Dominie Dean by Ellis Parker Butler

THE bodies were recovered, had been recovered before George Tunnison started on the long trip back to Riverbank. It seemed that Ben could not swim, and when the skiff turned over he grasped Roger, and they both went down. The river was covered with floating ice. Tunnison, according to his own account, did what he could, but if the two came up it must have been to find the floating ice between them and the air. They were beyond resuscitation when they were found. Of Mary the doctor's verdict was fatty degeneration of the heart; any shock would have killed her.

In the sad days and weeks that followed Rose Hinch was the comforter, offering no words but making her presence a balm. She neither asked nor suggested that she come, but came and made her home in the manse. It is difficult to express how she helped David and 'Thusia and doubly bereaved Alice and querulous old Mr. Fragg over the hard weeks. She was Life Proceeding As It Must. It might almost be said that she was the normal life of the family, continuing from where sorrow had wrenched David and 'Thusia and Alice and the grandfather from it, and, by mute example, urging them to live again. Her presence was comfort. Her manner was a sweet suggestion that life must still be lived. She made the grandfather's bed in Roger's room, for a room vacated by death is an invitation to sorrow; she began the sewing where it had been dropped, and 'Thusia and Alice, because Rose sewed, took their needles. Work was what they needed.