Mary was often at the manse. 'Thusia's love was still in the frantically
eager stage; she would have liked to have lived with one arm around
David's neck, and she was unwittingly in constant danger of showing
herself all a dominie's wife should not be. Her taste for bright clothes
and her carelessness of conventionality threatened a harsh awakening for
David. During that dangerous first year Mary made herself almost one of
the household.
'Thusia, strange to say, did not resent it. Mary kept, then and always,
her love for David, as a good woman can. But little older than 'Thusia,
she was far wiser and immeasurably less volatile and, having lost David
as a lover, she transmuted her love into service.
Probably she never thought her feelings into a conscious formula. At the
most she realized that she was still very fond of David and that she was
happier when helping him than at any other time.
'Thusia's gay companions of the days before David's coming were
quite impossible now that 'Thusia was a dominie's bride, and 'Thusia
recognized this and was grateful for Mary's companionship during the
months following the honeymoon. A young bride craves a friend of her
own age, and Mary was doubly welcome. Her advice was always sound,
and 'Thusia was quick to take it. Mary's friendship also made the
congregation's acceptance of 'Thusia far easier, for anyone so promptly
taken up by the daughter of the church's richest member and most
prominent elder had her way well prepared in advance. Mary, fearing
perhaps that 'Thusia might be annoyed by what might seem unwarranted
interest in her affairs, was wise enough to have herself elected head of
the women's organization that had the care and betterment of the manse
and its furnishings. To make the house fit for a bride she suggested and
carried through changes and purchases. She opened her own purse freely,
and what 'Thusia did not suggest she herself suggested.
“Mary is lovely!” 'Thusia told David.
A year or two after Mary had thus made herself almost indispensable to
'Thusia she married.
“Oh, I knew it long ago!” 'Thusia said in answer to David's expression
of surprise at the announcement of the impending wedding. She had known
it a month, which was just one day less than Mary herself had known it.
Mary's husband, one of the Derlings of Derlingport, was due to inherit
wealth some day, but in the meanwhile old Sash-and-Door Derling was glad
to shift the nattily dressed, inconsequential young loafer on to Mr.
Wiggett's shoulders. Wiggett found him some sort of position in the
Riverbank bank and young Derling gradually developed into a cheerful,
pattering little business man, accumulating girth and losing hair.
'Thusia rather cruelly but exactly expressed him when she told Rose
Hinch he was something soft and blond with a gold toothpick. If Mary was
ever dissatisfied with him she gave no sign.
Those who had wondered what kind of a minister's wife flighty, flirty,
little 'Thusia Fragg would make soon decided she made a good one. She
can hardly be better described than by saying she sang at her work.
David's meager stipend did not permit the employment of a maid, and
'Thusia had little enough leisure between meals for anything but
cheerful singing at her tasks. She cooked, swept, baked and washed.
There were ministers' wives in Riverbank who were almost as important in
church work as their husbands, and this was supposed to be part of their
duties. They were expected to lead in all social money-getting affairs,
and, in general, to be not merely wives but assistant ministers. If
'Thusia had attempted this there might have been, even with Mary's
backing, trouble, for every woman in the church remembered that only
a short while before 'Thusia had been an irresponsible, dancing,
street-gadding, young harum-scarum of a girl. Her interference would
have been resented. With good sense, or good luck, she left this quasi
assistant ministry to Mary, who gladly assumed it, and 'Thusia gave all
her time to the pleasanter task of being David's happy little wife and
housekeeper.
David, at the manse gate, was waiting for Rose Hinch. Rose, when she saw
David, came on with a brisker step. Rose had become David's protégée,
the first and closest of many that--during his long life--gathered about
him, leaning on him for help and sympathy. In return Rose Hinch was
always eager to help David in any way she could. She was Riverbank's
first precursor of the trained nurse. David and old Benedict had worried
about her future, until David suggested that the old doctor give her
what training he could and put her in charge of such of his cases as
needed especial care. Rose took up the work eagerly. She lived in a
tiny room above a store on the main street. To many in Riverbank she
represented all that a trained nurse and a lay Sister of Charity might.
“Well, Rose,” David said, “you seem happy. Is this fine October air
getting into your blood too?”
“I suppose that helps,” said Rose, “but the Long boy is so far past the
crisis that I'm not needed any longer. I'm so glad he's getting well; he
is such a dear, patient little fellow. That's why I'm happy, David. And
you seem fairly well content with the world, I should judge.”
“I am, Rose!” he answered. “Have you time to see 'Thusia for a minute or
two. I know she wants to see you.”
He held the gate open and Rose entered. David put his hat on one of the
gateposts and stood with his arms on the top of the gate, “bathing in
beauty,” as he told 'Thusia later. The sun, where it touched the maple
leaves, turned them to flame. Through a gap in the trees he could catch
a glimpse of the Mississippi and the varicolored foliage on the Illinois
shore, the reds softened to purple by the October haze. For a few
minutes he let himself forget his sick and his soul-sore people and his
duties, and stood in happy thoughtlessness, breathing October.
