Dominie Dean: A Novel. Butler Ellis Parker
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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.
V. CHURCH TROUBLES
THE leaves of the maples before the small white manse were red with their October