among the loafers who hung out among the saloons on the street facing
the river. David was to be ridden out of town on a rail; perhaps tarred
and feathered before the ride.
David listened quietly. When 'Thusia had ended, he sat looking out of
the window, thinking.
He knew the men of the town were irritated. For a time all the news from
the Union armies had been news of reverses. The war had lasted long and
bad news increased the irritation. Riots and lawlessness always occur
in the face of adverse reports; news of a defeat embitters the
non-combatants and brings their hatred to the surface. At such a time
the innocent, if suspected, suffered along with the known enemy.
“And they think I am a Copperhead!” said David at length.
“Because you are friendly with Mr. Hinch,” 'Thusia repeated. “They don't
know you as I do. It is because you are kind to the Hinches when no one
else is. And they say--” she said, her voice falling and her fingers
twisting the fringe of her jacket--“they say you are in love with--with
the daughter.”
“It is all because they do not understand,” said David, rising. “I can
tell them. When I explain they will understand.”
He had, as yet, no definite plan. A letter to the editor of the daily
newspaper occurred to him; he might also make a plain statement in the
pulpit before his next Sunday sermon, setting himself right with his
congregation. In the meanwhile he must show himself on the street; by
word of mouth he could explain what the townspeople did not know. He
blamed himself for not having explained before. He stood at the window,
looking out, and saw Dr. Benedict drive up. The doctor came toward the
house.
David met him at the door.
“Davy,” the doctor said, clasping his hand, “she is dead,” and David
knew; he meant Mrs. Hinch.
“And Hinch?”
“He's taking it hard, Davy. He is in town. He is in that mood of sullen
hate again. He will need you--you are the only man that can soften him,
Davy. It is hard--we left the girl alone with her dead mother. Some
woman is needed there.” 'Thusia had come to the parlor door.
“Will I do! Can I go!” she asked.
“Yes, and bless you for it!” the doctor exclaimed. “Get in my buggy.
You'll come, David!”
“Of course! But Hinch--he came to town! Why?”
“He had to get the coffin, Davy.”
David hurried into his coat.
“We must find him at once and get him out of town,” he said. “They're
threatening to tar and feather him if he shows his face in town again.
We may stop them if we are in time; please God we may stop them!”
They found old Hinch's wagon tied opposite the post office. They knew it
by the coarse pine coffin that lay in the wagon bed. A crowd--a dozen or
more men--stood before the bulletin board watching the postmaster post
a new bulletin and, as David leaped from the buggy, the men cheered, for
the tide had turned and the news was news of victory. As they cheered,
old Hinch came out of the post office. He had in his right hand the
hickory club he always carried and in the left a letter, doubled over
and crushed in his gnarled fingers. He leaned his weight on the club.
All the strength seemed gone out of his bent body. Someone saw him and
shouted “Here's the Copperhead!” and before David could reach his side
the crowd had gathered around old Hinch.
The old man stood in the doorway, under the flag that hung limply from
its pole. His fingers twitched as they grasped the letter in his hand.
He glared through his long eyebrows like an angry animal.
“Kill the Copperhead!” someone shouted and an arm shot out to grasp the
old man.
“Stop!” David cried. He struggled to fight his way to Hinch, but the
old man, maddened out of all reason, raised his club above his head.
It caught in the edge of the flag above his head and he uttered a
curse--not at the flag, not at his tormentors, but at war and all war
had done to him. The knotted end of the club caught the margin of the
flag and tore the weather-rotten fabric.
Those in front had stepped back before the menace of the raised club,
but one man stood his ground. He held a pistol in his hand and as the
flag parted he leveled the weapon at the old man's head and calmly and
in cold blood pulled the trigger.
“That's how we treat a Copperhead!” he cried, and the old man, a bullet
hole in his forehead, fell forward at his feet.
You will not find a word regarding the murder in the _Riverbank Eagle_
of that period. They hustled the murderer out of town until it was safe
for him to return; indeed, he was never in any danger. The matter was
hushed up; but few knew old Hinch. It was an “incident of the war.” But
David, breaking through the crowd one moment too late, dropped to his
knees beside the old man's dead body and raised his head while Benedict
made the hurried examination. Some members of the crowd stole away, but
other men came running, from all directions and, standing beside the
dead man, David told them why old Hinch had damned the war and why he
hated it--not because he was a Copperhead but because one son and
then another had been taken from life by it--one son killed by a stray
Confederate bullet and the other shot while serving in the Union army.
He made no plea for himself; it was enough that he told them that old
Hinch was not a Copperhead but a grief-maddened father. As he ended
Benedict handed him the letter that had slipped from the old man's
hand as he fell. It bore the army frank and was from the colonel of a
Kentucky regiment. There was only a few lines, but they told that old
Hinch's oldest son, the last of his three boys, had fallen bravely in
battle. It was with this new grief in his mind that the old man had
stepped out to confront his tormentors.