Rose came out.
“It's all settled. I'm coming,” she said, “and, oh, David! I am so
glad!”
“We are all glad,” said David.
Thus it happened that no wife ever approached motherhood more happily
than motherless little 'Thusia. With David and kind old Doctor Benedict
and gentle, efficient Rose Hinch at hand, and Mary as delighted as if
the child was to be her own, and all of them loving her, 'Thusia did
not give a moment to fear. The baby, when it came, was a boy, and Doctor
Benedict said it was the finest in the world, and immediately nominated
himself the baby's uncle. He bought the finest solid silver, gold-lined
cup to be had in Riverbank and had it engraved, “Davy, Junior, from
Uncle Benedict,” with the date. This was more than he did for Mary
Derling's baby, which came a month later. He gave a silver spoon there,
one of about forty that lucky infant received from near and far.
'Thusia was up and about, singing as before, in due time. Rose Hinch
remained for the better part of a. month and departed absolutely
refusing any compensation. The winter was as happy as any David ever
knew. Davy Junior was a strong and fairly well-behaved baby; 'Thusia was
in a state of ecstatic bliss, and in the town all the former opposition
to David had been long since forgotten. With the calmness of an older
man but with a young man's energy he went up and down the streets of
the town on his comforting errands. He was fitting into his niche in the
world with no rough edges, all of them having been worn smooth, and it
seemed that it was his lot to remain for the rest of his life dominie
of the Presbyterian Church of Riverbank, each year better loved and more
helpful.
April and May passed blissfully, but by the end of June an unexpected
storm had gathered, and David did not know whether he could remain in
Riverbank another month.
Late in May an epidemic of diphtheria appeared in Riverbank, several
cases being in David's Sunday school and the school was closed. Mary, in
a panic, fled to Derlingport with her child. She remained nearly a month
with her husband's parents, but by that, time Derlingport was as overrun
by the disease as Riverbank had been and conditions were reported better
at home; so she came back, bringing the child. She returned to find the
church in the throes of one of those violent quarrels that come with
all the violence and suddenness of a tropical storm. Her short absence
threatened to result in David's expulsion from the church.
On the last Saturday of June old Sam Wiggett sat at the black mahogany
desk in his office studying the columns of a New York commercial
journal--it was the year when the lumber situation induced him to
let who wished think him a fool and to make his first big purchase of
Wisconsin timberlands--when his daughter, Mary Derling, entered. She
came sweeping into the office dressed in all the fuss and furbelow of
the fashionable young matron of that day, and with her was her cousin,
Ellen Hardcome. Sam Wiggett turned.
“Huh! what are you down here for!” he asked. He was never pleased when
interrupted at his office. “Where's the baby!”
“I left him with nurse in the carriage,” said Mary. “Can't you say
good-day to Ellen, father!”
“How are you!” said Mr. Wiggett briefly. Mrs. Hardcome acknowledged the
greeting and waited for Mary to proceed.
“Well, father,” said Mary, “this thing simply cannot go on any longer.
Something will have to be done. This quarrel is absolutely breaking up
the church.”
“Huh!” growled Mr. Wiggett. “What's happening now!”
“David is going to preach to-morrow,” said Mary dropping into a vacant
chair and motioning Ellen to be seated. “After all the trouble we took
to get Dr. Hotchkiss to come from Derling-port, and after the ladies
offering to pay for a vacation for David out of the fund--”
“What!” shouted Wiggett, striking the desk a mighty blow with his fist.
“Didn't I tell you you women have no right to use that fund for any such
nonsense! That's money raised to pay on the mortgage. You've no right to
spend it for vacations for your star-gazing, whipper-snapper preacher.
No! Nor for anything else!”
“But, father!” Mary insisted.
“I don't care anything about your 'but, father.' That's mortgage money.
You women ought to have turned it over to the bank long ago. You have no
right to keep it. Pay for a vacation! You act like a lot of babies!”
“Father--”
“Pay for a vacation! Much he needs a vacation! Strong as an ox and
healthy as a bull; doesn't have anything to do the whole year 'round but
potter around town and preach a couple of sermons. It's you women get
these notions into your preachers' heads. You turn them into a lot of
babies.”
“Father, _will_ you let me say one word before you quite tear me to
pieces! A great many people in our church _like_ David Dean. It is all
right to bark 'Woof! woof! Throw him out neck and crop!' but you know as
well as I do that would split the church.”
“Well, let it split! If we can't have peace--”
“Exactly, father!” Mary said quietly. “If we cannot have peace in the
church it will be better for David Dean to go elsewhere, but before that
happens--for I think many of our people would leave our church if David
goes--shouldn't we do all we can to bring peace? Ellen agrees with me.”
“In a measure I do; yes,” said Ellen Hard-come.
