Part 9

Thus it came to the night before the day when Professor Hedden, coming from a great city, was to introduce the congregation to its new organ. That afternoon Mademoiselle had given Miss Jane a final lesson--final with the promise of more later--and had kissed her cheek. Father Moran had patted her shoulder, too, wishing her, in his quaint English, good success, offering her a glass of sherry, which of course she declined, making him laugh joyously as he always did at “these Peelgrims Fathers,” as he good-naturedly called those he considered puritanical. Miss Jane, coming straight from St. Bridget's, had entered the church and had tried the great, new, splendid organ. She was a little afraid of it; she trembled when she pulled out the first stops and heard the first notes answer her fingers on the keys. Then she grew bolder; she tried a simple hymn and forgot herself, and by the time twilight came she was not afraid at all. She left the church uplifted and happy of heart. She told Miss Mary, when she reached home, that she believed she would do quite well.

The evening trial left her in trembling fear again. It was well enough to assure herself that no one in America could play as Professor Hedden played; that he was our one great master; but she feared what would be thought of her playing after the congregation had had such music as Professor Hedden's as a first taste.

A dozen or more fortunate hearers made up the little audience at the impromptu trial. They were Sam Wiggett and Mary Derling (who had had a little dinner for Professor Hedden), the four members of the choir, Lucille Hardcome, Miss Hurley, David and 'Thusia, two friends Lucille had invited and Schwerl.

The new organ was a magnificent instrument. Behind the pulpit and the choir stall the great pipes arose in a convex semicircle as typical of aspiring praise as any Gothic cathedral, and when, Saturday evening, Professor Hedden seated himself on the player's bench and, after resting his hands for a moment on the keyboard, plunged into some tremendous “voluntary” of his own composition, the mountains and the ocean and all the wild winds of Heaven seemed to join in one great burst of gigantic harmony. It seemed then to David Dean that the organ pipes should have been painted in glorious gold and all the triumphant hues of a magnificent sunrise instead of the fiat terra cotta and moss green that had been chosen as harmonizing with the church interior.

Presently the wild tumult of sound softened to the sighing of a breeze through the pine trees, to the rippling of a brook, to the croon of a mother over a babe. David held his breath as the crooning died, softer and softer, until he saw the mother place the sleeping child in its crib, and when the last faint note died into silence there were tears in his eyes. This was music! It was such music as Riverbank had never heard before!

“This is another of my own,” said Professor Hedden and the organ began to laugh like nymphs at play in a green, sunny field--tricksy laughter that made the heart glad--and that changed into a happy hands-all-around romp, interrupted by the thin note of a shepherd's flute. Out from the trees bordering the field David could see the shepherd come, swaying the upper part of his body in time to his thin note, and behind him came dancing nymphs and dryads and fauns. He touched 'Thusia's hand, and she nodded and smiled without taking her eyes from the organ. Then the dash of cymbals and the blare of trumpets and the martial tread of the warriors shook the green field--thousands of armed men--and all the while, faint but insistent, the piping of the shepherd and the laughter of the dancing nymphs. And then came priests bearing an altar, chanting. 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!

As the music ceased David's eye fell on Miss Hurley at the far end of his pew. The thin little woman in her cheap garments was wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. Her hands trembled with emotion. Suddenly she dropped her forehead to the back of the pew before her and with one silk-gloved hand on either side of her cheek, remained so.

Professor Hedden, half turning on his seat, said:

“While this next is hardly what I would call a complete composition, it may give you an idea of the capabilities of the organ.”

When he ceased playing he said:

“It is merely an exercise in technique, but I think it shows fairly well what can be done with a good organ.”

It may have been merely an exercise, but it had made the organ perform as no one in that church, aside from Professor Hedden himself, had ever heard an organ perform. The full majesty and beauty of the great instrument, unguessed by those who had gathered to hear this first test, stood revealed. David Dean's heart was full. It seemed to him as if the organ, capable of speaking in such a manner, must be a mighty force to aid him in his ministerial work; as if the organ were a living thing. 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.

“Now let's hear Miss Hurley play something,” said Lucille in her sweetest voice.

“Oh!” exclaimed Miss Hurley, cowering into her corner. “Not now, please! Not after that!”

Lucille laughed. Old Sam Wiggett sat as before, his head half hidden by his coat collar, but David knew the grim look that was on the old man's face. Wiggett's word would settle the organist matter when that grim old man chose to speak. David turned toward Miss Hurley, and she shook her head. He did his best to smother her refusal by advancing to the professor with congratulatory hand extended. In a moment the dozen fortunate listeners were crowded around Professor Hedden, and Miss Hurley, in her pew end, was forgotten.

As 'Thusia, David and Miss Jane were leaving the church Lucille, jingling with jewelry, swooped down upon them.

