DOMINIE DEAN A Novel By Ellis Parker Butler 1917 Fleming And Revell Company My Dear Mr. Dare: That day when you came to my home and suggested that I write the book to which I now gratefully prefix this brief dedication, I little imagined how real David Dean would become to me. I have just written the last page of his story and I feel less that he is a creature of my imagination than that he is someone I have known and loved all my life. It was because there are many such men as David Dean, big of heart and great in spirit, that you suggested the writing and helped me with incident and inspiration. Your hope was that the story might aid those who regret that such men as David Dean can be neglected and cast aside after lives spent in faithful service, and who are working to prevent such tragedies; my desire was to tell as truthfully as possible the story of one such man. While I have had a free hand in developing the character of David Dean, I most gratefully acknowledge that the suggestion of the idea, and the inspiration, were yours, and I hope I have not misused them. Most sincerely, Ellis Parker Butler Flushing, N. Y. I. 'THUSIA [Illustration: 'Thusia 018] DAVID DEAN caught his first glimpse of 'Thusia Fragg from the deck of the “Mary K” steamboat at the moment when--a fledgling minister--he ended his long voyage down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and was ready to step on Riverbank soil for the first time. From mid-river, as the steamer approached, the town had seemed but a fringe of buildings at the foot of densely foliaged hills with here and there a house showing through the green and with one or two church spires rising above the trees. Then the warehouse shut off the view while the “Mary K” made an unsensational landing, bumping against the projecting piles, bells jingling in her interior, paddle wheels noisily reversing and revolving again and the mate swearing at the top of his voice. As the bow of the steamer pushed beyond the warehouse, the sordidly ugly riverfront of the town came into view again--mud, sand, weather-beaten frame buildings--while on the sandy levee at the side of the warehouse lounged the twenty or thirty male citizens in shirt sleeves who had come down to see the arrival of the steamer. From the saloon deck they watched the steamer push her nose beyond the blank red wall of the warehouse. Against the rail stood all the boat's passengers and at David's side the friend he had made on the voyage up the river, a rough, tobacco-chewing itinerant preacher, uncouth enough but wise in his day and generation.