LOOKING back, in later years, the death of old Sam Wiggett seemed to
David Dean to mark the close of one epoch and the beginning of another,
and the day he heard of the engagement of his daughter Alice marked a
third.
It was Monday and well past noon and the heat was intense. Although he
was late for dinner--noon dinners being the rule in Riverbank--David
paused now and then as he climbed the Third Street hill, resting a
few moments in the shade and fanning himself with the palm-leaf fan he
carried. Where the walk was not shaded by overarching maple trees the
heat beat up from the plank sidewalks in appreciable gusts. All spring
he had been feeling unaccountably weary, and these hot days seemed to
take the sap out of him. He had had a hard morning.
His Sunday had held a disappointment. In one way or another Lucille
Hardcome had induced John Gorst, whose fame as a pulpit orator was
country-wide, to spend the day at Riverbank and preach morning and
evening--in the morning at David's church and in the evening at the
union meeting in the court square--and David had looked forward to the
day as one that would give _him_ the uplift of communion with one of the
great minds of his church. He had dined at Lucille's with John Gorst
and had had the afternoon with him, and it had been all a sad
disappointment. Instead of finding Gorst a big mind he had found him
somewhat shallow and theatrical. Instead of a day of intellectual growth
David had suffered a day of shattered ideals. While he disliked to admit
it he had to confess that the great John Gorst was tiresome.
He did admit, however, that the two sermons John Gorst preached were
masterpieces of pulpit oratory. What he said was not so much, nor did he
leave in David's mind so much as a mustard seed of original thought, but
the great preacher had held his congregations breathless. He had
made them weep and gasp, and he had thrilled them. Hearing him David
understood why John Gorst had leaped from a third-rate church in a
country village to one of the best churches in a large town, and then to
a famous and wealthy church in a metropolis.
David's first duty this Monday morning had been to see John Gorst off on
the morning train. Lucille Hardcome and four or five others had been at
the station, and John Gorst had glowed under their words of adulation.
Well-fed, well-groomed, he had nodded to them from the car window as
the train pulled out, and David had turned away to tramp through the
hot streets to the East End where, Rose Hinch had sent word, old Mrs.
Grelling was close to death. John Gorst, in his parlor car, was on his
way to complete his two months' vacation at the camp of a millionaire
parishioner in the Wisconsin woods.
Old Mrs. Grelling, senile and maundering, had been weeping weakly,
oppressed by a hallucination that she had lost her grasp on Heaven. Her
little room was insufferably hot and close, and Rose Hinch sat by the
bed fanning the emaciated old woman, turning her pillow now and then,
trying to make her comfortable. Her patient had no bodily pain; in an
hour, or a day, or a week, she would fall asleep forever and without
discomfort, but now she was in dire distress of mind. Grown childish she
could not remember that she was at peace with God, and she mourned and
would not let Rose Hinch comfort her.
In twelve words David brought peace to the old woman in the bed. It was
not logic she wanted, nor oratory such as John Gorst could have given,
but the few words of comfort from the man of God in whom she had faith.
David knelt by the bed and prayed, and read “The Lord is My Shepherd,”
and her doubts no longer troubled her. If David Dean, the dominie she
had trusted these many years, assured her she was safe, she could
put aside worry and die peacefully. David saw a Book of Psalms on her
bedside table, less bulky than the large-typed Bible, and he put it in
her hands.
“Hold fast to this,” he said, “it is the sign of your salvation. You
will not be afraid again. I must go now, but I will come back again.”
He left her clasping the book in both her hands. She died before he saw
her again, but Rose Hinch told him she held the book until she died,
and that she had no return of the childish fear. She slept into eternity
peacefully content.
From Mrs. Grelling's bedside David walked to Herwig's to give his
daily order for groceries. The old grocer entered the small order and
hesitated.
“Dominie--” he said.
David knew what was coming, or imagined he did, and felt sick at heart.
“Yes?” he queried.