“Oh, Miss Hurley!” she called. “Just one minute, please!”

Miss Jane stopped and turned.

“Professor Hedden thinks,” Lucille cooed, “or, really, I'm not sure which of us thought of it, but we quite agree, that you must play at least once to-morrow morning! To christen _your_ organ with you taking no part would be quite too shameful. So”--she hesitated and her smile was wicked--“so we want you to play the congregation out after the professor is through. You know they will never leave while he is playing.”

The taunt was cruel and plain enough--that the congregation _would_ leave if Miss Jane played--and Miss Jane reddened. Professor Hedden, with Sam Wiggett, came up to them.

“Of course you must play!” he said through his beard, in his gruff, kindly voice.

“But, I--I--” stammered Miss Jane.

“Good-night! Good-night, all!” said Lucille. “It's all arranged, Miss Hurley,” and she bore the professor away.

“I shall not dare!” Miss Jane said to David. “After such music as the professor will give! Even the biggest thing I know--”

“But you'll not play the biggest thing you know,” said David.

The church was crowded the next morning. Even before the Sunday school was dismissed the seats began to fill. Sam Wiggett was on hand early, grim but proud of his great gift; his daughter came later with Lucille and Professor Hedden. When David came to take his seat behind his pulpit the church was filled as it had never been filled before, and many were standing. The two ladies of the choir had new hats. Professor Hedden took his place on the organist's bench and little Miss Jane cowered behind the rail curtain of terra-cotta wool. From the body of the church nothing could be seen but the top of the quaint little rooster wing on her hat. The praise service began.

I cannot remember now what Professor Hedden played, but it was wonderful music, as we all knew it would be. There were moments when the whole church edifice seemed to tremble, and others when we held our breath lest we fail to hear the delicate whispering of the organ. From my seat in the diagonal pews at the side of the church I could see old Sam Wiggett's face, grim and set, and Lucille Hardcome's triumphant glances and David's thin, clean-cut features, his whole spirit uplifted by the music, and I could see Miss Jane's rooster wing sinking lower and lower behind the terra-cotta curtain.

David's sermon was short, almost a rhapsody in praise of the music of praise, and then an anthem, and Professor Hedden's final offering. As the magnificent music rolled through the church, poor little Miss Jane's rooster wing disappeared entirely behind the curtain. The music ended in a mighty crash, into which Professor Hedden seemed to throw all the power of the organ. David arose. He stood a moment looking out upon the congregation.

“Following the benediction,” his dear voice announced, “our organist, Miss Hurley, will play while the congregation is being dismissed.”

Lucille looked from side to side, smiling and raising her eyebrows. David, however, did not give the benediction at once. He stood, looking out over the congregation, and behind him and the terra-cotta curtain two hats turned toward the place where we had seen Miss Jane's rooster wing sink out of sight. Professor Hedden bent down and raised Miss Jane and led her to the player's bench. She was very white. No one in the congregation moved. Then David spoke again.

His words were simple enough. He began by speaking of the man who had given the organ, and called him rugged but big-souled, and Sam Wiggett frowned. David continued, saying the organ would always be a memorial of that man's generosity and more than that. As David raised his head there came from the organ, as if from far off--faint, most faint, like a child's voice singing--the strains of the old, old hymn:

“Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee!”

David continued as the music sang faintly. He said there was one, in whose name the donor had presented the organ, whose vacant place all would regret, since she, too, would have been eager to join in the music of praise, but he believed, he knew, that she was joining in the voice of the noble instrument from her new home on high. Then he said the benediction and the organ's voice grew strong, repeating the same noble hymn.

The congregation arose. One by one the voices took up the hymn until every voice joined in singing old Sam Wiggett's favorite hymn; the hymn he loved because his wife had loved it:

“Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee!”

I cannot describe the change that came over the old man's face; it was as if he had been sitting with his hat on and suddenly uncovered. It was as if he had been grimly appraising a piece of property and suddenly realized that he was in God's house and felt the organ lifting his soul toward Heaven. He glanced to the left as if seeking the wife who had for so many years stood at his side to sing that same hymn. He raised his face to David and then suddenly dropped back into his seat. Miss Jane reached forward and manipulated I know not what stops and the organ opened its great lungs, crying triumphantly:

“Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee!”

Lucille waited for Professor Hedden and there were plenty who waited with her, but old Sam Wiggett stood, gruffly slighting the words of thanks that were proffered him, until Miss Jane came down from the organ. He went to her and took her hand.

“Thank you, Jane!” he said. “That's what we want--music, not fireworks!”

He walked with David and 'Thusia and Miss Jane to the church door. Mademoiselle was there and she pounced upon Miss Jane.

