Clergy -- Fiction; Iowa -- Fiction; Mississippi River Valley -- Fiction
Old Mrs. Grelling, senile and maundering, had been weeping weakly,
oppressed by a hallucination that she had lost her grasp on Heaven. Her
little room was insufferably hot and close, and Rose Hinch sat by the
bed fanning the emaciated old woman, turning her pillow now and then,
trying to make her comfortable. Her patient had no bodily pain; in an
hour, or a day, or a week, she would fall asleep forever and without
discomfort, but now she was in dire distress of mind. Grown childish she
could not remember that she was at peace with God, and she mourned and
would not let Rose Hinch comfort her.
In twelve words David brought peace to the old woman in the bed. It was
not logic she wanted, nor oratory such as John Gorst could have given,
but the few words of comfort from the man of God in whom she had faith.
David knelt by the bed and prayed, and read “The Lord is My Shepherd,”
and her doubts no longer troubled her. If David Dean, the dominie she
had trusted these many years, assured her she was safe, she could
put aside worry and die peacefully. David saw a Book of Psalms on her
bedside table, less bulky than the large-typed Bible, and he put it in
her hands.
“Hold fast to this,” he said, “it is the sign of your salvation. You
will not be afraid again. I must go now, but I will come back again.”
He left her clasping the book in both her hands. She died before he saw
her again, but Rose Hinch told him she held the book until she died,
and that she had no return of the childish fear. She slept into eternity
peacefully content.
From Mrs. Grelling's bedside David walked to Herwig's to give his
daily order for groceries. The old grocer entered the small order and
hesitated.
“Dominie--” he said.
David knew what was coming, or imagined he did, and felt sick at heart.
“Yes?” he queried.
“I guess you know as well as I do how I hate to say anything about
money,” said Herwig, “and you know I wouldn't if I wasn't so hard put to
it I don't know which way to turn. I don't want you to worry about it.
If it ain't convenient just you forget I ever said anything. Fact is
I'm so pressed for money I'm worried to death. The wholesalers I get my
goods of--”
“My bill is much larger than it should be,” said David. “I have let it
run longer than I have any right to. Just at this moment--”
“I wouldn't even speak of it if I wasn't so put to it to satisfy those I
owe,” said Herwig apologetically. “I thought maybe you might be able to
help me out somehow, but I don't want to put you to any trouble.”
He was evidently sincere.
“My wholesalers are threatening to close me out,” he said, “and I've
just got to try every way I can to raise some cash. If it wasn't for
that I wouldn't dun a good customer, let alone you, Mr. Dean.”
“I know it, Brother Herwig,” David said. “You have been most lenient. I
am ashamed. I will see what I can do.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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