Ellis Parker Butler

“ The cymbals and the flute and the trumpets ceased and the dancers were still. David could see the altar carried to the center of the green field. There was a moment of pause and then arose, faint at first but growing stronger each instant, the hymn of praise, of praise triumphant and all-overpowering. Mightier and mightier it grew until the whole universe seemed to join in the glorification of deity. David half arose from his seat, his hands grasping the back of the pew in front of him. Praise! this was praise indeed; praise worthy of the God worshiped in this church; worthy of any God! ”

“ You will have to imagine Riverbank as it was then to fully understand David and 'Thusia: the mean little business street with its ugly buildings and dust, or mud, ankle deep; the commercial life out of all proportion to the social life, so that few men thought of aught beside business; the fair, shady streets of homes with maples already overarching the streets and the houses of white or brick-red, all with ample lawns around them. You can see David leave the little white manse beside the brick church and walk the shady streets, making a pastoral call or going to the post office. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As Lucille furnished it her house seemed to us palatial in its elegance. It overpowered those who saw its interior; she certainly managed to get everything into the rooms that they would hold—even to a grand piano and a huge gilded harp on which she played with a great show of plump arms. All this mass of furnishings and bric-à-brac was without taste, but to Riverbank it was impressive. She had, I remember, a huge cuckoo clock she had bought in Switzerland, but which, being of unvarnished wood, did not suit her taste, so she had it gilded, and hung it against a plaque of maroon velvet. ”

“ You are so modest, so self-effacing, you do not know your worth. If you knew the full story of my childhood and girlhood, so empty and loveless, and even my short year of married life, so lacking in love, you would know what your friendship has meant. Just to know a man like you meant so much. It gave life a new meaning.”
Unfortunately you cannot see Lucille Hardcome as David saw her when he turned his face toward her, perplexed by her words, not able to believe what her tone implied, until he saw her face. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the museum of eternity the tom-tom may have a place as a curiosity—as the musical instrument of a crude people—but even a child can imagine its one note; the fingers of the virtuoso tingle to touch the glass-enclosed violin, and the imagination pleasures in the thought of the notes of joy and sorrow it has given forth in its day.
Youth—as Alice—when born and brought up with a pity for the despised is apt to carry the good quality over the line so far that it becomes unreasonable. There is such a thing as innate devilishness that deserves chastisement ”

“ Young lovers are all egotists to the extent of thinking: “If I chose him he must be good at heart and, no doubt, his past weakness was because he had not known me.” In herself she sees his needed opportunity, and her loyalty to her ideal of herself and to him resents the interference of those who would interpose obstacles. Alice, being by nature loyal, and by nature and training inclined to pity, might easily be driven to a blind and gently berserk, but none the less everlasting, battle for Lanny Welsh by the very opposition that sought to win her away from him. ”

“ That's what I'm getting at.”
“To save a man!” exclaimed Hardcome, his hard face as near showing horror as it had for many long years. “To save a man and his eternal soul! What do you mean! We don't set prices on souls, that way, do we! My stars! I never heard of such a thing! And from a dominie! You can't count a soul in cash dollars. What if it is but one soul we drag back from hell-fire! What's four thousand, or five thousand, or ten thousand dollars when it comes to a soul!”
“I don't mean your soul, or mine,” said David. “I mean a drunkard's soul, or some soul like that. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How many men in Riverbank actually die in the gutter each year!”
Now, there are not many. Riverbank men do not often die in the gutter, and but few of them kill themselves on account of drink. They live on for years, a handful of sodden, stupid, blear-eyed creatures.
“One!” asked David. “Is the average one a year? I don't believe it, but let us say it is one. Is it worth four thousand dollars to save one drunkard from death! To save one drunkard's soul! There is a plain business proposition: Is it worth that much cash! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Had David been a merchant Roger would have sold goods behind the counter for his father, as well as any other man could have sold them, and would have stood in the sun at the door in his shirt sleeves when idle, making friends that would have meant custom. But in a minister's work there are no cows to milk for father, and no goods to sell for father; a minister's son must be bitten by ambition or his place in the world is hard to find. ”