“Ah, you see!” she cried. “I am disguised! I buy me a new hat so no one will know me, and I come to hear your grand organ. He was magnificent, your professor! But you, Meester Wiggett,” she asked in her quaint accent, “what you think now of our leetle St. Cecilia! She can play vairy nice!”

Miss Jane blushed with pleasure.

“Uh!” said Sam Wiggett, which--freely translated--meant that as long as he lived no one but Miss Jane should play the Wiggett pipe organ if he could prevent it. Lucille looked at David with a new respect.

XI. STEVE TERRILL

LUCILLE HARDCOME'S defeat, unimportant as it was to the world at large, made her furiously angry for a few days. She would have left the church to go to the Episcopalians if it had not been that the Episcopalian Church in Riverbank was direly poverty-stricken. Lucille sulked for a few days and let the report go out that she was ill, and then appeared with her hair, which had been golden, a glorious shade of red. She said it was Titian. It was immensely becoming to her. Had any other woman in the congregation dared to change the color of her hair thus flauntingly there would have been little less than a scandal. That her first hair vagary created little adverse comment shows how completely Lucille had impressed us with the idea that she was extra-privileged. Later she changed the color of her hair as the whim seized her, varying from red to gold.

In addition to the change in the color of her hair Lucille came out of her brief retirement with an entirely changed opinion of David Dean. She seemed suddenly aware that, far from being a mere church accessory, he was someone worth while. She began to court his good opinion openly. Having burned her fingers she admired the fire.

Lucille was a woman of elementary mentality and much of her domineering success was due to that very fact. She often went after what she wanted with a directness that was crude but effective. Lucille set about getting David under her thumb.

Poor David! Lucille saw that his dearest tasks of helpfulness were always shared by the trio--'Thusia, now grown pale; Rose Hinch, the ever-cheerful; and Mary Derling. These three understood David. They echoed his gentle tact and loving-kindness, and it was to be a fourth in this group that Lucille decided was the thing she desired.

For the work done by the trio, under David's gentle direction, Lucille was eminently unfitted. The three women were handmaidens of charity; Lucille was a major general of earthly ambitions. In spite of this she thrust herself upon David.

The power of single-minded insistence is enormous. We see this exemplified over and over again in politics; the most unsuitable men, by plain force of will, thrust themselves into office. They are not wanted; everyone knows they are out of place, but they have their way. Lucille--resplendent hair, flaring gowns and all--forced David to accept her as one of his intimate helpers by the simple expedient of insisting that he should. It is only fair to say that she opened her purse, but this was in itself an evidence of her unfitness for the work she had to do. Most of David's “cases” needed personal service of a kind Lucille was incapable of rendering. She gave them dollars instead. Time and again she upset David's plans by opening her hand and showering silver where it was not good to bestow it. She tried to take full command of Rose Hinch and Mary Derling. They went calmly on their accustomed ways.

In one matter in which David was interested Lucille did give valuable assistance. Although Riverbank was notoriously a “wet” town the State had voted a prohibitory law against liquor selling. In Riverbank the law was all but a dead letter. The saloons remained open, the proprietors coming up once a month to pay a “fine,” which was in fact a local license. Probably our saloons were no worse than those in other river towns, but many of us believed it a scandal that they should continue doing business contrary to law. Our Davy was never much of a believer in the minister in politics, although he had said his say from the pulpit with enough youthful fervor back in Civil War days, but he feared and hated the saloon and all liquor, remembering his long fight for Mack Graham and plenty of other youths. He was mourning, too, his best of friends, old Doc Benedict, who never overcame his craving for whisky, and who died after being thrown from his carriage one night when he had taken too much. No doubt Sam Wiggett had some influence over David's actions, too. The old man was all for having the saloons closed as long as the law said they should be closed, and, to some extent, he dragged Davy into the fight.

It was understood that if our county attorney wished the saloons closed he could close them. A fight was made to elect a “dry” county attorney, and, as it happened, the fight carried all the county and town offices. Every Democrat was thrown out.

No one can say how greatly David Dean's part in the campaign affected the result. I think it had a greater effect than was generally believed. For one thing his sermons aroused us as nothing else could have aroused us, and for another he had the assistance of Lucille Hardcome.

As women are apt to do, Lucille made her fight a personal matter. She organized the women, organized children's parades, planned house-to-house appeals and persuaded even the merchants who favored open saloons to place her placards in their windows. It is probable that Lucille's work did more to cause the landslide than all the handbills and speeches of the politicians and she did it all to impress David. David's personal stand also had a great effect, for he was known as a conservative, meddling little with political affairs. It is hardly too much to say that between them Lucille Hardcome and David carried the election. The margin was small enough as it was. The _Riverbank Eagle_, after the election, declared that without David's help the prohibition forces would have lost out. Among the other defeated candidates was Marty Ware, who had been city treasurer for several terms.