“Ellen and Mr. Hardcome,” Mary continued, “are willing to promise to do
nothing immediately if David will go away for a month or two. If we can
send him away for a couple of months until some of the bitterest feeling
dies everything may be all right. We women will be glad enough to make
up and pay back anything we have to borrow from the fund. I think,
father, if you spoke to David he might go.”
“Better get rid of him now,” Wiggett growled. Ellen Hardcome smiled.
This was what she wanted. Mary looked at the heavy-faced old dictator.
She knew her father well enough to feel the hopelessness of her mission.
Old Wiggett had never forgiven David for marrying 'Thusia instead of
Mary, and because he would a thousand times have preferred David to
Derling as a son-in-law he hated David the more.
“It isn't only that David would go, father,” Mary said. “If he is sent
away we will lose the Hodges and the Martins and the Ollendorfs and old
Peter Grimby. I don't mind those old maid Curlews going, or people like
the Hansoms or the Browns, but you know what the Hodges and old Peter
Grimby do for the church every year. We thought that if you could get
David to take a vacation, explaining to him that it would be a good
thing to let everything quiet down--”
Old Sam Wiggett chuckled.
“Who thought! Ellen never thought of that,” he said.
“I thought of it,” said Mary.
“And he won't go!” chuckled Wiggett. “I give him credit--he's a fighter.
You women have stirred up the fight in him. I told you to shut up and
keep out of this, didn't I! Why--that Dean has more sense than all of
you. You must have thought he was a fool, asking him to go on a vacation
while Ellen and all stayed here to stir things up against him. He has
brains and that wife of his has spunk--do you know what she told me when
I met her on the street this morning!”
Mary did not ask him.
“Told me I wasn't fit to clean her husband's shoes!” said Wiggett.
“I hope--” said Mary.
“Well, you needn't, because I didn't,” said her father. “I didn't say
anything. Turned my back on her and walked away.”
“And I suppose you haven't heard the latest thing she has said!” said
Ellen Hardcome bitterly. “She says I have no voice, and that I would not
be in the choir if my husband did not have charge of the music.”
“Said that, did she!” chuckled Wiggett.
“She said my upper register was squeaky, if you please!”
'Thusia had indeed said this. She had said it years before and to a
certain Miss Carrol who was then her friend. What Miss Carrol had said
about the same voice, she being in the choir with Mrs. Hardcome, does
not matter. Miss Carrol had not thought it necessary to tell that to
Ellen. With the taking of sides in the present church quarrel all those
who were against David racked their brains to recall things 'Thusia had
said that could be used to set anyone against the dominie. There were
plenty of such harmless, little confidences to recall. 'Thusia, during
her first married years--and for long after--was still 'Thusia; she
tingled with life and she loved companionship and liked to talk and
listen. Every woman expresses her harmless opinions to her friends,
but it is easy for the friend, when she becomes an enemy and wishes for
recruits, to use this contraband ammunition. It is a woman's privilege,
it seems. The women who, like Rose Hinch, and certain women you know,
are accepted by men on an equality of friendship, make the least use of
it, for even among children there is no term of opprobrium worse than
“tattletale.” It was but natural for yellow-visaged Miss Connerton, for
instance, who had once said to 'Thusia, “Don't you get tired of Mrs.
Hallmeyer's eternal purple dresses,” and who had accepted 'Thusia's
“Yes” as a confidential expression of opinion as between one woman and
another, to run to Mrs. Hall-meyer, when everyone was against 'Thusia,
and say: “And I suppose you know what she said about you, Mrs.
Hallmeyer? That she simply got tired to death of seeing your eternal
purple dresses!”
David was fighting for his life, for his life was his work in Riverbank.
He was not making the fight alone. Seven or more years of faithful
service had won him staunch friends who were glad to fight for him,
but the miserable feature of a church quarrel is that--win or lose--the
minister must suffer. The two months of the quarrel were the unhappiest
of his life, and David made the fight, not because he hoped to remain in
Riverbank after it was ended, but because he felt it his duty to stand
by what he believed was right, until he should be plainly and actually
told to go. The majority of his people, he felt, were with him, but that
would make little difference in the final outcome. Although he tried in
every way to lessen the bitterness of the quarrel, so that his triumph,
if he won, might be the less offensive, he knew his triumph could mean
but one thing. A body, nearly half the church, would prepare to leave,
and his supporters, having won, would suggest that it would be better
for David--who could not keep body and soul together on what the remnant
of a church could afford to pay him--and better for the church, that he
should resign and carry his triumph elsewhere.
Win or lose David was likely to lose, but until the final moment he did
not mean to back down. Had he felt himself in the wrong he would have
acknowledged it at once; had he been in the right, and no one but
himself concerned, he would have preached a farewell sermon and would
have departed. He remained and made the fight because he was loyal to
'Thusia!
It was, indeed, 'Thusia against whom the fight was being made, and it
was Ellen Hardcome to whom the whole miserable affair was due. It was
all brought about by a pair of black prunella gaiters.