“ What she implied David knew. Alice was, above all else, loyal. The very intimation that Lanny Welsh lacked friends might strengthen her partisanship, for she was like her father in having always a kindly feeling for the under dog. The most uncompromised earthly happiness is not the portion of those who feel for the under dog, for some dog is always under. If a person is to take any interest in the world's dog fights, and seek enjoyment therefrom, he must be thoroughly callous, and not care a snap of his fingers what happens to the under dog. ”

“ How long have you been calling her 'Thusia?”
“I am not right every time, Benedict,” said David, arising and walking slowly up and down the floor, his hands clasped behind him, “but I am right in this. You are wrong when you allow yourself, even for a day, to fall into a state in which you cannot be of use to your sick when they call for you, and I would be wrong if I let anything turn my people from me, for they need me continually. My ministry is more important than I am. If my right hand offended my people I would cut it off. ”

“ He knew too little about Lanny Welsh to condemn the young man in his own mind without further facts. Had he had the giving he would not have presented Alice to anyone like Lanny, for he would have chosen some youth he knew better—and that meant Mary Derling's boy Ben—but, having his innate desire to do justice to all men, and as Alice had already chosen Lanny, David felt he should learn more about Lanny before he made an absolute decision to oppose his daughter's choice. He knew enough of men and life to believe the tags the world put on young fellows were not always the proper tags. ”

“ There was no doubt that Ben would make the best husband for Alice; he was a born husband. No matter what man any girl picked it was safe to say Ben would make a better husband than the man chosen; it would only remain for the girl to be able to get Ben, and to feel that—the world being what it is, and perfection often the dullest thing in it—she wanted a best husband. Alice, aided by Lucille, decided that she did want Ben.
It would be untruthful to deny that David and 'Thusia were pleased. They liked Ben and loved his mother; Lanny's unfortunate father no longer lurked a family menace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ David smiled in the darkness. But a day or two before, when Doc Benedict had dropped into the manse to sit awhile in David's study under the motto “Keep an even mind under all circumstances,” David had scolded him whimsically for unfaithfulness.
“I don't see you once in a blue moon any more, Benedict,” he had said. “I grow stale for someone to wrangle with. You're a false and fickle friend. Who is your latest passion? Father Moran?”
“Don't you say anything against Father Moran!” Benedict threatened. “It's a pity you're not both Presbyterians, or both Catholics, Davy. You'd love each other. ”

“ Every small town has girls like 'Thusia Fragg. You may see them arm in arm at the railway station as the trains pause for a few minutes, ready to chaffer with any “nice-looking” young fellow in a car window. You see them strolling past the local hotel, two or three in a group, ready to fall into step with any young drummer who is willing to leave his chair for a stroll. Some are bad girls, some are on the verge of the precipice of evil, and some, like 'Thusia, are merely lovers of excitement and not yet aware of the real dangers with which they play. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We will not think about money; we will think about great, grand music. You will be my leetle St. Cecilia; yes?” Not until she had consulted David, and had been assured that accepting such a favor from the niece of the priest was not at all wrong, would Miss Hurley agree. Then the lessons began, Miss Hurley always “my leetle St. Cecilia” to Mademoiselle. They were a strongly contrasted pair: Mademoiselle Moran stout, black-haired, with powerful arms and fingers; Miss Hurley a mere wisp of humanity, hair already gray, and with scarce strength to handle the stops and keys. ”

“ Such music must grasp souls and raise them far toward Heaven.
Professor Hedden arose and approached the steps leading down from the organ. In the pew in front of David old Sam Wiggett, donor of the organ, sat in his greatcoat, his iron gray hair mussed as always. David could imagine the firm-set mouth, the heavy jowls, the bushy eyebrows, the scowl that seldom left the old man's face. Lucille Hardcome whispered to him and he nodded. ”

“ We got to take care of the souls right at home first. I don't care if it costs ten thousand dollars a soul, it's our duty to do it!” David arose and turned and faced the shoe merchant. His face was white. His eyes were like gray steel. He had no smile now.
“Then, if you think souls are worth so much,” he asked tensely, “why are you sending Marty Ware to eternal death for a miserable two thousand dollars! Two thousand! For a miserable fifteen hundred, for here are five hundred a benighted gambler dug up to save the boy!” Hardcome was on his feet too. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”