Clergy -- Fiction; Iowa -- Fiction; Mississippi River Valley -- Fiction
Together Mack and David made the fight. Amy, according to her light,
did her part, too. She never fled from David's little porch when she
happened to be there and saw Mack coming up the street. She always gave
Mack her hand in frank and friendly manner. She did not let the other
young fellows pay her attentions. It was as if Mack had never courted
her; as if they were bound by a friendship that had never ripened into
anything warmer but that might some day. Mack was fine about it; eager
as he was to have Amy he held himself in check. Eventually it was a
great thing for them both; it was as if they were living the difficult
“getting acquainted” year that follows the honeymoon before the
honeymoon itself. They got to know each other better, perhaps, than any
Riverbank lovers had ever known one another.
It was one Sunday afternoon during this stage of Mack's fight, while
Mack and 'Thusia and Amy were on the porch and David taking his
between-sermon nap in his great chair, that the great opportunity
came to David's door. It came in the form of a man of sixty years,
silk-hatted and frock-coated. He walked slowly up the street from the
direction of the town, and when he reached David's gate he paused and
read the number painted on the riser of the porch step, opened the gate
and entered. He removed his hat and extended his hand to 'Thusia.
“You are Mrs. Dean, I know,” he said, smiling. “My name is Benton, and I
don't think you know me. Mr. Dean is in?”
There were many men of many kinds came to David's door from one end of
a year to the other, but never had a man come whose face so quickened
'Thusia's heart. It was a strongly modeled face and gave an impression
of power. The nose was too large and the lips were too large, so were
the brows, so were all the features. It was a face that was too large
for itself, it left no room for the eyes, which had to peer out as best
they could from between the brows that crowded them from above, and the
cheekbones that crowded them from below, but they were kind, keen, sane
eyes; they were even twinkling eyes. The man was rather too stout and
his skin was coarse-pored, almost as if pitted. 'Thusia had never seen
a homelier man, and yet she liked him from the moment he spoke. It was
partly his voice, full, soft and, in some way, satisfying. She felt he
was a big man and a good man and an honest man.
“Yes, Mr. Dean is in,” she said. “I think he is napping. If you will
just rest a minute until I see--”
David, as was his habit when his visitors were unknown to him, came
to the door. 'Thusia slipped into the kitchen. The day was hot and
Mr. Benton was hot, and there were lemons and ice in the refrigerator,
perhaps a pitcher of lemonade all ready to serve with thin cakes.
“Mr. Benton, my wife said, I think!” asked David. “Shall we sit out here
or go inside!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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