David read the letter, his clear voice carrying beyond the edges of the
crowd, and when he finished he said, “We will pray for one who died in
anger,” and on the step of the post office and face to face with those
who but a few minutes before would have driven him from the town in
disgrace, he prayed the prayer that made him the best-loved man in
Riverbank.
Some of our old men still talk of that prayer and liken it to the
address Lincoln made at Gettysburg. It was never written down and we can
never know David's words, but those who heard knew they were listening
to a real man speaking to a real God, and they never doubted David
again.
As David raised his head at the close he saw Mary Wiggett and her father
in their carriage at the far edge of the crowd, that filled the street.
Mary half arose and turned her face toward David, but old Wiggett drove
on, and, while hands now willing raised the body of old Hinch, David
crossed the street to where 'Thusia Fragg was waiting for him.
When old Sam Wiggett drove away from in front of the post office, little
imagining David had just counteracted all the baseless gossip that had
threatened him, Mary placed her hand on his arm and urged him to turn
back, but cold common sense urged him to drive on. He did not want to be
known as having seen any of the tragedy, for he did not relish having to
enter a witness chair. Had he turned back as Mary wished David's whole
life might have been different, and certainly his end would have been.
Once safely home Mary did not hesitate to write to David. Whatever else
she may have been, and however old Sam's wealth had affected her mode
of thought, Mary was sincere, and she now wrote David she was sorry and
asked him to come to her. It was too late. With 'Thusia David walked
up the hill. At the gate of the manse they paused. They had spoken of
nothing but the tragedy.
“Rose Hinch will be all alone now,” 'Thusia said.
“Yes,” David said.
'Thusia looked down.
“Do you--will she get work,” she asked, “or is she going to marry
someone.”
“I know she is not going to marry,” David said promptly. “She knows no
one--no young men.”
“Except you,” 'Thusia suggested, looking up. As she met David's dear
eyes her face reddened as it had on that first day at the wharf. The
hand that lay on the gate trembled visibly; she withdrew it and hid it
at her side.
“I like Rose, but I am not a candidate for her hand, if that is what you
mean,” said David.
'Thusia suddenly felt infinitely silly and childish.
“I mean--I don't mean--” she stammered. “I must not keep you standing
here. Good-by.”
“Good-by,” David said, and turned away.
He took a dozen steps up the path toward the manse. He stopped short and
turned.
“'Thusia!” he called.
“Yes?” she replied, and turned back.
David walked to the gate and leaned upon it.
“What is it,” 'Thusia asked.
“You asked about Rose Hinch. I think we should try to do something for
her--”
'Thusia's eyes were on David's hands. Now David's hands and not
'Thusia's were trembling. She watched them as if fascinated. She looked
up and the light in his eyes thrilled her.
“'Thusia, I know now!” David said. “I love you and I have always loved
you and I shall love you forever.”
Her heart stood still.
“David! but we had better wait. We had better think it over,” she
managed to say. “You had better--you're the dominie--I--”
“Don't you care for met” he asked.
She put her hand on his and David clasped it. Kisses 'and embraces
usually help carry off a moment that can hardly be anything but awkward,
but kisses and embraces are distinctly impossible across a dominie's
manse gate in full day, with the Mannings on their porch across the
street. 'Thusia laughed a mischievous little laugh.
“What!” David asked.
“I'll be the funniest wife for a dominie!” she said. “Oh, David, do you
think I'll do!”
And so, as the fairy tales say, they were married. Fairy tales properly
end so, with a brief “and lived happily ever after,” and so may most
tales of real life end, but, however the minister's life may run,
a minister's wife is apt to find the married years sufficiently
interesting. She marries not only a husband but an official position,
and the latter is quite apt to lead to plentiful situations.
Mary Wiggett, calling David back too late, did not fall into a decline
or die for love. Not until she lost David finally did she realize how
deeply she had loved him, but she did not sulk or repine. She even
served as a bridesmaid for 'Thusia, and with 'Thusia planned the wedding
gown. She almost took the place of a mother, and advised and worked to
make 'Thusia's trousseau beautiful. She seemed to wish David's bride to
be all she herself would have been had she been David's bride. 'Thusia
was too happy to think or care why Mary showed such interest, and David,
who could not avoid hearing of it, was pleased and grateful.
The crowning act of Mary's kindness was asking 'Thusia to call Rose
Hinch from her poverty to help with the plainer sewing. The three
girls spent many days together at the Fraggs' and, although David was
mentioned as seldom as ever a bridegroom was mentioned, all three felt
they were laboring for him in making his bride fine. Mary, with her
calm efficiency, seemed years older than 'Thusia, and thus the three
worked--and were to work together for many years--for love of David.