Dominie Dean. Ellis Parker Butler

I. 'THUSIA

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      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.

      “Well, this is your Riverbank,” he said. “Here ye are. Now, hold on! Don't be in a hurry. There's your reception committee, I'll warrant ye—them three with their coats on. Don't get excited. Let 'em wait and worry a minute for fear you've not come. Keep an even mind under all circumstances, as your motter says—that's the idee. Let 'em wait. They'll think all the better of ye, brother. Keep an even mind, hey? You'll need one with that mastiff-jowled old elder yonder. He's going to be your trouble-man.”

      David put down the carpetbag he had taken up. Of the three men warranted to be his reception committee he recognized but one, Lawyer Hoskins, the man who while East had heard David preach and had extended to him the church's call. Now Hoskins recognized David and raised his hand in greeting. It was at this moment that 'Thusia Fragg issued from the side door of the warehouse, two girl companions with her, and faced toward the steamboat. In the general gray of the day she was like a splash of sunshine and her companions were hardly less vivid. 'Thusia Fragg was arrayed in a dress that echoed the boldest style set forth by “Godey's Ladies' Book” for that year of grace, 1860—a summer silk of gray and gold stripes, flounced and frilled and raffled and fringed—and on her head perched a hat that was sauciness incarnate. She was overdressed by any rule you chose. She was overdressed for Riverbank and overdressed for her father's income and for her own position, but she was a beautiful picture as she stood leaning on her parasol, letting her eyes range over the passengers grouped at the steamer's saloon deck rail.

      As she stood there David raised his hand in answer to Lawyer Hoskins' greeting and 'Thusia Fragg, smiling, raised a black-mitted hand and waved at him in frank flirtation. Undoubtedly she had thought David had meant his salutation for her. David turned from the rail, grasped his companion's hand in hearty farewell, and, with his carpetbag in hand, descended to the lower deck, and 'Thusia, preening like a peacock, hurried with her girl companions to the foot of the gangplank to meet her new conquest.

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