The new city officials, most of them greatly surprised to find themselves elected, were to take office January first, and it was one day about the middle of December that Steve Turrill came to the front door of the little manse and asked for David. 'Thusia, who came to the door, knew Turrill. She had known him years before, when she was a thoughtless, pleasure-mad young girl. Even then Steve had been a gambler and fond of a fast horse. In those days Steve would often disappear for months at a time, for the steamboats were gambling palaces. He never returned until his pockets were full of money and his mouth full of tales of Memphis, Cairo, St. Louis and even New Orleans. He was known in all the gambling places up and down the Mississippi.

At the beginning of the Civil War Steve Turrill had enlisted, returning, after about five months service, with a bullet in his leg just below the left hip. The bullet was never found. After that Steve walked with a cane and on damp days one could see him in a chair in front of the Riverbank Hotel, his forehead creased with pain and his left hand ceaselessly rubbing his left hip. When his hip was worst he could not sit still at the gaming table. To the gambler's pallor was added the pallor of pain.

As a boy I remember him sitting under the iron canopy of the hotel. We all knew he was a gambler, and he was the only gambler we knew. Sometimes he would have a trotter, and we would see him flash down the street behind the red-nostriled animal; sometimes even the diamond horseshoe in his tie and the rings on his fingers would be gone.

Everyone seemed to speak to Steve Turrill. Even as a boy I knew, vaguely, that he had a room in the Riverbank Hotel where people went to gamble. It was understood that not everyone could gamble there. I think there was a feeling that Steve Turrill was “straight,” and that as he had been wounded in the war, and was the last professional gambler Riverbank would have, he should not be bothered. I believe he was always a sick man and that, from the day he returned from the war, Death stood constantly at his side.

He looked as if Death's hand had touched him. His thin, sharp features were ashen gray at times and his hands were mere bones covered with transparent skin. He never smiled. He never touched liquor. He smoked a long, thin cigar that he had made especially for his own use; I suppose Doc Benedict had told him how much he could smoke and remain alive.

When 'Thusia saw him at the door (it was one of her “well” days) she was not startled; for many odd fish come to a dominie's door from one end of the year to the next. He leaned on his cane and took off his gray felt hat.

“'Day, 'Thusia,” he said, quite as if they had not been strangers for years; “I wonder if Mr. Dean is in?”

“He's in,” said 'Thusia, “but this is the afternoon he works on his sermon. He tries not to see anyone.”

“This is more important than a sermon,” said Turrill. “Would you mind telling him that?” David would see him. He came to the door himself and led the gambler into the little study where the spatter-work motto, “Keep an even mind under all circumstances,” hung above the desk. He gave Turrill his hand and placed a chair for him, and the gambler dropped into the chair with a sigh of pain.

“I think you know who I am,” said Turrill, rubbing his hip. “I'm Turrill. I do a little in the gambling way.”

“Yes, so I understand,” said David, and waited. “It's not about myself I've come,” said Turrill. “I wouldn't bother about myself; I'm dead any day. I've been dead twenty-five years, as far as my gambling chance of life goes. Do you know Marty Ware?”

“Yes,” said David. “Is it about him?”

“He's going to kill himself,” said Turrill without emotion.

David waited.

“The fool!” said Turrill. “He came to me and told me. Why, I can't sleep anyway, with this hip of mine! How can I sleep, then, when I've got such a thing as that on my mind! So I came to you; that's what you're for, isn't it!”

“It is one of the things,” said David.

“He got that book of Ingersoll's,” Turrill complained. “The fool! I've read that book! Do you think, with this pain in my hip, I would be dragging along here day after day, if there was anything in that idea that a man has a right to blow himself out when he feels like it! But that's what Mart Ware has worked into his head. Suicide! He's going to do it!”

“Yes! Well!” asked David.

Turrill, rubbing his hip, looked at David. He had hardly expected anything like this calm query. He had pictured our dominie rushing for coat and hat, rolling his eyes, perhaps, and muttering prayers. Instead, David leaned back in his deep chair and placed the tips of his fingers together and waited.

“I won his money,” said Turrill.

“Yes, I supposed so, or you wouldn't be here, would you!” said David.

“The devil of it--” Turrill stopped. “The--”

“I dare say it is the devil of it,” said David. “Go on.”

“Well, then, the devil of it is, I'm strapped!” said Turrill. “If I wasn't--” He waved his hand to show how simple it would be. “He came yesterday, telling me the story. I'm a sick man; I close my place at one every morning; I can't stand any more than that; but last night I let them stay until daylight, and, curse it! I had no luck! I took the limit off and tried to win what Marty needs, and they cleaned me out and took my I. O. U.'s. So I came to you. It was all I could think of.”