“I guess you know as well as I do how I hate to say anything about
money,” said Herwig, “and you know I wouldn't if I wasn't so hard put to
it I don't know which way to turn. I don't want you to worry about it.
If it ain't convenient just you forget I ever said anything. Fact is
I'm so pressed for money I'm worried to death. The wholesalers I get my
goods of--”
“My bill is much larger than it should be,” said David. “I have let it
run longer than I have any right to. Just at this moment--”
“I wouldn't even speak of it if I wasn't so put to it to satisfy those I
owe,” said Herwig apologetically. “I thought maybe you might be able to
help me out somehow, but I don't want to put you to any trouble.”
He was evidently sincere.
“My wholesalers are threatening to close me out,” he said, “and I've
just got to try every way I can to raise some cash. If it wasn't for
that I wouldn't dun a good customer, let alone you, Mr. Dean.”
“I know it, Brother Herwig,” David said. “You have been most lenient. I
am ashamed. I will see what I can do.”
The old grocer followed him to the door, still protesting his regret,
and David turned up the street to do the thing he disliked most of
anything in the world--ask his trustees for a further advance on his
salary.
Already he was overdrawn by several hundred dollars, and he was as
deeply ashamed of this as he was of his debts to the merchants of
Riverbank. It had always been his pride to be “even with the world”;
he felt that no man had a right to live beyond his means--“spending
to-morrow to pay for to-day,” he called it--and he had worried much over
his accumulating debts. That very morning, before he had left his manse,
he had made out a new schedule of his indebtedness, and had been shocked
to see how it had grown since his trustees had made the last advance he
had asked. With the advance the trustees had allowed him, the total
was something over a thousand dollars. He still owed something on last
winter's coal; he owed a goodly drug bill; his grocery bill was unpaid
since the first of the year; he owed the butcher; the milkman had a bill
against him; there were a dozen small accounts for shoes, drygoods, one
thing and another.
In Riverbank, at that time, business was nearly all credit business.
Bills were rendered twice a year, or even once a year, and, when
rendered, often remained unpaid for another six months or so. As
accounts went David's accounts were satisfactory to the merchants;
he was counted a “good” customer. His indebtedness had grown slowly,
beginning with his wife's illness, and he had run in debt beyond his
means almost without being aware of it. A semiyearly settling period had
come around, and he had found himself without sufficient funds to pay
in full, as he usually did. He paid what he could, and let the balance
remain, hoping to pay in full at the next settling period. Instead
of this he found himself still further behind, and each half year had
increased his load of unpaid bills.
David worried. He questioned his right to think the church did not pay
him enough, for he received as much as any other minister in Riverbank,
and more than most, and his remuneration came promptly on the day it was
due, and was never in arrears, as was the case with at least one other.
As a matter of fact, his trustees had several times advanced him money,
and had advanced him three hundred dollars on the current quarter year.
The dominie felt no resentment against the church or the trustees.
More remunerative pulpits had been offered him, and he had refused them
because he believed his work lay in Riverbank. Despite all this he could
not accuse himself of extravagance. He had raised two children, and they
were an expense, but he did not for a moment question his right to have
children. He would have liked a half dozen; certainly two--in a town
where larger families were the rule--could not be called extravagant.
Neither were they extravagant children. Roger had been given as much
college training as he seemed able to bear, and had been economical
enough; Alice had wished for college but had been compelled to be
satisfied with graduation from the Riverbank High School, and was at
home taking the place of the maid David felt he could no longer afford.
