Dominie Dean: A Novel

by Ellis Parker Butler

Her talk with 'Thusia did more than anything David could have said, perhaps, to convince Miss Jane that she need not bury her fond desire, for 'Thusia could talk as one woman talks to another. As she talked Miss Jane saw things as they were, the great majority of the congregation wishing to retain Miss Jane, with but a few of the richer and display-loving wanting anything else. 'Thusia was able to convey this without saying it. She made it felt, as a woman can when she chooses. A name here, a name there, an incidental mention of Lucille's unfortunate attempt to put her coachman in livery, and Miss Jane saw the church as it was—a few moneyed “pushers” and the body of silent, sincere worshipers. More than all else 'Thusia herself seemed to embody the spirit of the congregation. It suddenly occurred to Miss Jane that, after all, the quiet people who were her friends were the real church. And this was true. She left quite at peace with the idea that she was to play the new organ when it was installed.

And then David began his fight for Miss Jane, which became a fight against Lucille Hardcome. Lucille fought her battle well, but the odds were against her. As against the few who wanted a hired organist at any price there were an equal few who still questioned the propriety of having a new organ at all. Against her were still others who would have been with her had she and her warmest supporters not so often tried to “run” everything connected with the church, but the overwhelming sentiment was that as Miss Jane was “taking lessons” from the best organist in Riverbank, and as Miss Jane had always been organist, and as hiring one would be an added expense, Miss Jane ought to stay, at least until it was quite evident that she would not do at all. Even Professor Schwerl told David, albeit secretly, that he was for Miss Jane, his theory being that it was better to hear a canary bird pipe prettily than to listen to any half-baked virtuoso Lucille was likely to secure.

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: