Tom Martin: A Man

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Tom Martin, the village blacksmith, is in love with Mary Brandon. Mrs. Brandon bakes a pie for Tom and Mary takes it to him just as he is sitting down to his evening meal. There is a vacant chair opposite Tom's at the table, and he tells Mary that he always lays another plate for that chair because it was the one occupied by his beloved mother before she died. Bennet Gordon is engaged to teach the village school and he is accepted as a boarder by Mrs. Brandon, Mary's mother. In the meantime, Tom and Mary have plighted their troth. The unsophisticated country girl, however, is fascinated by the ways of the city man who comes to the village as a schoolteacher. Gordon tells Mary that he loves flowers and Mary plucks some of her choicest blooms and gives them to the young man. Tom Martin notices Gordon wearing the flowers in his coat lapel, and becomes jealous. Thomas Barker, the village storekeeper, owns a vicious dog and he has been repeatedly warned by Tom to secure the animal. The dog ultimately breaks loose and as it dashes down the street toward the schoolhouse is spied by Tom Martin. Believing that the maddened beast will bite some of the children, Tom rushes to the schoolhouse and there meets the infuriated animal and chokes him to death. He does not perform this courageous deed, however, until the fastidious Gordon has shown his cowardice by rushing into the schoolhouse and barricading the door. Then it is that Mary realizes the true worth of a man and knows that Gordon is a coward at heart, while Tom Martin is a man. Tom, in his desperate conflict with the maddened dog, is bitten. A physician informs Tom that his life is in danger. Mary, in the meantime, goes home and writes Tom a note saying that she will call upon him at five o'clock that evening. Tom feels strange sensations resulting from his wounds. Knowing that he is to be seized with madness as a result of the dog bite, he rushes into his smithy and there fashioning manacles from a red hot iron, he chains himself to his anvil, where he is found dead by Mary and others.