In the final analysis, David's inability to make his salary meet his
needs resolved itself into a matter of his wife's illness. 'Thusia,
once the liveliest of girls, was now practically bedridden, although
she could be brought downstairs now and then to rest on a divan in the
sitting room. She was a permanent invalid now, but a cheerful one. In
many ways she was more helpful to David than in their earlier married
years; her advice was good, and, with Rose Hinch and Mary Derling, she
made the council of three that upheld David's hands in his works of
charity and helpfulness. But an invalid is, however helpful her brain
may be, an expense, and one not contemplated by trustees when they set a
minister's salary. Certainly 'Thusia's illness was not the fault of the
church, but it was the cause of David's debts. He could not and did
not blame the church for his financial condition, nor could he blame
'Thusia. Alice was doing her full share in the house, taking the maid's
place, but Roger--alas, Roger! Roger, the well-beloved son, was a
disappointment. He now had a “job,” but after David's high hopes for
the lad the place Roger occupied was almost humiliating. David felt that
Roger probably hardly earned the four dollars a week he was paid by
his grandfather, old Mr. Fragg. He no longer called on his father
good-naturedly for funds, but he still lived at home, and probably would
as long as the home existed.
So this was our dominie as he walked through the hot Main Street on his
way to see Banker Burton, now his most influential trustee. Our David
was but slightly round-shouldered; his eyes still clear and gray; hair
still curled gold; mouth refined and quick to smile; brow broad, and but
little creased. His entire air was one of quick and kindly intelligence;
a little weary after twenty-nine years of ministry, a little worn by
care, but our Davy still.
I remember him telling me how the passing of the old and staunch friends
and (occasional) enemies affected him--men like old Sam Wiggett--and
how he felt less like a child of the patriarchs, and more like something
bargained and contracted for. This was said without bitterness; he was
trying to let me know what an important part in his younger years those
old elders and trustees had played. They never quite stopped thinking
of David as the boy minister, and to David they remained something stern
and authoritative, like the ancient Biblical patriarchs.
They had seemed the God-appointed rulers of the church; somehow the
newer trustees and elders, the reason for the choosing of each of whom
was known to David, seemed to lack something of the old awesome divine
right. They seemed more ordinarily human.
“They let Lucille Hardcome walk on them,” I told David, but of course
David would not admit that.
“Lucille is very kind to 'Thusia,” he said.
Mary Derling, having put up with Derling's infidelities long enough,
divorced him. Her son Ben was now a young man. Mary herself was well
along in the forties, and her abiding love for David Dean glowed in good
works year after year, and in the affection of Mary, 'Thusia and Rose
Hinch David felt himself blessed above most men. Rose was the best nurse
in Riverbank, and those who could secure her services felt that the
efficiency of their physician was doubled. She asked an honest wage from
those who could afford it, but she gave much of her time to David's
sick poor, and many hours to investigating poverty and distress. In
this latter work Mary Derling aided, and it was at 'Thusia's bedside
the consultations were held; for 'Thusia was no longer able to leave her
bed, except on days when she sat in an easy-chair, or could be carried
to a downstair couch. In a long, thin book 'Thusia kept a record of
needs and deeds. David called it his “laundry list.” In this were
entered the souls and bodies that needed “doing over”--souls to be
scrubbed and bodies to be starched and creases to be ironed out of both.
'Thusia was a secretary of charities always to be found at home. Charity
work soon grows wearisome, but 'Thusia could make the least interesting
cases attractive as she told of them. Each page of her “laundry list”
was a romance. 'Thusia not only interested herself but she kept interest
alive in others.
And Lucille! Lucille tried honestly enough to be useful in the way Rose
and Mary were useful. As the years passed she kept up all her numberless
activities, glowing as a social queen, pushing forward as a political
factor, driving the church trustees, ordering the music and cowing the
choir--she was in everything and leading everything, and yet she was
discontented. More and more, each year, she came to believe that David
Dean was the man of all men whose good opinion she desired, and it
annoyed her to think that he valued the quiet services of Mary Derling
and Rose Hinch more than anything Lucille had done or, perhaps, could
do. She was like a child in her desire for words of commendation from
David.
As David Dean mounted the three steps that led up to the bank where B.
C. Burton spent his time as president, Lucille was awaiting him in his
study in the little white manse on the hill.