Then the Doctor went home to Dan. He found him in Denny's garden, with Denny enthroned on the big rock—listening to his fun, while Deborah, from the house, looked on, unable to believe that it was "the parson sure enough out there wid Denny,"—Denny who was to have been a priest himself one day, but who would never now be good for much of anything.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CALLING OF DAN MATTHEWS
"'In the battle of life we cannot hire a substitute; whatever work one volunteers to make his own he must look upon as his ministry to the race.'"
Dan, with the Doctor and Mrs. Oldham were to take supper and spend the evening at Elder Jordan's. Martha went over early in the afternoon, leaving the two men to follow.
As they were passing the monument, Dan stopped. "Did you know him?" he asked curiously, when he had read the inscription. It was not like Dan to be curious.
The Doctor answered briefly: "I was there when he was born and was his family physician all his life, and I was with him when he died."
Something in the doctor's voice made Dan look at him intently for a moment, then in a low tone: "He was a good man?"
"One of the best I ever knew, too good for this town. Look at that thing. They say that expressed their appreciation of him—and it does," he finished grimly.
"But," said Dan, in a puzzled way, turning once more to the monument, "this inscription—" he read again the sentence from the statesman's speech on the forgotten issue of his passing day.